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as i told u i have very sensitive bowels. i really need to watch what i eat. but been in jakarta i’ve lost my head over the (street) food here. yeah the taste is second to none. yet the hygiene is another question. it’s been three days i am fucked by this diarrhea. my roaming space is limited to only my sis room and the toilet. to add the salt to the injury, the fever also bonks me out. i am totally fucked.
at first, i refused to see the doc despite my sis constant nagging over this. besides, the docs here are lousy. i just don’t trust them. they are shark or crocodile i m telling you. why? this is the story.
last saturday my sis had a very painful headache and stomachache. i took her to the hospital immediately and she was handled by the doc in the emergency room. you know what happened. the doc could not decide what was wrong with my sis. that doc said probably my sis has an infection in her stomach, liver, pancreas, gallbladder and appendix. so he suggested a blood test. because i was short of cash that day we did not do the blood test we just asked for some medication instead. it cost me around IDR. 500.000. my mom upon hearing the doc’s diagnose forced us to do the blood test. so on monday i took the sis to the same hospital to do that bloody costly blood test. guess what the result told us. she has nothing wrong with her. her condition is superb. the only illness she has is fatigue. i repeat, fatigue. see, what kind of doc is that? he can’t even diagnose that simple disease. is it necessary to do a blood test just for fatigue? simply hilarious. in short, i am poorer almost a million rupiah just for fatigue. my sis just laughs at me when i keep cursing that that doc is “tidak tamat sd” (he does not finish elementary school).so, i decide i will never ever see any doc in this city.
but folk for my case, the montezuma is so strong that i have to concede defeat. i just surrendered when my sis dragged me to the nearest puskesmas (centre of public health) which only cost us Rp. 10.000. i believe this doc is really a real doc. her prescription is manjur (it works). now, the fever is a pass but the montezuma stays. yeah food poisoning will not diminish that fast. i have to be super patient. holy god the trip to the loo has been less frequent now. i feel so weak. pondering what kind of jagoan i am to be down with such a leceh-leceh illness? sigh.
been reading the jakarta post this afternoon. my eye caught news on a poll conducted upon islamic studies teachers on the issue of pluralism. the poll showed that most of those teachers reject the idea of indonesia has a non-muslim president. for the complete story read here.
rejecting a non-muslim president, huh? i might sound cynical but to me we need a president not a muslim president.
since our independence we’ve ruled by muslims and they failed to do a real ’something’ to this country if their muslim-ness is to use to asses their performance. the first was great. he proclaimed our independence. but, he was outsmarted by the second. even god was unable to bring this country out of the mess caused by our first president. worse, his fiery and electrifying speeches could not save millions of lives on behalf of the bloody ideological clash in the 60s.
the second was also great, they tell me, he brought prosperity that he was entitled to be addressed as bapak pembangunan (he who develops the nation). he was a hajji which signs his islamic piety i reckon. yet, he was responsible for the death of millions and other millions during his 32 years tenure. he was a thief and so were his entire clan. he robbed the people and made them poor to their wombs. what kind of muslim is that?
the third is a scientist. he was or is a pious muslim as well. but everybody knows being an excellent scientist does not mean being a good leader. people just could not trust him coz he was just the proxy of the second president.
the fourth was ‘real’ great. he was a pluralist. i admire his decision to abolish the draconian law which created the earthly hell for the family of the real/alleged communists of the 60s. he is a great pluralist kyai and of course he is a heavenly learned muslim. but he was a lousy president. his kyai-ness was unable to cure the ailing economy. people were still starving. ironically his progressive thoughts are deemed to be too progressive or high above the thick head of ordinary indonesians. so people kicked him out. yeah we were stupid and are stupid.
the fifth was a lady. well, she has the pedigree of being a leader. she is the daughter of the first. it was ironically funny if i recall gangs of ulamas (islamic scholars) across the country gazetted an edict that a female president is haram (forbidden in islam) but they said it was ok to have a president with a vagina when they learned that the vice president of that the not-so-good-muslim-un-hijabbed-female president was one of them. now you must understand that islam has been highly politicized in my country. she was just an ok president. yup the economy recovered a little bit. but still the presidential gene run in her vein could do no better to sort Indonesia’s myriads of problem. so she lost her post to another male president who was indonesia’s first democratically elected and the sixth president. he is no ordinary president i remind u. he holds a doctorate and was a general, a hajji and supposed to be a good muslim. people used to love him. but he let the mud caused by his minister’s private company drown his people. yeah that’s what happens when the government comprises of too many parties. you’ve got no strong leadership but a compromist at the cost of ordinary people. in my eye, his mortal mistake is his silence over that dreaded porn law. sorry sir, you’ve lost my respect and vote. what kind of muslim is that to condone such a law which is racist, chauvinist to boot, and sexist. good muslims won’t approve such a law i reckon.
folk we need not a muslim president. what we need is a leader who can help us with our problems; a president who can feed us at least three times a day; a president who enable us to send our kids to school; a president who eases us from worrying about the pricey health care system; a president who are learned that freedom of expression is not a sin; a president who is aware about global warming; a president who is not sexist, a president who……in short can lead us to the better not rule us to tatter.
if we have such a person, i will vote for him/her/it no matter if that individual is a drag queen, a homosexual, a lesbian, a ‘heathen’, a punk, a dangdut singer, a crippled, an albino, an atheist,…. you earn my vote though.
Been in Jakarta for five days. I have to concede defeat that I finally am in love with this over-populated city. I used to hate this city for the horrendous traffic jam, for-god-sake inefficient public transportation system, pollution, downtown flood, slump areas, beggars, child beggars, child street musicians, pick pockets, premans (thugs), and exhibitionists. This must be just a remote case: two days ago I was confronted by a male exhibitionist. He was lucky I was too tired to start a brawl so I just ignored him otherwise surely he will have to say good bye to his balls and lick his wounded penis if it is still intact after I aim a high kick at his crotch. I used to swear to God I will never visit this city unlike my contemporaries whose dreams of their lives is to work in Jakarta. Hope God will pretend to forget my swear.
So, why do I fall in love with this city? God Almighty, the food is irresistible. I used to resist to eat in any kind of street stalls since I have a penchan (is it right to use this word?) for ending up in a hospital ward for food poisoning. But the pecel bebek (fried duck served with a superduperdeliciousfirehotspicy sambal or pasta) worth an adventure. The taste of the pecel bebek is so damn good. I told my sister that I will feel reluctant to go back to Malaysia because this city has seduced my tongue which is my pride. Well folks, that’s for dinner. For breakfast, the ketupat served with the amrosial gulai nangka or gulai pakis bewitched me. Talking about snacks, here we have millions words just for names of snacks. I am in love that’s for sure.
Actually I am no strangers those dishes. It’s just because I’ve been away for such a long time. And in Jakarta in its capacity as the capital city, you have the luxury of tasting various dishes from across the archipelago. It is so exciting. It makes you madly in love. Yeah you are right I sound like a diaspora right now. I tend to exoticize my country. But to tell you the truth, during my stay abroad the only thing I miss is the food.
Finally, It feels so good to be home.
I go to pesta blogger 2008
Tomorrow I will be off to Pesta Blogger 2008 in Jakarta. Yay, I am home again. I have to thank my pretty Prof for this. She has made it possible for me to go abroad against all odds (the rule is for a person in my position the uni will never fund us to go to seminars or other academic related functions held abroad).
She has been so nice to me despite my acute procrastinating habit. Hope she is not traumatized in supervising a procrastinator which is me.
So, Jakarta wait for me. It’s been a year since the last time I went there. I hate that city for its ‘macet’ or horrendous traffict jam. If things go smooth, my plane will land at three pm and it is likely I will get trapped in a heavy macet to get to Tebet where I will be staying during my Jakarta visit. But who cares. The most important thing is I can go home. Can’t wait to pamper my tongue with my home country myriads of mouth wateringfingerlickingfeelsgoodpocketfriendlysexytasted dishes. I miss the pengamen (street musicians) whom I never find in my entire stay in Malaysia. But God I hope I will miss the flood (Flood is Jakarta’s infamous yearly disaster and no governor in Jakarta’s modern history has ever succeeded to deal with this problem).
What I am going to do at the Pesta Blogger is essentially to make contact with blogger tanah air (home country’s bloggers) and interview some of them. This part I like it very much. I love talking to people. Yet, I hate it when I have to write a mini academic paper on it. I hate writing (academic paper).
But I will have fun. Hope I meet interesting people over there.
I just finished watching Lady Chatterley the movie and I instantly fall in love with Connie, the lady herself. She has uttered the most beautiful line, which I think more beautiful that myriads of stinky stupidity mouthed by the sanctimonious law makers in Senayan who just can’t hold their penises down on some “porn” or pseudo-religious ustadz who are bothered by the existence of the might-be-lesbian-tomboys.
The line is:
Lord Chatterley: Somebody’s got to be boss of the show…
Lady Chatterley: it seems hateful to me that somebody’s got to be boss and be bossed…
You are right Connie. We are human. we are equal before God. But the skewed interpretation of religion, man made culture, and capital divide us into the faithful and the sinner, the man and the woman, the cultured and the backward, the colonizer and the colonized, the white and the colored, the mainstream and the subaltern, the bourgeoisie and the proletarians. It is never God who creates slavery, colonization, gender inequality, class division, first or second or third or fourth world. It is us, human who make our lives as difficult as it is today.
Lord Chatterley epitomizes the bourgeoisie who has taken by the spell of the ideology that he is born into the class of ruler, the capital holders, the privilege few, the boss of the working class. He symbolizes those who bow down to the status quo. No. He is the one who is benefited by the system. He is everything ‘upper’. He is the faithful husband. He is the man. He is finely cultured. He is white.
Meanwhile, Connie epitomizes struggles. She braces the barrier which a woman might face: class, culture. She leaves her paralyzed, sexually disable, aristocratic, rich husband for a proletarian game keeper whom she loves. Of course, she is white. She will never know how it feels to be a woman of color. Of course she is aristocratic. She knows nothing about about hardship. But she succeeds to obtain what she wants (against all odds).
For me? Can I do a Connie? Can I really do everything I want without hurting those I love and who love me? There are so many walls before me. I am trapped in the anomaly of being subservient to the system and wanting to get rid myself from that suffocating system. Being the first born of the family I need to set a good example for the rest of the children. I have always to be number one. I cannot fail. I cannot make mistake.
I have to be the superego. Then everybody but me will be happy. It’s even difficult to be an ego. People stare at me in disbelief when I tilt a little from the usual me.
For once in a point of my life I want to become the id without feeling I have sinned. I want to run in the nude in the street. I want to make mistake. I want to do everything which is forbidden. I want to sin without feeling I have sinned.
But really CAN I?
questions:
1. how to prove that practicing yoga can make muslims deviate from islam?
2. how to prove that someone has been sexually incited?
3. is there any kind of post mortem or visum et repertum on that?
4. do they really have any case?
i just don’t get it. i am frustrated. i feel like…….why do they have to ban everything? why?
it seems (to me) that the marriage of the indonesian singer/actress bunga citra lestari and a malaysian heartthrob ashraf sinclair impinges a tinge of anxiety into the psyche of malaysian girls. it’s like you know oh god those indonesian bitches are stealing our boys….(the stereotype used to be indonesians stealing money…or kidnapping kids…or…robbing powerless poor malaysians….ah the list is on and on…just read kosmo and you will find something like “indon pecah rumah” or indon curi tanah” which i find them very amusing).
i personally don’t give a heck to this issue. but i am happy for the newly weds and say “selamat menempuh hidup baru”. you know, people regardless their color, nation, and faith meet, fall in and out of love, get married, divorce, reconcile till death do them apart, or kill each other. it’s just natural. a malaysian marries an indonesian supposed to be not a big deal, i surmise. but, considering a love hate,-a benci tapi rindu-, relationship maintained by these two countries, this marriage, i think, may spark a new antagonism between ehm ehm (clear throat) the ladies of the two countries. probably i am exaggerating but i just read in the news portal that tamara blezinsky, another indonesian beauty, is now dating a so and so entrepreneur malaysian datuk (we have a pattern now). if we go back the memory lane, the beautiful dian sastro,the ada apa dengan cinta star, once dated one of too phat’s personnel. and now i am in love head over heels with a malaysian (god must have cursed me since i once arrogantly said that falling in love with a malaysian is the last thing on earth i would want).
yes, this morning when i collected my friend’s certificate to her faculty i was confronted by this issue. i told the setia usaha girls that we indonesian students who study abroad need to send our overseas earned certificates to our ministry of education office in jakarta to get them verified. it’s only after that, we can use the certificates to apply for any civil service jobs. but before sending them to jakarta we need to get them verified first by our embassy in the respective country we are studying. yeah it’s such a long and convoluted process. upon hearing this, she promptly said “oh pelik sangat, kenapa tak cari keje kat sini je atau kawin je dengan orang sini macam bunga citra lestari tu” (oh if things are so complicated regarding your certificates why don’t u just look for jobs here or marrying a malaysian like what bunga citra lestari did)
her first suggestion sounded so sweet. she gave it with a smile. but when it comes to her second suggestion, it did not sound like a suggestion anymore but an exhortation. i saw anguish in her and her colleage’s eyes. of course it prompted me to launch a cheeky laughter. immediately i told them that my mom won’t give her restu (blessing) if i am to marry a foreigner. he must be an indonesian, mom ultimated. so i said, “don’t worry lah kak there will be no another bunga citra lestari marrying your country men, not in my case”. ah, they looked relieved. then i got out of the room bringing with me my friend’s certificate with a very wide and saucy smile promising myself that i will never touch anything about bunga citra lestari when i am talking with any lady over here.
i am serious u know my mom has made it clear in the last lebaran that i can never marry anyone but an indonesian. but that’s not a problem right now. the real “problem” is, we minangkabau girls are culturally trained to express what we think. we are schooled to get what we want. it is us who propose. it is our family which will come to the boy’s home to propose. has someone got my point? what i am trying to say is, if i want a man i will soldier on to get him. i see nothing wrong in admitting first that i like him. if he happens to like me as well, then let’s walk the talk. if he doesn’t, i will cry for a week and then be ready to launch another hunt in the same week. come on, love just like life is like a battle. so, grab chances before you or cry your heart to your grave. probably some quarters think this act is ”too” aggressive for a girl but hey there is nothing wrong with it, is it? the tag line is, ” i get what i want” (now girls you have to worry if i happen to desire your man, hi hi hi hi hi).
but don’t worry ibuk-ibuk, i don’t plan to marry anyone in the near future. not until i complete my Ph.D and earn my professorship and circumnavigate the world and write my first book and….so many ands………then, a man has to be very very very special (to me) to get my attention (in other words, to be hunted and haunted by me). boy, u don’t have to be handsome but make sure you’ve got some brain and guts and of course balls-that’s compulsory.
but if my mom finally succeeds to get me marry someone i will wear something like this:
and this 
and oh….god (help me) this
I know what you are thinking. the female headdress weighs like hell. and i have no idea who this boy and gal are. i just found their picture on the net.
if you want to see the so many versions of attire i will likely to wear during the wedding just watch this video
and yeah, the dominating color is red, red and more red. you are right, we have such a raunchy and sexy culture. agree?
ps. bunga citra lestari has minangkabau blood runs in her vein. now u know what i am trying to say, right?
today, we indonesians celebrate hari pahlawan or the heroes day. on this day, sixty three years ago we indonesians resisted to subdue to the might of the dutch and its allies. we were young and orphan. we just obtained our independence by shedding our red blood but these hollanders assisted by the allied troops headed by the brits wanted to take our new precious possession back. we said no. we lifted the arm. we were ready for merdeka atau mati (independence or death).
this battle was triggered by the death of general mallaby the brit in surabaya on october 30th, 1945. on that day the youth of surabaya led by bung tomo fought the hardest and the most bitter and the bloodiest battle to defend surabaya in a single engagement. sixty three years ago, those colonizer had witnessed the determination of the indonesian people to stick to their freedom. the battle took more than 6000 lives and forced more than 12.000 people to leave their beloved yet war torn city on a single day. despite we lost the war but we made it clear to the brits that they got no business in our country. we gave them lesson that is a republic with and blessed with the full support from the people. we are free people. it’s merdeka atau mati.
happy hari pahlawan..
Begini nih ceritanya kalau lagi kasmaran. PIkiran pasti ke si dia melulu (hush, jangan mikir yang aneh-aneh lho yah. aku cinta lagu ini. cintaaaaaaaaa banget. cinta deh pokoknya
Well folk, now I am so in love with this song. I can’t help living a single day without listening to it. The title of the song is Kisah Cintaku (my love story) orginally performed by Crisye, one of my country’s best vocalist. He was just in his 50s when he died last year. Since his death, the song has been re-arranged twice, first by Peterpan and second by Jever. From the three versions, I love Jever’s the most. Trust me it rocks, Just listen to it.
Then, this one is by Peterpan
and this is by the maestro himself..
so, this is the story…
i went home (what i mean by home is my country, indonesia) for three days. i have to settle down something back home ( u know, being the eldest daughter of the family in a matriarchal society can catapult u into a very very important yet ‘miserable’ position).
to tell u the truth, since those moronic pseudo-moralist law makers in senayan forced to pass the porn bill on october 30th, 2008, i feel like i won’t go back to my country for good. what is the use of going back if your country has stupidly produced such an idiotic and hard to implement law which can easily turn its every citizen into a porn star?
but why porn star? of course. the bill says everything that can incite sexual desire is pornography including voice, conversation and body movement. what about if when i am speaking someone is incited sexually? or when someone is walking i am sexually incited. we are all porn stars then. just be ready for the 12 years jail sentence or $600 thousand fine (where am i going to find this huge amount of money if convicted as a porn star?)
but, on my way back to kl this afternoon i got an inspiration how to deal with the supporters of this dreaded bill. I mean, how to save my ass from this ass licking bill. the inspiration in question is derived from reading a reader letter to tempo magazine elaborating how unsubstantial this bill is (she is a lawyer u know. so, she is equipped with legal terms when explaining her argument). she made a point when she questioned how the authority will measure whether someone is sexually incited or not? how to prove that someone is sexually incited upon seeing, for example, a painting? is there any tool that can tell that someone is sexually aroused? i believe, we in indonesia do not have any ( i think this earth of humankind does not have any either). in other words, there will be no evidence. to say it in another way, there will be no case. therefore, what is the use of this chauvinist and sexist law? null and void….
well folk, now i can sleep well in my tiny room in my modest flat. as long as the moralist scientists have not invented any tool to measure or prove someone’s sexual incitement, there can never be any case. and i can tell those ‘god-fearing’ moralists to kiss a very good bye to the idea of converting me into one of them. they can go to heaven but let me go everywhere. see, i win.
