This picture was taken on 16th of December 2010 and it was one of those days I will never ever forget.There are two reasons.

One, on that day, we were invited to be the guest speaker/panelist at Mark Plus Conference 2011, Grow With the Next Marketing. One of the sessions of that marketing is titled “Women vs Men, Winning the NEXT Market” and they asked Fashionese Daily to contribute to the discussion about women’s influencing power as consumers. Of course we said yes!

As each company was only allowed to be represented by one person, we decided it was me who went up the stage to talk. I’ve spoken at seminars before and did some public speaking over the years, but never before I had to speak at such a massive audience! The ballroom was HUGE, even after it was divided to three smaller rooms and there were hundreds of people there. I was quite nervous in the beginning, but didn’t let my nerves got the better of me and I think I did quite well. I went out of the Ritz Carlton feeling exhilarated. It really does feel good to give yourself a challenge and sucessfuly tackled it, doesn’t it?

But did my challenge for the day end there? Oh no.  There was one more thing I had to do which I had never done before. Watching a soccer game in a stadium with 80,000 people! Yep, that day was also the day our Garuda team played against the Filipino team on the semifinal of Suzuki AFF Cup 2010. My husband has been pestering me to go to a live soccer match and because Hanzky wanted to see the game too, I agreed to come along. You could actually see the street behind Hanzky’s picture was starting to be filled by people wearing red.

To tell you the truth, I panicked a little when we were already inside the stadium and crowd started to close in on us,  as I’m not very good at being in a place with a large crowd. But I tried to enjoy the game and could relax during the second half and even rejoiced with the crowd for winning the game.

In the end, now I know why people love football so much and some are willing to stand in line for hours to see it live. I cheered and cried as our national team went into the final and lost. I was beaming with pride at how well the team played during the second leg of the final and how we came together as a nation supporting them unconditionally. And I’m proud to say I’ve seen them live at Gelora Bung Karno.

Will I do it again? Um..don’t count on it!

On Hanzky

• Cotton Ink jacket
• Zara skirt
• Juicy Couture bag
• Moschino Cheap & Chic shoes

On me:

• Unbranded cropped blazer
• Body & Soul tank top underneath
• F21 pants
• Nine West heels