Remember the friend in previous post, my best friend whom I wanted to learn from about patience and positive thinking…
Indeed, she made me realize that I am very lucky, that not only look up, we have to look down. But, I just confirmed than she is really unhappy. All the times I managed to call her in the past, she didn’t have the chance to talk, but two days ago, she had it and I learned the harsh truth.
So, does it mean that I was right six years ago? Maybe not. Maybe yes. Everything could go wrong in marriage, something nobody knows until they are in.
Upon hearing her story, that most thing that hit my head was that I don’t know how to help her. She is stuck, but she doesn’t consider how to go out because she thought she is not capable to. She doesn’t have job, income, somebody nearby and she has two children.
She doesn’t have the luxury of technology, there is no way I can contact her except by phone, that means she is mostly isolated to the world and opportunity to work on her own. Her problem is not the same and as bad as other marriage problem, but she lives with a stranger.
She can endure, she says, but I don’t want her to, but I don’t know how. I told her to let me know if she ever needs my help, but bitterly, I thought, how?
Adult life. Pissing.
I don’t wanna grow up, I wanna be Toys R Us’s Kid
There are million toys at Toy R Us that I can play with
Dabba dum dabba dabba dum..
They say, when we grow old we are mentally go back to being a child. I see elderly throw tantrum, and how easy for them to get excited over small things, and how serious they play games in elder’s house.
I met two this week. I was strolling in a supermarket looking at a row of sanitary napkins. Then the end of my eye caught a at least eighty years old granny, she was looking into the same things, she chose, she compared, and adding to my wider and wider eyes, she came to me and to my horror, asked for my advise about which and which brand.
This morning I heard super strong crazy rock music from an old auntie whose friend might sitting in the park watching Chinese opera.
See? I told you…
Young at heart, shoot your spirit high..
Try to fly a paper plane to your boss’s forehead. Chances are, he might play with you, or you have a new boss to try with....
_________________________________________________________________________________
You're about as useful as a one-legged man at an arse kicking contest.
- Rowan Atkinson.
You cannot have everything. I mean, where would you put it?
- Steven Wright
I don't think anyone should write their autobiography until after they're dead.
- Samuel Goldwyn
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
- Soren Aabye Kierkegaard
Lady Astor : If I were your wife, I should flavour your coffee with poison!
Sir Winston : And if I were your husband, madam, I should drink it.
- Sir Winston Churchill
But I am not so think as you drunk I am.
- Sir J.C. Squire
Friday, March 31, 2006
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Best Friend
I have one very best friend. I met her in Junior High School, when we were twelve. She sat beside me, and it began with a chaotic day when I found that my eraser was nowhere to be seen. She helped me, and we became best friend, it was not intentional, but completely natural. Then we liked to hang out with each other, visited each other house, we became inseparable.
At first, I thought she is very similar to me. We have same family background; big family and we have similar taste about many things. But come to think of it, she is very different. I was a silent motor, I ran wall magazine, lively English club, led some girl scout team, mhaha… but silent, because I left all the human relation things to my other friend, I enjoyed to be the motor but not the bumper. My friend was a very royal supporter, she always backed me up with her own style of honesty. If I were rebellious, she was my rebellious agent with a lot of “Don’t do that, don’t do this, you will regret..” bla bla, but she would pass me the weapon faster than anybody else.
If there were some bad manner boys on the street, I would scold them and lift my umbrella while she was pulling my hand away and then talked me out of my anger. She is a very nice person, always, she would happily play what I play or come out and support me, she learn what I learn and I did the same for her.
We led ordinary humble teenager’s life, we met outside school for outing, stationary shopping (it was a small town! ; p ) and together, we created a study group which grew bigger and attracted other friends. (What a parent dream about girl I was?!) On third grade, we were not placed in the same class, and things were almost unbearable at first. Guys started to do some funny things, secret letters, songs, gifts, and girls started to get naughty, everybody tried to prove that they were growing up.
“Who wants to see A guy kiss B girl after class? I have secret information….”
“Do you know that we find something in C guy wallet? It was a …. “
Then the girls would let some guys or other girls snapped their bra straps and chased each other like hamsters during break. They did it to almost everybody, but not us because I had my fist on the air. If you think being snapped is good let me try it with belt…
Well, although we were not in the same class, we still did everything together as usual. Although we were far from being nasty teenager, we also did what most teenagers did at that time. Pretty picture was a trend, we exchanged colorful one, the one with flower or fish net background (two options only!) and you had to put one hand grabbing some hair on shoulder or posing with hats. We had quite a few, some of them made it into shop display, who-haha…that was quite an achievement! Kekekkeke…then we had quite a big plan, saved some money and bought our own film and took pictures of each other, I managed to smuggle Dad’s camera, and she smuggled her sister clothes and funny hats. We spent a day and then happily waited for the picture results, thinking that we had 36 unique photo with different background. When the results were out, all 36 pictures were either blur, too small or mostly didn’t survive the lighting.
We frowned for a day.
When I finished my Junior High School, there were rumors that my family would move to Jakarta, but I didn’t confirm it to my friend as it was confirmed during holiday breaks. No telephone, we couldn’t communicate to each other, until the day we met at school, a week before I traveled to Jakarta. She happened to ask me about the moving plan, something she did for fun, as both of us never thought about the possibility of it to be true. I even had registered myself to continue to the Senior High with same school for plan B, and we had been so happy to be in the same class again.
I remembered I was casually answered next week, from excited about the news then suddenly I knew that we might not spend time together again. We were quiet, as usual, maybe until now, we hardly expressed our emotions.
Surprisingly, each day closer to the day, I found that I had more than one best friends, they came to my house, they made a little farewell party at their house, or we went out together. Some even said goodbye with teary eyes and said that I was their best friends, something I didn’t even know. :”(
When I reached Jakarta, at least a year after that (until I moved to the bloody Desa Neroktok, Samping Gang Kancil, Dekat Jembatan Tol without number kind of address) I had never passed a single week with less than three letters in my mail box with those cute and scented envelopes.
I went home once for holiday when I was sixteen, rode plane and stayed alone in my Dad’s business house. She would come and accompany me and both of us with another good friend would go for a nice stroll along the town. They were good with motorcycle, the main vehicle there, and three of us went back to the Photo Studio, this time, we took casual picture, without the fish net and fake smile, but side but side laughing.
I went home again once when I was in the university, although our flows of letter were not as good as usual, we always kept in touch.
When I moved to Batam for my first job, I found out that she had been engaged to some guy she only met once. I was worried for her, but she told me that she was stuck, she didn’t have decent job and she didn’t know what else to do. I tried to talk her out of it, and even asked her to join me and try together, although I couldn’t even sure that myself would make it. It was beyond my imagination that my friend would be married to some guy, and they would stay in Jakarta, how if he abandoned her etc…, but she didn’t wish to consider my ‘freedom’ option and chose to get married. I couldn’t do anything but to wish her well.
First year, she was having a bad time with her in-laws, but she has this strong determination to always look at things positively. Sometimes I find that she is too giving to situation and always chooses to flow with the current and pick the flower along the way rather than swim against it without anything certain in sight once in a while.
She always tells me she is leading a life that she doesn’t really dream of, but she always cherish it no matter what, at least, she has what she have.
Maybe I’m still not into her way of thinking, but I always admire her for her strength and patience. I remember her most today because I am somehow feeling too many aura of negativity between my colleagues. They always complain about work, I have tons of complain too, but what good does it make except makes you feeling down?
Then, I want to remember her method, at least I still have something to do… and no matter how, it keeps me alive here…
That, I need positive friend and positive thinking! Yay!
I’ll call her tonight. : )
__________________________________________________________________________________
Honk if you love peace and quiet.
- Anonymous
What Exactly Is Marriage?
"Marriage is when you get to keep your girl and don't have to give
her back to her parents"
- Eric, AGE 6
How Does a Person Decide Whom to marry??
"My mother says to look for a man who is kind....That's what I'll
do....I'll find somebody who's kinda tall and handsome."
- Carolyn, AGE 8
If you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you.
- Paul Newman.
If you think your boss is stupid remember; you wouldn't have a job if he was smarter.
- Albert Grant.
Time goes, you say? Ah no!
Alas, time stays, we go.
- Henry Austin Dobson
At first, I thought she is very similar to me. We have same family background; big family and we have similar taste about many things. But come to think of it, she is very different. I was a silent motor, I ran wall magazine, lively English club, led some girl scout team, mhaha… but silent, because I left all the human relation things to my other friend, I enjoyed to be the motor but not the bumper. My friend was a very royal supporter, she always backed me up with her own style of honesty. If I were rebellious, she was my rebellious agent with a lot of “Don’t do that, don’t do this, you will regret..” bla bla, but she would pass me the weapon faster than anybody else.
If there were some bad manner boys on the street, I would scold them and lift my umbrella while she was pulling my hand away and then talked me out of my anger. She is a very nice person, always, she would happily play what I play or come out and support me, she learn what I learn and I did the same for her.
We led ordinary humble teenager’s life, we met outside school for outing, stationary shopping (it was a small town! ; p ) and together, we created a study group which grew bigger and attracted other friends. (What a parent dream about girl I was?!) On third grade, we were not placed in the same class, and things were almost unbearable at first. Guys started to do some funny things, secret letters, songs, gifts, and girls started to get naughty, everybody tried to prove that they were growing up.
“Who wants to see A guy kiss B girl after class? I have secret information….”
“Do you know that we find something in C guy wallet? It was a …. “
Then the girls would let some guys or other girls snapped their bra straps and chased each other like hamsters during break. They did it to almost everybody, but not us because I had my fist on the air. If you think being snapped is good let me try it with belt…
Well, although we were not in the same class, we still did everything together as usual. Although we were far from being nasty teenager, we also did what most teenagers did at that time. Pretty picture was a trend, we exchanged colorful one, the one with flower or fish net background (two options only!) and you had to put one hand grabbing some hair on shoulder or posing with hats. We had quite a few, some of them made it into shop display, who-haha…that was quite an achievement! Kekekkeke…then we had quite a big plan, saved some money and bought our own film and took pictures of each other, I managed to smuggle Dad’s camera, and she smuggled her sister clothes and funny hats. We spent a day and then happily waited for the picture results, thinking that we had 36 unique photo with different background. When the results were out, all 36 pictures were either blur, too small or mostly didn’t survive the lighting.
We frowned for a day.
When I finished my Junior High School, there were rumors that my family would move to Jakarta, but I didn’t confirm it to my friend as it was confirmed during holiday breaks. No telephone, we couldn’t communicate to each other, until the day we met at school, a week before I traveled to Jakarta. She happened to ask me about the moving plan, something she did for fun, as both of us never thought about the possibility of it to be true. I even had registered myself to continue to the Senior High with same school for plan B, and we had been so happy to be in the same class again.
I remembered I was casually answered next week, from excited about the news then suddenly I knew that we might not spend time together again. We were quiet, as usual, maybe until now, we hardly expressed our emotions.
Surprisingly, each day closer to the day, I found that I had more than one best friends, they came to my house, they made a little farewell party at their house, or we went out together. Some even said goodbye with teary eyes and said that I was their best friends, something I didn’t even know. :”(
When I reached Jakarta, at least a year after that (until I moved to the bloody Desa Neroktok, Samping Gang Kancil, Dekat Jembatan Tol without number kind of address) I had never passed a single week with less than three letters in my mail box with those cute and scented envelopes.
I went home once for holiday when I was sixteen, rode plane and stayed alone in my Dad’s business house. She would come and accompany me and both of us with another good friend would go for a nice stroll along the town. They were good with motorcycle, the main vehicle there, and three of us went back to the Photo Studio, this time, we took casual picture, without the fish net and fake smile, but side but side laughing.
I went home again once when I was in the university, although our flows of letter were not as good as usual, we always kept in touch.
When I moved to Batam for my first job, I found out that she had been engaged to some guy she only met once. I was worried for her, but she told me that she was stuck, she didn’t have decent job and she didn’t know what else to do. I tried to talk her out of it, and even asked her to join me and try together, although I couldn’t even sure that myself would make it. It was beyond my imagination that my friend would be married to some guy, and they would stay in Jakarta, how if he abandoned her etc…, but she didn’t wish to consider my ‘freedom’ option and chose to get married. I couldn’t do anything but to wish her well.
First year, she was having a bad time with her in-laws, but she has this strong determination to always look at things positively. Sometimes I find that she is too giving to situation and always chooses to flow with the current and pick the flower along the way rather than swim against it without anything certain in sight once in a while.
She always tells me she is leading a life that she doesn’t really dream of, but she always cherish it no matter what, at least, she has what she have.
Maybe I’m still not into her way of thinking, but I always admire her for her strength and patience. I remember her most today because I am somehow feeling too many aura of negativity between my colleagues. They always complain about work, I have tons of complain too, but what good does it make except makes you feeling down?
Then, I want to remember her method, at least I still have something to do… and no matter how, it keeps me alive here…
That, I need positive friend and positive thinking! Yay!
I’ll call her tonight. : )
__________________________________________________________________________________
Honk if you love peace and quiet.
- Anonymous
What Exactly Is Marriage?
"Marriage is when you get to keep your girl and don't have to give
her back to her parents"
- Eric, AGE 6
How Does a Person Decide Whom to marry??
"My mother says to look for a man who is kind....That's what I'll
do....I'll find somebody who's kinda tall and handsome."
- Carolyn, AGE 8
If you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you.
- Paul Newman.
If you think your boss is stupid remember; you wouldn't have a job if he was smarter.
- Albert Grant.
Time goes, you say? Ah no!
Alas, time stays, we go.
- Henry Austin Dobson
Monday, March 27, 2006
The Quarreling Couple In Toa Pa Yoh....
Saturday afternoon, me and Hubby were wandering around Toa Pa Yoh.
Toa Pa Yoh is some kind of place like Jakarta’s Pasar Baru I guess. So, shops and stalls are scattered along the pavement, where we can buy thing in reasonable price, and with bargaining skill, we might get more. But, here, I don’t really like to bargain, unless the seller is friendly, otherwise, you might get scolded, and for girls, hah, being scolded means a turning point of mood.
I’ve seen a lot, including myself, cherish sunny mood could suddenly becomes black circle lighting and thunder just because someone being rude to a woman. It’s sooo easy to make our days.
I know a friend who was grumbling the whole afternoon just because someone criticized her for being late, someone with terrible plan for revenge (although she didn’t do it but she regretted she didn’t do it) just because a stranger took a ‘not so nice’ picture out of flavor and the stranger didn’t really understand the technical thing of her camera.
Or my lunch mate who holds grudge against a guy who never held a door for her, although she opened it with her access card.
Or, me, after being teased on the street, go home, curse and swear about the whole community of men.
That’s why I can’t really understand why lesbian relationship exists. I think it’s hard enough to be with creature calls woman, that only man with opposite style of thinking and attitude can endure. It’s hard enough to handle own mood and to understand the way of own thinking, let alone being with another creature with the same character.
Sometimes, a lot of times, I do envy the ways man thinks.
Only
Girls curse and jump over stupid characters in dramas.
Girls lose sleep over a sad and ‘inspiring’ movie and make sequel in their dreams.
Girls develop long-felt serious crush over heroic actors in movie. I guess guys do that too, but I’m sure they won’t write about it in the scented diary or stare into the posters with hope and sorrow. (Many of my friends still do that!)
Girls say nothing is wrong when something is obviously wrong.
Girls feel like resolved argument is just a prequel.
Girls can make the whole lot long story and prediction over one minute of a guy attitude towards her or other girls.
Girls won’t let go a matter easily, if it hurts her badly, it will always be fresh in her mind. Easy say, girls forgive, but never forget.
Mind you, fyi, those are not my personal experiences. Wee’.. !
I do have few, I like to curse stupid characters, I dream about being a secret agent after watching a movie, and although I tried, I have some wounds that I would never forget although I forgave, and I like to do stupid analyzing.
That’s why, I guess, it must be really nice to be a guy, when they can really let go all the personal grudge tomorrow, what happened yesterday, it’s the matter of yesterday. If someone being rude, stick out a tongue and few steps later, they are back to the original mood, they won’t let bad things destroy the rest of the day. When men quarrel, after few steps or few days, they are back as usual with each other. I think it shows some good self-control or maybe, memory of goldfish, which I believe, they really have! Huhahahhaha…
I find that girls are good in number, while I was having difficulty closing my jaw when my male friend asked me “What month it is?” and Hubby “Er…what year is it?”
Okay, I tend to jump to nowhere while talking about something else. Nah, that’s another difference with guys. I see that my Dad and Hubby have good navigation when there are in shopping malls. So, we go this way first, then go along with the shops so we cover anything. While me and Mom have very distracted pattern of shopping. Hey, shinny things! We rush to the other side. Hey, three cups bra! We run to the other end. Hey, ice cream! and zag back.
See? It happens again. SO, we were at Toa Pa Yoh, and there was a couple quarrelling in front of us, it was quite a sad scene, the girl pushed the guy and…
Hey! Fluorescent light! …
____________________________________________________________________________________
Men Philosophy:
- If we say something that can be interpreted in two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other way.
- You can either ask us to do something OR tell us how you want it done - not both.
- Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during commercials.
- If you must take us with you into Victoria's Secret, never, EVER leave us alone. All the old fat ladies make mean faces at us and only add to our discomfort.
I was on a date recently, and the guy took me horseback riding. That was kind of fun, until we ran out of quarters.
- Rita Rudner
If high heels were so wonderful, men would be wearing them.
- Erma Bombeck
Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about
dentist appointments and soccer games and romances and best friends and
favorite foods and secret fears and hopes and dreams. A man is vaguely
aware of some short people living in the house.
- Unknown
Women love cats. Men say they love cats, but when women aren't looking,
men kick cats.
- Unknown
Toa Pa Yoh is some kind of place like Jakarta’s Pasar Baru I guess. So, shops and stalls are scattered along the pavement, where we can buy thing in reasonable price, and with bargaining skill, we might get more. But, here, I don’t really like to bargain, unless the seller is friendly, otherwise, you might get scolded, and for girls, hah, being scolded means a turning point of mood.
I’ve seen a lot, including myself, cherish sunny mood could suddenly becomes black circle lighting and thunder just because someone being rude to a woman. It’s sooo easy to make our days.
I know a friend who was grumbling the whole afternoon just because someone criticized her for being late, someone with terrible plan for revenge (although she didn’t do it but she regretted she didn’t do it) just because a stranger took a ‘not so nice’ picture out of flavor and the stranger didn’t really understand the technical thing of her camera.
Or my lunch mate who holds grudge against a guy who never held a door for her, although she opened it with her access card.
Or, me, after being teased on the street, go home, curse and swear about the whole community of men.
That’s why I can’t really understand why lesbian relationship exists. I think it’s hard enough to be with creature calls woman, that only man with opposite style of thinking and attitude can endure. It’s hard enough to handle own mood and to understand the way of own thinking, let alone being with another creature with the same character.
Sometimes, a lot of times, I do envy the ways man thinks.
Only
Girls curse and jump over stupid characters in dramas.
Girls lose sleep over a sad and ‘inspiring’ movie and make sequel in their dreams.
Girls develop long-felt serious crush over heroic actors in movie. I guess guys do that too, but I’m sure they won’t write about it in the scented diary or stare into the posters with hope and sorrow. (Many of my friends still do that!)
Girls say nothing is wrong when something is obviously wrong.
Girls feel like resolved argument is just a prequel.
Girls can make the whole lot long story and prediction over one minute of a guy attitude towards her or other girls.
Girls won’t let go a matter easily, if it hurts her badly, it will always be fresh in her mind. Easy say, girls forgive, but never forget.
Mind you, fyi, those are not my personal experiences. Wee’.. !
I do have few, I like to curse stupid characters, I dream about being a secret agent after watching a movie, and although I tried, I have some wounds that I would never forget although I forgave, and I like to do stupid analyzing.
That’s why, I guess, it must be really nice to be a guy, when they can really let go all the personal grudge tomorrow, what happened yesterday, it’s the matter of yesterday. If someone being rude, stick out a tongue and few steps later, they are back to the original mood, they won’t let bad things destroy the rest of the day. When men quarrel, after few steps or few days, they are back as usual with each other. I think it shows some good self-control or maybe, memory of goldfish, which I believe, they really have! Huhahahhaha…
I find that girls are good in number, while I was having difficulty closing my jaw when my male friend asked me “What month it is?” and Hubby “Er…what year is it?”
Okay, I tend to jump to nowhere while talking about something else. Nah, that’s another difference with guys. I see that my Dad and Hubby have good navigation when there are in shopping malls. So, we go this way first, then go along with the shops so we cover anything. While me and Mom have very distracted pattern of shopping. Hey, shinny things! We rush to the other side. Hey, three cups bra! We run to the other end. Hey, ice cream! and zag back.
See? It happens again. SO, we were at Toa Pa Yoh, and there was a couple quarrelling in front of us, it was quite a sad scene, the girl pushed the guy and…
Hey! Fluorescent light! …
____________________________________________________________________________________
Men Philosophy:
- If we say something that can be interpreted in two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other way.
- You can either ask us to do something OR tell us how you want it done - not both.
- Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during commercials.
- If you must take us with you into Victoria's Secret, never, EVER leave us alone. All the old fat ladies make mean faces at us and only add to our discomfort.
I was on a date recently, and the guy took me horseback riding. That was kind of fun, until we ran out of quarters.
- Rita Rudner
If high heels were so wonderful, men would be wearing them.
- Erma Bombeck
Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about
dentist appointments and soccer games and romances and best friends and
favorite foods and secret fears and hopes and dreams. A man is vaguely
aware of some short people living in the house.
- Unknown
Women love cats. Men say they love cats, but when women aren't looking,
men kick cats.
- Unknown
TCSS
End of last year I complained about the construction work under my block, now, they are finishing. They divided what used to be part of eatery into small shops. There are handphone, cd, optic, clothing, shoes, nail shops and Guardian. Few shops haven’t been opened yet. It’s nice, although I was hoping that they would open cozy coffee shop, superbowl, swimming pool and public parks. ; )
The one in my office will be finished end of NEXT year. Sport mall, because of the construction, lunches are difficult and far, and sometimes it’s very noisy.
Drrrrt drttttt ngingggggggg drrrrrttt…. Drr….. dr ……r….
I dream of a life when I have commercial property and what I need to do is only to collect rent, which means checking the balance on the bank account.
What a life, I suppose.
On Saturday, we accompanied a friend of us looking for a rent office property. We used direct way and roamed the street, looking for Renting sign and called on spot. He had this particular area in mind, so it was an easy thing to do. He discovered one nice spot, and we agreed that it was a nice one. Small but cozy, and we spent quite some time there talking about where to put what and for the guys, how this and that cables are going to run through here and there. The spot is located near the red light district. For those who don’t know, the houses or shop houses with red numbers means you can pay a visit, choose somebody and off you go to the fun, there are few ‘hourly’ hotels nearby also.
Actually, the spot is nearby Hubby’s office. It’s funny but offices, red lights, pubs, bars for straights or gays are popular to merge together in this area. But it’s still safer for a girl to walk alone in the night than any parts in Jakarta, keep in mind, in casual wear without being mistaken. I heard, don’t know about here, but in other area, ‘the girls’ would use umbrella for the sign.
So, anyway, I respect for whatever people do for living, as long as it doesn’t sacrifice other people. Nobody can say this work is easier or lower than mine. Every job is hard.
Especially when it’s time for tax, like now. Ouch.
Found another makan place, Rumah Makan Padang Sabar Menanti (Why most of Padang's Makan Place are called Sabar Menanti, Selera Bersama, Silakan Kepedesan dan Bunga Merekah? I made up the last twos, but the first twos are based on life experiences) hehhehe….cheap and good mmm…can’t remember the street name, but the most important thing, I know how to go there… :)
Watched Crash, it’s a good one.
TCSS : Talk Cock Sing Song, Sgp's definition for Ngalor Ngidul Ngiler.
Thing that I almost always do on Mondays and ... days other than Mondays.
___________________________________________________________________________________
I told the Inland Revenue I didn't owe them a penny because I lived near the seaside.
- Ken Dodd.
Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before........
- Unknown
Life may have no meaning. Or even worse, it may have a meaning of which I disapprove.
- John F. Kennedy
Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict, Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease". Disraeli replied, "That all depends, sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."
- David Letterman
Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.
-Unknown
Calvin: People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.
Hobbes: Isn't your pants' zipper supposed to be in the front?
- From Calvin and Hobbes
The one in my office will be finished end of NEXT year. Sport mall, because of the construction, lunches are difficult and far, and sometimes it’s very noisy.
Drrrrt drttttt ngingggggggg drrrrrttt…. Drr….. dr ……r….
I dream of a life when I have commercial property and what I need to do is only to collect rent, which means checking the balance on the bank account.
What a life, I suppose.
On Saturday, we accompanied a friend of us looking for a rent office property. We used direct way and roamed the street, looking for Renting sign and called on spot. He had this particular area in mind, so it was an easy thing to do. He discovered one nice spot, and we agreed that it was a nice one. Small but cozy, and we spent quite some time there talking about where to put what and for the guys, how this and that cables are going to run through here and there. The spot is located near the red light district. For those who don’t know, the houses or shop houses with red numbers means you can pay a visit, choose somebody and off you go to the fun, there are few ‘hourly’ hotels nearby also.
Actually, the spot is nearby Hubby’s office. It’s funny but offices, red lights, pubs, bars for straights or gays are popular to merge together in this area. But it’s still safer for a girl to walk alone in the night than any parts in Jakarta, keep in mind, in casual wear without being mistaken. I heard, don’t know about here, but in other area, ‘the girls’ would use umbrella for the sign.
So, anyway, I respect for whatever people do for living, as long as it doesn’t sacrifice other people. Nobody can say this work is easier or lower than mine. Every job is hard.
Especially when it’s time for tax, like now. Ouch.
Found another makan place, Rumah Makan Padang Sabar Menanti (Why most of Padang's Makan Place are called Sabar Menanti, Selera Bersama, Silakan Kepedesan dan Bunga Merekah? I made up the last twos, but the first twos are based on life experiences) hehhehe….cheap and good mmm…can’t remember the street name, but the most important thing, I know how to go there… :)
Watched Crash, it’s a good one.
TCSS : Talk Cock Sing Song, Sgp's definition for Ngalor Ngidul Ngiler.
Thing that I almost always do on Mondays and ... days other than Mondays.
___________________________________________________________________________________
I told the Inland Revenue I didn't owe them a penny because I lived near the seaside.
- Ken Dodd.
Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before........
- Unknown
Life may have no meaning. Or even worse, it may have a meaning of which I disapprove.
- John F. Kennedy
Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict, Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease". Disraeli replied, "That all depends, sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."
- David Letterman
Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.
-Unknown
Calvin: People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.
Hobbes: Isn't your pants' zipper supposed to be in the front?
- From Calvin and Hobbes
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Maenan
Teman dekat gue sewaktu kuliah ( ; ) ) menyelipkan pesan diantara kadonya, dia bilang berapapun umur gue, kayaknya gue cocok2 aja dikasih maenan. Huh? Jadi maksud loe gue orangnya gak serius/gak dewasa/gak mateng asem garem kehidupan? Bzzzz. Bzzzz.
Tapi gue ngerti kok, maksud loe gue suka maen2 kaaan, masih gampang ditipu pake maenan kaaaan…
Kalo dipikir2, emang kali yah, itu kenapa gue jarang ngechat atau ngapain2 di internet pas pulang ke rumah, itu kenapa gue cuman mau ngadep2an ama computer untuk maen atau nonton filem. Kalo namanya ngebrowse2/ ngechat di rumah kok malesssssssssssh kecuali kalo malem2 udah iseng kadang2 gue online buat ngobrol.
Tapi gue udah lama gak maen game computer lho….! Padahal dua bulanan yang lalu, gue punya 6 game baru! Enam! Gak tanggung2, semuanya original…gileeeee…nurut gak tuh…tapi benernya itu juga obralan abis2an dan gara2 guenya bolot.
Gue beli Soldier, ngarepin ini sama dengan game favorit gue Commandos 1, 11/2, 2 dan 3 yang belom ada versi selanjutnya, so kudu nyari pengganti. Karena lagi sale lumayan sadis gue beli aja…, cuman begitu dimaenin, baru misi pertama, kurang asik ya…mungkin gara2 belom nguasain. Habisnya kalo di Commandos ada karakter beneran, bisa nyolong macem2 senjata buat ngebrodol atau ambush lawan, trus harus menyusun strategi gerilya dll, kalo ini gak ada karakter khusus dan repotttt. Lari dikit stamina turun, kalo terluka nembaknya ngaco, emang sih realistis, tapi capeeee ngurusin banyak bener…mungkin asik nanti kalo udah biasa…untuk sementara tinggal dulu deh..
Trus gue ketipu harga soal game2 laen, salah pembagian dan perkalian (stu---?), akibatnya beli, emang sih harganya gak gitu mahal, tapi gamenya juga rada kacangan gitu. Cold zone, ceritanya mata2 keren, tapi babak belur melulu gue digebugin atau ditembakin gara2 masih bolot, trus Circus Tycoon lumayan iseng2, tapi hang melulu, trus yang rese banget Mall Tycoon yang gak jelas dan boring.
Yang laen, yg gak asli tentunya, Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, males banget gara2 interfacenya diganti 3d, emang terbelakang, tapi gue ogah maen game2an 3d, bikin pusing aja, jadi segala tembak2an, Counter Strike, House of The Dead dll cuman asik kalo dimaenin di Time Zone. Trus yang kayak Prince of Persia juga males bener, pernah coba maen Tomb Raider, alhasil gue muter2 disatu petak, loncat, matahin kaki, loncat, matahin tangan, loncat lagi, muter muter muter ampe mabok. Tapi buat balepan, gue pernah suka Need For Speed.
Maenan perang2an, oke juga..dulu maen AOE 1 sampe begadang, padahal harus bikin skripsi. Maen AOE 2 dikantor batam, gak tanggung2, network 6 komputer kita maen pas jam kantor. Orang gak ada kerjaan…itu jadi rutinitas sehari2. Selaen maen computer, kita juga maen segala macem buat ngabishin waktu, Uno, Kartu, maenan2 Flash yang lucu2, atau bahkan bikin acara Teve kayak Piramida. Ha…
Ohya AOE 3 juga udah keluar, 3d tapi gak terlalu musingin, beserta temen2nya Age of Mythology, Empire of The Earth, tapi gitu deh, bosen juga…
The Sims. Dulu waktu masih yang versi lama, sempet download2in barang aneh2 dan baju bunyuak banget. Dari yang mukanya hitam dicampur ama badan putih ampe barang yang bisa bikin rumahnya disamperin 30 orang pengantar pizza. Atau minuman ajaib yang bisa bikin kondisi perfect. Waktu ganti ke Sims 2, sempet males, tapi ternyata perkembangannya lumayan ok, bisa ngawinin Vampire sama Alien, bikin anak warna warni, bikin duda empat anak dari bini yang beda2, punya anak kembar dll. Cuman sayangnya gamenya gak ada goal dan cepet bosen. Waktu kompinya direformat, hilang deh turun temurun koloni gue. He….. Ohya, gue juga ada nyoba game yang setipe Sims2 yang mungkin agak2 jorok, Singles 1 & 2. Tapi udah lumayan lama gue maenin, gak jorok2 juga…,malah ngurusin orang makan dan kerja mulu, males lagi…
Maenan murah meriah juga ada, tiap ada nemu, gue suka guntingin Sudoku (sp?) puzzle di koran2, kalo TTS sini males, gak bisa! Dulu sering beli TTS murah meriah segepok, trus diisi rame2 dikantor.
Kalo soal boneka, sekarang udah berhasil gak mau beli boneka lagi, udah nyebelin lama2 kepenuhan tempat tidurnya, tiap mau tidur harus dilempar2 semua kebawah, kan gak sopan kaki anjing maenan ada dimuka gue tengah malem. Tapi kalo figurine, masih ngoleksi, syaratnya ukurannya harus dibawah 5 centi. Tapi itu juga gak gitu serius, kalo mahal, ogah. Cuman benernya gue punya keinginan buat bikin diorama mini yang isinya army figurine yang amat sangat detail, ada paratrooper, navy seal, commandos dll, cuman mahalnya gak kira2, kalo gue punya selosin ginjal mungkin boleh gue jual satu2. Cuman detailnya itu lho, yang bikin asik dan gak nahan, keren banget. Nanti deh kalo menang lotere…
Emang kalo yang namanya miniature, demen berat, soalnya lucu2. Dulu paman gue di ndeso bikinin gue panci2an, bagus banget jadinya, cuman hilang pas pindahan. Waktu manjat disalah satu daerah yang mulai dari Ci…Ci..apa gitu, gue dikasih pemanjat tebing laen Besi 8 miniatur yang lucu banget, tapi gara2 gue kantongin terus pas celana dicuci, lupa disimpan, akhirnya diambil ama anaknya tukang cuci. Udah itu tanpa dosa lagi, “Oh…besi kecil butut itu ya…Itu saya kasihin anak saya si Penjul, tau deh udah dibawa kemana…dibuang kali…”
Waktu temen yang sama ngasih gue miniature ruangan2 yang dibikin dan diceplok ke frame, gue juga demen, sekarang gue punya 12 box belom dibikin, soalnya gak ada tempat buat majang yang gak debuan, yang udah jadi enam biji. Mungkin hobi ginian itu genetic, nyokap juga suka bantuin bikin2 yang enggak2, bahkan kita dulu sama2 begadang bikin souvenir kawinan gue, berapa ya…tiga ratus biji…mungkin gue cocok kali jadi buruh pabrik…
Kalo soal baju, mungkin nightmarenya cewek2 itu kalo bajunya sama dengan cewek laen..gue pernah sekali samaan baju sama cewek laen, tapi biasa aja tuh, gak panic, masing2 saling tatap dan mikir “Jelek loe” “Jelekan eloe” “Loe yang jelek” “Monyet loe” “Monyetan juga eloe” dsb dsb…
Cuman masalahnya gue seringnya bajunya samaan dengan cowok, kayak versi cowok ceweknya kemeja, kemaren aja ada yang percis, cuman beda gender. Yang lebih fatal lagi, pernah samaan dengan anak umur tiga tahun. Emang gue ngaku, itu kaosnya buat anak2 yang ukurannya bongsor, Disney gitu, belinya juga ditoko anak2. Trus suatu hari dimall ketemu anak yang bajunya sama, gile langsung minta pulang. Tengsin lah….
Okay, yang lebih tengsin, minggu kemaren ada anak2 girang gak sopan nunjuk2 ‘bagian depan’ kaos gue sambil tereak2, “Mama! Mama! Siaw Ting Tang! Siaw Ting Tang!”
Siaw Ting Tang itu bahasa mandarin buat Doraemon.
Waktu ke zoo oz, gue ngeliat ada bando berkuping koala, berhubung emang gue lagi nyari bando, dan bandonya bagus dan lucu karena ada kuping koala, berdasarkan asas fungsional, gue beli dong.. Tapi hasilnya ya itu, ternyata, pas dipake, betuuuul, gue jadi kayak koalaaaa…….
__________________________________________________________________________________
Grow-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Seriousness is stupidity sent to college.
- P. J. O’Rouke
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.-- Eric Hoffer
You can only be young once but you can be immature forever.
- Dave Barry
When I was a boy the Dead Sea was only sick.
- George Burns.
Well I was bullied at school, called all kinds of different names. But one day I turned to my bullies and said - 'Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me', and it worked! From there on it was sticks and stones all the way.
- Harry Hill
Tapi gue ngerti kok, maksud loe gue suka maen2 kaaan, masih gampang ditipu pake maenan kaaaan…
Kalo dipikir2, emang kali yah, itu kenapa gue jarang ngechat atau ngapain2 di internet pas pulang ke rumah, itu kenapa gue cuman mau ngadep2an ama computer untuk maen atau nonton filem. Kalo namanya ngebrowse2/ ngechat di rumah kok malesssssssssssh kecuali kalo malem2 udah iseng kadang2 gue online buat ngobrol.
Tapi gue udah lama gak maen game computer lho….! Padahal dua bulanan yang lalu, gue punya 6 game baru! Enam! Gak tanggung2, semuanya original…gileeeee…nurut gak tuh…tapi benernya itu juga obralan abis2an dan gara2 guenya bolot.
Gue beli Soldier, ngarepin ini sama dengan game favorit gue Commandos 1, 11/2, 2 dan 3 yang belom ada versi selanjutnya, so kudu nyari pengganti. Karena lagi sale lumayan sadis gue beli aja…, cuman begitu dimaenin, baru misi pertama, kurang asik ya…mungkin gara2 belom nguasain. Habisnya kalo di Commandos ada karakter beneran, bisa nyolong macem2 senjata buat ngebrodol atau ambush lawan, trus harus menyusun strategi gerilya dll, kalo ini gak ada karakter khusus dan repotttt. Lari dikit stamina turun, kalo terluka nembaknya ngaco, emang sih realistis, tapi capeeee ngurusin banyak bener…mungkin asik nanti kalo udah biasa…untuk sementara tinggal dulu deh..
Trus gue ketipu harga soal game2 laen, salah pembagian dan perkalian (stu---?), akibatnya beli, emang sih harganya gak gitu mahal, tapi gamenya juga rada kacangan gitu. Cold zone, ceritanya mata2 keren, tapi babak belur melulu gue digebugin atau ditembakin gara2 masih bolot, trus Circus Tycoon lumayan iseng2, tapi hang melulu, trus yang rese banget Mall Tycoon yang gak jelas dan boring.
Yang laen, yg gak asli tentunya, Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, males banget gara2 interfacenya diganti 3d, emang terbelakang, tapi gue ogah maen game2an 3d, bikin pusing aja, jadi segala tembak2an, Counter Strike, House of The Dead dll cuman asik kalo dimaenin di Time Zone. Trus yang kayak Prince of Persia juga males bener, pernah coba maen Tomb Raider, alhasil gue muter2 disatu petak, loncat, matahin kaki, loncat, matahin tangan, loncat lagi, muter muter muter ampe mabok. Tapi buat balepan, gue pernah suka Need For Speed.
Maenan perang2an, oke juga..dulu maen AOE 1 sampe begadang, padahal harus bikin skripsi. Maen AOE 2 dikantor batam, gak tanggung2, network 6 komputer kita maen pas jam kantor. Orang gak ada kerjaan…itu jadi rutinitas sehari2. Selaen maen computer, kita juga maen segala macem buat ngabishin waktu, Uno, Kartu, maenan2 Flash yang lucu2, atau bahkan bikin acara Teve kayak Piramida. Ha…
Ohya AOE 3 juga udah keluar, 3d tapi gak terlalu musingin, beserta temen2nya Age of Mythology, Empire of The Earth, tapi gitu deh, bosen juga…
The Sims. Dulu waktu masih yang versi lama, sempet download2in barang aneh2 dan baju bunyuak banget. Dari yang mukanya hitam dicampur ama badan putih ampe barang yang bisa bikin rumahnya disamperin 30 orang pengantar pizza. Atau minuman ajaib yang bisa bikin kondisi perfect. Waktu ganti ke Sims 2, sempet males, tapi ternyata perkembangannya lumayan ok, bisa ngawinin Vampire sama Alien, bikin anak warna warni, bikin duda empat anak dari bini yang beda2, punya anak kembar dll. Cuman sayangnya gamenya gak ada goal dan cepet bosen. Waktu kompinya direformat, hilang deh turun temurun koloni gue. He….. Ohya, gue juga ada nyoba game yang setipe Sims2 yang mungkin agak2 jorok, Singles 1 & 2. Tapi udah lumayan lama gue maenin, gak jorok2 juga…,malah ngurusin orang makan dan kerja mulu, males lagi…
Maenan murah meriah juga ada, tiap ada nemu, gue suka guntingin Sudoku (sp?) puzzle di koran2, kalo TTS sini males, gak bisa! Dulu sering beli TTS murah meriah segepok, trus diisi rame2 dikantor.
Kalo soal boneka, sekarang udah berhasil gak mau beli boneka lagi, udah nyebelin lama2 kepenuhan tempat tidurnya, tiap mau tidur harus dilempar2 semua kebawah, kan gak sopan kaki anjing maenan ada dimuka gue tengah malem. Tapi kalo figurine, masih ngoleksi, syaratnya ukurannya harus dibawah 5 centi. Tapi itu juga gak gitu serius, kalo mahal, ogah. Cuman benernya gue punya keinginan buat bikin diorama mini yang isinya army figurine yang amat sangat detail, ada paratrooper, navy seal, commandos dll, cuman mahalnya gak kira2, kalo gue punya selosin ginjal mungkin boleh gue jual satu2. Cuman detailnya itu lho, yang bikin asik dan gak nahan, keren banget. Nanti deh kalo menang lotere…
Emang kalo yang namanya miniature, demen berat, soalnya lucu2. Dulu paman gue di ndeso bikinin gue panci2an, bagus banget jadinya, cuman hilang pas pindahan. Waktu manjat disalah satu daerah yang mulai dari Ci…Ci..apa gitu, gue dikasih pemanjat tebing laen Besi 8 miniatur yang lucu banget, tapi gara2 gue kantongin terus pas celana dicuci, lupa disimpan, akhirnya diambil ama anaknya tukang cuci. Udah itu tanpa dosa lagi, “Oh…besi kecil butut itu ya…Itu saya kasihin anak saya si Penjul, tau deh udah dibawa kemana…dibuang kali…”
Waktu temen yang sama ngasih gue miniature ruangan2 yang dibikin dan diceplok ke frame, gue juga demen, sekarang gue punya 12 box belom dibikin, soalnya gak ada tempat buat majang yang gak debuan, yang udah jadi enam biji. Mungkin hobi ginian itu genetic, nyokap juga suka bantuin bikin2 yang enggak2, bahkan kita dulu sama2 begadang bikin souvenir kawinan gue, berapa ya…tiga ratus biji…mungkin gue cocok kali jadi buruh pabrik…
Kalo soal baju, mungkin nightmarenya cewek2 itu kalo bajunya sama dengan cewek laen..gue pernah sekali samaan baju sama cewek laen, tapi biasa aja tuh, gak panic, masing2 saling tatap dan mikir “Jelek loe” “Jelekan eloe” “Loe yang jelek” “Monyet loe” “Monyetan juga eloe” dsb dsb…
Cuman masalahnya gue seringnya bajunya samaan dengan cowok, kayak versi cowok ceweknya kemeja, kemaren aja ada yang percis, cuman beda gender. Yang lebih fatal lagi, pernah samaan dengan anak umur tiga tahun. Emang gue ngaku, itu kaosnya buat anak2 yang ukurannya bongsor, Disney gitu, belinya juga ditoko anak2. Trus suatu hari dimall ketemu anak yang bajunya sama, gile langsung minta pulang. Tengsin lah….
Okay, yang lebih tengsin, minggu kemaren ada anak2 girang gak sopan nunjuk2 ‘bagian depan’ kaos gue sambil tereak2, “Mama! Mama! Siaw Ting Tang! Siaw Ting Tang!”
Siaw Ting Tang itu bahasa mandarin buat Doraemon.
Waktu ke zoo oz, gue ngeliat ada bando berkuping koala, berhubung emang gue lagi nyari bando, dan bandonya bagus dan lucu karena ada kuping koala, berdasarkan asas fungsional, gue beli dong.. Tapi hasilnya ya itu, ternyata, pas dipake, betuuuul, gue jadi kayak koalaaaa…….
__________________________________________________________________________________
Grow-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Seriousness is stupidity sent to college.
- P. J. O’Rouke
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.-- Eric Hoffer
You can only be young once but you can be immature forever.
- Dave Barry
When I was a boy the Dead Sea was only sick.
- George Burns.
Well I was bullied at school, called all kinds of different names. But one day I turned to my bullies and said - 'Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me', and it worked! From there on it was sticks and stones all the way.
- Harry Hill
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Sadako and 1000 Paper Cranes
SADAKO Sasaki was only two years old when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. On that day, she was a mere two kilometers away from where the bomb exploded. Most of Sadako's neighbors died, but Sadako wasn't injured at all, or so it seemed. Up until the time Sadako was in the seventh grade (1955) she appeared to be a normal, happy young girl.
One day Sadako became so dizzy that she fell down and couldn’t get up. All of her school-mates informed the teacher who contacted her parents. Later Sadako’s parents took her to the Red Cross Hospital to see what was wrong with her.
Doctors performed many tests and discovered that Sadako had a kind of blood cancer called leukemia. Nobody could believe it. At that time, leukemia was called the
“A-bomb disease”. Almost everyone who got this disease died, and Sadako was very scared. She wanted to go back to school, but she had to stay in the hospital.
One day, Sadako's best friend, Chizuko, came to visit her and brought with her some origami (folding paper). She told Sadako the legend of the crane.
It is Japanese legend that folding 1000 cranes (senzaburu) so pleases the gods that the folder is granted a wish. Sadako wished to get well. So, after hearing the legend, Sadako decided to fold 1,000 cranes.
Sadako's family worried about her a lot. They often came to visit her in hospital to talk to her and to help her fold cranes. After she folded 500 cranes she felt better and the doctors said she could go home for a short time, but by the end of the first week back home the dizziness and fatigue returned and she had to return to the hospital.
Sadako continued to fold cranes. Even though she was in great pain, she tried to be cheerful and hopeful. Not long afterwards, with her family standing by her bed, Sadako went to sleep peacefully, never to wake up again. She had folded a total of 644 paper cranes.
Sadako's story had a profound impact on her friends and classmates. They completed her thousand cranes and continued to raise money from school children all over Japan to build a statue to honor Sadako and all the children affected by the bomb.
Every year, children from around the world fold cranes and send them to Hiroshima where they are placed around the statue. Because of Sadako, the paper crane has become an international symbol of peace and well wishes.
This is our cry.
This is our prayer.
Peace in the world.
One day Sadako became so dizzy that she fell down and couldn’t get up. All of her school-mates informed the teacher who contacted her parents. Later Sadako’s parents took her to the Red Cross Hospital to see what was wrong with her.
Doctors performed many tests and discovered that Sadako had a kind of blood cancer called leukemia. Nobody could believe it. At that time, leukemia was called the
“A-bomb disease”. Almost everyone who got this disease died, and Sadako was very scared. She wanted to go back to school, but she had to stay in the hospital.
One day, Sadako's best friend, Chizuko, came to visit her and brought with her some origami (folding paper). She told Sadako the legend of the crane.
It is Japanese legend that folding 1000 cranes (senzaburu) so pleases the gods that the folder is granted a wish. Sadako wished to get well. So, after hearing the legend, Sadako decided to fold 1,000 cranes.
Sadako's family worried about her a lot. They often came to visit her in hospital to talk to her and to help her fold cranes. After she folded 500 cranes she felt better and the doctors said she could go home for a short time, but by the end of the first week back home the dizziness and fatigue returned and she had to return to the hospital.
Sadako continued to fold cranes. Even though she was in great pain, she tried to be cheerful and hopeful. Not long afterwards, with her family standing by her bed, Sadako went to sleep peacefully, never to wake up again. She had folded a total of 644 paper cranes.
Sadako's story had a profound impact on her friends and classmates. They completed her thousand cranes and continued to raise money from school children all over Japan to build a statue to honor Sadako and all the children affected by the bomb.
Every year, children from around the world fold cranes and send them to Hiroshima where they are placed around the statue. Because of Sadako, the paper crane has become an international symbol of peace and well wishes.
This is our cry.
This is our prayer.
Peace in the world.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Ann-other Moon-day
It’s a Monday. There are at least 52 Mondays in a year, about 1/7 of the year are Mondays. But yet, it feels like…hum…blow your nostril big and lift up the left side of your lips…naaah…
But, there are Mondays that I like. None of them happens when I work. When I was out there in holiday. I liked to think At this times, my colleagues are doing this. The office would feel like this…while I was jumping up and down somewhere, or Mondays when I couldn’t wait to go back to school to meet that particular guys…mmmhemhemehem…
So yesterday I managed to buy a pretty plastic bag for my thousands birds, the project is getting seriously done. I have slowed down for the last weekday, and skipped on weekend, because it amazingly gave me quite a big deal of headache. But now I have eight hundred and forty one birds, I want to finish them before Wednesday, before the one in my wish go to another session of chemo.
Saturday night, we went out to meet James and gang for an outing, regarding his new diving forum. We went together with Leo. The outing was held in a pub, something I hardly understand, pub is noisy….! When we went in, I had a hard time catching my breath. It was awfully smelly, smoke, beer, air-con, and terrible karaoke voices. Don’t laugh, but pub is not my place. I might enjoy going to café with (good) live music once on a while, but pub with all the drunk and smelly chap and ugly voice, maybe I’m too old for that. Ha…
After socializing for a while, we went and sat outside, ordering some finger food in next-door eatery, in a while, some others joined us too.
From my past posts, I wrote about those crazy emails with who and who rich people in the world who has trouble finding somebody to inherit their treasure and wealth (Can you actually believe that!?) and tell us that we are the one! Strangely, these few days alone I have received four different emails in my other anonymous email accounts.
Let’s see
Amoz Zongo from Bank of Africa has ten millions US for me.
Mekus Bamba from Abidjan Cote D'ivoire wants to share his parent’s 22,5 millions US.
Dave Yorke from UK said he has HUGE funds, doesn’t wish to disclose it for the moment and asks me to email him to the ‘confidential’ email, lasting with @mail2world and @yahoo.co.uk.
Aniemeta Peter from Ghana has gold mining company with 250kg gold dust.
I strongly suspect that they must be together, because they all got my email in the same time. *Don’t they think that I will confuse about which fortune I choose to take?*
I have more interesting story to share. Hubby’s colleague, a Russian, received a call from neighborhood police or something that his neighbor complained seeing him naked. He woke up in the middle of the night, thirsty and decided to grab a drink in the kitchen. Like me, living in the packed apartment, I don’t have a problem seeing nose-digging neighbor, that means his neighbor wouldn’t have difficulty figuring out what and what is what.
Apparently, his neighbor didn’t like what they saw *My eyes! My eyes!* so they decided to call police. Mphhh…..the matter should rest here, but that crazy fellow wanted to do some operation payback, so he called back and complained that he had been called in the middle of the night and disturbed by it. He was thirsty and too sleepy to put on thing, so he didn’t see what was the big deal that he had to be waken up again to receive a complain call.
Few years back, my friend also told us the same story. He and his flatmates, females and males, found Singapore too hot and for their own convenience, stripped up to bikinis and did their household activities normally, before they got a knock on the door to ask them to dress up.
Shouldn’t the neigbors are the ones who have to be sued because they are peeping to other’s house?
Jump.
Nail biting, pillow chewing, finally I finished watching 24 season four! Exciting! Now I’m crunching waiting for season five. Watched Japanese movie Umizaru for a change, it was good, although some part are unbelievable. But for unbelievable factors, nothing beats Into The Blue. Huh. And for boring factor, I will nominate Broken Flower with Transamerica comes next. I thought these two movies are good, I was waiting for the show but like that, half-baked.
Talking about baking, I found my new favorite, baked rice. Ho-hum-hum.
___________________________________________________________________________________
If you can't convince them, confuse them.
- Harry S. Truman
Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.
- Voltaire
I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.
- Lily Tomlin
I've been accused of vulgarity. I say that's bullshit.
- Mel Brooks
If you believe everything you read, you better not read.
- Japanese Proverb
But, there are Mondays that I like. None of them happens when I work. When I was out there in holiday. I liked to think At this times, my colleagues are doing this. The office would feel like this…while I was jumping up and down somewhere, or Mondays when I couldn’t wait to go back to school to meet that particular guys…mmmhemhemehem…
So yesterday I managed to buy a pretty plastic bag for my thousands birds, the project is getting seriously done. I have slowed down for the last weekday, and skipped on weekend, because it amazingly gave me quite a big deal of headache. But now I have eight hundred and forty one birds, I want to finish them before Wednesday, before the one in my wish go to another session of chemo.
Saturday night, we went out to meet James and gang for an outing, regarding his new diving forum. We went together with Leo. The outing was held in a pub, something I hardly understand, pub is noisy….! When we went in, I had a hard time catching my breath. It was awfully smelly, smoke, beer, air-con, and terrible karaoke voices. Don’t laugh, but pub is not my place. I might enjoy going to café with (good) live music once on a while, but pub with all the drunk and smelly chap and ugly voice, maybe I’m too old for that. Ha…
After socializing for a while, we went and sat outside, ordering some finger food in next-door eatery, in a while, some others joined us too.
From my past posts, I wrote about those crazy emails with who and who rich people in the world who has trouble finding somebody to inherit their treasure and wealth (Can you actually believe that!?) and tell us that we are the one! Strangely, these few days alone I have received four different emails in my other anonymous email accounts.
Let’s see
Amoz Zongo from Bank of Africa has ten millions US for me.
Mekus Bamba from Abidjan Cote D'ivoire wants to share his parent’s 22,5 millions US.
Dave Yorke from UK said he has HUGE funds, doesn’t wish to disclose it for the moment and asks me to email him to the ‘confidential’ email, lasting with @mail2world and @yahoo.co.uk.
Aniemeta Peter from Ghana has gold mining company with 250kg gold dust.
I strongly suspect that they must be together, because they all got my email in the same time. *Don’t they think that I will confuse about which fortune I choose to take?*
I have more interesting story to share. Hubby’s colleague, a Russian, received a call from neighborhood police or something that his neighbor complained seeing him naked. He woke up in the middle of the night, thirsty and decided to grab a drink in the kitchen. Like me, living in the packed apartment, I don’t have a problem seeing nose-digging neighbor, that means his neighbor wouldn’t have difficulty figuring out what and what is what.
Apparently, his neighbor didn’t like what they saw *My eyes! My eyes!* so they decided to call police. Mphhh…..the matter should rest here, but that crazy fellow wanted to do some operation payback, so he called back and complained that he had been called in the middle of the night and disturbed by it. He was thirsty and too sleepy to put on thing, so he didn’t see what was the big deal that he had to be waken up again to receive a complain call.
Few years back, my friend also told us the same story. He and his flatmates, females and males, found Singapore too hot and for their own convenience, stripped up to bikinis and did their household activities normally, before they got a knock on the door to ask them to dress up.
Shouldn’t the neigbors are the ones who have to be sued because they are peeping to other’s house?
Jump.
Nail biting, pillow chewing, finally I finished watching 24 season four! Exciting! Now I’m crunching waiting for season five. Watched Japanese movie Umizaru for a change, it was good, although some part are unbelievable. But for unbelievable factors, nothing beats Into The Blue. Huh. And for boring factor, I will nominate Broken Flower with Transamerica comes next. I thought these two movies are good, I was waiting for the show but like that, half-baked.
Talking about baking, I found my new favorite, baked rice. Ho-hum-hum.
___________________________________________________________________________________
If you can't convince them, confuse them.
- Harry S. Truman
Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.
- Voltaire
I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.
- Lily Tomlin
I've been accused of vulgarity. I say that's bullshit.
- Mel Brooks
If you believe everything you read, you better not read.
- Japanese Proverb
Friday, March 17, 2006
Kalo Dipikirin
Kalau dipikir2, hidup ini aneh. Kadang2 berasa singkat, kadang puanjuang, kadang rese, kadang indah.
Kalo lagi gak pake mikir2 soal kehidupan, gue berkesimpulan, gue agak lapar, nih.
Di meja banyak kue-kue. Ada kue dari temen gue yang baru habis jalan2 dari Langkawi. Bukan kue, tapi biskuit gitu2an deh, gile mana tahan kue dibawa saban2 hari. Biasa kalo orang habis jalan2, bawa oleh2. Gue dapet gantungan kecil buku kecil yang lucu, semua cewek di kantor, cuman tiga, dapet itu, yang cowok2 dapetnya pasir di botol. Padahal pasir lebih asik ya, kan gue ngoleksi..,bisa tepu2 orang yang liat koleksi gue kalo gue (pernah) jalan2 di Langkawi juga.. tapi pas gue protes maunya pasir aja, kayaknya temen gue ngeliatin dengan muka agak tersinggung. Weh, gue udah spesial2 pilihin yang laen buat cewek2, maunya yang kodian.. So, gak jadi deh. Belagak senang aja. Aman.
Trus ada kue buat perpisahan, temen gue bakal cabut hari ini. Hiks sroot sroot pret…berarti tinggal dua biji, minggu lalu udah cabut satu, jadi temen makan gue yang gelo2 tinggal dua biji cowok. Udah itu yang cabut hari ini mau ke Bali, katanya mau diving sehari ke Tulamben.
Wah! Mata gue kayak ditusuk2 saking siriknya, (pernah gak berasa mata kanannya ditusuk pas minum kopi?Ajaibnya kalo orang kidal berasa ketusuknya disebelah kiri. Tapi kalo minum kopi di Starbuck gak apa2 soalnya sendoknya udah diangkat) tapi gue berjiwa patriot meeen! Ditengah2 keirian, gue kasih peta Bali gue yang ada voucher diskon sana sini :p sama tadi gue printin log book, dia lupa bawa. Gue printin 10 biji, guenya ngeprint 45 biji, kesempataaan, punya gue juga udah habis. Trus gue juga kasih dia special akses ke blog foto2 Bali gue, tentu saja, foto doang….
Kapan seh potong kuenya? Ngapain aja kunyuk2 tersebut masih pada kerja?
Ya begitulah, seminggu dua minggu ini hidup gue berubah banyak.
Salah satu, forum favorit gue, yang isinya sama2 nerdy yang suka nulis2 cerita, ditutup, padahal gue banyak temen disitu, aneh, gituan bisa bikin gue sedih. Udah itu ada temen gue yang anaknya lagi minggat. Dasar anak jelek nyusahin orang tua. Jadi kita semua pada bantuin, bantuinnya ya gitu, lewat dukungan, support, namanya juga orang2 yang gak pernah ketemu muka, tapi jutsru gue ngerasa deket ama mereka.
So, kita semua sedih pas forumnya ditutup! Apalagi buat yang udah lama gak nongol..terutama satu temen deket yang katanya lagi mengidap kanker…gimenong gue teong kalo dia (masih)… |”(
Tapi, akhirnya semua yang deket2 pindah bareng, ada salah satu anggota yang bikin enclosed forum, so gak hancur2 banget deh, cuman karena anggotanya gak sebebas dulu lagi, gak bisa ngencingin anak baru lagi…ops…
So, gue lagi picking up mood gue lagieee! Apalagi kemaren udah pergi2 akhir minggu, rasanya bener2 beda habis nyemplung sebentar.
Di kantor gue lagi banyak isu yang enggak2, gue tadinya gak bisa nyuekin, tapi lama2 udah sebodo teing dengerin gosip2 siapa yang pergi, yang ini, yang itu. Tiap kali temen gue udah negative ngomong yang bisa bikin khawatir, gue cuek aja makannya banyakan.
Kemaren ketemu temen lama dari Jakarta. Not feeling well tapi gak enak udah janji ketemu. Temen ini cerewetnya setengah mati, sebel setengah sebel gue sadar juga kalo ini makhluk emang mereknya kayak gitu dari dulu. Cuman gak tahan amat deh ngomongnya seriusan amat udah kayak bapak2…ha…moga2 dia gak baca…biar kata gue udah nyela depan idung, gue mau nyela lagi seandainya loe baca…tambah gendut, tambah item (gue tau gue juga ;p) en pantes deh jadi gubernur kalo pake baju safari!
Yahooo..mau motong kue dulu…
-
Good bye is always hard for me. I’m cursed with that. Snif.
___________________________________________________________________________________
I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, you can't prove anything.
- Bart Simpson
I don't like people who talk for no reason, but I really like dialogue between people who aren't listening to each other.
- Raymond Carver
Did you ever walk in a room and forget why you walked in? I think that's how dogs spend their lives.
- Sue Murphy
You can tell German wine from vinegar by the label.
- Mark Twain
Yield to temptation; it may not pass your way again.
- Lazarus Long
Kalo lagi gak pake mikir2 soal kehidupan, gue berkesimpulan, gue agak lapar, nih.
Di meja banyak kue-kue. Ada kue dari temen gue yang baru habis jalan2 dari Langkawi. Bukan kue, tapi biskuit gitu2an deh, gile mana tahan kue dibawa saban2 hari. Biasa kalo orang habis jalan2, bawa oleh2. Gue dapet gantungan kecil buku kecil yang lucu, semua cewek di kantor, cuman tiga, dapet itu, yang cowok2 dapetnya pasir di botol. Padahal pasir lebih asik ya, kan gue ngoleksi..,bisa tepu2 orang yang liat koleksi gue kalo gue (pernah) jalan2 di Langkawi juga.. tapi pas gue protes maunya pasir aja, kayaknya temen gue ngeliatin dengan muka agak tersinggung. Weh, gue udah spesial2 pilihin yang laen buat cewek2, maunya yang kodian.. So, gak jadi deh. Belagak senang aja. Aman.
Trus ada kue buat perpisahan, temen gue bakal cabut hari ini. Hiks sroot sroot pret…berarti tinggal dua biji, minggu lalu udah cabut satu, jadi temen makan gue yang gelo2 tinggal dua biji cowok. Udah itu yang cabut hari ini mau ke Bali, katanya mau diving sehari ke Tulamben.
Wah! Mata gue kayak ditusuk2 saking siriknya, (pernah gak berasa mata kanannya ditusuk pas minum kopi?Ajaibnya kalo orang kidal berasa ketusuknya disebelah kiri. Tapi kalo minum kopi di Starbuck gak apa2 soalnya sendoknya udah diangkat) tapi gue berjiwa patriot meeen! Ditengah2 keirian, gue kasih peta Bali gue yang ada voucher diskon sana sini :p sama tadi gue printin log book, dia lupa bawa. Gue printin 10 biji, guenya ngeprint 45 biji, kesempataaan, punya gue juga udah habis. Trus gue juga kasih dia special akses ke blog foto2 Bali gue, tentu saja, foto doang….
Kapan seh potong kuenya? Ngapain aja kunyuk2 tersebut masih pada kerja?
Ya begitulah, seminggu dua minggu ini hidup gue berubah banyak.
Salah satu, forum favorit gue, yang isinya sama2 nerdy yang suka nulis2 cerita, ditutup, padahal gue banyak temen disitu, aneh, gituan bisa bikin gue sedih. Udah itu ada temen gue yang anaknya lagi minggat. Dasar anak jelek nyusahin orang tua. Jadi kita semua pada bantuin, bantuinnya ya gitu, lewat dukungan, support, namanya juga orang2 yang gak pernah ketemu muka, tapi jutsru gue ngerasa deket ama mereka.
So, kita semua sedih pas forumnya ditutup! Apalagi buat yang udah lama gak nongol..terutama satu temen deket yang katanya lagi mengidap kanker…gimenong gue teong kalo dia (masih)… |”(
Tapi, akhirnya semua yang deket2 pindah bareng, ada salah satu anggota yang bikin enclosed forum, so gak hancur2 banget deh, cuman karena anggotanya gak sebebas dulu lagi, gak bisa ngencingin anak baru lagi…ops…
So, gue lagi picking up mood gue lagieee! Apalagi kemaren udah pergi2 akhir minggu, rasanya bener2 beda habis nyemplung sebentar.
Di kantor gue lagi banyak isu yang enggak2, gue tadinya gak bisa nyuekin, tapi lama2 udah sebodo teing dengerin gosip2 siapa yang pergi, yang ini, yang itu. Tiap kali temen gue udah negative ngomong yang bisa bikin khawatir, gue cuek aja makannya banyakan.
Kemaren ketemu temen lama dari Jakarta. Not feeling well tapi gak enak udah janji ketemu. Temen ini cerewetnya setengah mati, sebel setengah sebel gue sadar juga kalo ini makhluk emang mereknya kayak gitu dari dulu. Cuman gak tahan amat deh ngomongnya seriusan amat udah kayak bapak2…ha…moga2 dia gak baca…biar kata gue udah nyela depan idung, gue mau nyela lagi seandainya loe baca…tambah gendut, tambah item (gue tau gue juga ;p) en pantes deh jadi gubernur kalo pake baju safari!
Yahooo..mau motong kue dulu…
-
Good bye is always hard for me. I’m cursed with that. Snif.
___________________________________________________________________________________
I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, you can't prove anything.
- Bart Simpson
I don't like people who talk for no reason, but I really like dialogue between people who aren't listening to each other.
- Raymond Carver
Did you ever walk in a room and forget why you walked in? I think that's how dogs spend their lives.
- Sue Murphy
You can tell German wine from vinegar by the label.
- Mark Twain
Yield to temptation; it may not pass your way again.
- Lazarus Long
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Proyek Seribu Burung
Gua lagi sibuk…bikin proyek seribu burung.
Konon ada cerita kalo bikin seribu burung origami bisa mengharapkan kesembuhan buat seseorang. Proyek ini udah berjalan seminggu, gara2 akhir minggu gak sempat, baru jadi enam ratus tujuh puluh satu burung. Tinggal tiga ratus dua puluh sembilan lagi, lumayan, mata berkunang2 dan tangan berlistrik, sekarang tantangan selanjutnya adalah mencari wadahnya, ternyata biar burungnya kecil2, buanyak buanget jadinya...toples gede aja cuman muat 200 biji, sisanya masih di tiga kantong plastik dan gawatnya belom dikembangin burungnya, jadi masih ceper2.
Kok percaya gituan...yah mendingan dicoba, kalo namanya ada niat, it counts. Belom tau gimana ngasih ke orangnya soalnya malu deng..., mana gak gitu kenal, bisa2 gue diketawain habis2an. Namanya juga resiko kehidupan. Weishh....
Makin tambah umur kayaknya hidup makin warna warni, makin banyak masalah dan ternyata jadi orang dewasa kagak enak. Dulu pernah nanya temen, dulu pengen jadi apa sih dan bener gak jadinya begitu? Jawaban gue sih pengen jadi petani (sumpah itu cita2 pertama gue, mulia gak tuh...:p) trus astronot, masih pengen tapi naek pontang panting di dufan aja mabok, janjian jadi suster sama temen2 sma, satu jadi, gue merid satu lagi hampir punya anak,...
kalo sekarang ditanya gue maunya bertualang aja he he he itu sih monyet juga mau...
Tapi yang asik jawaban temen gue yang sudah bangkotan, 56 taon, katanya dia dari kecil pengennya terus jadi kecil, pengalaman hidup dia cukup menjawab kenapa dia pengen begitu...
Gitu kali yah...asik ya...yang dipikirin sebelom tidur adalah gimana cara membalas ngejitak kepala anak tetangga dan bikin kumis di gambar kepala sekolah...yang harus dihitung cuman jumlah gundu yang kerlap kerlip kayak planet atau tompel nenek-nenek. Yang dikhawatirin cuman kalo ulangan Sejarah dapet lima ke bawah bakal dijedotin guru kepapan tulis...sumpah guru gue gitu...untung gue dapet lima cuman sekali, temen gue dijedotin kepapan tulis, digeplak pake sepatu, digampar ama dicubit pake kuku, he, kalo dipikir2...guru monyong itu perlu dilaporin ke child abuse kali...!
Begitulah..begitulah.....
Kalo punya waktu...doain ya proyek gue berhasil..
*****
"How many people here have telekenetic powers? Raise my hand."
- Emo Philips
Konon ada cerita kalo bikin seribu burung origami bisa mengharapkan kesembuhan buat seseorang. Proyek ini udah berjalan seminggu, gara2 akhir minggu gak sempat, baru jadi enam ratus tujuh puluh satu burung. Tinggal tiga ratus dua puluh sembilan lagi, lumayan, mata berkunang2 dan tangan berlistrik, sekarang tantangan selanjutnya adalah mencari wadahnya, ternyata biar burungnya kecil2, buanyak buanget jadinya...toples gede aja cuman muat 200 biji, sisanya masih di tiga kantong plastik dan gawatnya belom dikembangin burungnya, jadi masih ceper2.
Kok percaya gituan...yah mendingan dicoba, kalo namanya ada niat, it counts. Belom tau gimana ngasih ke orangnya soalnya malu deng..., mana gak gitu kenal, bisa2 gue diketawain habis2an. Namanya juga resiko kehidupan. Weishh....
Makin tambah umur kayaknya hidup makin warna warni, makin banyak masalah dan ternyata jadi orang dewasa kagak enak. Dulu pernah nanya temen, dulu pengen jadi apa sih dan bener gak jadinya begitu? Jawaban gue sih pengen jadi petani (sumpah itu cita2 pertama gue, mulia gak tuh...:p) trus astronot, masih pengen tapi naek pontang panting di dufan aja mabok, janjian jadi suster sama temen2 sma, satu jadi, gue merid satu lagi hampir punya anak,...
kalo sekarang ditanya gue maunya bertualang aja he he he itu sih monyet juga mau...
Tapi yang asik jawaban temen gue yang sudah bangkotan, 56 taon, katanya dia dari kecil pengennya terus jadi kecil, pengalaman hidup dia cukup menjawab kenapa dia pengen begitu...
Gitu kali yah...asik ya...yang dipikirin sebelom tidur adalah gimana cara membalas ngejitak kepala anak tetangga dan bikin kumis di gambar kepala sekolah...yang harus dihitung cuman jumlah gundu yang kerlap kerlip kayak planet atau tompel nenek-nenek. Yang dikhawatirin cuman kalo ulangan Sejarah dapet lima ke bawah bakal dijedotin guru kepapan tulis...sumpah guru gue gitu...untung gue dapet lima cuman sekali, temen gue dijedotin kepapan tulis, digeplak pake sepatu, digampar ama dicubit pake kuku, he, kalo dipikir2...guru monyong itu perlu dilaporin ke child abuse kali...!
Begitulah..begitulah.....
Kalo punya waktu...doain ya proyek gue berhasil..
*****
"How many people here have telekenetic powers? Raise my hand."
- Emo Philips
Triggerfish Weekend
PULAU DAYANG, 10-12 March 2006
Finally, the monsoon is over in west Malaysia, diving season is open again.
It was a bit weird to prepare the gear all over again, we were getting unfamiliar and the packing was done slower than usual, the most unfamiliar thing was the burden on the shoulder from the heavy bag.
Joshua’s shop is located in quite unfriendly area for MRT riders. From office, I needed to take train, walk, change train and walk again. When the office time ended on Friday, boss and few guests were sitting near the exit. So I had to smuggle my bag to the receptionist through other exit, changed to short and slippers and off I went.
It was the high tide season, so we didn’t need to go through the suffering of small-to-big-boat transferring. We could see that the monsoon hadn’t really left yet, the water was choppy, rocking the boat left and right, sending some of us kneeling on the boat side. Without pills, I wouldn’t be spared either. The most uncomfortable moment was when we had to go up to the boat after dives. The water would hit and carried us below the boat’s rear deck. When we kicked and got ourselves beside the boat ladder again, we had to fight with the wave to ditch the weight belt and fins before we got carried down again. It was bloody tiring and highly nauseous. It made me regret doing the night dive, drift night diving, choppy exit from the water and lost appetite for dinner because of the rocky feeling and nauseous.
And more, the water was cooooold! We had never experience Dayang to be this cold before, the temperature clocked as 27 Celsius underwater, most of us were wearing 0.5mm only or just some short and rash guard, so we were shivering as the body heat lost twenty five times faster underwater. On the surface, as the wind was strong, wet clothes and hot tea didn’t help. We also had cold night on the boat and the diver’s lodge. They didn’t provide blanket, so most of us needed to make do with what we had. We had travel blanket to share, Cynthia had sleeping bag, Leo had sarong, while Froggie needed to dissemble a bed sheet for cover.
For the dives, uhm… Bali really had spoilt the market, and we didn’t really had chance to enjoy it with the lesson tasks in hand. But it sure felt good to feel the underwater world again, flying, weightless and free. Dayang’s coral was quite badly damaged, I thought after the monsoon, we would see some improvement, but apparently it looked worse than usual. We hardly see school of fish anymore, and for the whole weekend, we didn’t see the usual yellowtail school of barracuda, we even only encountered one Napoleon humphead, while usually we could see two or three and sometimes a small school. We also didn’t see giant barracuda, and even nemos or clown fish were not as many as usual.
But for comparison, first dive day, we had 100% encounter with cuttlefish, solitary and group. It reminded me of my first encounter exactly a year before in the same time, they were seen right after the monsoon and would be rare for the rest of the season. Cuttlefish season, Feb-March, hm? Different with some mid year encounter, at two occasions, the cuttlefish after the monsoon were quite friendly; they allowed us to go very near them and some even approached with curiosity. Once, when we were near enough, one opened its tentacle and we could see the mouth moving left and right. We wondered whether it was a friendly movement or readiness to shot, so Cynthia, who was the closest at that time, retracted back.
We found more type of nudibranch than usual, and from what we learned in Bali, we were able to spot more things, crab form the sea feather, shrimp on the sea whips. We knew we could find some thing below the sea cucumber, but none of us were keen to pick them up. They looked gigantic and slimy, with the thought of they like to spray the sticky white thingy for defense, we chose to leave them alone.
The other encounter, Gosh, was Titan triggerfish. I must say that was the most memorable time. We were attacked by three different titans in ONE DIVE which was the first dive. By the time we started to descend, I was facing Hubby, when we reached about ten meters, I saw a titan raced with high speed to his direction. Quickly I signaled him and he turned his back on time. On the event of triggerfish attack, we had to swim backward and let the trigger attacked the fins. The characteristic of this territorial fellow, the solitary one like titan would highly attack if they were on the mating season. We know it’s dangerous when they stay still with eyes move suspiciously. When they attack, they would hit once, swim back, make a U turn, and attack from different angle.
The first attack Hubby encountered could be faced by the theory. He let it attacked the fin while swim backward as fast as he could, the rest of us also swim backward until the trigger stopped attacking which means we were out of its territory already.
Gosh, that was the hottest welcome of the year!
Before we could log into the memory about bragging the escape later, another titan was waiting for us. That time it was the most unbelievable, it attacked with high speed that we hardly had time to face it with fins. Hubby was the main target again, the titan banged on his fins, made U turn, banged again, U turn, banged etc…. It was ******* long that both of us were loosing our breath, apparently this particular titan had a very very big territory. Usually after we swim away for about some time, the titan would stop attacking. But this one, chased us for about ten minutes plus and kept attacking from different angles. Hubby baited it with one fin while another leg was ready to switch to any available defense position, and slapped back when there was no other option available.
Hubby outran me, and I thought, “Shit, I’m next.” The titan swam toward me, banged on my fins, though for a while, “Hey, this one tastes different.” And chose Hubby’s fins again.
We were bloody exhausted, so that was how it felt to pant underwater through regulator. Finally, after going horizontal, vertical, anywhere, it stopped. This Bloody King Titan, you think all the water is yours, hah?!
We were bad mouthing the Titan with hand signal. After a while, it was time to do safety stop. For a strange reason, Hubby had a feeling that he would met another Titan, so he breathed carefully and tried not to waste his air as he was left with only 50 bar. Sure enough, he felt something was knocking on his fins, at first he thought it was me or Cynthia, then he looked to the right and found Cynthia, looked to the left and found me, but the knocking kept going on. He turned his back and there was another Titan Triggerfish trying to bite his fins off. Again, it was chase and run, he signaled me and Cynthia, when I turned my back, I saw the Titan frontally, it was chasing with super full war spirit and swam with high speed. Again??!! So it was marathon time, yes, again.
From tired, angry, fed up, I had to roll my eyes and laughed while busy cursing and swearing in my mind. What are the odds? So this was the welcome of the year, indeed. And we agreed that Hubby’s fins must had some kind of attractive factor to triggerfish, and the three culprits were connected to each other to form a gang-bang.
We did our courses after the dives. Joshua chose the times we least expected. When we were on the safety stop, he suddenly turned unconscious on the surface. We towed him to the.. bloody far away boat, half way, we stopped the exercise and we were having the luxury being towed by the Open Water students. Aother scenario, we had to shout for Froggie who was with another group and on the boat already. He had to gear up and jumped. When he reached Joshua, he was underwater already.
Another time, on the safety stop, he finned further away from us, and then suddenly, both Hubby and Froggie were chasing to his direction, I thought there was another triggerfish, then realize, another scenario, Froggie signaled me to wait on the surface, they lifted him up and we towed him back with rescue breathing exercise together.
On the boat back, it was hot but windy. It was nice to sit on the back of the boat and saw the emerald green water from under the boat being break into milky white and mixed with the blue. Sometimes we could see dolphins on the horizon, but not this time. When we almost reached Mersing jetty, the boat was stuck in the mud, so everyone moved to the front deck until the boat freed itself. Four of us except Cynthia stood and enjoyed the sun on the deck until we parked the boat. It was unlike standing on the Titanic, but small-almost-broken-wooden dive boat, however it still had a nice feeling, poetically, moving with the wind, while the sky and the sea were the limit. We enjoyed the moment quietly, few minutes only, and we gained back the red barbeque color.
It was a tiring weekend, with evidence of body aches and strained muscles. Even the jaws are tired, unknown whether it’s because of biting regulator, laughing or chewing gum. Chewing gum is prohibited in Singapore, of course we have to maximize it when we are in Malaysia or another country.
Despite the physical problem, it was sure fun as a good gathering with friends and getaway from the city.
Until next trip.
Favorite quote repeated:
The cure for anything is saltwater: sweat, tears, or the sea.
~Isak Dinesen
Finally, the monsoon is over in west Malaysia, diving season is open again.
It was a bit weird to prepare the gear all over again, we were getting unfamiliar and the packing was done slower than usual, the most unfamiliar thing was the burden on the shoulder from the heavy bag.
Joshua’s shop is located in quite unfriendly area for MRT riders. From office, I needed to take train, walk, change train and walk again. When the office time ended on Friday, boss and few guests were sitting near the exit. So I had to smuggle my bag to the receptionist through other exit, changed to short and slippers and off I went.
It was the high tide season, so we didn’t need to go through the suffering of small-to-big-boat transferring. We could see that the monsoon hadn’t really left yet, the water was choppy, rocking the boat left and right, sending some of us kneeling on the boat side. Without pills, I wouldn’t be spared either. The most uncomfortable moment was when we had to go up to the boat after dives. The water would hit and carried us below the boat’s rear deck. When we kicked and got ourselves beside the boat ladder again, we had to fight with the wave to ditch the weight belt and fins before we got carried down again. It was bloody tiring and highly nauseous. It made me regret doing the night dive, drift night diving, choppy exit from the water and lost appetite for dinner because of the rocky feeling and nauseous.
And more, the water was cooooold! We had never experience Dayang to be this cold before, the temperature clocked as 27 Celsius underwater, most of us were wearing 0.5mm only or just some short and rash guard, so we were shivering as the body heat lost twenty five times faster underwater. On the surface, as the wind was strong, wet clothes and hot tea didn’t help. We also had cold night on the boat and the diver’s lodge. They didn’t provide blanket, so most of us needed to make do with what we had. We had travel blanket to share, Cynthia had sleeping bag, Leo had sarong, while Froggie needed to dissemble a bed sheet for cover.
For the dives, uhm… Bali really had spoilt the market, and we didn’t really had chance to enjoy it with the lesson tasks in hand. But it sure felt good to feel the underwater world again, flying, weightless and free. Dayang’s coral was quite badly damaged, I thought after the monsoon, we would see some improvement, but apparently it looked worse than usual. We hardly see school of fish anymore, and for the whole weekend, we didn’t see the usual yellowtail school of barracuda, we even only encountered one Napoleon humphead, while usually we could see two or three and sometimes a small school. We also didn’t see giant barracuda, and even nemos or clown fish were not as many as usual.
But for comparison, first dive day, we had 100% encounter with cuttlefish, solitary and group. It reminded me of my first encounter exactly a year before in the same time, they were seen right after the monsoon and would be rare for the rest of the season. Cuttlefish season, Feb-March, hm? Different with some mid year encounter, at two occasions, the cuttlefish after the monsoon were quite friendly; they allowed us to go very near them and some even approached with curiosity. Once, when we were near enough, one opened its tentacle and we could see the mouth moving left and right. We wondered whether it was a friendly movement or readiness to shot, so Cynthia, who was the closest at that time, retracted back.
We found more type of nudibranch than usual, and from what we learned in Bali, we were able to spot more things, crab form the sea feather, shrimp on the sea whips. We knew we could find some thing below the sea cucumber, but none of us were keen to pick them up. They looked gigantic and slimy, with the thought of they like to spray the sticky white thingy for defense, we chose to leave them alone.
The other encounter, Gosh, was Titan triggerfish. I must say that was the most memorable time. We were attacked by three different titans in ONE DIVE which was the first dive. By the time we started to descend, I was facing Hubby, when we reached about ten meters, I saw a titan raced with high speed to his direction. Quickly I signaled him and he turned his back on time. On the event of triggerfish attack, we had to swim backward and let the trigger attacked the fins. The characteristic of this territorial fellow, the solitary one like titan would highly attack if they were on the mating season. We know it’s dangerous when they stay still with eyes move suspiciously. When they attack, they would hit once, swim back, make a U turn, and attack from different angle.
The first attack Hubby encountered could be faced by the theory. He let it attacked the fin while swim backward as fast as he could, the rest of us also swim backward until the trigger stopped attacking which means we were out of its territory already.
Gosh, that was the hottest welcome of the year!
Before we could log into the memory about bragging the escape later, another titan was waiting for us. That time it was the most unbelievable, it attacked with high speed that we hardly had time to face it with fins. Hubby was the main target again, the titan banged on his fins, made U turn, banged again, U turn, banged etc…. It was ******* long that both of us were loosing our breath, apparently this particular titan had a very very big territory. Usually after we swim away for about some time, the titan would stop attacking. But this one, chased us for about ten minutes plus and kept attacking from different angles. Hubby baited it with one fin while another leg was ready to switch to any available defense position, and slapped back when there was no other option available.
Hubby outran me, and I thought, “Shit, I’m next.” The titan swam toward me, banged on my fins, though for a while, “Hey, this one tastes different.” And chose Hubby’s fins again.
We were bloody exhausted, so that was how it felt to pant underwater through regulator. Finally, after going horizontal, vertical, anywhere, it stopped. This Bloody King Titan, you think all the water is yours, hah?!
We were bad mouthing the Titan with hand signal. After a while, it was time to do safety stop. For a strange reason, Hubby had a feeling that he would met another Titan, so he breathed carefully and tried not to waste his air as he was left with only 50 bar. Sure enough, he felt something was knocking on his fins, at first he thought it was me or Cynthia, then he looked to the right and found Cynthia, looked to the left and found me, but the knocking kept going on. He turned his back and there was another Titan Triggerfish trying to bite his fins off. Again, it was chase and run, he signaled me and Cynthia, when I turned my back, I saw the Titan frontally, it was chasing with super full war spirit and swam with high speed. Again??!! So it was marathon time, yes, again.
From tired, angry, fed up, I had to roll my eyes and laughed while busy cursing and swearing in my mind. What are the odds? So this was the welcome of the year, indeed. And we agreed that Hubby’s fins must had some kind of attractive factor to triggerfish, and the three culprits were connected to each other to form a gang-bang.
We did our courses after the dives. Joshua chose the times we least expected. When we were on the safety stop, he suddenly turned unconscious on the surface. We towed him to the.. bloody far away boat, half way, we stopped the exercise and we were having the luxury being towed by the Open Water students. Aother scenario, we had to shout for Froggie who was with another group and on the boat already. He had to gear up and jumped. When he reached Joshua, he was underwater already.
Another time, on the safety stop, he finned further away from us, and then suddenly, both Hubby and Froggie were chasing to his direction, I thought there was another triggerfish, then realize, another scenario, Froggie signaled me to wait on the surface, they lifted him up and we towed him back with rescue breathing exercise together.
On the boat back, it was hot but windy. It was nice to sit on the back of the boat and saw the emerald green water from under the boat being break into milky white and mixed with the blue. Sometimes we could see dolphins on the horizon, but not this time. When we almost reached Mersing jetty, the boat was stuck in the mud, so everyone moved to the front deck until the boat freed itself. Four of us except Cynthia stood and enjoyed the sun on the deck until we parked the boat. It was unlike standing on the Titanic, but small-almost-broken-wooden dive boat, however it still had a nice feeling, poetically, moving with the wind, while the sky and the sea were the limit. We enjoyed the moment quietly, few minutes only, and we gained back the red barbeque color.
It was a tiring weekend, with evidence of body aches and strained muscles. Even the jaws are tired, unknown whether it’s because of biting regulator, laughing or chewing gum. Chewing gum is prohibited in Singapore, of course we have to maximize it when we are in Malaysia or another country.
Despite the physical problem, it was sure fun as a good gathering with friends and getaway from the city.
Until next trip.
Favorite quote repeated:
The cure for anything is saltwater: sweat, tears, or the sea.
~Isak Dinesen
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Movie Grumbling
Again, I failed to catch The Constant Gardener. After switching three cinemas last weekend, I prepared myself with proper schedule this time. Arrived five minutes before the show, the ticker seller told me that they only had the movie on alternate days. Yes, I got my information from yesterday paper. But, what are the odds? Grmbl… I don’t even know whether the movie is worth the chase.
So I watched Transamerica instead, in other cinema. It’s funny how people here locate which movie plays in which theater. Transamerica was in my ‘To Watch List’ so I was happy enough. But geeeee, the movie was boring. Boring. Boring. It has unique and brave idea, and that’s it. The characters are plain, the pace are painfully slow and flat. If you read the synopsis in the mag or news, be prepared to watch something exactly like that but dragged for almost two hours. The other grmbl thing, the cinema was packed, and almost everyone was laughing like crazy for cliché jokes and something repetitive. It made me wince.
Compared to About Shcmitz,
think,
A man in process to be a woman but finds out the truth that he has a son from the past who was arrested for gay prostitute, and
A life of a retiree.
Doh? Can see which one is supposed to be boring?
But About Schmitz character was so richly developed and the movie offered surprises that connect warmly to our own life. It was able to grow from a mere bland topic.
Was it only me? No…. Even without comparing, I’m sure Transamerica is only scratching the surface.
Ugh, I dedicated a post to bad mouth a movie. I was in with too high expectation maybe, and lost a few nerves and screws by the time I was watching it. You decide.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Your chances of getting hit by lightning go up if you stand under a tree, shake your fist at the sky, and say, "Storms suck!"
- Johnny Carson
If you try to please everybody, nobody will like it.
- Unknown
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
- Oscar Wilde
So I watched Transamerica instead, in other cinema. It’s funny how people here locate which movie plays in which theater. Transamerica was in my ‘To Watch List’ so I was happy enough. But geeeee, the movie was boring. Boring. Boring. It has unique and brave idea, and that’s it. The characters are plain, the pace are painfully slow and flat. If you read the synopsis in the mag or news, be prepared to watch something exactly like that but dragged for almost two hours. The other grmbl thing, the cinema was packed, and almost everyone was laughing like crazy for cliché jokes and something repetitive. It made me wince.
Compared to About Shcmitz,
think,
A man in process to be a woman but finds out the truth that he has a son from the past who was arrested for gay prostitute, and
A life of a retiree.
Doh? Can see which one is supposed to be boring?
But About Schmitz character was so richly developed and the movie offered surprises that connect warmly to our own life. It was able to grow from a mere bland topic.
Was it only me? No…. Even without comparing, I’m sure Transamerica is only scratching the surface.
Ugh, I dedicated a post to bad mouth a movie. I was in with too high expectation maybe, and lost a few nerves and screws by the time I was watching it. You decide.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Your chances of getting hit by lightning go up if you stand under a tree, shake your fist at the sky, and say, "Storms suck!"
- Johnny Carson
If you try to please everybody, nobody will like it.
- Unknown
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
- Oscar Wilde
Cruelty To Animals
Where is the world when exams are the biggest problems?
Every one is forced to grow up; some face it faster, the others later. Eventually, there are times when everything is not a color by rainbow and answers to questions, but being forced to face complexity of life and learn how to accept things that don’t go to our way, and that everything is fragile. Is it time for me to stand in the corner, wear a spectacle, eat properly and nod my head when I read newspaper? Is it the time when I’m being afraid of climbing high because of my calculation of risk, when anybody playing around me is noisy and useless?
But, being a grown-up doesn’t mean not playful anymore.
In fact, imho, it’s one of the ways to survive.
Survive the craziness of life! YEAH! Yeah! YEAH! Crap.
Noisy and useless? There are some. Last week, we boarded a train and heard this ring tone. I think it’s an old Nokia ring tone that sounds like Kitaro’s style of music. At first, we paid no attention to it, but because it kept ringing, we located the owner. She sat still with eyes closed and callllm face just like those Butongs or Shaolins in meditation. I wondered why she could sleep hearing that and whether somebody needed to tell her about the ‘miskol’. Then the music stop, she opened her eyes, pressed few buttons and the ring tone echoed around the train again. I stared with disbelief, so did many people. She repeated it again, again, again. Every time she replayed the music, she went into meditation mode. Ten minutes and I started to ask Hubby to bail me out from jail if anything happened to her. I think the stares got hotter and hotter, and the train was getting packed, she finally plugged into earphone.
Hey, Lady Kunyuk. Why didn’t you bugger off earlier?! Soumpruet!
And those ‘You think you are funkeh kind of person’ who likes to choose ring tones in public, or plays game with maximum sound. Without bulletproof vest and rubber skin, you better not. It’s hot bloodedly annoying. And do check the earphone before you use it in public. Some earphones have same specification with speaker, they broadcast you songs out loud instead of isolating the sound.
So do screaming children. Hey, lock them up! Or teach them how to control themselves; being cute doesn’t help when they start to scream like mad. One time, I was having a ten out of ten toothache, feeling nauseous and had swollen face. Few kids were playing chase and run and scream in the train and bumped into me. One by one. If I had the power…whosh Super Sanya Tiga! Anak-anak monyet, gue bor gigi loe!
So many anak monyet, kunyuk nyebelin dan sompret2 jahanam.
Saw news this morning, about somebody who dug out a kitten’s eye. Damn it, this people. Once I saw a dog, his upper quarter of head, I swear, was chopped off. So he walked around with flat head covered with blood. Or the one who visit my aunt’s house, half of its snout was hanging out from its face. Sometimes it’s sickening about how human think that they have right to abuse animal and get away with it.
I bullied my pet too, not abusing but playing. One time I tied plastic bags on my dog’s feet, and they got confused as they couldn’t sense the floor and walked funnily. Or played hide and seek but went watching TV when it was my turn to search. But from my experiences, it’s not easy to bully a dog. They are always friendly and forgiving and their understanding look makes it hard to do. While for cat, they are funnily tricky. When I woke my cat and pinched her cheeks every time she slept, she was pissed off, then she hid behind a wall and jumped to surprise me when I passed by. The funny thing, she could pick up signs to play. If I acted suspicious, pretended to be a spy, she would chase after me. For dogs, no matter what, they would come, spin the tails restlessly and put their front leg on the knees with puppy eyes.
They are smart and loving, nobody should harm them for fun.
In Jakarta few weeks ago, I went to wet market with Mom and Sis-in-law. I always like to go wet market, as long as I’m the ‘carrier’ not the ‘bargainer’. It’s just fun to see this simple activity, people get busy, fresh veggie and good price, and at the end of the hunting, we would grab some jajanan pasar.
The market I went was nice, clean and neat, unlike most of Indonesian’s wet market. And inside, everything is type coordinated, row of eggs seller, meat, veggie, and in between the corner, there are fashion shop, jewelry (!), toys, quite weird.
While strolling around happily, I walked by a fish row. Then I saw it. People were selling catfish/lele, they put the catfish in one-meter square ceramic, with no water. So every one of the catfish was flapping and swiveling around themselves. When a customer came to buy, the chosen fish was put in a black plastic bag, and the seller would hit them with a stick. Bang! Bang! Bang! Followed by a sickening thud.
Doh.
Not that I hadn’t seen that before.
When I first introduced to roadside pecel lele, I ordered and the cook grabbed one from the bucket and banged the catfish’s head into the edge of the bucket. I stood there speechless, lucky that time, I ordered for someone else.
In supermarket, those with live fish display, when my Bro chose a Gurame, the seller fished it out and banged it into the wall.
Bang, still flapping.
BANG! Not dead.
BANG BANG BANG! A little bit of movement.
It was put on the chopping board, THUD, hit with the side of the big knife.
All the way home, I disturbed my Bro, “Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!” He was also quite shock, but he did enjoy the gurame, so did I.
I won’t go to the street or parade in the boat holding “Save The Whales” board, haven’t into that level, but I do wish that people treat animal better. It’s true that we need to kill them in order to eat them, and they are delicious, only some type of killing made me wince.
Roadside catfish, ‘wall-ed’ gurame, uhm, I can’t think of many other ways. But to put the catfish together in packed area, without water is cruelty. Fish can survive very long without water, in agony. It’s like put human, packed, in the room and fill the room with water, with enough head room to breathe but not shallow enough to stand, some environment that’s not suitable with our internal organs. The difference, it’s how long the time and how much suffering you need to be dead.
They are not human, but they do have senses. They scared, fear, feel and build up adrenalin too. There are many articles about that.
Makes me remember what my crazy nun teacher taught me,
If you tied a dragonfly and made it flies like a kite, it’s a sin.
If you deep fried the dragonfly, and eat it for dinner, it’s fine.
Maybe it’s the easy way to differentiate, but sure, it doesn’t work for everything.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Sharkfin makes you impotent. Spread the words.
- From a public forum.
Monica Seles: I'd hate to be next door to her on her wedding night.
- Peter Ustinov.
In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on.
- Robert Frost
My mom was a ventriloquist and she always was throwing her voice. For ten years I thought the dog was telling me to kill my father.
- Wendy Leibman
So one day as a kid I was at the local Zoo. I was bored and kept pestering my Dad to go and play. Eventually he agreed, took me over to the lion enclosure, threw me in and said: "There ya go, play dead..."
- Robert Paul
A positive attitude will not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
- Herm Albright.
I never eat sushi. I have trouble eating things that are merely unconscious.
- George Carlin
I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead. Not sick, not wounded, dead.
- Woody Allen
Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect.
- Steven Wright
Every one is forced to grow up; some face it faster, the others later. Eventually, there are times when everything is not a color by rainbow and answers to questions, but being forced to face complexity of life and learn how to accept things that don’t go to our way, and that everything is fragile. Is it time for me to stand in the corner, wear a spectacle, eat properly and nod my head when I read newspaper? Is it the time when I’m being afraid of climbing high because of my calculation of risk, when anybody playing around me is noisy and useless?
But, being a grown-up doesn’t mean not playful anymore.
In fact, imho, it’s one of the ways to survive.
Survive the craziness of life! YEAH! Yeah! YEAH! Crap.
Noisy and useless? There are some. Last week, we boarded a train and heard this ring tone. I think it’s an old Nokia ring tone that sounds like Kitaro’s style of music. At first, we paid no attention to it, but because it kept ringing, we located the owner. She sat still with eyes closed and callllm face just like those Butongs or Shaolins in meditation. I wondered why she could sleep hearing that and whether somebody needed to tell her about the ‘miskol’. Then the music stop, she opened her eyes, pressed few buttons and the ring tone echoed around the train again. I stared with disbelief, so did many people. She repeated it again, again, again. Every time she replayed the music, she went into meditation mode. Ten minutes and I started to ask Hubby to bail me out from jail if anything happened to her. I think the stares got hotter and hotter, and the train was getting packed, she finally plugged into earphone.
Hey, Lady Kunyuk. Why didn’t you bugger off earlier?! Soumpruet!
And those ‘You think you are funkeh kind of person’ who likes to choose ring tones in public, or plays game with maximum sound. Without bulletproof vest and rubber skin, you better not. It’s hot bloodedly annoying. And do check the earphone before you use it in public. Some earphones have same specification with speaker, they broadcast you songs out loud instead of isolating the sound.
So do screaming children. Hey, lock them up! Or teach them how to control themselves; being cute doesn’t help when they start to scream like mad. One time, I was having a ten out of ten toothache, feeling nauseous and had swollen face. Few kids were playing chase and run and scream in the train and bumped into me. One by one. If I had the power…whosh Super Sanya Tiga! Anak-anak monyet, gue bor gigi loe!
So many anak monyet, kunyuk nyebelin dan sompret2 jahanam.
Saw news this morning, about somebody who dug out a kitten’s eye. Damn it, this people. Once I saw a dog, his upper quarter of head, I swear, was chopped off. So he walked around with flat head covered with blood. Or the one who visit my aunt’s house, half of its snout was hanging out from its face. Sometimes it’s sickening about how human think that they have right to abuse animal and get away with it.
I bullied my pet too, not abusing but playing. One time I tied plastic bags on my dog’s feet, and they got confused as they couldn’t sense the floor and walked funnily. Or played hide and seek but went watching TV when it was my turn to search. But from my experiences, it’s not easy to bully a dog. They are always friendly and forgiving and their understanding look makes it hard to do. While for cat, they are funnily tricky. When I woke my cat and pinched her cheeks every time she slept, she was pissed off, then she hid behind a wall and jumped to surprise me when I passed by. The funny thing, she could pick up signs to play. If I acted suspicious, pretended to be a spy, she would chase after me. For dogs, no matter what, they would come, spin the tails restlessly and put their front leg on the knees with puppy eyes.
They are smart and loving, nobody should harm them for fun.
In Jakarta few weeks ago, I went to wet market with Mom and Sis-in-law. I always like to go wet market, as long as I’m the ‘carrier’ not the ‘bargainer’. It’s just fun to see this simple activity, people get busy, fresh veggie and good price, and at the end of the hunting, we would grab some jajanan pasar.
The market I went was nice, clean and neat, unlike most of Indonesian’s wet market. And inside, everything is type coordinated, row of eggs seller, meat, veggie, and in between the corner, there are fashion shop, jewelry (!), toys, quite weird.
While strolling around happily, I walked by a fish row. Then I saw it. People were selling catfish/lele, they put the catfish in one-meter square ceramic, with no water. So every one of the catfish was flapping and swiveling around themselves. When a customer came to buy, the chosen fish was put in a black plastic bag, and the seller would hit them with a stick. Bang! Bang! Bang! Followed by a sickening thud.
Doh.
Not that I hadn’t seen that before.
When I first introduced to roadside pecel lele, I ordered and the cook grabbed one from the bucket and banged the catfish’s head into the edge of the bucket. I stood there speechless, lucky that time, I ordered for someone else.
In supermarket, those with live fish display, when my Bro chose a Gurame, the seller fished it out and banged it into the wall.
Bang, still flapping.
BANG! Not dead.
BANG BANG BANG! A little bit of movement.
It was put on the chopping board, THUD, hit with the side of the big knife.
All the way home, I disturbed my Bro, “Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!” He was also quite shock, but he did enjoy the gurame, so did I.
I won’t go to the street or parade in the boat holding “Save The Whales” board, haven’t into that level, but I do wish that people treat animal better. It’s true that we need to kill them in order to eat them, and they are delicious, only some type of killing made me wince.
Roadside catfish, ‘wall-ed’ gurame, uhm, I can’t think of many other ways. But to put the catfish together in packed area, without water is cruelty. Fish can survive very long without water, in agony. It’s like put human, packed, in the room and fill the room with water, with enough head room to breathe but not shallow enough to stand, some environment that’s not suitable with our internal organs. The difference, it’s how long the time and how much suffering you need to be dead.
They are not human, but they do have senses. They scared, fear, feel and build up adrenalin too. There are many articles about that.
Makes me remember what my crazy nun teacher taught me,
If you tied a dragonfly and made it flies like a kite, it’s a sin.
If you deep fried the dragonfly, and eat it for dinner, it’s fine.
Maybe it’s the easy way to differentiate, but sure, it doesn’t work for everything.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Sharkfin makes you impotent. Spread the words.
- From a public forum.
Monica Seles: I'd hate to be next door to her on her wedding night.
- Peter Ustinov.
In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on.
- Robert Frost
My mom was a ventriloquist and she always was throwing her voice. For ten years I thought the dog was telling me to kill my father.
- Wendy Leibman
So one day as a kid I was at the local Zoo. I was bored and kept pestering my Dad to go and play. Eventually he agreed, took me over to the lion enclosure, threw me in and said: "There ya go, play dead..."
- Robert Paul
A positive attitude will not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
- Herm Albright.
I never eat sushi. I have trouble eating things that are merely unconscious.
- George Carlin
I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead. Not sick, not wounded, dead.
- Woody Allen
Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect.
- Steven Wright
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