Happy 23rd Birthday Yangku!

For my boyfriend, here’s a little present and message from me…

I <3 U

June

It’s that time of year again. In a couple of weeks I’ll be turning another year older, but things are never getting simpler. For starters, today I had to be in two places at the same time, while my head is nowhere near there. I think I lost it along the way.

I think it’s because of you. Yes, you.

Top 5 Skripshit Devils

Me and my friend agrees that we call our graduating paper, or skripsi in Indonesian (thus there is no relevant word in the English language)…skripshit. It’s attention-consuming and you’ll need to be on your best self-discipline mode to work on it. Alas, the technology named the internet can be both useful and dangerous for those of us working on our skripshits. So…after a long research (and pigs fly), I’ve compiled my top 5 list of the internet skripshit devils. The finalists are (in descending order):

5. Multiply

Ok. So you post photos, songs, reviews, or you post your unimportant comments to your friend’s blog, or your mom might even join so she could monitor you both in your daily life and in your online life. *sigh* But you just can’t stop now, can you?

4. YouTube

Yes, you thought to yourself, “I’m just gonna see one video clip“. Then you click on the next related video. Then the next related video. And then you went back to their Homepage, watching the ‘videos playing right now’. You click on the next related video. And…you know the rest.

3. WordPress

Oh, wait…what am I supposed to be doing right now? Ah, can’t remember… Something to with my graduation…hmm…

2. Facebook

Admit it. You just can’t stop looking at your friend’s picture, or your friend’s friend’s picture, or wait for the status board to see who’s in a relationship and who recently went single. Damn you evil facebook, damn you.

1. Google

The internet is endless. Like I said, it could be useful (read: the latest trends in CDM market in Indonesia or guarantees used in project finance)…but it could also be dangerous (read: the cutest cat pictures, the top NDS games, the latest bike accessories, the coolest gadgets, heck…even Googling yourself).

Woohoo.

Now, I wonder if I could Google “How To Concentrate on Your Thesis“…

Proud Owner of a Bike

I’m so proud of my new bike I even wrote about it on both of my blogs, one on my multiply site.

*wide smile*

Eco-Sex Toy

Urm, I’m both amazed and confused when I saw this video. Whey they said that nowadays it’s eco-everything, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when they have an eco-friendly sex toy.

*moment of silence*

Now… I wonder if they ship to Indonesia… hahahaha.

From TreehuggerTV

Habitable Place

Jakarta is not a place for poor people. Let me get straight to my reasons.

First, it is impossible for you to travel comfortably from one place to another without having your own vehicle. Even if you had a vehicle, nowadays it is getting more and more frustrating to travel due to the increasing number of cars and motorcycle and the endless lines of traffic congestion. If you decide to go with public transportation, you can be sure to equip yourself with a good health insurance. Why? Public buses are a hassle, busways are ineffective, and the trains are pitiful to see in addition that they don’t exactly go where most major activities are.

Don’t even get me started on the pedestrian area, moreover, bicycle routes. If the city government doesn’t even give a damn of having a good place to walk (without getting run over by a motorcyclist or having to jump off gutter holes) why should the government even care about providing bicycle routes? All in all, it is frustrating to get around the city if you don’t have a car or a motorcycle.

What is more pitiful is the fact that the more people are unable to buy a car, they tend to buy motorcycles which are cheaper (plus, private financing mechanisms are offering cheaper motorcycle credit loans nowadays) but it also means that the motorcycles are more uncontrollable. Trust me; the law doesn’t work for motorcyclist in Jakarta. They tend to cut lines, park in no-parking-allowed areas, and when they hit you, you’re the one to blame. Deep down inside, you can’t really blame them for the increasing number of motorcycles because there are no other alternatives available!

If the government focuses on building toll roads, it’s another sign that the government pays little attention to public transportation. It is the people who have cars who will enjoy them, not people who depend on public transportation.

Second, it is impossible for you to enjoy a good, clean, cheap entertainment in the city because most places are filled with malls, shopping squares, overpaid restaurants and night clubs. That leaves people with lack of financial capacity to be left out of having their right to “have fun”. Where can you find a decent public park, where you can enjoy a healthy and safe walk without having the fear of being robbed or mistakenly apprehended by the pamong praja police that you are doing “inappropriate” activities or mistakenly thought as a transvestite? (hence the affiliations with Taman Lawang, Taman Suropati, etc).

If you walk inside a mall or a shopping square, there will be security guards waiting in front to check your belongings, and in some places they even scan you with the same metal detectors used in airports. I have the feeling that the “rich” are getting more and more paranoid, but in fact the “poor” are getting more reluctant to come to such places, because they will feel like outsiders who don’t belong to those places.

In my anthropology class, this is what it means by discriminative development. It is the people who have money, people who have capital, who can enjoy “life” in Jakarta.

What I don’t understand, is the fact that people from outside Jakarta still flock here in hope of having an opportunity to earn money. Sadly, people who don’t survive in Jakarta end up being homeless, jobless, and become street beggars and street musicians. The Jakarta government, in 2007, stipulated the ban of those people and will give sanctions to them and also to people who give money for them.

This is what I define as the eradication of the poor, not the eradication of poverty.

Oh, and there was this article this week on the newspaper. Delman drivers (traditional Betawi horse carriage) in Monas (one of the few places where the poor can enjoy their time in Jakarta) are being forced to quit their jobs because their horses’ pee and manure stinks the place and cause “pollution”. The local government then, replaced the delmans with diesel buses.

Ah…way to go Sir, diesel surely doesn’t cause more pollution there, does it? Pfft.

I’m pissed. Why? Because I know that the opportunity for Jakarta to become a habitable place (especially for the have-nots) is there, but there’s just too much mismanagement here and there. Start with the little things, good public transportation and good public parks. Is it that hard to handle? Or the smell of money from real estate investors is just too hard to resist?

Someone needs to give the Jakarta government a pat to the bum and make things work for its citizens. Desperately.

I’m Not Your Kartini

This is just a passerby-post, but it did caught my attention for a while…So here goes.

I first heard Mulan Kwok Jameela’s song “Wonder Woman”, and my first thoughts were:

1. Why is it so Britney Spear-esque, especially the “Do Something” song?
2. Why Wonder Woman?

After watching the video, my comments were:

1. Why is it so Kylie Minogue-ish? (Please see the “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” song for referral)
2. What is it with the wonder woman suit…with the american flag stripes and all??
3. What’s with Cinta Laura, man???

Well, Cinta Laura’s not the point here, although my blog readers seems to enjoy her stories. I’m just saying how it seems that Indonesian culture is getting Americanized in every single way…hence the Wonder Woman with the “American Way” independent image. I’m not anti-American, but for me, Indonesian culture and history is something to be proud of and there should be more ways for the pop industry to commercialize our Indonesian heritage.

I was wearing Batik to a mall and my friend said that I looked like her lecturers.

*moment of silence*

It’s just the simple things, where I see that we don’t pay that much attention for our culture anymore now, do we? Perhaps I can’t dance a traditional dance or sing a traditional song, or know the national heroes from A to Z…but I am starting my personal Batik collection. In any occasion, it’s better for me to wear Batik rather than monkey suits and blazers.

What shocked me was, when I was teaching in this elementary school in Depok, one of the kids sang Mulan Jameela’s “Wonder Woman” song and he (yes, he) totally remembered the lyrics! The lyrics itself is not something a 10-year old should be humming about…furthermore, if you know Wonder Woman better than R.A. Kartini, then there must be something wrong here.

Perhaps I’m just over thinking this matter, but like I said before, it bugs me in an unusual way.

“Aku bukan Wonder Womanmu, yang bisa terus menahan rasa sakit karena mencintaimu“

Ouch.

Environmental Education

Last Saturday I taught thirty students of Sukamaju Elementary School (SD Sukamaju 8, 3, 5, 1) in Depok about the environment. All of them were fifth graders, and it was very fun teaching them because it wasn’t the usual in-class theories about the environment, but it was done by doing fun games and activities. Oh and, we watched “Horton Hears a Who” at the end of the day. FYI, it’s a very good movie to watch, appealable to both children and adults alike.

So, we first had our introduction by playing “Catch the Ball”. We gathered around in a circle, and we introduced ourselves first one by one. The next part is where I throw the ball to someone across me and say, “My name is …, I will throw the ball to (the person’s name whom I must throw the ball at)”. The person who caught my ball will then say, “Thank you (the person who threw the ball), my name is …, and I will throw the ball to (the next person to throw the ball at)”. This goes on until everyone had a turn, and in some cases the kids forget the names, but it’s okay because I didn’t punish them anyway.

The next game that we played is “Habitat”. I divided the kids into groups of five and asked them to pretend as animals in the forests. They pretended as gorillas, birds, rabbits, tigers, giraffe (although I’m sure we don’t have giraffes in Indonesia – hee hee), and they need to stay inside their habitat, which is an area of newspapers on the ground. If they step outside the newspapers, they’ll die. The catch is, I will tell a story that there will be loggers, forest fires, and real estate developers (this one’s my idea, I’m sure they won’t understand that now…haha) who will destroy the habitat, and my friends will tear the newspapers apart. The children will then need to stand tight, some of them hugged, some of them stood in one foot, while some stepped outside the newspaper and was declared extinct.

So I asked them, can you live without the forests? And they answered (screamed, actually), NO! Can you live without the animals? One of them actually said (without me guiding them) No, because in the end it is the humans who will suffer without the animals. It is the humans who will suffer if our habitat is destroyed.

I smiled. At least I got my point there.

Afterwards, we had some experiment. We put some soil on top of a cloth and poured water all over it. We put a bucket below, and then measure it. The next step, we put some soil and put inside trash lying around with the soil and mixed it up with the soil. There is a saying where, “If you don’t get dirty, you won’t learn”. I guess that’s where the kids had fun. Then we poured water all over the soil and trash, and when we measured it, there was less water in the bucket.

So I asked them, why is there less water with trash on the soil? They didn’t gave me a scientific explanation of course, but they just said that the trash will distort the flow of the water. That’s why there are floods because there’s too many trash lying around.

I smiled again.

I asked them one last question, “How many of you still throw their trash not in the trash can?”. A few of them raised their hands. I asked, “Why?”. They answered, “Because I’m too lazy to throw the trash”, “Because there’s not a lot of trash can”, and “Because the trash can is too far away”. Aaah, the classic reasons. But then, I asked, if you knew that trash will cause floods, will you throw trash in inappropriate places again? They answered… noooo…

Back in the classroom, we watched “Horton Hears a Who”. At the end of the movie, I asked a representative of each school to come up and receive a small tree. I told them, Horton tried his best to protect that speck in the clover (you need to watch the movie to understand), and I want all of you to protect these trees. I asked them, “Will you promise to do that?”. They answered, “Yes we will!”.

I know it’s not much, but I sincerely hope they learned a lesson or two. I don’t expect them to do great things, but it’s a simple awareness that will help to protect the earth.

Oh and trust me, kids are better learners than adults. Especially better than politicians.

Algorithm March

The Algorithm March is a children’s dance fad in Japan. I wonder if I’ll be learning that soon… Why, you asked? Well… it’s because I’ll be going to Tokyo tonight! Muahahaha *devil laugh*

So long suckers, I’ll runaway from my hectic life for a while..Muaahahaha *louder devil laugh*

Jakartai

Where is Fauzi Bowo when you need him the most, to tell him straight in the face that he’s doing a crummy job on dealing Jakarta’s traffic? Apparently he wasn’t around when Jakarta went crazy with the traffic on last Wednesday.

It took me an hour from my office in the nearby Pakubuwono area to Senayan, while it usually takes about 10-15 minutes. Even worse, I need to pick up my mom in the airport and it took me an hour later to get to the soon-to-be-drowned Soekarno-Hatta airport. But before that, it took an hour of frustration when my mom’s driver picked me up at the office from my house. So in total, the time to get from my house to the airport was three friggin’ hours. Normally, it only took about one hour - one and a half hour tops.

Some say it’s because Incubus is having a concert, some say because it’s the 40-day commemoration of Soeharto’s death. Although I see no relevance in that, it’s a fact that the traffic in Jakarta is like shit, hence this post’s title.

To be honest I’m getting sick and tired of Jakarta’s traffic, and the governor seems to think that making busway corridors will be the panacea to the already chronic situation of our transportation system.

Here’s the news mister: NOT.

I’m a big fan of public transportation because it’s cheap and it reduces my carbon footprint. But reality check, there’s no decency in Jakarta’s buses and angkot (mini buses). I often inhale toxic pollutants coming from the buses fumes, and the way the drivers steer them, it was surely a ticket to hell, literally. Busway? It’s a good effort but it’s just not enough. The Jakarta train system, also lacks serious attention. You want prove? See this video below:

It’s sad and embarrassing, but it’s the truth people.

If you happen to play Sid Meier’s Civilization game series, a city improvement that helps to reduce pollution caused by the increase of human population is a mass transportation system. In other words, a subway, MRT, or whatever you may call it.

I’ve heard that investors from Japan bailed out on investing Jakarta’s train system because our land structure is not viable for underground trains or subways. Likewise with the monorail system, I guess the Arab investors just don’t want to gamble with their money. That’s why you’ll see strange pillars sticking out and giant holes in the roads of Kuningan or Senayan.

The Jakarta Traffic Directorate issues thousands of new motor vehicles registration every year, and most of them are motorcycles. People need transportation, but since most people can’t afford to buy a car and the public transportation service is unreliable, that’s why buying a motorcycle is the best option. In addition to that, the number of the registered vehicles (and the possibility of unregistered ones) is not balanced with the number of roads in Jakarta. The result is, as predicted, chaos.

If Fauzi Bowo happens to read this blog post, I surely hope that he proves to us that he’s an “expert” like he once campaigned when running for governor. We DESPERATELY need a decent, safe, and reliable mass transportation system.

I hate seeing his face on the poster of “Visit Indonesia 2008″. I truly support the campaign though, please do visit Indonesia because there are a lot of beautiful places here (other than Bali)…but don’t visit Jakarta.