myriad of secret thoughts

Tangent

2011-12-14T12:00:00.003+07:00

"Contemplation is the essence of story-telling," I say.

"I could listen to your stories all day," he says, "but it is your contemplations that I love."

How would I someday explain the contemplations that have led to this state of mind? It is hardly a spiritual eat pray love journey. But if you only knew how far I have evolved, inside. It is a thing of wonder. A shape-shifting metallic creature.

Sometimes I write my own stories. Sometimes I write other people's stories. In most of the books I've read, there are always two characters. No, no, not the protagonist and antagonist, nothing that bleak. There is always the person who is content to live in a default comfortable cave, and there is always the person who feels there is an ocean out there. Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. All the Buendias in 100 Years of Solitude. They all rattled the bars of their cages like any normal living breathing intuitive beast would. As for those who have accepted their fate without a struggle, I do not know what to say of them. Are they sub-human? Are they half-dead? Or are they just peaceful? Or are they just coping?

I could write stories about the cave-people. With the polite interest of an observer who finds them anthropologically interesting. But socially numbing. Their allure lies in the very fact that their accepted realities are swallowed whole, peppered with either a smile or a petty complaint. And my evolution centers around the notion that I used to consider that normal. Alienatingly normal.

Nobel

2011-10-19T13:42:00.004+07:00

"They've announced the 2011 Nobel for literature," a friend said.

"Who is it?"

"Tomas Tranströmer. Swedish guy. Because, 'through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality'."

"Wow. How cool are they in giving their reasons for the literature prize."

"Garcia Marquez won 'for his novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination, reflecting a continent's life and conflicts'."

"I love it."

"Jose Saramago 'who with parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony continually enables us once again to apprehend an illusory reality'."

"I think reviewers have to put 'hard-core pseudo-intellectual' in their resume."

"I wonder what they will write when you get yours. The 2046 literature Nobel is awarded to Teez 'who, with her lyrical compositions, softens the harsh realities of those who feel out of place in their own cultures'."

"Not bad. Thanks for giving me 34 years to work on it."

Sandbox*

2011-10-17T00:32:00.003+07:00

I woke up today and lay in bed listening to the calls for prayer from surrounding mosques. It is the anniversary of the month that I returned to Indonesia.

I’ve spent a year trying to feel comfortable about coming home to Jakarta after spending a year away, with its impossible traffic, relentless gossiping, endearing chaos, and wonderful tireless people that hold you spellbound, forever torn between love and hate for the city. I’d escape to Bali’s beaches now and then, but it remains just that: an escape.

I’ve always viewed life as a lucrative sandbox with a spot of quicksand in the middle, which the curious mind will happily venture into, letting itself become sucked into new realms. Or to borrow that famous American’s famous line: the known unknowns. Who knows how many quicksands have led us to this particular spot in life? So often I have ventured into new things simply because other people knew and I did not. In the sandbox the only thought is of yourself, it’s your playground and yours to become the king of the pit.

I realized today I didn’t really want to crave comfort in Jakarta, or anywhere else in the world. I didn’t want to be thinking of myself all the time. I want to be thinking of other people. Just being useful without expecting comfort in return. Is there ever really such an achievement?

I’m judgmental about giving, brain-verdict said. I excuse myself on the basis that it might be too forward, or allocated incorrectly, or not the right contribution. A few months ago I made vague plans to teach children pro bono at the local mosque on weekends, and it never happened because I was sure the kids wouldn’t like me. I never give out money at traffic lights, because I’m vaguely sure the beggars are part of a syndicated gang and the money would go to some mafia. I’ve wasted countless opportunities.

I’d like to give as if it was a natural part of living. I could see that as a sandbox I haven’t conquered, but the thing is I shouldn’t be seeing it as a thing to conquer. It’s not about me, right?

*This is piece is originally posted on the3six5

Therapy

2011-08-22T00:02:00.004+07:00

I've resumed piano lessons with my dearest mentor, who has recovered from his illness, coming out of a long dark tunnel with a new piano and a new wife. But the term piano lessons is a bit ambitious. What really happens is that I drive down there and we end up spending 3 hours playing music and eating delivery chicken noodles from a styrofoam box. We gossip and digress and generally pity people with no music in their lives. Like his own son, who prefers software.

I harbor no ambitions of musical greatness and he knows it. We simply have conversations and fill gaps. When I play a melody he fills in the bass lines. When his melody is about to end I know it: something about the subtle finality of that third note from last, like a bird about to make a sweet turn in the sky, leaving a pattern imprinted against the clouds. I see it, in its invisibility, I mirror it. I come to meet it and make it last a little longer by repeating the pattern, somersaulting in the sky at a higher octave before taking off to my own heart's desire.

Isn't that the essence of a good conversation?

The launch of a thought, met with other ideas. Agreeing in the middle with enthusiastic nods before branching out again with new and old thoughts. Harmonized, encouraging, comforting, in a way that is as if to say, "I understand, I know what you mean, and here is what I think."

"Isn't jazz like everything in life?" he would say, "doesn't it help you improvise when dealing with people and doesn't it make life a little less serious?"

I really am not sure if I understand life that well. But I no longer needed to say anything. Nothing on life, nothing on my fears, nothing of my insecurities about love, my insipidness at work, self-imposed cages, millionth outbursts of half-baked ideas, thirsts I have no idea how to quench, forever belonging and not belonging.

At the end of the song it was like everything had been said.

Canvas

2011-07-13T20:14:00.007+07:00

A weekend in Bali can be a blank canvas filled with sketches of your imagination of choice. And when I say imagination I'm not implying that mushrooms should be involved at all times. I mean there is anything for everyone if everyone doesn't mind not following anyone.

My friend Rio likes to say that most people don't know how to enjoy being alone. I think being alone is only fun when it is a choice. We agree that most people don't even choose to be alone.

So that weekend in Bali, he and I headed to echo beach, just the two of us as usual, armed with style. His scarf and shockingly stylish sunglasses, a bottle of wine, two proper glasses we bought at the mini-mart, an effective number of joints. The skies opened out limitless above us. I lay back on the warm sand staring at the white cirrus clouds rippling across the sky like the surface of a light blue lake being gently stroked by the breeze. The actual breeze was stroking my skin. The scent was as familiar and comforting as the sound of crashing waves. Nothing else I wanted to do, nowhere else I wanted to be.

"I wish this was an hour away from Jakarta and I could escape here every weekend"

"No. It doesn't work like that. It won't be as magical," he says.

"I wish people would be more relaxed about finding the one to marry."

"I decided to be gay so no one could pressurize me into getting married."

He says the silliest things sometimes.

"I know plenty of married men," I say. "They try. They tell me how interesting I am. God, they seem so lonely."

"That's because they thought they got married out of personal choice, but really it was a choice wrought by social conditioning. Society expects them to find the one after a certain age or milestone or checklist ... and they are encouraged to think that they've found the one... But they don't think it's important that in order to find the one ... they have to first of all find themselves."

He says the most profound things sometimes.

I think finding oneself needs a bit of imagination.

It's his birthday today, by the way. I think another bottle of wine is in order. We could make a toast to blank canvases.

.

2011-07-07T13:40:00.004+07:00

Continue scrolling down for previously unpublished posts on Brazil :-)

2011

2011-01-03T14:34:00.009+07:00

Not My Final Post

At 3 in the morning, my friend and I sat on our bed in our hotel room in Dubai, unwilling to sleep. I was transiting from Brazil, she had flown over from Bahrain to accompany me on my transit. It was the final leg of our year in Harvard, the accumulation of a life built from scratch that had developed into a utopic paradise filled with people we wanted to spend the rest of our lives with, just chatting around a table exchanging ridiculous ideas. After the summer started, one by one these people dropped off, went home, said innumerable ‘this-is-not-goodbye’s, turned their backs, boarded planes, and left a little vacant space behind that felt like a mistake. I visited most of them before heading home, in New York, Lima, Rio, Sao Paulo, Dubai, just delaying, just living. In Dubai the two of us realized our time was coming soon. We talked of our favorite moments and cried a little.

I told her how at the airport in Sao Paulo, our friend hugged me for an eternally long time, not saying a word. When we finally parted we said, “I will see you again,” and thought, “I don’t know when I will see you again.” I turned my back, glanced back for a final brave smile, and walked to my gate slowly. Some people were quarelling in Arabic in the queue, a nasal voice spoke in Portuguese announcing a flight delay, all around me the shops were closed and dark. One shop-window displayed bottles of dende oil. I remembered the bottle of dende oil in my luggage bought at Mercado Municipal, and my friend’s mother, her friendly eyes shining, had promised to teach me how to cook Muqueca with it. But we never got around to doing it. On the drive to the airport she had turned to me and said, “Don’t go.” I stood at the boarding gate queue with an assault of memories and tears running down my cheeks thinking, “What am I doing?”

In that hotel room in Dubai I asked my friend, “What am I doing?” She was still figuring it out herself. She felt out of place in her hometown in Bahrain. We started childishly complaining, stereotyping, compartmentalizing. She said Bahraini women became religious after some point because they had nothing better to do. I told her Indonesian women only think about getting married. We laughed and decided then that we would be okay, that the future is bright. We decided we would both find the career of our dreams, the perfect partner, and other banal resolutions more befitting of teenagers rather than grad school alumnus. In the end we knew we both had our Reasons for returning, and that’s all that mattered.

That was three months ago. In the beginning, there was the uncomfortable scrutiny regarding weight-gain and lack of interest in what I’ve actually been doing. There was the shock of meeting relatives who seemed to have multiplied overnight and sent a cascade of toddlers running amok. There was the ever-inevitable visit to the malls, watching girls dangling their Venetas and Vuittons at a certain angle so as to be in full unobstructed view of onlookers. There was the constant stream of private idle chat on facebook and twitter feeds, and blackberry chatgroups, which did not exist when I left last year. There was a little loneliness among the crowd. There was the guilt of having these thoughts, afraid I was being anomalous, aloof, judgmental.

This is now just white noise to be accepted as part of life, like the hum of a refrigerator that you grow accustomed to and eventually embrace or ignore. Time must not be wasted dwelling on past perfections or present imperfections. After all, I have future plans like everyone else. This place has soul, has untrammeled gold buried under the mud, has all the good problems to be solved. My real enemy, as T.S. Eliot puts it, is in the shadow:

Between the idea and the reality,

Between the motion and the act,

Falls the shadow.

Between the conception and the creation,

Between the emotion and the response,

Falls the shadow.

Ipanema

2010-08-07T13:40:00.004+07:00

It was a brilliant Wednesday morning in Rio de Janeiro, and Ipanema beach was packed. A long stretch of white sand covered in red umbrellas, fleshy bosoms and shapely bottoms. I asked my friend whether all these cariocas didn’t have anything busy to do and he just smiled an amused smile.

A man suddenly appeared out of nowhere and advanced at me with a pineapple in his hand, shouting: “HA!! Abacaxi!! Abacaxi !!!” Pineapples were arranged in a basket on his head, and a whole pineapple was clenched like a sword in his fist. I jumped at first poke.

And then I burst out laughing and shook my head. “Não, obrigada,” I said. He switched to English, which always annoys me because that means I still haven’t got the accent right. Flashing his brilliant white teeth he said, “No?? I Love You!!! No abacaxi?? ”

I laughed again and shook my head. He gaily turned away and started to poke at other people with the abacaxi in his hand, causing outbreaks of laughter in his wake.

As we continued our stroll my friend pointed to one of the condominiums lining the coast.

“That’s my grandmother’s apartment,” he said, “8^th floor, 3^rd window from the right.”

I squinted up and tried to count windows in the blaring sun.

“That would be a gorgeous view she would have from up there,” I said.

“It is,” he said.

He stared out toward the sea. Cracked up into a sudden laugh.

“When I was a kid I would play at the beach every single day with my friends after school, just hanging out and swimming and surfing the waves. And I still had a curfew back then.”

“Which you largely ignored,” I said.

“Of course. But not for long, because whenever I went too far beyond the limit, my grandmother would hang a big red towel on her window right there. From wherever I am on the beach I would see it and feel guilty.”

I was immediately overwhelmed with a comforting certainty that he was the perfect authority to go exploring Ipanema with. We spent an entire day on the beach and I was taught a multitude of effortless lessons. Like how to differentiate the “safer” locals from those coming down from the favelas. How to ask a stranger to look after your belongings while you go for a swim, and to trust them completely. How to bodysurf when the wave is right. How to let your body dry in the sun and never use a towel.

How to stand as if your only business in this world is to look cool under the sun. And how to walk as if the only place you needed to go to was where you were right now.

Denada

2010-08-07T09:42:00.000+07:00

The Portuguese term for “you’re welcome” that is pronounced Ji-Na-Da. In a literal sense it translates to “for nothing”.

‘Thank you.”

“For nothing!” (with an audible smile)

But the way the Brazilians express it is a charm that far surpasses the mere meaning of the word. The middle “Na” part of the word is stretched out and curved, like the gentle pull of a guitar string just before it is plucked. The prolonged syllable dips and rises and dips again with a mellowness, enjoying every minute of the millisecond journey, before it swoops to join its next syllable.

Denaaada.

Oh, what a difference a syllable makes. The result is a sound so genuine, lilting, and bright, that you can’t help but be convinced that they are, as a matter of bottom-hearted fact, truly happy to have helped you.

Democraticos

2010-08-05T13:39:00.003+07:00

“I have no partner,” I said, when my friend suggested that I join him and his girlfriend go dancing at a traditional samba club. He gave me an exasperated look that could only mean, “shut up and just come”.

So I tagged along with them to Democraticos at the old bohemian Lapa neighborhood. The spacious lobby was unadorned except for a big curving staircase lined with a dirty wall. We went up and found ourselves in a large scruffy crowded ballroom, with a stage on one end covered in a red velvet backdrop and a trail of little hanging light bulbs. I looked at the scene doubtfully and wondered where the music was.

Just then the band walked up to the stage and the crowd perked up expectantly. At the strike of the first sweet samba note the couple took hands and left me to survive on my own, those traitors.

I stood on the peripheries feeling rather nervous and unattractive, watching people whirl by. But a few minutes later the music seeped into my bloodstream (mixing with the caipirinha) and I was moving, uncaring, and ready. By the next song, a quiet-looking man approached and politely extended his hand. In a flustered daft moment I did a little bob while taking his hand and then vaguely wondered whether that wasn’t European. In the next split second my worries had disappeared as he placed a hand firmly on my waist and pulled me into the music.

An hour later, I’d lost count of how many people I had danced with; young and old, short and tall, expert and amateur, polite and dodgy. As each song stopped, there was the awkward pause in which we decide whether to do another song, whether I would be declined from the next song, or whether I would decline him and move on to others. All three situations occurred in rough measure.

The most flattering moments were on being asked, incredulously, “You’re not a Brasileira?” And the most humbling moments were on being told to “Relax. Let me do the job. Let yourself go.” - which I miserably failed to do because he was beyond my crappy league.

When I rejoined my friends they said they were proud of me. I was exhausted and glowing.

Futebol

2010-08-04T13:38:00.003+07:00

From where the three of us sat, we could see the smooth oval shape of the entire stadium swelling out before us like a huge beast. And the beast was alive.

That is, half of it was.

The left and middle, where we sat, was filled with a sea of white and green visual noise. Pom-poms and balloons and giant inflatable batons everywhere brandished proudly by supporters of the home team, Palmeiras. The right side was empty except for a few ridiculously outnumbered red and yellows. But they firmly stood their minority ground and kept the drums beating. Pounding them with a samba beat. The sky was gloomy, and the crowd was as passionate as a brilliant summer day. It is impossible to sit in the middle of this and not become infected by the energy, unless you are a vegetable.

My friend’s uncle, however, did seem oblivious to all this. He sat hunched with a portable radio pressed against his ear and his eyes glued to the field. His brow frowned in concentration, straining to hear the radio commentators analyzing the game.

Vendors weaved in and out of the crowd, selling cans of guarana and long cinnamon churros and chocolate bars. M&M’s too, which I buy obsessively, simply to have an excuse to pronounce the brand the Brazilian way: emmy emmy.

“Emmy emmy, por favor!”

A little, cute, sweet-looking boy who looked 8 years old didn’t even notice as the vendor elbowed him aside to give me my emmy emmy’s. His little face was contorted with frustration at the striker. He suddenly jumped up and down and shouted at the top of his lungs this one-breath phrase that can be translated for all intents and purposes to mean:

“SHIT AND GO FUCK YOURSELF, ASSHOLE!”

The crowd swelled in an outburst of dirty language. I happily joined in. The São Paulo home team lost. The crowd became noisily subdued. The shoulders dejected and drooping. The pom-poms abandoned. Only the uncle stayed loyal to his portable radio, intent on listening to commentators analyzing the finished game for another hour or so.

As for myself, I was in high spirits. I grinned at my friend. He looked at me and smiled in a smug way. “See? What did I tell you.” he said.

The thing he had told me was “You’re in Brazil. Come to a football game.”

Balada

2010-08-04T13:33:00.005+07:00

Here was my night out in São Paulo in the local lingo, more or less.

We went to go balada and came home at madrugada. Balada expansively refers to going out, dancing, drinking, clubbing, having fun and everything in between. Madrugada is an undefined time on the clock that refers to the wee hours of the morning when you stumble home half-consciously.

In preparing for balada I dressed up to the nines in a little black dress. Coming out from my room I was accosted by my host’s brother’s fiancé. She took the hem of my knee-length dress and reprimanded me, saying “Teez!! I will cut all your skirts! They are all too long!”

Her fiancé came out and rescued me by the arm. Only to draw me aside and teach me a song I should be singing tonight to impress people. It started along the lines of “If you think that chachaça is water, cachaça is not water, no.” Cachaça is the national Brazilian liquor that is quite deliciously lethal. The tune was catchy and sure enough, I was an instant hit.

We hopped three different places and were enthusiastically thirsty. When we had ordered enough to sufficiently be categorized as “a lot”, we got ourselves a saidera, which is the free round that bar-owners always give to good customers as a token of appreciation. I became bebada, which happens when you have too much to drink. And the next day I had a ressaca, which happens when you wake up after having too much to drink. When I informed my host’s parents of my ressaca in the morning they laughed happily.

In order to cure this ressaca the traditional way, my friends took me to Mercado Municipal, the municipal market, for breakfast. We started our late day drinking Chopp, a smooth light beer with froth like no other froth on earth. A little bit suspiciously, the more I drank my Chopp the more my ressaca faded. But the point is, how can you not love a country where people drink beer at the market for breakfast to cure hangovers?

I felt ready for anything. Including the hot fresh bolinha de bacalhau which came shortly to our table. A deep-fried bread-crumbed crispy heavenly something stuffed with shredded bacalhau fish and drizzled with a zing of limão juice.

Afterwards my host took me to see the symphony orchestra at Sala São Paulo. We carried a red plastic bag full of passion fruit and mangoes and dende oil we bought at the market, into the elegant concert hall. By now I actually knew how to reject plastic bags by saying, “não preciso um sacola de plastico, obrigada”. But this time the volume of our ransom was too great. My friend said, “Now is not the time to be a silly tree-hugger.” Fine.

So we hastily stuffed the plastic bags underneath our seats hoping no one would notice. But the seats were foldable ones and as soon as we stood up to give our standing ovation, pop went the seats, revealing plastic bags filled with fruit for all to see.

But no one cared. The orchestra was commanding, elegant and graceful. I love watching a swarm of violin bows dip and soar and letting myself dip and soar with them. This is as much a mental state of dipping and soaring as it is a physical one. I literally sit in my seat and something goes up and down, it could by my foot, or my head, or my general happiness. As an added bonus they played Villa Lobos’ compositions. Oh!

By this time I was absolutely content. The balada, so to speak, lasted deliciously longer than I expected. I was feeling very lucky about my life in general.

The Brazilians would say, with this charmingly nonsensical phrase they use to describe someone who is lucky: Ela nasceu com abunda virada para a lua ~ She was born with her butt facing the moon.

Musica Brasileira

2010-08-03T13:15:00.006+07:00

When I told the Cariocas I was going to São Paulo, they said, “why the fuck are you going to that hell hole?”

When I told the Paulistas that I was going to Rio de Janeiro, they said, “That boring place is full of lazy asses”.

All this foul bad-mouthing comforts me. Cities filled with people who are fanatic about their own cities are cities that I want to be in.

In any event there was a stronger calling to begin with, which helped me stubbornly defy various obstacles that almost thwarted me from coming to Brazil. I had grown up listening to Tom Jobim and João Gilberto. I’d already memorized the Portuguese lyrics to “The Girl from Ipanema” even before I knew its meaning. Nearing my departure I’d become obsessed with Vinicius de Moraes, Elis Regina, and Chico Buarque.

Leaving the US with a sad pain in my chest, I played João Gilberto’s “Adeus America” to a repeat:

Adeus America,

essa terra e muito boa,

mas não posso ficar porque,

o samba mandou me chamar

Chega de lights, good nights, e de fights, e alrights,

o samba mandou me chamar.

(Goodbye America,

that land is wonderful,

but I cannot stay because,

the samba is calling me

enough of lights, good nights, and the fights, and alrights,

the samba is calling me.)

And because I’m a generally lucky girl, my host in São Paulo is a wonderful friend who understood my musical tastes inside and out. And would patiently tolerate my enthusiastic rants, as well as my singing in phonetically ambitious but otherwise grammatically doubtful Portuguese.

Solid proof of this solid understanding was when he took me to O Do Borogodó. The name doesn’t mean anything, I’ve been told, and besides, the name was nowhere to be found. This was a 10 sqm hole in the wall in the middle of a dark nowhere with no sign board, a cement floor, bare whitewashed walls and a tiny red bar. The band was a modest assembly of a guitar, flute and tambourine. A woman with magnificent curly auburn hair sang traditional songs.

Some sat enjoying their ice-cold beers, and others danced even when there was no space to dance. An elderly couple held each other in a corner, swaying to the music comfortably. The lone waiter was also ready to dance with anyone who needed a partner. It was just, perfect.

Really, I could dance every night. On the streets if I must. Doesn’t that make perfect sense?

So while you Cariocas and Paulistas sort out which city you hate best, I’ve found a unifying theme to São Paulo and Rio that I can love with equal measure.

Brasilia

2010-08-02T12:47:00.003+07:00

The plane taking me to Brazil got abducted by aliens, was transported through a quasar at warp speed, and vomited back to a remote southern part of Earth which the aliens had discovered in the 50s. I remembered nothing of the inter-galactical journey, but suddenly woke up in a confused state to find myself in Brasilia.

The landscape was completely flat, completely arid, and completely quiet. In fact it was so dry that the grass had a scorched look, and trees gave off a steam of overheat. Some patches of trees were, as a matter of fact, on fire, shooting up billows of thin charcoal smoke. Contrasting against an otherwise spotless blue sky.

"Those trees are on fire," I told my host, because he didn't seem to have noticed.

"Oh. Yes, that happens a lot," he said, and continued to drive.

In an almost defying way, the landscape in general felt green. With lots of colorful flowers. A smooth dark blue lake on the horizon. A stark summer feel.

But even stranger still were the futuristic alien structures dotting the land: a huge white dome-shaped museum, cubic buildings with gravity-defying structures jutting out of its side, a lone white tower, a church that looked like giant intertwined fingers, a twin parliament building that looked like a ball cut in half, one upturned, one face-down. Curving walls, cool pools, defined edges, elegant whiteness. The entire city was a marvelous architectural Bauhaus museum.

Of course I later discovered that the “alien” responsible for this is Oscar Niemeyer, the legendary Brazilian architect who designed the entire capital city of Brasilia.

“Is he still alive? I’d like to meet him. If only to shake his hand.”

“Well it will be a rather shaky handshake because he is almost a hundred.”

“Amazing.”

“He’s completely mad. What normal person would build a city in a desert?”

“Maybe he finds it cozy.

“He lives in Rio. By the Copacabana beach.”

Lachinas

2010-08-01T13:56:00.004+07:00

In a “diverse market” where various products come together in a single market and therefore create abundant options, consumers gain an increased benefit of choosing the perfect fit. Following this theory, I have discovered that generally the Latin Americans are my soul mates in this world.

I would even happily sit at a table with them and understand nothing of what they are saying in Spanish and Portuguese. I would let the pretty language wash over me and I would feel perfectly warm, perfectly at home. It is strange.

I went to Mexico with a bunch of enthusiastic latinas who took off their clothes and greedily soaked up the sun like a sponge. One of them, hugging her self with a smile tilted towards the sky, described the warmth of the sun like having someone hold you in his arms. For hours they lay on the hot beach drinking mango margaritas, comparing each other's tans when the day was done. When I told them I'd rather be white they were visibly shocked. They say I have perfect skin-tone. They had beautiful bodies but the beach was also filled with lumpy flesh spilling out of bikinis. I never was one to admire the naked human body as an art form or as any kind of statement of freedom. I've always thought bikinis only go well with good bodies. I remembered the tourists in Bali, baring their lumpy flesh on the beach, and remembered how I thought they cluttered the beach and made it ugly.

I told them they should come to Bali and they promised to come. Back home they would spend their weekends on the beach, or on their suburban farms. They asked me what I did on weekends. They asked me whether, since Indonesia is filled with beautiful beaches, I would go to the beach every weekend. I laughed and told them we don't need a tan. I told them I'd go to the movies with my boyfriend, cook at home, or go out to cafes with my friends. I told them Jakartans don't spend a lot of time outdoors because it is too hot and there are mosquitoes. I laughed at how ridiculous it all sounded from where I was on that Mexican beach.

We sang telenovela songs and kept a lookout for tanned cuties. We got along genuinely marvelously. All I needed to do was to slather on a higher SPF.

Drama

2010-07-21T22:07:00.003+07:00

How can I not love American co-workers when the meeting goes like this:

"When the rubber hits the road we want to make sure we hit the road running."

"But companies are still tying up their shoelaces now, when they should already be taking baby steps to be prepared for when the shit hits the fan."

"Let me poke my head around this and try to speed-deliver then."

"Good. I guess you could choose your battles if that helps, just make sure we don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

Disneyland

2010-05-26T03:36:00.004+07:00

Many years I've spent searching solace
On the road, in the sky, on my shoe lace
The answer, found today and ends tomorrow
Brings joy with it and sorrow

Because I'm designed in layers and my face
can give you a lie without a trace
And the unfunny jokes that I pretend to borrow
Will convince you without frown on your brow

There was always something out of place
A smile to fake, a dream to chase
No home that was home to the marrow
Guilt hanging above, a shadow, a crow

The answer just struck me today: this place
was where I could act with comfort and grace
But life is funny, and one year is narrow
it all ends when I graduate tomorrow.

(See minute 2:20)

The last mile.

2010-05-11T08:47:00.003+07:00

Sleep at 3:00.

Wake at 8:00.

Pack a banana.

Arrive at 9:00.

Print materials.

Sit.

Breathe. Focus. Read until midnight.

Don't panic.

Just keep going.

On sausages and law

2010-05-09T14:55:00.003+07:00

After my exam finished I hung out with a friend to relax and immediately relieved myself of that disturbing news I heard in the middle of studying which I had had to push aside for the time being. So basically I blurted out the whole story about Sri Mulyani.

"Congratulations! Good for her. That's an amazing position", said he, who had always wanted to work at the World Bank.

"Yes it's amazing and we're proud. But we've lost the best finance minister one could ever hope for. And I'm worried, because dammit. No offense, but I'm sick and tired of BRIC. Everyone only ever talks about Brazil Russia India China. BrazilRussiaIndiaChina. It's about time it became BRICI. And I think we had a good momentum going with her as finance minister."

Being Brazilian, he grinned wickedly. And then he shrugged dramatically. "Sorry. It's hard to catch up with us."

"Zip it. We could be as good. Well, should. Should be as good. God. Politicians are..." I clenched both my fists until they shook to convey how politicians in the parliament are.

"They are." He nodded sympathetically.

"And I can't believe they make the law. They actually make the law. This collective force of incompetence who only care about their political agendas instead of the things that really matter. It makes me dizzy."

"Yup. Well you know what they say about sausages and law."

"What do they say about sausages and law?"

"You don't want to know how they are made."*

"Fuck. That is profound."

*(The quote allegedly comes from the West Wing)

Completely waffled.

2010-05-01T10:06:00.004+07:00

Of all the things to be said about this university, this is the most amazing thing:

The Harvard Waffle.

One can just imagine the administration officers, sitting in their annual roundtable budget meeting, shifting their spectacles to get a better look at the surplus balance.

"Hem. So the good news is we still have surplus despite the credit crunch. The bad news is that it's not enough to grant more waivers of tuition fees."

"This is very grave. What shall we do with it then?"

"Let's get customized waffle makers."

"Ooh can we get them with the Harvard crest on it? That would be like super awesome."

"Totally."

This is the dining room. I've only been here once because it is mostly restricted to undergrads only, which is downright unfair. The rest of us are just muggles, apparently.

PS: We've planned clandestine operations to sneak in for waffles every weekend until we graduate. Hopefully the house-elves will be cooperative.

QWERTY

2010-04-29T23:19:00.001+07:00

The dichotomous distinction between Annex I and Non-Annex I countries is inefficient for climate change negotiations and doesn't solve the purpose going forward, but unfortunately a path dependence on the status quo has made most people take it as a given, so said Professor Robert Stavins today in class.

He then described his hope that future climate change negotiations would vastly improve over the "QWERTY keyboard" of international climate negotiations.

As you might have guessed, nobody understood what he meant.

So he explained the history of the QWERTY keyboard, which he says if you think about, doesn't really make sense because if you wanted to type really effectively you should group the most used letters, the vowels, together. The early prototype typewriter actually attempted this. But the problem was, ("and I hope you understand what I am talking about or have at least seen a typewriter in a museum" he said), typewriters have keys that go up and down when you jab a button and it hits the ink ribbon that gets pressed on your paper, and these keys jam all the time, especially if you're typing quickly. So to solve the jam, they invented the QWERTY keyboard to separate the vowel keys and to actually slow down typists! And the only reason it's still being used in todays keyboards is because a status quo path dependence on the QWERTY had already been ingrained in everyone.

This was thrilling information in and of itself, which I think will last longer than my knowledge on climate change. I can just see myself at future dinner tables, passionately arguing that the inefficient size of wedding parties in Jakarta suffers from the QWERTY keyboard syndrome. The explanation that would follow will be so obscure and complex and geeky that people will (a) be dazzled by my faux intelligence and gaze at me in rapt admiration, or, (b) change the subject.

Yeah okay, scenario (b) is more likely.

On style and success.

2010-04-28T09:35:00.003+07:00

I'm not the most fashionable girl in the world, but I am definitely itching to provide style tips to some girls at my office. This does not make me a superficial person; I think it was Chanel who said, a woman can be unfashionable but she must have style.

I learned it the hard way. When I was in high school my friends would laugh at my bright-green socks, which I had since I was 10. When I was in university my male friends would shake their heads at my baggy rapper jeans. "We love you just the way you are, but you need to be optimized", they said. The first time I had a creambath for my hair, they noticed. And dearest Mom never lets me out of the house without quality control. Of course this depends on every individual's milieu, and since I was in law school people generally liked a bit of conservatism.

And so it applies to lawyers. Of course, brain matters most and beauty comes from within, but style is an obtainable skill so there's no reason why not. It needs to make you presentable, allow a good visual first impression, but not stand out like an attention seeker. It's really just science.

Your front buttons shouldn't look like they are about to burst.
Your hair doesn't need to be greasy.
Your blouse shouldn't be made of napkin-like fabric.
Your shoes/bag shouldn't look like they are trying too hard to be leather.
Etc.

Really. If I were Partner, I would take them out for a girly shopping session and buy them stuff. (I must mention this when I present my pitch for partnership).

PS: Inspired to post this suddenly because my classmates are generally stylish, even the geeky ones. Wondering whether Style equals Success or whether Success gives you Style. Hmm.

2010-04-26T03:12:00.002+07:00

Being ignored gives me a headache. Like the way an overdose of wasabi shoots up my nose and hits that spot between my eyes. And then it goes away and I forget the next time around.

He is never going to reply to my emails. I just never learn.

The Plan.

2010-04-17T21:58:00.002+07:00

Mom : Any new stories?
Me : Not much. Just studying.
Mom : How are your friends here in Jakarta?
Me : Well, I heard that H, G, P, and V are pregnant... and A, K, and B are getting married this year, C and D got engaged.
Mom : And your ex?
Me : He seems fine... Busy, happy. What news from your end?
Mom : Well, your cousin B is getting married in May, cousin P is getting married in July, and your Aunt L is expecting two grandchildren this year because both her daughter-in-laws are pregnant at the moment.
Me : Wow. Everybody's .... breeding.
Mom: None of my children even have a girlfriend or boyfriend.
Me : Haha. Yes. Sorry bout that.
Mom : I want to stand beside the bride & groom while my hair is still plentiful.
Me : Of course.
Mom: Where did I go wrong??
Me : Umm...
Mom: When you get home, we have to downplay your education. It might scare off men.
Me : Brilliant. Sounds like a plan.

Schmasian

2010-03-11T22:43:00.001+07:00

The chinese shopkeeper of the convenience store looked at me curiously.

"Are you Vietnamese?" she asked
"No, I'm Indonesian"
"Where?"
"Indonesia"
"Oh, sorry. You look Asian."

She was surprised that somebody from Indonesia would look Asian.

I was confused and was about to say something, but then decided not to.

Swing.

2010-03-09T04:29:00.005+07:00

Having endured lectures peppered with high level intellectualism that I am not entirely sure I grasp, and classmates who not only have opinions but know how to tailor their opinions so as to sound extremely competent, uniform levels of diligence and concentration everywhere I go, and grades that could have been better... I suffer bouts of insecurity (although I am told this happens to absolutely everyone). I swing from confidence and drive to pitiful helplessness and apathy from one day to the next.

So this is just for me really, but I'd like to put this down in writing and to the (virtual) world as an engraved reminder of my utmost basic principles that I should just stick by, period.

1. Ikhtiar. (Do Your Absolute Best)
2. Tawwakkal. (Ask God To Do The Rest)

This piece always makes me smile

2010-02-24T02:57:00.006+07:00

"How high the ocean, how high the moon
I don't know the words of this song, but imma gonna sing 'em anyway
I hope you enjoy it, hope you enjoy it.
Ella Fitzgerald sings this song real real real crazy
...that's the way she sings it.
So imma gonna try to sing it that way for you
So here goes..."

-Sarah Vaughan-

PS: How high was Sarah?

Focus 101.

2010-02-19T08:25:00.002+07:00

If brains could solidify mine probably has. Into an uneven lump of gray matter as dry and meaningless as corrugated cardboard. It is a crisis of the worst kind, the kind that it (the brain) is itself conscious of, and I say the worst kind because it does nothing despite being conscious of its shortcomings.

Consider this.

Every day I resolve to concentrate. To shut out all other noise and delightful distractions in place of a secluded mental isolation in which all the brilliant thoughts discreetly hiding within my condensing layers of gray matter will come out with a bang and a eureka and prove themselves worthy of my academic leanings. But no. It is like faith. I know I have it, but its manifestation digresses habitually.

Today I succeeded in concentrating. Laptop closed, facebook untouched, earphones kept away, random sneezes, whisperings, and passersby ignored, for maybe 6-8 hours. It was just me and... algebra. It is a welcome break from law courses. Algebra is therapeutic. It provides answers that are either right or wrong. Once you begin you cannot stop, cannot let go, until you find the answer, because you know the truth is out there, at your very fingertips, if you would only persevere. The Professor of this course - Environmental Economics - is also reassuring because when you ask him a question he does not bounce the question back to the entire classroom to illicit endless opinions with no conclusion but he instead tells you, concisely, what the answer is. It is like playing Bach after several years of trying to play like Thelonius Monk.

In fact, I can probably connect everything to jazz. The title shall be "Law Is Like Jazz: An Improvised Analysis". Abstract: In order to improvise, you need to know the chord progressions. In order to find the loopholes in the law, you need to know the law. There is no such thing as a right or wrong tune/ argument. You just know it is beautiful/ convincing when you hear it. Which reminds me I should get a transcript of that discussion between Justice O'Connor and Wynton Marsalis, "A Celebration of America", to cite from. This could be a profound theorem.

I'm digressing.

I'm digressing from my thesis, is the more appropriate big-picture conclusion. My thesis, unfortunately, is cool but has nothing to do with jazz, or algebra. Did you ever hear this (really lame) joke:

"Why did the blonde stare at the orange juice carton?"

"No idea. Why?"

"Because it said 'Concentrate'. Haha. Get it? Concentrate. "

So. I could use an orange juice.

Bukan saya tidak betah.

2010-01-28T07:03:00.004+07:00

"Kesetiaan kepada negeri ini bukanlah karena patriotisme yang pongah.

Kita setia kepada Indonesia justru karena ia terus-menerus memanggil: ia belum selesai. Kita tak bisa melepaskan diri dari ikatan kita kepadanya; kita tak bisa melupakannya; kita terkadang bangga terkadang risau karenanya. Tapi tetap: Indonesia bukan hanya tempat tinggal.

Indonesia adalah sebuah amanat."

-Gunawan Mohamad, 15 Mei 2009-

A Bad Case of New Orleans

2010-01-03T23:36:00.001+07:00

I don't know when I will recover from this holiday. I fear that every place I visit next will be under pressure to live up to my New Orleans trip. I cherish my crystallized moments all the time, but this would be a prized collection worthy of its own display shelf.

Preservation Hall Jazz Band

2010-01-02T13:27:00.001+07:00

The name was quaint: "Preservation Hall". It had a dignified ring to it, like Carnegie Hall, but also a comical note which reminded me of preserved pickles. On Monday when we came to see the 8pm show, the line at 7.30pm extended an entire one block. So on Saturday we came at 6pm and patiently waited 2 hours out in the cold to get front seats. At 8.00 pm the iron gates opened with a clang, and we were ushered into a tiny, dilapidated room with yellowing walls, faded oil paintings of jazz musicians, and wooden ceiling fans. On one end of the room, a silent assembly of the piano, drum, bass, and three antique wooden chairs for the brass players stood waiting, lit by dim yellow light bulbs. The place was magical. It was exactly like it used to be when the first jazz musicians played here decades ago. It was perfectly preserved.

We all sat on long wooden benches or floor cushions. The band was smooth, laid-back, soulful, and amazing in every way, but the real kick was when the trumpeter sang. I've heard many singers with better voices, but this was something else. Without microphone, he stood up and sang to us like he was telling a story. He sang the blues the way Shakespeare plays used to be done in small medieval theaters. Then he sang "St James Infirmary" by Louis Armstrong, and I was spellbound.

"I went down to St. James Infirmary
I saw my baby there,
She's laid out on a cold white table,
So so cold, so white, so fair.

Let her go, God bless her,
Wherever she may be

She may search this wide world over
She'll never find a sweet trumpet player like me."

Beignets

2010-01-01T23:22:00.000+07:00

The local New Orleanian dessert that is all the rave, which resembled soft doughnuts snowed under with powder sugar. So we had to go all touristy and try the one everybody says that everybody says is the best, at Cafe du Monde. The line was formidably long, but we were determined tourists just like everybody else. When we finally got in we stopped a waiter and asked for a table.

"Manyallidis?"
"Sorry?"
"Owmanyalliddis??"
"I'm sorry, say that again?"
"How many o' y'all it is??"
"Oh! Err... four... people?"
"Aight chu can git dat table o'er there baby and I'll be right wit cha."

Kermit

2010-01-01T11:16:00.001+07:00

My friend couldn't believe that Kermit Ruffins was playing at Vaughan's on New Year's eve. I said, "who's Kermit Ruffins?"
Once upon a time my friend's father stumbled on a trumpet jazz rendition of "happy birthday", and loved it so much that he played it at every single birthday party in their house for 10 years. Kermit Ruffins was the guy who played that trumpet. Before we left for the venue, my friend called up the father and told him excitedly that we were about to see Kermit Ruffins live.

So we went to Vaughan's and found a large, crowded shack in the middle of a dark neighbourhood, lit with kitschy multi-color lightbulbs and cheap new year decorations. Kermit Ruffins was deliciously drunk, and his music kept the place together and alive. Everyone seemed to know each other, or at least knew the bartender, who was a small asian lady. A woman passed by and gave me a plastic cube that glowed blue when I put it in my drink.

An old man with a kind wrinkled face sat near us and smiled at us. And then he asked my friend, "What's wrong with your lady friend here? She's so cold. I smiled at her 3 times and she didn't even see me." He must have been 60 years old, and his face was weathered like a farmer who is out in the sun all day.

My friend said, "You know why? Because she's Asian. They have these small eyes and it's hard for them to see things."
"That's right," I said and nodded seriously.
The old man laughed so hard it made me happy to see him.
I gave him a hug and said, "I love you, man."
"I love you too," he said.

9th Ward

2009-12-31T23:15:00.001+07:00

We spent an entire day to visit the 9th ward, the residential area most affected by Hurricane Katrina, to volunteer in building a house. No cement or bricks were involved, everything was made of wood and nails. We spent 8 hours measuring, chain-sawing wood planks, and nailing them to the walls and the beams.

"I'm doing this like a retard," I said apologetically to a new acquaintance.

We had seen this guy the night before, at the Cottonmouth Kings' performance, tearing up the dance floor with his amazing swing dance. When we saw him that morning at the construction site, it was a "Hey, weren't you the one who...?" moment.

He was a school teacher, a semi-professional swing dancer, and in his pastime he liked to do voluntary work. He said, "Oh don't worry about feeling like a retard. I used to bring my students to help out here and they did things really slow. I talked to the site supervisor and said, 'sorry man, we're taking things too slow here', and he said, 'Please don't worry. It's not the speed that's important. It's the experience and goodwill that you take home with you that matters'".

As we labored on the house, local residents would drive by in their cars, rap music blasting out from their speakers that were set to maximum volume. At any other time and circumstance I would be avoiding these people because of the things I see in Hollywood gangsta movies. But as they drove by the honked their horns, waved at us and shouted, "Happy New Year y'all!"

Poetry

2009-12-30T23:13:00.002+07:00

On our way to see the New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings, I found a man sitting in the middle of the cold street with a typewriter. The sign taped on the typewriter said, "Fresh Poems While You Wait". I stopped and asked if I could take his picture.

"Sure. Thanks for asking by the way. The other tourists just don't bother to ask and I have to bark at them because it's just impolite."
"Oh but do you mind?"
"Yeah no. I mean it'd be better if people just gave me the money, but you can take my picture."
"Oh I'd like your poetry. How does this work?"
"Right. So you give me a theme, and I'll make you a poem, and then you pay."
"Okay. Then make me a poem on.... 'impoliteness'"
"Oh that's a great one."

And the man made me this poem in two minutes flat:

"Polite-ness"

oversensitive america
we complain and whine

i am pissed off or sad.
and yet, what of
please and thank you..

used to death,
tools of five year olds.

i once taught a women

hello and please
and she became much
more popular on the farm

so polite and nice
but i prefer
new england brashness..

and a nice tone of voice
to retain
a spectacle of civility

M Hayden
Dec 28 2009
Frenchmen St.

Torch

2009-12-29T23:12:00.003+07:00

We went to a glassworks workshop today in the hopes of discovering a hidden creative talent in making bowls and vases. Just in case being a lawyer doesn't work out. But when I got there and saw the big 2000 degree celcius ovens and the long poking sticks and the glass artworks on display, I got a little overexcited. We had only two hours to get things done.

"Okay," I said to the instructor, "I'm thinking of making at least two glasses that are about this size, and they have to be identical but I want them to have different colors, and also a salad bowl, maybe not the size of a superbig salad bowl but maybe more like a large cereal bowl, not a small one, and then I can't decide whether I want a vase or a cup depending on how much time we have left, what do you think? But if its a vase I don't want it to have those flappy ridges like flower petals because I like my vases just clean and sleek."

Our instructor was a young man who wore cool shades, a black singlet and tattoos on his bare muscled arms. He used to be a janitor at the workshop, and slowly worked his way up to become an artisan. He listened to my prattle patiently and said, "I tell you what. We're gonna make a big glass that can also be a vase. And then we can make a bowl that can also be a vase. And then we gonna make a cup that can also be a glass."

"I also want a paperweight," I said, pushing it.

"Okay. But that's gonna take a while. We make our paperweights seriously around here."

"Why?"

"We get hurricanes," he said with a big smirk.

Ersters

2009-12-28T23:05:00.002+07:00

Perhaps a large part of my New Orleans trip was fueled by echoes of Billie Holiday's songs, one of the renditions of which went, "you say oysters, I say ersters, oh let's call the whole thing off."

So I went looking for ersters, and my friends went looking for cheese and wine, and so between us all we settled on Bacchanal. Beyond the doubtful kitchen we found a backyard garden littered with casual patio chairs and campfires and lit torches and the heavy chatter of conversation filling the night air. We chose a table and I went to patiently wait in line for my oysters. To my surprise, they were completely free, except for the big red plastic bucket on the counter that said, "Don't forget to tip the shucker." The shucker seemed to know everyone on the line except me, and he chatted to everyone while shucking the fresh oysters. His customers would come up to him and say, "Whassup Johnny?" The waiter took my order and asked for my name.
"Teez"
"Cheese?"
"Teez. T-E-E-Z."
"Okay, just wait out back at your table until we come out and mispronounce your name."

I liked my ersters even before they came.

Theorems of emotion in motion

2009-12-15T13:56:00.005+07:00

While studying today I discovered this note scribbled on the last page of my Corporations Law book, in my handwriting, undated:

" 2 aspects to an emotion:
- Love
- Compatibility

Love means = I know I would be willing to give certain things up for him. I would change for him.

Compatibility means = If I had to change, does that mean we are incompatible and therefore my love is misplaced?

The two prongs fight a battle to the death."

7 hours and 59 minutes

2009-12-11T10:02:00.001+07:00

I never thought I'd say this, but exams were pretty exciting. At least I can say it was an entirely new experience for me. Let me draw some empirical comparisons and then you'll see why.

Back in undergrad, approaching exam period I would usually have vague memories of the class and what was taught. I would thus embark on a stressful marathon of the materials one or two days before the exam. I would prepare (i) a collared shirt, because for some reason it is required for exams, (ii) a white-out correction pen for when I write stuff and change my mind, and (iii) a full stomach. This got me through university satisfactorily.

So, I had my very first exam today at HLS. The morning of the exam I prepared (i) my most comfortable hoodie and jeans, and (ii) two packed sandwiches. The night before the exam I had (i) booked a private room in the library, (ii) bought a bottle of water and chocolate milk, and (iii) a big bar of plain dark chocolate. Two weeks before the exam I had (i) read all the materials again, and (ii) prepared a 20-page chart summarizing all the 50-something cases we covered in class.

I arrived on campus on a cold icy-wet morning at 8.15 am, went straight to the private room, laid out my laptop, books, sandwiches, drinks, and chocolate on my table, and waited nervously till 8.30 am. At precisely 8.30 am the exam question file popped up on my screen, indicating it was available to download.

It was an 8-hour exam; the questions were 19 pages long and took me two hours to read. I'm a clerk at the Supreme Court, and the Justice has to decide what to do with the court of appeals decision attached but was too lazy to write an opinion, so she asked me to do it. The case was interesting and seriously believable, and the whole drafting process, combined with the time constraint, was similar to a prolonged adrenaline rush. There were moments of brain blockage. There were moments of desperation when I was certain I was writing crap. There were bathroom trips to ease the tension. A timer window popped up warning me that I had one more hour to go. I swore. I rushed through the last half hour in a frenzy of creative madness. In short, I actually had fun.

So, 7 hours 59 minutes, two sandwiches, and an entire chocolate bar later, I clicked the "submit" button, and thus my draft opinion sped along the virtual road to meet the powers that be. God bless it.

High Rise

2009-12-04T03:56:00.004+07:00

It was a beautiful day today. The sun was warm, the birds were twittering, the sky was a brilliant blue, the air was cool and the lulling breeze kept reminding us of that fact. We sat and enjoyed our sandwiches on the outdoor patio of our favorite bakery, basking in the weather. It is December in New England, and yesterday had been freezing.

So the talk turned to climate change. (Ironically, our bakery was called "Hi-Rise".) It started out lightly, with a friend joking that he wouldn't mind climate change if it made the weather warm like this. Another friend mentioned she hated how there are so many people who think that way and it really is not funny and will not be funny at all when the sky starts turning yellow. Another friend declared that he did not appreciate environmentalists enforcing their views upon him as if he was stupid and ignorant, and that such attitudes would backlash against their cause. The previous speaker became incensed, thinking that he was speaking to her personally. The whole conversation then escalated to new levels and a heated debate ensued.

Where did I stand in this conversation? I thought, in the words of Cass Sunstein (the co-author of 'Nudge') "markets markets markets, markets markets markets."

For example, I care about climate change. It is in fact the focus of my current studies. But do I use less water, less electricity, less plastic cups? Maybe not. And why is that?

There is a difference between care and action. Caring can be inherent in the person, can be a personal thing based on a personal experience, it cannot be imposed. You could tell a person to start caring, they may do it and they may not. They may become ashamed of themselves and start changing. Or they may get offended that you suggest they are not caring persons. A number of possibilities may arise.

Action may derive from care, may not arise at all even if you cared, or may be triggered by other, less noble but more practical human characteristics. Such as desire for efficiency, thrift, convenience, or a desire not to be an anomalous part of society. I believe there are a number of noble selfless people in this world, but there are even more people who are just looking out for themselves, because life is a battle. These people need more than just awareness, more than just a lecture on "caring" to really take action.

If solar panels were available, affordable, and reliable in Indonesia, I would have them installed, because it cuts my electricity costs in the long run. If I owned a palm oil plantation, I would have turned it back into dense forests that would retain carbon, and sell carbon credits to make my fortune, if a market for that was robust. If my tumbler didn't make my coffee taste slightly like metal, I would have continued using it instead of the paper cups I use everyday. If no paper cups were made available at all, I would have to buy another tumbler and I wouldn't mind spending more money on a good quality tumbler.

One might argue that markets respond to consumer preferences. But more often than not, it is markets that shape consumer behavior. We just don't realize it. I'm not saying it is useless to spread the message at a grassroots level and getting people to care. But my thoughts are how to get to action.

Full circle.

2009-12-03T03:53:00.004+07:00

It's Harvard, and it's exciting, because everybody is determined to be excited. All the Professors and the staff like to say inspirational things like, "Obama sat in this very class", or amusingly competitive things like, "the entire Yale could fit into our new north building", or downright touching things like, "I hope you can someday find a global solution to this crisis, because it will probably not happen in my time".

And then you go to the cafeteria and find yourself casually holding the door open for Nobel prize winner Amartya Sen on your way out. You dream of greatness, of future Nobel prizes, of change because Yes We Can, as we all know. You meet people who say "I want to be President" and you check yourself just right before you laugh because, waitta minute, he might be serious and he might really become one. You speak of your ridiculous dreams and ideas to people and they take you seriously, they say "you will be great", they give you a million more ideas.

You fit in as comfortably as a missing jigsaw piece and therefore you think you could fit in comfortably anywhere in the world, and the boundaries become limitless, with perseverance the only pre-requisite. Contrary to how it sounds... this is a humbling experience. Especially so due to the following thought.

Despite these "great" excitements one particular terrifying and unanswerable question lingers in my head. With whom will I spend the rest of my life with and when will that happen?

Haha. There. I've said it.

I will take no questions.

"Everything!!"

2009-12-01T04:11:00.001+07:00

Staff: What would you like today young lady?

Me: Hi! I think I'll have rye bread today
Staff: Would that be marble rye or dark rye?
Me: Oh just normal rye.
Staff: We don't got normal rye ma'am, it's either marble rye or dark rye
Me: Haha okay. Dark rye then.
Staff: And what's going in it?
Me: Everything!!!
Staff: You gotta be a little specific here. Spread?
Me: Okay. Olive kalamata spread on one side, and mayo on the other side.
Staff: Roast beef, roast chicken, roast turkey?
Me: Turkey.
Staff: Lettuce and tomatoes?
Me: Definitely. Oh and sauteed mushrooms too.
Staff: Cheese? Cheddar, pepper-jack, swiss...?
Me: Mmm.... Buffalo mozzarella.
Staff: Mmhh.. mmhhh... how does that look huh?
Me: Looks awesome.
Staff: Thank you. Anything else? You want pickle with that?
Me: No thanks. Can you lightly grill it please?
Staff: Sure can. Just stand aside and wait for a bit, we gotta grill it down to perfection.

My love affair with sandwiches are always taken to a whole new level when I visit America. Granted a British Earl invented the lovely thing, but American decadence and casualness has truly elevated its rank to dazzling levels, whilst maintaining its comforting simplicity. Merely ordering it is an excitement for me.

Luckily the cafeteria makes sandwiches, and as you can see really makes it to order, personalized just for you. The best thing is, the price stays the same no matter how many items you choose to have in it. This makes me a little greedy.

Fall.

2009-11-21T03:18:00.005+07:00

Summer dies quickly, leaving skeletal branches against the sky.

At times like this "I could wile away the hours... conferring with the flowers, consulting with the rain..." as Harry Connick Jr. would sing. Because something else died too, and it is not as visible as the brown leaves that I crush underfoot, nor is it as visible as the meaning between these words. The only witness is myself, and this vast world that I find myself in, blowing dead leaves at my feet.

When something dies, you say goodbye. And so I did... a little invisible goodbye, which left me feeling torn, and a little lonelier. But there was nothing else I could do.

Superclass

2009-11-06T00:18:00.002+07:00

Professor Subramanian today started the class with a video. In all seriousness he informed us that the short clip would be helpful in understanding the concept of freeze-out mergers by controlling shareholders.

The scene opened with a picture of the Professor, his face serious behind his round spectacles and receding hairline, wearing a superman costume. Yes, red and blue with a big "S" on his chest. As the unmistakable superman soundtrack accompanied the picture, the scene changed into the title of the video in superman fonts: SUBRAMANIANMAN.

Scene I: The Professor is reading in his study, a student bursts in suddenly in panic.

Student: Professor, quick!
Prof: What's the matter?!!
Student: A minority shareholder is being freezed-out by a controlling shareholder! You have to stop him!
Prof: That's unacceptable! This calls for .... Subramanianman!!

Scene II: The Professor rushes out of his study and confronts his secretary

Prof : [With charisma] Cancel all my appointments for today!
Secretary : [Looks up in boredom] You don't have any meetings.
Prof : Oh. [Professor looks dejected for a milisecond, and then rips open his shirt to transform into Subramanianman (leaves the glasses on)]

Scene III: Some garden at HLS

Student 1: Look! It's a bird!
Student 2: No, it's a plane!
Student 3: No, it's Subramanianman !!!

Scene IV: The "majority shareholder" is spotted, in the middle of literally punching the "minority shareholder"

Student "majority": Oh no, it's Subramanianman!
Prof: Stop! Let this never happen again!
Student "minority": Thank you Subramanianman!

The End.

After the laughter and applause had died down, the Professor then turned to the class and said:

"All I can say is that I was young, and I needed the money."

Americans are funny

2009-10-17T02:56:00.003+07:00

Monday

Professor: "Ms. Tyler? Did Justice Scalia agree with the notion that canons of construction which tend to be purposivist are to be prioritized above strictly textualist statutory interpretations?"

Student: "Umm... yes."

Professor: "Excellent. Now, can you give me a shorter answer than 'yes' that is more correct?"

Tuesday

Yoga teacher: "Sort of clear your mind and breathe. Let your smile radiate sort of like the warm rays of the sun on the world. It is time to store your database in the hard disk of your mind."

I have never studied so hard in my entire life.

2009-10-16T08:42:00.001+07:00

A title is all I can manage right now.

Eternal while it lasts.

2009-09-08T01:59:00.000+07:00

What will I learn today? Who will I meet today?

If only I could wake up each morning in life and have the excitement of thinking these thoughts. If only I could step out my door every single day with a tune in my head and walk with the sun in my face and the breeze in my hair and the trees rustling above and a spring in my step. If only I could always approach any person in the world with the certainty that this person will have something interesting to say. If only I could take my current attitude home to Indonesia.

Munch.

2009-09-07T01:57:00.000+07:00

I’m very grateful to have excellent parents who taught me most of the things necessary to survive in life. One of which is eating skills. And there is nothing like encountering a Person with a severe lack of eating skills to enhance my gratitude.

The only background fact that I would disclose about said Person, which I deem necessary only to provide proper context to this story, is that I am required to dine frequently with this Person. I have never in my life felt particularly finicky about table manners, until I met him. Person would eat by holding his fork and spoon in his fist instead of his fingers. This causes his elbows to stick out on either side of him, such that a dinner companion would have to stay clear in order not to be elbowed in the middle of main course. He then proceeds to munch noisily, the noise of which is formed by the failure of the mouth to close during the act of munching, and therefore sounds exactly like teeth scraping spoon and tongue touching roof of mouth repetitively. Said Person also has the tendency to be beset by sudden inspiration during eating, in which case he would commence in stating said inspiration regardless of the food still being processed in his mouth. I was unfortunate enough to have been looking precisely at him when one of these occasions suddenly occurred, and inevitably caught a glimpse of different colored half-processed bits sticking to the front of his teeth. “Dear God, please make him drink”, I prayed silently (with eyes closed) when I saw this, and sure enough moments later, in the middle of munching, he picked up his glass and drank with a loud slurp which made me wince in my seat.

Now the dilemma comes when I think of what actions are within my powers to save myself from this uncomfortable situation. Practically, none that I can think of. He is a grown man, and I simply cannot tell a grown man how to eat. So I have resorted to fully concentrating on my plate while eating, and spilling my beans to you.

Skin.

2009-08-13T04:10:00.002+07:00

What a sight to see!

It’s summer, and everyone here is baring skin. My friend calls it “an excessive reaction to the sun, wrought by winter oppressiveness”. I’d like to hear him tell that to those girls over there, strewn across the grassy city parks like monsoon mushrooms in their bikinis, dreaming of sand on their cheeks and salty sea smells. I’d like to hear him tell that to those other girls over there, bouncing around the city in skin-tight skimpy jogging wear. They’re having so much fun they wouldn’t care less. I must admit I started feeling rather stuffy in my jeans.

Of course, I didn’t bring my beach-wear. As the same friend confirms when the first thing he asked me was, “have you brought your switer?” (that’s how Indonesians pronounce sweater), we pack to prepare for the unfamiliar, that being cold and unpredictable weather. We could well call our actions an excessive reaction to the future cold because I sure as hell packed a lot of switers. Which aren’t much use at this time of the year.

So I embarked on what I would call “reactionary shopping”, which is the sort a girl does when a girl attempts to Go With The Trend. But since I’m no longer a teenage trend-hopper and I was brought up to be a politely-dressed girl, my choices turned out to be conservative after all. But just because I can, I went jogging bra-less the other day. Obviously no one noticed, but shocking isn’t it. I might fancy calling it an excessive reaction to liberation. =D

The flight of the escapist.

2009-08-06T03:35:00.001+07:00

Finally, on this 20 hour flight, some peace and quiet.

Well, unless you count the germans, who seem to enjoy speaking across the aisle to one another. Fortunately, I don't understand a word they're saying, so it's like white noise. I'm taking the Lufthansa, so we're making a stop at Frankfurt. On the plane the announcer's very german voice burst through the speakers, saying "We are about to land in 15 minutes, so please return to your seats NOW."

A smattering of laughter broke out among the passengers at the last word. I immediately imagined Arnold Schwarzenegger (10 dollars says I got that spelling right) sitting back there behind the microphone, saying "Get back to your seats NOW, or I'LL BE BACK."

At the airport in Frankfurt I had to stay for 7 hours, so when we landed my primal senses instinctively turned themselves on and began sniffing out my primary means of survival: free internet. Found said internet. Found that it wasn't free. Grudgingly, I pulled out my credit card, swiped, and opted for the 15 minute session. Enough to send a few emails, or so I thought.

As I logged in to my email, I miss-typed my login name. It said "Teey".

Feeling daft, I re-typed it, and there it was again saying "Teey".

Looking down at the chunky keyboard, I discovered in horror that the germans had all their keyboard keys jumbled up. The letters were all over the place! Where there should be a "Z", there was instead a "Y". And then I spent the next 10 minutes looking for the "@" symbol, which was shyly hiding beneath the letter "Q". After swiping my credit card again, I commenced in writing my very short email, which was excruciating because I was typing like a two-year old, or like my mother.

By the time I clicked "send", my minutes had run out again. I'm thinking the whole keyboard business is a nasty tactic to get foreigners to spend their Euros on typing.

It was a lonely flight, which was the beauty of it. In Boston, my friend called out my name really loud at the arrival gate, which was a lovely welcome too.

Shine.

2009-07-17T20:47:00.005+07:00

I was never a very patriotic person. I had teenage dreams of living abroad where there are civilized pavements and subways and teachers who admire you for having an opinion. I was also slightly disappointed that we only have two seasons and everybody has the same hair colour. We also have poverty, illiteracy, corruption, societal gaps, and dreadful, dreadful sinetrons.

But these past few years have been a bit different, although I didn’t notice it at first. People work hard and are generally happy. There’s been more good news about Indonesia in the media than I have ever remembered. Even without government facilities, the Indonesian art world, movie industry, and music industry is blossoming with new talents of international marketability. You hear people annoyed that ignorant western media coin jargons like “The Rise of Asia” but upon further reading they only mean China and India. We become like hungry scavengers clinging on to every shiny object we can find, only to find that there are many, and many more to create. And then we start creating our own shiny objects. Every team I coach, every transactional advice I give is tinged with a desire to prove our professional savvy. In conversations with foreigners, I find myself slipping casual anecdotes on the liberal, intellectual, tolerant, and colorful people that we are. Just in case they hadn’t noticed. And there are so many others working hard to establish our place in the world. And then we start to gain pride and momentum, as a nation and as an individual.

And that is what the terrorists destroy.

-In memory of Garth McEvoy, may he rest in peace-

The Ruthless Dictator of My Weekends

2009-07-01T12:52:00.001+07:00

Again stepping on rather a lot of toes here, but one must do what one must do to ensure the delicate balance of sanity prevails. My own personal balance of sanity hangs delicately by a thread titled “Please Do Not Take Away My Weekends”. I once had a lengthy debate about how we should define “MY weekends”. Is that a day where you only do things by yourself? Or is that a day where you can drop the veto on all other plans but your own? Or is that a day where you impose a prohibitive ban on all things “work-related” but keep your plans open for everything else outside and in-between? It is by no means definitive. It thus comes down to personal preference.

In my perfect world, I would be the grand designer and ruthless dictator of my weekends. But alas, we are gregarious creatures, and one must make room for dissent, democracy, compromise and relationships. Which leads us to weddings.

Weddings??

Yes well, the shocking truth is that I dislike weddings. Shocking because, in a world where wedding invitations arrive at your doorstep for every weekend within the foreseeable semester (via post, e-mail, sms, or lately via facebook), and local tailors build impressive empires out of sewing wedding-party outfits, and wedding parties create traffic jams within a 1 km radius of the venue, it is shocking indeed that I am not enthusiastic about weddings.

If I had my way, I would attend only the weddings of my close friends and relatives, where I could genuinely rejoice in their joyful moments. I would happily get a new dress tailored, put my hair up at the hairdressers, battle through the weekend traffic, and walk from my faraway parking lot to the venue in my stilettos to achieve this. But for the 70% of other wedding invitations from people not classified as “close friends and relatives” which I attend due to the commonly accepted norm that invitations must be fulfilled unless there is Force Majeure, I feel cheated out of My Weekends by society.

My personal preference is not that I could reject invitations at ease, because invitations are a goodwill gesture which one must appreciate. Rather, it is that people should not feel obliged to invite as many people as they can and hold the biggest weddings they can afford. This idea may not gel well with prevailing cultures, but at least consider how the traffic and limited parking space challenges one’s delicate balance of sanity.

See you at the mall.

2009-05-21T23:41:00.004+07:00

The managing partner at my office bade everyone a good holiday yesterday via email which said, “For those of you celebrating, Happy Ascension Day! For the rest, see you at the mall!” This was both funny and wickedly accurate with a touch of sarcasm, because if you are a Jakarta resident wondering where to go (e.g. where to eat, where to watch movies, where to get groceries, where to get your nails done or where to rendezvous) you will most likely end up at the mall.

Lacking creativity, I took my mom to the mall. We queued and circled around for parking space for over 15 minutes, and finally waited on a family that were walking back to their car. As we waited, another car pulled up right beside us with its nose blocking our path, vulgarly laying claim to the parking space. Fighting ensued, during the course of which my mom, a very sweet and mild-mannered person, made angry racist comments to the other party. And then deciding that parking space was too superficial to be fought over, we haughtily drove away and abandoned the mall. I’ve often thought that going to the mall on holidays and weekends is a pretty bad idea. Now I’m pretty certain it’s a pretty bad idea.

I also have a particular aversion with certain types of people you meet at the mall, which I’ve categorized as follows (please excuse me if I step on a few toes here):

- Ladies with Branded Monogram Bags. I see so many Louis Vuitton’s I can barely appreciate it anymore (not that I ever did). It is neither exclusive nor sophisticated. Especially when they come with gaudy cherry prints. Multiple-printed logos look rather like gift-wrapping too, don’t they.

- Ladies Who Lunch with Big Hair. Middle-aged ladies who lunch with about 10 girlfriends during work-hours because they probably do not need to have a job, and they are dressed to the nines at a mall, and their tresses of hair look fresh out of the hairdresser, puffed out and stiff with hairspray. They look like people who are suffering hair-loss and trying to camouflage it.

- Ladies in a Veil with their Hotpanted / Tanktopped Teenage Daughter. Nothing wrong with either, but the two paired together is a sight that is just awkwardly lopsided.

- Ladies who Can’t Walk. Because their heels are too high. Therefore they do not swing their legs like normal people, but sort of walk with awkward determined knee-lifting strides. It looks painful.

- Ladies who are Blinged-Out. Too much accesory is overkill. Some ladies wear big earrings, necklace, bracelets, and rings all in one because heck, they love all their bling and can’t decide which one to leave at home.

- Ladies with Two Toddlers and Two Nannies. The lady sits, eating her salad, staring pensively into open space. Her toddlers, of enough age to eat by themselves, are being spoon-fed, mouth-wiped, and fussed over by their respective nannies. Once in a while she looks at her children with unconvincing concern, tosses her well-permed curls with her well-manicured hands and resumes eating in silence.

So if you don’t go to the mall where do you go? That’s a good question. After exiting the mall parking lots, I took mom for late lunch at Hong Kong Café (which was very parking-friendly by the way), and we ate hot dimsums in the late afternoon sun. Much better.

(Speaking of malls, check this out it's wild:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdD0j6wmMNc&feature=fvst

Prepping for August

2009-05-06T09:21:00.000+07:00

I will be leaving my cactus to the care of my bf, who seemed profoundly touched that I trusted him with my plants. I told him I trusted him with my life … (obviously drama queening, because it’s a no-brainer that the plants are probably better off with him anyways?) As for the gym membership, that’s a bit tricky, because who would want to take over a fitness membership for one year only? Well if you’re interested, give me a call.
I need to get:

a brand new spanking silver Macbook that will never contract a virus no matter what I plug into it and with a built-in camera for conference calls with the bf, to replace my perfectly functioning but boring HP Compaq;
a shiny new blackberry, for unlimited virtual chats with all my friends in Jakarta who all have blackberries already and think I’m a dinosaur because I don’t see the point in getting one yet;
a kick-ass SLR camera to artfully immortalize the land abroad in the spring, summer, autumn and winter; and
a velvet black designer trench coat because where else will I have a reason to dress like Audrey Hepburn?

Unfortunately, I am not privileged enough to have legally blonde ambitions. I must painfully snap out of my fanciful fantasies and face the ugly truth about the straight-edge, gray-skirted, primal things I must prepare for the real world. And that would be:

knowledge to survive random discussions with classmates (“Oh I think the stimulus bill may or may not turn out to be a success depending on …”);
documents and plane-tickets and rents and no one to cook your food for you and how to read a map and how to fix your laptop by yourself without the help of mas-mas Ratu Plaza; and
saving up for an array of books that I will not be able to pirate the way I pirated all my undergrad books.

Now if someone would just lend me their Hepburn-inspired velvet-black designer trench coat or take over my gym membership for a year so that I don’t have to waste 20% of annual membership fees just to keep my membership waiting for me when I get back, that would be really really helpful. :)

Alhamdulillah

2009-05-05T09:33:00.001+07:00

I might as well say how profoundly grateful I am most of the time.

Clean Breaks.

2009-04-20T13:04:00.001+07:00

There’s a part of last year that I miss. I won’t pinpoint specific things, but as a hint last year I was younger than this year. It is so tempting to yield according to wherever the wind blows. Being “twenty-something”, this would mean yielding to uncertainties and emotion, insecurities and ego, dreams and doubt. Being afraid of staying young and afraid of growing up. Being happy with achievements but afraid people will expect too much from you. Being happy with future plans but afraid they won’t come true. Being more eager to think about others, but afraid you haven’t sorted out your own self yet. Being in a transition from being cared for by parents to having to care for your parents. Being happy with comfort zones but knowing you have to get out of it sooner or later. There just isn’t enough room to accommodate all the conflicting emotions, let alone comprehend.

I wonder if there are clean breaks from the way I was last year.

I’m hoping the answer lies dormant like an expressionist painting, a tangle of meaningless brush-strokes when viewed up close, but crystal clear when you look from a distance. I’m hoping that if viewers take a step back and look at the big picture, they’ll find that there’s no need for me to worry and I’m already doing all the right things and I will get there eventually if I put my heart to it. Get where? Get to a place where I will prioritize the right things, the right people, and be of use to others in need. And that would mean learning not to yield.

a healthy dose of optimism

2009-04-08T12:12:00.004+07:00

Went to the Modernisator’s seminar yesterday about the new global economy post-G20 Summit, and were enlightened by the speakers of that forum as to the following facts:

1. Indonesia is no longer a 3rd world country. We are acknowledged as one of the 20 most significant economies of the world. So if someone says Indonesia is a 3rd world country, you can say “Haha. What age do you live in?”
2. Indonesia’s rise from the ‘97-‘98 monetary crisis is a globally acknowledged success story which today’s crisis-ridden economies would like to learn from.
3. Whereas traditionally Asian countries have been exporters and the west has been the consumer, we could be experiencing a shift where the west will be the exporters and we will be the consumers.

Went out of the seminar feeling a little jolly and optimistic, and thought a little celebration would be appropriate to close off the evening. So we headed off to the aptly named Social House, which on a Tuesday night was busy and packed with an unpretentious crowd and felt very 1st world.

“To the 1st world”, said the bf, raising his glass.
“To consumerism”, said I, raising mine.

And then we had a good laugh at how silly we were. In my heart though, I felt a growing passion to become a part of the energy driving Indonesia forward.

tomorrow morning.

2009-04-01T09:57:00.002+07:00

For the third time in a week, I dreamt I was shampooing my hair.

There is no need to procure in-depth Freudian psycho-analysis to glean what this could possibly mean. I am supposed to get out of bed and shower, and my body resolutely refuses to do so. Perhaps trying to be funny, my body instead cheats my brain into thinking that I am already in the shower. I eventually wake up drowsily feeling for my hair and discovering with a shock that it is still dry, tangled, and on the pillow. The message my body is sending is profoundly simple: “Sleep, bitch.”

With all my heart and soul I wish I could comply with nature’s call. But for some reason everything always needs to be done by tomorrow morning. Why must everything always be done by tomorrow morning? Tomorrow morning became an ominous large looming shadow over my head which compelled me to bring documents everywhere I went on the weekend (not that I actually read them). Tomorrow morning gave me unforgiving shampoo dreams. Tomorrow morning is relentless and cruel to humanity.

As a pre-emptive strike, if I may borrow battle-zone terminologies to emphasize the nature of the situation, yesterday I took the initiative to propose my own timing to The Powers That Be. All brisk and business-like, I put on a confident tone and said “Great! I’ll have this done before noon tomorrow!” In reply The Powers That Be said, “How about 10 in the morning?”

Teez the great defiant warrior princess replied:

“Um, okay.”

Thriller.

2009-03-27T10:37:00.002+07:00

“My job isn’t interesting!!” I said, while the bf looked taken aback and rather hurt by my statement.

“Don’t say that.” he said earnestly. He said it with the air of someone who has had a love and hate relationship with his job for a long time. He said it with the air of someone who was afraid that if innermost thoughts were spoken out loud and audibly those innermost thoughts would become too real for comfort.

Whether my assumptions were correct or not, there really was no need for him to worry.

“All I’m saying” I said, “is that there’s no story to tell. I love my job, I just can’t explain my fascination for it to other people in time to finish before they fall asleep.”

“John Grisham” he said, “told exciting thriller stories.”

“Of scandals in big firms. What if there are no scandals? What if people don’t get any more evil beyond just plain annoying?”

We fell silent for a while and started thinking of possible scandals to fabricate.

“Once upon a time…” I said slowly, “there lived a corporate lawyer who … found that her client’s maturity date had been unilaterally shifted by the creditor in violation of the facility terms.”

The bf dropped his head and snored.

The Plant Who (Apparently) Lives.

2009-03-26T21:42:00.004+07:00

Do you see those little green perky nipples sprouting out of my cactus? They were not there before. The only possible explanation for these little funky tumors is that my cactus is growing. It's growing, people. Super yay!

And do you hear that? That was a big simultaneous sigh of relief from the 5 people who chipped in on the cactus.

The Plant Who Lived.

2009-01-27T10:39:00.000+07:00

Once upon a time there lived a girl
Who made even the bravest men curl
with fear, for she had tendency to be cruel
And this was most decidedly un-cool
The saddest part about this tale
Is that she wasn’t always such a fail
In fact she was quite good inside
If only she had sense to hide
The fact that she did not possess
Any talent in the “caring” process
Because, you see, she fancied plants
(although she didn’t really fancy the ants)
But they always died under her care
The poor victims driven to despair
So she changed her tact, for she was cunning
Nobody ever saw this coming
She bought plants she need not cater
The amazing cactus! which needs no water!
The spiky things were very tricky
Their cute little bodies were quite prickly
She had them very prettily potted
But before very long they… sadly rotted
Her friends looked on and sympathized
They shook their heads and empathized
They said “enough!, this murder shall cease!”
“We can’t afford to handle more decease!”
So, they thought and thought and thought
And finally decided an item must be bought
To give her plants another lobby
(For she refused to give up her hobby)
So when she reached the age of twenty five
They bought her a cactus, green and alive
And underneath the cactus pot, oh look!
They bought her a how-to-care-for-your-cactus book!
Alas, this story has no ending yet, dear reader
For we know not whether it will be a survivor
But let’s just say that she fully believes
Cactus will be known as The Plant Who Lives.

The End (we hope).

?

2009-01-14T18:37:00.002+07:00

In the end, is a person more often judged by what they consciously try to do, or what they unconsciously neglect to do?

Consider this a survey.

An Almost-Walk To Remember

2008-12-30T11:25:00.002+07:00

At precisely 7pm I knock on my senior’s door and ask permission to leave the office for a couple of hours.

“You got a date yeah?”, he said smugly.
“No. Yoga class.” I say, pretending to look hurt by his suggestion. “I’ll be back by 9-ish.”

I exit the office lobby and was greeted by the sight of traffic. It was the day before Christmas eve, and the good citizens of Jakarta are unanimously in panic to make it home before traffic gets bad, which naturally makes traffic worse. I gave up hopes on finding a cab and walked instead to the nearest busway terminal. My gym is located at about 20 minutes walking distance from my office. In Singapore that would be like walking slowly from Wheelock Place to Paragon City. In New York that would be like walking from Bubba Gump to Macy’s. It would be common. In Jakarta it is unheard of to walk such a distance, unless you have absolutely no choice.

But I like the busway. Despite having been sandwiched between its doors once because of the idiocy of a certain busway driver, it is effective and remains the closest thing to a metro subway you can get. Plus, it still retains some exotic third world charms, e.g. people fighting to get inside always compete with the people fighting to get out. So I took the busway, and two busway stations later, I got out and found that it was raining hard. Very hard. I did not bring an umbrella, and was forced to huddle under the leaking roof of the terminal, 5 minutes walking distance shy from my gym. I felt sad, cold, impotent. Not to mention late for yoga. I contemplated making a run for it, but then remembered my gym was located on the 5th floor of a glitzy mall. I saw myself, wet and soaked and dripping, entering the mall’s marbled lobby, going past the disdainful security, and being greeted by an acquaintance from the neighbouring stock exchange building. The thought was unbearable. So I waited, sad cold and impotent.

Suddenly, amidst the crowd of cold pedestrians, motorcyclists, and miscellaneous beings huddled underneath the terminal, there came a shining beacon in the form of a woman wearing a biggish umbrella, leather handbag, and monochrome suit. Her outfit looked like it was heading for the stock exchange.

“Excuse me miss, are you heading the direction of the stock exchange?” I asked her, and she nodded like serendipity. I asked her if I could share her umbrella and she nodded again. So we became two strangers in the night, braving the storms and trudging through puddles together. If she had been a guy, the story would have ended with a wistful “I never got to know his name.”

As it was, I thanked her, whoever her name was, and made it to yoga class on time. Finished on time. Showered on time. Proceeded to find a cab back to the office, which would be easy as the mall and stock exchange are stock full of waiting cabs. But apparently, the taxi stands were empty tonight, and the taxi queue spelled doom. I waited 5, 10, 15 minutes, and then started to think the unthinkable: I might have to walk back to the office. And then, in a sudden burst of inspiration that is born from desperation, I remembered that bf works at the stock exchange building. And bf has car.

I dial his number and get a busy tone. I dial his other number. He picks up. I say, “Hi! Where are you?” and he says he’s driving and he already left the office.

“Oh.” I say, putting the whole weight of the world on the monosyllable.
“Why, what’s the matter?”
“I’m stuck at the stock exchange. I can’t get back to the office. There’s no cab. I’ve been waiting forever. I need a lift!” I almost sob.
“What? How long have you been waiting?”
“Like, half an hour!” I exaggerate.
“Okay wait, I’ll turn back”, he says.

10 minutes later, he shows up like a knight in shining umm.. car.. and I open the door and pronounce with sparkling eyes, “My savior!!”
I then proceeded to hug him throughout the entire journey back to my office. Which, by the way, lasted a full five minutes.

Mayhem

2008-12-04T16:28:00.002+07:00

(a fiction)

I can’t say for sure whether the invisible ring around my finger is tight.
After all, it is invisible. Perhaps I merely imagined it. But that can’t be right.
Sometimes I see it glinting in the sunlight as I reach for my cup of coffee. Sometimes I accidentally leave it behind on the sink after I wash my hands. I would panic, and then feel relieved when I find that it is still there, on the sink, where I left it. Sometimes I twist it absent-mindedly, as I search for the right words to say. So you see, I can’t have been imagining things. Besides, it was given to me by a very special man.

I still remember the day he gave it. He was twirling his fork, absentmindedly I thought at the time, but now I know he must have been nervous. The spaghetti kept sliding off the end of it, and he finally put it down and said, “I’ve decided my primary ambition in life is to make you happy”. I smiled and felt that was the happiest moment of my life. He took my hand and there, right there between our enjoined palms, lay the cold metal smoothness of the invisible ring. It was beautiful. I’ve worn it ever since.

Ever since means about 3 years. But it feels a bit loose lately, as if my finger had lost weight. I weighed my body on the scales just to check, and sure enough, I had lost weight. I haven’t been in the mood to eat in recent weeks. I’m beginning to worry because the ring, it disappears sometimes. And when that happens I sit down and cry. One time I had to go down on all fours in my office to check whether it was on the carpet. I called in my secretary to help, and she couldn’t find it either. I then dialled his number and asked him whether I left it at his place, and he said, “What ring?”

But you see, I can’t have been imagining things. I’ve been wearing it for so long. I called up my friend and asked her if I had left it in her car the other night when we went out. She said she hadn’t seen anything. She said that by the way she had bumped into my man this afternoon and she thought his sister was really cute.

I said he doesn’t have a sister.

The Dictionary of Misunderstood Words

2008-10-21T14:51:00.003+07:00

(inspired by Milan Kundera)

“Partnership”
He yearned for a relationship of equal partnership where the little responsibilities of life are shared together. Partnership was the foundation for a sustainable and understanding relationship. It was also a pre-requisite for commitment: when she was passive and did not play into her role as equal partner, he was afraid of committing himself to her.

She yearned for a relationship of equal partnership where the little responsibilities of life are shared together. But, for her partnership was the outcome of commitment. Afraid of selling herself short, she would hesitate from being proactive and full of initiative when she wasn’t sure of his commitment to her.

He needed proof of partnership to commit. She needed proof of commitment to partner.

“Friends”
He saw friends as a means to an end. They form interconnected dots which team up to become the network of his life. There is a reason for being, and that reason will manifest in the future. When he socialized, it was an act of investment for his future.

She saw friends as a moment. She did not know whether they would still be there in the future, she did not care whether they were ever in her past. Her friends form little moments in her life: happy and sad moments filled with different characters. She crystallized the little moments and collected them in her pocket to make herself rich.

He thought she forgot him when she was with her friends. She thought he didn’t enjoy being with her friends.

“Focus”
He saw focus as a means to arrive at your destination. She thought focus made you miss out on the scenery.

“Movies”
He liked watching movies and thought of it as a relaxing hobby. He enjoyed spending weekends with her going to the cinemas and discussing the movie with her afterwards.

She thought the perfect date was a night full of conversation in a cozy atmosphere over drinks. She thought the movies hampered conversation.

“Selfish”
He often thought of her as selfish. She would become absorbed in her work, she would rarely call or text to say hello. He would purposely wait to see if she missed him.

She often thought of him as selfish. He would become absorbed in his work, he would rarely call or text to say hello. She would purposely wait to see if he missed her.

L.

2008-10-09T23:04:00.004+07:00

at the dusk of day when tired are limbs I turn to you

but tired you are too

at the dawn of night when cold is out I turn to you

and cold you are too

at the rise of tides when time is short I turn to you

but timed you are too

at the edge of brinks when tears are loved I turned to you

and loved you are, still.

meet the mom

2008-09-28T17:47:00.004+07:00

I felt calm as we sped along to meet the bf’s birth-mom. Not the first time, but usually in crowded ocassions where in-depth conversations can be restricted by the various diversions one can always fabricate at social settings. This time it was a surprise visit, no ocassion, no crowd. Nonetheless, I felt confident that nothing could go wrong as the mom is a very sweet lady.

She immediately fussed and opened cupboards and tinkled glasses and bid the bf to make me some ice syrup, I overheard from the living room. Said the bf, “She doesn’t like syrup”.
Said the mom, “She doesn’t like syrup?”

Well, I don’t like syrup, nor sugar for that matter, except when it is dissolved in ice cream or chocolate. But apparently this is not a mainstream trait.

I then set about showing the mom the cookies I brought for her. You know, the traditional cookies that are bountiful during Ramadhan. She beamed at them and said, “Ah thank you… did you make these?”

I gave a shy sort of giggle and said haha… uh… No.

Apparently she is a skillful cook, which of course I knew, but did not really register fully until she brought out her own handmade batch of cookies which looked like the ones in magazine pictures. As we sat chatting and munching her fabulous cookies, she asked, “So what is your family cooking for Idul Fitri?”

My mind immediately flicked through the various honest answers I might give:
a) Nothing. We usually buy.
b) Well, we like to make salad and toast in the morning.
c) Lasagna.
d) Um, cookies?

My mind refused to graduate any of the above possible answers because, much as I adore mom’s homemade lasagna during Idul Fitri, what respectable Indonesian family would have lasagna and salad with croutons for Idul Fitri?

As I opened my mouth to give it my best shot, bf came to the rescue. Said the bf, “You know mom, her brother is an excellent cook.”
“Really?”, said the mom, beaming, “what does he cook?”
“He can cook anything.” said the bf vaguely, to which I nodded vigourously.

At that point the sister mentioned they were about to cook ketupat the next day. I cottoned on with enthusiasm. Armed with a vague memory of what my cousin once told me, I started to say things like, “ah yes, you trickle the rice grains through the gaps in the leaf pockets…”

Well, I didn’t get to finish my sentence because the mother suddenly showed me her unmade ketupat. But she did not bring out those empty leaf-pockets you buy at the market to fill with rice. She brought out long sheaths of leaves. She was going to friggin’ plait them into pockets herself. I don’t know anybody who still does that.

I felt new respect for her, as well as a slight panic for my own behalf. Luckily, bf soon made excuses for us to get going. In the car the bf said, “So, what are you cooking tonight?”

The smile left his lips as I fixed him with a murderous glare.

Oops.

2008-09-01T11:31:00.000+07:00

With some trepidation, I approached the stainless steel weighing machine. My trainer fiddled around with some buttons, and the dash on the screen started blinking for an agonizingly long time. My bare feet felt cold against the metal scale and I twisted my little towel nervously between my hands. Finally, the screen gave us numbers. And this is the verdict:

you have gained 2% more body fat than the last time you were here.
you have gained 1.2 kilos more body weight than the last time you were here.

My trainer looked at me with an amused look on his face and said:

“What did you eat in Padang??”

Padang

2008-08-29T14:32:00.007+07:00

Last week I went on a trip to Padang in West Sumatra. It was a semi-compulsory tour-guide trip, and everybody knows the worst kind of trip is the tour-guide trip where you are trapped in a bus dominated by souvenir-shopping, pocket-camera-wielding, bus-karaoke-singers. For 12 hours.

Of course, I am not without fault.

Fault No. 1: I forgot to bring my iPod. And ear plugs.
Fault No. 2: I forgot to bring a good book to read. The kind that makes you forget where you physically are.

However I also did a few things right, and deserve a little credit, if I may.

Credit No. 1: I brought my camera.
Credit No. 2: I brought a sense of humor and a big appetite.

Allow me to make sense of the miniscule results above, starting from the top moving left to right:

The view from our hotel at Bukittinggi – local boys on their way to the mosque
Juicy succulent satay Padang – crispy prawn fritters from sidewalk vendors
Warm fragrant coconut pancakes called "bika bakar" – … and its amazing kitchen!
Martabak Mesir (Egyptian pancakes, which have nothing to do with Egypt) filled to the brim with delicious beef rendang – hot steamed peanuts on a warm night
Durian, durian – … ooh and more alcoholic durian! :)

Umm… Okay so they’re mostly food.

Those tour-guides do nasty things to your appetite.

Incentivity Complex

2008-08-03T22:50:00.003+07:00

When I worked for the government, a lot of people would call in and I would say “how can I help you?” because I was educated to be helpful. Even if the job randomly entailed disgraceful things like drafting somebody’s recommendation letter for their school applications for my boss to sign. I liked to think that if we were helpful to others, our office would gain good reputation for being professional, which is an image the government could use more of. Then again whenever I needed help all I needed to say were the six magic words, “Hi this is the President’s office”, and the person on the other end of the phone line would be pleasantly obliging.

So that was then. Now, early on in my current job I called up a government department to ask clarification on a particular license procedure. The officer said:

“Which company is this?”
“Oh I’m a consultant ma’am, we are representing a client”
“Oh I see. Well it’s like this. I thought smart consultants should already know these things. Besides, you’re the one who gets paid in dollars, right? I should be getting some of those dollars for answering your question, right?”

I ignored this.

I said, “Well ma’am you see, the regulations are not very clear on this issue. It would be good if we could know how it is actually practiced in the ministry, or if you could point me to a specific regulation I may have missed.”

She said, “It’s all in the regulations, you can read it yourself.”

She practically rendered me speechless in disgust. Being an underpaid civil servant is hardly a justification for being unprofessional. To be fair some government institutions are very helpful and professional, such as the Capital Investment Supervisory Body and the tax directorate at the Ministry of Finance.

Steven D. Levitt, author of Freakonomics emphasized how any particular societal behaviour is fueled by a particular pin-pointable incentive. I wonder what could be the incentive for a professionalist culture? Remember those boring catchphrases they used to teach us in elementary school during the Old Order regime? “Let us develop a society that is flourishing with hard-working, money-saving people, who do not glorify short-cut methods of achieving goals.”

Well apparently the catchphrases didn’t work. In retrospect, I think what I should have told her was “Look, I happen to know your minister. Would you prefer I ask her instead?”

Mosaics.

2008-07-20T22:37:00.005+07:00

"I want to live each day for itself like a string of coloured beads, and not kill the present by cutting it up in cruel little snippets to fit some desperate architectural draft for a taj mahal in the future."

Meet Sylvia Plath, who has been my muse since high school.

In times of need I pick up Sylvia Plath, for she would have an uncanny description of what I am going through that I had previously not realized I was going through. She casts a glittery pin on the translucent shifting object in the grey peripheries of my subconscious, and suddenly makes it visible. Though we perhaps differ in that she is depressed, whereas I am optimistically struggling.

My future taj mahal is in architectural limbo land. Perhaps I see a few turrets, a fragment of a window, but not a form in its entirety. I have not decided upon a colour, a shape, or a texture. My fancies flicker from one design to another. At times I see a uniform pattern, at other times I am not so sure.

But oh, I am so good at present moments and short term glories. The question is, will they add up or will they be just a string of mismatched coloured beads in a row?

The showers.

2008-07-19T22:36:00.002+07:00

Saturday night at the gym locker-room finds you at a place filled with half-naked women dressing up for a night out. You look around (discreetly, from behind the half-wet hair that you are blowing dry) and wonder whether these girls have any more fat to lose on the treadmill. There was a girl with a bikini-bod strutting out of the shower actually looking happy. Couldn’t blame her, with that body she damn well should be happy. There was a girl squatting while she fumbled with her locker which reminded me of a scene from Striptease. There are rows of compact butts stuck out as their owner’s bend towards the mirror for last minute touch-ups. Other girls, thankfully, are kind enough (or embarrassed enough?) to cover up nicely with a towel.

It was in this fashion I discovered that the gym locker-room, instead of the gym itself, is perhaps what truly motivates you to lose that fat.

Sunday Night

2008-07-06T23:25:00.003+07:00

We sat on the cozy wooden chairs on my terrace in the dark, holding cups of steaming black coffee. He needed the caffeine for the drive home from my place. The plants were breathing and a little breeze was playing with them. Sometimes we would talk, and sometimes we would stay silent, just savoring the absence of a necessity to move.

Tomorrow would be another Monday. The start of a week’s worth of occasional 5-minute phone calls and perhaps intermittent emails. A week’s worth of ambition. But on the weekend he watched my entire volley game and I loved that. And we did a bit of shopping at the Ranch Market and I loved that. And I drove his car while he slept in the passenger seat out of exhaustion, and I loved that.

So finally we come to this short little moment on my terrace, stretching out our legs.

“This is great coffee”, he said with a hint of surprise.

“Thanks! … … … Okay, alright, my mum made it”, I confess.

“Yeah… no wonder”, he replied slyly.

And I loved that too.

Finally Blonde

2008-06-19T01:11:00.004+07:00

The least thing I would expect out of my career is this: I would be a cheerleader.

You see, the annual lawyer’s tournament is coming up and I will be competing in the volleyball, basketball, and futsal games. The depth of our dedication is worthy of medals (or similar bling, or a pay raise…), because every single week now there is always some sort of practice or friendly warm-up match with other firms, which involves sneaking out at 7 pm and, when unlucky, trudging back in to work at 10 pm.

I am all too happy to comply. The thought of a sedentary life frightens me pitifully, and chasing balls? I love chasing balls. Yesterday I chased down a volley ball like life depended on it. My team mate was busy guarding the net, she hadn’t seen the ball flying short of her back, and it was too late to warn her. It was too far and too late to run. I lunged over with my outstretched arm and minimum hope. I slipped my wrist beneath the ball, inches from the sand, swung my arm upwards and spun my body sideways to minimize impact. Sand was flying in all directions as I hit the ground and I felt the ball move too far sideways. I forced myself back on my feet, blinking the sand out of my eyes, and saw my teammate save the ball. It swung beautifully over the net, missing it by mere milimeters. The team scored and cheers surged in a sudden single chorus. I felt incredible!

*Pause*

I’m digressing. What has this got to do with cheerleading, you ask? Well, apparently there’s also a cheerleading tournament for the opening, and guess what? Yours truly gets to cheerlead.

Wearing tights.

And pom-poms.

And be lifted by the guys in the closing act. Because, the choreographer said, I’m the right size. I almost cried. I’m finally blonde! (at least for approx. 10 minutes).

Weekend

2008-06-08T15:13:00.005+07:00

On Friday night after work I hung out with my friends at De Hooi, a pub down in Pondok Indah which I only just discovered. We sat on high little stools at a high little table while the waitress, cleavaged and mascara-ed, took our orders. In a small corner the DJ was churning out some really good progressive tunes, and the other customers were casual and unpretentious. Without needing to look my best or be visually assaulted by big-haired and blinged ladies-who-lunch (and dine), the focus was on our merry little group. We talked of scandals and future plans and gossip and nothing which connected with anything. I had entirely too much beer.

On Saturday night I went out with bf and together we went to Daiso, a Japanese thrift store in the middle of one the ugliest malls in Jakarta: Mall Artha Gading. We ignored everything else and made a straight beeline for the store, in conquest of a certain item: the prosperity cat. The Chinese have waving ones with cheap glittery-gold skin. The Japanese have pretty porcelain ones in different colours, but their paws can’t wave. We argued for a good half hour about whether it is absolutely crucial for their paws to wave at all. Fortunately, our arguments were drowned out by the storekeepers incessantly yelling at the top of their lungs: “IRASHAIMASE!! ONE PRICE KUDASAI!! 20.000 RUPIAH DES!!” Bf ended up buying a tie-rack. I ended up trying hard to come up with a reason to buy a vintage-ish Japanese gasoline can. Sadly, I couldn’t come up with any. We are still in conquest of a porcelain cat that can wave.

On Sunday morning I had breakfast with my brother at Bread ‘n Breakfast, an American Diner at Kemang. We went all the way down South from the North, because when a sandwich crave hits, it hits us really hard. The place was light and airy and the sandwiches (okay, we also had a burger… and a lot of potato wedges) were very decent. We spent the morning reading the available magazines (Harper’s Bazaar), and I discovered that: (1) My cousin’s girlfriend is a socialite, (2) My former junior in high school is now a beauty reporter for Bazaar, and (3) My ex-boss’ ex-wife is a Jean-Paul-Gaultier-launch-party-attending fashionista. I said to my bro:

“Omigod. I know (people who know) like a dozen people in here. That means I’m only two steps away from making it to the glossy pages.”

My brother solemnly nodded and said he was happy for me.

On Sunday afternoon I woke up after a long afternoon nap. I thought how, at this point, how perfectly balanced my life is. The thing is, that thought only comes on the weekends :(

Pause.

2008-05-10T02:03:00.005+07:00

I can find no solace tonight
From the demons under my bed at night
I watch myself as I unwind
Outside myself I watch my mind

Will it be possible to sleep tonight?
Those demons noisy in a fight
I know I must be losing mind
Seeing myself turn slowly blind

Through sparks and shining dragons tonight
As I lie in bed with my head in tights
Turning cogs and screws of the kind
That make me hope that I can find

The answer to this mess tonight.
Before the sun starts shining bright.
Before I leave this all behind.
Before my youth I cannot find.

My Daily Struggle

2008-05-01T23:30:00.001+07:00

I fear, I must confess,
I must get this off my chest,
For I have been the biggest fool,
When it comes to glorious food.

Noodles and burgers I think are the best,
Sushi and pasta I constantly quest,
Barbequed fish always makes me drool,
What’s worse, I’m always in the eating mood!

But the client pays, shouldn’t I care less?
I deserve to indulge, indeed, oh yes.
With all the work that I accrue,
A tasty meal would surely do?

This is indeed the ultimate test,
To stand my guard, to not digress,
For surely it would be uncool,
To carry 'baggage' like a mule.

moving along

2008-04-13T10:06:00.002+07:00

Work is tiring! It is hard, but I asked for it so I can't complain. Not even when I'm working with the caffeinated sluggish intentness of a truck driver on a highway at midnight. Stay alert stay alert keep going. But most importantly a sense of satisfaction permeates the layers of exhaustion, and this is because (a) the more I learn the more I know that I do not know, and (b) the more I work the more I bill.

Can one imagine what it is like to be a civil servant in the lower levels of echelonhood behind a cluttered desk in a dilapidated department reading newspapers till lunchtime? I have seen and experienced it with my own eyes. They feel and act as if the world needs them, and therefore the world can wait for them. They work for bosses instead of leaders. They work according to an order instead of a system. The difference is this: bosses tell you what to do, leaders tell you what to achieve. Bosses order you around, leaders give you a sense of direction. It makes a world (and nation) of difference. Everybody needs a good reason to do a good job.

Oh the bittersweetness of this country throws my mind into a turmoil of sorts, and my emotions torn between patriotism and apathy. But you will not hear or see me throwing columns of self-righteous criticism against the government. If I find a brainwave solution I shall act upon it. If I don't I shall shut up and keep making money.

2008-04-09T10:39:00.002+07:00

Seperti apakah orang yang pandai bersyukur? Saya terpikat. Saya mendekat. Saya mencoba. Saya mengerti. Saya senang. Saya merasa sudah sepantasnya saya bersyukur. Tanpa bertanya mengapa. Seperti alang-alang yang tidak bertanya mengapa ia harus merunduk bila ditiup angin. Alang-alang yang liar tapi tidak bisa berpindah. Nrimo. Bersyukur. Bersyukur supaya selamat dunia dan akhirat. Bersyukur supaya berkah. Bersyukur supaya kaya dan punya keluarga bahagia dan mati tenang.

Mungkin saya tidak pandai bersyukur. Mungkin juga saya tidak betah tidak mencari.

serious grown-up stuff

2008-03-20T12:33:00.003+07:00

Inevitably, there comes a time when more and more of your friends are getting married. It is announced, you are surprised. Your friend is as young as you feel you are. You give hearty congratulations, still unbelieving. And then you ask, “Are you sure?” Your friend says, “I’m sure. It’s time to move on in life.” And suddenly, just like that, your friend transforms into an adult you’ve never noticed before.

Women are… very women about marriage. Most of the women I talk to are either complaining that their biological clock is ticking, or complaining that married life is such a burden. It is exasperating. Women should be taught how to make up their minds. But before I start abusing my own gender (again), let’s look in the mirror for a minute. Darn, a pimple! But my hair looks perfect. Sorry, where were we? Ah yes. Marriage.

I am undecided about how I feel. So is my mother. She can say “girls shouldn’t date too long, it’s not good, it’s better to be married soon rather than have a prolonged dating game, but after marriage girls will have to limit themselves and their career to take care of the household.” That, in my view, is two completely different choices and the same sentiment. I couldn’t help but notice the tone of resignation, the lack of options, the choosing between two evils attitude.

I do not want to be an old spinster. But I do not want to limit my career. If I ever have children, I would want them to receive my full attention. But the career I am dreaming to achieve will require long working hours and higher education overseas. I wouldn’t feel complete if I wasn’t independent and confident about my achievements. Somewhere along the way I also wouldn’t feel complete if I didn’t have my own family.

Nobody has yet given me a satisfactory answer on how to balance the two. For the moment it is an impossible choice to make. Perhaps it is fortunate that I don’t need to make that choice just yet. But perhaps the sooner I figure it out the better.

don't be afraid to ask (smart) questions

2008-03-19T13:52:00.002+07:00

Asked a question to my senior, who gave a very comprehensive and detailed answer. Was very pleased at the new knowledge I was acquiring. As I thanked her and turned to leave she said, kindly:

“Make sure you don’t ask that to the other seniors because they will wonder why you don’t know.”

If you know me at all, you will know that that gave my ego a huge purple bruise.

one hell of a solid advice

2008-03-11T23:44:00.009+07:00

...came from a friend through email today as follows:

Teez :

"Quick, I need you to slap me in the head and tell me that my job is better than the previous one, even if I just threw away the chance to go with the President to IRAN , SOUTH AFRICA , and DUBAI."

Friend :

"

Straighten yourself up woman.. think of the slow bureaucrats and the perverted colleagues."

She's got a ticket to park

2008-03-01T11:11:00.002+07:00

There is only one thing I hate more than the abundance of monogrammed Louis Vuitton bags (with cherry prints!) and that is the trend of Ladies Parking.

Bf and I were looking for a parking lot at one of the (very many) malls in J-town, with bf behind the wheel. He was about to maneuver into an empty lot with pink borderlines, when a parking attendant gestured warningly at us.

“You can’t park here sir, it’s for ladies only. But you can park here if you switch places and the lady drives.”

Wtf? I thought that was very discriminatory and gender-biased. Just because we ladies are bad drivers and great shoppers, it does not mean that special parking lots must be reserved in shopping malls to accommodate these negative traits. I hope it’s not the result of some far-fetched feminist movement, because, girls can be such drama queens about women’s rights sometimes and therefore dear mr. parking lot director, you have been effectively deceived.

But anyways, bf and I umm ... switched places :)

Update

2008-02-22T22:49:00.002+07:00

No, tennis is not like riding a bike and yes, I totally suck at it.

But thankfully there was a personal trainer on guard and the office pays for the whole thing so, I can't really complain (but yes, I was rather embarrassed that *surprise!* i do not play like Sharapova).

Social Sport

2008-02-21T06:54:00.001+07:00

A colleague casually invited me to play tennis sometime and I said, “Sure!’. This was, in retrospect, rather daft because the last time I played tennis was when I was 9. I’m hoping it’s like riding a bike (you know, once you can you never forget how?).

But I’ve always harboured visions of sporting with the business types. It rubs off as social networking and what not, but it’s also just purely making friends with the colleagues (who rock, by the way :)). And besides, it’s not golf.

I have sworn long ago that golf is not a sport. If you see me playing golf, you may assume it is because I have to. Golf is for grown-ups, and my inner child still wants to prance and frolic and chase balls and get down and dirty. My inner child also can’t afford the golf-clubs.

So excuse me while I uproot my tennis racket somewhere in the dungeons.

Be careful what you wish for.

2008-02-04T06:34:00.000+07:00

Because, as was in line with my wish last week (when I was young and foolish), I pulled that all nighter at the office (all night being all day and then all night and then all morning till 9am).

But it was a SATURDAY NIGHT. Holy Crap.

Girls will be girls.

2008-01-31T05:09:00.001+07:00

As a girl I am not immune to erratic behaviours of irrationality. Call it hormones or the time of the month or whatever, but certainly there are moments where I feel like I‘m losing it.

Only last week my bf went on a 6-day business trip to a remote province, given only 3 hours notice by his superiors. Obviously I was very surprised and disappointed because (i) that just killed my entire weekend, (ii) he won’t be able to make it to my birthday dinner, and (iii) 6 days is too long! What if I miss him? (Please excuse my lapses of cheesiness.)

What I wanted to do was to sulk and pout a bit and just generally be childish (when applied carefully, such reactions could pass as ‘endearing’, which works like a charm). But red neon lights spelling “irrational behaviour” immediately started blinking in my head, and so I quickly (and at some point, sincerely) told bf that it was a wonderful opportunity and a great show of trust from his superiors and good luck safe trip and etcetera.

An entire half-day went by without me hearing any more news from him. I start fiddling my phone. If I text him, he’d probably reply, but then I wouldn’t really know whether he actually misses me enough to sms me because then he’d only be replying to my message. But if I don’t text him and he doesn’t text me, then I wouldn’t really know what he’s up to and I would be thinking irrational assumptions all day. (Disclaimer: I do not neglect my work in order to think these thoughts. Most girls are multi-taskers in that sense). So I text him and he texts me back to say he’s in a meeting and he’ll update me later. “Obviously”, I fumed to myself. I knew all along that was the case.

Later on I met a girlfriend who said “God I hate it when guys say they’re in a meeting! It just stalls my emotions!” I quietly thought to myself, I do not want to be the girl who is pissed at having her emotions stalled over a meeting. I am rational. I am understanding. I am in control. I have work to do. I am just as busy. I probably even treat him the same way. Breathe in, breathe out.

Last night bf told me that his stay might be extended for two more days. I said, “Are you fucking kidding me??” Wait, no, that was my hormonal head. What I really said, somewhat meekly, was, “Is there good laundry service? Do you have enough clothes?” I know, I know, that was pretty lame. But one must maintain sanity at all times.

Excited.

2008-01-26T22:09:00.001+07:00

I can’t help it. I’ve been given my very own office-room (please compare to previous office of littered communal desks), with a view (please compare to previous office with no windows or sunlight in sight), with a salary transferred to my bank account! (please compare to monthly white envelopes). Yay!

So yes, I could get used to this place. Especially after I bring in a persian rug, a few framed art pieces, and my toothbrush. Toothbrush? Yes, the employee’s manual (bound in a siren-red binder and handed to me on my first day) says that since we’ll probably be staying late we might as well bring personal hygiene amenities and spare clothes just in case. I’m not kidding.

Funnily enough, I can’t wait to pull my first all-nighter at the office. And when that happens I'll probably start proudly complaining about it (don't you just hate people who do that? Like, duh, get a life.) I guess every time I start something new, I fall off the peak of a mountain which I worked hard to get to the top of. And then I suddenly find myself at the foot again, of a different mountain with unfamiliar terrains and unfamiliar faces who look suspiciously at newcomers. It’s always like that every time and I can’t wait to start climbing. But this one feels like a particularly big mountain and a particularly long journey. I need to keep reminding myself that impatience is not going to make it easier.

--------------------------------------------

PS: horror of horrors, I can’t access my blogger dashboard from the office. Nor my friendster, facebook, yahoo, and everything else that’s important in my life! (except google. If they take away google, I'd die.) Oh how I miss my previous office. Blogability was so much easier back then :-(

The 2008 Contemplation Post: When it Rains, it Pours

2008-01-12T12:14:00.001+07:00

A bit late, I know. But sometimes a New Year’s significance doesn’t hit you until a little later (quite possibly because of the hangovers, but also because the lazy brain wants to go on holiday too). In retrospect several things happened prior and post 01-01-08, which either changed or cemented my perspective on the road ahead.

- I came close to losing someone very important in my life, because of a stupid mistake on my part. You know the saying “you don’t know what you have until you lose it”? Well, I would add that you don’t fully know what you need to hold on to until you almost lose it.

- A dear friend has ordered me a renowned and beautiful version of the english-translated Quran, with a message to “read it daily, bit by bit”. It’s not the first time I’ve resolved to be more religious, but I’m always hoping it will get easier as time and maturity steps in.

- I decided to choose one over three other interesting job offers with different professions. This was difficult because, let’s face it, I am still that greedy pig and I want to be everything. Well, pig got sent to the butcher and came back with a career.

- I’ve had a turbulent year with quite significant falls. But I’ve decided that there really is nothing that wasn’t meant to be.

- I’ve learnt not to expect that things will come in mediocre form. Every blow is going to be hard, every success a bliss followed by another bliss. Apparently that’s what makes life interesting: the fact that things pour on you instead of just trickle boringly.

Holiday Blues

2007-12-24T19:56:00.001+07:00

After the head-spinning delight of embracing my one-month holiday (squeee!) has worn off, here comes the inevitable question: Now What?

I sometimes find it unfortunate that I was never one to stay dormant for very long. Sure, there is the Christmas Eve party invitation and the New Year’s holiday in Bali (please read with a squeal of delight), but that only amounts to 7 days out of 30, which leaves me with 23 schedule-less, plan-less days. Infinite possiblities, but still, one must start making plans. Some of my random ideas while I was busy doing nothing for 6 solid hours today:

1. Do a culinary tour of Central Java.

2. Exercise everyday and get that perfect butt already (facing tough competition from No.1 above).

3. Finish reading all unread books on my shelf.

4. Teach English pro bono for underprivileged kids at the local mosque.

5. Read materials for my upcoming new job.

6. Write a complete memoir of my days at the palace.

7. Become a couch potato every Monday, just because I can.

I have always been good at planning. Whether I will wake up the next morning and immediately act upon any sort of plan is an entirely different matter. Oh and by the way, if I owe anyone lunch or dinner or a casual get together, now is a good time to remind me :)

Last Day

2007-12-19T19:55:00.000+07:00

Today I finish working at the palace, and as I ride home for the last time my mind starts to reel back, sporadically. Outstanding moments flash up collectively like yellow highlights on a white page. Mixtures of different feelings welled up, a cocktail of sorts with the ingredients shaken together in a steel tumbler, confusingly. How did I get here? Gratitude, flattery, awe, confusion, and disappointment. They contradict, and they don’t care.

But! Ah, but the aftertaste is unmistakably singular. I could pinpoint it with the precision of a connoiseur. Because after everything else and more than anything else, I feel overwhelmingly lucky. Lucky to be part of it, lucky to be out of it. Lucky to have stepped out with flying colours. Lucky to have choices.

Then again, I don’t believe in luck.

The whole climate change shebang

2007-12-15T19:51:00.000+07:00

Having experienced the Bali Climate Change Conference first hand for almost two weeks, I am quite at loss as to exactly which aspect of it I should immortalize in words. I am innocently awed by the magnitude of stakeholders. All these 10,000 participants are busy doing something for climate change? That can’t be right, methinks. I sit in a corner and watch colourful people go by. I’ve never seen such variety since I was last did the UN building tour, and I couldn’t help but feel a tingle of excitement. My subsequent thoughts, apart from those related to my work of course, can be eloquently summarized in the following:

- Quick! Get the free merchandise.

- I hate Caucasian legs. It is not true that human beings were created equal.

- Ooh, I need to take pictures with the people dressed as polar bears!

- Omigod. That was Al Gore.

Apart from that, y’all can read in the newspapers. I’ll just leave you with a few handy tips on how to mitigate climate change. Yes, you can do it from your own backyard! I’m kidding. Don’t worry, I won’t pain you with the change-your-lightbulbs-and-walk-to-the-office routine you’ve heard too much of already. One of the leaflets did catch my eye though and I thought this would be useful and painless to share:

Eco-Driving: save fuel and save the climate!

Rule No. 1: Drive smoothly at a constant speed

Rule No. 2: Shift gears quickly to higher possible gear

Rule No. 3: Maintain high gear and low engine RPM (2500 RPM max)

Rule No. 4: Coast a lot

Rule No. 5: Decelerate smoothly

Rule No. 6: Avoid breaking abruptly

Rule No. 7: Aniticipate the traffic, look as far ahead as possible

Good luck implementing that in Jakarta.

Silence.

2007-11-29T12:18:00.000+07:00

It is frightening how silence hurts more than words. Even if I closed my ears I still couldn’t shut out the lack of noise. I am scared beyond measure and nauseous.

The mystery of prestige.

2007-11-13T11:31:00.001+07:00

The best thing about working here is the fact that people are impressed.

My business card and the business-email address have been the subject of dramatic reactions amongst friends, most eloquent of which was, “omigosh you should get this framed!” (Speaking of frames, my mother had insisted on framing my picture with the big boss and sending one to each of her siblings, much to my embarrassment. Don’t worry I promise you won’t see it on facebook). Others are impressed with my car-sticker that allows me to go through the 3-in-1 alone (government perks, heheh, don’t you civilians just hate that?)

So it was that when I met a friend and casually told her I was getting a new job next year, her eyes almost popped out and she gasped, “Why??” And of course, the dreaded subsequent question which quickly followed, “Where are you going next?”

I can’t say I’m entirely comfortable with the reactions. Apparently, future job (albeit in my view a very distinguished profession) does not generate the same kind of excitement and awe as current job, because you can find a million people doing future job.

So I explained a simplified version of my reasons to said friend, but while doing so felt slightly irritated that I had to explain myself at all. It was obviously a well thought-out decision, one that I’m excited about making, but it’s tiresome that I need to actually explain those reasons to everyone I know just because it’s less impressive.

As for myself, I’m pretty sure the one thing I’ll miss most about this job is blogging (and having the time to blog) about it.

Marriage: Mass Parrty in a Package

2007-11-11T11:29:00.000+07:00

Every girl (I stress this in the hopes of impressing upon dear reader the arguable assumption that following thoughts are perfectly common), has thought about her future wedding. It should not be translated to mean that her wedding is imminent, or that she is impatient for it, or that she is hopelessly romantic. It is simply a girly naturalness. It’s just that some girls are more secretive about it than others, as I have been until the moment I press “post” on my blogger dashboard.

In my entire life in this country, I have been to only two weddings which I have actually enjoyed, one was at a coffee plantation resort in Central Java overlooking hills and valleys, and the other was last night at an upscale restaurant in Jakarta where the female guests’ dress code was white/champagne. The two weddings had only one thing in common: the invitees did not exceed 200 people. Other weddings? perhaps thousands of invitees, including the relative of the relative of the relative, and the siblings' friends and siblings’ friends’ boyfriends.

So last night, in my champagne coloured dress and a glass of champagne in hand, I had genuine fun and met a lot of people I actually knew and could chat with. And then I thought, “I want my wedding to be like this.” But I doubted the possibility, because if I only invite 200 people, some 800 people I don’t know just might get offended.

On speechifying.

2007-10-30T18:08:00.000+07:00

Yesterday was a good day because I spent the entire day (and night) working on a speech.
The only thing I hate about speech-writing is the deadline, but apart from that it’s a lot of fun.

When I received the first draft from the related department, I felt a slight tingle of excitement and anticipation. I rubbed my hands together, and gave them each a blow. Puff, puff. I settle my hands on the keyboard and hungrily open the draft.

Drama drama. Let’s sweep the audience off their feet. Let’s give them the shebang. Let’s show some vision and charisma and leadership. Let’s… let’s… um, hang on.

Upon quickly glancing over it I realized the first draft was, well, difficult. The frown upon my brow gradually deepened as I tried to make sense of it. And (my brow) reached new dimensions at the following paragraph, lovingly crafted for our President to say:

“The main objective is to reduce oil based fuel and subsidy in our economy. In addition with the introduction of the cleaner fuel for household, we improve our woman and our daughter, whom in our society for cooking and most affected by the burning of unclean fuel in the household.”

This quickly dampened my excitement. Apparently I was put into society to cook, and I need to be improved for that purpose. *frown frown*

Now you see why it was a long and exhilarating day.

5 reasons why I am a complete mess.

2007-10-29T09:23:00.000+07:00

I had planned to study and finish some work over the weekend and managed to instead spend it on shopping, watching TV, and sleeping.
I did not attend my friend’s invitation to her brother’s wedding (because, seriously, one should never invite their own friends to their sibling’s weddings unless said friend is actually acquainted to said sibling) and only remembered to notify her effectively four hours after the wedding was over.
I received an invitation for a breakfast meeting next week and am at loss as to why I am invited, apart from having met inviter at an all-important conference in which I gave my best all-important front. I feel like a scam. Dear inviter, I am not as smart as you may think I am. Please don’t make me come to the meeting because then I will be discovered for the fraud that I am.
My career is at a crossroads to nowhere in particular because I have not taken any of the actions I have identified as imminently necessary for me to take but I cannot start taking those actions now because there are too many choices and I haven’t been able to make any decision regarding said choices for the past month because I am greedy and I want everything.
I feel fat and because of that I ate healthy steamed fish for dinner and because of that I felt I deserved a little reward and therefore ate one and a half donuts just now and I obviously still feel fat. (If you’re pissed that I think I’m fat because you think I’m not and you think I’m just being too self-obsessed, you can go eat donuts too. They might make you feel better.)
(Yes I know I promised 5 but it’s my blog.) I just wasted an hour on a meaningless post which painfully exposes how normal I am. Ugh.
Somebody please tell me where my blog title has mysteriously disappeared to over the weekend.

Speak to someone. Anyone.

2007-10-22T10:14:00.000+07:00

Having spent holidays in blissfully traffic-less Jakarta, I’ve managed to spend more time at home, sleeping late, relaxing, (help) cooking, and umm... inevitably being trapped in mom’s daily non-negotiable tv-soap schedule. I know what you’re thinking, you evil bastards. You’re thinking, “Ha! Now you’re addicted too! I knew it!”. Well, excuse me, but NOT. But I know now who the farmer boy’s real parents are, and they’re rich, obviously, except the parents don’t know it’s him yet and he fell and suffered amnesia on his way to tell them. Boohoo.

If there were ample space I could write an essay on why sinetron is tasteless and may ultimately ruin this nation’s future for generations to come (obviously it would be a very over-dramatized and soap-like essay). But on this occasion I’d just like to point out one thing which bothers the hell out of me.

Monologues. Tons and tons and tons of monologues.

Monologues are Shakespearean. Created for the stage, where resources are few and thoughts must be gesticulated to the audience through the sole means of facial expressions, gestures, and thinking aloud. And the monologues were beautiful and wrenching. Which is why Hamlet could get away with 15 minutes worth of solo pondering aloud on whether “to be or not to be.”

But really, nobody does that in real life unless he’s a nutcase. As A.A. Milne (the author of Winnie The Pooh) once suggested, in real life Hamlet would most likely have been alone in deep thought, when suddenly interrupted by Ophelia:

[enter Ophelia]
Oph: “What are you thinking about, my Lord?
Ham: “I am wondering whether to be or not to be, whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer...”

You see my point. My point is that TV is not the place for archaic monologues as it makes the whole show look like a televised stage act. Two, it makes the actors lazy, as private thoughts and emotions no longer need to be conveyed through very subtle and nuanced facial expressions. Three, it makes the screen-writers seem lazy, as they apparently don’t even bother trying to make the dialogues look natural.

If you’re reading this and you’re a sinetron screenwriter, for the love of God, cut down on the monologues!

Lebaran

2007-10-13T18:24:00.000+07:00

The day is sweltering hot. It is quite insane in its own right.
The family is as usual. Just more offspring than last year.
The food is default. Rich fatty stew with coconut milk.
The elders look old. Some age gracefully, some don’t.
Some seem trapped in a stale attitude which was perhaps attractive or passable at some point in their lives, but no longer. It is too ingrained for them to change. I wonder whether I will age gracefully.
I will probably not bother with the tiny children of nephews and nieces coming to visit. I will probably skip town and go traveling instead.
Or maybe I wouldn’t, because I would have already traveled far and wide, and I would want to just be useful to others, and family.
That would be aging gracefully, wouldn’t it.

I don’t want to grow old and unattractive.
It scared me today. I don’t want to be like everybody else.
“But eventually you will”, said bf, “Inevitably you will lose beauty and lose sex appeal, but something else will appear to replace that.”
And of course he is right.
I want to be permanently attractive, no matter what age does to my physique.

White Envelopes

2007-10-10T14:05:00.000+07:00

Several things confused me when I first started work here, one of which was that nobody asked for my bank account. Naturally this worried me a bit. I wasn’t given a written work contract, and nobody asked for my bank account. Crikey. I approached the end of my first month with some trepidation.

Apparently I didn’t need to worry. My salary comes in cash. In an envelope. Received from the accountant, who retrieves it from a big iron safe-deposit from behind his desk in his dodgy office on the second floor. Every month.

Apparently that’s not the only thing I’m receiving. On my way out from a meeting at another department, the receptionist in front of the meeting room beckoned for me to approach the desk, indicated a spot where I was to put my signature, and then proceeded to shove me a white envelope. On a different occasion, after completing a power point presentation where my sole task (and please note extremely important task) was to press the next-slide button on the laptop, I was again shoved a paper to sign and a white envelope.

You may call it a pleasant surprise, or “rejeki nomplok”. But it is all still rather confusing. The very first thing of course was to clarify whether this was legal, and after asking around made myself content with the fact that it is “normal”. Besides, obviously it wasn’t under the desk, as in it was literally handed over the desk. I am sure that out there somewhere, lies a decree which renews a previous decree which re-confirms a previous decree (as is the nature of Indonesian law) that says this is legal. *fingers-crossed*

But the next question is, why should I be given “extras” for the conduct of my professional work, which my (meager) salary supposedly already covers? It’s quite silly and unnecessary. An even more irritating question in my head though, is why the #$%* doesn’t anyone up there know and take into consideration the amazing invention called the bank account? Say hello to computerized, fast, efficient, and uh… transparent?

Carrying around white envelopes, no matter how legal and deserved, make me feel like the mafia.