Hatiku tergetar setiap menangkap bayanganmu
Seberkas jiwa merasuki sudut-sudut mulutku
dan tak terelakkan
tersungging secercah senyum yang berusaha keras kulawan
Seketika langkahku tergerak perlahan tanpa tujuan
Tertarik medan magnet yang tertanam di hamparan bumi
Dan hati ini berusaha untuk belajar hidup kembali
Menata tumpukan perasaan yang terpendam dalam
Jakarta, 10 Januari 2012
Tags: hati ini, senyum yang
Today is the most beautiful day for Transjakarta passengers.
Just when I lose my faith in Jakarta’s people and its public transportation for the countless time, I saw something that put my faith back in them. I know that I’m not a regular passenger of Transjakarta. However, I think I travel quite frequently with the bus in its best times and worst times to give judgment about its performance and service.
Most of the times, I was quite disappointed with its passengers’ lack of manner, especially when it comes to giving seat for women and old people. Most of the men sitting just ignored the fact that there were women standing in front of them trying to retain balance. Even worse, when some passengers got off the bus and left their seats empty, instead of giving nearby standing women the chance to sit on those seats, they wuickly filled the vacant places themselves. Wow, some manners I said to myself.
However today, something wonderful happened. When the bus stopped at Harmoni shelter and a big group of passengers came on board, ALL men who sat before quickly stood up and gave up their seats to the women who just got in. I was quite surprised to be honest for never witnessing this before. But more importantly, I was also experiencing this happy feeling that you know, maybe they are all still plenty of kindness left on this city after all.
Is it possible to leave your belonging, a bag or a purse more likely, in a church’s pew and find it still there later the moment you return?
Today, trust is a rare currency. People get to be suspicious about everything easily. People HAVE TO be suspicious about everything. But how can you blame them? Honesty and honor have been disappearing long before. You have to keep an eye on everything you’ve got to make sure that nothing bad happens to it. When the time gets hard, people have nothing more crucial to think about but themselves.
Theft happens everywhere. People lose their belongings from public places like rail and bus stations to private places like houses and offices. There is no place safe enough to leave your belongings unattended. Crime is not born out of intention anymore, but out of opportunity. Which then brings the main question to the spotlight. Are religious places immune to this morally degrading phenomenon?
My Moslem friend once lost his Crocs shoes when he carried out evening prayer in a musholla, a small mosque equal to a chapel in its Christian counterpart, in a mall. Before that case, there were many cases of sandals and shoes thefts in both mosques and mushollas that there is a joke that the jemaah are merely practicing of the ulama’s preacher to “take the good ones and leave the bad ones.” Of course, the preacher actually talks about behavior instead of sandals and shoes.
I have never done any proper research about it before so I will just speak from my experiences. I have been attending masses regularly in several different churches for almost ten years in three cities. The fact is, most parishioners do not believe that a place full of people worshipping God is friendly enough for their unattended purses and bags. In my hometown, I dare to say that ALL parishioners within my view range bring their purses and bags with them when they receive communion. In the town where I went to college, the thing was a bit trickier since I used to go to English mass in a hospital chapel where the parishioners were students from nearby dormitory who, of course, never bother to bring purses or bags with them. So there was really nothing to say about it.
Here, in the capital city of Indonesia, things are more challenging. As like any capital city all over the world, Jakarta is a tough place. People are more individual, consumptive, and competitive in order to survive and achieve success. I lost my cell phone once to a pickpocket in a bus shelter. Many of my friends also have experienced the same. Therefore, practically you may hope less about honesty and safety here. Surprisingly, that is not what I found in my church.
The first time I went to this church, I did it like I always did. I carried my bag along with me when I received communion. This went on for some time until I read a comment from a Singaporean named Angela in Mr. Nury’s blog. She put forward the irony that people who come to the house of God supposedly to seek comfort and peace, feel insecure about other people’s intention around them. Her comment snapped me to the point that I felt shame every time I had the thought to take a precaution of theft by carrying my bag with me when I received communion. This also marked the day I started to observe people’s behavior regarding their bags in church.
To this day, I have been more than happy to see that almost all parishioners are willing to leave their bags, especially women of course, on pews while they come forward to receive communion. It is either that or they just don’t bring anything valuable inside their bags (which I cannot believe because since when women who wear high heels and bring fancy bags leave at least their women wallets and latest tech gadgets?). True that there are still some others who think otherwise and carry their bags with them. However, half of them do it because they intend to walk straight to the door right after they receive communion. Not exactly the right thing to do but that’s another matter. And while we can pray for them to realize that that’s not exactly what’s the Church expected from parishioners, we can pray for the other half too that they can learn from their brothers and sisters in God and start to believe that when you want to change the world, you need to do it from yourself.
Tags: church, communion, mosque, parishioners, pickpocket
Langit menghitam memunculkan gumpalan-gumpalan awan putih
Para pekerja menghambur ke jalanan mengisi ruang yang kosong di sela-sela mobil-mobil yang berbaris rapi
Di tengah-tengah suara mesin menderu
Di ramainya jalan yang berdebu
Merah putih membelah Jakarta
Jakarta, 26 April 2011Tags: jakarta, merah putih
Today, I’m 26. That just passes a quarter of the century. I know. Don’t say it. I’m old. Oh yeah, really. Considering where I’m right now, I’m old.
This year my birthday is really special. Usually, my birthday just another 11th day in the 4th month. Nothing special, really. Today, 5 text messages were sent to my cell phone before 6 o’clock plus two calls disturbing my morning sleep before I finally picked up the third. I knew the call was not going to bring a “happy birthday” greeting, she didn’t even know when my birthday was and still doesn’t. She was breaking the news that my uncle had just passed away that dawn. So, the first call to wake me up on my birthday was actually about a death. What a great way to start a birthday.
Two of the messages were about the same sad news, three of them were from my dear friends wishing me a happy birthday. The problem was, one of them said, or joked – I never found out which one was true – that he had a party planned for me this evening. I panically called him to cancel off the plan, no answer. Finally after few text messages, the problem was cleared.
Good news was, a big boss at the office was having his birthday yesterday and he was in the right mood to be really kind today. So, we all had a great meal all through the day. Not bad….:) Just when I was going broke.
By noon, my cousin reminded me that I had forgotten to congratulate my other cousin who shares the same birthday with me and I always consider as my one-year-older-twin. After the lunch, I was trying to get a grip on what would my family do next as a response to the death. They must come over, but when and how? Later on the day, I contacted my friend who was in trouble yesterday, asking her condition. Her reply was asking me to lend her some money. Okay. That’s great. I was starting to regret my decision of asking her to be honest.
When the evening came, I still needed to continue my plan of having a small celebration with my boarding house mates. It was actually much better than what I thought it would be. So, thank you God for that one.
So here I am. I planned to write about my reflection on my life today. But all those things made me to do this instead. Yet, tomorrow is definitely not a brighter day than today. At least today I had a fun chats on my Facebook wall. But you know what, I think somehow everything happened today share the right meaning with a birthday. A beginning.
Birthday Statistic:
Text messages received: 26
Text messages sent out: 29
Facebook notifications: over 60
Birthday gifts: 0
Tags: birthday
I’ve heard the hype before, how Kate Winslet was so excited to finally be on the right age to play Hanna Schmidt, how the German boy had to wait until his 18th birthday to shoot the sex scenes, how the movie won various prestigious awards including the Academy Awards. But I never thought it would be this good.
First of all, don’t get me wrong. The reason I watched this movie was not because of those controversial sex scenes. I watched it because of two things. First, it has books in it. Second, well, you’ve got to admit that David Kross is kind of cute 
Warning: Review below contain spoilers. If you have not watch the movie yet and still intend to watch it someday in the future, do not even try to peek! :p
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The Reader at first might give impression as typical European movie with bare chest and blatant sex scenes in every turn of the plot, not that I’m saying European movies are bad. But soon after entering to what I’d like to call second part of the story, the story started to move fast and showed its real Academy Award quality.
Kate Winslet got my attention the moment she opened her mouth in the scene where she helped young Michael. I was kind of wondering whether she would pass her lines with British or American accent since she had been doing many of both. I cheered up when I heard Ms. Winslet spoke neither British or American accent, but a German accent. It never came to my mind that she would do a German accent, which is actually the most logical thing since the story was set in Germany. So, maybe it was my lack of awareness, but Ms. Winslet did a great job here!
Michael Kross as a young newcomer did a no less outstanding job. His transformation from young sheepish boy into a confident then confused young man was smoothly acted out. Ralph Fiennes of course did an amazing job as usual. His portrayal as older Michael who was very lonely and strapped back to his past and Hanna in particular looked so endearing in viewer’s eyes.
However, the most powerful aspect of this movie is of course the story. It is amazing to see that all of the sequence of events in this movie were triggered merely by one thing, Hanna’s shame on her illiteracy. And though some of us might have a suspicion before in the country dining scene, I am confident to say that none of us would ever expect that this little secret could have such a huge impact in Hanna’s life and even became the driving force of the whole story. The reason why she left her trem ticketer job and then Michael, why she voluntarily admitted to be the person who was responsible of writing the report, and why she left her Siemens job to join the Nazi (a job which did not require literacy) was simply because she felt deeply ashamed if people ever found out about her illiteracy.
There are many debates in internet forums whether Hanna’s shame is natural or just incredibly stupid. Well, I guess it depends on how we look at it. For common sense, it is incredibly stupid to opt for a life time jail sentence plus an evil self image for ordering and committing mass murder than her illiteracy secret to be revealed. But then again, as one of the posters pointed out, we all have our own dignity which cannot be budged by anything. In Hanna’s case, it was her pride of being considered as a literacy person even if it meant that she had to give up every other thing she had to preserve it.
But then again, The Reader is more than just a story about Hanna’s illiteracy. It is about a society which was still haunted by the ghost of the past, just like Michael couldn’t let go of Hanna’s memory even decades after. It is about the Germans who still couldn’t compromised with its own Nazi ghost and caught in the middle of mixed feelings and uncertainty of how they supposed to take stance after all had ended.
In the end, I just felt really sorry for Hanna and all people that had to cross her in their lives. This was indeed an exceptional movie where you can actually sympathize an SS officer even though Ms. Winslet herself claimed that it was really difficult for her to play and sympathize an SS officer role.
Still, one question cannot leave my mind after watching this movie. As Hanna put it with the most innocent tone, if I were in her position, what would I have done?
Tags: david kross, kate winslet, ralph fiennes, the reader
Now, now, he’s not a new star. He’s been around and famous for about at least 7 years, depending on where on earth you live in. But for a couple of last days I’m head over heels all over again because of this clip from Youtube.
It’s not that Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring is sung by him recently too. In fact, the song is included in his first album. But this is exactly the reason why this video can make my heart leap just in a second.
When I was still in my last year of high school, I adored this curly singer for, well you may not believe me, merely his voice. But why not? His voice was and is still amazing. Plus, he looked like some silly French to me back then. Of course I was wrong because he is actually from Russian and Irish descendant.
So, I bought his first album and listened to it for millions if not billions of times. I memorized all of his songs in the album, which are mostly classic Italian songs, and printed out all the lyrics complete with translations. I did not care if I had to spend my lunch money that day. I was never bored to listen to his voice and I did not even care how he looked. I just love listening to his voice.
But then his second album came out and suddenly You Raise Me Up was a hit everywhere. This was pretty much when I started to stray away from my once beloved idol. The song just overwhelmed me too much I couldn’t bear listening to it anymore. It was everywhere, played for everything. That’s when I said “enough is enough.” I said goodbye to Mr. Groban.
But this video………… God, I think I’m in love all over again. I can continue this but there are simply no words to express my joy right now. Besides, it will be very long and bore you eventually. So I will leave you here with another great song sung beautifully by the very great man.
Note: CLBK stands for Cinta Lama Bersemi Kembali, a famous Indonesian phrase means Old Love Blossoming Again
Tags: CLBK, Jesu, Josh Groban, Joy of Man's Desiring
If you ask me how am I doing right now, honestly I cannot give you the exact answer. Contrary to the novels and films I have been reading, my life has never been great. I lived an ordinary childhood, probably a serene one. Then I faced a more colorful and challenging time when I was admitted into one of the best university in the country. Unfortunately, I failed to meet my high school teacher’s expectation to continue my study abroad after I graduated from university. Since then, I cannot really define whether I have a good life or a bad one. All I know is that it’s not a great one, but I basically have nothing to complain about.
I may not as successful as every other person at my age, which is kind of ironic since they used to envy me for my grades, but I still can lead a decent life. I can save some fortune from my payroll. I can succumb to my lazy behavior. I can watch movies I like. I can satisfy my thirst of everything the internet has to offer, probably to the point of light addiction. And even though there is still no sign that my life will turn to a better direction, it surely moves to a brighter path.
For this past week, I may have been exhausted physically due to my stubbornness of sleeping after the midnight while I need to wake up early in the morning. However, a series of pleasant events happened for past few days that made me feel that I didn’t have the right to complain at all.
First, even though I had the bad habit of drowning myself in the pile of books and internet in my room, I was given a chance to get closer to my room neighbors. The next day I met a new friend who has the same passion in books like me. Then there were two fun meetings with my old friends which brought me many good things afterward. A breaking news from my friend in another city about an arrival of some money boosted my mood at once. And now, I have so many good things keep coming in my way once in once at a time. So, all I can say is so far, my life may not be great, but I guess it’s not bad too to complain.
Okay guys, one of my friends just post a link to La La La Love Song and I just have to made this post. It’s now the time for reminiscing some memories of Japanese doramas. Here are some memories from the past.
1. Tokyo Love Story
This is probably the first Japanese dorama aired in Indonesian television. It did great. I think it would be difficult to find someone who did not know what Tokyo Love Story was. Since I was still a little kid when the dorama was aired, I did not remember much about the story. All I can tell is that it was about complicated relationships between four working people, two women and two men, in Tokyo.
The fun thing about it is that it was a common thing to translate the lyrics of any foreign non-English song theme and re-sing it in Indonesian. It was weird, but it was kind of cute. Tokyo Love Story’s theme song was one of the “victims” of that policy. I still remember the chorus of the song. It goes like this:
Di tempat itu dan di malam itu
Kalau kita tak pernah berjumpa
Mungkin kita tak akan percaya
Kau dan aku saling suka dan cinta
2. Great Teacher Onizuka
I was just going to say that Great Teacher Onizuka (GTO) dorama is based on a successful manga when I found out that Tokyo Love Story is also based on a manga. So, I think I can see a pattern here. 
Unlike Tokyo Love Story, GTO was not a popular drama in Indonesia. I cannot really be sure whether it had ever been aired here or not, may be it had for one or two episodes. One thing for sure, I watched it on VCD. By that time, VCD players had just came out so people had this “watching films and serials on VCD” fever.
The story of GTO is about a young gangster, Onizuka, who had an ambition to become a teacher after a life changing event. He then successfully gets a place as a teacher in a school. However, since his previous past as a gangster member makes him to have different and unique characteristics as a teacher. And just like any other teacher conquering bad students story, Onizuka, slowly but sure gains his students’ and colleagues’ respect as he successfully solves every problem in the school.
I really like this dorama even though sometimes the story is a bit unbelievable. But there are moments which are really touching. This is also the dorama which made me start adoring Takashi Sorimachi and Nanako Matsushima.
3. Itazura na Kiss (It Started with a Kiss)
Again, this dorama is adapted from a manga. Moreover, this dorama was once “adapted” by Indonesian sinetron makers into a sinetron titled Ciuman Pertama, which was quite silly in my opinion. The main idea of the story does not fit at all to the Indonesian culture. Seriously, why stole it?
The story of this dorama is actually very light and quite simple. Just typical of girly story with the main heroine, a stupid good-for-nothing girl, falls in love with a knight in shining armor, the smartest and most good looking boy at school. And their story starts with an accidental kiss, which pretty much explain why it is titled that way. However, the story really begins when the girl loses her house in a fire and it turns out that the girl’s and boy’s parents are actually best friends so now the girl can live in the boy’s house for a while until she and her father find a new place to live.
What I like so much about this dorama is that it is so silly that I almost couldn’t stop laughing when I was watching it. The girl is probably the foolest and silliest person ever exist and the fact that the boy has exactly the opposite character compared to her is the magic ingredients which will make the audience laugh all the way.
4. Long Vacation
Now, this is MY FAVORITE DORAMA ALL THE TIME. I LOVE IT!!!
The theme song is amazing. The story is great. The casts are great too. And I love that the main hero of this dorama is a pianist. I remember the last episode of this dorama was aired at the same night when my friend was having her sweet seventeen birthday. I rushed home as fast as I could after the party, hoping that I could watch some minutes of the last episode. I did manage to watched the last 5 minutes to know the ending, but I was really upset at that time to get only so little. Thank God, several years later I found the VCD in one of the rentals in Yogyakarta. Me and my friend then copied all episodes to our own computers. LOL! Definitely the best Japanese dorama I have ever seen!
And the opening song and sequence is just great. You have to check it out yourself here.
Tags: Great Teacher Onizuka, Itazura na Kiss, Japanese dorama, Long Vacation, Tokyo Love Story
