a daydream note..

Mimpi - On an idle night

2008-06-19T19:36:00.003+07:00

Entahlah.
Ini bisu atau ramai yang ditikan hingga berdarah dan mati

Pengecut!
Terlalu takut memilih,
atau hati terbutakan cahaya,
hingga tak lagi bisa bedakan warna
dan melihat dunia?

Entahlah.
Ini bisu atau ramai yang ditikam hingga berdarah dan mati
atau hati tak lagi bersuara?
tenggelam di siang,
lupa pada mimpi mimpi malam

muak sendiri
terlalu takut memilih
atau jiwa tuli, bising siang memekakkan
tak lagi dengar bisik bayu -
hidupmu mau kemana, cah ayu?

Tak terdengar, tak terlihat
Atau tak berani mendengar dan melihat?

Tak terjawab.

Entahlah.

Ini bisu atau ramai yang ditikam hingga berdarah dan mati

Where is my crossroad?

2008-06-19T15:24:00.000+07:00

Catatan pagi di sebuah Rig

2008-05-27T16:45:00.000+07:00

Pagi ini laut seperti menyatu dengan langit. Garis batas horizon seperti tak lagi nyata, melebur dalam satu sapuan kuas biru lembut bercamput putih yang tersipu malu, membaurkan batas antara surga dan dunia. Pagi ini, damai ada dalam sepi yang tak tertemukan tapi diam diam sembunyi ditengah riuh dentam mesin dan teriakan orang yang tak kenal waktu.

Tak seperti fajar sebelumnya, yang menyeruak kuat dengan sinar merah keemasan yang dengan congkaknya berkata : hari sudah pagi! Dan merajut lini agung dari semburat surya yang tak mampu lagi disembunyikan awan..yang mengalah pelan pelan sambil mempersilahkan dian mematut dirinya di permukaan laut dengan sempurna. Dan lautpun memantulkan bayang keemasan yang menyilaukan mata pada riaknya...

Pagi ini, langit hanyalah satu kanopi biru agung tempatku istirah sejenak dari lelah.....

*3rd hand mulu...cape deeeee...kpn gw breakotnya?!?!:(*

Tentang berjalan

2008-05-23T04:22:00.000+07:00

Why do we fall, sir? So that we might better learn to pick ourselves up.
--Alfred Pennyworth, Batman Begins, 2005

Saat seseorang yang berjalan kaki menuju suatu tempat, pasti ada saat dimana jalan yang dilaluinya nggak mulus,becek (ngga ada ojek juga...:D), bumpy, berlubang lubang n nggak gampang dilalui. Ada saatnya juga rintangan rintangan ini kadang membuat kita terpeleset, terperosok, jatuh terus luka.

Masalahnya, ketika luka di kaki saya terlalu sakit buat diajak berjalan, saya sering berpikir untuk berhenti. Tapi lalu saya ingat....akan selalu ada dua pilihan untuk diambil - yang pertama, diam saja, tenggelam dalam luka dan rasa sakit dan berhenti berjalan. Pilihan ini seringkali jadi salah satu pilihan yang paling mudah diambil, karena tidak membutuhkan pertimbangan, keberanian dan guts sama sekali. Pilihan kedua adalah pilihan yang sulit untuk diambil - untuk tetap bertekad meneruskan berjalan walau kaki luka dan sakit. Mengumpulkan atom atom keberanian dan kekuatan untuk tetap menyeret kaki yang luka. Tapi pilihan kedua bukan cuma tentang sok berani, sok tidak merasakan luka dan sok memaksa diri untuk berjalan. Pilihan kedua adalah tentang mempelajari kenapa kita bisa jatuh, memahami sebuah rasa sakit dalam hati kita, apa penyebabnya, dan bagaimana mencegahnya agar tidak terjadi lagi. Belajar soal diri kita sendiri. Belajar berdiri.

Dan yang nggak kalah pentingnya....belajar bahwa kalau kita luka, kita tidak bisa langsung berdiri dan jalan lagi. Kita butuh sejenak waktu untuk duduk menikmati rasa sakit tapi tidak tenggelam di dalamnya. Untuk mengeluh sebentar tapi tidak menyerah karenanya. Untuk mendiamkan luka sebentar, lalu pelan pelan (sambil menahan sedikit sakit...) berdiri dan berjalan lagi. Akan selalu dibutuhkan sedikit waktu (satu milisekonpun...pasti butuh..) untuk bisa bangkit kembali. Tapi itu tak berarti kita berhenti......

*Dedicated to mum and dad..the reason why i'm still strong enough to walk until now*

Marrying an IT guy

2007-06-27T18:48:00.000+07:00

Husband (H): (Go home very late from his office) "Hi sweetie, i'm home , proceed to logged in."
Wife (W): So where's the chocolate I've asked you to bring me?
H: Bad command or filename.
W: But I've asked for it this morning and you said you would bring me one!
H: Errorneous syntax. Abort?
W: Then, how's our plan on buying new TV?
H: Variable not found...
W: OK Then, gimme ur credit card. I'll buy it by myself..
H: Sharing Violation. Access denied...
W: Do you love your stupid computer more than you love me?are you tring to get on my nerves??
H: Too many parameters...
W: My worst mistake would be marrying an idiot like you.
H: Data type mismatch.
W: U're such a useless dork.
H: It's by Default.
W: How about the memory we shared in the past?
H: File in use ... Try later.
W: Then who am I for you??
H: Unknown Virus.

^^ wew. Old DOS command...anyone have jokes with kernel command?^^

One cow, two cows, 5000 cows

2007-06-27T10:41:00.000+07:00

I got this from the indodebaters...lately got nearly no topic in my head to write about..the countdown day to my thesis presentation day really takes all commonsense of mine..that's why i put a humor here, i need to laugh a bit to get the heck butterfly out of my stomach :D

Economic Models explained with cows :

SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you
some milk.

FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you
some milk.

NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one,
milks the other, and then throws the
milk away...

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy
grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

SURREALISM
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take
harmonica lessons

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to
produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to
analyse why the cow has dropped dead.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your
publicly listed company, using letters
of
credit opened by your brother-in-law
at the bank, then execute a
debt/equity swap with an associated
general offer so that you get all
four cows back, with a tax exemption
for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are
transferred via an intermediary to a
Cayman Island Company secretly owned
by the majority shareholder who
sells the rights to all seven cows
back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company
owns eight cows, with an option on
one more.
You sell one cow to buy a new
president of the United States, leaving
you with nine cows.
No balance sheet provided with the
release.
The public then buys your bull.

THE ANDERSEN MODEL
You have two cows.
You shred them.

A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organize a riot, and
block the roads, because you want
three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-
tenth the size of an ordinary cow and
produce twenty times the milk.
You then create a clever cow cartoon
image called 'Cowkimon' and market
it worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for
100 years, eat once a month, and
milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don't know
where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five
cows.
You count them again and learn you
have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you
have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open
another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows. None of them
belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full
employment, and high bovine
productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported
the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb the
**** out of you and invade your
country.
You still have no cows, but at least
now you are part of a Democracy... .

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very
attractive.

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few
beers to celebrate.

INDONESIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.
Both are stolen.

You then sell both.

You then stash the money to a very
obscure non-budgetary account.

You then throw some of the money to
political parties for campaign
funds, but you keep most of it for
yourself.

lalalalla :D

A freak and Bhisma.

2007-06-23T17:32:00.000+07:00

Mahabharata is something that would never be overrated for me. Unfortunately others didn't think so (oh yeah, as if they even know Mahabharata exist.) One of the finest work of literature originated from Religious Hindu epic of India, adapted and modified by ancient Javanese (called "Carangan" ,with Punakawan character, and some other heros such as Gatot Kaca, Wisanggeni, etc ^^, which eventually served as a side story but with significant role to the whole plots), Mahabharata is one of the most complex, intriguing, long story with intricate plots involving all of life's significants aspect - politics, love, power, karma, war, money, etc and full of wisdom and lesson of life itself. It is bigger than merely a war epic. Almost all wayang (shadow leather puppet) shows use one of the piece taken from one of Mahabharata scene. Not only stopped into the so-called traditional way, in late 1960's and 1970's during the booming of Indonesian comic, Mahabharata was one of the most popular story which had its comic verse..but unfortunately it stopped there. My generation generally knows almost nothing about Mahabharata.. Some of us might still recognize that Arjuna's a real Cassanova, Bima is the strongest of the Pandawa Lima, and that's it. (I was even surprised that some people didn't confuse the Pandawa in Mahabharata epic with Pandawa Lima s the album title of one of the famous Indonesian Band). Well, for some reason, my generation doesn't watch wayang anymore, and most of (97%) comic here comes from Japan. We might be more familiar with the summer fest (a.k.a Bon Odori) in Japan more than our very own tradition. (no offense, i am a big anime fans too :P). I see almost zero attachment to our own root, our culture, our own local wisdom. When the topic of 'back to local wisdom' is elevated into the surface lately by some media, i doubt that my genration evemn knows what does it mean and what does it contain..

My very favorite character from Mahabharata epic didn't come from the kingdom of 'hero' side (well, if we try to draw a line between black and white, hero and villain, which actually we can't do in interpreting Mahabharata, since it's not a Hollywood kinda war story of hero vs villain) but came from the kingdom of 'kurawa' (they are the sinister character here), named Bhisma. I've ever written a short one-page story about him as my english class paper..Bhisma is known for his great sacrifice (he sacrifice his throne, his chance to live as a king and marry a girl, and even swore to sacrifice his life, for the sake of his beloved father King Sentanu). This noble sacrifice is t eventually earned him a gift from Gods, the gift of deciding his own death. He was a very sharp minded,loyal politician, a Resi (priest) and strong knight/hero (Ksatria) who loved his country (yeah, since he was there even before Pandawa and Kurawa born) so much and would sacrifice his best for his country.

Talking about Bhisma would costs me more than one post, so let me just wrapped it!The first person at my age I've ever known (besides my Dad) who know about Bhisma is Chris, a friend who turned out to be a young writer of Wayang story, with one of his book entitled "Bhisma". I remember my first conversation with this debater friend , a few years ago. We were heading back from the Jogja Debating Forum session, when we started to run out of topic. Then I asked him a standard question - what kind of book he likes. It turn out to be a 3 hours conversation about Mahabharata and the book he was working on that time, 'Bhisma' .

" Wini, you're one of the very rare freaks I've met in my life.."
" A freak? ME?"
" Yeah..Wonder how people would stared at us if only they know why we spent three hours here AND what we're talking about. In this Hollywood global culture?Oh yeah, we're two freak who's talking about how cool Bhisma is instead of any other populist topic.."
" ..."

Oh yeah..In the realm culture where attachment towards our own root and culture become an anti paradox, we two were a freak aliens who talk about thing that almost none from our age would get..I guess that's a sacrifice I have to make to get at least someone to talk about Mahabharata and its lesson to. And to get closer to Bhisma...

Test (and lil bit glance on UAN#1)

2007-06-23T01:18:00.000+07:00

This post suppose to be a test post...my very first post on the blog. Well, naturally people like to test new thing, to ensure that it works well (at least at the first time we use it) and to ensure its reliability and accountability. The decent test should be held not only once or twice at the beginning, but it should be held regularly as the check and balance mechanism and as evaluation towards this 'thing'. whatever it is.

The word 'test' remind me to the Indonesian education system with its famous cumbersome, full of critic, contradicting and rather immature test (or, exam) mechanism called UAN (Ujian Akhir Nasional ; National Final Examination) or which lately has been changed (name-wise) into UN or National Exam. The only ultimate parameter of graduating from high school, which score the three basic subjects of math, english and bahasa Indonesia in three days test, and neglecting the other subjects and parameters.

This test is considered immature since it is conduct nationally, applying the same national standard without regards to the very diverse and big disparity of educational quality and facility amongst provinces. It is true that this can motivate and urge government, both central and local, and the other stakeholder to improve education qualities and facilities in each region to meet national standard. But it seems as a long run practice, while the government suddenly apply this UAN without any further effort on improving the quality of education and reducing education quality gap among provinces and regions before this UAN was officially held. Imagine the gap between a fancy state high school 8 (which by the way, the very prestigious and well-facilitated high school) in jakarta and a high school in remote area somewhere in papua or kalimantan, or even in a distant village in java, which generally less equipped with facilities and qualified teacher (knock knock mr.ministry of education, remember our problem of lack of qualified teacher and its fair distribution??) and often have no library or the up-to-date book. With this gap, would it be fair to implement the same national standard scoring and test? Well, it would be fair if the government assure the (at least the minimum) standard quality of high school - its teacher, its facilities, etc.

In further implication, the practice of UAN is also full of flaws .but i think cheating (both by student AND the teacher, in many possible slick ways ) can happen in ANY kind of tests. UAN might just put more burden and stress on some people thus it motivates them more (and gives them more incentives) to cheat.

I was a bit shocked when last year i heard that a sister of a friend failed the UAN (which mean she cant graduate from high school) - since she's a national physic olympic participant - and even more shocked to hear that many of the student which got direct merit admission for some prestigious university due to their high school academic excellence also failed this UAN and lost their chance. One of this failed student even got the scholarship to a university in Germany.Hmm..no wonder that after the 2006's UAN, The civil law suit done by students who felt that their right is being immensely violated. This case is eventually granted by the judge of central jakarta state court...Now THAT's a real test for the government.

^^well...so far..this is it for the test post ^^