sick cycle carousel

Ta-daaa! Gila uda lama banget ga nge blog. Ini aja gw nge blog gara2 gw lagi baca blog orang, trs tiba2 gw keinget gw punya blog yang ga keurus…

Anyway, looking back to 2009, I thought life has been great. Well, a lot of things should/shouldn’t have been done to make it greater, but at least I learnt a lot from 2009. I learnt that there’s a lot of thing that can be learnt. We can even learn from people that have never had the chance to learn/study in school. In short, life’s been a sick cycle carousel… In a good way, though.

It’s 2010 now.

People have resolutions for new year. I do have a few as well. And they’re challenging ones, though. I hope that I could always be reminded of what my resolutions are throughout the year so that I could implement or achieve them.

Some people say that ideas and implementation are two very distant things.

I hope it won’t be the case for me. I hope I would make my resolutions happen so that at the end of year I could proudly yell on a rooftop say to myself “I did something”.

Btw mau promosi video temen gw di youtube. Gara2 mereka gw jadi suka ni lagu hahah.

Give peas a chance!

The plane flew to my missiles

A Russian plane flew around somewhere. And then the American could fire them with their missiles and say out loud to the world that the plane flew to their missiles. Amazingly enough, the world would believe it somehow.

Look

I stumbled upon this interesting video.

 

 

The video got me thinking, because I’ve always thought the other way round. In my opinion, I think people have a tendency to be biased to a more positive side towards better looking people. Well, maybe it’s just a matter of where you’re standing afterall; it’s the angle. See the pictures below? They’re from the very same picture; I just rotated the picture of frog 90 degrees to the left to make another picture.

 

 

Frog

Horse

  

Angle does play a part, doesn’t it?

The Miniature Earth

 

I think the world is big. You could use some figures here as to why I think the world is big: you are currently living on earth, ’sharing’ it with other 6,787,042,191 people, based on IDB (and the number keeps updating at a scary rate). Nonetheless, I think that the world is not big enough for all the entities that dwell on it, though I do think that mother earth is big. Well, if we are able to make the earth more compact, with only 100 people living on it, this would be the detail:

 

61 asians
12 europeans
8 north americans
5 south americans and the carribeans
13 africans
1 oceania

 

50 women
50 men

 

47 lives in urban area
9 are disabled
33 are christians
18 are muslims
14 are hindus
16 non religious
6 are buddhists
13 practice other religions

 

43 live without basic sanitation
18 live without a proper water source

 

6 people own 59% of the entire wealth of the community
13 are hungry or malnourished
14 can’t read
only 7 are educated at secondary level
only 12 have a computer
only 3 have internet connection

 

1 adult aged 15-49 has HIV/AIDS
the village spend more than US$1.12 trillion on military expenditures
and only us$100 billion on development aid

 

if you keep your food in a refrigerator,
your clothes in a closet,
if you have a bed to sleep in
and a roof over your head,
you are richer than 75% of the entire world population

 

if you have a bank account you’re one of the 30 wealthiest people in the world
18 struggle to live on US$1.00 per day or less
53 struggle to live on US$2.00 per day or less

 

i’d say i’m utterly lucky.

Give it up for diversity

Give it up for diversity! Well, that was what Britain’s Got Talent hosts said on the final. Diversity refers to a dance group whose members come from a various backgrounds and ethnicities. But hey, the line itself has, if you interpret literally, its own not-so-small meaning.

Btw pas nulis postingan kali ini, gw lagi ngantuk abis di kantor, maklum skrg jem 3an, dan entah knapa tiap hari selama gw intern, jem 2-3an gitu pasti teler2 n ngantuk2… So, here goes some videos which I think are good to watch:

 

 

Oh ya, bwt yang penasaran ama dance group Diversity yang menang Britain’s Got Talent 2009, bisa liat video nya di sini. Well, they’re good indeed, tapi favorit gw bukan mereka, melainkan bocah botak si jago nari dari Birmingham ini.

Freebies

Postingan kali ini ga ada hubungan nya ama barang gratisan yang biasa lo dapet kl lo beli sesuatu. Instead, gw mau bicara tentang hal-hal gratis yang bisa dan biasa kita dapetin tanpa kita sadari, yaitu pertemanan, pengalaman hidup, dan hal2 abstrak lainnya. Yang namanya pengalaman, biasanya kita dapet nya gratis, in terms of how much money that we have to spend. Tapi tentu saja, mungkin ada pengorbanan2 lain yang mungkin kita relakan buat mendapat suatu pengalaman, seperti waktu, pikiran, tenaga, de el el. Yah pokoknya in this case, let’s agree on the fact that experience can be picked up cheap, if not free. Often, we take things for granted. As such,  many people do not know what they’ve got till it’s gone.

Sama halnya seperti barang2 yang dijual di supermarket. Misalnya ketika kita beli tusuk gigi, kita dapet gratis piring (loh koq malah lebih mahal gratisan nya?). Kita jadi ga tralu menghargai value dari piring itu. Misalnya sebulan kemudian, piring gratisan itu pecah, correct me if i’m wrong, tapi kita paling cmn bilang ‘gapapa lah, toh gratisan ini…’

If this is the case, I guess we shall support inflation, shan’t we?

Curbside ‘daring’ adventurer: part 1

Woohoo! Finally, the after party for Guitarissimo’s Valentine’s Day (hereinafter referred to as ‘v-day’) event, which marks the end of v-day celebration, was carried out successfully last night. What the hell am I talking about? Okay2 I shall rewind to a few weeks (or months?) before.

Oct 24, 2008   : I volunteered (or rather, I was made volunteered) to become the person-in-charge of organizing v-day celebration. In short, we’re going to sell bouquet of roses. On top of that, we’ll offer song-dedication service (which turns out to be gruesome, but I haven’t realized the danger ahead, yet)

Fast forward to a period of 2 weeks before V-Day…

Jan 28, 2009: Everything seems to be under control, or at least from the way I see it. I’ve got the best quote for all the flowers from the wholesaler, I’ve appointed 2 persons to assist me in organizing v-day: Jet (in charge of guitarists and singers) and Isaac (in charge of flower sales).

Feb 2, 2009: Emailer to the wholeschool are sent out, and we started receiving orders. Not many though, but orders are orders afterall, right?

Feb 8, 2009: Started to realize that we’re being too optimistic: we ordered too many flowers!  Only 85 stalks (out of 430 stalks of roses ordered from the wholesaler) have been ordered.

Feb 9, 2009: Buzzed the wholesaler to see if it’s possible to reduce the ordered quantity. This is what he says (major changes of words and grammar structure, to prevent any confusion that might be caused by singlish-structured sentences): ‘You can’t reduce order, because the roses have been shipped from India! But you can increase if you want’

Oh well…

Feb 12, 2009: SMU Sports Union (SSU) wants to buy 150 stalks of roses from us, to be used for SSU Sports Award Night! It comes as a magical thing to me. Magic does happen, doesn’t it? Moreover, they said that we needn’t wrap the flowers individually (oh yes, other than arranging the bouquet, we need to wrap the single stalks, to make it look nicer, so as not to dissapoint our customers…).

And oh yeah, since I do things at the very last minutes, as always, I only knew that the flower sleeves are not easy to find. And this is where the trouble comes in! In order to find flower wrappers, we’re patrolling around on foot. Patrol route:

SMU –> Bras Basah Complex –> Bugis –> Suntec –> SMU.

Guess what? We found flower sleeves at Suntec finally, but the price was not reasonable, so we decided to use  flower wrappers instead. Thanks to Steve, Zi Hin, Nha Chi, and Wan Ting for the accompaniment! =)

Back to SMU, I phoned Marthin to get his cell phone charger, since my cell phone was of low battery. Met him at SoSS lv 5, and was surprised that there was so many people there. At first I thought that they’re having GAYA (musical production by Indonesians in SMU) rehearsal, so I just grabbed the charger from Marthin and went back to SoB, since I was bloody busy that day. But then, Marthin shouted me to wait, and dragged me back to the crowd. And they started singing Happy Birthday…

Thanks for the surprise, folks! It really cheered me up and lightened things up back then. =)

I rushed to go to settle practices with VOIX from 8.00pm-8.30pm. Back to basement studio, to settle the flower arranging. I was amazed that there are so many people helping me out in anyway they could. A couple of people from VOIX went down to help. Moreover, we’ve got some seniors and even alumnis helping! It was 12.30am when we managed to finish arranging all the flowers into single wrappings and bouquets.

The next two days, Feb 13-14, are another story altogether…

Food for thought

Was just given a ‘mind-tantalizing’ article, and I thought I’d share it with you, folks.

We hardly need to be reminded that we are living in an age of confusion—a lot of us have traded in our beliefs for bitterness and cynicism or for a heavy package of despair, or even a quivering portion of hysteria. Opinions can be picked up cheap in the market place while such commodities as courage and fortitude and faith are in alarmingly short supply.

                                                                                                                                                                       Edward R. Murrow

Well, that’s just a part of it. You can have  the whole chunk here

So dark the con of man

Rasanya skrg gw tau bedanya blogger beneran ama blogger2an. Dan rasanya gw masuk kategori yang ke dua: blogger2an. Knapa? Karna gw lupa bahwa gw punya blog, ampe temen gw nanya “Bur, mana entry baru lu?!” Parah2…

Ngomong2, skrg di tempat kuliah gw, gw lagi libur seminggu. Minggu tenang… Karna minggu depan uda final exam. Serem jg mao final exam, cmn entah knapa kl ky gini, gw malah ngeliat nya jauh ke depan (baca: liburan), hahah! Ngaco2 gw…

Hhh… Mari kita beranjak ke pokok permasalahan. Tiba2 gw jadi teringat SMA gw, dan orang2nya. Dan banyak banget orang2 yang gw uda lose contact. I can only say ‘too bad’… Anyway, dulu di skola gw, kita punya motto “Men for Others”. Gw inget banget ama motto ini, tapi bukan karna motto ini punya kesan yang mendalam terhadap gw, melainkan karna kalimat ini terpatri di tas yang gw bawa ke Singapur, yang tak lain dan tak bukan adalah tas kenang2an Graduation Day skola gw. Alhasil, tiap kali gw mau pake ini tas, pasti kan ga sengaja gw ngeliat tulisan ini, hahah. Ampe skarang, gw masi ga terlalu ngerti apa sih arti sebenernya dari motto ini? Kl gw artikan literally, bunyinya begini: “Menjadi pria untuk orang-orang lain”.

Loh? Jadi ada implikasi laen gini, hahah. Gawat2. Sounds wrong.

Oleh karna itu, janganlah diartikan secara harafiah. Yah sebenernya sih artinya simple aja, cmn ngajak kita supaya menjadi individu yang berguna bwt orang laen. Yet, it is easier said than done. Susah banget jadi orang yang berguna bwt orang laen. Gw sering banget mikir, ketika berhubungan ama orang, gw suka bertanya-tanya ke diri gw apakah gw sebuah pribadi yang value-adding. Dan, setiap kali pula, gw ga tau jawabannya.

Nah, kadang2 ada case dimana kita ga bisa menjadi orang yang berguna untuk dua pihak sekaligus. Bwt si A, mungkin lo adalah orang yang berguna. Tapi bwt si B, mungkin lo adalah orang yang ga berguna, ato bahkan orang yang menyulitkan. Di saat2 ky gini lah biasanya gw bingung. Cmn gw selalu berpendapat bahwa selama lo punya niat dan itikad yang baik, jgn pernah ragu untuk selalu mengulurkan tangan. Temen gw bilang, asal kita punya niat yang baik, lingkungan kita pasti akan selalu welcome. Sayangnya, gw ga setuju. Menurut gw, kadang2 walopun kita punya niat yang baik, sang recipient bisa aja salah menangkap maksud baik kita. Bukan berarti gw menyalahkan sang recipient. Bisa aja, in the process, kita yang menyampaikan niat baik kita dengan cara yang salah. Or, perhaps the situation is the one to be blamed. Or, worse still, niat baik kita kadang berenti di tahap niat semata, ga sampe tahap pelaksanaan.

Tapi semua yang di atas menurut gw baik adanya. Lebih baik kl lo punya niat baik tapi ga sampe tahap pelaksanaan, daripada lo ga punya niat baek tapi malah sampe tahap pelaksanaan. Nah loh? Bukannya itu pura2? You pretend to have good will? Bah, call yourself the pretenders then…

 

p.s. all the best for those who are pretending…

What lies beneath

Sebenernya judul dari posting an ini udah ckup self explanatory by nature, haha. Anyway, posting an ini (juga) udah mao gw post dari jaman kuda, cmn krn ini itu gini gono, jadi baru di post skrg.

Begini ceritanya…

Kan di univ gw, emang compulsory bwt community service. Inti dari community service itu adalah semacem give back to the community, karna dipercaya bahwa community telah melakukan banyak hal yang positif bwt kita. Nah, kita sebagai undergraduate student harus complete the minimal requirement of 80 hours of community service. Tujuan yang mulia bukan? Namun sayang sekali, dari banyak program community service yang ditawarkan, ada beberapa yang mnurut gw aga melenceng dari tujuan utama nya. Contoh: misalnya skola gw ada acara Patron’s Day (ky semacem pringatan pelindung skolah), kan ada smacem bazaar, games, activities. Nah, main committee nya nanti akan merekrut sub-comm bwt ngebantuin acara ini, baik menjadi logistics, helpers, ushers, etc. Dan, anehnya, acara ky gini tuh di grant community service hours. I mean, do you even consider our university as a community that needs our helping hand? Well, there’s nothing bad with it, though, but there’s something better perhaps? It’s just some food for thought anyway.

Yak skarang gantian gw yang melenceng pembicaraan nya. Jadi karna ada scheme ky gini, yah mao ga mao gw jg harus clear community service hours dong? Cmn kl gw pribadi, karna emang wajib, gw milih yang gw bener2 sreg, ga sembarangan semata-mata supaya clear doang. Usut punya usut, selidik punya selidik, pilih punya pilih, akirnya gw memutuskan untuk ikut CARE Teambuilding and Leadership Camp pas summer lalu, sekitar awal Juli ‘08. Tot tet tot tet tot tet! CARE tuh smacem non profit organization yang menjadikan anak2 ‘at risk’  sebagai target mereka. Ada bbrp alesan knapa gw ikt camp ini. Alesan kesatu, karna gw doyan camp. Dari pengalaman gw, yang namanya ikut camp, pasti ada takeaway lesson yang berguna. Alesan kedua, karna yang namanya camp itu stay overnight, jadi tidur nya pun diitung community service. In total, nih camp clears 70 hours at once. Haha. Killing two birds with one stone.. =p Trs role kita kl ikut camp ini adalah sebagai facilitator. Dan fakta ini membuat gw tambah tertarik, karna gw pengen tau gimana rasanya menjadi facilitator.

Facilitator bwt sapa?

Bwt para peserta tentunya, yang terdiri dari anak2 salah satu secondary yang ckup terkenal di Singapur, yang di consider ‘at risk’. Maksud ‘at risk’ disini tuh misalnya anak2 yang bermasalah, misalnya nakal yang kelewatan, males belajar yang keterlaluan, anak2 yang terlalu pasif, ato bahkan anak2 yang nge-drugs. Sekilas, mereka kliatan layaknya anak2 yang normal. But…

Seperti biasa, pas awal2 acara (hari kesatu), semua pada ga niat ikutan activities nya. Hari kedua mendingan, karna kita ngadain semacem amazing race, jadi yah namanya anak2, pasti pengen menang jg dong? Mau ga mau tambah kompak, hehe. Yet, what really amazes me is our 3rd night. Acara puncak nya, yaitu sharing session, dimana tiap peserta, termasuk facilitator, diminta ngeluarin uneg2 yang nge-ganjel selama ini. Dan, gw kaget bkn maen, karna ternyata mereka berani ngeluarin masalah2 yang menurut gw bener2 personal banget. Selama camp, sempet terlintas di pikiran gw: “Apanya yang at-risk ? Mereka cmn segerombolan anak2 SMP yang riang gembira koq…” Tapi abis sharing session, gw bener2 tersentuh banget. Gw ngerasa, kl ternyata emang bener setiap orang punya masalah sendiri. Seringkali kita ga mikir kl orang punya masalah, kita mikir kita doang yang ada masalah. Seringkali orang2 di sekitar kita mood nya berubah, entah jadi diem ato gimana. Dan kita mala mikir “Apaan sih nih orang, tiba2 diem2 ga jelas, ngerusak suasana aja…” We fail to see beyond the surface. Or perhaps, we are not even willing to see beyond the surface? But, what is more is that those kids are even able to sing and dance through their life! Mereka bener2 tegar dan positif. Two thumbs up for Posius (the group that I facilitated).

Po-si-us *clap clap* Positive *clap clap* Us *clap clap* Posius! *thousands of claps*

Well, that was the yell that we’ve decided to make. Guess I’ll miss you guys! I still remember when we made a big circle, singing “My Love” by Westlife. Just to make it clear, I don’t like boybands, but… I was overwhelmed by the feeling of togetherness that we’ve brought up. Thanks to CARE teachers for giving us a one day training to become facilitators and especially for the experience you’ve given us.

Bunch of nice facilitators

All we need is love