A place where I can live, breathe, talk and see

3 months in Jakarta, still haven't got the perfect rithym and order in my life just yet, but I think things are looking good.

For one, I exercise regularly now. Which is something that I've been wanting to do since a long time ago. And Carrefour is just 150 meter away which is a great thing ^^ and I learn how to cook which will reduce our food expenses, so its a double HOORAY!! And I shop less!! Which is damn AWESOMEE!! Although the temptation of online shopping is very hard to resist..

So overall, my days in Jakarta has been well spent. ^^ But I still think that I need to increase its quality..

Anyway, yesterday I started watching this Korean Drama called Scent of a Woman. It's about a girl who suddenly diagnosed with cancer and only have 6 months to live. And the thought of having only 6 months to live really change her. And I thought of my own life and started thinking, what if I only have 6 months to live?

So here goes my list. Not a very exciting and adventurous list, I'm afraid. But its mine ^^.

1. Read the Koran, the entire 30 chapters, even its only the Indonesian translation.

2. Read the Hadits app I just download.

3. Memorize at least 10 short surahs.

My short surahs collection is VERY small

4. Do some act of kindness at least 3 times a day to other people than my husband. Of course bcs I'm always nice to him ^^

5. Wakaf/ donate a piece of land for mosque or orphanage.

6. Umrah & travel to its surrounding countries

So those are my TOP priorities. I also have a short list of things with less priority, and here it goes :

1. Learn Mandarin.

2. Learn to make an Android App.

3. That's all I can think for now. :)

So you see, a very short and unambitious list. But if I know in advance that I will die in 6 months, those are the things that I MUST do before the day. ^^

So what's the connection between my days in Jakarta and this to do list? Well, nothing. :) I simply want to make full use of my life, be somebody and be a blessing in other people's life.

Have a great weekend people!! ^^

Last week I'm back in Jakarta for a few days, and just realise that life in Jakarta, is an encapsulated life.

An encapsulated life, which put a distance between us and our Mother of Nature. Within these capsules, we're no longer touching the grounds, we're no longer caressing our Mother's womb, because some would consider it dirty. Within these capsules, we're no longer taking a deep breath and inhale the whole essence of life in the air, because, of course, it's highly polluted. Within these capsules, we're no longer touching the waters and drank joyfully from every other stream of water in sight. We can't do that, because, of course, it's contaminated with thousands of dangerous germs and chemicals.

We still can live "deliberately, to face only the essential fact of life" (as Thoreau once said) if you insist. As in, not living within the capsules. But I believe that you wouldn't live a long life. Simple as that.

The encapsulated life in Jakarta can be seen in many ways.

One of these capsules are cars. We were transported around the city within these. To make us move faster, to get us to places. Within these capsules we can create the environment we like. We do not interact with the ground, we do not interact with the air, nor the water, and we live happily inside our capsule. And life is good. For those living within. And for a short while.

Do you know how does it feel to walk alongside those capsules? Have you ever feel the hot air? The carbon dusts?

There's a balance for everything. And for the encapsulated joy that some people feel within, some would have to suffer the residue. The consequences.

And now, we are paying the consequences of capitalism. For the sins of the 1% which controls the 99% of the world.

First of all, I want to thank Allah for making me write again. it's been too long and now I feel very much relieved and.. Honestly it feels so much like home. So relaxing and peaceful. :-D But that's not what I wanted to talk about.

I wanted to talk abt this conversation I had with Andy, while we're discussing a possibility for him to work in Kalimantan. I told him I'd love to go with him, and just find another work there. And he responded, 'So you'll throw away your career in Jakarta?'. And I instantly laughed and said, 'What career? I don't have any career in Jakarta!'.

And here I am, re-playing that conversation in my head and think, damn.. I REALLY don't have any career in Jakarta.. :-P It struck me, because, well, I get paid pretty well, but for my talents, for what I can do, but it doesn't promise me any career advancement, yet. Not in this company I currently work for. So anyway, to get on with my so-called 'career', I need to get out of this useless company I am now and find another place to work.

I know I've been having this pattern since I graduated from university, and it doesn't give me any advantages besides being a real generalist instead of a specialist. And when I told Andy I wanted a career change, he's sort of freaked out.. :-))

Of course I wouldn't actually do that.. I'm not that reckless and naive, no matter how much I wanted to :-D

Maybe I just enjoy the creative world too much..

Anyway, now, honestly, I feel lost. I wanted to go to Singapore; I wanted to find a new job; I wanted to move to another city; my parents wants me to work for PU; I wanted to live peacefully in Jogja and learn how to make batik; I wanted to learn to sculpt, shape, cut, tore, paint, and just create and think with my hands; I wanted to be a successful and rich freelancer; I wanted to be a travel writer; I wanted to open my own store; I wanted to get married and have wonderful babies; I wanted to be a successful career woman but will always have time for family..

I just hope and pray to God that He will guide me to the best path.

:ameen..:

As a middle-low class costumer in a third world country, we're used to be pushed around by capital owners, pressed with low price, so even there's a saying "Costumer is King", we're basically at the mercy of those service providers/capital owners. Lay helpless at their feet, fooled and dragged around like a garbage bag. The government has never done a real thing to protect us, they're too busy doing things that we'll never understand, so we'd just have to protect ourselves. In any way, though most of the time it only seems like a useless effort.

What I experienced most often is in transportation. I don't have a car, and I couldn't afford a chauffeur, so I take that option out. I couldn't drive a motorcycle, not to mention it's a very unstable and unsafe vehicle, so that option goes out too. That leaves us with only the public transportation. Busses, trains, airplanes. They all have one thing in common. WE CAN'T TRUST THEM. It's a bitter and embarrassing truth, but that's our public transportation. We couldn't trust them with PUNCTUALITY, we couldn't trust them with SAFETY, we couldn't trust them with COSTUMER SERVICE. And those 3 are the most important factors of public transportation services. Just have a look around, take a pick, and I'll tell you a story of why we shouldn't trust that vehicle. So in this city we couldn't predict nor plan anything by the minute. We should be used on getting late to appointments, or wasting too much time by coming way too early. But either way, you already waste a great deal of time in your life by sitting unproductively in the vehicle. You don't have any bargaining power what soever. We're supposed to sit tight, wait, and be patient. Forever. This is a very ugly picture of how a city, a megapolitan works. No wonder everything in this city is ruined.

Sample #1, traffic jam.
In Jakarta, everybody are brainwashed, that it's okay to waste 3-6 hours a day just to sit and wait. Can you imagine, it's literally 10-25% of one's life/day. So if you live until 80 years old, you should dedicates 8-20 years of your life just to sit unproductively. What a great number.. Imagine what you can do with that wasted time.


Sample #2, busway.
Busway, or TransJakarta is the most prominent type of public transportation is Jakarta. Another embarrassing fact, that in the 21th century, 60years after Proklamasi Kemerdekaan (Liberty Declaration, that is..) THAT is our best and most advanced solution for traffic jam, which haven't really solved anything. And completed with a poor system of signage and public information, these busses are also hopeless. They're supposed to be the most prominent hemoglobin that runs along the most important veins and arteris of Jakarta, the hemoglobin that supposed to run smoothly so it can keep our body alive and well all the time. But like the hemoglobin of a fat person, it stuck on lumps of fat or God knows what, and it couldn't deliver itself on-time as it supposed to. And we're dead. If you decides to use this mode of transportation with a high hope of finally defeating Jakarta's deadly traffic jam in a very affordable and comfortable fashion, then you're so blindly wrong..

Sample #3, train.
Most inter-city trains that I've ever ride on are late. From 30mins to 3 hours. I don't know how about the KRL (Kereta Rel Listrik). Even a short trip from Bandung to Jakarta is 30mins late on arrival. What if on that fateful day I was foolishly decided to ride on a train to Jakarta and catch a bus to the airport from there? I'd definitely looking stupid by missing a plane, with over an hour late from departure. So.. Again, we must plan ahead, and add another few hour to spend unproductively. And again, we are defeated, fall helplessly at the stinky feet of public transportation business owners.

Sample #4, airport busses.
I've too many experience with these lazy busses so I'd risk on going to the airport by ojek (motorcycle) rather than the lazy bus. They don't seems to have a schedule, so they can park and wait for the bus to be full the whole day if they really have too. From bus station to airport or vice versa, it's the same thing. So customers are nothing. For this lazy busses the customers are like walking ATM, that generates money and have no right to complain, and doesn't even have a time constraint or any sense or urgency. In fact I don't even think they actually know that such word does exist. So it can be delivered whenever they feel like going.

Sample #5, airplanes.
I'm tired with the list so this is going to be the last entry, though I still have a lot of things at the back of my mind. Anyway, this last mode of transportation has been under the spotlight for a while. Since several horrible plane accidents, the government are getting strict about safety requirement. But again, they're victimize the weakest party, which is, as always, the customer. Over 100 ppl are lost on their way to Manado using AdamAir. Countless of ppl are delayed using various airplanes. And the latest experience happened to my parents. After canceling the AdamAir ticket to Surabaya, they finally bought AirAsia for 15.30. But when they showed up in airport, turns out that the 15.30 flight is canceled to 21.00. Yep, 5,5 hours delay. My parents are furious, but there's nothing they can do. So they just bought a new ticket, which is Lion Air, for 17.50 flight. After waited for a while, my parents can relax and just wait for the flight. But guess what happened? The flight was AGAIN delayed to 20.30! So much for a transportation we can rely on and trust. So you see, this 3 popular airlines are unbelievably unprofessional.

And now you're thinking, "What about the others??"

Saturday night, is the night when most people will feel guilty to sleep early. I've no problem with that.

My problem lies in what a few person in my neighborhood did while they stay awake.

In those nights, I felt mostly annoyed by the sounds of an awfully modificated raging machines (done and owned) by Valentino Rossi wannabees. It could simply be recognized by the high decibel sounds and thick fog of pollution.

Resulting in serious hearing deterioration and damaged lungs.

I really can't empathize to what's going on in those ppl's head. Somewhere in a small and remote neuro tissues of their brain, there are probably twists and knots.

Me, as a new citizen of this city, already a victim of the heavy pollution and low hygiene, are starting to loose hope when my boyfriend easily said, "Well, it's Jakarta's new trend, don't you know that..?"

I suddenly felt that my dream of having Jakarta as a clean, non-polluted city has soon fades away.

There's absolutely no hope for a city with citizens who actually thinks that damaged lungs and hearing loss is a cool thing.

I think I’ll never going to stop thinking how sick this city is, and how sick is the people. And I hope I’ll never get used to this sick feeling. To live in a densely populated area of the city, and work in the busiest street in the city. Everyday, I’m inhaling polluted air, bathed in a desperately low quality of water and working in an office full of cockroaches. Thank God I drank only Aqua and sleep in a room that’s.. well.. Hygienic enough for me. Sometimes I really misses the good old days in Bandung, where I can just open the front door, sits at the terrace and watch fireflies dancing around the garden.. It’s so serene and peaceful.

I feel disgustingly polluted.

One afternoon, I went home from office and ride on my daily transportation, which is the 213 bus. As usual, I didn’t get any seat so I had to stand. I pick a place right behind the driver.

Definitely a perfect place to observe actually how mad and stress-proof this driver is.

And I’m not disappointed at all. The bus traveled from Sudirman to Slipi in 75 minutes. 70 minutes to get out of the traffic hell along Sudirman, and only 5 minutes from the end of Sudirman to Slipi. Unfortunately I don’t have the record on it’s travel length, so for you ppl who aren’t familiar with Sudirman or Slipi could actually imagine how utterly twisted that fact is. So, back to the story. The driver carefully (and smoothly) inched his bus at the distant of 5 centimeters away from the bus in front of him. And it’s always like that each time he gets close to another public transportation, besides taxi, of course. And when we reached the end of Sudirman, where there are quite a length of cars lining for a turn, and our great hero just smoothed his way along those cars, right up to the turning point, and easily squeezed his 3m x 8m vehicle into the super tight queue line, and voila! We’re finally free from that traffic hell!

I almost jumped with joy to see how that driver smoothly maneuvered his 3m x 8m vehicle into this very tight queue line, leaving his mark which is a massive solid dark smoke to other people.

And so, what do we learn from this? We learn, that bus drivers, however mad, crazy, irresponsible and twisted they are, they really a twisted professionals.

Pernah ngga ngerasain kekosongan jiwa?
Pernah ngga berada di titik dimana kamu sudah punya segala sesuatu untuk disyukuri tapi tetep aja nggak bahagia..?
Seperti ada bagian dari jiwa kita yang hilang..

Well I have.

Terasa sejak pertama kali pindah ke Jakarta.
I thought it’ll pass, but it gets worse instead. Jeez..
There’s something missing in Jakarta.
The infamous city for its merciless nature; the weird habits and the wannabees ..
Really it’s not a friendly place to live..
And if you really can find your little piece of heaven here then, well, consider yourself lucky.

hell jakarta is a disgusting city..

I'd be tempted to death, and if my manners and sense hadn't beat my twisted mind, I'd still be on the street by now, counting how many spit-marks are there on my way to office.. Disgusting, I know..

There are ZILLIONS of them! (I exaggerate, surely..)

mungkin apa sudah ada riset yang menyatakan seberapa tinggi tingkat kematian warga jakarta karena polusi? Yaaa not necessarily penyebab kematian: POLUSI, sih nggak.. cumaa.. mungkiiiiinnnnnnnnnnn... radang paru2?? tubercolosis?? kanker?? Karena asapnya tuh nggak main2!! weeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.. amit2 dehh..