Monday, December 17, 2007

My Grown-Up Christmas List

what can I say.. I still like these lyrics the most,
it's still the same wish,.



do you remember me?
i sat upon your knee
i wrote to you with childhood fantasies
well I'm all grown up now
can you still help somehow?
i'm not a child but my heart still can dream

so here's my lifeful wish
my grown up Christmas List
not for myself
but for a world in need

no more lives torn apart
that wars will never start
and time will heal our hearts
every man will have a friend
that right will always win
and love will never end
this is my grown up Christmas List

why does this illusion call the innocence of you?
maybe only in our blind belief can we ever find the truth

this is my grown up Christmas list
this is my only lifelong wish



Simplified version by Michael Bubble

How To Be Greeny...

There are maybe not many things better than having a good cold long shower in the afternoon. Shioook.

I wish people can still do that in the future. Too bad there are a lot of good things that might disappear, as everybody starts to take note.

I have contributed to the waste of resources but I have some defense, ugh..? My defense is I have been feeling guilty of it for a long time, since not many people are really care about it or make it into a Hollywood movie. Not to throw plastic bag away is one of my pathetic way, use it for rubbish or if not, fold it and keep it for another use. It’s quite tedious, because it piles up. We didn’t cook everyday and not cooking is definitely one of the ways not to use many plastic bags.
The other thing is the water. Having long bath also makes me feel guilty, although I don’t do it too often and I tried to use water economically when washing dishes etc.
But I’m really guilty in consuming energy for air conditioning, it can get bloody hot here and aircon is my ultimate friend at night, another main reason is also because my bedroom is located so close to opposite block that there’s really not privacy at all even for ..uh…nose digging for example. But we use friendly temperature that so called can help electricity aka energy, for selfish purpose of course, pay less for bill.

Food waste, it’s scary to know maybe food source like seafood will vanish in short time. Blame the documentary channel; we kept stumbling through tuna hunting program that lead to the fear of their extinction. It’s really not pretty to see those big fish being caught on the net and then whacked and dragged to the boat by big metal hooks. It sucks, but on the other hand, Japanese food is also our favorite food.
It’s indeed hard to imagine the comparison of number of fish caught and consumed everyday with the number they are in the ocean. So far, big school of fish are not common sight except in well-known national park. Naturally it’s correct that big fish and schooling fish like sardine and tuna are mostly found in open sea, but even so, it’s depleting real fast. Maybe in the future, I won’t see dolphin following the big boat in the open sea anymore, or flying fish accompany the journey.

Chinese culture is quite horrible. Shark fin is for festive and celebration and social status. Turtle soup and egg is good food. Napoleon Wrasse lips is expensive delicacy. Dried sea horse or even Tiger testicle are believed to have miracle sexual effects.

Back then, sometimes we had shark fin soup for New Year reunion dinner, but since everybody, actually me, started roaming around, we missed a couple of reunion dinner. When we finally get back to gather again on New Year, we have left out the dish. I’m not really sure why, but I don’t think it’s because of my nagging also. Or is it? Actually I didn’t nag, sometime ago I just declared like a stubborn old lady that I don’t want to eat shark’s fin anymore. It’s horrible to see how the fishermen slaughter the shark to get its fins. They catch the shark, pull them half out of the water, slash dorsal, pectoral, tail or whatever fins and throw them back to water. I also saw the gory picture of a diving site with the reef, full of dead finless sharks. Some of them had their stomach open, with their dead shark babies inside, finless too. Documentary.

It’s kind of funny actually when I told my dad not to buy shark’s fin again. It’s not easy to explain things that I saw on paper on TV to parents, sometime language barrier (I don’t know all vocabularies from my mother tongue) but it might not really difficult also once they believe that I’m not just another annoying preacher. But my dad first reaction was, Why? We eat sharks, because shark is bad, shark is mean and like to eat people. So I have to explain again that actually bla bla that is what the bloody writer of Jaws tried to put and succeeded. Having been roaming the jungles for almost three decades, maybe he has seen more animals than what I’ve seen in documentary, so perhaps it’s easier for him to believe me.

But I guess it’s not so easy to help the environment, at least for the time being.
At the very least, everybody has started to talk about this global warming thingy without being associated with church member standing on the front door or talking to you in the public and try to spoon fed some believes to bystanders.
Shops has taken action also, although I’m still fail to see how serious they are. Big shops are selling recycle bag for shopping purpose. But the things is, it’s sold at a price. How difficult is it for the people to choose between going home with free plastic bag than have to pay for the bag.. Even if they charge for the plastic bag, they have more purpose on the marketing side rather than for environment. If only they can distribute the bag for free, to avoid recycle bag opportunists, they can give it for free maybe if you buy certain amount of things or do it some other ways. The company can advertise on the bag and everybody carrying it around will help the marketing! Two flies at one go?

It’s also quite dilemmatic to do something good. For example, we like to use kitchen towel for cleaning the messy table after dinner. Spray, wipe and throw. But then it’s a waste of paper although that is exactly the purpose of kitchen towel, but if we use the washable cloth, we also contribute waste as detergent and we also use more water to wash the cloth! Hm?
Also, sometimes there are still a lot of weird methods to do things against wasting unnecessary resources. For example, some of my lecturers demand us to do our assignment one page for each paper, instead of front and back, or skip a line for every line written in the exam. Some stupid variety shows are wasting food for game. Some streets are really really ‘overlighted’ that it burns our scalps. Some goverment demands money from others to take care of their own forests..And so on, and so on..

Perhaps, as long as everything is done and consumed moderately, I think we shouldn’t lose sleep over it? Enjoy cold looooong shower once in a while?
Like they say, we can keep trying, one paper at a time, one can at a time, one knowledge at a time, one action at a time, one tree at a time.

Just hope that for those with stronger power can do more or do less..



Who reaches with clumsy hand for a rose must not complain if the thorns scratch.
- Heinrich Heine

The sun will set without your assistance.
- The Talmud

A tree never hits an automobile except in self-defense.
- Anonymous

There’s so much pollution in the air now that if it weren’t for our lungs there’d be no place to put it all.
- Robert Orben

Our task must be to free ourselves...by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.
- Albert Einstein

Man masters nature not by force but by understanding.
- Anonymous

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

It's Raining!

This few days (or weeks?) have been rainy. Small continuous rain, sometimes it stops for a while, to fool you to walk across the lengthy traffic light without umbrella or to happily put all the laundry, shoes etc out and in a minute it will buzz buzz buzz rain, make us like ayam dikejar monyet or wet like tikus kecebur got.

Back then, this kind of rain is a bless for children. It’s not hard enough to make parents yelled at you and not mild enough to make it less enjoyable. Playing in the rain, where had it gone? Children used to gain new friends in the rain. Kids from neighborhood, kids they had never talk to when it’s dry. When the rain stop, they would say, See you in the next rain! Because they don’t recognize each other when there is no rain.

Got sick? Nahhhh.. sick is not a popular word at all, unless some other kids throw brick at you, there is no sickness in our dictionary. Kid's immune system was actually very amazing compare to now. I remember we liked to visit our aunt, whose place is only at the next block. Her house was special because she has this private ‘river’. She would do laundry or washing dish and for us, kids, we used it for swimming pool.

Actually, the river is horrible, it’s more like a gutter, maybe a 3-5 meter wide water body that flow don’t know to where. Even then, I thought it was scary. Because we can’t see the bottom, who said bottom, we can’t even see our own leg. The water was brownish although it was not dirty, or so we thought. There are millions of snails on the ‘river’ walls. I think it’s golden snail, that has the pinkish egg. So that is our swimming pool.

There was an empty plot in front of our house also. Me and my brother liked to roam there. It was full with various plants, insect and small animals. There were even eels as big as us caught between our house and the ‘jungle’. We had one rambutan tree which was very huge and we could enjoy rambutan every season. Too bad it grew too big we had to bring it down. I remember my dad, my uncles, neighbors and a lot of people gathered at my house just to pull it down. It was sad day though, I liked the rambutan tree, the rambutan, although I didn’t like the ants that live in that tree and the big bee nest that hanging in there. I didn’t remember how they got rid of the bee nest.

But it was my fun childhood, we ddin’t have many things that anything was precious to us. We had to wait long and hard for a toy, but we treasure them that we kept them until we grew up. We learned to be creative to play with things that is actually not toys at all, like playing in the nature, hiding place, river, tree or playing in the rain. As the result, the children are healthy, happy, creative and brave. I really think so. We hardly found any body went home crying to their parents. Anything we have to settle ourselves. Like when we got bad marks at school, we had to crack our head to find a corporative adults to sign them for us, or we hid it until it was rotten inside the tree hole. That was me and my big brother time, look at the bright side, we didn’t think to go as far as to forge the signatures. But my younger brother could do that.

The kids may be dirty and naughty, but I think that is what a childhood should be.
It’s uneasy to see how kids nowadays have to many things on their disposal they don’t appreciate them anymore. They get bored with toys after a week; get new one, and the toys piled up in the house so fast. Every time I go to the toy store or any store that sell a bit of toys, on the checkout line we hardly see kids without new toys. And maybe worse of all, kids or parents forget that there is a world outside malls and computer games.

Although at least there is a new type of attraction, I forget what it is, it’s on the tip of my tongue, arghh! It’s those animation game that kids can play on the floor, step on moving frog or chasing after stuff. I think it’s good, kids should be jumping and laughing, not crying and screaming. Now there is also many games that involve physical exercise, one of the example is Nintendo Wii. There is another type that is better when you can actually jogging virtually and jumping across the barriers or kicking the butt of the virtual guys etc.
It’s something we could do for free but if indoor is the limit, than that is the substitute?

At least now, I like the weather. I always like it rainy and windy in the city, it’s cooling and beautiful. I would prefer bright sunny days in the beach, but in the city, this is my time of the year. Yeppie!



There are three ways to get something do get something done: do it yourself, hire someone, or forbid your kids to do it.
- Monta Crane

The wildest colts can make the best horses.
- Plutarch, Greece

If you want to see what children do, you must stop giving them things.
- Norman Douglas

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Bantal Asik

Gue dapet hadiah bantal asik ang gue pengenin dari dulu. Hehehe…

Ini gambarnya biar gak terlalu radikal gue kasih sensor ala komik Jepang. Hehehe..

Ini bantal plus guling paling asik buat cuaca dingin seperti sekarang ini. Cuman setbacknya bantal guling gue kudu gak kepake..

Iklan dikit neh..