Individualist v. Socialist or more than that?

It's interesting how a person can evolve based on his surroundings. I still remember my days back in the States where everyone tends to be individualist. It is very common to see a person walking in a shopping place or mall all by himself and I used to do that all the time. That was like 3-4 years ago. Now I have lived in Jakarta for more than 2 years and I feel my individualistic nature is deteriorating. Now I am not that comfortable anymore going to a mall all by myself. It might not be just that my individualistic nature is deteriorating. It might also be a sign that this is the time that I really need a companion. Yeah...it's that time again, the time when a person longs for a companion.

My 26th birthday was like a week ago. I am in a phase when I go to a wedding, everyone seems to have a companion by his or her side. It's gettin harder to find a friend, guy or girl to go with for a wedding because of this. This kind of feeling sort of creeping slowly and gets kind of frustrating. The best temporary cure for this has always been work and work, unfortunately I am taking my annual leave right now and I'm regretting it. I took it at a worst time, around the month of July the students are also havin their vacation, it's very hard to find cheap tickets and I am forced to stay home. Staying home is sort of my achilles heel right now, It gives a chance for sulking phase to creep in again.

The Blue Group

Wow..it's been forever since I filled up this blog. A few things have changed, now I am a trainee. I just got back from a remote area around 2.5 hours from Palembang for about 1 months with another 11 ppl. It was quite an adventure, especially considering the length of time, I was close to having a vision of a beautiful cow...ekkekeke. I am included in Blue Group or Group 1. The guys from previous batch said that group 1 usually are the smartest and most diligent, I dunno bout that but 1 thing for sure, we like to laugh hard and mock each other. I think it would be a fun idea to tell a lil bit about my group members:

1. PT, one of two girls in my group. This gal is so damn funny and bocor, she's pretty naive but also a bit bokep ha ha, great combination. This is the best type of gal to go with in a long stay in a remote area. She is also become very famous to the field people (engineers, pumpers, operators, etc) because of her naivity, lightness and silliness. Loves to come over guy's room and perform dugem (duduk gembira), a ritual where we make fun of each other until 2 am in the mornin.

2. IT, the other gal, this one loves to call and text her bf. We like to call her BCA CEO. Why? because she likes to open branches. Like BCA, she has a lot of branches...that's why she's so busy with her cell....... get it? ;).. apparently the most moderately good lookin amongst the trainee.

3. IV, He's the blackest amongst our group. I like to call him IV Noir, just like a perfume brand. I also called him the Darkie Model (remember before being named Darlie, the toothpaste was named Darkie with a smiling black guy as the model?). He's currently infected with Hep A, wish him well

4. RT, The most medok (thick Javanese accent) in my group, but he's also the fastest learner, his background is Industrial Engr, but seems to grab Oil Industry knowledge very fast. He missed the last week of the adventure due to Yellow Fever.

5. AG, Our Group Leader. The most devoted moslem and the most diligent. Likes to give us "Wejangan", but nobody in our group seems to care, even sometimes we make fun of it. One thing he thought about the most is his "Ummat" (how bout that?). He does not wash his clothes very often (his laundry bill for 4 days was 5000 rups!)

6. HS, Our IT guy. My WE rival. I think he's the most fundamentally sound amongst us in Engineering context...he's the most normal...so not much to talk about hehe

7. AS, The youngest amongst us. He was off a couple of days for his graduation... isnt that great or wat, already workin for a few months before graduation. At first, he's very quiet, but I found the reason why he's quiet, his voice is like a maturing boy (baru akil baligh) hehehe. Loves Rock n Roll, a guitarist...so he's cool

8. ON, The most easy goin guy in our group. He doesnt seem to think too much, maybe except food and sleep ha ha. He always turns on his cellphone alarm (The ring was set up to be Weezer's "Buddy Holly") . It's so annoying because he turned it on so early and he's always the one who woke up last, go figure....maybe I have to listen to that Buddy Holly song about 5 times then he wakes up kekek. He's a crazy eater, quite skinny though, and the most noticable sign that he's hungry is that he put his hand on his stomach and move it round and round....just like the male-lion ahhaha. Still, the coolest guy

9. TD, There r so many stories about this guy. When ppl first see him, they will notice the unproportional size of his butt hahahahha and it seems to trouble him in some cases, especially related to seats. Some people are not really fond of him due to what some ppl perceive as "I'm OK you're not OK" personality. I like to use him as an "insider" because he likes to look for information from some uncommon sources and he likes to tell story about it, but the funny thing is... he likes to tell stories but he's aware he has a tendency to tell it in a very long manner...so he tried to shortened it...and end up with a sentence like "Si Frank blg bahwa gini gini itu gitu2 terus gw blg bla bla bla terus dia setuju deh" ... and I like to respond with "Hey TD, gilaaaa keterangan elo COMPREHENSIVE bgt" kekekke. Don't even mention the story when he did the "Inul drilling move" during a party, he actually drilled so hard that he broke the wooden floor, we like to call that a dry-hole HAHA.

10. AT, One of our Public Relation Officer. Because of his Petro background, he seems to have so many friends at the field... from Halli, from Schlum even SPA or other contractors. He's so good at mingling with common people... I like to accuse him of being the class of '64 because he's very old-looking and loves olddd oldd music like Panbers (huek..), Everly Brothers

11. WW, The other Public Relation Officer, he's the best at mingling with operators, pumpers and basically helped us to integrate easily with the people up there. He's quite good at gaple, that's basically what he does with supervisors, operators etc everyday. I like to accuse him of being the class of '94 because he's also old-looking, but at least he's not a fan of Panbers or Everly Brothers.

Wow..this is such a long entry.........maybe I'll continue later....

Unmemorable Long Weekend

Another week, another very long weekend. Thursday was the Ascension day (if im not mistaken). So, along with this weird Indonesian government policy that states that everytime there's a Harpitnas (hari kejepit nasional alias National Stuck Day hahahahaha) everyone will have the break-together (cuti bersama) on Friday, I had another very long weekend.

Actually there is not much to talk about anyway, on Friday I met CC and DN to play some WE for the first time since forever at DN's place and then I spent the night watching American History X on DVD.

Saturday, at last VN fulfilled her promise to treat me some notorious Blok S steak, unfortunately it was disappointing. Firstly, I ordered the tenderloin steak medium cooked (Indonesians tend to cook all the steak well done which I hate), and yet they still cooked it well done. Secondly, the steak was so small, almost the same size as chicken steak, what's up with the cows here, do they feed em properly ho ho ho. Thirdly, It sure needs a BBQ sauce, they don't have BBQ sauce just chili sauce which for me not really suitable for steaks. Maybe I am so spoiled with the American steaks, and really got out disappointed by the steak, but still, thanks VN for the treat.

The nite after, I also got free meals, this time it's TS' b'day, her family owns a catering company, so a nice meal was to be expected. It was pretty good, especially the supa soup (spellin?). Met a few old fren like KM who apparently just got a quick 1 sec appearance in a commercial and seems to know every single commercial in TV and the ppl in it, I actually told him, "hey, my guess is that now you are a member of commercial star association, if that existed...ha ha"

Sunday? AD came to my place while I was watching a classic movie Dr. Zhivago. David Lean is one heck of a director, this movie still pales in comparison to Lawrence in Arabia though. We were bored and suddenly found out that there's a book bazaar where everything is 50 percent off... so off we went to Depdiknas building. The collection was not that bad at all. I ended up buying 2 Pramoedya's books (Perawan Remaja dalam Cengkeraman Militer and Drama Mangir) and Goethe's Faust... for a grand total of Rp. 40.000, talkin bout a bargain ha ha.

Makin Myself Busy

On Tuesday, while I was workin, AM all of a sudden msg me on Yahoo!, been a bit while... and she told me the news about certain someone who has just got surgery done.... it's not a regular surgery.. a plastic surgery. Wow...ahhaha.... he's the first amongst everyone that I know well that have done that. Yea he's a bit eccentric and it's a bit surprising, but if someone's going to do it...It's him.

Me, AM and SR decided to watch MASKOT at Setiabudi. The movie is about a mascot for a soy sauce company (a rooster, ayam jago). The old mascot died and someone's gotta find the new one. The son of the owner who laid down in the hospital due to heart attack got the not so easy task to find the new mascot. Apparently the "dukun" gave a very vague clue...it has to do with t*tt*es and angels..HAHAHA. A very original idea for an Indonesian movie. I was really tired with the ol themes like ABGs, Horrors and city life with luxury and stuff... this movie definitely the opposite of those, very down to earth and original. While there are so many weakness (lighting, editing, main cast, etc) I still root for this pretty funny movie. Anyway there were only about 8-9 people in the studio, very disappointing, considering a very bad movie like "Apa Artinya Cinta" can be watched by hundreds of people in one showing and caused riots too.

Interestingly enough, the day after was AM's bday, nothin much really to talk about except that We went to Pisa Mahakam to eat some weird Volcano Pizza which looks like Roti Maryam plus the crater..LOL... the first time I saw the waiter holding that pizza I asked him...who the heck order that freaky pizza? apparently it was me..HAHAHA.

On Friday I went to GBB TIM to watch Teater Koma's presentation "Festival Topeng". I got in for free from EN who is the EO of this spectacle. I watched Teater Koma once, a long time agoo, maybe when I was in junior high, I remember it was so funny I cried. This time? It was not as good as it was long time ago, maybe because I got older, but the technical part is pretty good. The other thing was that I was already drained from all my activities that week, so anytime the show got into the slow part, I was half asleep ehehhehe.

Limboism

Last weekend... Limboism. That word kind of sum up part of my weekend. Started out on Friday... while "ngaso"-ing at home after comin back from work, AD asked me to go to Aksara as he was lookin to watch a presentation about FengShui... of course I wasnt interested on the presentation, but it's better than stayin at home i figured. So I went to Aksara, who knows I can find some bargain books (Aksara was havin a huge sale last week) or find some nice rare CD. I had a plan to go out with this girl for Saturday, was expecting that to work out... but she cancelled the plan (she gotta go outta town til next weekend...akh!). As I was getting into Aksara,

I suddenly remember the day when I was with this girl (lets call her AM) havin a good time at Aksara, still remember the spot exactly, she was not in my past as of yet but I was tryin to get over her. She was something special I must say that, but there's just way too many obstacles to have it workin out (religion, her boyfriend hohoho, distance).. I actually started to think about the movie Before Sunset/Sunrise. The Jesse character (Ethan Hawke) actually met Celine (his true love i think) 9 years after that memorable meeting after marrying someone else and Jesse still thought he married the wrong person and still regret it up to that day, I definitely don't want to be like him... and I actually thought that far about this person huhuhu

I tried to read some Seno Gumira's (AM apparently loves this author too) book, and you know what? I could not concentrate at all! kept thinkin about that moment...akh wotdehel..Suddenly I felt miserable and went to Nasgor Breakdance and then went straight home. I tried to call MC who knows all about my relationship with AM and know AM well too... I wasnt able to contact her..so I was in limbo all nite, finally fell asleep 3 AM

On Saturday I was still in limbo, I was even uncharacteristically raging over my satay-padang order that came in slowly. Then I decided to call VM, who didn't know about that relationship, but I really gotta talk to someone to putoff all my rage and limbo...but damn it felt great after talkin about it to someone else.

I then went out to Citos (hahahaha 2nd straight wiken to that place I actually despise kekek) with AD and SL (this girl is pretty hot ahhaha but she has a bule boyfriend) and some SL friend that I dont really know. Interestinly, we stayed there for about 3 hrs, a really good therapy from all of my problems... hehe.

Sunday? Nothing huge..just went to Mangga Dua and Glodok to repair my PS2 controller and buy a bunch of DVDs, here's what I've got:
1. Leon the Professional (been lookin for it for sumtime)
2. Friday Night Lights (A great movie for people who once live in Texas and felt the maniac football atmosphere up there)
3. Monty Phyton's Life of Brian (already watched it, and gotta watch it again :D)
4. American Splendor
5. The Producers (been lookin for this one for sumtime)
6. Doctor Zhivago (I love Lawrence of Arabia, hopefully this one will be as good)
7. Spirited Away
8. Eyes Wide Shut (Me buying a Tom Cruise movie? ahahah, well it's Kubrick's anyway)
9. Good Will Hunting
10. Capote
11. American History X
12. Osama

Pure Nerd
60 % Nerd, 26% Geek, 13% Dork

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored better than half in Nerd, earning you the title of: Pure Nerd.

The times, they are a-changing. It used to be that being exceptionally smart led to being unpopular, which would ultimately lead to picking up all of the traits and tendences associated with the "dork." No-longer. Being smart isn't as socially crippling as it once was, and even more so as you get older: eventually being a Pure Nerd will likely be replaced with the following label: Purely Successful.

Thanks Again! -- THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 64% on nerdiness You scored higher than 29% on geekosity You scored higher than 8% on dork points It's so true in so many levels...hahaha. I AM a Nerd. Hopefully it'll be converted to I AM Successful ekkeke.

Opening the Cards

Last night I went to a BBQ with my friends. I was just comin back from Balikpapan and got the news of the party via SMS on the night of Valentines (not that anyone care about it hahaha). I was assuming it's just gonna be a harmless BBQ party of course. Then I came with TL at about 730ish. Surprisingly, there were a few bottles of vodka and wine up there. Apparently it's not just the BBQ hahaha.

I only tasted a few sips of wine as the place was pretty far from chez moi. As the amount of wine drank accumulated, We started talking dirty stuff...at that instant, I realized, how conservative I am ahhahaha. Everyone suddenly were so open about things that usually pretty taboo to talk about, some of them even went into detail. Yea, Wine really can creep up on u without u even realizing it.

After a few occurences and that fiasco last night, I think that we in the eastern seabord seem to shift our sets of value to the left (more liberal). Meanwhile, those in the West, they actually have a trend on going more conservative each day, especially after the surge of AIDS. The thing that made it tricky is just that in the east, the conservativeness is still apparent but diminishing while living "free sex" is slowly takin over without an obvious publicity. I think it's a dangerous situation as those 2 sets of values might clash one day.

Maybe it's just that I'm mingling with that type of people? haha,...maybe...am I out of place? maybe juga hahaha