Is This the Real Life?

hi again

2010-02-17T06:46:00.000-08:00

haven't updated this blog since i arrived in singapore
there are quite a few things to blog
about my new job ($6/hour. free and nice lunch. not bad)
about the crazy nights with jillian (bad influence indeed)
about the house party at kemal, dicky, susi, jea, putu, henry, zaki's place yesterday
etc

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FERIANNY PRIMA LIM sorry i didn't message you
and HAPPY BIRTHDAY VANIA BUDIMAN so so sorry i forgot

lately i haven't got the time to go online and read books etc.

second last night

2010-02-06T06:46:00.000-08:00

went to pim today to shop for my bro's shirt but didnt get any. cant find the right size. but i really want to get him something. i don't know why. but if i have a boyfriend, i'd love to shop for his clothes, picking the nice ones in the shop for him
mother loves him so
she loves my dog so much too
haha
crossed the basement of pim 2 where cars go by. didn't hear one coming and that green toyota innova (like mine) suddenly just horned so fucking loud in that basement with low ceiling. i just shouted 'what the fuck' in front of my mother. 'ngapain coba klakson-klakson. goblok' and i put my fingers together in the italian rude gesture. and after getting in the building i was still talking loudly, pissed off about the goddamn driver. luckily no one cared. that's why it is sometimes good to be invisible.

went to nia's house today to teach her physics and chem. failed to teach. cos ive forgotten how to do most of the jc stuffs. my brain's not that great after all. then we talked (not bitched, at all. seems like bitching is out of fashion. kinda. yeah, RIGHT) about our friends. about amelia especially because she's too cute to be true. no one can harm her because if one does, her friends are gonna slap him or her for her.

read kompas's opini page. that's the best part of the newspaper, i think. it's always inspiring. like Gede Prama's article a few days ago, about being a good leader. he said a good leader should "observe like the sky, and act like the earth." when one observes 'like the sky', one will see the big picture and thus become objective and know what to do. when one acts like the earth, it means one's down-to-earth. one doesn't feel that one is some god who has the right to do anything to others. one should feel as one, united with the earth and the people and the life on it and thus share the pain and joy and act accordingly. that kind of thing. yes. cool right.

and today's opinions are inspiring too. there's one by some benjamin guy who talks about interreligious harmony in indonesia. about how a secular state may lead to the development of religious extremist groups (i doubt this. this is what the book The Revenge of God by Gilles Kepel talks about) and how a theocratic state may (or, always does) lead to the oppression of the minority and power abuse. and how this country, our dearest indonesia, has this ideology which can be considered to be better than secularism (separation of religion and state) and theocracy, and that is the pancasilaism where religions can have their place in the public and are encouraged to contribute to the society by making the society more ethical etc. but how can we be sure that fundamentalism won't develop in the supposedly moderate religious societies.

another interesting one was by indra tranggono. it's about the president and the buffalo thing. he talked about how the president complained about the demonstrators being unethical by comparing him to the buffalo and how he should have been less rigid in his judgment about the criticism. he said that a good leader would respond to such thing humorously but at the same time learn the important message so that he or she can improve on the way he or she leads.
a comedian once said that a leader is 'the one in front' which means that in a group of people who are working towards the same goal(s), the leader is the one who gets 'slapped' first for a mistake made. if you don't want to get slapped or criticised, then you should not want to be a leader.
and the author made an apt criticism about the unethical thing. he mentioned how the president complained about the demonstrators being unethical and then he questioned whether the democratic-liberal economy system was ethical for the poor, whether the purchase of the expensive cars for the ministers was ethical when some people can only imagine eating until they're full, etc.
what a sad country.

another opinion was written by some psychology person who criticises about how mr president cares so much more about his appearance and image (urgh) than what he should do for this country and the people. i agree. i always do. and i wonder why WHY oh why this sby guy still has supporters. mediocre. that's the word for him
i support the impeachment. but i don't know whether the successor will be less of a mediocre shitbag than him.

i wanted to talk about something else which has nothing to do with politics but i cant remember what.

i want to finish arus balik before returning to singapore but i dont think i have the time to and it's too heavy to take it there. tsk

crap

2010-02-04T06:47:00.000-08:00

taylor swift won 4 grammys
susilo bambang yudhoyono was re-elected as the president of this country last year

those are two examples of how a few people who are actually not that good (at all) at what they do are highly regarded by many. i wonder whether 'vox populi vox dei' is true (the voice of god?)
do those few people deserve it?

on the 100th day of yudhoyono's second term of presidency, there were demonstrations in many cities in this country. at the one in jakarta, at bundaran hotel indonesia, someone brought a buffalo along. somebody wrote the name of the president (which was modified but i don't get the joke) on the body using a white paint and pictures of the vice president were pasted on its butt.
i found this quite ridiculous, until yesterday when i saw the news on the tv. mr president said that he was upset about the 'unethical' demonstrations ("burning and stepping on pictures").
the funniest part was when mr yudhoyono himself said, "...bringing a buffalo along... SBY's body is like a buffalo, big, lazy, stupid, and slow..." he was talking about himself like that in a press conference. isn't it quite funny. i find it so. does this ever happen in any other country in the world? perhaps. i don't feel sorry at all for sby though. his specs cost more than a whole week's worth of a poor family's meal, i bet. even mine do, i guess :/

i don't know that much about the case of century bank, but what made me the most disgusted was the purchase of new effing expensive cars for the ministers. and the excuse was to motivate them to work harder. and a few weeks after the car thing, the media said that a presidential jetplane (like the USA's Air Force One) which cost some impossible amount of money is going to be purchased. after the first case, which is the car thing, i've no sympathy at all for him. he should get dissed in public worse than the buffalo thing. in the first place, i've always disliked his excessive, unnecessary hand gesture. it makes him look so fake. and i think he is.
somebody save this country..

030210

2010-02-03T06:48:00.000-08:00

in another world (or the alternate universe, you might like to call it) which is less complicated than the real world we're living in, i would have tried to return the feelings.
in this real world, you may argue, we could create our own world where we could do anything we would like to. but the two worlds would overlap. and it would be difficult for us to get out from our world to the real one even if we must. i know it would.

i'm trying to write a song. a bluesy song (i don't know whether i can do it). i need to write the lyrics but this theme is not an easy one.

tuesday 020210

2010-02-02T06:49:00.000-08:00

i wonder what's so good about taylor swift. her songs are mediocre. and her live singing is not good at all (i watched the 52nd grammy, the only nice performances were bon jovi's, bocelli and blige's, maxwell's, zac brown band's and lady antebellum's) she's pretty and her songs are radio-friendly thought. and they call her music country.

anyway, i discovered a few nice songs after watching the show last night: lady antebellum's need you now, zac brown band's chicken fried, maxwell's pretty wings. and now i think country music is not bad after all. keith urban's good!

actually i wanted to write about something less trivial. about playing/making music and how it is related to human emotion and self control etc. how it is similar to playing sports, utilising technology, and living life itself. i've often thought of this since i read jeff beck's quote in one of the few guitar magazines i've read. he said that everything he plays is based solely on his emotion (anyway he performed in the 52nd grammy ceremony with imelda may, how high the moon, originally by les paul. ubercool!) but let's save this trivial matter for next time.

anyway, happy birthday ika!

the door

2010-01-31T06:49:00.000-08:00

i've closed the door and locked it and i've thrown away the key. i can still find the key if i want to, but i won't, and one day i will totally forget where i threw it away.
there's still a window through which we can see each other, talk to each other. but, the door is forever closed to you. i'm sorry.

310110

2010-01-31T05:50:00.000-08:00

my family, as i wrote in my will, is the real thing. no matter how often and how much i get irritated by my parents, there's never good enough a reason to break their hearts.

no matter how good my friends are, no matter how much i love them, i know we may drift apart one day. i hope not, though. why bother collecting jewels (i don't really 'collect' friends) just to lose them. but that happens, unfortunately. too often it does, in fact, that it doesn't sadden me that much to think about it. but it breaks my heart even to only think about losing a brother, a part of the 'real thing'

thanks for liking this blog, to me, your opinions and praises matters as much as or even more than the whole gang's opinions and praises :) :) :)
we have different gifts. many different gifts. how cool is that.

anyway, the first month has almost come to an end. two days ago i chatted with dinda online about uni life and it got me so excited about what is to come.

met my beloved girlfriends today at PS. meilani, jebay, fanie. bought nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols (and Ecce Homo and the Antichrist, 3 in 1) and Kama Sutra (for fun). woohoo. cheap wordsworth classics ($8.40 and $4.10 respectively). almost bought the Three Musketeers. would have bought almost all the wordsworth classics (my favourite publisher!) if i had the money.
they had lunch at Pepper Lunch, i had mine with my parents so i just watched them. went to Marche to have some dessert and sit around and talk and laugh and have our dinner.
it was an awesome day but i missed the last transbintaro and parents had to pick me up and the traffic jam was awful all along the way. everywhere. seemed like everyone was out of their house. of course han was pissed. but it was okay after a shortwhile. perhaps because i'm gonna leave home soon.
i miss the mcnair people so much. i miss the sisters: dolly ferina szecin. i miss the school people too. i miss dicky. i miss everyone. i miss freedom.

earth to marian

2010-01-28T06:50:00.000-08:00

more than feeling that i had everything, i felt (and still do, sometimes) that i could do anything. that i could get anything i want.

the unreal thing that i thought was real did quite a great job in boosting my ego.
and the crowd cheered for me a few times and those times were the times when my head grew remarkably bigger and it hardly ever shrinks afterward. until now.

i have to go back to the earth. and crawl on the ground. to realise that there's where i should start over again.