This article was written by Rosi, Junior Designer, Indonesia, as part of 24Slides’ Storyteller’s Program.
Hi, this is Rosi from 24Slides and I’m going to share some of my experiences about Saturday Activities that we have here in Indonesia. Every once in a month, we have a special day called Saturday Activity where we do an activity together. It is my third month working in 24Slides and I’m so glad that I was able to participate in two Saturday Activities back in November and December 2021.
My first Saturday Activity’s theme was Play Saturday, which means we are playing and having fun in every kind of activity we have. There was crafting, fishing, watercolor painting, cooking, and many more. I haven’t been able to go fishing with my family during the pandemic and it felt like one of my routines was missing. So when I saw fishing was one of the options, I chose it in a heartbeat.
We were divided into groups of two people and it was really exciting to be paired with a colleague whom I’ve never met in person before since more than half of employees were still doing WFH (Work From Home). We didn’t just catch some fish, but there was also a competition to catch the smallest and the biggest fish. Teamwork was absolutely needed here, so my teammate and I were trying our best at it. We switched roles to catch fish every 10 minutes and even though we didn’t win any of the categories, we still had so much fun. I’m not going to lie, it helped me release the tension I had during the workdays and added endorphins to my system.
Personally, fishing is like a stress reliever for me because the feeling you get whenever a fish eats your bait is indescribable. Also with this activity, I learned to get along with my co-worker from a different design team and created a new relationship where we can discuss, get a new perspective, and much more about design itself.
Let’s move on to my second Saturday Activity! The theme was Sports Day, and I believe this already describes what kind of activities we had. Yes, we were doing sports! There were a lot of sports options that we could choose, from individual sports such as jogging and swimming to team sports like volleyball, basketball, football, and even badminton. I had a bit of a hard time choosing one as I’m not very athletic myself, but my first choice was volleyball. Too bad we didn’t have enough people to participate in volleyball, so I decided to change my choice to jogging.
Our jogging location was in the Rampal area. I started with two laps of walking to warm up before going for one lap of a slow jog, and believe it or not, it was enough to make me breathe heavily. Unlike me, some of my colleagues do a full three laps of a slow jog. The area isn’t even that wide, but it made me realize more about my body capacity and what kind of exercise I’m going to have in the future to keep myself stay healthy. But of course, getting my body to sweat after doing even a simple exercise felt beyond nice. Both my mind and body were refreshed, especially when we ended it with breakfast at the popular Rawon Rampal.
You are not actually visiting a place without trying their signature dish from the menu, so instead of choosing Soto or Pecel, I decided to try their popular Rawon. It had delicate meat that once you bite separates from each other right away. The warm and a little bit spicy Rawon made my first time trying this dish really memorable. We got to sit next to each other at a long dining table even though it was our first time meeting. I got to discuss design, asked tips and tricks to handle the design block, and even compliment the breakfast we had.
Although I have been living in Malang for three years, that was my first time going for a jog in Rampal. The nice environment has made me want to go for another jog next time. Maybe I can invite the other friends who joined a different Saturday Activity and show them how refreshing it is to jog there. So, big thanks to 24Slides for giving me a new experience and a chance to visit a new place every month. I can’t wait to see what kind of Saturday Activity we will have in the future.