oooohhh, this is really interesting.

and if you think that the most interesting part stops at the title above, you're right. stop looking at the entry below. i mean it.

oh well. i should've known that you're easily tempted.

ok, here goes:

Four jobs I've had:
1. A clown.
2. A waiter.
3. A tour-guide.
4. A salesman.

Four movies I could watch over and over:
1. Same Time, Next Year.
2. Before Sunset.
3. 84 Charing Cross Road.
4. His Girl Friday.
5. Radio Days.
6. Music Box.
7. Kejarlah Daku Kau Kutangkap.
8. Hiroshima, Mon Armour.
9. Scenes From A Marriage.
(i'm sorry, i can't resist.)

Four places I have lived in:
1. Malang.
2. Solo.
3. Singapore.
4. Jakarta.

Four TV shows I love or loved:
1. Inside The Actor's Studio.
2. Asari-Chan.
3. Losmen.
4. Lenong Rumpi.

Four places I have been on vacation:
1. Bangkok.
2. Bali.
3. Bandung.
4. Bandar Seri Begawan.(don't laugh. ok, you may now.)

Four favorite dishes:
1. Rujak Cingur. (any souls out there care to translate?)
2. Nasi Pecel. (gosh, this is getting difficult!)
3. Gado-gado. (look, "mixed vegetables" won't do any justice!)
4. Chicken Satay. (finally! whew!)

Four websites I visit daily :
1. This.
2. That.
3. My Holy Grail.
4. My Precious.

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Holland V..
2. Fong Seng.
3. Spize.
4. Esplanade Library.

Four bloggers I'm tagging:
1. Dody. (he responds.)
2. Avin. (he replies.)
3. Ite'. (she's a wannabe.)
4. Anoe. (she's a waitress.)

Well, technically she was, but psychologically, she is. Sort of.

And I thank this beautiful blog ... ger for such an inspiring relief to my heavily sedated mental state at the time of posting.

Oh, I see two elephants now.

on walkings.

Around two years ago, back in my comfort zone, I often took a walk on Sunday mornings with my then housemate, Acay. Much to his disagreement that we should jog instead of walk, (in addition to waking up at 6 am on Sunday mornings!), we could not deny that those walks proved to be something of an escape from our daily routines spent at our workplaces, surrounded by static cubicles and robotic tones of behaviors.



It was a perfect escape as we chose the right path to walk. And I don’t bother to put the words “most of the time”, because as far as I can recall, we always walk on the perfect tracks.
Those tracks belong to green grass of open fields lying right in front of us, amidst the breezy winds as whispered by old trees of Portsdown area. Often, there may not be gigantic branches of leaves, but large houses with impossibly spacious yards, where we see ourselves rolling while giggling, recalling the long-gone joyous childhood. Or maybe there were only small houses, and not flats, but they have sunflowers arranged to the nines, and kids across neighborhoods calling and shouting in jovial moods to each other.



Yes, the scenery of natural beauty unlikely found in a country often known for its tedious and boring skyscrapers. A perfect escapade on weekly basis within walking distances. And by now, the vivid greatness has become one perfect memory.



As I decided to bid a temporary goodbye to my comfort zone, and settling in my supposedly-home-country, I have never realized the great impact of the memory. As much as I dismiss the zone, I couldn’t help recalling the fresh air we breathe there, or even barking dogs surrounding me, prompting me to always take cautious moves whenever I see these inhumanely-proclaimed men’s-best-friends. Until now.



And just now, those memories evoked me again, with a different backdrop.
Here I am, in this chaotic city, staying in a walk-up flat right in the heart of the city. What started as simply trying to buy today’s paper, I found myself walking towards a street filled with shops, eating places, traffic jams, bakeries selling breads with jams, video rentals, and air pollution. Yet, I kept walking, and as I looked above, there it was. A few dried branches waiting for rains to drop by.

Hardly any green leaves, hardly any friendly people apart from aggressive drivers, hardly any grass apart from asphalt.



But I’m sure I’ll miss what I’m having now in near future, as much I miss those walks two years ago. When I part with these densed atmosphere, I will long for, miss, and eventually, cherish the moments.

The assurance is, the memory lingers on. I keep on walking.



ps: the images were taken during actual jogs ... eerr ... walks (according to Cay, again! hahahaha!) on those lushful areas.

a cynical place.

In case any of us has been zoned out or transported to another planet for the past century or two, here’s the latest development from the planet earth:

The cities we live in have somewhat become dangerously some cynical places to breathe in.

In case any of us has not been out of our homes in the past few weeks, this is a good time to start enjoying the fresh outdoor air filled with carbon-monoxide-what-have-you. But now, the enjoyment comes with a price.

As I decided to spend the beginning of the week in my other home in a suburban area, I couldn’t help but holding on to my bag tight, and spare the rest of my fingers to “cover” my pocket. Of course, once in a while, I let some of the fingers go to check other “areas”, to make sure that no strangers would dare to grab, touch or even look at. After all, I’m in a public transportation, not a public bathhouse. Well, not even the latter place exists here.



The protection does not stop there. During the journey, one can only wish to have another set of eyes at the back of the head, to make sure that no pickpockets around. Even when they are actually not around (God knows why they’re not working today), we can’t help shaking off the thought that they might be around at any given time.

Thus, when the journey was about to end, when an automated saying of “Thank you” was uttered while we gave out coins and scrampled notes, who wouldn’t freeze to stop when a becak driver said:

“Allow me to excuse myself, bang.”?

There, the moment of awkwardness, which soon only followed with a hesitant look and reply shown with a half-hearted nod. Worse, soon we checked our bags, wallets, purses, phones, to make sure everything is still intact. Everything’s perfectly in place, and he is giving his perfect smile. A very sincere smile.



We smile back for sure, but is it also sincere? Maybe we smirk, not smile, because our minds still go to our belongings. Maybe we smile, not smirk, because inside, we laugh at ourselves for getting so cynical to the extent that we have gone past a common decency to be polite. As simple as that.

What’s not simple is, obviously, to change. And I am not in any way to judge, nor to ask any of us to change. Anyone who’s seen me in real life will perfectly be aware of my irritated and annoyed look, which somehow has become my permanent fixture, unknowingly.
See? The result of being cynical is this barrier to prevent us from being liked at. Or at least, being the one to be looked at the second time around.

Alas, the options are the options. They are there to choose.

But pardon me for being cynical again, what’s the point of choosing? It’s life, enjoy it!



Oh. Really?

morning!

What’s your definition of “a morning person”?

Or what comes to your mind when you hear something like “a morning person”?

My friends used to call me as “a morning person”, because I liked setting up breakfast meetings with them. “Let’s meet over breakfast at Holland Village”, and I wouldn’t settle for anyone coming above 11 am. Why? Because at most eating places, the breakfast hour would finish by then. And as Aki, my friend, said, “There’s no better place to have breakfast than Coffee Bean. Free flow of coffee and tea until 11 am!”.



Exactly. For a long time, coffee has been associated as an accompaniment of morning, or everything morning-related. We come to our workplaces in the morning, and guess what’s the most popular destination after gents/ladies? It’s none other than pantry. I remember when I worked in an office before, just right after I put my bag on my cubicle and logged my phone and computer in, immediately I rushed down to pantry and made myself my favorite breakfast: a cup of cereal, with a dash of coffee on it. Sounds, well, I wouldn’t put delicious as the correct term for it, but let’s just say it’s more than fulfilling.

In fact, I begin to wonder from my experience above. Did I become “a morning person” because in any way, I would have to wake up in the morning to rush off to work? Five days a week, we drag our bodies from bed to shower, and we take whatever shirts and pants available from the rack, and still half-asleep, we walk down the road, hurriedly catch a bus or a cab.

The latter proves to be more expensive than the former of course, and is it that expensive to become “a morning person”?

Well, in a way, maybe. In another way, it’s not necessarily so.



Whereas the weekdays prove to be like a guirella-training, the weekends prove otherwise. Sunday morning, we do our laundries, we have that breakfast-with-friends sessions, we grab newspapers, circling sale offerings or available apartments, and suddenly the days look bright ahead. Saturday morning, we take a long walk down to a complex of beautiful houses or settling for a park, another breakfast-with-friends, or your jogging partner, storm off to wet markets for worth-bargaining grocery items, cleaning up your pads, and the rest of the day will be a good day for you to catch up with the latest films in town.

Believe me, I had those. Once, I felt in contentment having all of what I just wrote.

But can one stop being “a morning person”?

Hardly.

Even the luxuries are gone, there can’t be any ways to resist the temptation of looking at yourself in the mirror at not more than 8 am, and freaking out to see your pimples are getting bigger. The first splash of water in your face that morning, the first pour of water in the kettle to boil some hot water, and of course, the first tune you hear in the morning.



So, here I am, penning down my thoughts and my wish to always become “a morning person”, right next to my first cup of coffee, my first piece of writing, and my first song heard today: Carnival by The Cardigans.

How can you say “no” to that?

Now wake up, you are “a morning person”.

Look Both Ways.

By now, we might already be familiar with many inventive ways to make a film compelling to watch, or for those living in a fast-lane, just to look at. One way to make the film interesting is by incorporating other kind of art into the story, or at least briefly touching it, and it is guaranteed to make our eyes rolled in disbelief.

Think of Frida, a superb example of paintings coming alive, depicting the plots of the story. In an almost similar way, Sarah Watt applies the same concept to her directorial outing, Look Both Ways, here. Although it is not necessarily revealing the plot, the paintings coming to live work well in representing one of the main characters’ inflicted mind.



As such, at any given moment and chances, we might be tempted to deviate our attention to the paintings, rather than the story. Yet, Watt superbly crafts her film, in a way that we couldn’t help ourselves feeling the characters’ aching for affection and their unspoken yearning for comfort. In a story consisting of three strong plots, brought together by one trigger of an incident, Watt intertwines her characters with tender treatments that by the time the end credit rolls, we will look at the big screen and thinking, that we see ourselves in them.

That’s simply a result of a good story.

a miraculous relief.

just when we thought that we had to surrender our friends, our lovers, our parents, our brothers, our sisters, being succumbed to a mindless game of twenty-two guys chasing one balls and throw it away.

just when we thought that the loud of cheers and jeers from overcrowded cafes start irking us most.

just when we thought we had it all.

here's something to consider:

a cab driver did not have any idea how the match of england vs. portugal went on.

in other words, and as proven with a glee on his face, he did not follow that particular football event i didn't even bother to mention the name!

thank you so much. you made my lonely day and night altogether. thank you.

ps: in case you read this and wondered why i didn't give you a big tip, well, didn't you see how the traffic was like?!