House got burglared this morning. We left the door unlocked throughout the night, and when morning came, the valuables in our apartment were already gone – sony digicam, cash in both me and my sis wallets and both our handphones. The thief is probably a small time theif as he didn’t steal our laptops. Which is the only thing we can be happy about.

So morning me and sis woke up at 9+. We came out to the living room to play our laptops, and i didn’t realise anything wrong at all. Then sister asked where is the camera, i said i don’t know, and thought she just misplaced the camera. Then she said what if someone came in and stole our things and she pointed out that our door wasn’t locked. Then i was like cmon, then why didn’t our laptops get stolen, it doesn’t make sense. Then i check my wallet, which was layed out on the living room table. The cash is all gone! Now it becomes 100% sure that it’s a thief. Then my sis realised her cash in her wallet is gone too (We put all our handphones, bags and laptops in the living room, the bedroom is just for sleeping). Our handphones are gone too! But there are so many things still here like our wallet, laptops, car keys (luckily) that i really don’t know what is missing. Then i was like my mp3 player! but thank god i brought it into my room last night.

So in summary the thief is a small time crook who wanted to steal small things and get out asap. Our front door is closed but unlocked. So this person must have tried to open our door, it wasn’t like our door was swinging wide open. It’s just really unlucky we had a thief come into the apartment one night we didn’t lock the door. what a bad beat.

I spent the whole morning reporting the entire story to the apartment security (which is top notched, ironically). They are good people and i know the security guard did not steal my stuff. Since i moved into this apartment I already liked the security team. They are well trained, and once i even left my keys outside the house, and the security belled the house, and told me i left my key outside. They are really professional. It’s just that there are many people passing by the apartment, especially maids, and various workers. Or even the cleaning service people. So with mom’s suggestion i went to ask to check the cleaning service room, and the cleaners’ bags. I don’t feel nice ravaging their stuff while like 10 people are looking on. And the security taking out someone’s handphone and asking if it was mine. It was just really intrusive. I just want to see all their things and make sure my stuff is not there.

I didn’t have much hope in find the stuff already to be honest, a thief is not so stupid to put these things in their lockers, or on themselves. So no use if they are checked, the thief would not have it on them. They would hide it somewhere. And hp, digicam and cash, they are small and light and can be hidden anywhere.

Why oh why. Funny enough, my brother’s stuff has just been stolen too, but his is unique – cyber extortion! That person got his password and logged into his email and is now blackmailing my bro for $500 for his stuff, which includes all his data in his gmail (which is a lot as my bro is a computer person) and his internet business, his server… really crazy. I don’t know how it’s going, haven’t talked much to brother cos he’s in Singapore. And now this is happening to us.

So my theory is like this, the further we are from our parents the more trouble will come looking for us. My brother is happily in Singapore away from the family and he hasn’t called us since, and this happened to him. Me and my sis are happily away from our parents’ place, while playing internet here, and look what happened 1 day after my mom is not here, we got burglared into. Of course i shouldn’t say we got burglared into, both these incidents are partly caused by our negligence too. Remeber the greatest tragedy before this was when my house caught on fire back in aug 2006 (yes it’s true) that was a time when i was in Australia and my mom asked me to stay with my sis but i didn’t want to. So again, happily away from family.

But then again if you are rational and not full of theories like me, you might just say that we are negligent. We didn’t check that the door in unlocked before we went to sleep. And also we are unlucky to have a thief try to open our house door, and that in a good apartment, there are also people who are poor and bad who pass by everyday. It’s just not safe anywhere is what i’m trying to say. I’m sure this will not happen in Singapore. Now i know why people here place so much emphasis on employee supervision when they are running a business, many people steal. Still I don’t hold any grudges or even any sadness. I don’t even hate the native Indonesian people, cos i know there are bad and good people, we can’t generalise, but if you ask me if i would look at them in a different way from now on, definately, but for security reasons. If i see a worker passing by, of course i would be more suspicious of him now, unlike the past when i would just ignore such things.

My mom was always right. She always asked us to make sure the door is locked. I guess we are not careful enough. I admit my sister and me are more on the careless side, but this is just really unlucky too. I will be so paranoid about locking doors as i am offing heaters from now on. Oh gosh, 2 dramas in a month, what a month May 09 has been.

update: i forgot to say this. it’s another superstitious thing, but i’ll just say it and you make your own opinion.

So about 2 months ago i bought a new handphone number. The number seems nice at first before i realise why no one had chosen it. it goes ****88 77 99 08. Okay so anyone who is Chinese (including me) would have realised that 88 77 99 is actually a very bad number. Chinese love the number 8. But if it goes 88 77 99 it has a different meaning. 88 – “fafa” which means to prosper or get rich. 77- “ququ” which means to go. 99 “jiujiu” means long time. Whereas people love 8899, which means to prosper for very long time. But when you put 77 in the middle it because money “go away” long time. Instead of prospering for a long time, you get broke for a long time. I told my cousin about this, and a couple of friends they just laughed it off, of course  i never believed it either (i’m not so superstituous). It’s pretty interesthing, because not only did my handphone and the number got stolen, the cash in my wallet is also gone, not for long time, but forever. But it’s only a small amount, Rp.200,000. Which is like US$20. I am so lucky because i used up almost all the cash in my wallet yesterday to buy a book, which cost Rp.400,000. Really expensive, and i was quite reluctant to fork out this money for the book at first, but looking back now, it was a “well timed” purchase.