So, here’s the recap of Gorgeous Inspirations posts in May 2008:

May 17, 2008
Gorgeous Inspirations: Transformed

May 19, 2008
Your Own Eat-Pray-Love Life

May 21, 2008
The Inspiration That Keeps the Doctor Away

May 23, 2008
Introducing: What’s Gorgeous

Enjoy reading those back posts

—Diar

P.S. Have you checked out Gorgeous Inspirations’ “{Living} Green is Gorgeous” merchandises?
Just click the following link: www.cafepress.com/whatsgorgeous

Let me introduce you all to Gorgeous Inspirations’ CafePress store: What’s Gorgeous?.

I have planned to design all stuff that can ‘define’ what gorgeous is.

In this opportunity, I have come up with “{Living} Green is Gorgeous” line. I hope it’s inspiring enough to encourage all of us to (learn to) live green (and to love it as well!). You can find T-shirts, tote bag, and even teddy bear with the concerning design.

 Or maybe a mug  like this one:

To reduce the carbon accumulated by the shipping, I urge only you in the US (or, okay, maybe in the continent of America) who shop there. I’m sorry to others, as I haven’t found any local store similar to CafePress that provides a nice kind of store management services like they do.

But for those of you who live outside the continent of America and really wish to buy the products (and to spend your own dollars), then I won’t force you to back off

—Diar

I exaggerate the above title a bit. So let me tell you how one event encourages a nation to be healthy.

Recently, my country hosted the Thomas-Uber Cup, a prestigious badminton match, this year involving 16 countries worldwide.

The event was held only for one week, but afterward (even though Indonesia didn’t get both of Thomas and Uber), I start catching sight of people everywhere (at least in the city I live in) playing badminton, day or even night (seriously, at night).

Badminton has always been one of Indonesia’s fave sports, but every time some particular big sport events occur, then the fever starts—not only do the ‘true’ sport-goers enjoy it, but even the ‘sport-haters’ do.

The kids in my neighborhood bought badminton rackets and birdies (or maybe just took theirs outside from the dusty cabinets) and play badminton (while pretending that they’re playing to get Thomas Cup) every afternoon for hours in front of the mosque—cheerfully.

I also happened to see some teens downtown play it at night in front of a already-closed mini-market—cheerfully.

What an inspiration

—Diar

I know I have a pretty easy (though totally not free) access to the internet, allowing me to get enormous fresh news practically on everything, but don’t blame me that I found out about this book only in recent times. And don’t blame the TV station that had the show only a few weeks ago.

The three words—eat, pray, love—has always been in my mind since Oprah mentioned Elizabeth Gilbert’s non-fiction book title at the end of one of her shows. And as if it were my birthday, I celebrated the day in which I got to watch the re-run episode when Oprah interviewed Gilbert (and I even got to watch it twice—what a ‘sign’!).

I’ve never read this book, but thanks to the internet, I get massive info on it.

Despite some bitter reviews on it (for instance, this and this), I love the core philosophies of Gilbert’s book—the art of pleasure, the art of devotion, and the art of balancing the previous two. Yes, our lives do need those, whether or not we’re conscious of it.

And guess what, the philosophies of eating, praying, and loving fit Gorgeous Inspirations; therefore, days to come, you’ll see those philosophies integrated in many posts here.

In the mean time, let’s hear from my next blog neighbors on how they relate to Eat, Pray, Love:

oneunpolisheddarling enjoys the Italy part most, that she excerpts a part on the history of the country. But the next one is my fave quote from this blogger:

I am still savoring the Italy section. Every word, every detail - it’s like taking a walk through heaven. I have to admit, I told my husband as I embarked on this soul-journey of a book, “babe, you may see me spending some nights wrought with insomnia, and urged by the very inclination that this woman did exactly what I was designed, through every inch of my being, to do - drop it all and travel.” No, but not just travel - live. LIVE in a place and bury my green, inexperienced, clumsy ‘I know nothing about your culture but what I’ve read in books’ hands into the earth of another place. … Not to mention, she LIVES (dolce vita!), soul searches….and basically finds herself in some of the countries I’ve been dying to see …

Laura feels as if she’s traveling with Gilbert herself when she reads it:

The author is so descriptive that you feel like you’re sitting right next to her as she goes on a journey through Italy, India, and Indonesia.

While I can’t quite say the book changed my life (cliché-alert), it definitely made me pause to think about a lot of things. There are interesting spiritual theories discussed, which forced me to consider my own beliefs. More importantly, I felt that I was able to learn from the life-lessons the author learned. The peace-with-self that she obtained by the end of the book made me ridiculously jealous.

…

Granted, the lessons I learned while reading the book only stuck with me for a little while… kind of like that peacefulness you feel when you return from a relaxing vacation, only to come back to an overflowing inbox, a stack of overdue paperwork, and a big fat reality slap in the face. BUT, it was nice to feel that “vacation” feeling while I was still working, and for that alone this book is worth it.

pacifictonz says something wise and definitely inspiring about Gilbert’s memoir:

I thought the book was … a timely reminder that the purpose of life is not to watch it pass in a speed blur.

I myself am looking forward to reading the book (wish me luck)—and certainly looking forward to writing more posts in regards to the philosophies of Eat, Pray, Love

Related Reading:

* Excerpt of Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia

* Reviews of Eat, Pray, Love

* Oprah.Com Exclusive Eat, Pray, Love

—Diar

I’ve told you earlier that I’d see you all again in May. It’s mid of May now, and I’m back Oh, you can’t tell just how delighted I am scribbling down a regular post yet again here on Gorgeous Inspirations (GI). Hope you all readers feel the same way, too.

So, do you see any changes here on this blog, dear readers? During my ‘leaving’ in early May, I didn’t actually make too many improvements for GI, but let me tell you what the most significant ones are:

1. I upgraded this Wordpress blog from v.2.3.1 to v.2.5.1 (then it’s me who can see and feel the biggest difference here)—and boy did I need to spend two hours or so ‘only’ to upgrade it.
2. I’ve modified the tagline of the blog (see the one-line under the blog title above), which is now the fixed tagline of Gorgeous Inspirations (if any error happens to occur in my grammar—as I’m no native speaker of English—please do let me know).
3. I’ve deleted numerous older posts I imported from my past, no-longer-active LiveJournal blog, as I believe that they were excessively individual. I’m aware that I use the personal addressing ‘I’ here, but I absolutely don’t want to make this blog way too personal.
4. Maybe not that significant, but if you have long been readers of this blog, you may notice that I’ve altered the way I abbreviate Gorgeous Inspirations. I used to use ‘GoIn’, but now I start using ‘GI’ (apparently it’s more hear-able).

I was gone for weeks, of course those weren’t the only things I did; I have some more changes, but those are for later

Do voice your say about these little changes, I’d really appreciate that

Thanks for reading and have a nice blogwalking

—Diar