Time Flies By: Really? Really!

There’s nothing you can do to manipulate time, to compromise with it, to extend it, to reduce it, to even stop it, so that you can remain the same staying in the state that you want to be in like forever! God, that’s a joke. It still has 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days, and 24 hours in each day, and it still moves forwards with the perfectly designed and constantly moving velocity. And like I said, it’s beyond our control; you can do nothing about it. For some people their given time might not be felt enough, but for other theirs might be more than enough. Either way, as you don’t get to know how to deal with it you’ll kinda be lost in it, you know. Yeah, it’s scary! But clearly, one should get to realize how they’ve been using theirs.


It’s incredibly terrifying to know that you run out of time in the very last minute. It’s simply like you’re woken up from a very long sleep (assuming from a coma) but in a wink of an eye of your consciousness you have to go back to it till only God knows when. Jeez, that’s terrible. It’s like you have been there waiting for your train yet as it appears you miss it and you just remain sitting, watching it going away, doing nothing. You obviously know what to do, but you can do nothing, it just goes. That is when you don’t get to know how to deal with your time.


It’s just like what I felt as I woke up this morning. Normally, I would go to the bath room urinating, washing my face (if I wake up earlier, I’ll get a pray, but to be quite honest, if I don’t then I won’t), then having a cup of coffee, a very hot energizing one. Yet, different thing happened this morning; I woke up just by all of sudden. I didn’t have a nightmare, or dirty (wet) dream for sure. Though apparently, I dreamed. Yet I wasn’t sure what it was about. Just opened my eyes, got to think,

“Man, what day is today? Date? Clearly realizing it’s getting to the end of the year after seeing the digital calendar in my cell-phone”.
“WHAT? REALLY?”

The first commonly normal reaction to it was that freaking out, collecting sanity (if you still have any) and shaking head then just starting the day. Yet I just remained lying down, eyes wide opened, fully aware and completely freaking out.


Let me tell you how it felt. Physically, I’m pretty much sure that I was awake, mentally I was sort of out there somewhere, either in my dream or my reality. The only thing I was pretty much sure about was that all this time I’ve been living my time doing nothing. Like I said it’s like being woken up then put back into the same long sleep again almost simultaneously. Clearly, it’s depressing to get into the fact that you don’t get to have anything spectacular in your life, well, my life all this time. Day by day just goes by.


It just makes me think of some facts that I have to wholly and bitterly swallow which are first, I am still single and still haunted by the time-and-energy-consuming fantasy of my ex (it’s really unhealthy, and sucks but uh…); second, nothing special had happened this year, not to mention the fact that I failed two attempts of scholarship abroad; third, my GPA freely fell from the sky and I had no gut to tell my parents about that; and fourth, many other things that I find will be icky as I mention, so I’ll shut the heck up for good. For sure, those aren’t the things that you want to remember as it comes to evaluating your achievement in your time.


Well, anyhow, I kinda look over the bright side though, which is that I get to realize it quite early. I don’t get to realize it as I am forty, for example, and just see the fact that I am still single and pathetic and lonely, God! Spare me that. At least I know it now as I am what? Twenty-one? I have enough time to get prepared. So, I get up, having my coffee first, of course, then I made plans (although mostly it doesn’t work, it’s just oddly reassuring to have plans) for this remaining last month before the end of the year including the plan of making plan for the next year… So I’ll be readier now. Every second of my life won’t be futilely evaporated. I may not be able to manipulate time obviously, but I may be able to effectively use it, not to waste it instead.



"...why are you sitting around thinking ‘bout what you can't change and worrying ‘bout all the wrong things, time flying by moving so fast, you batter make a count ‘coz you can't get it back..."
So Small, Carrie Underwood.

Book-Reader’s Magical Relationship???

I should tell that I’m not really a believer. I don’t believe much in sort of things, which some people might really believe in. But, I believe in my gut which telling me something isn’t going right, for example, and in fact there’s something isn’t right, but it’s hard for me to believe that someone forecast and know what is going to happen tomorrow or the curse which might come to reality or all sorts of things. Okay, in other words I am not superstitious.


But the fact is I kinda realize something that might be rather impossible for such unbeliever (or un-superstitious). I might think that I believe in the notion that book chooses its reader, quite literally. Ha! How absurd is that?


I kinda start having that thought while I am reading Arturo Perez Reverte’s The Nautical Chart in which the main character, Coy, the sailor, stated that book might choose its reader, which, I assume, is well confirmed by my experience of wandering book shelves in the bookshops while having plan to buy some. Well, I read, but I would not buy books, I just bought few of them. I borrowed or rented. But now I buy books, which is nice, because I can really have my own.


Well. Okay, here is the thing!


Couple days ago I went to a coffee-corner bookshop. I bought Sue Miller’s While I Was Gone and Gregory Maguire’s Confession of an Ugly Stepsister, which, obviously, were bought by all of sudden. There’s something in the book while I was wandering the shelf on which the books stand, wait, actually. I just know that I wanted to buy those books. I start to read the synopsis in the back cover, I considered it for a sec, and then I just put it back to the shelf, at first. But you know what the next thing is? The next thing is I turned back to the shelf, and then I re-picked the book up (although I basically never heard before about the author; Gregory Maguire). While with Sue Miller’s I just dropped to the shelf, studying the cover, then just pick that up. Click! Just like that.


I’d wandered almost the entire shelves of the bookshop, of course. Then I just bought the two, because I didn’t feel like other books shouted louder (or maybe they didn’t even shout), which means they didn’t choose me. So the thing is they picked me as their reader, and I kinda feel like fitting the books. I usually feel like I am going to like the book that chooses me and yes I am, except the book that is deceptive, which is really rare.


I somehow think that it’s magical but not haunted or possessed by the spirits or stuff like that, God no! It’s not like that. Well, though I still feel how dumb that sounds to you (even to me). But sure, I’m not crazy, I just… You gotta feel it. I feel it. I mean, it’s like the book tells you, you know, they shout at you more precisely (considering that I had left the shelf on which Maguire’s stood, but then I came back to pick it up. The book must have shouted to make me turn back).


Well, you might think that this is completely ridiculous, but I might say it’s magical, again, and maybe yes, little bit absurd, but I know it (if believing is a strong word, knowing will be appropriately suited). And that doesn’t make me crazy, does it? I’m just following the gut, you know, I am not a quite believer but I believe in my gut, which is usually true, and so are yours.


So, what do you say?

The Mentalist

/someone who uses mental acuity, hypnosis and/or suggestion/
/a master manipulator of thoughts and behavior/



I just finished watching the entire first season of The Mentalist in a place that I never imagine, Subang, the place where I run (read am stuck in) my university program KKN, which, to be honest, seemingly un-enables me neither to read nor to watch while curling at wherever available. You know, considering a lot of people whom basically I never met before, the noise (all of us are 12 which actually never fully there), program that should be done (which is unclear from the first week ‘till the very exact moment), thought I will never have moment enjoying what I really like, but in fact I have more than expected, by which I keep pushing myself to survive.


And I could finish reading King’s Rose Madder which I myself never thought could be finished that fast and now I am in Lauren Weisberger’s Everyone Worth Knowing. Well, spare you my KKN program and my killing-time activities in this place of nowhere (which actually will be posted the time I finished here) let’s just see how this show can be regarded worth watching.


Story of this TV series, The Mentalist, basically roots from the quest of Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) for Red John, a psychotic serial murderer with a bloody smiling face picture drawn in his every murder place as his murder trade mark, over the revenge to killing his family in turn of public humiliation he had done that Red John had to endure through his psychic ability (though he never admits he has such things as psychic) for revealing murder Red John had done, in a live TV show long time ago.


Sorry, regret, sadness, anger, and revenge have always been his since then, which is the reason of his firm oath of finding Red John. The entire quest for revenge, supported by his amazing sharpness and bizarre ability of tracking the serious crime including the murder’s motive, killing process, and the murderer, leads him to joining California Bureau of Investigation (CBI), despite his sarcasm, straight-forward-with-no-boundary act and his eccentricity in doing his job. With senior agent Teresa Lisbon, and her subordinate agents Kimbal Cho (Tim Kang), Wayne Rigsby (Owain Yoeman), and Grace Van Pelt (Amanda Righetti), as the consultant of investigation, Jane starts his quest for his enemy through one by one murder investigation in the state of California.


Frankly speaking, this detective-stuff series gives me some freshness in the sea of total drama series I have been watching, which overly exploits the emotional side, sex life, and so on which turns out to be less enjoyable. This serves new area of enjoyable entertainment.


And well, I love the last episodes in which Jane gets really close to his eternal enemy, Red John, in which Red John has played him. The trick is about the story of teenage twin girls kidnapping and murdering by a police state that apparently has relation to Red John.


Red John plays trick by attracting Jane to the scene of the crime, he deliberately lets Jane know that the man (the killer) has access to him. He makes Jane suffer in the anger and revenge and the ambition of finding him even worse. Things get worse when Lisbon tries to warn even prevent him to do something stupid over his anger; she kept Jane out of the case. Lisbon assumed that they can gain information once they have caught the killer, the one who was being used by Red John.


And in the of the story when the killer get caught which apparently to be a very priceless access to Red John, Jane inevitably have to chose either revenge or friend whom appears to be none other than Teresa Lisbon (whom I bet will be his love interest), because right at that moment she was under a gunpoint of the killer, whom then shot by Jane to death, which means he had to lose his access to his eternal enemy, which makes obviously potential extension of the story for the next season.


Basically I like almost every episode in which I realize that never crossed my mind that jealousy, anger, sadness, caring about self, people you love, and the most defensive defense could be the act that makes someone end up hurting or even killing other people.


But after all, technically, you’re the one who can control all emotion you have and keep yourself from hurting other people, only if you just can do thinking before acting.


Mrs. Tolliver: “What do you know?”
Jane: “All sorts of things
You really only pretend to like skiing, right?”
Mrs. Tolliver: “yes, b…”
Jane: “You’re pleased that your best friends recently gained some weight…about ten pounds. You wished to be more adventurous when you’re younger. You love India, but you’ve never been there. You have trouble sleeping. You favorite color…is blue”
Mrs. Tolliver: “I don’t understand
You’re… you’re psychic?”
Jane: “No…
Just paying attention…”

Amateurishly Taken Photographs

Here come some photographs i and my friend Grace took few days ago in my beloved hometown

enjoy...

From FEMINA to THE JAKARTA POST and end up in Jakarta Fair

Technically, I am supposed to still be able to stay in my home enjoying afternoon biking around the beach or doing some talking with my parents in this SHORT holiday (it’s just if I can say it’s a holiday) before I spend my next 40 days of it in Subang for my KKN program (last program as one of the subjects in this VERY LONG semester).

Instead, I have to make another at-least-a-thousand-word essay for my trip to Jakarta two days ago, which obviously was not a holiday. But that’s fine, I mean, the trip was fine (even it’s magnificent), and the essay? That’s the thing that’s not fine hahahahaha…

But here, with you, I’d like to share my trip with pleasure.
It was a program from English Department in my university to have a visit to The Jakarta Post and Femina in order to introduce their students to the workplace where they might belong in the future or in the recent time; where they might belong for their apprenticeship program for the next two following semester.

And they chose about 30 out of roughly 80 students of my attending year. Well, I see this as an opportunity to explore my next world might be after leaving university NEXT year (hahaha I wish I could and I would and whatever). Spare you the details!

So, in Femina it’s just fine, we were having a presentation from all those fabulous ladies, and one of them is the chief editor. They talked a lot about their magazines, about a bit of the world of journalism, about how a media like that can survive in all competition, including the obstacle of the higher penetration of TV and Internet to people that might threaten their existence.

Well, that’s undeniably true, but one thing that might become debatable is that they talked about the lack of our people’s reading interest. See what people from The Jakarta Post will talk about it.

To be honest, I was impressed by them. They are smart, independent and beautiful, and funny I should tell. And for you to know there is only ONE single man working in that magazine. See!?

While in The Jakarta Post, we talked also about the newspaper, about its development and the more interesting talking is about the apprenticeship that they will provide (what an opportunity) and about some stuffs of writing. And one thing I know from both of them is that they share the same concern about the existence of TV and Internet that may become their competitor nowadays.



While considering the notion about people’s reading interest; chief editor of the Jakarta Post apparently had a different view. They can’t blame people (technically reader) for problem of having their newspaper or magazines to be read, that is a problem about either you make it interesting or not to them (target readers), since he saw that people’s reading interest is not that terrible based on his observation in certain book fair which is always visited by the crowd as an indicator to that.


Well, for me, it is US who can answer that best. I mean ask ourselves, do you prefer spending an hour reading a 500-page novel and gradually finishing it to staring hours in front of sophisticated home theatre your parents have? I’m not telling that one is worse comparing to another; but we are grown up enough to be able to well manage our time to be more fruitful.


And! one thing I’d like to talk about is that since I am really concerned about this (my) blog and you, my readers, I asked the chief about how a writing can be told interesting and my blog can be read by a lot more people (indirectly), but seriously, it doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate you who already read it, obviously for you, my faithful reader I really appreciate that, and for you who reluctantly read, I appreciate if you read constantly also hehehehe (kidding). I thank you all for reading it. Well, to tell you the truth, from my questions I got quite answers that might deserve giving a try, just see how well I can reflect the lesson I got back there.





Time to shop (practically they spoke that, not me)! We went to Jakarta Fair, which I didn’t think really a worthy visit. Seriously, I supposed it will be sold things like traditional handicraft from all over regions from our country, or at least I could see a single ondel-ondel as the mascot of Jakarta around! But instead, I saw a lot of stands selling foods, drinks, helmets, cloths, and stuffs. Yet, thanks for, in the middle of the chaotic crowded bazaar, there’s kerak telor (particular food from Betawi made of rice and egg) which I desperately want to taste, and it tasted not bad, just skip Jakarta Fair!



Okay, alright! I’m about to end the talking, I know you’re bored to death reading my blah, blah, blah … so I promise this is the last; I’d like to say thank you for the chief of English Study Program to conduct (read include me in) such this program. My 8-hour trip from Pangandaran to Bandung apparently is not a dud; in fact it’s an inspiringly enlightening activity you’d ever done and I’d ever had…


Looking forward to another one!!!

About Movies--About Feeling the Excitement

There are two things how I enjoy from movies; those are its great story and its sophisticated technology. If good, those will be very fascinating, but usually each of them served in each different movie. I mean, some serve stunning visual effects and some serve great story, but seriously, just a few serve both.

Well, about great-story movie, for me it would happen to be movies such as American Beauty, Revolutionary Road, Rachel Getting Married or the latest I watched; My Blueberry Nights and Georgia Rule to be worth watching. Okay, what I mean to say is those total drama movies, or drama comedy, or maybe thriller. Those kinds of movies serve a quite acting, a good story which is great life experience (sometimes tragic), and emotional thrill, amusing scene, suspense, or even sarcastic dialogue, which appears to be their strength. While Transformers, The Dark Knights, Monsters VS. Alien, (action or animation), on the other hand, will get you such stunning technology, despites their stories that speak out about the same thing that the good will always eventually prevails.

And here are some movies I recently watched and enjoyed, which specified into those two things:



My Blueberry Nights (starring Norah Jones, Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, and Natalie Portman); it’s a movie about how you learn to deal with life’s bitterness, how you heal from a great loss, pain, or suffering which seemingly lead to such a despair and eventually how you look at the bright side and just recover, which is perceived by Elizabeth (Jones).


Not a way different, a family drama movie Georgia Rule directed by Garry Marshal, acted by Jane Fonda, Felicity Huffman, and Lindsay Lohan also speaks about life’s complexity about how clear you would define what is right from what’s wrong, the truth and lies and about how deep and wise you could be to forgive everyone (you love) who un-intended-ly hurts you so badly. It is telling you how forgiving could be so hard and complicated, as well as easy and simple at the same time. These movies are as enjoyable as the movie showing robots with the hard metal look but dynamically (gracefully) fighting to serve peace for the universe which I watched few days ago.


It’s Michael Bay’s second installment movie of Transformers, Transformers: The Revenge of the Fallen, despite a less great story, (for me) it belongs to those enjoyable sophisticated-technology movies. Seriously it’s really cool, the visual effects. See all the robots fight against each other to save the universe from a massive invasion of those bad ones, see also the military jet plane of USA of course. And take a look at their movements in the war scenes; see the detail of the massive destruction resulted in the city, the Pyramid. That is technology we are talking about. And okay, it all is intimidating and fascinating though.

But…
If such situation is really happening, I get a little question crossing my mind about why is it supposed to be only USA to stand solely saving the world? Ah...well, just forget it…

So! that’s got to be the way how I enjoy movies as my entertainment which sometimes makes me get to have a muse by those touching or even amusing stories and or makes me stunned or fascinated by those twenty-first-century accomplishment of human civilization; sophisticated technology. And honestly speaking, I like them both. They’re cool…

-Plain Truth-

Plain Truth is the book I just finished reading, it’s by Jodie Picoult. It tells about a teenage Amish girl, Katie Fisher, who is being charged for a new born baby murder who supposedly belongs to her. Katie, however, keeps insisting that she has never murdered the new born, even she admitted not to ever get pregnant in the first place. She eventually is pushed to the corner as all medical evidence lead all the state to the fact that she has recently delivered a baby and the fact that she might have something to do with the death of that infant. In the court, Katie is being helped by a brilliant attractive attorney, Ellie Hathaway to whom Katie can talk to, to reveal the truer truth.

Through the story we are brought to see how Amish-men live their simplicity of life. Amish is an obedient German Christian tribe in USA who live in small village with all the simplicity of religious life. If you are an Amish, you do not call your friend with cell-phone, do not go to the movie, you do not watch gossips on TV, you live with no electricity, and you do not travel by a car, neither go to college. You work at the farm and serve the church after all and Amish, they don’t lie, which make all absurd for Katie Fisher to have a baby out of wedlock, even committing a murder.

I like the plot of Plain Truth. It portrays the details of Katie’s life as an Amish and her little experience in ‘English’ world. Through which I feel like to see how what’s right can be perceived in different ways. I mean sometimes as you try to do and say the right thing but in the wrong place, it might appear not to be what it’s supposed to be or it could be not the right thing to say. Like sometimes you just have to keep the truth for yourself, because after all, you might not need anyone to define for you about you either tell the truth or lies. Those are coming from the fact (particularly in the novel) that in human justice (in the novel it is the ‘English’ court), the truth can be just a result of a winning-battle argument and the trial as the battlefield. Practically saying, it can be such shifting idea about law and court as a place to find justice and defend the truth, but instead, it can be merely the war of the prosecutor against the attorney to serve a more convincing story of such crime for the judge to decide the punishment. So the truth itself can be very bias, and after all we are not in the capacity of giving a judgment, moreover, a punishment.

It tells also about how forgiving could be so easy, which is I know in real life it could be the hardest thing to do. Sometimes your ego won’t let yourself to let it go, by which you will never be able to move forward from all your pain, anger, and suffering. And in the end of the day, it’s just you, your ego, who will hurt yourself, not people who begged you for forgiveness in the first place.
About un-judging point of view towards people; about who they are and the acts that they do, for we gotta to know that they should have reason why they do so, which maybe beyond our thoughts. And it’s about how far you would defend your faith which might define who you are and stick to it.

Three and a half for Plain Truth, and I look forward to another Picoult’s, Tenth Circle.

Not to be a slave, Not to be tortured

News about Indonesian manpower working overseas took my concern few days ago. It’s sad to see all that keeps happening again and again. We (our country, our people) do not seem to learn from the past about what’s happening, and they (our working people), what do they actually look for in foreign country? What do they expect?

Maybe their aim is simple that they want to earn a living for themselves, for their family. But the fact that happened to them is so miserable. The aim of nobility meets the act of cruelty. Going abroad, working as a housemaid with (they think) a sky-high salary may become a temptation, a promising temptation but the fact is it’s just a danger in disguise. Okay, fine! Maybe I never know how hard the lives they had been dealing with in this country; maybe I never know how it feels not to get a financial safety very often in lives whatsoever. Yet all I know is that risking yourself to be tortured abroad is not a justifiable justification to earn a better living after all. That, on the other hand, is just going to hurt you yourself, might as well family you are fighting for.



There are a lot of stories about those Indonesian housemaids going abroad making relatively a lot of money, being spoiled by their boss, coming home with the chance of making new life, a better one. But there are not a few of terrible ones to tell either; about being unpaid, being tortured, being treated like nothing of human, being raped, or even tortured to death. If you think that it is crazy, yes it is. It doesn’t make any sense, no it doesn’t. Certainly it’s still fresh in our memory story about an Indonesian woman climbed down a fourteenth storey room to escape from her boss’s apartment in Malaysia, a woman had to go to the jail in Emirate Arab Union for the thing she never did. Not to mention the recent story of Siti Hajar coming home from Malaysia with all bruises all over her body, burnt and bitten scars around her ear, and dozens of other sad stories I believe it’s not only hurting her (them) physically but also mentally. Our women are not supposed to (must not) be treated that way; no women in this world are. However, our women (most of them, as you know, coming from the side of which enduring financial issue) are blinded by the sky-high salary then risk all the things, their lives actually. So, see the fact! Think twice ladies!

Never said that we blame government for this entire things happened, but they had better provided a better security for their own people (women) working abroad, even can be said their assets. Even before those women decide to go wherever abroad to be a working labor specifically a housemaid, job field should be already provided in their own country. Even if they are determined to go, they should be supplied by those sufficient skills, knowledge, or even self defense skills if necessary (this one is silly I know, but seeing the fact, what would you do?). Eventually, our governments (we obviously) have to defend their (our) self-esteem, telling and proving the world that our country is prosperous enough not to let their own people to be treated as, I’m sorry, slaves in other countries, nor in their own.

Talking about Mood

Unstable mood, overwhelmed bunch of emotion, dissatisfaction, or feeling of losing gut! That sucks huh?! Yeah that really does! And that may highly and commonly happen to anybody. But what is that then if erupting so rapidly and morbidly? Well, let’s psychologically figure that out then. Yeah! We’re going to talk something scientific rather than emotional like I always do hehehe, but it’s still me talking.

I come to the thing that called bipolar disorder; they call it so, the psychologists actually. It has something to do with the presence of your abnormally (if I may say; disorderly) erupted mood state changing, and can be regarded as mood disorder and clinically called mania while for the one which comes to be milder as hypomania. In a severe case, it happens to be psychotic. Wow! then I begin to worry about what I had been experiencing lately. I almost think I could go crazy (yet sure I am not, nuts never call themselves crazy for God’s sake).

Well! In this case the sufferers are most likely to show the symptoms of period of depressive state defined by the persistent presence of anxiety, feeling of sadness, hopelessness, shyness, fatigue, loneliness, problem concentrating, anger, guilt, disturbance of sleeping, social withdrawal, isolation, losing interest, losing apatite and so on and so forth. Severely cause delusion and hallucination and can be regarded to be psychotic. Those symptoms can be also appeared different in each sufferer. And unluckily this heck of disorder can’t be diagnosed evidently through those tests like blood test whatsoever, and it’s hard for even a mental health pro. But scientists believe it’s caused by the imbalance state of the chemical substance in your brain. Environmental influence and genetic factor have things to do with this disorder.

So, according to what I read too, the disorder is divided into four types which are bipolar I with manic state, bipolar II with hypo-manic one, and cyclothymia, and bipolar NOS (not otherwise specified). Those four basically show almost the same symptoms but in different level in each occurrence. For example, in bipolar I, the sufferer may experience manic state with or without major depressive state. Unlike it, in bipolar II, the sufferer may experience at least one major depressive state and hypo-manic span which sometimes, unlike manic state, simply presents the period of having highly work productivity or success, which makes it harder to diagnose. While in cyclothymia appears to be the state of unstable mood changing which interferes the functioning of the sufferer. And the last, bipolar NOS happen not to show those mentioned symptoms but one suffers from what so called bipolar disorder.

Wow, what the heck is that? I mean it’s undeniably horrible, the disease. It drives human being crazy. To tell you the truth, writing it is depressing. And maybe you find it boring to read such thing, but I guess you better not to because it’s knowledge people. At least it’s better to write (and read) this rather than my lousy feeling expression. Correct me if I’m wrong!
So, talking about your emotional state (if you’re having one), do you find yourself having those symptoms???

-- Being Lively by Being Lonely-- The Art of Enjoying Loneliness

It just took me by surprise as I told my friend I was having dinner at one evening in a restaurant all by myself that she said “What are you doing? Enjoying loneliness? That sucks!” In the other day another friend felt sorry for I was spending my evening with a cup of coffee in my favorite coffee corner all by myself. Then I would say I am enjoying every phase of my life and my time and being all alone while I can be (most of the time I say so more to myself). Yet it begins to occur to me that “hey…is it that bad?” Or maybe is it one of the biggest fears of most of people being ending up alone or lonesome? Or is it just mine, which I don’t even realize?


Being all alone doesn’t mean being a solitude alien that doesn’t socialize. Well, I am not one of those guys who do not have any friends or do not socialize, which I believe that there aren’t any. I make friends and I socialize, and now and then I practically hang out with them; having some laughs, some talks, some fun with them. But when they’re gone, I begin to feel like I don’t know, they gone quite non-literally. I believe I (we) can deal with that. But sometimes I need my friends and family, we need our friends and family, but some other times we need ourselves more. Believe me it feels good to be all alone some time; enjoying, for example, the quiet evening walk by yourself after some coffee, enjoying peaceful moment by yourself, just enjoying you yourself. It feels nice but if you find it not, all you have to do is to try to see it through the other sides. Then I can assure you and me myself that being all alone is not that bad, it ain’t a disaster. And the most important thing is that if you’ve been thinking it’s pathetic, well I guess you’ve been thinking less correctly, the truth is it’s not.


So, there are two things I keep in mind to be sure of it. First, I believe that it’s my need to be lonely after being fed up with all the things happened or just to feel how it feels. Second, I believe that the moment of having loneliness defines how great I sense the feeling of having liveliness in turn, which I believe will be more meaningful in the other day, will be felt more beautiful. You can taste liveliness much better once you felt loneliness in the first place. So enjoy those two inseparable sides of the process of the nature, enjoy every step of our lives.


Celebrate loneliness…
See for how long I can survive…

Lampung, Lampung, Lampung….Debating, Debating, Debating

I’ve been thinking that my debating career is already over the moment I decided to resign from ALSA UI months ago. It was until one of my debate fellows invited me to join e-Fest in Lampung University at May 30th -31st. I was not sure, I just said hell let’s go there. I mean I never before put debate as my main consideration of joining the competition. I just thought about going across the sea to Lampung; yeah…TRAVELING (one of my big dreams); one of those things I couldn’t resist.

It was my first trip to go outside the island (Java). And I was as excited and worried as hell over my first fairly long trip. It takes practically 10 hours or so (just like when you go to Yogyakarta by bus) since we made our trip as cheap as we could. Thus we have to take two different buses and one ferryboat to bridge us there. And as the reward for that, we had to duel with three rounds of the debate the morning we arrived. Okay no problem, our excitement conquered all.

One impression I got was that whoa whoa…why people are shouting at each other, they’re gonna be like swallowing each other. But then it’s not that of I saw my friend told me, it’s how people communicate, yeah kinda chatting. Well, apparently we have different ways of showing our manner of, okay, talking and our bond relationship. And Lampung is also as hot as my place, I kept sweating like a pig (it doesn’t mean that I keep sweating like a pig in my place, but I keep sweating here…like a pig, but I don’t sweat like that in my place, though I sweat, whatever) yet I could help it.

There were not so many places to visit in Bandar Lampung, I just went around the downtown at night; seeing some monuments; visiting a boulevard near to Lampung Museum (the place where most of young people of Lampung hang out) and; having dinner at wayside, which reminded me to Yogyakarta, really. Oh yeah, another place I visited was the centre manufacturer of banana chips, it is more like home industries near the downtown at the day I left the city. The banana chips are good.

Well, okay let’s talk about the debate. Damn! I never thought we could go this far. We practically passed through those first three preliminary rounds just fine. Then we put ourselves to the semifinal, then final. And we made it. For the first time in my (maybe our) debating career I (we obviously) stood up on the stage holding our first winner trophy, God! You must be kidding me. We came home with our head held high, hahahahahaha.

OK then I begin to reconsider about ending up my debating career, for I think I saw a few bunch of hope in it since then hehehehehe.

Angles and Demons, Science or Religion? the Novel or the Movie?

It turns out to be a common comment (even a criticism) addressed toward the novel-adapted movie, which is that movie can't beat the novel. Well, I certainly have to get the same idea about giving such comment particularly about Angels and Demons. There are at least two things I consider as the fact which make the movie less interesting than its novel.

To start the idea, I begin to mention about the story. I can really say that the story is rather different between the two versions. Okay, fine! It leads to the same ending but still there’s certain part that felt like different, maybe “not matched” is the exact point. I mean the sense of having the story of the novel version and the movie one. I am not sure what this deviant part is all about, but this really bugged me when I watched the movie.

Then, the idea comes about having different realization of imagination between the readers and the movie creator. I practically have different imaginary figures of Vittoria Vetra and Robert Langdon (whom I consider will be suitably played by Pierce Brosnan rather than by Tom Hanks, well, no offense, that’s what I think), of different experience of having every suspense described, every action and intimacy of Langdon and Vetra have, and the detail of time and place as well. Maybe the point is that they found it hard to visualize the detail of what happen in those hundreds pages of story into less than two hours movie duration, thus they have to change or even reduce some parts of the detail which I consider as the completing touch of making this story stronger and more remarkable. And maybe that’s the reason why most of the novel-adapted movies fail to win its readers’ hearts.
.
Yet, after all I give three out of five for the movie for appreciating its explosion visualization of the antimatter, and four for the novel which keep making me turn the pages and guess where the story will end up till the very end of the book.

Emotional Issue

Emotional issue has been following me all along this time. I don’t know how that this kind of stuff can possibly (keep) happen (-ing) to me. You know I have been telling you about all these things I’ve been dwelling, maybe you are so done with this, but don’t be! We (I) can’t avoid it (the emotional side of us). I have been trying so hard to deal with this for sure, yet it still keeps hunting me like I don’t know, trapped in me. Not to mention such moment I was supposed to have badly years ago yet I didn’t feel this much (I WASN’T a sort of feeler). Yet now I feel like there’s a hole in my heart, remorse, sadness, feeling of being unfulfilled, damn it! here I go again!

Ok, I suck at this stuff! I have to admit, I have issue of dealing with feeling or emotion or whatever. I don’t know, maybe this is it, the age it comes to me that I have to figure something out; where I am, where I am not supposed to be, and where I am heading to. I know I’m probably in a mess that I hardly can clean that up. Damn it!

Now I begin not to be sure for how long this stuff will last. It seems that this effort I have been doing means nothing when the time of this matter comes up as I am all alone, and maybe when I’m thinking about that; thing I suppose to leave behind. I don’t know.

All I know certainly is I can’t stop finding the way; hopefully after all I can come to the thing that I begin to realize that this severe condition will make my next precious happy moment more meaningful. I believe that happiness will have its true meaning once you have passed through (felt) the sadness in the very first beginning. Yeah, happiness means nothing without sadness at the first place, good will never be “good” without evil that can define it. Maybe this is what I have to get through first before I have my turn of happiness much more meaningful. Damn it how many times I have been saying this!!!!!

The best shows ever……

And the idea is about either you are telling or showing

Many undeniably different things occur to say to compare our TV series to US TV series that you probably know yourself. Some say that the idea lays in either you tell the story or show the story. Let’s see what is going on with this. But just to put on the attention, it is not about things from US or from Indonesia but it is about good shows and not very good shows served on TV.

Let’s start from our DRAMA TV series that so-called sinetron. Well I guess I shall not mention the titles in case I make some offensive opinion come up (hell I don’t wanna deal with Hotman Paris SH). Just we can see that they (sinetron) have the same pattern or plot of the story. It will tell about one nice stupid poor little girl loves one good rich handsome guy, with one little b*tch who loves him too. With all nasty manipulation, cruelty and anger beyond normal (nearly demon) followed, the b*tch becomes the shadow of relationship built by the poor little princess and that rich handsome prince. I mean, c’mon people it totally sucks! The story, the characters! Besides, instead of showing their emotions and what is happening, they tell them through the monologue that is dumb. They express anger with nasty facial expression like they widen their eyes, smile in cruel way that is OMG disgusting. Maybe they think that we (the audience) are not smart enough to catch what they mean. So they have the obligation to extremely clearly tell their emotion and the plot in that nasty way. Oh please….

And see what I can tell from US TV series. You are treated as a real watcher that will understand the story, emotion, scene in the show. They just put one little touch to express or to show what every character feels and what the story is about, but it’s there and we (watchers) are able to catch it. They play with facial expression but they turn off the exaggerating mode. Just with one little touch they make everything remarkable. And that’s showing is all about.

Maybe our sinetron makers ought to learn a lot more to make a good show. And if they change (to be good), I and you also will put our time to watch and maybe to be proud of our sinetron. Won’t us?

Sons and Lovers

Sons and Lovers is the recent book I have finished reading (several weeks ago, actually). It is going to be nice to have some talks about it. Well, it tells about Morel’s family, about how they grew up (with all the problems included). Tells about the first time Walter Morel met a woman who later became his wife. It tells about the marriage that was sweet at first few months then sacrificing at the rest of the time, though they could work on it somehow. And it is told that they had three sons; William, Paul, and Arthur and one daughter Annie. To read this book means to follow the story of the family.

D. H. Lawrence successfully described the emotional experience amongst the members of family especially the mother and the sons, how they cope with the feeling matters amongst them. Lawrence vividly portrayed the intense feeling between the mother and her sons that somehow is savere, something like deep sadness and affection, all at once. The term of such unique affectionate intimacy of relationship is called Oedipus Complex (say thanks to Mr. Freud for that). No, I ain’t explain this unique feeling deeply (I ain’t acting like a phsycology student). It is just based on what I read before this, it leads to what Mr. Freud stated. And maybe those things are the attraction that makes me keep turning pages of the book.

After all, if you guys find yourself belong to feelers, I reckon this book to enrich your emtional experience. And for those who are thinkers maybe it can make you little more sensitive hehehehehe. Well, here, I am just trying to say that this book is worth reading, classic but still it is.

FEAR

I am quoting “FEAR” from one of my favorite books Bag of Bones by Stephen King (the book is so terrifying that I give four out of five stars for the book anyway). The word is written as

Face
Everything
And
Recover

I am figuring out how it works (how it supposed to work on me).

Well, most of people, I believe, have things that they are afraid of, something that is terrible that they desperately avoid, that they deny facing. But it ain’t the way it works. Fear is not something that has to be avoided and denied and forever feared. If you do so, you will feel like being haunted for the rest of your life, and the worse there is no coming back from that. But crap! (I cursed out loud also) What am I supposed to do, if I see nothing in ourselves to face it? Well, that is what I am trying to figure out (and what you have to figure out in case you have one). Maybe most of us get trapped in this.

Nothing of the ways can be done but wishing and trying to be able to confront ourselves to the fear. I know we will find it so terrible, hard, devastating, and whatsoever. But that is the way that works that can make me feel relief, I believe. And in one way or another, it will make you feel free. You won’t have to run or deny things in your life ever again; you will be like a new person (a fearless person). Maybe that the way it is supposed to be, maybe that is actually it; fear that should be “face everything and recover”.

What we need is courage…
Courage…
Courage…
Where the hell is courage???

let something go....

didn't i tell you about my debate stuff at my campus in the last posted writing? yeah what an opportunity that i got. however, i don't know, i was so far from certainty about stuffs in my life lately (i've told you why). then i made my decision bout not going to ALSA UI, i just let it go... hope i was not making another mistake.....

Home sweet home…

Some say that no matter how beautiful the place you want to visit is, the place you are currently in is, yet they do not beat the place you come from. God yeah… it’s true (well, I’m not trying to be Pangandaran-centric here, hahahahaha, just tell the truth). I don’t know how much beautiful my hometown is to others, but it is so mesmerizing to me. My mother, her food, my home, my beach (no ‘f course it is not private beach), and its white sand beach. Maybe those are the reasons why I am a bit certain I have the place that I can call home (despite all that proves conversely).

I often take my time to have a walk on white sand beach as I am home. The place is my muse. I will just sit on the beach, see the ocean, the sky, the horizon and hear the sound of the waves, then just lie down and think, all alone (the place is often peaceful and quiet) . I find it somehow relaxing, (it’s always being a heaven on earth haahahahaha) really… Everything can just suddenly cross my mind, I feel like I can figure anything out while being there. I guess the place knows the way how to comfort me.

However, my dear heaven on earth can turn to be as ugly as hell in some other time. It’s going to be very crowded, turn into a very dirty nasty place when the crowd comes to hit the ground. You see, they throw the rubbish away wherever they like, the crowd will leave it just messy. I hate it, but what can I do? One against hundreds??? Hell! I need backups here!!! I will just pick up the rubbish here and there and try to prevent myself from throwing away my own.
But easy, it just lasts at week end people, and at the meantime it’s our entire paradise baby…hehehehehe.

Well, people, please meet my beach…




Right over there beneath the trees at the shore, there I will just sit and lie down while sightseeing…
Ah…What a life for me…hehehehe…

Not a man of despair…

Well, in the previous posted writing I wrote how screwed I was, and that was that, I mean it’s true, that was what I felt. I sometimes feel like desperate, I mean God! I need to see just one hope; it’s only one (if two are too much), to ensure me to keep carrying on my life. But I couldn’t seem to see it clearly really… what I saw was my fear, doubt, desperation, brutally-erupted emotions. I mean I am doubt about what I do, what I am going to do with my life. My life was so obviously flat, I was so jaded, EMPTY, unfulfilled (exaggerating mode: ON) hahahaha.

Maybe I was just too much sentimental; maybe I was just making everything harder than what it really was. Yet you know how you feel yourself when you wake up in the morning with a feeling of, I don’t know, uncertainty, sadness or reluctance maybe. I mean it is just uncomfortable, something like heavy loads in your heart keeps following you, pressing you. You know you’ve got to fix this, you’ve got to do something, but you cannot find the way how. You don’t even know what’s wrong, but you are pretty sure that something’s wrong.

I’ve got to get up! I know that someday I somehow will pass this. I will find the answer for this. Maybe all I have to do is just being patient. People, I believe, ever felt this way in their long journey of life. Maybe this situation that make them (I) learn how to live life, and be, I don’t know, great person perhaps. Just wish me luck!

join selection

i haven't told you here that i have been joining a debating community in my campus. yeah debate...man
i like to get involved in this debate stuff though i suck at this, really...
that because of several things i guess, like
1 i seldom come to practice
2 i do not search and read a lot of matter (i prefer to read novels hahahaha)
3 because i do, i suck UGH...

but hey,,, last Saturday i joined its selection for ALSA UI debate competition, then what a surprise!!!!!!!!!! i won the selection. i'm coming to jakarta. my last competition was US Election themed debate competition in ITB (thought it was gonna be the last), it was last year in October, what a long time...i guess i even forget how to act like a kick my opponent's as* hahahahaha.

well, tik tok tik tok, tik tok, time goes by.. need to be prepared.....

A Lesson from Mrs. Elliot

“A class divided” was a video clip on PBS Frontline with the discrimination materials that was brought by Mrs. Jane Elliot. She was a teacher in the third grade in an elementary school in Iowa. She was concerned about racism and the affair that happened to Mr. Martin Luther King Jr. regarding the issue in USA. She thought that American could not just talk about racism. There was the need to take an action to tell how bad racism is and to stop it.

The thing that could be the lesson that Mrs. Elliot taught from the very first beginning was that treat others the way you wanted to be treated regardless what color of their skin is (and the color of their eyes is of course), and what race that they come from. However, the fact that most of American tended to treat African-American, Asian-American, Mexican-American differently in USA, including her the third grade students had the same thoughts.

The way Mrs. Elliot told her students about racism and about how it feels to be discriminated was to make them really experienced to be discriminated. She divided the third graders in her class into blue-eyed people and brown-eyed people. Blue-eyed people were more superior to the brow-eyed ones, they were better, they had the prerogatives, while brown-eyed did not, and they also were not allowed to play with blue-eyed in the play ground. The division was merely based on the color of their eyes.

Conflict of racism began to rise to climax when blue-eyed kids mocked at the brown-eyed, and then they had a fight. Brown-eyed kids felt like being discriminated, they were like living in the isolation, and felt like inferior to the blue-eyed just because of an unfair reason of judgment. They were also angry to be called brown-eyed. From what happened Mrs. Elliot learned that how so ingrained racism was amongst people, and how severe it was. And even the third graders could be so racist.

It occurs to me that the way Mrs. Elliot taught how ugly racism could be is one of the good ways in telling it. Experiencing how it feels to be treated as if in minority and inferior is a good way to make them realize how hurting could that be. She taught the lesson of discrimination in a real situation in which racism can possibly happen in that way. However, in my opinion the act of racism does not always come from the majority, it can come also from the minority site that they make their own prejudice to other people that they think might discriminate them. Thus, in my opinion racism can come from both sites; majority and minority, unreasonably superior and inferior. And all we have to do to vanish it is erasing all the unreasonable prejudice to other people that somehow lays in our mind in order to erase racism in the world. And through the video we can learn how to do that.
Screw differences …
Screw bad prejudice…
Screw racism...
live peacefully PEOPLE!!!

Emotions, feelings or whatever it is…

We, humans have something that distinct us from other God’s creatures, that is emotions, feelings. We might feel something (perhaps something that is beyond our control), moving up and down inside our chest, anything that can be started with the things that can be described in an effortless way, accompanied by tears, or we might find it hard to express. Happiness, sadness, fear, joy, affection, yearning, anger, loneliness, upset, being crazy over something, feeling touched in the heart or anything that might somehow overwhelm us, occupy us, take over our other gift from God; the ability of thinking using our brain.

It’s supposed to be our gift to have emotions and feeling that make us human and enable us to taste what is called love, anger, happiness, and all its friends and enjoy them. However, sometimes we might feel it’s too much; we are being turned upside down. We might feel tired of having emotions, well, let me clarify, it’s actually me who is tired of being occupied by all the emotions I have had. I feel like it would be better if I don’t have any of them. Imagining how it feels to have anger, I will feel something boiling my heart, something huge is like stuck right there in the chest of mine, it’s really uncomfortable, something that makes a load right on the chest. And it equals to any other feelings like yearning, affection to anybody that actually cannot be hold forever.

Call me desperate then it might be true. Call me sentimental then you are safe. In the age of mine I am feeling so over this feeling; feeling yearning to the thing or someone that may not come and that you can’t hold them forever, angry to the thing that on that I actually can’t take control, feeling alone while surrounded by crowd, feeling unfulfilled but you don’t really know what is missing. I can easily get taken over by what I have in my chest rather than in my head, I guess that is why I have this notion; about having no emotions. Maybe someday I will take back the notion, I will probably desperately want to have those back, but now it is just too much exhausting for me and even getting close to something like hurting.

Perhaps you have ever had this in your life, and the worse is you ending up alone. I cannot really give the thing that can make you better in your heart for this, but I just can say that you are not alone in this. I guess there is nothing more relieving than having somebody to know how you feel and share it with them.

Aphasia Makes You Lost in the Middle of nowhere (literally and not literally) …

Does it ever occur to you that we might lose our language? I mean your ability to understand people’s language and ability to make yours to be understood. It just lost, you suddenly do not understand what others tell you neither your speech to others? Surely that would be the most terrifying thing I ever imagine. You are like living in isolation, you desperately want to get involved in one talk, and you want everybody, anybody to understand what you say. However you cannot do that, your brain is like blocking you from doing that and you realize that. You desperately want to understand and to be understood, but you cannot do anything. Gosh! It is pretty scary and extremely frustrating.

I have no idea what it feels like without language. I mean, c’mon people! How do you let a book keeper take your favorite book you want to buy? How do you enjoy reading your favorite book? How do you let your mom know you need money? How do you let your girl and boy friend know you love them so much? How do you let anybody know that you like or mad at them? Everything expressed through language people! Language! And now suddenly it is taken. You will just feel lost and all alone.

Well, I am not just daydreaming. There is a disease that might give you a deficiency of your language ability (perhaps many of you have known this one, but let me share what I think of that). The disease called aphasia. It is the result of certain damages in the part of your brain that have responsibility to control language. Those damages can be caused by stroke, head damage, brain infection, tumor, and all the troubles that may block your blood from flowing to your brain. It was mid-age people who often suffer from the disease, but children are also reported to have the disease. And it is because of the problem of the language acquisition development in their early age. The disease can come in a sudden, and go suddenly as well when your blood has its way back to flow to your brain.

Pretty scary huh?! Well, I just want to let you know that the language we have is worth gratitude, really…