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Welcoming 2012

2012-01-04T05:53:00.002+01:00

Senang akhirnya bisa nulis lagi di blog ini. Ya, saya memang lama menghilang dari peredaran, hanya sempat blogwalking saja ke tetangga-tetangga. Tahun 2011 adalah tahun yang cukup membuat saya sibuk, duh gaya bener ya? Yang jelas siy untuk urusan kerjaan malah minim kesibukan, jadi sisi kehidupan yang baru itu yang menyita perhatian saya.

Yang jelas awal tahun lalu saya habiskan untuk menikmati masa-masa bulan madu bersama misua, mulai dari nonton midnight (kesempatan yang langka banget waktu masi pacaran), wisata kuliner (minus sushi tentunya :(), serta memasak bersama (hohoho, ini siy terinspirasi setelah nonton master chef). Kita juga berencana untuk travelling ke negara-negara tetangga, klo ini siy untuk memanfaatkan passport yang udah berhasil dibikin misua. Tapi untuk yang satu ini terpaksa ditunda dulu, karena di saat iseng nyobain testpack (maklum deh ga pernah pegang testpack sebelumnya), yang muncul malah si garis dua :). Tentunya saya mengikuti saran dokter untuk tidak terbang dulu di trimester pertama dan ketiga. Hehehe, sekarang tahu kan kesibukan saya apa sepanjang tahun ini.

Walo tidak berencana menunda kehamilan, namun si garis dua tadi merupakan kejutan untuk kami berdua. Soalnya kita udah cukup jengah dengan pertanyaan: udah telat belum? dan sejenisnya. Saya sendiri cukup deg-degan menjalani kehamilan ini, karena selalu merasa belum mempersiapkan diri. Trimester pertama dilewati tanpa morning sickness, cuma ya bawaannya capek mulu. Hal ini menghilang saat trimester kedua, tapi muncul lagi di trimester ketiga. Setelah menjalani ketiga trimester ini dan juga proses melahirkan dan menyusui bayi, saya masih belum bisa membayangkan bagaimana kuatnya ibu-ibu yang melahirkan banyak anak menjalani proses itu berulang-ulang. Ya, mungkin saja karena saya baru menjalaninya untuk pertama kali, jadi berasanya sedikit rumit.

Tapi semua kerumitan itu serasa 'terbayar' begitu melihat senyum manis putri cantik kami, Dea. Selama lebih dari sebulan terakhir ini my life revolve around her. Misua pun kudu maklum dengan saingan barunya ini. Saat Dea lahir dan diletakkan didada untuk IMD, saya bahkan tidak terpikir untuk menghitung berapa jari jemarinya dan anggota tubuh lainnya. Sebaliknya, saya malah sibuk menangis mendengar suaranya dan terpesona saat matanya menatap ke arah saya. Duh, rasanya apapun tidak bisa menggantikan momen itu. Di saat itu saya bertekad, siap atau pun tidak, saya akan berusaha menjadi ibu untuknya. Dan sekarang, tanpa terasa satu bulan telah terlewati. Tidak lama lagi saya sudah harus mempersiapkan diri dan juga Dea agar dapat beradaptasi dengan jadwal ngantor. Semoga semuanya berjalan lancar, sementara ini, puas-puasin dulu ah menjalani hari bersama Dea :D.

Back from hiatus

2011-09-13T10:21:00.002+02:00

After months of absent, finally I got the muse to write again. There are lots of things going on during these months and as usual, I do not know where to start.

Anyway, let me try with this word: marriage. It is a really a big big thing happened in my life, even now I’m still trying to believe that I finally did it. We are not only talking about the wedding (which is, well, when it comes to family, it become the complicated one) or honeymoon (ah, I never regret my decision for this one), but also about how to live our life as a married couple. And during these months, we’ve been enjoying every thing and hope that we will still be enthusiast for the rest of our life.

Starting the year with my beloved one makes it a great birthday celebration for me. After a month of hunting, we finally decided to move to a more comfy place. It’s nearby my hubby’s office and not far from my previous place. Well, we are not moving into our own house yet, but hopefully we will, later. Since this place is still a kind of “kos-kosan”, so I have not much preoccupied with things like house-chores since the laundry service is included and even though we have our tiny kitchen but we still enjoy culinary hunting around the area. And for sure, we still continue our dates just like before and we love it very much.

Back to work, I received good news for joining a workshop somewhere in Africa on March, of course with other team members. While waiting for the details, I directly prepare everything for renewing my passport. So on a gloomy day on 14 February, hubby and I ride a motorbike from the suburb to the Old City area of Jakarta, where immigration office located. Alas, that was not really our day, we were all wet because of rain on our way to the office, almost skipped our lunch to avoid missing the queue, and the worst: my passport application was denied since my family card was not signed by my aunt (and yes, after years of using it, I just noticed it right there in the office). To make it even worser, my aunt told me that the original family card that includes my name in the list has been renewed, leaving me unlisted :(. For sure, it shocked me much, since I could still use the copy of the previous family card for renewing my Bandung ID card 3 years ago.

Confused with what should be chosen: whether paying extra money to someone who could solve my problem instantly or trying to list my self in the family card (which will cost me money and time to arrange it in Bandung), I received a news from the office, that I won’t be joining the team to Africa. Relieved, since I did not have to deal with this passport thing for now, but also sad since I have imagine myself travelling to Africa. But, looking at the bright side, I could still enjoy my days with hubby (btw, he got his passport done in 10 days!). Anyway, I decided to arrange my new ID card in Bekasi, where hubby is enlisted in his sister’s house, so that we could avoid going back and forth to Bandung if the same problem persists.

Enjoying our life as newlywed, we never imagine that people starts asking about having a baby. For sure, we really want to have children in the family, but isn’t it too fast to ask about it yet? Come on guys, it’s our second month. I knew it is part of ‘the never ending questions’ in our country, but still surprise when people asking: have you missed your period? Or have you feel any nausea/morning sickness yet? Gladly, hubby responded it much better than me and we agree that those people care us much. Anyhow, we decide to take it easy and let anything happened as the way it is.

Lessons learned from Japan Earthquake

2011-03-17T03:57:00.004+01:00

Masih dengan semangat pembelajaran mengenai penanggulangan bencana yang dilakukan di Jepang, hari ini saya mendapatkan forward tulisan pengalaman Bapak Heryadi Permana di Kota Kashiwa, Chiba Prefektur. Saya tidak mengenal beliau secara personal namun tulisan ini saya dapat dari sumber yang reliable. Saya kagum dengan beliau karena di saat mengalami bencana seperti ini masih sempat mengamati hal-hal yang terjadi di sana dan membagikan pengalaman ini.

Silahkan dibaca tulisan beliau di bawah ini, semoga beliau berkenan tulisan ini disebarluaskan. Perhatian: tulisan ini lumayan panjang.

Sedikit berbagi di bawah ini untuk kita semua Di Kashiwa, Chiba, di Kampus Atmosphere and Oceanography ResearchInstitute, Univ of Tokyo. Kota Kashiwa, Chiba Perfture, sekitar 100Km timur laut Tokyo, jadi lebih dekat ke Tsukuba dan sumber gampa kemarin. Kebetulan agak jauh dari pantai.

Rabu, 9 Maret 2011, Pukul 11.45.13,97,
Di lantai 7, gempa dirasakan cukup kuat selama 1,5menit. Saya tersadar dan berfikir harus melakukan apa. Akan tetapi tidak ada satupun rekan2 Jepang melakukan pergerakan, panik berteriak atau apapun walau di sekitar ruangan kerja saya banyak ibu-ibu staf kantor, mahasiswi dan staf pengajar perempuan. Kemudian saya tengok ke jendela, di lapangan juga tidak ada orang berkerumun. Gengsi juga ya, akhirnya saya tidak melakukan evakuasi. Sorenya saya tanya pada rekan2 Jepang, kenapa tidak ada evakuasi pada saat gempa kuat dirasakan? Jawabannya sederhana, “gedungnya kuat kok dan tidak ada perintah evakuasi”. Wah, mereka percaya gedungnya tidak akan runtuh.

Pelajaran 1:

# Tetap tenang, tidak panik pada saat terjadi gempa

# Sangat percaya bahwa bangunan yang mereka tempati sesuai dengan persyaratan tahan gempa dengan kekuatan tertentu.

Malamnya saya menonton televisi yang memperlihatkan kegiatan warga kawasan pantai melakukan evakuasi menuju kearah perbukitan, anak2 SD didampingi guru-gurunya, begitu pula para orang tua dan warga lainnya. Mereka berdiam ditempat penampungan, diberi sedikit makanan. Sementara sirine terdengar dimana-mana

Pelajaran 2:

# Evakuasi menjadi kebutuhan dan mudah dilaksanakan bila sering dilatihkan

# Tempat penampungan bukan merupakan bangunan khusus, tetapi ruangan umum yang lapang dan sudah disiapkan.

Hari Kamis, 10 Maret 2011.

Sebanyak 20 peneliti gempa dan kelautan berkumpul di Kashiwa, Chiba , Jepang. Peneliti Indonesia antara lain 7 datang dari Bandung dan Jakarta, 1 dari Hokaido dan 2 dari Nagoya dan 1 dari Paris. Peneliti lainnya datang dari USA, Perancis dan Jerman dan sisanya tentu saja dari Jepang. Seminar fokus membicarakan sumber utama gempa dan tsunami Aceh dan kemungkinan terjadinya gempa besar lainnya di kawasan barat Sumatra. Hari pertama seminar lancar, debat dan diskusi sampai sore hari.

Hari kedua, 11 Maret seminar dilanjutkan.

Pembicara pertama pada sesi setelah makan siang berakhir, pembicara kedua pada 14.45 sedang menyiapkan proyektor dijital. Tiba-tiba, gedung digoyang lemah, semua tersenyum, saling berpandangan, semakin kuat pada setengah menit kedua. Mulai bimbang, dilanjutkan atau lari. Akhirnya, setelah menit kedua, goyangan gempa semakin kuat, semua lari dari lantai dua, meninggalkan semua peralatan kerja, menuruni gedung melalui tangga menju halaman kantor. Lift otomatis tidak difungsikan. Beberapa menit kemudian, semuanya telah berkumpuldi dilapangan parkir. Tiang-tiang lampu penerangan atau tanaman bergetar keras dan bergoyang sampai sekitar 10-20Cm. Sebagian dari kami duduk di lapangan karena getarannya kuat sekali. Telepon tidak berfungsi pada saat tersebut.

Pelajaran 3:

# Sekalipun tahu pemahaman dasar penyelamatan diri dilakukan setelah gempa reda, untuk ukuran gempa kuat berlangsung lebih dari satu menit dan sedang berada di gedung tinggi, secara psikologi massa semua tidak berlaku. Tersisa dalam benak adalah: lari

# Seperempat jam berikutnya, baru muncul penghuni gedung lainnya yang mungkin menerapkan pemahaman berevakuasi setelah getaran gempa berakhir.

# Jepang memiliki jaringan komunikasi telepon modern, akan tetapi tetap saja terjadi gangguan jaringan, bisa karena kerusakan infrastruktur atau terjadi panggilan telepon luar biasa. Artinya, jaringan HP sebagai alat warning justru tidak berfungsi pada 10-20 menit pertama.

# Tidak terlihat kepanikan, histeri atau tangisan dari warga Jepang.

Semua tenang dan tidak banyak bicara. Pertanyaan: apakah ini karena latihan rutin atau memang sikap dasar? Suasana ini tentu saja membawa penagaruh positif. Gempa terus bergetar selama lebih dari 30 menit. Datang kemudian instruksi untuk menjauhi gedung serta kami diperintahkan berkumpul berdasarkan kelompok masing-masing dan mendata bilamana masih ada yang belum melakukan evakuasi. Beberapa staf memakai helm dan identitas pada lengan memberikan beberapa petunjuk dalam, tentu saja bahasa jepang. Setelah diterjemahkan, baru dipahami. Suhu dingin di luar serta angin kuat, menggoda banyak diantara kami memaksa masuk gedung untuk mengambil baju dingin. Secara psikologis, banyak yang tergoda untuk melakukan hal yang sama, walaupun beresiko. Ketika getaran agak mereda, beberapa staf memeriksa kondisi gedung, jaringan air dan memeriksa ruangan. Waktu berlalu lebih dari satu jam, jam 16.00 sekarang, tetapi hentakan gempa masih terus datang.

Pelajaran 4:

# Pada saat darurat, penanggung jawab kantor atau gedung berubah fungsi secara otomatis menjadi petugas komando evakuasi.

Perlengkapan standar adalah helm proyek dan keterangan di lengan serta megafon. Kemudiansetiap lantai ada juga petugas yang bertanggung jawab. Di jalanan, mobil petugas lalu lalang memberikan petunjuk pada masyarakat dengan speaker “jambu” yang tersebar dimana-mana, memberikan arahan terus menerus

# Sebagai orang asing, juga tidak mengerti bahasa lokal, suasana tanggap darurat cukup menegangkan karena sedikit sekali memahami perintah

# Perintah selanjutnya setelah diketahui tidak ada korban adalahmeminta semua pulang ke rumah masing2, bila tidak ada kepentingan karena aliran air juga pemanas ruangan akan diputuskan.

Dalam perjalanan ke hotel, seluruh speaker yang berada dimana-mana terutama di tempat umum, memberikan informasi kondisi terkini dan memberikan pengarahan apa yang harus dilakukan. Sesampainya di hotel, kekhawatiran muncul karena kamar berada di lantai 5. Gempa susulan terus melanda. Pilihan ke luar ruangan terhambat cuaca dingin dibawah 10derajat dan angin kencang. Tiada pilihan memberanikan diri masuk ruang tamu sambil memberanikan diri menyimpan semua barang kecuali kamera, hp, passport dan sedikit uang. Rencana untuk belanja makanan cadangan sirna ketika ada info bahwa supermarket, bis dan kereta juga tidak beroperasi.

Kabar menarik dari rekan yang tidak bisa pulang keTsukuba, adalah adanya pembagian makanan, minuman dan selimut bagi yang tidak bisa pulang ke rumah. Supermarket yang ditutup menyediakan

ruangan bagi yang tidak bisa pulang. Sementara antrian menunggu taksi lebih dari 5 meter, sabar dan tertib walau cuaca dingin sekali. Pertokoan berlantai dan parkir rupanya harus tutup dan menghentikan kegiatan. Sementara pegawai supermarket berubah fungsi menjadi petugas tanggap darurat, dilengkapi seragam dan helm.

Karena perlu makan, kami menyempatkan ke daerah pengungsian. Suasana tertib dan tenang, kemudian, walaupun di sekitarnya adalah apartemen berlantai tinggi, tidak ada suasana hiruk pikuk dari penghuni yang berevakuasi ke bawah gedung. Percaya sekali kalau bangunannya kokoh tahan gempa atau sudah terlatih dalam menyikapi gempa yang kami rasa sangat kuat. Selain supermarket, maka food court pun tutup, jadilah antri belanja di minimarket beli makanan atau roti. Tertib, tenang, tidak saling dorong. Cerita klasik dan ada dimanapun: ongkos taksi naik karena tidak ada layanan bis umum. Hal luar biasa adalah tidak adanya pemutusan aliran listrik dan air!

Pelajaran 5:

# Evakuasi lewat tangga, karena rutin latihan sudah menjadi budaya, bukan hanya diperkantoran, juga di hotel, dan pertokoan

# Sabar dan tidak panik pada kondisi darurat bukan hanya diperintahkan tetapi perlu dilatihkan

# Dalam masa tanggap darurat, social responsibility dari seluruh lapisan masyarakat perlu ditumbuhkan, dilatih, dijaga dan diterapkan.

Pertolongan dan bantuan darurat utamanya bukan hanya dari pemerintah (Lokal dan pusat), tapi dari kita semua yang mampu.

Malamnya, karena memang harus istirahat, dipaksakan masuk kamar. Semalaman menonton TV, dari NHK utamanya. Luar biasa!!! Semua acara hiburan pada saluran tv tidak bayar berhenti. Semua meliput bencana. Menyimak gempa yang sangat kuat, M8,8 sangat sedikit kerusakan pada bangunan.

Gambar dari Tokyo, tidak ada laporan bangunan runtuh kecuali parkiran bertingkat. Kerusakan umum berupa jendela pecah, lapisan tembok terkelupas atau retak2 dan tentu saja barang-barang berserakan di dalam supermarket atau perkantoran. Atap plafon lepas dan pipa air pecah banyak dijumpai. Akan tetapi dihitung dari nilai kerusakan gempa, cukup kecil dibanding dengan banyaknya gedung tinggi yang berdiri megah.

Sebaliknya, bencana tsunamilah seperti di Aceh yang melumat semuanya di daerah Sendai. Seperti bisa dilihat dalam semua berita. Berbeda dengan peristiwa yang pernah terjadi, kebakaran terjadi di banyak tempat. Hal ini terkait dengan bencana yang melanda kawasan industry yang terletak di pantai. Akan tetapi, perlu diacungi jempol, reaktor nuklir tidak terpengaruh, baik oleh gempa maupun tsunami. Luar biasa.

Seperti terlihat dalam banyak gambar, warga yang terperangkap tidak bisa pulang dengan tenang beristirahat dimanapun karena semua layanan kereta dan bis dihentikan. Tidak ada sumpah serapah, caci maki karena tidak bisa pulang. Tentu saja bisa terkondisikan karena pemerintah juga sigap memberikan makanan, minuman dan selimut gratis dimanapun di tempat umum difasilitasi oleh perusahaan jasa KA, bus atau pertokoan. Tidak ada rebutan memberitakan gempa dan tsunami. Tidak ada ramalan bencana berikutnya. Yang diulas adalah analisa gempa dan gelombang tsunami dan cara air melumat kawasan pantai.

Tidak ada makian pemerintah tidak siap, tidak ada teriakan bantuan terlambat datang. Semua tenang, mengalir ketempat pengungsian. Gambar dari laut jelas, gelombang tsunami tidak datang sedirian tetapi ramai-ramai bergelombang berbaris sampai 7 lapis. Air laut yang masuk sesaat kemudian menarik semua yang ada dipantai kearah laut lepas. Hening setelah itu.

Pelajaran 6:

# Membangun sistim tanggap darurat merupakan komitment yang harus dijalankan bukan hanya di undangkan. Pelakunya bukan hanya pemerintah tapi semua komponen masyarakat

# Untuk daerah rawan gempa, membangun gedung tahan gempa suatu keharusan atau dibatasi ketinggiannya

# Untuk tsunami: tidak ada yang mampu melawan kekuatan gelombang air beserta dengan seluruh material yang diangkutnya.

# Perlu berhitung membangun kawasan industri, apalagi industri kimia dikawasan rawan gempa atau tsunami

Sabtu, 12 Maret 2011

Seluruh kegiatan terfokus pada penyelamatan warga dan evakuasi korban. Seluruh televisi menyiarkan laporan jumlah korban. Setiap saat ada gempa susulan, juga diinformasikan lokasi dan besaran gempanya. Siang sabtu dicoba survey kilat kondisi pertokoan dan juga perumahan disekitar penginapan. Harapannya dapat gambar bagus, bangunan retak, pagar roboh atau jalan bengkok. Setelah 2 jam jalan, tidak ada hal yang diharapkan.

Kembali menonton televisi. Menarik adalah pembagian air bersih, dilakukan tertib mengantri dengan sabar. Setiap keluarga dapat 10lt. Tidak ada anak2 mengantri! Begitu pula ketika sebagian jalur kereta api dan bis dibuka, semua mengantri mengular panjang, sabar dan diam. Tidak ada alasan orang tua, wanita, atau anak2.

Dalam acara TV tidak dramatisasi, tidak ada isak tangis panjang atau dan jeritan. Kadang dirasa sangat impersonal hanya mengirim gambar2. Tetapi Jepang adalah negara simbolis, satu gambar bisa menjadi 1000 cerita. Sering banyak cerita tetapi tidak mampu menggambarkan apapun!

Pelajaran ke 7

# Dalam kondisi darurat, perlu dilatihkan bahwa semua dari kita adalah korban, jadi tidak perlu meminta perhatian lebih dari yang lain

# Dalam kondisi darurat, perlu dilatihkan sabar dalam mengantri sehingga bisa mengurangi rasa stress dan menghindarkan dari kekacauan

Membangun gedung tinggi tidak dilarang asal dipahami resikonya

Tahukah kita berapa tinggi tangga pemadam kebakaran kita

Membangun kawasan pantai, menghabiskan mangrove dan karang tidak bisa dilarang asal diterima konsekuensinya, memang tidak ada perbuatan tanpa resiko akan tetapi resiko terhitung Sementara demikian pelajaran baru untuk seminggu.

Minggu

Masalah yang muncul sekarang, biar Jepang negara maju, adalah logistik. Selain bbm mulai langka juga supermarket di serbu pembeli. Harus antri meteran untuk masuk supermarket.

Setelah kejadian PLTN meledak dan satunya lagi kena longsor, pasokan listrik berkurang berdampak pada penjadwalan seluruh perjalanan kereta. Pagi tadi gempa susulan 6,2 sehingga mulai jam 14 waktu jepang semua layanan kereta dihentikan.

Beberapa pendapat saya sampaikan di bawah ini:

1. Bantuan ke Jepang.

Membanggakan ada wacana bagaimana membantu Jepang. Dalam kondisi tanggap darurat sungguh memilukan memang. Dalam ukuran kurang dari 30 menit semua berubah. Hilang lenyap semua kemegahan dan kehebatan teknologi. Untuk bantuan tanggap darurat baru USA, Korea, UK, China dan Jerman beroperasi dengan peralatan lengkap disertai dengan anjing pelacak. Melihat situasinya, tim tamu harus mandiri mulai dari BBM, transportasi dan logistic. Suhu di kawasan utama bencana kurang dari 10 derajat.

Dengan meledaknya PLTN, pasokan listrik berkurang drastis. Sekarang pemadaman bergilir, berhentinya layanan kereta api dan bus, lift dan toko2 ditutup, kemudian kurangnya pasokan makanan (beras, roti, sayuran, susu dan kebutuhan primer lain). Untuk membelinya harus antri puluhan meter, mulai pagi, jam 12 ludes habis dan toko tutup. BBM juga terhambat pasokannya, antri ratusan meter. Yang unggul posisi adalah angkatan laut (Amerika, Jepang) yang bisa beroperasi dari laut.

2. Siaran TV

Saya sependapat bahwa siaran tv masih seperti radio bergambar. Coba saja liat komentator olahraga, menceritakan detil arah bola, pergerakan pemain dll.

Nah dalam menyampaikan reportase bencana, kita bisa belajar banyak. 3 hari pertama bencana, semua siaran tv tidak berbayar hanya focus satu hal meliput bencana tsunami, tidak ada iklan, tidak ada acara lawak, nyanyi dll, tidak ada pameran dan rebutan ucapan belasungkawa dari “bla bla”. Siaran yang ada tanpa mengaharu biru dengan tangisan, juga tidak diperlihatkan jenazah!!!, tidak ada Tanya jawab dengan korban sambil ditanya bagaimana perasaannya.

Nah berlindung dibalik UU kebebasan siaran, hak mendapatkan informasi bagi semua, rupanya bablas menjadi siaran seperti maunya TV tanpa mengindahkan etika. Rupanya masyarakat harus bisa memberikan SOCIAL PUNISHMENT, tidak harus lewat pengadilian, tapi gerakan tutup liat siaran. Harapan kita semua, bukan hanya cara belajar dalam penanggulangan bencana tapi juga reportase bencana yang beretika.

Dalam pengamatan, tidak ada caci maki terhadap pemerintah atau pelaku PB. Semua kompak bagaimana menyelamatkan saudaranya yang terkena bencana, tidak mencari dan menyalahkan. Kemudian, yang tampil di TV adalah para pofesional dalam bidangnya bukan hanya memberikan komentar. Itu juga suatu pelajaran sehingga tidak membangun opini yang salah. Mulai hari ke-3, sudah ada analisa mulai dari mekanisme gempa dan pola aliran tsunami yang ujungnya adalah bagaimana penanggulangan bencana ke depan.

3. EWS

Tidak ada suatu alatpun yang dapat diandalkan untuk warning tsunami kecuali gempa itu sendiri.

Untuk orang jepang, alat EWS tsunami adalah gempa kuat itu sendiri. Otomatis sirene di kawasan pantai berbunyi dan warga pantai evakuasi ke daerah tinggi. Ini diperlihatkan pada saat gempa pada tanggal 9 Maret 2011 (kekuatan 6.3).

Nah, gempa kekuatan 9 dengan tinggi gelombang tsunami antara 4-7meter serta rendamannya sampai 5 km diluar perhitungan. Bisa dilihat dari TV, masyarakat merasa sudah ada di ketinggian ternyata bisa dikejar oleh lidah tsunami. Dari pengamatan, tinggi gelombang pecah dipantai akan tetapi energy dan volume air yang mendesak dan merangsak jauh ke daratan. Beberapa rekan jepang disini mengatakan tidak percaya kejadian tsunami di Aceh, tetapi setelah mereka saksikan, tsunami Sendai kembaran tsunami Aceh. Baru mereka percaya.

Untuk informasi, Jepang tidak memasang alat untuk warning system tsunami. Kalaupun ada masih dalam tahap eksperimen dan untuk deteksi sumber tsunami jauh misal dari Chili, California dll. Untuk sumber tsunami dekat ya warningnya gempa itu sendiri.

Hal lain, masyarakat Jepang sangat percaya dengan segala benteng di kawasan pantai mampu melindungi mereka dari tsunami. Minimal ada satu atau dua tanggul di depan pelabuhan dengan tinggi sesuai dengan rekaman tinggi tsunami sebelumnnya. Kemudian, semua jalan yang terbuka ke pantai dilengkapi oleh dinding pintu baja setebal 50cm dengan tinggi 3m yang akan menutup secara otomatis bila sirine peringatan berbunyi, dengan maksud untuk menghambat aliran air (gempa lagi jam 11.09) Fakta tsunami yang datang ternyata lebih tinggi dari yang pernah tercatat dalam sejarah.

Salah satu kawasan terkenal di Mie Perfecture (dekat Nagoya, pernah dikunjungi pada 2007 dan 2009) dilengkapi dengan 3 lapis barier di laut dan pintu baja yang akan otomatis menutup bilamana sirene berbunyi.

Untuk daerah yang dilingkari pantai dan sungai, didirikan menara dengan ketinggian 10m karena catatan sejarah tsunami 1954 tinggi air mencapai ketinggian 6m.

Nah, warga Jepang pada umumnya dilatih untuk bertahan selama 4 hari sebelum datang bantuan pemerintah. Mereka diajarkan bertahan hidup sampai bantuan datang.

Di daerah ini, penguasa utama bencana adalah pak Camatnya yang secara otonom membangun system PB tsunami, dilengkapi dengan seismogram yang dijaga selama 24jam. Untuk info, semua pemerintah local disini melengkapi diri dengan seismogram, juga perguruan tinggi. Ketika gempa dirasakan, bisa dilihat infonya di layar. Info tersebut sebagai alat keputusan evakuasi atau tidak.

Dalam kasus Sendai, bantuan penyelamatan yang datang pada hari ke-2 sudah luar biasa. Bayangkan bahwa luasan bencana luar biasa, dan sulit didatangi, akan tetapi bisa kita bandingkan prosentase korban manusia dengan kerusakan fisik yang terjadi seperti di bawah in.

Casualties by the Eartquake and tsunami As of 14:00Z 14 March 2011 by the Japanese Fire and Disaster Managemet (JFDM):

1. Dead : 1,154 persons

2. Missing : 1,956 persons

3. Injured : 2,650 persons

4. Completely collapsed houses : 4,716

5. Half and partially damaged houses : 68,229

6. Fires : 224 events (142 fires were already extinguished)

Untuk Indonesia memasang dan memelihara alat deteksi tsunami selain mahal dan yang diuntungkan adalah India, Srilangka dan Australia. Kenapa? Sumber gempa kita sangat dekat dengan daratan sehingga alat kita kalaupun berfungsi terlambat memberikan informasi. Untuk Negara lain, ada waktu untuk menyiapkan diri sebelum gelombang tsunami datang. Oleh karena itu, dalam waktu dekat, cara murah untuk EWS tsunami ya evakuasi dulu ketika dirasakan gempa cukup kuat. Menyebalkan, bt dan capek bila tsunami gak datang? Jangaaann, bersyukur pada Mahakuasa yang bisa kita Lakukan.

Salam

Condolence for Japan

2011-03-12T04:46:00.003+01:00

Aku baru saja sampai di Yogya Kamis yang lalu, sengaja berangkat sehari sebelumnya karena ada kegiatan di kota ini yang akan dilaksanakan pagi hari. Berat hati rasanya meninggalkan suami menjelang akhir pekan ini, tapi toh seperti biasa kunjunganku tidak akan lama di kota ini. Malamnya sebelum tidur, aku berdoa agar jangan sampai terjadi bencana pada kunjunganku kali ini. Entah kenapa kali ini aku benar-benar khawatir dan mengalami susah tidur sebelum akhirnya terlelap.

Semua kegiatanku di hari berikutnya sangat lancar, hanya saja ada beberapa hal-hal yang tidak bisa dilakukan di hari Sabtu, sehingga aku memutuskan mempercepat jam kepulangan ke Jakarta *horeee*. Sambil menunggu orang yang mau diajak rapat, aku berdiskusi dengan teman-teman lain sambil sesekali mengalihkan pandangan ke TV yang ada di ruangan sebelah. Tiba-tiba ada berita yang langsung jadi perhatian semua orang di gedung itu, gempa 8.9 SR (tapi kemudian dikoreksi menjadi 9 SR) terjadi di Pulau Honshu, Jepang.

Saat berita ini menjadi perhatianku, ternyata aku harus segera rapat. Selesai rapat, langsung menuju ke tempat makan dan selanjutnya kembali ke hotel. Sms dari ibuku langsung masuk, menanyakan apakah gempa di Jepang juga melanda tempat tinggal Om-ku di Kyoto. Aku segera menyalakan TV dan membuka laptop, mengecek wilayah mana saja yang terkena dampak gempa dan tsunami. Ternyata Kyoto berada di wilayah aman, sedangkan Tokyo, Sendai, dan daerah utara pulau tersebut terkena dampak parah. Langsung teringat dengan beberapa teman yang berdomisili di Tokyo, aku langsung membuka Facebook. Walaupun tidak yakin mereka bisa mengakses internet dalam kondisi seperti itu. Tapi ajaibnya justru FB sangat bisa diandalkan untuk mengupdate kondisi mereka karena saluran telepon langsung mati pada saat gempa terjadi sedangkan internet masih berfungsi. Hanya saja, seorang teman yang sedang menuntut ilmu di Sendai belum diketahui keberadaannya walo sudah dapat dipastikan selamat. Sepertinya ia mencoba mencari pertolongan dengan melakukan perjalanan ke tempat yang lebih aman.

Jepang saat ini mengalami musim dingin, sehingga seorang teman yang panik melupakan jaket saat membawa sang batita keluar rumah. Untungnya ada tetangga yang berbaik hati memberikan jaket. Sang suami saat itu berada di kantor, tapi tidak bisa segera pulang karena jalur transportasi terputus dan ia memutuskan untuk menginap di penampungan stasiun. Walaupun hati sangat ketar-ketir, teman ini meneguhkan diri untuk kembali ke rumah karena hari semakin gelap dan dingin, namun ternyata sulit sekali untuk tidur di tengah-tengah gempa susulan tersebut.

Aku sendiri hanya bisa terpaku, menyaksikan tsunami menyapu areal pertanian, perumahan, pertokoan, dan sebagainya. Melihat betapa kuatnya arus laut itu menghanyutkan semua bangunan dan kendaraan yang dilewatinya dan betapa cepatnya arus itu bergerak. Referensiku mengenai gambaran tsunami masih sangat minim, hanya pernah melihat dari hasil kamera amatir saat tsunami Aceh dan 'bekal' dari menonton film Krakatoa: The Last Days. Menonton film Krakatoa: The Last Days ini di Metro TV benar-benar membuatku tersadar, betapa secara personal pun aku belum punya bekal untuk bisa menyelamatkan diri dari bencana yang ada di negeri ini. Berbekal pengetahuan saja jelas tidak cukup, harus ada latihan rutin dan sarana yang mendukung untuk meminimalkan korban jiwa.

Walaupun Jepang merupakan negara yang dianggap memiliki kesiapsiagaan yang tinggi terhadap bencana (khususnya gempa bumi dan tsunami), namun tetap saja, gempa yang lalu tetap memakan korban dalam jumlah besar. Sampai detik ini belum ditemukan suatu cara untuk mengetahui kapan dan di mana gempa akan terjadi. Sistem peringatan dini tsunami telah dapat dikembangkan, namun itu hanya untuk memberikan 30-45 menit menit waktu bagi warga untuk dievakuasi segera setelah gempa terjadi. Secara visual, kecepatan arus tsunami kemaren melebihi kecepatan kendaraan yang bergerak di dekatnya, sehingga aku sendiri tidak yakin apakah penyelamatan dengan menggunakan kendaraan akan efektif. Ini hanya satu dari segudang tugas yang perlu diselesaikan dalam peningkatan kapasitas dalam penanggulangan bencana di negeri ini, walaupun hal tersebut bukan berarti dapat menghilangkan bencana berikut korbannya.

Sms lain masuk ke HP-ku, lagi-lagi sang bunda memintaku menghubungi Om yang berdomisili di Kyoto tadi. Kucoba mengirim email, tapi gagal, ternyata karena kesalahan pengetikan, akhirnya email terkirim. Dan yang dapat kulakukan sekarang hanyalah menunggu. Menunggu kabar mengenai kondisi Om dan istrinya, menunggu kabar dari teman yang belum terlacak keberadaannya oleh KBRI, menunggu memberikan kabar baik kepada ibuku. Semoga mereka semua selamat dan berada dalam keadaan sehat wal'afiat.

The M word

2011-01-04T08:37:00.010+01:00

It was a fine morning with sunshine that really made my day and I spent that time preparing things beyond my routine. As soon as I got myself ready for work, he attentively waited for me at the door while putting on his shoes. Then he walked me to the bus stop, making sure my bus was there waiting for me. I was releasing his hand when he unexpectedly shook it and kissed me on my cheeks and said: take care. I was stunned for a while but then gave him a smile and waved my hand to him. I saw him walking to his office and then I walked into the bus.

The same thing happened the next days on every working day.

A new routine for both of us and we really enjoy it.

About two weeks ago, the same man stated his word to marry me in front of my parents, our relatives, two-registered witnesses and for sure, a staff from Office of Religious Affairs. Nothing can compare my feeling when he was saying those words in front of me, my heart beat so fast but I did not even worry about my asthma. But that feeling changed as soon as he finished his words without any difficulties, which is then approved by the witnesses. And there we were, officially announced as husband and wife.

I remember one comment from him that says: keep walking further; he is waiting to be bumped into at that very corner.

I think I have found him :) and I thank you for trusting me.

Start Over

2010-10-24T14:06:00.006+02:00

“…. Make things right and start all over again ….”

I heard that song during TV commercial break while I finally have my me time with scratchy. This 1 minute commercial break shows a girl walking on a string between tall buildings and meets a man on another rooftop, that’s when those lyrics were heard. It seems so simple, showing that by leaving things behind, you could move on and start over again. I wish making things right and starting over again could be done that fast.

Somehow I wonder what does it mean with starting over, does it mean to start everything from zero where you do not do things that made you want to start over? Does it also mean making people forget whatever happened between us? Or just to leave everything you have now and move to another place and start a new life with new friends, neighborhood, and job? Does it like restarting your computer when it is frozen?

People might think that starting over means anything above, but isn’t it only physically applicable? You could change any visible things, but you could not change people’s mind. You could make yourself travel from one place to another, from one circle of friends to another, from one profession to another, but only to find that from time to time you never forget who you used to be even though when you think you have changed so much.

Every sequence in a life will bring you up and down, truth and fault, happy and sad, rich and poor, with and without company, which might tempt us making mistakes in our life. You could change this sequence by making more mistakes or by making things rights, but whatever you do will not make you somebody else. You are still responsible for whatever you done before. You might be fortunate enough to forget worst things happened in your life, but forgiveness will be the best remedy.

But the question is, how is making things right and forgiveness will bring me to a better sequence in life? I do not want to get lost in this labyrinth.

PS: Speaking about new sequence in life, I would like to give my wishes for my fellow bloggers, aaqq and farid, who had just starting new family, happy for you both :).

Hidup yang tersiakan

2010-09-02T10:53:00.005+02:00

Masih segar dalam ingatan wajahnya yang cantik dan kebaikan hatinya saat kami masih duduk di bangku sekolah dasar. Ia memiliki nama depan yang sama denganku, dan aku rasa ini membuat kami berdua menjadi akrab. Namun dari segi fisik, kami memiliki perawakan yang berbeda. Dia berkulit lebih gelap dariku, berwajah cantik, postur proporsional, berambut lurus dan panjang, membuat aku terlihat biasa saja di sampingnya. Namun bagi kami hal itu tidak menjadi penting, toh kami tetap bermain bersama dan menghabiskan waktu kemana-mana berdua. Ya, kami bisa dibilang sahabat di masa kecil. Disebut begitu, karena kami tidak lagi bersama pada saat mulai beranjak dewasa. Aku rasa, kepindahanku ke Bandung membuat kami terpisahkan baik dari segi jarak dan hati. Walaupun di tahun-tahun berikutnya aku kembali lagi ke sekolah itu dan berada satu kelas dengannya lagi, itu pun tidak merubah apa pun. Saat itu, dia sudah memiliki circlenya sendiri, yang tidak dapat kudekati sedikit pun. Rasa rendah diri karena bukan dari kalangan berada mulai muncul di dalam diri ini.

Melanjutkan pendidikan ke SMP yang berbeda dari teman-teman SD tidak membuatku begitu saja lepas dari kabar tentangnya, kami toh masih satu kota. Kota kecil ini terus membuatku mendengar kabar-kabar miring tentangnya, dan tidak satu pun dari kabar itu aku percayai. Tanpa perlu penjelasan aku sudah memiliki interpretasiku sendiri terhadap kabar itu. Bagiku, kabar-kabar itu hanyalah kerjaan orang yang tidak suka padanya. Sosoknya memang gampang membuat orang iri, karena selalu terlihat menonjol di mana pun dia berada, sifatnya yang tidak terlalu terbuka juga dapat diinterpretasikan berbeda oleh orang lain, ditambah lagi dengan hidupnya yang selalu berkecukupan bahkan di atas rata-rata teman-teman sebayanya. Kehadirannya di berbagai sudut kota kecil itu bagaikan kemunculan selebritis. Wajar saja, banyak cowok yang mengejarnya dan mengecewakan teman-teman cewek di sekitarnya.

Memasuki SMA, aku makin kehilangan kabar tentangnya. Aku masih bisa menangkap sosoknya di sekolahku pada tahun pertama, tapi kemudian tidak pernah melihatnya lagi di kelas itu. Aku bahkan tidak memikirkannya lagi dan malah menyibukkan diri dengan persiapan untuk kuliah. Dia kemudian sama sekali terlupakan pada masa kuliahku, sampai satu hari aku memutuskan untuk ngekos agar lebih fokus dengan tugas akhirku. Tempat yang aku pilih telah melewati seleksi ketat dari mama dan salah satu referensinya adalah adanya teman SMA yang juga ngekos di sana. Bagi Mama, sangat penting untuk tahu dengan siapa aku bergaul dan tinggal selama kuliah di Bandung. Ternyata salah seorang teman kosku, sebut saja Y, pernah mengenalnya. Mantan pacarnya Y adalah kakak dari R, yang sudah bertahun-tahun menjadi pacar dari teman masa kecilku ini.

Pada pertengahan masa kuliahku dia telah menikah dengan R. Namun seperti yang dibenarkan oleh Y, gaya hidup mereka memang berbeda dengan kalangan lainnya. Mengkonsumsi narkoba adalah suatu kebutuhan dan membuat mereka bergantian masuk IGD karena overdosis. Bahkan kakak R, mantan pacar Y, juga meninggal karena overdosis. Tak berbeda dengan kakaknya, R pun meninggal karena overdosis hanya setelah beberapa tahun menikah. Sampai di tahun aku bertemu dengan Y, dia masih dikabarkan bermain api dengan narkoba.

Tiba-tiba saja aku begitu peduli padanya dan berusaha melacak keberadaannya, tapi nihil. Setiap pulang ke kampung halaman, aku selalu berusaha mencari informasi tentangnya tapi tidak ada hasil. Tentu saja aku tidak punya nyali untuk datang ke rumahnya yang dulu terlihat mewah tapi kini tampak tak terurus. Kabar terakhir yang kuterima adalah ibunya yang cantik bak putri raja itu sudah mengalami kebutaan. Mendengar kabar ini, membuatku kembali merenung. Hubungannya dengan ayah maupun ibunya tidak bisa dibilang dekat. Aku tidak pernah lupa wajah tanpa ekspresi yang dia tunjukkan padaku setiap kali pengambilan rapor. Setiap orangtua murid selalu datang untuk mengambil rapor anak-anaknya, kecuali orangtuanya. Selalu saja ada seorang pria yang datang mengaku sebagai pamannya yang mengambilkan rapornya dan adiknya. Banyak yang menggosipkan bahwa hidupnya memang bergelimang harta, tapi sangat miskin kontak dengan orangtuanya. Aku tidak akan menilai kadar kasih sayang orangtuanya, karena aku toh tak begitu tahu banyak soal ini.

Lama tak terdengar kabarnya selama hampir satu dekade, tiba-tiba adikku mengabarkan tentang dirinya. Facebook memang ampuh untuk membuat kita tahu kabar orang lain. Hanya saja, yang kudengar adalah berita tentang dia yang sudah menghadap sang Khalik. Tidak percaya, aku langsung mengecek status yang dimaksud. Tak berani untuk bertanya pada yang empunya status karena memang tidak begitu kenal. Bulir-bulir bening langsung mengalir deras dari mataku, hidupnya begitu pendek dan ini menutup kesempatanku untuk bertemu dirinya lagi. Dia dikabarkan meninggal karena sakit, tapi tidak ada penjelasan lebih lanjut.

Aku berharap, di sisa hidupnya itu, dia mendapatkan kasih sayang yang layak dia peroleh. Aku berharap, dia menikmati setiap menit kehidupannya tanpa kehadiran narkoba.

Aku berharap, dia dikelilingi oleh orang-orang yang peduli dan mendukungnya untuk menjalani kehidupan yang lebih baik.

Aku berharap, dia mendapat tempat di sisi-Nya dan mendapat ampunan atas semua kesalahannya.

Selamat jalan kawan, beristirahatlah dengan tenang.

Problems

2010-02-05T06:17:00.002+01:00

Problems are not something we are looking for in this life, but in fact, people face problems. Some people develop many tips and tricks to avoid and solve problems and share it to those in needs. But how can we avoid problems? We don't, it only changes its form to other problems. All we can do is to rethink and discuss (if applicable) the solution of our problems.

Procrastination

2010-01-20T11:58:00.004+01:00

This is the year of 2010, and I have been so long abandoning this blog. Nope, as I told you before, I have no plan to leave this blog. I think this is just the usual me, being occupied with real world, which make me have so little time to sit and be with scratchy for pouring down every little thing in my head. But I did not regret it, it is worth to do. I have new adventures in the last few months, which somehow brought me back on track for something I have longed for. Somehow, I have been in touch with an old friend, which came up with his bright ideas and ask me to join him. Oh my, I never imagine it happened. Well, we’ve discussed this so many times before, but it stays in our messenger. Well, wise man says, a good thing happened in a right time in a right place… Then there we were, the opportunity came, and we think we cannot wait for another time to make it happen. We really start it from scratch, but we believe we can develop this to be something … until we faced those obstacles. Communication, is something really vital for us, and it did not work out during the earthquake at the end of September 2009 or when you have to face your first surgery during those hectic weeks. Anyway, as I said before, it is really worth for us and I thanked him for bringing me back on track.

Before the earthquake happened, I took the liberty to explore my homeland with my family. It has been so long, so we all really get excited about this. Visiting every place that I used to visit during my childhood brought me some memories and made us helping each other to remember things we have missed about old times. It must be awkward for you, but now I realize that I could really see the natural beauty of my homeland. I feel silly, coz it took me travel to other country and live in other places, to make me realize how much I love my own homeland. I wish I could upload all photos in this blog, but I'd rather suggest you to come and see it for yourself.

And the earthquake happened, only one day after we came back from Padang to drop my brother in the airport. Ironically, the stricken areas are mostly the places I have visited a few days before. I cannot imagine how things going on right after earthquake, it was almost dark at the time and we had no electricity and communication connection. I feel secluded from the world, all we can do is just waiting … for detail info about the quake, our connection to the world, and about our families in the stricken area. Day by day we spent to watch tv about the recent update on stricken area. I lose the appetite for getting some oleh-oleh for my colleagues or to explore other places around my town, even though there is no damage in our town. Sometimes my colleagues contacts me to know about my condition or to ask me making sure about their friends and relatives and I could do it by using my cell (just a few minutes after the quake, my sister received sms for her friend, and we realized only that phone operator really works during the time). I tried to call my superior offering me to be deployed in the emergency team to the stricken area. As I predicted, it was turned down, I do not have capacity to do this. 3 days after the quake, I found my way back to this capital city and join the team to develop appeal. That is the least I could do, since just a few days after, I found myself in the emergency room, ready for my first-in-my-whole-life surgery. Nothing serious about it, it is only appendicitis, done with laparoscopy, so my recovery only takes a few days. After experiencing this surgery, I would like to suggest you all to get yourself covered by health insurance. It is very helpful, especially when you need to deal with unexpected surgery in unexpected hospital :D. No no, do not go there, it is nothing to do with Prita's case.

Again, I never regret my appendicitis, except the fact that it must be caused by my poor eating habit (But hey! The handsome surgeon told me that no one knows what causes appendicitis). I wish the surgery will take away my pain during period or ulcer :P. Anyway, at least I got the opportunity to know that I still have good friends that I can rely on during emergency. I think I have heard so many people said I am lucky to have very kind and patient people around me. I do realize that and I always wish I could be a better friend for them. How can I ask for more if your best friend chose to stay awake overnight just to make sure you are not in pain after the surgery? Or when your best friends would like to leave their office earlier to make sure you are mentally ready for the surgery? Or when your sister and friends patiently taking care of you during your recovery? But on top of it, you know they did it because they care and love you.

For sure, there something blooms in my heart. So beautiful, exhilarating, and tender.

Evolving Me

2009-08-24T08:14:00.005+02:00

Being left by Dedek for almost two months makes me realize that Bandung is not the same without her. I visited the city last month to use my voting right in the presidential election and tried to enjoy the rest of the day for shopping and having lunch at my favorite restaurant, but I did not feel the usual excitement. Maybe it's just the mellow-side of me, but it makes me spent hours to call home.

It has been more than a decade for me to do those routine phone calls. It started only twice in a month, then turns to weekly phone call these days. These phone calls become the only connection between me and my parents since I left for university. We usually spend one hour to talk about everything, especially about what I have been done between those calls. My sister joined the morning calls by using the parallel phone until she finally left for Bandung. I keep doing those calls even when I was in NL, but I used skype to keep the one hour talk.

My mom always uses the valuable one hour to reminds me of her advices and to let me do the same thing to Dedek during the same call :P. Sometimes I get bored with her advices, but I realize that she just try to keep me away from problems. She cannot rely on my two weeks annual visit to load me with all of her advices.

During the time, I make friends and get along with more friends to discover my equilibrium point. Slowly but sure, I realize that it is impossible to have everything I had at home for my new life. I gradually accept those changes and finally reach my new equilibrium point. I adapt to smaller privacy in my rented room, for having a closer friend more than I used to, for not having Mom whenever I need her advice, and for doing shopping on my own (believe me, I did not enjoy shopping for groceries or fashion in the first place. But hey! Now I enjoy it a looot).

I meet more people during my work that usually requires me to travel. During my travel, I never hesitated to chat with a person who sits beside me in the waiting room or in the train/airplane. Sometimes I met annoying people, but most of the time I met nice people who –somehow- give me valuable advices. Talking to people with various backgrounds made me get larger picture of this world, but still, there are much more to explore. They influenced the way I think and might contributed to whoever I am now. And now I realize that it actually started long before I came to Bandung, it just takes time for me to realize it.

Just two weeks ago, Mom told me that I am a different person than several years ago. Well, I am sure my Mom knew much that I can not avoid the changes, but I tried to find what she wants to tell me. She gave me an example on how I get along with people these days. I am no longer a chatty person for unknown people I meet in public places, I even call them strangers. I keep myself busy with my book or my gadget just to avoid the unwanted chat. (I can not imagine myself having Blackberry, I must be very much preoccupied with the virtual world instead of real world more than now). To make it worse, a friend of mine (he is my virtual chat friend) reminds me to learn how to read people’s face when I talk to them instead of reading the earth's face. I knew both of them want me to be a better person and it indeed slapped me on my face.

They made me think about what I have been doing lately and why I did it. Sometimes I forget to pause for a moment and think of what I just done. At least now I know why I give up so easy more than I did. I knew the above examples are just a few of many more negative changes in me. Enjoying my own privacy does not mean to stop talking to people around me. I am happy to have best mom and friend who willing to remind me when I lost my track.

Actually, there is something else grow in me, but I need to find out whether it lies in my mind or in my heart, or even both places. Wish me luck, OK?

  PS: I have started my first conversation with a grandmother during my flight a few days ago. I need to exercise more to keep an interesting chat without disturbing other people.

Firasat

2009-07-13T07:17:00.004+02:00

Sudah satu jam lebih di depan Scratchy, seharusnya sudah melakukan beberapa hal yang sudah menjadi PRku beberapa hari ini, tapi dari tadi hasilnya nihil. Setelah membuka lembaran ini pun, ternyata sama saja sulitnya memulai.

Kuraih benda itu, berukuran kira-kira 8x10 cm, ternyata banyak debu yang menempel ketat di sela-sela tulisan timbul di permukaannya. Aku sudah memilikinya selama 10 tahun lebih, tapi rasanya sudah jarang memanfaatkannya. Baru beberapa hari yang lalu aku membukanya, membolak-balik halaman per halaman, berusaha mencari-cari kertas kecil yang aku gunakan sebagai penanda baca (jelas-jelas bukan pembatas buku). Buku itu tidak punya pembatas buku dan penanda baca yang kugunakan itu hanya berupa kertas sobekan berukuran 1x1 cm yang ditulisi angka 23. Angka itu tidak menunjukkan halaman terakhir yang aku baca saat itu, juga bukan angka keramat yang membuatku tetap menggunakannya hingga 10 tahun lebih. It's just a number that shows the last article I read.

Saat hampir putus asa untuk menemukannya, mataku menangkap kilasan angka yang dicari. Sungguh tak menyangka, ternyata malah ada di halaman yang tidak diduga-duga, mendekati bagian akhir dari buku itu. Benar-benar aku pelupa berat, atau memang sudah lama sekali tidak membukanya. Biasanya aku tidak pernah sampai panik begini hanya untuk menemukannya, karena selalu ingat di mana terakhir aku menaruhnya. Aku berusaha mengingat alasan yang membuatku tidak melanjutkan bacaanku itu. Tapi menyerah.

Satu hal yang membuatku membukanya hanyalah karena aku baru saja membeli teman untuk sang buku lama, untuk membandingkannya dengan buku baru yang telah diterjemahkan. Ukuran buku baru lebih besar, lebih memudahkanku membaca. Buku baru itu merupakan pengganti dari pasangan buku lama yang aku tinggalkan di Belanda. “Disini sulit mencari yang terjemahan Ki”, begitu yang diungkapkan Teh Hermin saat menerima buku itu. Kupikir setelah sampai di tanah air bukanlah hal yang sulit untuk membeli penggantinya. Memang gampang membelinya lagi, tapi aku juga tidak mengerti kenapa butuh 3 tahun untukku membeli buku penggantinya. Aku bukannya kutu buku, tapi setidaknya masih meluangkan waktu untuk mampir ke toko buku. Apalagi buku itu bukanlah buku langka yang harus dipesan dulu untuk mendapatkannya. Harga juga bervariasi, menyesuaikan dengan kondisi kantong. Terbukti bahwa segala sesuatunya memang tergantung pada niat, yang ternyata baru muncul kemaren itu.

Kembali ke buku lama, walaupun sudah punya keinginan untuk membeli buku itu, tapi sang niat belum datang menghampiriku waktu itu. Buku kecil ini merupakan oleh-oleh yang aku pinta dari Om yang melakukan perjalanan haji ke Mekah. Saat beliau pulang, dengan bangganya Om menyerahkan mushaf Al Qur’an itu kepadaku. “Ini diperoleh langsung dari Raja di sana, ada stempel aslinya di dalam”, sambil berkata demikian Om membuka sarung Al Qurán itu dan menunjukkan stempel yang dimaksud. Mushaf itu diberikan sebagai kenang-kenangan dari Pemerintah Saudi kepada orang-orang yang berhaji, jadi setiap orang hanya menerima satu mushaf saja. Aku senang sekali menerimanya, bentuk, warna dan ukurannya pas sekali dengan yang aku inginkan. Dari beberapa yang aku punya, hanya mushaf itu yang aku bawa serta saat berangkat ke Bandung untuk bimbingan belajar. Sampai sekarang, ke mana pun aku pindah, mushaf itu selalu menemani. Saat memandangi mushaf itu aku menyadari betapa ia sudah menua. Kertas covernya sudah mulai lecet, tapi sebagian besar terlindungi oleh sarungnya terbuat dari plastik tebal.

Kali ini, aku membuka mushaf itu lagi, bukan untuk membacanya, tapi karena alasan lain. Ternyata lembaran kertasnya masih sama baiknya dibandingkan dengan saat pertama kali aku menerimanya. Tapi tidak demikian dengan orang yang memberikannya padaku. Setelah mengalami kondisi yang tidak dapat dibantu dengan cara medis, beliau menghembuskan nafasnya kemaren. Innalillahi wa inna ilaihi raji’uun, dia kembali kepadaNya.

Kupikir waktu dan komunikasiku yang terbatas dengannya dapat membantuku menjadi orang yang kuat saat aku menerima berita itu. Instead, I am in a deep grief, deeper than I thought before. May he rest in peace.

Holding the mushaf in my arm made my mind ponders, I wish I were on my way back to YOU.

C'est la vie

2009-06-17T12:17:00.005+02:00

I am in a big dilemma. This is what I got for not obeying my own advice: to put priority for avoiding too many wishes without equal effort. There is no formal education to plan your life, but I still wish I could have one.

Anyway, I received several wedding invitations lately. Seemed that some people think these months are the proper time to start their new life with their beloved ones. I promised my friend to come to his wedding this weekend, but suddenly my uncle call me to inform about my cousin's wedding on the same date. It won't be a problem for me if these weddings take place in the same city, but my friend's wedding will be in Bandung whilst my cousin will be in Jakarta. I have to choose between family and friend, sight.

Another invitation next week also gave me another hassle. Dedek will leave for her holiday in our home town just one day after my cousin's wedding. This means I have to find someone to accompany me to the wedding since it will be held in Banten Province. I need a company not only for my travel buddy, but also for the wedding reception. There is no significant progress on this matter. Est-ce que tu peut venir avec moi?

To help myself solving the problems, I will obey my mother's advice to go to my cousin's wedding this weekend. It might be logically unaccepted since I never met this cousin before, but since I have to represent my parents, so I think it will be wise if I come to his wedding. Maybe it is time for me to get in touch with the long lost relatives.

I have not told my friend for not coming to his wedding, but at least I plan to tell him. I even write a letter for him - in french-, actually it's part of my french writing exercise. Wanna see it? Read it below.

Mon Ami,

Je te remercie pour ton invitation de mariage. Je voudrais bien venir mais je te prie m'excuser parce que le weekend du 20 Juin 2009 je vais venir au mariage de mon cousin. Je te souhaite mes meilleurs vouex pour ton mariage. J'espere qu'on va se voir bientot.

Amitie,

Qq

PS: Est-ce que tu pense?

Another Story for Another Transit

2009-05-13T05:46:00.007+02:00

As I enjoyed intensive city hopping for almost a month, I also tried to steal the time for relax during my stay in different cities, but it did not happen in every city. Another short visit to a city in southern part of Sumatera last month made me feel like going home. It is a combination of a sentimental illusion of mine imagining myself visiting the city years ago as a child and the fact that I could understand the local language by guessing based on my mother tongue (finally! I could not understand the local languages in other cities I visited). It made me want to absorb every second of my visit in the city, which also made me understand why Mom offered her company during the week. She might want to show me things from my childhood, or probably visit another town where I was born. Unluckily, that was not a holiday, so I convinced my Mom to cancel her visit.

Anyhow, my personal history related to this city did not automatically bring a fortune for me, but I managed to spare my time enjoying sunset from the riverside of Batanghari. Ancol, the place where I spent my afternoon, is one of interesting places in the city. I took pictures and had small talk with my friend, which made me feel very welcome in the city. Later in the evening, I met other friends to sip a glass of local coffee in a food stall around the city center. I know I am more into tea than coffee –at least I was more into coffee than tea- but I can not deny I adore the local coffee. It's typically Sumateran coffee: black, strong flavor, and most important, the smell that make me awake. It was a perfect evening.

I flew the next day for another destination, but I had to transit in Jakarta for my connecting flight. Arrived in the terminal 3 of Soekarno Hatta, I still amazed with its modern design (in contrast to boring terminal 1 and 2), the color they use and also the new branding image. I took pictures of the terminal one day before its launching on my way to Sumatera, so this time, I directly waited for shuttle to another terminal. All I want to do right after checked in was only to have my lunch in one of the restaurants and then spending my three hours doing whatever I want in the airport. I purposely arranged early flight to Jakarta to anticipate delay from the flight.

Alas, three hours later, I found out a flight delay for another three hours and the airline sent me to their lounge. The food only kept my boring away for the first 30 minutes and I decided to continue reading the novel I bought a week before: Negeri van Oranje. It was written by my Stuneder fellows (remember him?) and I read it for the sake of my curiosity and also my personal sentimental. As a person who had experienced a quite the same experience (OK, mine was not as much as theirs), reading this book was like reminiscing my time in NL. Friendship, that's one word to describe the book. How could I know that I will find the sincere friendship during my stay in NL? It was not my first time living by myself, but living in completely different country taught me about sharing with friends.

And for those who have not and will visit NL, it is also a guide book to live as student and to explore the country and its surrounding countries. Believe me, this information is very useful, some information are new to me, which prove that the writers have explore the country better than me. Somehow, it reminds me to my own experience in gathering information about NL through mailing list from Indonesian students in NL. Later, we also experience the same with the newer Stuned awardees. A friend came up with an effort to compose our information from the mailing list into a compilation called living in Holland, he also put his own writing about how to survive in NL. He gave a copy of this compilation to NESO Office in Jakarta and to all of his friends. It did help me answering questions from the new Stuned awardees. That's why I think some part of the book tries to provide this guidance to their readers, very helpful, right?

Regardless the confusing timeline within the book, I fully recommend the book for all book lovers. It did make me laugh during my reading (also ignoring the stares from people around me because of the laughing) and successfully kill my long and boring transit time. I finished the book on my flight home to Jakarta, which made this as the second book I finished within less than a week (I finished the first tetralogy book of Pramoedya in only three days without transiting in any airport ;)). All and all, I thanked the writer to make this book as a memento from NL.

Felicitation mes amis. Bien faire et laisser dire.

The terminal

2009-04-19T16:52:00.003+02:00

So sorry for my long absence in this blog. I spent almost all of my time out of town for work, I am on the road guys. This is the risk I got for working in a program involving different cities, it requires me to travel a lot when higher intensity of activities happened. In earlier times I always envy to see her frequent travel to Gorontalo, but now I could understand her woes. A combination of flight delay and travel to different time area become my regular menu as well as moving from one hotel to others within one week. Jakarta seemed only functions for transit since I still travel to Bandung during long weekends. Even though I travel to touristic cities, but I do not have much time for the sightseeing in every visit. I have to smartly use my time in the office to keep everything run on track. Looking at the bright side, I could use my frequent flier card to avoid queues for check in, tasting the richness of local culinary, and getting in touch with my friends who live in the cities. I could also steal the time to spend weekends in the city, but I have not done it yet.

Anyhow, during my activities in the cities, I just discover an interesting thing about workshop, meeting, training, and the likes. These events could be organized efficiently by involving small team or large team. I used to think that the larger the event, the larger the team should be involved. To my surprise, mid-size event and small event could be organized by a small team, what an efficient way! I love this way of organizing event and want to apply it into mine. Unfortunately, not everybody loves it, since it requires them to work without assistant. Too bad.

I have experienced a training of trainer that only involved two persons as trainer and organizer. It was held for three days in a hotel, with only 12 participants. The trainers took their turn in each session, when one of them played his role as trainer, the other assisted him by preparing papers and markers for participants during group work, vice versa. The other time, I visited my neighboring country for a training, it was attended by about 25 participants from South East Asia countries. On the third day, I realized that the training was only organized by no more than 3 persons. Another example, my colleague flew to India for 5 days training just to discover the event was organized by only 2 persons. I do not know whether it matters, but none of the above events is organized by Indonesian.

I did not purposely notice about their efficiency, but when I had to plan a series of events out of town, this idea came to my mind. I have reason to apply it, since the more the persons involve, the longer coordination chain applies, which influence coordination within the team. The first trial was for a one day meeting and everything run smooth, which made me continue to several meetings. The other time, we tried to find more secluded place for a 2 days workshop, and as usual I was not assisted by anybody, it was all at my cost. It might not the perfect one, but I did not receive any complain from my superior neither our partners. I concluded it was doable … until last week.

Since I have to take much role in the meeting and did not have much time to prepare (I also have to be in another meeting in another city at one day before), I decided to hire local assistant for a three days workshop that involved not more than 15 participants. My local partner suggested me to hire 2 assistants and I agreed. These assistants have been coordinated with my local partners and have been informed about their tasks. To make it short, I received surprises on the first day and directly discover that one of my partners preferred another way of organizing the meeting. He needed assistants to set up meeting equipment (usually I or other meeting participants did it), to write him cards he need during the discussion, to write him minutes, to print him discussion material, to assist him during the presentation, and to prepare other things (for these things, no one did it for him). Then I realized that he might felt uncomfortable with the way we previously conduct the meetings.

At the organization where I work, we usually do these things by ourselves, but maybe other organizations do this in different way. I should have realized that different persons, with different ability, with different seniority, required different assistance. *sight*.

Bon nuit tout le monde.

Choices

2009-04-19T16:37:00.003+02:00

After a long time, I finally got a chance to meet a friend, again, after several times of cancellation. Honestly, the chances to meet some friends are very rare lately, at least that is happened to me. We did not have much time for the chit chat since he has to change buses to reach home, and the evening was not young. Unlike our usual chats –which most of the time talking about work, work, and work- we ended up talking about our personal thing. It was not the first time he and I shared about our life. As usual, the most interesting topic from him is about his relationship with his other half, while for me, we agreed that the not-yet-ending-journey-for-my-soulmate is still applicable.

Listen to his stories felt like listen to my own story a few years ago. And the lessons I learned from my experience (well, not the perfect one, but at least I learned something) are to face our own problem and to give ourselves much time to digest everything we face. It will need hard work from both sides, but this made him worries if it will not be achieved. But I do wish for a happy ending for both of them. It takes a loss to make them find what they really need, but I did not want to let them lose it, they can discover it after digesting their problems.

This time, we spend much time to talk about my story. It's not because I dominate the chat, but also because we have an interesting discussion about his suggestion for me. He said, even though I am not a model (I assumed this refers to those who have slim body and beautiful face), but I have all the capability to attract men. That was so nice of him to let me know about this. Even so, he continued by mentioning two things that probably made the newly-introduced-men take a distant from me: education-envy and salary-envy. What the heck? Well, he is not the first person who told me about this, not the first man who told me, not the first best friend who let me know, also not his first time to tell me about this. He discussed about this to me a few years ago, but the way we explored it was far different than now. There was not so big issues that stricken me at that time. But this time, those envies seemed really happened to me. Gosh, I cannot believe that I have the capability to make other people felt underrated.

To help me out solving this situation, he asked me about an idea I have been avoiding from, which I responded with a big grin on my face. He then came up explaining statistics and probabilities for his suggestion to happen. It was logical and make sense, but I wish life does not always about make it sense. His suggestion is still a big temptation to me, that has changed my life, and also made me questioning whether I was on the track I really want to be or not. If only I followed my own will, I would never let myself discover the barrier between me and mentari and continued our journey without worrying any thing. But we did not, and this was the situation where I cursed myself to do the right thing. I knew this is not the only choice I could take, but other ideas I got before were not even better.

He still tried to convince me about his suggestion when we walk out to the bus stop. I knew all he wants is to help me regain my happiness. Thank you bro, you are one of few people I could share stories.

Life is full of choices. So, will I go on with his suggestion?

Missing me

2009-02-26T08:30:00.003+01:00

Life is always interesting for me, maybe that's why I found so many surprises since the beginning of this year. It might sound immature, but my birthday this year was celebrated in a different way. My parents visited us (means, me and my sister) for three weeks and I decided to take several days off to spend time with them. Even better, my brother also took his leaves and visited us in Bandung. This was something I have been dreaming for so long, spending my time with them in Bandung, the best birthday present.

Another piece of surprise awaited me in Bandung. I have been in contact with a classmate and we planned to meet since December. He was one of my best friends back in the university and our last meeting was about 7 years ago (even I did not believe it, 7 years sound very long to me). Anyway, we finally met after several attempts failed. He did not change much and still a nice friend to talk to. Even so, he and I are not the same as 7 years ago. We never went out together except for group works. And realizing we go out and treat each other are something new to us. As students, we did not even though of treating each other or even do the chat without worrying our papers :D

Getting in touch with old friends is memorable moment for me since it rarely happened, but getting to know new friends is even better. However, worst of all is losing them one by one. Another friend will leave this country to pursue her higher education, which means I will have another long distance friend in a few months. Honestly, I feel sad, coz distance really make a distant. Anyway, this is the rollercoaster of life, the question is: will I give up on this?

Talking about giving up, I really have to work hard to master the new language (I mentioned about this in the previous post, right?). I missed many classes since I have to travel a lot lately. To make it worse, there are so many holidays at the same days of my language course. Every time I joined the class after missing the previous, I was really puzzled with everything taught by the teacher. I do not even dare to know the progress of other parallel classes compare to mine. I made up my mind that I have to learn the language by myself, but the book does not help me much coz all instructions are neither in English nor Indonesian. Some friends use other books to ease them learning the language, while I have not decided to do the same. I'm still busy to learn all things I missed in the class and try to remember conjugations for every new verb. Gosh, I wish I have much time to learn at home.

Back to my new years' resolution, I promised to give a peek on this in the previous post. Well, this year is planned to be a year to listen, since most of the time, I just want to be heard by others. In the previous years, I only thought about everything I want and what I want from other people, but it did not make me understand other people. To understand them, I have to communicate with them, and communication involves speaking and listening between me and other people. I still need to exercise my ability to listen to other people: their advices, their wants, their complains, their grudges, and many more. I should admit that it is not easy, but doable. I have to face so many implacable people lately, who are wanted to be heard as the sole source of truth. I do not know why I chose this hard way, but there must be something I will get in return, otherwise I will not feel like to do it. A brave heart, probably?

Epilogue of 2008

2009-01-08T03:19:00.005+01:00

The 2008 passed very fast for me, and I just realized missing so many resolutions I want to achieve. I know I cannot go back to fix it, the only thing I can do is just to put it on my 2009 list. But the thing is, do I still want it? Maybe it’s the time to look back, before I proceed to my next steps.

Somehow I think last year could be very short since I was very much occupied with work. It’s not that I hate my work, in contrary, I might enjoyed my job too much than I thought. It went the same way for months until the weeks of break for my health recovery. Those weeks opened my opportunity to take a moment and decide where I wanna go. And then, there came the next page, I began my new job a few months ago. It’s a new challenge with new indulgence, but I won’t talk further about this.

Despite that, some people around me might think I waste the whole year for minor things. I was suspected to be incompetent on things I should do in my life. Well, maybe minor things could be major things for me, and it does not necessarily bother me at all. Even so, this was the point that turned my confidence about the truth. The year of 2008 had taught me that knowing all the truth did not make me a better person or give me a better condition. It changed me and made me believe that the truth is not always mine, if it’s not meant to be revealed for me, then let it be, I won’t try to look for it. That’s why when I met Didi (yes I did, I met her!) and asked her to explain about things that have been hidden from me and she denied it, I did not even bother it. She said it’s better for me to not knowing about it, for the sake of my emotional health. Previously, I won’t believe it, but after I changed my mind about the truth, I realize that she’s still my best friend.

Talking about Didi, I met her just a few days before the 2008 ended. We talked and talked and talked for hours and still felt that time run very fast. We spent 7 hours talking about our 21 months of life, I was so happy that day. I could say that she did not change a lot, but she replied noticing me with the same hair length as when I was in Holland. On top of it, she is still the same person I knew, still a nice person to talk to, always make me comfortable talking about things I rarely talk to other people. Anything she talked about was interesting for me and made me regain my confidence that I am not an alien to other people. (Yep, lately I met people who thought I could not speak the same language and style with them, who thought I am too quiet, who thought I never joke and do not know how to relax. Anyway, it’s solved already ;)). Back to Didi, we had a great time during the 7 hours and hoped that we could meet again before she left.

I would like to note December as one of my best months coz I have my great times with friends and families just a few days before the year ended. It was very worth for me. I thank God for His generosity during the 2008 and wish it for the incoming year. He showed me part of the roller coaster of life and even though I failed it, I still have much time to improve myself facing the more complicated one. Let’s face the 2009 by believing that anything happened in 2008 and the previous years will come in handy much much much better than we thought.

Ah ya, I will give a peek to my 2009 resolution, but it will be on the next post. Nooooooooo, never think about it. I am not thinking of quitting blogging, that’s for sure. Don’t worry. And I am sorry for taking some time to update this blog. I mean it.

Bonne Annee 2009

Language

2008-12-14T07:50:00.003+01:00

Language is something we use to communicate with other people, verbally or written. As someone who born and raised in this country, I began to know Bahasa in my pre school period. Yes, Bahasa is not the first language I acquired; instead, Minang language is my mother tongue. My parents taught me verbally in our daily talk, but we never write and almost never read in minang language. Bahasa is the first language I learn to write since I got to know the language in school. As a result, I write letters, stories, notes, sms, email, internet chat in bahasa, even though I wrote it to those who acquire Minang language. All I know, all teachers –wherever I went to school both in Bukittinggi and in Bandung- speak the same language: Bahasa. And I think this influenced the way I write and read, since I learned it the first time in Bahasa.

Anyway, I finally learned how to read sentences in Minang language when I joined a students association of Minang in my campus. I pushed myself learning it since my friends gave me weird faces when I told them I do not know how to read in Minang language, while this association always post their announcement in this language. Unfortunately, I did not work on writing, since I did not feel it was necessary.

Basa Sunda is the second language I learned in school. I forgot how did I manage to learn the language in elementary school, but I remember doing matchmaking words for my homework and writing short story for my exam. I did quite well at that time, at least I did not get red marks on this subject. But soon as I moved to Bukittinggi and relearn Minang language, I lose my skill in Sundanese. I got a chance to relearn Sundanese a few years ago, but again, I lost it again after I moved out from the city.

Junior high school opened a chance for me to learn English. Some of my friends learned it before they went to junior high, some of them learned it in their elementary school and some of them took English course. When I succeed to arrange one simple sentence in English, one of my friends have joined the English debate competition in our town. Even so, my marks for English showed higher number than Bahasa in my report book. I cannot claim that my English was better than Bahasa, but each language is taught in different difficulties: for example, I learned about grammar for English, but I learned more advance in Bahasa in terms of grammar, literatures, and other things. Should I mention how much depress the teacher to make me understand Bahasa?

I learned English in school for six years until I graduated from Senior High, it's a long period for acquiring foreign language, but now I could conclude I did not make any significant progress on the language. I took English course for about 3-6 months in my early junior high and continued it for 3 months in my senior high, it did help for improving my marks for English subject, but it did not make me a fluent English speaker/writer/reader. In the university, I learned to be English reader, since most of my academic books were in English. I still have English subject for one semester in the early year and I refreshed my English by taking 3 months course at 3^rd year in the university. Did it make me better in this language? No. For me, English skill is something that come and go since I never focus to intensely learn it, maybe because I never though I will need it in the future or even dream to go abroad. Now I can laugh at my stupidity, it's a pity.

The same stupidity drove me treating English as the only foreign language I have ever acquired in this life. Even when I finally studied in non English speaking country, I never thought to learn the language comprehensively. I only learned several sentences just to enable me fulfill my daily needs.

Overall, I conclude that I did not pay so much attention in language. I might be not good at language, but maybe it was due to my laziness and ignorance on this matter. I know I cannot blame the education system, but somehow it did give me a certain perspective. There was a day in my senior high where we required to take an IQ test before we chose our desired minor for the third year. My IQ result did not support what I desired, if I am not mistaken, the result had two categories: quantative skill and verbal skill. I was good at verbal skill and was advised to take social science (IPS) or linguistics (Bahasa). However, everyone knew that to be in one of those classes was not my dream. There was an assumption that only students with excellent and good marks could be in natural science class (IPA), while the rest will only join social science and linguistics classes. At least that was the impression I concluded based on my observation at that time. I think this is why there were only extra courses (les) for chemistry, physics, and mathematics but none for social sciences in my hometown.

Reading this blog have opened my eyes about language. I cannot describe how much amazed I was reading her posts. She's awesome. She changed my mind about acquiring a mother tongue as our own identity. She insisted to raise her children with their parents' languages even though they do not even live in one of those countries. My sister, Dedek, lived in Bandung until pre-school and we taught her Bahasa just to enable her to communicate with her friends without language confusion between Bahasa and Minang language. We thought she will have difficulties in communication if we taught her Minang language as mother tongue. Anyhow, she managed to acquire Minang language in senior high because the same reason I acquired my skill to read Minang.

Another turning point -and more significant one- was meeting my new employer a few months ago. He surprised me the first time I met him. He interviewed me in English but at the end of the interview I knew he is not from English speaking country. He speaks perfect English without any accent from his country, I was clueless. The next time I met him, he greeted me in Bahasa, but I replied in English assuming that he could only speak several words in Bahasa. Contradictory, he kept replying me in Bahasa, which made me confuse, I never used to speak Bahasa with foreigner. Later, when I left, I caught him talking on the phone in his mother tongue, and it was perfect accent (I guess, since I do not know his language). Soon as I started my first day in the office, I got to know that he speaks Bahasa very fluently without foreign accent in daily basis. He does not speak the same way as Cinta Laura, but he speaks fluently like other Indonesian does. It's good news and also bad news for me, good news because I do not need to worry about my English when I talk to him, but bad news because I rarely get the chance to practice my English orally in the office.

These things made me think what I have been doing for years, wasting my time without doing any good at language. I tried to improve my English but only because I should learn it in school, to understand what I learn in campus, and because I need it to do my job. Now, I decided to learn another language based on my lessons learned from the previous languages. I will learn it not only as a tool to communicate, but will also learn the culture so as to understand the way I should use the language. After several sessions in the language course, I learn that the teaching system is very contradictive Indonesian education system in teaching English. Interesting. I wish I succeed in acquiring this language. I was told it will take one year until I could read a book. Can I keep myself following the class? Considering I never experienced language course for more than 6 months.

I envy you

2008-11-21T17:45:00.003+01:00

The way you admire Him when you pray
The way you spend your time by listening to His words
The way you set your dreams based on your discussion with Him
The way you enjoy your life by trusting yourself to His hands
Nothing can beat Him in your heart, not even me
I envy you

Talent, Opportunity, and Hard Work

2008-11-05T05:08:00.006+01:00

I should admit this post is highly inspired by merlyna's rambling on the [non]elites and the [non]privileged. She mentioned many times about being too tired listen to those whining from the unfortunates. I am sure she never has any intention to brag her ability in anything, and I got her point on this post. It's all about talent, opportunity and hard work.

Reading her post reminds me of Laskar Pelangi, a movie (and also a book) about the children living in Belitung Island who fight their own way to obtain education. Apparently, these children are not the elites or the privileged, but they never whine on their limitation. Instead, they face whatever comes in their life and keep their dreams even though not all of them could achieve it. I should say it is a good movie, which utilizes the games between talent, opportunity, and hard work. A talented boy in the movie could not continue his education, but he passes his dream to his daughter, he never whines. On the contrary, the-not-so-talented one gets the opportunity and performs his hard work that enables him to pursue higher education to the country he always dreams of. It is a beautiful movie, which could be an irony for those elites and privileged who never have any difficulties in getting their needs and wants, but this does not mean all of them never do what so called as hard work. I should remind you, this post is not intended to extent the gap between the haves and the havenots.

For some people, it is easy to find their own talent, but others almost never realize it and concluded they are not the gifted one. I was one of those; I even denied my gift simply because I thought that was not an awesome thing I have been looked for. I tried hard to exercise the other ability, and it worked. Though it did not bring me to be one of the best, but I am quite satisfied with what I have been achieved this far. On the contrary, some people picture it in different angle, they think I am lucky enough to have the talent and opportunity to achieve it. I should admit I received a rare opportunity to pursue my higher education within all of limitation during the monetary crisis. I just wish they knew they do not need to wait for a talent to make it happen.

Anyhow, I spent my last weekend in a higher education exhibition to help out in a booth. I always enjoy doing it, coz it gives me chance to meet people and to see their enthusiasm for getting their wants. It is actually strange enough for me to be there coz I never went to the education fair of the specific country where I received scholarship years ago. However, what makes this education fair so special is because it is dedicated for people who are interested in study abroad, from undergraduate program to postgraduate program. The first day of exhibition generated more than what have been expected and most booths were running out their brochures. Moreover, at our last day, visitors kept coming in even though we had cleaning out our booth.

One of interesting things for me regarding the visitors is about their questions in this exhibition. I knew, they might be interested in study abroad, but how do they utilize this exhibition? The elites/privileged only looked for the information regarding any majors offered in each booth and collected brochures without asking too much about financial support. The non elites/privileged asked about scholarship first before continue digging on the major information. They might not have much time to read the guide book given to all visitors that explains which booths offer scholarship and which booths offer school. But still, some of my friends received many unnecessary questions during the exhibition. For example: I want to pursue my master degree and have a bachelor degree in major A, which major should I take for my master program? Why fresh graduates cannot apply for this scholarship? Does this university more qualified than other university in other country? And when they are given a reference to a website link, the next question is: Is it available in Bahasa? Not to mention complain from the exhibitors because almost none of the visitors really know specific program they look for.

I am truly understand their confusion, but somehow I expect them did their homework first. Even though they are not the rich one, but I believe they are capable to access information in the internet. At least, they are well educated. It's a world wide web era, you can do many things with this. I believe this decade is better than before, where there are so many scholarships offered to Indonesian students and they have their representatives in this country. It's different than years before, where people who want to study abroad should pay for it or they could get scholarship as long as they have an outstanding academic result and want to spare they time and money to correspond with the university. All they need to do is to define their desired major and universities and they do not even sweat to apply for these scholarships. Scholarships are more accessible than years before, but sadly people still cry out for limited access :(. That's why, for me, hard work is in the same degree of importance with talent and opportunity, but still, at the higher degree, HIS will is the most important.

Have a great day everyone :)

Ajal

2008-10-28T08:49:00.005+01:00

Orang bilang yang namanya rezeki, jodoh, maut itu di tangan Tuhan, dan saya menerima pernyataan itu tanpa protes. Tapi, klo malah sebaliknya, rezeki, jodoh, dan maut bisa diprediksi sendiri oleh manusia, lalu kira-kira apa ya yang akan terjadi? Apa orang-orang akan berhenti memuja Tuhan? Atau malah sebaliknya?

Dari ketiga hal tadi, sepertinya hanya maut-lah yang paling dihindari, sedangkan rezeki dan jodoh adalah yang paling dicari. Ironisnya, walau pun sangat tekun berusaha menemukannya, datangnya rezeki dan jodoh tidak dapat diduga, begitu juga dengan maut.

Dan dia, telah menemukannya kemaren, menyambut sapaan malaikat maut di pagi hari, meninggalkan orang-orang tercinta. Isak tangis namun tidak berlebihan mewarnai kepergiannya di sela hujan dan petir. Anggota keluarga saling menguatkan dengan berusaha mencerna makna dari kepergiannya, yang membebaskan dirinya dari rasa sakit namun juga menimbulkan kerinduan yang mendalam bagi keluarga yang ditinggalkan, BUKAN kesedihan.

Selamat jalan kak, aku yakin, Ghifari-mu akan mendoakan Bundanya di tempatnya yang baru. Engkau mempersiapkannya dengan begitu baik, bahkan saya pun tak yakin bisa setegar itu.

At Home: Lebaran

2008-10-03T18:28:00.009+02:00

I'm home, in Bukittinggi. I arrived at my hometown a few days before Idul Fitri, this gave me chance to spend my fasting days with my family. As you may know, celebrating Lebaran in Bukittinggi does not only mean meeting the whole extended family, friends, and neighbors, but also having good food around. Traditionally, most women are very busy preparing the celebration of this holy day, start from cleaning the house, cooking the food, cooking cakes and cookies, and shopping their family needs. And the men usually paint and fix the house, also move some furniture in order to give space for family gathering. So, everybody gets busier when it's close to Lebaran, but I realize every year is different than earlier.

Yep, this year is different, because everyone in my family is here. The way we prepare everything for Lebaran is much different than years before. We never make cakes and cookies for the last few years, but the memory of working together for cakes and cookies making always in my mind. My mother used to cook all the dishes by herself and we helped her out a few days before Lebaran, but these days she gives up cooking several dishes because of her poor health. Every year on Lebaran day, my father’s family comes to visit us and we serve them meal, it's part of tradition. Dedek and I used to spend the first 2 days of Lebaran at home for serving families and guest, including preparing food, washing piles of dirty dishes and glasses, and surely being a nice host. Today, we simplified several things: we replaced syrup with soft drink, provide mineral water in plastic glass to avoid washing dirty glasses, and even serve the food on a short table instead of on the floor. I respect these changes coz it helps the women to do their job without getting too tired for days. But still, I admire them in handling it perfectly, I should admit I never imagine myself doing all those stuff solely.

During these days, friends and families visit their relatives and colleagues, but there is difference for serving these guests. Families are treated differently by serving them meals instead of only cakes and cookies. As a result, if we visit 10 houses, that mean one meal in each house, you do the math. On the other hand, there is no obligation to serve meals for friends, but most of the time close friends are served for meals. I enjoy visiting relatives during Lebaran day, coz that means meeting extended family and other long lost relatives. They come a long way from other towns and places around this country, but they do not visit us each year. As a result, I meet different distant relatives each year, which make me end up mistaking their names. My Mom usually reminds me of them by giving short description of our last meeting with them, but still, I am not really good in remembering them especially if we only meet once in 10 years.

Anyhow, my hands are full during these days, I do not have so much time to blog or check my emails. I wish I can write more, but may be next time.

For mistakes left unforgiven, words spoken wrong. For all the blessings of this holy day, I seek your open heart of forgiveness. Selamat Hari Raya Idul Fitri 1429 H, Mohon Maaf Lahir dan Bathin.

NII

2008-09-26T12:50:00.003+02:00

My finger stopped changing tv channel when I heard the presenter talking about NII (Negara Islam Indonesia). Why? Well, I was truly surprise knowing that such movement -I do not consider it as organization- still exist. Last time I heard about this name was about 9 years ago. Amazingly, after so many years, even when I completely forgot about it, a tv program publish their investigation on NII.

NII is not something special to me, but I almost experiencing their movement back then. At that time, I just finished my university examination in Bandung and waited for the result the next month. So I decided to spend my holiday at my aunt instead of going back home. I stayed in my aunt-s house since I arrived in the city, it was the same house I inhabited when I spent some of my elementary years. (My school was about 500m from home, so most of my classmates know where I live). Then one day, on my way back home, I met one of my classmates, she was my best friend in elementary school. Nothing change from her, she just grew taller than years before. We hugged each other and exchanged stories for a few minutes. Since she was with some friends at that time, we decided to meet another time, but before she left, she asked me to join a mentoring and I said OK.

The next day, she came to visit me at my place. She did not come alone, but introduced me to her friends. She asked me to show my room to make sure we could get our privacy. I did not notice something wrong with it, so I lead them to my room at the second floor. Right after that, they sit on the floor and made a circle and they asked me to join coz the mentoring was about to begin. Again, I did not object to them because I thought it was not useless to learn religious thing while waiting for my exam result. And there I was, spending a few mentoring sessions with them. However, after 4-5 times of mentoring, I became more and more inconvenient with them. I talked about it to my classmate in senior high (she knows more about religion than me) and we decided to make her join the mentoring, of course it was a surprise for my mentoring group. Unexpectedly, my mentoring group was not really happy with the new comer, they decided to finish mentoring earlier when they realized they cannot answered my friends questions. And it was clear to me to stay away from them before it went bad. Later on, I gave them reasons for not attending the mentoring and left for Jakarta. I lied to my Mom telling her I want to follow an examination in Jakarta for a school I never considered before, and certainly, without preparation.

Soon after the examination result was announced, I went back to Bandung preparing my study in one of public universities. I never heard about my mentoring group, they might be bored calling to my aunt's house. At the end of my first semester in university, I met her after leaving a friend’s house. She studied in different university. I chatted for a while with her and left. A few months after, she and her friend visited me at my aunts. She asked me for a help since her friend need some money immediately. Unfortunately, I cannot help her. She asked for any contacts I could pass her on but I did not give them any. At that point, I never realized what was happened.

Time flies by, I was about to finish my second semester in the university when people talked and media published about NII. About how they influenced university students and made them work to pay for the fee applied by NII. Soon after I realized it, I recognized some friends who have been involved too far in this movement. They have proceeded to a phase called 'baiát' and obliged to pay for fee. I collected some information from media and friends and then realized that I just missed their target to be NII member. I was very much released but also sad to know many friends lied to their parents and left school because of this movement. This case became national issue and parents were aware about their existence. Several students in my campus were identified as victims of this movement and were advised to leave it. It took sometime to get them back on track and continue their study. However, some of the students preferred to transfer to other universities because they can not stand people staring at them or even asking them questions.

Next semesters, I was in the same class with some of students who were involved with NII. Since they were too busy working to earn money back then, they failed many classes and have to retake it that semester. I also heard several versions on how they leave the movement, it needed a sacrifice from the whole family members, both emotion and money.

Years after, I met a new friend who –later on- made a confession that he was one of NII victims. Right after he left it, he moved to other university and kept hiding from everybody except his family and some new friends in the campus. He had a very tough time since he lost the scholarship due to his transfer. Slowly but sure, he finally graduated, but the memory during the hard times will never been erased from his mind.

I probably never knew their struggle to survive from it. All I knew that it was almost ruins so many people's bright future. I hope this movement never exists in the future. Even when it does, I pray for people to listen to their heart and God. Anyway, it's better to join mentoring at public places, so there is no reason for not joining any pengajian or mentoring.

August

2008-08-31T17:52:00.003+02:00

It is the month where I honestly lose my mood to write on this blog. There are many ideas pop up in my head but I was too lazy to write. I do not know whether it is a good sign or not, but I make use of the time for blogwalking. I found many other interesting blogs to read and I visit them regularly before I go to sleep.

Many things happen in this month, changes are always happen and this time it positively affects my life. At the beginning of this month, I discover myself no longer an insomniac. Now I am easily fallen asleep at anytime even when I forgot to turn off the light. I still have no idea how I can recover from insomnia, but it was just happened without any extreme effort. There was no extreme activity that made me tired, everything happens as usual, except for insomnia. Certainly I am so happy and be grateful for this. I think I just move on.

On the other side, I simply have limited time to do things in the evening. Usually I spend a few hours with scratchy before I go to sleep and this activity also produces several posts for this blog. I think I need some time to adapt with my new sleeping habit or even try to arrange a new rhythm for my body.

Speaking about changes, like it or not, I have to let go of some friends. Some of them leave for pursuing higher education, some of them chase for more evocative life, and some of them try to find their soulmates. This made me learn not to become possessive for everything and everyone around me. Instead, I admire the chances given to me to know and get along with them. At the same token, I also let myself for getting to know new friends and getting along with them. It is so nice to have many friends around, doing things together, spend some time to chit chat, sharing different stories and jokes, and learn new things from them. How can I ask for more?

Even though, at this point I still want something for myself. Patience. I knew it is not something I acquire in a short time, but I knew it is something I should learn. Hopefully I can learn much in this incoming fasting month and really communicate with HIM.

Selamat Menjalankan Ibadah Puasa. Mohon Maaf Lahir dan Batin.

Going Back to 13

2008-07-31T15:14:00.003+02:00

Melly tagged me for a post based on question: if you have a chance, to which age will you go back? This question is interesting for me since I never thought of going back to certain age, not even wish for it. Even though, I have read her post and decided to write one on this blog.

Writing this post reminds me of my favorite tv series back then, Quantum Leap, where a person was given many chances to be other persons and fix the mess they made. Another movie I watched a few years ago, 13 going on 30, also has quite similar story, where a 13 teenage girl was given a chance to leap to her 30 so as to change her mind and fix the mess she made at that age, which influence her love life in her 30. Well, many people might think of going back to the past to fix things. I also messed up with my life back then, but I won't go back to those ages if I have only one chance. I will preferably choose to go back to the moment I miss the most, at the age of 13.

At the age of 13, I was living in my home town and just reunited with my parents. I spent most of my childhood with my grandma and she spoiled me much. My mother thought that I need to learn a little bit of discipline from her. As a result, I need to adapt with my mother's rule while I was still adapting with new friends and school. The new school was fascinating for me, my mother chose the school because it was the best public school in town. I agreed to enroll the school just because I don't want to go to the other school right in front of my house.

My relation with my nuclear family and the extended family was far different than now. At that time, my relation with my grandma was very much emotionally connected rather than with my parents. I also needed to learn how to live in a complete family, with parents, brother and sister instead of only having grandma in my daily life. It was not easy for me, I have to tolerate my brother and sister for everything, since I am the eldest. My brother was cool for me, but Dedek was another thing. She was still 5 years old and followed me everywhere I go, but I did not feel easy for having the younger sister around. She was very much fond of me, but I did not reply her in a good way. It took me more than one year to fit in with my own family, but I always admire how things going on within the family.

Anyhow, I think 13 was the last time when we had the extended-family gathering (from my mother's). We usually have the gathering during the school holiday. That was when my mother's siblings and their families came to my grandma's place, the place where we live. The adults did the chit chat of their own while the kids were playing games. The activity was taken place after dinner and durian was the right snack for that time. (Ironically, I do not like durian as much as them). Meeting my cousins during the school holiday was fun for me, since we usually have the opportunity to travel with our parents to our desired tourism destinations on West Sumatera. The other time, we had picnic to some interesting places in the suburb. As an exchange of their visits, I paid them visits during my one or two weeks school holiday. Sungai Penuh, where my uncle (the late) lived, was my favorite place for short holiday, since that was the place where I can ride the bike without my grandma's complain. (My grandma never like me riding a bike, she thought that was dangerous for me).

My grandma was the big influencer up to that age, I shared every stories with her. She also loved to tell stories about my grandpa, my mother's childhood, and other interesting stories. She was an excellent cook and always spoiled me with anything she had. However, as I grow up and build more connection with my mother, I rarely shared stories to her. I was too busy with my school, my friends, my new activities (basketball team and girls scout). But she treated me the same way as before, she never mad at me, and still take my side if I had any misunderstanding with my mother.

(The late) Om Ar, my favorite uncle, regularly visited us when he needs to buy stuffs for his store. He asked me to join him shopping and let me choose the thing I want. He was an evening traveler, so he usually departed in the evening most of the time. He never showed his attention to me, but later I knew that he supported me with whatever I do and proud of me. A few weeks before he passed away he sent me text messages telling me he was happy for me. I thank God for letting me build better communication with him after long period of absent before he's gone.

My relation with my father's family is quite different than with my mother's, since we are following the matrilineal family system. However, I always feel home at my father's family. We live quite near by my father's family and at least I visited them twice a week, at Friday noon when my father visit the nearest mosque for Friday Praying and at Sunday morning after our jogging routine. For me, the extended family both from my mother and my father sides make me feel rich with attention. Uncu was my father's youngest sister. She filled me with loves and attention since my childhood and also one of the persons who spoils me much. She never thought twice to buy me things and supplied me with drugs I need. She's assistant of pharmacist. Also, my father's youngest brother was my best friend back then. He would like my company every time he went home during his break. We usually drive around the city and stop by for dining out.

At this very age I still enjoyed my Japanese uncle's visits at least once a year. He is a researcher and regularly visits my home town for this purpose. His visits always make me happy, he brought us different gifts in every visit, and we kept those gifts very carefully coz those were the best gifts we have ever received. He also asked me to show my school rapport and comment on the grades I got. It might be meant nothing for him, but at that time I was his big fan, and his opinion mattered to me. I saw him as a smart person who can travel abroad with his competences. He made me dream.

Bukittinggi was also in a good shape for me at that age. I spent 15-20 minutes walking to my school and enjoyed the mountainous scenery and also Ngarai Sianok valley on the way. The air was fresher than any other cities I have ever lived in. This was also the time when I had my crush on a student's organization leader (OSIS) :D, but nobody knew, I guess. At this age I also learned not to be ashamed of myself when my better off friends found out my morning routine distributing hunkwe ice to several food stall around my house. I developed my own confidence not to listen too much to what other people said about me, as long as I believe that I do nothing wrong.

On my way home after playing basketball with my friends, I was involved into conversation with a stranger. He asked me about what will I do after finish my junior high, then I told him that I will continue my education to senior high, as all friends will do too. Unexpectedly, he told me not to do so just because that was what other people will do. He convinced me to do or to choose something because I want it, but surely after considering the consequences. I was not really aware of what he was telling me at that time. But after a few years, I realized that he made up my mind since then.

There are many things I miss so much from this age. Things are very different these days. I only meet my family during Lebaran Holiday, but it does not mean I can meet all of my cousins. Some of my cousins live in this busy city, but still, we rarely have a chance to meet, too busy with our life, I suppose. Anyhow, there are only two months to go for Lebaran Holiday, I should prepare to meet my family, the precious moment I always waiting for :D.

The Lost Superhero

2008-07-09T04:46:00.003+02:00

When she was a child, Dedek did not want any of us in the family to watch superhero cartoon or movies. Everytime Abeng or I want to watch those movies, she screamed her head off, pushing us to switch the tv channel. We never exactly knew what caused her scream. Years later, even though she stopped screaming when we want to watch superhero movie, I notice that she rarely love any of them. It is very contradictive with me and Abeng, who are very much into superhero. We had many comic books, posters, t-shirts, action figures, toys, and even rent superhero videos on regular basis.

As we grow up, I still enjoy watching superhero movies and books, but I stopped buying toys and action figures J. I watch mini series of those superheroes on tv, buy or rent vcds/dvds, and also go to cinema. I still remember buying many pirated movies so that I can watch one season of the mini series without waiting for a week on tv channel. But I stop doing it for the last few years just because I don’t have much space to keep them. Now I prefer to watch in the cinema, which makes me think to get rid of my dvd player.

It's been a while that I realize my affection to superheroes thingy change during the time. I just notice it in the last few months. There are many superheroes movies on theatre and friends ask me to join them watching the movies. Although the last superhero movie I watched was the Fantastic Four, I did not interested in the recent movies. I believe it’s not the quality of the movie that made me refuse those offers, it’s just me. After many times refusing my friends offers, I finally tried to watch Hulk a few weeks ago. Surprisingly, the movie did not give me the same excitement that I used to have. But after that movie, I still go for another movie since Dedek want to watch that movie with me. I even watch it twice with Dedek, the second one was because of the free ticket ;). And still, nothing fascinating happen even though I laugh for several scenes in the movie.

I think I lost the sparks to superheroes. I still watch Smalllville on tv but I prefer the character of Lex Luthor rather than Clark Kent. I prefer to watch other movies rather than the superhero movies. I even notice myself almost fallen asleep when I watched superhero movies. I think I cannot bear the violence showed in the movie as well as the superheroes’ ability to do remarkable things. Maybe I am too familiar with whatever they do in the movie. Gosh, I never thought I could ever dislike superheroes. I know I am not Peterpan who want to conserve whatever I enjoyed in the childhood, but the fact that I lost my chemistry with superheroes bother me. I think I lost my superhero. But why? Is it the growing up thingy?

Image is taken from here.

My Lullaby

2008-06-22T17:20:00.001+02:00

My eyes were on you, waiting for you to start
And there you were, telling me stories I never heard before
Those eye-opening stories that drive my enthusiasm
You never refuse to stop for answering my questions patiently

The other time, you did not tell me any stories
You made yourself available listen to my stories or my questions
You always made me satisfy with your answers
And made me wonder how you manage to do it

I never forget when you started your pray, made me listen to every word
That is more than enough to bring me peace and happiness
When my eyelids start to shut, I tried hard to open it again and again
But then you asked me to let my self asleep
Then you kept me warm, as you always did

And there I am, deliriously craving for my lullaby
Yet after that dream, I knew I will never get it anymore

Terima kasih, Mandiri

2008-06-22T16:43:00.002+02:00

Setelah sempat merasakan kepanikan yang cukup beralasan seperti yang pernah diungkapkan sebelumnya, akhirnya urusan itu selesai juga. Pfuih, leganyaaaaaaa.

Sebenernya udh rada-rada apatis mau gimana lagi, karena satu-satunya pilihan yang dimiliki cuma menunggu sampai 45 hari. Namun dalam satu kesempatan ke bank tersebut (sebelum 45 hari tentunya), saya menyempatkan untuk menanyakan kelanjutan 'kasus' tersebut, dan ditanggapi dengan mengcopy form pengaduan dan copy print transaksi bermasalah tersebut. Si Ibu CS juga mengatakan akan menghubungi saya begitu urusan ini sudah jelas titik terangnya, karena dia juga mengurusi kasus-kasus lain yang sama dengan yang saya alami. Terus terang saya tersenyum kecut menanggapi banyaknya nasabah yang mengalami hal yang sama dengan saya.

Tepat 45 hari, saya mengalami kemalasan untuk mendatangi maupun menelpon bank tersebut, soalnya sudah membayangkan kata-kata manis yang memberitakan kabar buruk. Jadi saya putuskan untuk mendatangi bank itu jika saya sudah merasa siap mental ......... untuk pasang muka ngajak berantem ;). Tapi siapa sangka, beberapa menit sebelum jam pulang kantor di Jumat yang lalu, seseorang menelpon ke HP saya. Agak ragu mengangkat, mengingat nomornya tidak di kenal (sekarang makin hati-hati klo mo ngangkat telpon dari nomor tak dikenal :(). Tapi akhirnya saya mengangkat telpon itu, yang tentunya tidak disesali :). Ternyata sang Ibu CS memberitahukan bahwa nominal uang yang terdebet dua kali itu sudah berhasil dikredit kembali ke tabungan saya. Cihuiiiiiiii, senangnya .... Begitu di cek di ATM, memang saldonya sudah bertambah sesuai jumlah tsb. Ya, prosesnya memakan waktu lebih dari 45 hari, tapi yang penting semuanya beres.

Teman-teman sekantor yang jadi tempat curhat langsung dikabari, dan tentunya semuanya ikut senang, karena berarti telinga mereka sudah bebas dari keluh kesah mengenai masalah ini. Hari ini juga saya menyempatkan mampir ke Sport Station, tempat di mana transaksi itu terjadi, untuk sekedar mengabarkan selesainya kasus ini dan mengucapkan terima kasih. Kerja sama dari toko ini tentunya membantu pengklarifikasian transaksi ke bank yang bersangkutan. Saya cukup terbantu dan didukung oleh pihak toko karena mereka sendiri sangat kooperatif dalam membantu klarifikasi transaksi. Senangnya :)

Dan tentunya, terima kasih juga buat teman-teman yang sudah memberikan dukungan melalui blog ini :). Semoga pengalaman seperti ini tidak terulang lagi.

Regret

2008-06-17T04:22:00.006+02:00

If there is something bugging me lately, it would definitely my own regret. I knew I’ve made many mistakes in my life but I rarely regret all those things. I always think regretting something will not give me any good thing but sadness. Instead, those mistakes made me learn my lessons.

Ironically, I just regretted something, after reviewing my own decision. I thought I have considered about this matter over and over again, including asking other people’s opinion. I was very certain about my decision. Alas, I missed the important thing after making that decision: I did not consider the happiness of many people I love, I only thought about myself, my own happiness. And now it feels hurtful to realize my stupidity, even though it did not cause any loss for anyone. Except the fact that many people will be happier if I came to another decision. Usually I can distract myself by saying: next time better. Only now all I can say is: I wish I can do better that time.

Anyhow, I can’t remember when the last time I regret my decision, so maybe this time the regret came on purpose. At least I made my lessons: to get rid of my selfishness.

Mana Tanggung Jawabmu?

2008-05-29T18:25:00.001+02:00

Posting kali ini berbeda dari biasanya, sengaja ditulis di sini karena saya benar-benar belum menemukan jalan keluar yang tepat. Siapa tahu setelah menulis di sini saya dapat pencerahan :).

Sekitar sebulan yang lalu saya berbelanja di sebuah toko di mall yang setiap minggu saya kunjungi. Harga barang yang dibeli melebihi jumlah uang tunai yang ada di dompet saya (yang memang tidak pernah diisi banyak ;)). Karena enggan untuk mengambil uang di ATM, saya memutuskan untuk menggunakan kartu debit. Sang supervisor toko sendiri yang melakukan penggesekan (swiping) pada mesin, setelah ditunggu 5 menit, tidak ada cetakan transaksi yang dihasilkan. Si Mbaknya kemudian mengulang kembali penggesekan, namun kembali gagal, lagi-lagi tidak ada cetakan transaksi. Sayangnya saat itu saya tidak menaruh perhatian pada apa yang tertulis pada mesin tersebut, sehingga menerima saja waktu dijelaskan bahwa kartu tersebut tidak dapat digunakan. Saya memberikan kartu lain dan hanya dengan satu kali gesekan saja, cetakan transaksi sudah keluar. Lalu saya pun melenggang keluar toko bersama barang belanjaan saya.

Enam hari kemudian, saya melakukan pencetakan buku tabungan di dua bank pada hari yang sama. Lokasi kedua bank itu hanya dipisahkan satu bangunan saja, sehingga urusan ke bank menjadi lebih efisien. Setiap menerima buku tabungan yang sudah dicetak, saya selalu mengecek transaksi yang tercetak sambil mengingat-ingat semua transaksi yang sudah pernah saya lakukan (dan tentu saja tidak akurat, mengingat daya ingat saya juga terbatas untuk menghafal transaksi selama 1 bulan terakhir). Ga ada suatu kejanggalan pun yang saya temukan saat itu.

Sampai malamnya, saya baru sadar bahwa transaksi di toko di atas ternyata sama-sama tercetak di kedua buku tabungan saya, tentu saja di bagian debet, bukan kredit. Karena hari esoknya adalah weekend, saya tidak dapat langsung mengurus ke bank terdekat. Esoknya saya mendatangi toko tersebut, karena berasumsi transaksi tersebut memang terjadi di kartu yang pertama dan dapat saya tagih kembali ke toko. Terus terang saya sudah siap mental klo pihak toko sulit bekerjasama dalam hal ini, tapi sebaliknya tanggapan mereka sangat kooperatif. Tapi hari itu saya memang kecewa karena hasil salinan print transaksi AmEx yang terjadi di toko mereka pada tanggal tersebut tidak mencatat pemasukan dari kartu pertama saya, dan hanya mencatat transaksi dari kartu kedua. Mereka memperlihatkan rangkuman transaksi yang terjadi pada tanggal tsb, beserta bukti print masing-masing transaksi, memang tidak ada transaksi dari kartu pertama saya :(. Kami lalu berkesimpulan bahwa kami harus menghubungi bank tempat kartu saya diterbitkan. Namun setelah dicoba beberapa kali, pihak toko tidak berhasil menghubungi layanan bank untuk merchant. Dan hari itu saya pulang dengan tangan hampa. Sebelum pulang, saya diberitahu bahwa kejadian seperti itu sering terjadi pada kartu bank pertama itu, tapi ucapan pihak toko itu tidak saya anggap penting.

Pada hari Senin, saya menghubungi bank ke nomor yang diberikan oleh merchant/toko, namun baru pada hari berikutnya saya berhasil menghubungi dan kemudian diarahkan untuk menelpon ke nomor 14000 (does it ring a bell?). Saat berhasil menghubungi 14000 saya diminta untuk datang langsung ke bank terdekat untuk membuat pengaduan. Keesokan harinya saya baru punya kesempatan untuk ke bank, yang diterima oleh mbak customer service yang ramah dan cantik. Saya diminta mengisi form pengaduan sementara si mbak mengecek transaksi yang saya permasalahkan di komputernya. Ternyata, pada saat itu saya diberitahu bahwa tabungan saya didebet DUA KALI untuk transaksi dengan nominal yang sama, yaitu transaksi di toko itu. Saya mengecek lagi di buku tabungan (sayangnya transaksi debet dan kredit di buku itu tidak dicetak pada kolom berbeda, hanya dapat dibedakan berdasarkan tanda D di belakang angka transaksi saja). Dan ternyata benar, transaksi pertama tercetak di baris terbawah halaman dan transaksi berikutnya tercetak di balik halaman tersebut.

Tapi saya tidak langsung panik saat itu, karena mbak CS dapat meyakinkan saya bahwa nominal tersebut dapat kembali setelah negosiasi pihak bank dengan pihak toko sudah dilakukan. Tahapan yang dijelaskan adalah: pada hari ke-12 setelah tanggal transaksi di toko, pihak bank akan menerima laporan transaksi dari merchant dan mereka akan bernegosiasi (detilnya mengenai apa, saya juga tidak menanyakan) dan dari negosiasi ini-lah kemudian akan keluar keputusan mengenai pengembalian nominal tsb ke rekening saya. Namun pengembalian uang baru dapat dilakukan 45 hari kemudian (lupa, dari tanggal transaksi atau dari tanggal negosiasi ya?). Pihak bank akan langsung memasukkan uang tsb ke rekening saya tanpa pemberitahuan pada saya sbg nasabah. Penjelasan itu saya terima tanpa protes, yang penting duit saya kembali toh? ;).

Dua minggu setelah transaksi saya menelpon nomor yang diberikan oleh mbak CS tadi (saya tidak punya keleluasaan utk mondar-mandir ke bank, jadi menelpon lebih saya sukai). Setelah menjelaskan duduk perkaranya (karena yang menerima telpon tentunya CS yang berbeda), saya mendapatkan penjelasan yang berbeda :(. Si mbak CS kedua ini menjelaskan bahwa uang tsb baru jelas nasibnya (diganti atau tidak) setelah 45 hari, dan penggantian baru dilakukan 45 hari setelah itu. Hualah, lama sekaliiiii .... menunggu uang kembali dalam 45 hari saja bisa bikin orang lupa, tapi menunggu 45 hari mengenai kepastian penggantian tetap lebih buruk. Setelah sempat merasa sangat kesal dengan penjelasan itu, saya akhirnya menghibur diri bahwa semuanya akan beres.

Sampai sekitar 10 hari yll saya membaca surat pembaca di Kompas. Ternyata nasabah lain dari bank yang sama dengan kartu bermasalah saya, juga mengalami hal yang sama. Hanya saja bapak tersebut mendapatkan penjelasan yang berbeda: bahwa uang akan kembali dalam 14 hari. Dan guess what? Setelah 14 hari tentunya sang uang belum masuk ke rekening. Tapi surat pembaca ini tidak saya tanggapi dengan serius, karena berpendapat bahwa nasabah tersebut kurang sabaran. Tapi hari ini, saya mulai ragu. Karena Senin yang lalu, teman kantor saya datang ke bank dari kartu bermasalah itu dan bertemu dengan seorang bapak yang marah-marah. Beliau ternyata mengalami kasus yang sama dengan saya, dan telah menunggu beberapa bulan (lebih dari 3 bulan) menunggu uangnya kembali, tapi tetap tidak ada, sang bapak pulang dengan tangan hampa.

Sekarang saya menyatakan: SAYA PANIK. Saya sadar sepenuhnya bahwa uang tidak bisa dibawa mati, tapi di zaman seperti ini, kehilangan uang tanpa sebab yang jelas tentunya tidak ingin dialami oleh siapapun. Saya ingin mempertanyakan: mana tanggung jawabmu, bank mandiri?

Dengan amat sangat terpaksa, saya harus menuliskan nama bank terkait. Saya memang nasabah baru di bank ini, baru awal tahun ini menjadi anggota nasabah. Bank ini pun bukan pilihan saya, karena tadinya saya sudah berencana membuka rekening di bank lain. Tapi policy di kantor yang meminta kami untuk membuka rekening di bank tersebut demi kemudahan bagi bagian keuangan dalam pentransferan uang bulanan, jadilah saya membuka account di bank ini. Saya juga menggunakan kartu debet dari satu-satunya bank yang saya langgani sejak sebelum saya membuka rekening di bank ini, dan tidak pernah ada masalah baik dalam swiping maupun ketidaksesuaian transaksi.

Ada yang bisa memberikan saran?

Cinta

2008-05-10T09:47:00.005+02:00

"Apa itu cinta?"

Pertanyaan itu membuatku terhenyak dan malah balik menanyakan alasan dari pertanyaan itu.

"Aku ingin tahu apa sebenarnya yang dinamakan cinta itu", begitu jawabanmu.

Jawabannya kembali membuatku terdiam karena sibuk memutar otak untuk menemukan kata dan kalimat yang tepat untuk merangkai jawaban yang tidak sesederhana pertanyaannya. Mungkin di kamus besar bahasa indonesia ataupun di kamus bahasa lainnya sangat mudah menemukan arti cinta secara harafiah, tapi aku tahu yang ditanyakannya bukan itu. Pertanyaan yang terlontar di akhir jam kerja itu nyatanya kujawab sekenanya karena waktu yang tidak memungkinkan untuk membicarakannya. Kujanjikan waktu yang lain untuk membahas pertanyaannya itu. Sembari beranjak pulang aku masih tidak dapat melepaskan pikiran dari pertanyaan tadi dan kemudian sampai pada kesimpulan bahwa firasatku selama ini memang ada benarnya.

Aku bukan orang yang tepat dimintai pendapat mengenai ini, namun kupikir tidak ada salahnya mencoba memberikan jawaban. Cinta yang dimaksud dari pertanyaan tadi sebenarnya sudah mengalami penyempitan makna, jadi bukan cinta kepada keluarga, bukan cinta kepada teman, bukan cinta kepada Tuhan, bukan cinta kepada tanaman dan binatang peliharaan ataupun cinta pada tanah air. Cinta yang dimaksudnya adalah yang terjadi antara pria dan wanita. Dan cinta seperti ini bagiku adalah rasa yang terus berkembang antara mereka, tidak akan sama dari waktu ke waktu, terus berkembang sejalan dengan bertambahnya pengalaman. Dari pengalaman inilah dapat kujawab pertanyaannya itu.

Cinta di masa ABG bagiku adalah rasa senang yang muncul karena mendapatkan perhatian dari pria (ehm, remaja laki-laki kali ya :)) untuk menghilangkan rasa penasaranku akan sosok seorang kakak, khususnya kakak laki-laki. Entah kenapa sedari kecil aku selalu memiliki angan-angan memiliki kakak laki-laki yang akan membela dan melindungi diriku yang sangat pemalu. Uniknya tidak sekalipun aku merasakan yang namanya berdebar-debar atau tiba-tiba salah tingkah saat bertemu dengannya karena rasa suka yang muncul hanyalah satu arah, aku tidak merasakan hal yang sama dengannya. Paling ribet kalau hal ini terjadi pada teman dekat :(. Walo begitu, teteup saja hal ini mampu mengobrak abrik isi raporku saat itu dan membuat ibunda memberikan lampu merah untuk urusan beginian hehehhe.

Cinta setelah melewati masa ABG adalah rasa bahagia yang bisa membuatku bersemangat untuk belajar. Di masa ini aku benar-benar baru merasakan yang namanya deg-degan kalau bertemu dengannya. Semua yang berkaitan dengannya terkesan hebat, indah, menyenangkan, dan tidak pernah membosankan. Perpustakaan menjadi tempat favorit bagiku saat itu. Bertemu dengannya di detik-detik terakhir sebelum ujian merupakan obat mujarab untuk sukses ujian, semua soal-soal ujian menjadi tidak sulit dan dapat diselesaikan sebelum waktu habis, dan nilai pun memuaskan. Bahkan saat ngobrol dengan teman lain pun namanya selalu muncul dalam obrolan. Benar-benar tak terbayangkan sebelumnya. Namun di masa ini juga aku mengenal yang namanya patah hati dan sempat membuatku berhibernasi untuk urusan cinta dalam itungan tahun :).

Cinta yang kualami pada tahap berikutnya mengajarkan bahwa aku pun dapat mencintai seseorang walaupun rasa itu sebelumnya sulit kuberikan padanya. Saat rasa itu akhirnya muncul kembali, saat itu juga aku belajar mengikis rasa egois yang sebelumnya selalu muncul. Aku yang tadinya cuma tahu menerima perhatian, pelan-pelan berusaha mengenal dirinya dan memberikan perhatian. Jalanku penuh liku kali ini, tapi dari sini juga aku belajar bahwa yang rasa cinta tidak hanya memberikan bahagia, tapi juga membutuhkan kepedulian satu sama lain. Perbedaan-perbedaan yang muncul membutuhkan kompromi dengan kepala dingin. Di sini juga aku belajar menerima diri masing-masing apa adanya.

Kupikir pada tahapan tersebut aku sudah menemukan makna sebenarnya dari cinta, tapi ternyata aku masih membutuhkan pelajaran lainnya. Pelajaran itu bernama konsekuensi, tanggung jawab. Kepingan tanggung jawab ini kutemukan bersamanya, melalui dialog-dialog panjang yang penuh makna. Dia juga membuatku menjadi kuat akan deraan siklus cinta dan patah hati dan mengajarkanku akan pentingnya menyelesaikan persoalan ketimbang menghindarinya. Dia memberikan jawaban atas pertanyaan-pertanyaan yang belum dapat kujawab sendiri. Caranya membangun percakapan membuatku tertarik membahas hal-hal di luar perhatianku sebelumnya. Dia tegas namun juga lembut, membuat getar-getar dalam hati yang dulunya membuatku salah tingkah berbalik memberikan rasa nyaman di setiap detik bersamanya. Cinta ini nyaman.

Riwayat cintaku masih memungkinkan untuk berkembang, karena cinta menurutku tidak pernah sama sejalan bergantinya waktu. Jadi bagiku, tidak ada definisi yang baku bagi cinta. Masing-masing orang akan mulai mengenal cinta dari sisi yang mungkin sama dan juga mungkin berbeda satu sama lainnya, berkembangnya pun dengan cara yang juga berbeda. Cinta mempengaruhi hidup seseorang dan juga keputusan-keputusannya. Logika tidak dapat dipaksa untuk memahami cinta.

Mungkin ini dapat memberikan gambaran jawaban atas pertanyaanmu tadi. Terus terang, hanya jawaban seperti ini yang tersedia ;).

Sebenarnya perasaanku campur aduk saat pertanyaan itu diajukan. Rasanya baru kemaren ada yang memohon-mohon minta dibelikan balon berbentuk kodok, tapi koq sekarang tiba-tiba bertanya soal cinta :). Percaya deh, semua baik dan indah pada waktunya.

The Earth

2008-05-02T05:29:00.004+02:00

Just watch the movie last week and I can say it is wonderful, one of the best I've ever watched. I knew it sound cliché but it's true. I suggest you to watch it. The movie is a documentary movie, which –I assumed- was made to endorse the awareness on climate change. Honestly, that was my first time watching documentary movie in a cinema. Mostly I watch such movies in film festivals or TV channel.

The Earth offers a combination of beautiful pictures, scientific knowledge, best narration, excellent cinematography, and committed production team. I can also add a passionate team in making this movie, coz they spent 5 years to finish the movie and a significant amount of money to produce it. As a result, the movie is able to give a luxury of breathtaking pictures and narration since at the very beginning. Every word is rich with knowledge, but I can hear those poetic words along the way. The narration has the same strength with the scenario. The director enables to give a break from the rich information given in the movie by stealing the time for jokes based on animal behaviors. The other time, I can feel the pain caused by the suffering of the animals that fail to meet their needs. Certainly, I can feel the joy of having their mission accomplished.

Since this movie is highly related to climate change then I should say I am still learning about climate change and everything related with this issue. I try not to limit my attention only based on competence, even though certain scientific knowledge might not familiar to me. Moreover, I am fully support the adaptation and mitigation related to climate change. I might not take in part in any visible effort to promote the awareness on climate change, but at least it can be mainstreamed in conducting my work.

Ironically, watching this movie brought me another thought about climate change and environment. The preliminary narration about the ice age and the changes happened during the time took me to a question about the priority related to climate change. Now I try to digest the question she told to me a few months ago, whether the human or the environment is more important. I think I finally know the direction she tried to show me last time. It's not about being ignorance to climate change, but it's about the meaning of the environment for the people.

Jump to another topic, when I learned the first time about disaster, I was introduced with several terminologies, such as vulnerability, hazard, and disaster. Those words are interrelated. Theoretically, disaster is:

“An event, natural or man-made, sudden or progressive, which impacts with such severity that the affected community has to respond by taking exceptional measures” (Carter, 1991)

And at the time, I just knew that what we -the human- called as disaster only happened when the hazard in the vulnerable spot become danger and caused human victims. E.g landslide, when it happened in residential area or any 'human area' and cost human victims, it will be called as disaster, but when it happened at far away place than human area and caused no victim, it will only be called as natural movement/phenomenon. And this same phenomenon was also happened thousand years ago at ice age. The nature always finds its way to achieve the balance every time a change happened to its body. And such phenomenon also involves climate change in the process, which caused the ice melting and the high temperature affected all living things on the earth. As a result, not all of those living things survive during the adaptation process. Several changes happened to the physical appearance and their body structure as a result of their evolution to the new environmental condition. This makes me believe that any changes could still generate survivors as long as they are adapting.

So, I can see that our environment is never be the same, it is changing gradually or even extremely and we are adapting with them. I am not saying that mitigating climate change is not important, but still, we cannot expect the same physical environment for the next generation. If only we could preserve everything we had at the ice age, would it be the same environment like we have now?

Image is taken from here

The quote on disaster is taken from my lecturer's presentation ;)

Guilty Feeling

2008-04-15T11:39:00.000+02:00

Glad to be back again! Last month was not a productive month for this blog, I wish I can write more :(. I wish I can leave for a few days to visit Bandung … hahahahaha. At least I can make a wish, right? A best one ;)

Anyway, guilty feeling is something very familiar to me lately. One thing happened to me last time and cost me attention from people around me, which –honestly- I did not enjoy very much. Somehow I involved many people into trouble and made me the center of their attention at that time. At the one hand, they are certainly people who care about me and are my best friends and families, and I thank God for this. On the other hand, they are people whom I care so much and I do not want to make them worry about me. Becoming the center of attention is not one of my favorite things as well. Luckily I can choose the best hideaway to avoid more attention :).

These days, I try hard to convince myself that I can not control everything happened last time. However, I still can not forgive myself for letting a friend leaving her husband just to make sure I’m OK, for making a friend worried about me in her special family day, for terminating a family plan to watch Ayat-ayat Cinta at the theater, for making people from far away coming for me, and for making a mother to leave her medical treatment for her daughter. Are those things enough to justify my guilty feeling? I wish I can do better than that time coz it was something I have experienced years ago.

Even so, how can I stop a mother from caring her daughter? How can I stop my best friends from giving the help I needed? How can I stop my extended family from devoting their deepest attention to me? I should not feel inconvenient with these. I should have been grateful for realizing there are people who care about me, more than I knew. I will learn to enjoy the attention, but please, bear in mind to warn me when I am asking too much attention. In return, I will commit with my additional resolution for this year: for keeping myself healthy, this I promise you all and myself too :). Thank you Mom, for the love that brought me a remarkable recovery. Thank you sis, for being there at that critical time.

Musim Semi

2008-03-20T15:03:00.002+01:00

Musim yang ga pernah kuduga sebelumnya. Saat di mana ternyata cuaca lebih ramah bagiku, bunga-bunga mulai bermekaran dan dedaunan mulai menunjukkan wujudnya. Aku suka saat musim itu tiba, dimulai dengan bergesernya waktu selama satu jam lebih cepat dari musim dingin, sehingga memperkecil perbedaan waktu dengan kampung halaman. Panjangnya waktu liburan selama libur paskah juga memberikan kesempatan besar untuk jalan-jalan, setelah lama menahan diri di musim dingin. Keputusan berlibur ke negara yang menurutku bahasanya sangat indah untuk didengar -walo juga belum tentu mengerti bahasanya ;)- ternyata penuh warna dan makin memperkuat persahabatan dengan Didi. (Aku jadi penasaran Didi akan ke mana di liburan kali ini).

Hari-hari berikutnya ternyata memberikan warna yang lebih bervariasi lagi, yang tak kalah menariknya jika dibandingkan dengan semaraknya warna warni dan ragam bunga tulip. Walo tulip sangat cantik dan anggun, tapi ternyata aku tetap menyukai sakura pink yang gampang rontok dan ternyata dapat hidup di halaman kampus itu. Angin nakal yang selalu mengganggunya tidak membuat pohon itu lelah berbunga. Melihat dan menyentuh bunga sakura dari dekat walaupun bukan di negara asalnya sudah membuatku sangat senang sekali. Menggenggam bunga sakura itu walau hanya untuk sekejap sudah cukup membuat rasa penasaranku pada bunga itu terjawab. Percaya atau tidak, rasa sentimentil yang begitu bisa membuatku merasa bahagia.

Bunga tentunya bukan satu-satunya kecantikan yang kulihat di musim semi. Munculnya matahari walaupun belum dapat membuatku terlepas dari jaket sudah dapat menghibur mata yang sudah mulai kangen dengan matahari. Siang hari pun sudah lebih panjang dibandingkan biasanya, sehingga membuka peluang untuk beraktivitas lebih banyak. Penawaran tiket perjalanan murah ke tempat-tempat menarik mulai bermunculan, membuatku tergoda untuk berbagi waktu untuk jalan-jalan. Dan perjalanan itu pun menyenangkan, membuatku makin menyenangi musim itu. Dan seperti biasa, pergantian musim juga menciptakan kebutuhan sandang baru sehingga dapat dijadikan alasan untuk berbelanja ;). Didi dan aku biasanya sudah mulai beredar keluar masuk pertokoan pada jumat sore. Lucunya, setiap kali menyukai barang yang sama, warna yang kami pilih sangatlah berbeda, Didi suka hitam, dan aku sangat suka putih. Dib bahkan bisa menebak warna kesukaanku ini berdasarkan banyaknya baju putih yang kupunya.

Dib juga yang membawa anganku kembali ke musim semi itu lewat pesan yang dia kirim beberapa hari yang lalu. Ironisnya aku malah jarang sekali ketemu dengan Dib di musim semi. Perhatianku saat itu banyak tersita untuk kuliah, jalan-jalan, dan hal-hal lain yang tidak terduga. Aku akan selalu menyukai musim semi dan ga akan melupakan saat-saat sewaktu dapat menggenggam sakura berwarna merah muda itu. Ia sangat cantik, lembut, dan menawan, membuatku tak dapat berpaling darinya. Sakura dan musim semi selalu berada di posisi istimewa bagiku, selalu ...

Tulisan ini untukmu, yang ga pernah membiarkanku percaya akan apa yang disebut sebagai kebetulan. Selamat hari jadi.

Abeng

2008-02-28T17:02:00.005+01:00

All of us in the family used to call him Abeng, which resembles Abang in bahasa. He is my younger brother, the only son in the family, which caused him traps between me and dedek as his sisters. We grew up together because he is only one year younger than me. We shared everything during our childhood especially toys such as cars, marbles, wooden hand-made pistols, video games, you name it. Our childhood was marvelous, since we can play together without any worries whether there was neighboring children to play with. And during those times, we did not even worry about who is being the girl or boy or who is being the elder or the younger one, so I did not have the responsibility to do the right things.

On the contrary, in our teens, we grew up differently, since at that time it matters whether we are girl or boy and whether we are the younger or the elder. Abeng is really good at sports and also in getting along with friends. Of all sports he is good at, he prefers soccer and joined a team in the town. This had caused me called as "Abeng's sister" in the school because he was very famous as a soccer player. It did not matter to me, I enjoyed when many people say hi to me even though I can't even remember their names or even faces. Not to mention girls who called to our home asking him or even asking about him to me. But then he stopped going out with us, his sisters.

A few years after, we went to universities in Bandung. Being far away from parents had taught us to help each other on everything. I did several laundries for him and he helped me in fixing things. We treated each other in our birthdays and also took care if one of us gets ill. Unlike me, he prefers to mingle with students from our hometown and joined their religious activities. Somehow, I felt that we were living in different world; ironically, my place was only a few hundred meters from his.

After graduation, my life went on somewhat faster than him as I started working and then back to campus after a few years. I became too busy with all the things in my life since there are so many interesting things happened to me. On the other hand, he had to fight very hard, through a long winding road in his life to get a decent job. I realized that I did not know exactly how hard to be in his place, but thank God he was so strong to face it. After those prayers and almost gave up, God compliments his patience with something far better than we have ever thought. It was such a relieve for me. I am very happy for him, even though I have to be far away (again and again) from him. Then I realized that he has been a man, all these years.

And today, I miss him so bad. Missing him for the weekends we –the three of us- shared together and all those snacks he is usually brought us. That's the only luxurious thing we had as a family, since we rarely gather as a complete family in the last ten years. I wish I could come and visit him on that island. Happy birthday, Beng, hope you are doing fine there. We all love and miss you.

No Plastic Bag, Please.

2008-02-08T03:18:00.000+01:00

One of my 2008 resolutions is to reduce the use of plastic bags in my daily life. This resolution was not based on other person's suggestion or pressure. Is it because of environmental reason? Well, it is only one of the reasons, but –honestly- not the main reason why I start reducing the use of plastic bag. The first time I knew about the importance of reducing the use of plastic bag was a few years ago, when I became one of volunteers in an environmental NGO in Bandung. Those reasons and explanations I got from the environmental NGO was logically acceptable, but at that time it was not doable for me. In my opinion, I did not litter the plastic bag I received when I buy things; I keep them and reuse it again to store and wrap other things or to store my garbage. At this point, I satisfied with what I have done, because I did not harm the environment.

Later, I got a chance to pursue my education to other country in Europe, it is NL. I was so happy and almost never slept during the long hours of flight. I arrived in the airport early in the morning at local time, and directly continued the trip to the final destination, to the city where I spent my time for study. We arrived right before lunch, and after taking a rest for a while, my new friends and I decided to go to a supermarket for groceries. We bought many things even though we thought all those groceries were far more expensive than in our own country. We can't stop ourselves calibrating the euro numbers into rupiah. However, after paying all those things, the cashier did not give us any plastic bag to store our groceries, he just piled it up on his desk and waited for us to take all of them away. I forgot how we can manage that situation but somehow someone told us to buy a plastic bag if we did not have anything to carry our groceries. We followed the instruction even though we are still questioning each other about what was happened at that time. Soon after, we realized that most of supermarkets –except asian stores/supermarkets- in the country do not provide the plastic bags for free, which is part of a policy to reduce the use of plastic bag for the environmental reason. Everybody is suggested to bring along their own bag or plastic bag when they are shopping in a supermarket, otherwise they should spend 0.25E for a plastic bag or 0.50E up to 1E for a better quality of bag that can be used frequently. And spending at least 0.25E every time you buy groceries is not something wise, right? So, like it or not, we do not have other choice than follow the system there.

Frankly, this new obligatory habit was not something enjoyable for me at the first time. Sometimes it pissed me off every time I forgot to bring my shopping bag or spare some space in my bag for groceries I bought. However, by the time, I get used to it. Actually this new habit drive me plans when to shop my groceries and this is good considering I am a shopping freak. Speaking about shopping freak, fortunately, they gave me plastic bags for clothes and stationeries I bought in the country, pffffffuih. By the way, there is a trend in the country regarding this shopping bag. I see so many people, women or men, children or elderly, who bring along a bag equipped with a trolley at the bottom (What do you call this thing?). You can see them everywhere. Most people bring this thing along with them when they are shopping. The flat floor enables their mobility with their bags. Isn’t interesting?

During my stay in the country, I learned that not all of the wastes go to the disposal site. It is not obligatory to separate our garbage at home, but some people or maybe most of the citizens there support recycling activity. They keep glass, papers, and certain plastic bottles and exchange them with shopping vouchers in several machines available in a supermarket or store them to collectors of glass and papers that usually located around the neighborhood. This recycling activity is something amazing for me, since I never wonder how to do this in my home country. The neighboring country, Germany, has obliged all residents to separate their waste into three types, so every house has at least three garbage bins. Japan has more complicated waste separation, according to him, there are seven types of wastes to separate and each kind of waste was collected at different days.

Time flies by, I finished my education there and went back to my home country. I spent a few months for holiday before getting back to a 'real' world. I stayed in Bandung during the time and enjoyed my shopping activity without worrying about my shopping bag. It was easy for me to adjust to my old habit. I moved to another city for starting a new job and slowly but sure I adapted with my new environment. My new job is quite different than the first job I had in Bandung before, but it fits with my latest educational background. However, I have to learn so many things since the job requires fieldwork in almost daily basis, something I did not experience in my previous job. Our job is to help the community make a better quality of environment while also alleviate the poverty in their neighborhood. Our program is different than the preceding program by other organizations before us, we do not offer any reward to the community, and this is not an easy task to make them attracted to take part in our program.

After a lot of effort to get them joined in the program and several community meetings, we came up with the idea to solve their problem on solid waste first, and put aside the other things for later. We proceed their expectation with many activities to get a clear picture on solid waste issue in the neighborhood and how to solve it. This whole thing is a new experience for me and I learn so many things. I was re-introduced with something called composting, which is used to reduce the organic wastes. Most solid wastes in Indonesia consist of 70-80% of organic waste, imagine how much you can reduce if you can compost all of the organic waste. I also get a new knowledge on plastic collection and recycling, even there is an established business on this thing. I just realized that scavengers play the main role in the collection and recycling of plastics in this country. Those plastics they collected are sold to a place called pooler or a middleman (lapak), usually they pile it up until they get certain amount or numbers of plastic required by the pooler. There are many kind of plastics stored in the pooler, from a plastic bag used to wrap your groceries (keresek) to plastic bottles. These plastics are sold to a higher level of pooler and at the end are recycled into plastic bags or plastic seeds. It's a marvelous unknown cycle for me back then. And even though I have ever visited a shop that sells recycled products in NL, I never thought that my own country produce those things too. I should admit that the idea of producing the recycled products was not from an Indonesian, but knowing that people in my country is producing recycled products make me proud. They took environmental reasons and creative business seriously. This has given me a new enlightenment: our plastic waste is not only a waste.

Meanwhile, my shopping activity becomes almost out of control. I shop everyweek, from groceries to clothes. It seems that I never lack of idea on things to buy. It gives me two large size of plastic bags contains plastic bags in my room. I tried to 'spend' the plastic bags by disposing my garbage once or twice a day, but never reduce the amount of the plastic bags piled. I feel guilty if I just throw them out without reusing them again. Then, I start to bring along my shopping bag for my groceries and expect those piles reduced. Once in a while I forgot to bring my shopping bag, but fortunately I do not need to buy the plastic bag. I am happy when I get used to my old habit again. However, I still 'produce' plastic bags from shopping other things, I am thinking about using other shopping bag for those things too. Later on, I realized that a few stores in the city have stopped providing plastic bags for the shoppers. They give us a better quality of bags instead and we can use it for shopping other things too. Now I am very happy that there are many more people realize the importance of not using the plastic bags. It is not only the shoppers, but also the store managers realize it now. I hope people can replace the plastic bag with the biodegradable plastic bags, which can reduce the numbers of plastic bags remain indegradable. From now on, lets say: no plastic bag, please :D. Now it’s doable, believe me.

Grumpy me

2008-01-26T16:51:00.000+01:00

This is definitely not the weekend I wish during the weekdays, I even almost called it as disaster :(. Me oh me, why am I become so uneasy with this whole thing about weekend disturbances? I knew someone expected me to work on this weekend, but I don't want to do it and I think it is my right to have my own weekend without working. I am sure I am not a bad employee since I finished the whole thing yesterday and spent 3 hours working after the office hour ended.

Many people might think this is not important, but for me, I have reasons for not working on the weekend. I have decided for not working during weekend since five years ago. It was the time when I started my first job in Bandung. As a newcomer, I was very fascinated with the whole thing about my job and worked on the three projects (for the same organization) at almost the same time. Two of those projects required me to travel for field survey and I decided to devote my attention to my job at that time. At this point, you can see how I love my job, because I was doing something I am interested in and was working with friendly people. And, after four months, I ended up having my lever problem and needed to be hospitalized for three months. The doctor said I was too tired with those things and wanted me to have a bed rest until the number of the chemical substances in my lever back to normal. Since I don't like to be in a hospital and my Mom can't stay in Bandung to take care of me, then I had to stay in Bukittinggi for the bed rest. Having bed rest for 3 months is one thing, but having a diet during the time is another thing. I can only eat porridge and should have avoided fat. On the contrary, I also needed to get my weight back, and it was not easy to do considering I only have a short list of menu :(.

When I got back to the office, I did not change my mind of devoting my weekend for working. And only in a few months later, I need another bed rest for something called typhoid, not to mention I also became very dependent on ventolin during the time. After my Mom begged me to take care of myself, then I decided to take the doctor's suggestion for not working on the weekend and enjoy my rest and relax time. And I did enjoy it. I even realize that there are so many things to do on the weekend. Weekend is the time to meet friends, to visit relatives, to go out of the town, to explore the new places in the city, to get rest and to free my mind from the working thing, and the last but not the last: to write on my blog and to go for blogwalking. I feel that I can achieve the balance between working and having fun by freeing my weekend from working.

That is why when I was interviewed for this job, I was sure for asking about the office hours. I definitely mention about myself who do not want to spend the weekend for working. I knew I cannot strictly apply it to all weekend. Several weekends are forgivable as long as those are important and dealing with deadlines. However, I will not work in the office during weekend, I'll work at home, where I can manage my time to work and my time to get rest.

As well as working on the weekend, I also avoided myself working until late at night at the office. However, I prefer to stay until late in the office on weekdays rather than spending my weekend in the office. I can't remember when was the last time I went home on time right after the office hour ended. Statistically, I usually go home one hour after office hour ended. And according to him, spending one hour everyday means 25 hours in a month of working days. 25 hours is equal to 3 working days. So I think, I have spent almost 3 days more in a month for working. Unfortunately, it is still not sufficient ;(.

I think I have a right to be upset this morning, when someone pushed me to wake up from my sleep by calling me asking me to do this and that. It happened not because I didn't finish my work before I left the office yesterday, but it happened because someone turn out to change his mind –and I was sure I have confirmed about this to him and he did not tell me anything about the changing plan- and want me to do things for him. It was not too early in the morning according to the clock in my room, but for me it is way too early since I usually still sleeping during the weekdays at such a time. And the rest of the day I have to write and send things to fulfill the morning request. I was definitely asked to go to the office to finish those things but I insisted not to come. I didn't have any idea but somehow so many calls and sms regarding the office thing had ruined my morning. I did not know how stranger can get my number and called me for something that is completely not to be discuss on the weekend. Honestly, I don't like stranger calls me to my cell and this is the reason why I never want my number distributed by other people.

And this PMS thing fully approves my disappointment today. I am so jumpy. I know I love my job and I work hard for it, but can this job respect my free time and privacy too? Please.

The Life I've made this far

2008-01-20T18:10:00.000+01:00

Have you ever asked yourself about what kind of life have you achieved up to this point?

I know, in this whole life, God never asked me not to be sad for things I did not fulfill in my life, but I know He wants me to go for the next pages of my life (errr …….. does this line ring a bell for you?). And that is what I am trying to do during the year, turning the pages of my life. And I thank God for giving me chances to know true friends and to get experiences, and the last but not the least, to have a wonderful family who always support me within our limitation in distance and time.

And I'd like to thank you mbak, for this wonderful year, you make me strong enough to face this challenging world. I love the book of course, as I craved for it lately ;).

Epilogue

Our unknown future is secure in the hands of our all-knowing God. Happy birthday, Kiki.

May you have the wings to fly, the vision to dream, the heart to love, and the spirit to embrace all beauty in life.

Building My Nest

2008-01-16T14:40:00.000+01:00

Voila! The first post of the year … I am so excited about it, both on the post and the new year :D. There are many things new for me at the beginning of this month, except the fact that I am still working on something from last year :P.

After several times of rescheduling, finally my office moved out to a new place somewhere in the south of the city. For me, this is the third place I called office since I start working in this organization. But for most of my coworkers and superiors, this is their first time moving out from the office building they have been inhabited for more than one decade. I knew they felt sad to leave the place, but I am definitely sure that they are happier to finally fulfill their dream for not paying the office rent ;).

And that is where the real excitement begins. I knew I was very enthusiast to write on my 2008 agenda for the first time this year, planning and wishing everything for myself. But soon after I got the chance to see our new office, I feel another excitement: organizing my things, I am building my nest …. Yes, it's my nest. What make it so special than the other two places I have occupied for working? Well, the first two was the only place available for me and was occupied by another people before me, so I got everything set based on their preferences and ergonomic style. And this time, it's a brand new place, where I can arrange my own place based on my wants. Yep, I knew all the stuffs I use here are the same and there are no partitions between me and other coworkers, but the fact that I picked the color for the wall in our room makes me very satisfied. Yupp, it's my favorite color … and I can have it everyday … :D

I started cleaning everything –only my stuffs, of course- without waiting for anyone to clean it for me. I want everything done in my way, so it's better to do it by myself. And I was sure to leave my desk clean this afternoon and ready for tomorrow. I can't stop thinking to buy this and that to personalize my place during my travel back home. A long list for shopping has been made, but it still in my mind. I think I need to write it down into two kind of lists, one list for a purchase request in my office and another list for myself … now my mind wanders to those fancy things I've been eyed during my visits to Gramedia last time. Yipppieeeeeeee …. Another shopping time :P.

I think there are more exhilarations to come, new neighbors, new habit, new lunch menus, new places for lunch, new meeting place with friends, and could be ……… new perspective. But I bet there will be no moving out to another rented room. I knew there is no direct public transportation route to my current office, but as long as it does not requires me to wake up earlier than usual, I won't move. I've tried two variations on how to get to my office, and both of them gave me the same duration: 30 minutes. I think I'm OK with it. Now, all I need is to wait patiently until I get the internet connection .... but, for how long? Hopefully it's not more than one week a.k.a five working days.

Last Post of the Year

2007-12-28T06:50:00.000+01:00

Ooooops, almost missed a post for this month … where have I been lately? ;). I have been around … I guess … trying to finish all those reports before the deadlines, get along with new friends in each event I attended, and the last but not the least: enjoying my vacation in my favorite place. The part before my vacation was not only tiring and stressful, but also breathtaking and invigorating thing for me. Well, it's the last month of the year, everybody is rushed by reports completion, so all I can do is only work patiently until my vacation. All those works are worth it, and I'm satisfied with them because I finally finish jobs that I thought I'll never make it. I think the last three months were the period where I learn so many things at almost one time. It's tough but also magnificent at the same time, what an experience.

Now I am so much relieved, the bulky thing in my head has gone. Thankfully I can spare my weekends for relax and reading books during those hectic weeks. Two of the books I read were written by my friends, the first one is a pocketbook on the guidelines of flooding preparedness for community and the latter is the adaptation strategy for small islands in facing the climate change. The books are not published for commercial uses, the pocketbooks are going to be distributed to those in needs in the city, and people can get it for free. It is a very useful book and hopefully people can get the benefit after reading the book. On the contrary, the second book is a limited one, I am lucky get one copy of it for free. It is a beautiful book both on language and also on the visual presentation, I really love it. These books made me envy to the writers, who have been succeeded in completing the very useful books, something very informative and inspiring. I wish I can write one someday, something more than just writing about me on my blog. Btw, another good book I read lately was this one, it shows a long winding road for 'paying' a mistake. I feel lucky to read this, because it gave me another perspective about life on the different part of this world.

Speaking about lucky, I think I lose it during my vacation in Bandung. I've witnessed the traffic jam since the morning I left for my office, but never thought it would be something worse in the evening. Anyway, I reached Bandung after waiting for 1.5 hours for the car, and spent more than 4 hours on the way. The next days in Bandung were never missed by rain and soon I caught flu until the day I left the city. But of course I didn’t give up by staying all day at home, my sister and I insisted to go out even though we have to carry a big bag of tissue to make ourselves comfortable. And that was a big mistake, trapped in a mall for hours because of rain made us lose control on shopping. Suddenly I got so many new things in only several days, later on it gave me problem in packing those things … there was not enough space in my bag … maybe there was enough space … but I knew I can't pack it properly.

Anyhow, I still try to see the bright side of it, now I don't have reasons to look for those things again when I go shopping :P. Well, l think many people around me are having the bright side of their life now and I am happy for them. Last week was my uncle's wedding, unfortunately I cannot be there for him, but I always wish him happiness. I am also glad with the newborn nieces, which is great because now Dedek and I can learn how to be their aunts. My cousin is expecting her wedding in a few months and I wish everything runs good during the time. Above all, I am happy for myself, for having another wondrous year in life. Thank you very much to all of you for make it happen. See you next year with the new pages of life. Happy New Year.

Window

2007-11-21T04:22:00.001+01:00

I wish I brought scratchy with me, because it was the right time for me to sit and be alone with scratchy. I was enjoying the city skyline through the window when I realized that. It was a rare chance for me even though I can enjoy it anytime I want long ago. I can not even understand why a person like me -who is never feeling easy with height- enjoying a view to a city skyline from tenth floor. Ironically, I can even enjoy sitting in front of my window until the sunrises. It is something very exhilarating for me to see the sky changes its shade and create different colors along the time, it makes me relax. Contradictory, at another time, the view to fireworks during the new year's eve creates a vibrant atmosphere at my place.

I knew that it was not the same skyline as the one I used to have, but I still love it anyway. And that was the right spot to see the positive side of the city, where I can see so many trees around the place, a sport centre, office buildings and busy traffic. It creates different image of the city, which is always been accused of decreasing its green open space. When I was in Bandung, I went to the northern part of the city so as to see its skyline, but the view was not as close as this time.

I used to dim the light instead of turn it off just to make sure I can reach anything I needed during my "contemplation". Then, what do I do? Many things, I can just sit there until the morning then go to sleep after the sunrises, enjoying the sunlight when I sleep. Otherwise, I can work along the time and take a rest for every 10-15 minutes to enjoy the skyline. I can also chatting with friends through messenger, which enable me to chat with friends that has different time zone in such unusual time. At other time, Didi gave me idea to light the aromatherapy candles in my room, and it was very relaxing, but I do not like the idea of having the smoke in my room.

However, having those candles remind me of those thousand lights from the buildings around my place. Those lights were seen as spots from far away, and I was one of them. That was the time when I realized that I am only a small thing for Him, God the Almighty. Then our conversation began, we talked a lot about Him, about me, about my relation with Him, and about my journey to find Him. Do you remember? Anyhow, thanks for the chat. I am so glad to find myself enjoying those time again.

Missing You

2007-11-11T15:09:00.000+01:00

You gave me different perspectives when I was stunned with the only one I knew

You made things different when I was with you

You made me laugh at ordinary things in my life

You made me smile everytime I wake up in the morning

You made me forget about the time which runs faster than I've expected

But the thing is, where are you now?

Libur Tlah Usai

2007-11-05T05:59:00.000+01:00

Libur Lebaran sudah lama berlalu, tapi bagi Qq semuanya masih serasa seperti kemaren. Yang jelas, Lebaran taon ini berbeda banget dari taon kemaren, kemeriahannya lebih terasa, rasanya udah lama banget ga ngalamin Lebaran seperti ini lagi. Hari pertama Lebaran dihabiskan dengan shalat Ied di mesjid, bersilaturrahmi ke rumah bako –keluarga dari papa- dan tak lupa satu ritual baru: berziarah ke makam. Ya, baru Qq sadari klo mama dan papa sudah ditinggal orangtua mereka masing-masing, dan menziarahi makam mereka adalah salah satu cara untuk tetap mengenang almarhum/ah. Selanjutnya hari itu dijalani seperti biasa, yaitu stay di rumah menunggu keluarga bako dan kerabat lain yang biasanya datang berlebaran. Hari pertama Lebaran adalah hari untuk bersilaturrahmi antar keluarga dekat, setiap kerabat yang datang selalu dijamu makan, jadi keramaian di hari pertama Lebaran tak kalah dengan pesta pernikahan ;). Dan uniknya lagi, jika hari itu seseorang bersilaturrahmi ke beberapa rumah, maka mau ga mau ya dia harus rela makan di semua rumah tadi ... otherwise the host will be dissappointed :P.

Praktis di hari pertama Lebaran Qq ga bisa keluar rumah sama sekali setelah berziarah ke makam. Kunjungan ke kerabat laen baru kami balas pada hari berikutnya atau lusa, itu pun dengan catatan selama tidak ada kerabat yang berkunjung dan kami bisa curi-curi waktu di sela-sela hujan yang selalu hadir sepanjang liburanku di Bukittinggi. Waktu masih SMA dulu atau di tahun-tahun awal kuliah, H+2 atau H+3 adalah hari bagiku untuk bersilaturrahmi ke rumah teman-teman, tapi hal itu sudah ga Qq lakukan lagi sejak lebih dari 5 taon. Sepertinya kesibukan dan domisili kami masing-masing telah merenggangkan hubungan silaturrahmi ini, but at least Qq udah sempat ketemu beberapa dari mereka saat buka puasa bareng yang lalu. Lagian, ga semua teman-teman mudik ke kampung halaman taon ini.

Hari-hari berikutnya Qq habiskan antara lain dengan berkunjung ke rumah sakit karena seorang sahabat melahirkan bayi perempuan keduanya di sana. The baby looks small in that craddle and was slept when I arrived there. Kami memanggilnya dedek saat itu karena temenku belum memutuskan nama untuk bayinya. But just a few days ago, she told me her nickname: Keni. Such a cute name. And the next day, I found myself in a wedding party of one of my best friends in senior high. Klo boleh jujur, ini adalah pesta pernikahan pertama yang kuhadiri di Bukittinggi selain pernikahan kerabat. Pernikahan terakhir yang kuhadiri di Bukittingi adalah pernikahan tanteku, lebih dari 10 taon yang lalu. Kepanikan sempat menyergap sebelum pergi ke nikahan teman ini, karena sempat salah kostum hehehe. Qq sepertinya terlalu terbiasa menghadiri wedding party di gedung dengan ‘sistem’ prasmanan dan membuatku ‘lupa’ klo pernikahan di gedung tidak lazim dilakukan di Bukittinggi. Untungnya mama mengingatkan, dan membuatku mengganti kostum dengan pakaian yang memungkinkan untuk duduk lesehan menikmati hidangan pesta. Yep, that’s how things happen during the wedding party at my hometown. Tapi ternyata Qq malah dapat surprise baru di tempat kondangan itu, ternyata cara menghidangkan makanan di pesta pernikahan di Bukittinggi pun sudah mengalami sedikit ‘modernisasi’. Makanan yang biasanya dihidangkan di atas lantai ternyata dihidangkan di atas meja pendek seperti halnya di restoran dengan sistem lesehan. Hmmm ..... interesting :).

Mengingat liburanku yang ga terlalu panjang, Qq juga memanfaatkan waktu dengan berwisata kuliner makanan yang Qq suka dan ga bisa ditemuin di luar Bukittinggi. Mama pun ‘menjadwalkan’ menu-menu kesukaan Qq dan dedek setiap hari di samping juga cemilan dan jajanan kesukaan kami. And I think I gain weight karena bisa menyantap makanan 5-6 kali sehari hehehehehe. Satu hal yang ga kesampean saat ke Bkt, yaitu makan rujak kesukaanku dulu. Ternyata tukang rujaknya udah mempensiunkan diri, but at least kemaren itu masi sempet jajan rujak di tempat laen and the taste is good. Of all the food, mie rebus di Bang H. Karto adalah yang paling Qq suka, rasanya tetap ga berubah walo pemiliknya udah berganti generasi dan berpindah-pindah tempat. However, yang paling bikin Qq terharu adalah usaha Mama dan Papa untuk memanjakan kami anak-anaknya dengan makanan yang kami sukai selama liburan itu. Sekarang Qq nyadar, klo yang bikin makanan itu enak ternyata bukan hanya karena it tastes good, tapi juga karena kasih sayang orang yang membuat dan mengupayakannya. Here in the city I often lose my appetite, but there I can always eat any food.

Ah, yang namanya liburan tuh maunya ga ada habisnya. I knew my Mom complained about that in my last dinner there, but I can only gave her a smile. I wish I can give anything to make her happy. However, I think this holiday is the best I have ever had. It was really nice to finally met someone I knew only from emails, to meet an aunt that always nice to me and my family, to spend time with my mom and sister, and to be accompanied by a very nice friend. What else can I expect?

And now, I have to go back to my routine activity. Even in my first day I worked overtime because of a tight deadline. I barely go back home on time since then and I think it will still continue during this month. It’s not easy to tell Dedek that I cannot visit her this month and let her focus on her examination. This almost caused me forgetting a friend who comes to the city for her father’s medical treatment. Fortunately I can still having my weekend and come to visit her in the hospital. Well, welcome to the city that never sleeps :D.

PR Delapan

2007-10-09T16:48:00.000+02:00

Wah, ketiban PR niy sebelum mudik ... hehehe, jarang-jarang dapat PR, kerjain aaaahhh. Hmm, tapi sepertinya PR ini rada-rada menjustifikasi bahwa yang mengerjakannya punya 8 alasan untuk dinyatakan sebagai orang aneh ... hehehhe. Yah, secara Qq sering ‘dituduh’ tidak normal, mungkin hal itu juga beda tipis dengan yang namanya aneh. Berikut ini 8 item yang suka diributkan orang-orang sekitarku sebagai kategori di luar kenormalan

Ga doyan makanan pedes
Yep, walo semua orang tahu bahwa Qq berasal dari daerah yang terkenal dengan masakannya yang pedes (bahkan super pedes, katanya), tapi terus terang Qq ga bisa dan ga doyan makan makanan pedes. Awalnya siy cuma sekedar ga doyan aja, kebiasaan dari kecil siy, tapi kemudian emang perut ga memungkinkan untuk makan yang pedes. Jadi Qq sebenernya punya cukup alasan kan untuk ga makan pedes?

Gampang disoriented
Walo kuliah di jurusan yang menuntut sensitifitas yang akurat di lapangan, tapi ternyata ga ada satu pun yang sukses membuat Qq mudeng untuk urusan orientasi arah. Apalagi klo jalannya ama rombongan, bawaannya jadi 'memasrahkan' diri sama orang laen untuk menemukan arah perjalanan yang tepat. Tapi Qq bisa ngedadak mudeng ama orientasi klo lagi jalan ama orang yang disoriented-nya lebih parah atau klo jalan sendiri ... hehehhe.

Tidur berselimut dan mandi air anget itu kudu, walaupun di musim panas
Walo segerah apapun, Qq tetep aja harus tidur berselimut, ga peduli itu selimut tebel atau cuma selembar kain tipis. Tanpa selimut jadi ga bisa tidur, asa ada yang kurang euy. Mandi juga teteup dengan air anget, bawaan dari Bukittinggi niy, secara air di sana dingin banget ... ;)

Seringkali menemukan diri menekuni/menyenangi apa yang dulu ga disukai
Apa mungkin ini yang disebut karma ya? Sejak mengenal bangku sekolah, Qq udah mulai sadar diri klo urusan tulis menulis itu adalah hal yang paling menyiksa. Belajar geografi juga bukan hal yang menarik bagi Qq, karena menurutku hal itu ga lebih dari sekedar peta buta dan hafalan hasil bumi yang dimiliki masing-masing pulau. Menjadi peneliti bener-bener bukanlah yang menjadi motivasiku untuk kuliah saat baru lulus SMA. Ironisnya, saat ini Qq ngejalanin ketiganya sekaligus, menjalaninya sebagai bagian dari pekerjaan dan minatku.

Selalu dianggap mirip dengan orang laen
Di reuni kemaren, temen-temen sekolah Qq dulu berkomentar klo ga banyak yang berubah dari Qq dibandingkan dengan zaman SMA dulu. Klo urusan itu siy mungkin saja bener, walo sebenernya sepanjang masa SMA Qq punya fase dengan potongan rambut cepak (ampe dicukur segala agar mirip potongan rambut cowok), sebahu, dan panjang nyaris sepinggang. Ironisnya, dengan potongan rambut beragam itu, masih ada aja temenku yang menemukan 'kembaranku' di mana-mana. Akibatnya ya, sering banget temenku salah nyolek orang ;D, boleh juga buat ngerjain mereka hahahaha.

Rada ga bisa mikir klo ga chatting ato dengerin musik
Ini niy yang membuat para bosku suka ketar-ketir, soalnya Qq sering banget 'tertangkap basah' lagi chatting dengan semangatnya ato dengerin musik ampe udh ga bisa denger panggilan dari bos ;). Soalnya bagiku, urusan ide baru akan mengalir lancar klo Qq ngerasa nyaman, dan messenger & musik bagiku adalah jalan keluar yang paling tepat. Logikanya siy kedua hal ini bisa bikin Qq tetep awake dan otak berfungsi optimal (halah!).

Rambutnya dicat warna apa Q?
Doh, ampe capek dech ngejawab pertanyaan itu sedari SMP ampe sekarang. Dulu Qq, Abeng, dan Dedek sering banget ditegur bahkan dipanggil ke ruang guru karena dianggap mengecat rambut (zaman sekolah dulu hal ini dilarang banget ;(). Yah, mending klo emang ngecat rambut, tapi ini teh engga euy. Warna rambut kita bertiga emang asli engga item, tapi itu ga berarti rambut kita dicat. Ampe udah kerja pun masih disodorin pertanyaan yang sama, akhirnya ya udah, sekalian rambutnya Qq cat. Jadi klo ada yang nanya kan udh ada jawabannya :).

Mie goreng instant
Bukan karena gaya-gaya-an, tapi Qq gampang banget bosen ama menu makanan yang ga terlalu bervariasi (terutama nasi). Jadi klo udah mencapai titik jenuhnya, satu-satunya yang bisa bikin selera makan adalah mie goreng instant. Ini kebiasaan buruk yang mendapat pengawasan ketat dari Mama sewaktu belum ngekos ;). Tapi biasanya permit akan keluar khusus untuk hari pertama Lebaran, di hari itu Mama akan membuat mie goreng yang tidak instant dan itu menjadi menu makan Qq seharian. Hari pertama Lebaran di Bukittinggi sebenarnya banyak makanan dengan menu super lengkap, tapi justru itu yang membuat Qq ga selera makan, terlalu banyak makanan siy hehehehe.

Aha, my homework is done! Bisa ngelanjutin packing lagi niy. Semangat untuk mudik yang kemaren sempet menguap sekarang bangkit lagi euy ... Banyak hal yang bikin Qq seneng belakangan ini, jadi semangat dech mo ngerjain apapun. Ok dech, met liburan buat semuanya. Sampai ketemu lagi abis Lebaran yaaaa ....

Menjaga Hati

2007-10-09T16:39:00.000+02:00

Banyak hal yang berbeda bagi Qq di Ramadhan kali ini dibandingkan taon-taon sebelumnya, walopun sebenernya ga ada yang spesial. Ga ada yang bisa dibandingkan dengan taon-taon sebelumnya, baik dalam hal ibadah atau apapun itu, but all I know there is something in my heart that feels it different. Whatever it is, I thank Him for showing me different point of views in this year. Belum banyak yang bisa Qq perbuat dalam hal ibadah, tapi setidaknya hatiku tahu kemana harus melangkah. Semoga di taon-taon berikutnya ga ada lagi protes dari hati itu.

Bagi Qq, hati adalah bagian yang paling sulit untuk diajak kompromi, entah kenapa sang hati selalu saja lengket dengan yang namanya emosi. Walo logika seringkali berusaha menengahi, tapi most of the time emosi selalu berhasil mempengaruhi hati. Sulit sekali bagi hati untuk bersinergi dengan logika, bahkan terlalu banyak hal yang kemudian diputuskan dengan perasaan, karena memang tidak semua hal dapat ditimbang dengan logika. Dulu, hati ini selalu terbuka terhadap banyak hal baru yang terlihat sangat menarik, walo itu kemudian membuat hati mengalami perasaan yang berbeda-beda, mulai dari sedih, senang, kecewa, marah, terharu, dan bahagia. I never regret those experiences, karena selalu berpikir bahwa setiap fase itu akan membawa Qq ke tahapan yang lebih mature dalam berlogika. Entah dimana nyambungnya antara perasaan dengan logika, tapi apapun yang dirasakan hati selalu Qq 'diadaptasikan' agar dapat diterima logika. Berbagai pengalaman sudah sempat membuat hati ini luluh lantak dan juga terbang ke angkasa, dan selalu saja logika diseret untuk memahami rasa itu.

Pengalaman demi pengalaman membuatku belajar, bahwa hati tidak selalu dalam kondisi prima dalam menghadapi beragam musim itu. Ada pengalaman yang tidak ingin Qq ulang dan ada juga yang masih saja membuat Qq ketagihan. Qq pun mulai memberikan perhatian pada hati itu, berusaha menjaganya agar tidak terlalu lelah menghadapi musim yang cepat sekali berubah akhir-akhir ini. Bertaon-taon Qq berusaha membangun pikiran positif hanya demi mengurangi rasa negatif di dalam hati, tapi toh itu juga ga mengurangi resiko munculnya emosi berlebih di hati itu, yang kemudian memberikan rasa sedih, kecewa, dan marah. Semakin sering mengalaminya membuat Qq semakin over-protective terhadap hati ini, membuang jauh-jauh hal-hal yang bisa membuat sedih dan memperkuat logika bahwa rasa senang dan bahagia adalah yang terbaik bagiku. But now, I just find out one new thing for my heart, bahwa Qq pun ternyata juga harus menjaga hati dari rasa senang dan bahagia ... karena rasa itu bisa saja berubah menjadi sebaliknya di kemudian hari. But why? I can't even give any answer to my logic. However, I think I can enjoy every moment of happiness, as much as I can. It's me to decide, right?

Anyhow, I should start packing my things. Sudah waktunya untuk mudik lagi, everything has been prepared. Walo ga semuanya sesuai rencana, but there is one thing for sure ... I'm going home soon. Agak sedikit senewen karena baru mudik pada H-1, bukan, bukan karena baru bisa cuti pada hari itu, tapi karena Lebarannya yang 'bergeser'. Seumur-umur baru kali ini mudik Lebaran tanpa sempat berpuasa satu hari pun di kampung halaman L. Entah kenapa mesjid-mesjid di kotaku itu 'berkoalisi' untuk memilih berlebaran satu hari lebih awal dari yang sudah 'dijadwalkan' di kalender. Padahal Qq kan pesen tiket dengan merujuk pada kalender, bukan mesjid-mesjid tadi.

Oia, just in case ga sempet posting sebelum mudik, Qq mo ngucapin:

Selamat Hari Raya Idul Fitri 1428H

Mohon Maaf Lahir dan Bathin

Minal ‘Aidin wal Faidzin

Tentunya ditujukan untuk yang merayakannya. I really mean for your apologies, not because of the Aidl Fitri only.

One Year

2007-09-24T17:21:00.000+02:00

A friend of mine just received her valuable package a few days ago after waiting for so long. Among her stuffs, she found a white square envelope with my name on it. She directly sent an online message to me arranging for our meeting to give the envelope to me. She's very kind to travel a long way to meet me without any company and wait for me patiently. It was so nice to meet her after our last meeting several months ago. This is also the chance for us to update about ourselves, and somehow during the chat she showed me the photos taken last year when she spent her time in

France

. And those photos remind me, it has been a year after ….

My mind flies to every single thing happened one year ago, on this exact date. I still remember tried packing my things to my big suitcase, but at the same time I did not do anything right to make my stuffs fit in the suitcase. I kept filling my suitcase with those stuffs, but then I took it out after weighting it. I almost gave up when my cell phone rang, and to my surprise, it was a call that I had been expected that day. During the conversation, other friends came to my flat individually giving me souvenirs and cake as farewell since the day is my last day in NL. Those things along with the conversation drove me crying without hanging up the phone. Another bell on my door rang when I just hang up my phone, still with my tears all over my face. It was Xin, I think she came also to say goodbye to me. But when she found me there she knew what has just happened to me, she has been one of my best friends during the year. She tried to calm me down by telling me wise words, at the same time she found my things that have not been packed properly and also my messy room. She let me calming down myself and started tidying my room, which then I followed by packing my stuffs to suitcase. She also helped me to store my things to the storage and dispose the waste. God, I did not know what to do if only she did not show up on that day. Thank you Xin, I really mean it, you have been such a good friend for me during my hard days there. I should have learned a lot from Xin how to manage things related to my heart, coz I knew that she was really sad those days.

Afterward, I spent the rest of the day coordinating with other friends who will depart from the flat altogether. We decided to rent a car to go to the airport considering a blocked railway on the way to the airport. And all I did during the trip was trying to convince myself to go back for good instead of staying at the city I lived in for one year. I should admit that for the last few months before I finished my study, I found myself feeling home there. Part of me refused to go back to my home country, but I have no reason to stay. Even if I considered my supervisor's offer, I still need to go home first before starting some thing new there. But deep inside my heart, I logically knew I have to go home even though my heart cried.

I was very jumpy after I arrived at the airport and checked in. I did not interest in building conversation with people around me. However, someone came, followed by another one, and they came for me. It was like jump into a very high place in the sky. I suddenly turn into a very cheerful girl, who just gets her candy. I almost cried to found them there, I knew it’s not a surprise, but it really shocked me. We had our last dinner together at my favorite fast food restaurant and chat as mush as we can like we will never meet again. I was a little bit worried when Didi did not show up until almost one hour before the departure. The traffic jam blocked her and made her arrived one hour before the departure time. She was able to check in if only she let her baggage came late with the following flight the next day. Meanwhile, I let the other friends left me in and wait for Didi to fix her things, I was enjoying the very last minutes of my time there.

Contradictory, she decided to fly the next day with her own baggage with her. Then someone ordered me to take a row for the passport check and run to the passenger room inside. I was stunned, did not know what to do … whether stay there or run inside. It’s like the other part of my body did not want to move, but I tried to push myself and finally did it. I looked back and forth while queuing, and after I passed the queue, I looked back and heard someone ask me to run because there was so little time to reach the other gate to my flight. I almost cried and follow the order, run along the passage while trying to find the gate. For me, that is the longest hallway I have been run through. I made my way to the airplane as the last passenger who got in. The other friends helped me put my things while my cell phone rang, it was the seventh call recorded in my phone. The conversation was very short since the stewardess asked me to turn off my phone. Then I flew, I tried to sleep during the flight but I can not. Only three hours after we took off, the sun had shines again, and then I tried to watch a movie but did not even enjoy it, then I ended up chatting with the other passengers who took her baby with her.

And that envelope contains the pictures of my last day in NL, which I received almost one year after. There, the three of us smile happily and I knew that was my happiest day for the last few months. Thank you for sending it for me, I thought it will never be destined to be mine. It has been one year, how are you all there?

PS: I see myself on the picture: I was a little bit fatter than now, with acne on my forehead, and shiny long straight hair. I almost did not recognize it as myself. Well, everything changes.

A New Place

2007-09-19T07:39:00.000+02:00

It has been a while since I did not write on this blog. Well, many things happen during the time, but all I can tell you is: I have moved out to a new place. Some of you might questioning: again? Yep, again. Things were run as usual, as well as the changes around me that affect my life too. Surprises come to me just like it has been my daily menu, sometimes I worry that I will lose the sparks of being surprised :). Even though I wish and pray for the next best things in my life, I was still surprised by the decision made for me a few weeks ago. I did not know whether God had answered my pray or it will be a new challenge for me, but I thanked God for what I get now.

Soon after I heard the decision, I knew I have to find a new place. Actually I just moved out to the place a few weeks before, but commuting in daily basis during the fasting month is not definitely my preference. I am so happy to know there are best friends who help me getting information on decent place to live. And now, here I am, try to achieve my next equilibrium point in this place. Thanks again for good friend who helped me with the moving out thingy. To my surprise, a friend had greeted me: welcome to the center!

Another surprise I received lately is being preoccupied with my works during the fasting month. I really love when my days are full of activities instead of being idle all day. It is not a new place to me, but since I only spend a very short time there, then it feels like being in a new place when I officially temporarily terminated my seconded-person-status for a while. It is really nice getting to know better people I met regularly before and having my days full of laugh lately. I enjoy my new days here, with those enjoying works and people around me, and certainly the very cooperative superiors.

While I am enjoying my new chapter in life, my other friends are also starting their new life in other continents. Both of them expressed the same feeling during their adaptation period: estranged. I’ve been there and done that, and now I can conclude that I should have not looked back by the time I come to another stage in life, except for the lessons learned. Surely there are things that cannot be replaced by anything at the new place, but it will open the chance for having new interesting things. I knew there are so many things should be adopted in order to fit in with the new surroundings, but it does not necessarily change who you are. You can download the athan from a website in order to replace the real athan you usually hear since you are still a baby. You can learn how to drive in the left side of the car and take the right side of the road to travel. You are able to cope with the feeling of being a stranger and minority in that area. Time will make you believe it. Being in a place that you always dream of but you never knew for how long will certainly give you homesick, but that’s the beauty of it, which proves you having a native land a thousand miles away.

Unfortunately, another friend who should have enjoyed her new place for a new adventure, is now have to postpone it for her beloved one who has been hospitalized for weeks. The news was shocked me and make me pray for the cure of the severe disease. I hope in this Ramadhan she and her family will get His generosity. However, I thanked God for giving her a chance to take care of him during his sickness, for that I did not get a chance to the people I love before.

Anyhow, a new place, new challenges. Hopefully all of us can achieve the new equilibrium point very soon. On Lebaran, maybe? :)

PS: I did not know that I have to be very very very patient waiting for my ankle normally functions again. I can not wait to jog or walk as much as I want.

A Call from the Past

2007-08-29T05:16:00.000+02:00

Qq baru aja mo lunch saat handphone-ku berbunyi, angka-angka yang muncul di layar HP menunjukkan bahwa no itu ga ada di phonebook-ku:

Qq : Halo
Penelpon: Halo juga Qq, apa kabar?
Qq : Kabar baik, siapa niy?
Penelpon: Lho, koq Qq lupa siy? Saya temen yang di R'dam dulu
Qq : Aduh, yang mana ya? (sambil mikir keras mengingat-ingat temen-temenku yang punya karakter suara seperti ini)
Penelpon: Temen sekampus, yang di lantai 5, yang bikinin Qq nasi liwet
Qq : Hiks, koq aku ga inget ya? (udah putus asa mo nebak)
Penelpon: Mang

Ya ampyuuun, keterlaluan banget dech Qq, mikirnya udah kemana-mana, padahal jawabannya ga seribet yang kupikirkan. Duh, rasanya berdosa banget bisa ngelupain temen yang baik banget ama Qq selama kuliah dulu. Dasar emang Qq lagi ga konsen, harusnya udah mulai ngeh saat logat sunda-nya muncul selama percakapan, Mang pun udh memberikan clue yang sangat jelas: alamat! Udah jelas-jelas Mang merefer pada nama kota sedari awal, tapi Qq masi saja ngerefer ke Bandung saat dia menyebut-nyebut kampus ... hehehhe .. doh, parah banget niy.

Hmmm, begini niy klo isi kepalaku -yang sering sekali mengalami 'short memory'- sedang tidak didukung oleh teknologi seperti HP. Walau pernah menyimpan nomor Mang di HP-ku, tapi nomor itu lenyap bersama nomor-nomor lainnya saat HPku tersayang itu berpindah tangan dalam aksi penjambretan beberapa bulan yang lalu. Si penjambret sempat menggunakan nomorku untuk menghubungi kerabat dekat dan temen-temennya sebelum Qq berhasil meng-claim kembali nomor tersebut. Akibatnya Qq juga ketiban sms dan telpon dari orang-orang terdekat si penjambret yang tentu saja tidak pernah Qq tanggapin. Namun hal yang agak tricky adalah saat harus menjawab telpon-telpon yang masuk ke HPku, gimana Qq bisa tahu siapa yang sebenernya mau dihubungi? Qq atau si penjambret ya? Beberapa nomor bisa Qq kenali dari sms salah alamat yang masuk ke HPku, tapi di luar nomor tsb lumayan bikin bingung juga.

Anyway, kembali ke Mang. Kami sempat bertukar kabar setelah Qq menjelaskan soal phonebookku yang hilang. Senang sekali bisa ngobrol setelah sekian lama tidak ada kontak satu sama laen. Qq ga pernah ketemu ama Mang lagi sejak berpisah di bandara Soekarno Hatta, walo kami sama-sama berada di Bandung sebelum kembali ke dunia kerja. Waktu ngambil paket bukuku yang seabreg itu pun Qq hanya ketemu dengan si kecil Adek dan si Teteh yang makin cantik during her pregnancy.

Mang, bersama dua orang lainnya, mendiami lantai 5 di housing yang sama denganku. Qq berani bilang klo unit apartemen yang mereka huni ini adalah yang paling banyak dikunjungi temen-temenku selama kami tinggal di sana. Pada dasarnya, orang-orang akan datang untuk tiga hal: rokok, sepeda, dan makanan. Semua orang tau klo para pria di unit itu selalu punya stok rokok, termasuk rokok kretek yang bela-belain dikirim dari Indo. Selain itu, tempat ini juga terkenal sebagai pusat servis sepeda. Tanpa jurus marketing yang advance sekalipun, bisnis ini makin banyak pelanggan dan berkembang menjadi pusat penjualan sepeda bekas bagi temen-temen lainnya. Terakhir, demi alasan penghematan dan lidah yang masi menyenangi citarasa masakan Indonesia, mendorong Mang menjadi koki bagi penghuni unit itu. Ketiga pria ini berbagi tugas, ada yang belanja bahan makanan, cuci piring, dan masak.

Dan tentunya, Qq selalu datang ke unit ini untuk dua alasan terakhir. Urusan sepeda bisa di-excuse dengan alasan Qq emang buta sama sekali untuk urusan per-sepeda-an. Tapi untuk urusan masakan, walo Qq juga bisa masak makanan sendiri, teteup aja datang ke sana lebih menyenangkan. Dalam urusan masak memasak, Mang emang lebih jago dibandingin Qq, terutama dalam hal rasa, kreativitas dan ketekunan. Jadi jangan salahkan Qq klo seringkali menyediakan diri berkunjung pada saat jam makan malam ... hehehehe... udah bisa ditebak, pasti ditawarin makan di sana ;). I'll never forget his home made sambal and nasi liwet. Qq dan Didi adalah pelanggan tetap Mang jika kami sedang bosan meng-explore resep-resep masakan dari internet. Berada di unit itu membuat suasana Indonesia lebih terasa karena masakannya selalu ala Indonesia, lumayan buat pengobat homesick. Tapi jangan salah, unit ini juga sering dikunjungi international student karena Mang dan dua temen lainnya emang sangat mudah bergaul. Mang sangat terkenal dengan funny face-nya yang khas.

Bicara tentang Weenapad, membuat Qq jadi kangen kamarku itu, a room with an excellent view I've ever had. Keuntungan memiliki kamar di lantai paling atas adalah: pemandangan dan cahaya matahari. And guess how do I make use of it? Never close the curtain. Setiap malam Qq selalu menikmati view ke skyline kota yang cantik itu, sementara siangnya Qq menikmati cahaya matahari yang masuk lewat jendela atau kesibukan kereta yang mondar-mandir di central station. Menikmati pemandangan malam hari ampe pagi harinya adalah waktu yang terasa pendek bagi Qq, hal yang hampir tiap hari Qq jalani selama beberapa bulan terakhir di sana.

Kamarku yang super duper gede itu menjadi istanaku selama Qq kuliah. Di sana tempat Qq menyelesaikan tugas-tugas dan tesis dengan diiringi lagu-lagu Craig David, Lifehouse, Pink, Fort Minor, Kelly Clarkson, dll. Di mana Qq dan Didi berbagi cerita tentang suka dan duka kami selama di sana (selain dapur tentunya). Yang menjadi saksi bisu saat Qq merasakan up and down. Tempat yang paling aman bagiku walo lagi sendiri. Tempat Qq menghabiskan waktu berjam-jam untuk ngobrol di telpon. Tempat paling pas untuk ngobrol dengan temen-temen mengingat kamarku juga berfungsi rangkap sebagai living room buat penghuninya. Gimana kabarnya ya Weenapad? Sudah rata dengan tanahkah? :(

Ugh, I am receiving a call from the past, should I hang it up or answer it?

Image is taken from here.

Hatred

2007-08-15T10:17:00.000+02:00

Above all the human feelings I have, hatred is something really hard to be executed. Don't push me to do this and that or hear this and that just to make me hating other people. Some people think I'm not critical to things that should have make me hating somebody else, but in fact, I'm not even capable to do so. I am angry when people lied to me, betrayed me or do bad things to me, and I am not even bother to show it to those people who do it to me. But that's it, once I can let go of my anger, I completely ended my anger at that point. Of course I won't forget about it, included the damage I caused, but I will get over it very soon.

I don't like to keep all those anger in my mind and in my heart, because it's hurting me so much. I can't keep thinking about those bad experiences and make myself sad because it's killing me and make me uneasy. That's why I never enjoy certain chats that only grow the hatred in me. Unfortunately, most of the time, those conversations emerged in daily basis, when I cannot even avoid to be in that place, at that time, and among them. And this makes me uneasy, make me suddenly become a silent person after failing many times to change the topic.

I think I know now Mentari, the reason why I never have this feeling to you. But still, it takes me so long to reply to you, because it makes me very confuse - between happy and sad.

Call me Qq

2007-08-01T12:14:00.000+02:00

There is always a blessing in disguise for anything, included the name given by my parents to me. I am thankful to have a name that is easily pronounced by anyone in this world. And having an easily pronounced name helps people to remember my name, which is good for me, because repeating your name every time you meet the same people is tiring ;). I realize it after experienced some of my friends' names were never pronounced correctly by foreigners. For example: Muksin is pronounced Mukasin, Ibnu is pronounced Ibenu, I Made is pronounced Ai Med, etc. In addition, both my first name and my surname did not give me any difficulties in immigration or visa application, at least till now. Lastly, since my name consists of two words, people can guess my first name as my nick name, which is commonly used.

Well, enough with the good things about my name. I know there is nothing special about my name, but sometimes my name also give me uneasy experiences. When I was still at the elementary school, there are many children who have the same nick name with me, no matter whether they are girls or boys. Thus, my friends gave us the other nick name or different surname according to whatever will remind them to each of us. I used to be called as Qq The Taller by my friends in elementary, because somehow I turned to be one of the taller girls in the class. Then, when I was in junior high my friends gave me nick name from one of basketball teams in America, because I was so mad about NBA at that time. Later on I create my own surname in high school which is still used until now included for my blog. On one hand, after so many years I realize that people still recognized me with my names used in school back then. But on the other hand, I hate my name because I always meet other people with the same name every where I go. Well, sometimes I don't wanna be the same with others included for name.

Even though, the name also gives me some ridiculous moments with other people. I don't know how and why, but both my first name and surname are commonly used by other people. Sometimes I meet someone with the same surname with me and other people think that we are from the same family or clan. It could give me a good or bad effect. But the most interesting thing is that I met more than one person who has exactly the same name (first name and surname) with me. Everybody in the college registration table was surprised to read my name, because they knew the other girl with exactly the same name with me, she’s my senior but from different major. And once when I joined a mailing list, I received an email from someone who thought I'm his friend in senior high. In another occasion, I found my name in the organizational structure of alumni association in the city where I live now, while I didn’t even join the association. I assumed she was my senior in college. And recently, someone sent me offline message assuming I'm his classmate in school years ago. All I do now is laughing every time this kind of thing happens again and again. I usually reply their email or message explaining I'm not the person they thought of.

Curious to know more about the people with the same name with me, I typed my name on google and got many links to those who share name with me. I found my name on links of the organizations I joined and currently joined, but I also found some body's homepage that used the same name with me, I bet she's my senior in college. Does anyone who does the same with your name? I mean, googling on your name.

Bad day

2007-07-18T12:53:00.000+02:00

What will happen to you when your cellphone cannot be used for about half day?

For me, it almost ruins my day. I even though that I was dreaming at that time, since I dreamt 3 things that feel so real lately. (Well, after having these 3 dreams, I always wonder whether I am hallucinating or not every time an extra ordinary thing happens). But it was not a dream. The cellphone operator has cut off the connection without reasons and announcement. And it was a perfect time to mess my day since I have to meet a friend and relied on my cellphone to find him. Well, actually we’ve fixed the meeting point before. However, on that day, both of us came late because of traffic jam, so both of us tried to inform each other about it. Unluckily, both of us cannot send sms or call each other because we are using the same cellphone operator. I was very confuse when I cannot find him at the meeting point, I gave up using my phone when the sign of no signal finally appeared after 30 minutes trying to contact him.

Anyhow, after wondering around the place for about half an hour, I got the idea of announcing his name at the information desk, but suddenly I heard my name announced by the information desk officer. I smile and walk directly to the desk and found him there. Then both of us showed our own cellphone screens that showed no signal and wondering what happen that day. Sorry to say, it was a very bad day for him, because one bad thing happens to him before he met me that day, then he spent almost one hour to find me, and then he has to run for his other cellphone in order to contact a person for another meeting. I hope he won’t count the Indonesian team failure in Asian Cup in his bad day description, because he was at the stadium that day.

Reality bites

2007-07-03T11:38:00.000+02:00

Reality bites, I agree with it. As I believe in my limitation to picture an issue to be solved. I wonder what is going to happen if everybody can realized it the same way, there might be no single truth for everybody. This reminds me to one of my classes back then. As someone who will be in charge as master of none, jack of everything, we are given a description on how do we manage things in our profession. We were shown to a picture of an old indian fable, there were an elephant with six blind men. The six blind men are trying to picture the the creature in front of them by touching it. However, each of them were competing to find the real truth about the elephant. They developed their own hypothesis and research on it and acted solely with out communicating with other men. As a result, they came up with different explanation on the elephant, but in fact, they examined exatly the same elephant at the same time.

How can they have different results for the same object?

The first blind man examines the hip of the elephant and concluded it as a mountain.
The second blind man examines the tail and concluded it as a branch.
The third blind man examines its ear and concluded it as a faded leaf.
The fourth blind man examines its trunk and concluded it as a snake.
The fifth blind man examines its foot and concluded it as a tree.
The sixth blind man examines the bottom part and concluded it as a cave.

This is one of the reasons for the people in my field of study filling the gap of these blind men. Because they need to coordinate, cooperate, communicate, plan, and actuate together instead of individually.

I won't use this example to justify certain profession. However, in my opinion, the same example can be used to picture the reality. There are so many people arguing their own opinion and expertise to justify their supremacy on others. I wish they will lower their head and talk each other to start what I've mentioned above, so that they can get the clear picture of the issue they are arguing. It's not bad to be in a team, but it need a good team to achieve it, not only a group of people who are doing different thing individually.

PS: I cannot manage to post the picture, I'll post it next time :)

Reminiscence

2007-07-03T04:03:00.000+02:00

Last week was really a memorable week for me. Well, it does not mean that the days I spend here is not worth at all, but getting away from a daily activity is something precious for me right now. That's why I am really happy for it.

There are some things that make me enjoy the week. Some people might think that being in that kind of event will be very boring, but I did not feel that way. Why?

New friends
Meeting new people is something enjoyable for me since I spend most of my time in life to move from one place to another. I met nice people during the week. I know I didn't get along with the whole people there equally, but I did know some of them closely. I met the first person when I was trying to find my way to the restaurant for having my breakfast, and I met somebody who was also lost, and then we turn to be a close friend during the week. I met several people in the restaurant but some of us are still too shy to chat. Next I met several women with interesting background and experiences, it is really nice to know them. Yet, we spent much time together exploring the places I mentioned before. Even though we are from different culture and ages, but I did not meet any difficulty to get along with them. I met other new friends after mingled during the break and especially in the welcoming dinner.

They are very nice friends, which make me realize that difference is not matter to befriend. We talked a lot during the break and lunch, and also spend much time in the evening. There are many funny moments we laugh and that are something really enjoyable for me. Trang shares the same point of view with me on the cross cutting theme we discussed, and I realized that she's a funny and smart woman. She even has a good appetite, which makes me also want to taste every kind of food until I'm full. I never imagined Khotami can make the twelve of us burst out laugh on our way back to the hotel after our first shopping day. We even still laugh at the same thing for days after. I noticed some friends from the same countries are very talkative with the loud voice. But the funny thing is when people think I'm from the host country instead of Indonesia. They even insist that my face looks like another friend who is from the host country. I only smile every time they start arguing on this.

Culinary
The food is always interesting to discuss, at least in my opinion. The country I visited is famous for the spicy food. I thought spicy also means hot food, but I was wrong. Since I have limitation to taste any food in the country, so I can only give comment on certain food. It's easy when I have my meal in the hotel because I can ask the ingredients from the cook. But it's quite tricky for me when I dine out without accompanied by someone who understands the local language there, well, not everybody I met outside can speak English. However, I can find Moslem food at some places in the city, with two or three times price as much than the regular food there, but it's still affordable though. In conclusion, base on the limited food I can taste during the visit, the food in the country is not as spicy as Masakan Padang, they use more lime or lemon for the food. I also taste some other ingredients in the food, but I didn't know exactly what it is since it was already mixed with other seasonings.

Interesting places
Even though I didn't have much time to visit the tourist attractions in the city, but I can steal the time to go to interesting places within the week. I ask the group to stop by in a fish sanctuary near a temple when we were on our way back to the hotel. I spend most of my time for culinary adventure and shopping, but I didn't shop a lot. There are lots of temple to visit, but I can only manage to visit one of them. I cannot manage to visit the famous weekend market in the city, but at least I can visit the famous night bazaar one day before leaving. I knew I have to spend more time for touring the next time I have a chance to visit the city again.

The Uniqueness
Remember when Ake ask me to find her wearing a yellow t-shirt? Yep, that one. For some time after my arrival, I though it was only a coincidence to see many people with yellow t-shirt. But then I remember this blog I visited almost a year ago. There is a reason to wear yellow (t)-shirt in that country, a justified explanation of course. Wearing yellow (t)-shirt is closely related with the birthday celebration of the king. Since the king was born on Monday, and the color of Monday is yellow, so in celebrating his birthday, the people in the country are asked to wear yellow cloth to show they respect to the king (hopefully this is the right interpretation). In short, you can see people wearing yellow cloth not only on Monday, but almost everyday. I noticed that almost everyone wears yellow polo shirt rather than t-shirt or shirt. I asked some of my friends there about the reason but they only mentioned about the comfort as the only reason. The polo shirt enables them to wear it as official cloth that is still comfortable to wear for relaxing. However, I think they are not obliged to wear yellow trousers/skirts, it was only for shirt. As a result, the fashion market has to provide the yellow clothes in order to cope with the demand. All famous brands provide the yellow color for their collections. As a result, the price of yellow clothes especially yellow polo shirts is cheaper than other color. Several stores even put the king's photo near their yellow collection. FYI, you can easily find the king's photos/pictures all over the country, I think this is also because of the birthday reason.

After digging more information from Ake, now I know which color belongs to which day, as follow:

Yellow for Monday
Pink for Tuesday
Green for Wednesday
Orange for Thursday
Blue for Friday
Purple for Saturday
Red for Sunday

However, they are not obliged to wear the clothes according to the days above, yellow is only obliged because of the king's birthday. Interestingly, black and white are considered as mourning color, so they have to avoid wearing black and white to go to a party. However, it does not mean I cannot see any of them wearing black and white since it's –again- not obligatory.

The traveling
Despite the whole thing above, the traveling itself is something I always waiting for, especially when I can transit at another place before I reach my destination. And this journey had given me the pleasant experience. I know for some people, traveling alone is not a good experience. When we travel alone, the journey feels very far and the time runs slow, and we miss many things along the trip. On the other hand, when we travel with one or more people, we find more interesting things and the time runs fast. However, traveling with too many people is also a disaster. I've ever experience all of them, but still never think that traveling alone is bad. Because, for me, I can still meet new people in my journey. Of course I have to beware of strangers, but it does not mean that I cannot communicate with one of them. It was funny after chatting for almost one hour, I finally knew that the person I talk to is from the same country. We even believed each of us is not from Indonesia. Again, several persons think that I'm not from Indonesia. Other things happened in the immigration table of the country where I transit for one night. She asked whether I'm a Chinese or Malay, and I said: Malay. But then she looked at me and the photograph in the passport, and asked another question: Are you a Chinese of Budhist? And I answer: I'm not a Chinese or Budhist. She examined me carefully, and then stamped my passport. It makes me wonder why are people hesitating my nationality :(

I think there are more things that make me write this post as a memento of my 'vacation', but I don't want to make this post longer :).

Break

2007-07-03T03:53:00.000+02:00

As I wrote before, the up and down of my life runs faster than usual recently. And it's really influence my activities and my mood. Despite that, I have to keep up my work within the hectic week, the week that is seemed so important than others. But soon after the week ended, I knew I can be free for a while, escaping from my daily activity, which is worth for me :)

City of Angel, that's the place where I spent almost the whole last week. I am so glad to get a very important highlight on the must-visit-places in the city along with the very useful map and reference: Lonely Planet, since I don't have much time to browse the information by myself. It was very helpful that I don't have to worry about my travel since somebody has arranged it for me. This has given a chance for me to contact a friend in the city and arrange a meeting during my visit. Then the communication ended up with the pick up arrangement for me ... Lucky me!

Welcome Qq. I am waiting at exit B. Looking for yellow t-shirt at your left side when you are out ... That is me!!

That's the first sms I received when I turn on my cellphone in the airport, but it took an hour to reach the exit she mentioned because the immigration queue was very long. It's easy to find the exit B, and I directly headed to the left side, trying to find Ake in a yellow t-shirt. But ... GOSH!!! ... Why are there so many people with yellow t-shirts? I thought I only need to spot one or two persons to find her ... But most of the pick-uppers were in yellow t-shirts. I knew I have not forgotten her face, but the yellow t-shirts surprised me. After a few seconds of hesitation, I finally saw Ake waving at me from the yellow crowd ... Pffff ... I was so happy to see her.

In a few minutes, we were on our way out of the airport, heading to the place where we are going to have our dinner. I think most of drivers in the city utilize the park and ride system very well, including Ake. She parked the car and we continue with subway and skytrain. I envy the people in the city, for having such a luxury on excellent public transportation. I knew Jakarta has transjakarta busway, but the level of service is still poor, which is not enough to encourage people to use public transport instead of the private one. Unexpectedly, Ake brought me to one of my must-visit-list, the Siam Square. There are many shopping malls and also street vendors around the shopping malls. And Ake turns out to be a good guide for me that day, showing and explaining the interesting and nice places there. I am so happy to find one floor full of souvenirs in a very famous shopping mall. But I can manage not to spend my money on my first day there. After hanging around for about two hours, we found a good place for having my first dinner there. Honestly, I don't have much choice other than seafood menu, and Ake chose Seafood Pad Thai for me. Seafood Pad Thai is a fried noodle with seafood, it tastes really good, and later I decided it as the best Pad Thai I've ever had during my visit. If most people in Indonesia has Teh Botol as the common beverage, but here they drink mineral water with a glass of ice. Well, I can't help myself to compare things and habits every time I visit new places.

We continued to browse around the place after dinner and then decided to send me to the place where I stay during the week. It only took 30 minutes driving for Ake to reach the suburbs, and we arrived at the hotel before 10 pm. The room has been booked for me and my first impression about the room was very positive. My room has the view to a small lake and green parks, I can enjoy the view from my balcony, the room is neat and I was so glad to find a bathtub. It was surprising to find Transtv in the tv channels' list, but still, I prefer to watch other.

The next day is very interesting, I met new people from different background and origin and it was very good to me. A welcoming dinner is a good media to get along with my new friends, that's why I forgot my plan to explore the surroundings. However, in the following days, I made my way to explore the suburb and the city. I visited Future Park on Tuesday, went to MBK for shopping on the next day, but then decided to have a body massage in the following day instead of went to Thammasad night bazaar. Ake offered me to go to Suan Lum Night Bazaar, which of course I didn't refuse since it is included in my list. Suan Lum is an area where you can find interesting stuffs, most tourists go there to find souvenirs as gifts. Coincidentally, we met some friends in the restaurants and decided to share the table altogether. I purposely chose tom yam in order to compare the consistency of the taste. It tastes good, but the seafood fried rice ordered by my friend is far better than the tom yam. I took some pictures of the food there, but I easily forgot the title of each food since it's hard for me to remember names in other languages. We separated with the other group after dinner and continue wandering around the place.

We stopped by in a supermarket and a friend of mine bought durian, which of course spread the strong smell in Ake's car. We arrived at the hotel at midnight, but the durian party started as soon as we met the other friends in the living room. We chat and laugh with them, and left for our room almost at 2 am. And I finally realized I haven't packed yet, while I have to leave the hotel at 7.30 am. Sigh ...

In the morning, Ake picked me from the hotel and dropped me off at the airport. She is so kind to me and I feel really happy to have a chance to meet her. I always dream of visiting my friends at their places, and I just make one of them. As the previous flight, I have to transit in other country before reach my final destination. And I chose to stay for one night in the island. Again, I have somebody to pick me in the airport. It was he, someone who also picked me up when I came to Bandung a few years ago, someone who introduced me to several places in Bandung for the first time. And he did the same thing again during my visit, it's like a deja vu to me.

Since I don't have much time to spend in the country, we directly dropped off the luggage at the hotel and start hanging around the city. The temperature was very high, which make me sweat easily and drive me into the shopping malls for air conditioner and window shopping. Well, what can I say, the country is well known for the shopping empire. I visited Bugis Street, which is quite the same as Suan Lum in the city of angel. I can also find some things from the Suan Lum in Bugis Street. The name refer to the ethnic that have ever inhabited the place long time ago, but now the place is dominantly inhabited by Chinese. And the next day, I visit more open spaces including the landmark of the country which is located near the promenade. It was very hot and the sun shines so strong, my 'guide' even brought the umbrella and water for me (he's nice, isn't he?). I was very happy to see interesting places with someone that is really nice to me. And I wrap up the visit by having my last lunch with him before left for home. I'm so happy to see him again after a few years, he's fatter but still the same man I knew before. Suddenly, I feel sad when I have to leave for home, but he gave me a smile and tell me words that make me smile again. He always manage to get rid of my sadness. Thank you for the companion, Bro.

And I also want to give a credit for Ake, hopefully she can visit me soon. Kop kun kaap Ake.

Hibernate

2007-06-12T09:39:00.000+02:00

Waduh, hampir 1,5 bulan ga nge-update blog serasa berabad-abad lamanya. Padahal kepengen banget berbagi banyak cerita disini, mulai dari peer review-ku, weekend super panjang di Bandung, weekend yang di luar kebiasaan, scratchy yang tiba-tiba sakit, heboh kesibukan di kantor, kesempatan yang tak terduga sebelumnya, dan kesibukan pindah kos-an. Hehehe, kayanya ini udah cukup menceritakan apa yang terjadi selama Qq absen nulis disini, walo emang saat ini Qq belum plong banget buat nulis .... :(

Banyak hal yang terjadi belakangan ini, in fact, Qq malah ngerasa saat ini merupakan saat dengan dinamika kehidupan yang cepet banget bergulir. Sedih & senang, sempit & lapang, sepi & rame, up & down, boros & hemat, sibuk & santai, seru & bosen, variatif & monoton, pokoknya semua dateng silih berganti lebih cepet dari yang biasa Qq alami. Tapi teteup aja semuanya ini belum bisa bikin Qq nemuin titik ekuilibrium di tempat yang masi Qq anggap belum homy ini. Qq masi aja lebih menikmati menghabiskan waktu di perjalanan menuju Bandung untuk menghabiskan long weekend. Weekend di Bandung bagi Qq lebih dari sekedar berkunjung, begitu menginjakkan kaki di kos-an Dedek, rasanya perasaan rileks langsung menyergap jiwa dan raga (halah!) sehingga apapun yang Qq lakukan di Bandung selalu menyenangkan. Hal-hal simpel seperti bikin sarapan buat Dedek, masak makanan kesukaan, jogging, nongkrong di taman, shopping (ini mah kudu), ketemu temen-temen, saling creambath ama Dedek (males ke salon euy), dan the last but not the least: hotspot-an tentu-nya ... hahahaha. Dooohh, Bandung teh emang bikin Qq manja banget ...

Setelah menimbang dan memutuskan, setelah sekian kali long weekend di Bandung yang nyaman itu, Qq akhirnya memutuskan untuk mencoba mempercepat pencapaian titik ekuilibrium yang tak kunjung keliatan itu. Salah satu caranya adalah dengan menahan diri untuk tidak ke Bandung saat weekend. Gampang kan? Pada awalnya Qq juga berpikir begitu, tapi godaannya ... hiks ... berat euy! Tiba-tiba aja teman-teman menghubungi untuk ketemuan di Bandung, lengkap dengan bujuk rayuannya, mulai dari iming-iming betapa bakal serunya weekend-an bareng sampai dengan betapa costly-nya usaha untuk menghibur diri di kota ini. Trus entah kenapa tiba-tiba aja kakak sepupu yang susah banget diajak maen ke Bandung malah tiba-tiba dateng ke Bandung, begitu juga temen-temen laen yang jarang muncul di Bandung. Rasa kangen ama Dedek pun kudu ditahan, karena dia juga harus mempersiapkan diri untuk ujian. Kesempatan untuk say goodbye di saat-saat terakhir ama Abeng juga lenyap. Rasanya ga rela banget melepaskan kesempatan untuk bersenang-senang di Bandung. Walo sempet janjian ama temen-temen buat weekend-an, tapi Qq ga terlalu berharap bisa se-enjoy weekend di Bandung. Pokoknya melow banget dech .... hehehehe

Tapi, Allah itu emang adil dan penyayang banget .... walo Qq bukanlah umatNya yang terbaik, toh Dia juga tahu betapa ga mudahnya ini bagi Qq. My weekend turn to be something different than what I've expected before. Qq ternyata menikmati banget nonton bareng temen, filmnya seru (Pirates sih...), then we're having dinner at the place that has an excellent live music. Semua kekhawatiran rasanya hilang, berganti rasa senang dan menikmati suasana yang emang nyaman banget buat Qq. Kekhawatiran akan scratchy yang sakit jadi hilang, walo Qq tahu klo besoknya Qq masi harus mikirin jalan keluarnya. Hari berikutnya diagendakan untuk memeriksakan scratchy ke pihak yang berkompeten. Cukup memusingkan memang, dan akhirnya diputuskan untuk membawa scratchy ke cabang dari service centre resmi yang berjarak relatif lebih dekat dibanding kantor pusatnya. And somehow, tanpa bisa dijelaskan, scratchy ternyata baik-baik aja waktu diperiksa di sana. Setelah di-utak-atik sekedarnya, akhirnya scratchy diperbolehkan pulang. Tapi untuk meminimalkan ketegangan jika terjadi hal yang sama lagi, Qq diminta untuk membuat back up dari beban yang ditanggung scratchy. Dan jadilah hari itu dihabiskan untuk menemukan spesifikasi yang ideal menurut Qq , but still affordable.

At least pada weekend yang agak berbeda dari biasanya ini, Qq ga hanya dapat pengalaman baru, tapi juga punya kesempatan untuk mengexplore tempat-tempat baru. Tanpa diduga Qq juga sempat jogging dan berkunjung ke danau cantik di pinggiran kota, siapa sangka Qq bisa nemu tempat seperti itu di kota yang sangat asing ini? Nongkrong di taman sambil rileks juga sempet dijabanin dengan mengunjungi taman baru yang dulunya digunakan sebagai lapangan milik klub sepakbola di kota ini. Tamannya masi jauh dari harapan Qq, tapi setidaknya secara fungsi udah bisa dikategorikan dapat memenuhi fungsi sosialnya. And guess what? Qq malah ketemu temen lama di sana, heheheh, udah berapa taon ga ketemu ya? 4 taon kayanya hehehehhe. Ironis emang, kita emang berdomisili di kota yang sama, sering chat dan kadang sms, tapi belum sempat aja ketemu :P.

Di luar tetek bengek weekend di atas, weekdays bener-bener menjadi hari-hari yang menguras energi dan pikiran. Klo bukan buat ke lapangan, ya berarti waktuku habis untuk berada di rapat ini-itu yang time consuming banget. Qq senang bisa mendapat pengalaman-pengalaman berharga selama beraktivitas disini, tapi masi belum terbiasa untuk melakukan kedua hal itu dalam waktu yang bersamaan. Tapi yang paling penting, Qq punya temen-temen dalam tim yang saling mendukung satu sama lain, kesolid-an ini bikin tim kami bisa terus menjawab tantangan yang muncul. Dan hal ini sedang diuji, terutama pada minggu ini, dimana sangat dibutuhkan kesabaran dan kepala dingin dalam menghadapi deadline-deadline yang hitungannya per jam. We'll try to do our best though :)

Dan di antara ke-hectic-an itu, ternyata masih saja terselip satu kesempatan yang ga Qq duga sebelumnya. Mungkin ini yang namanya blessing in disguise, dan Qq bersyukur banget atas kesempatan ini. Hal-hal yang tadinya Qq rasa bakalan ribet banget, ternyata ga sekompleks yang Qq bayangkan, setidaknya itu yang Qq alami hingga sekarang. Mudah-mudahan begitu seterusnya.

Urusan pindah kos-an pun berjalan sesuai rencana. Ga butuh waktu banyak untuk menemukan dan memutuskan tempat kos baru. Yang lama hanyalah eksekusi pindahannya aja, yang direncanakan akan dilakukan pada waktu dekat. Tapi karena jadwal yang mendadak berubah ini, Qq pun harus berkompromi dengan jadwal pindahan. Saat ini emang bukan waktu yang menguntungkan buat pindahan, tapi ga ada alternatif laen sih. Solusinya adalah dengan mencicil pindahan agar ga terlalu bikin capek. Ada yang mo bantuin? ;)

Ooops, ternyata postingan ini menjadi terlalu panjang euy. Maklum dech, ini lagi memaksimalkan kesempatan bercengkerama dengan scratchy, soalnya tadi sempet ngambek lagi .... just in case ... So long then ....