Women: A chemical analysis

A tongue-in cheek e-mail

Element: Woman
Symbol: Wo
Discoverer: Adam
Atomic mass: Accepted as 53.6 kg but can range from 40kg-200kg
Occurrence: Copious quantities in all urban areas
Physical properties:

• Boils at nothing, freezes with no known reason
• Bitter if incorrectly used
• Found in various states, ranging from virgin metal to common ore

Chemical properties:

• Absorbs great quantities of expensive substances
• May explode without warning
• Most powerful money-reducing agent known to man

Common uses:

• Highly ornamental
• Can be great aid to relaxation

Potential hazards:

• Illegal to possess more than one
• Highly dangerous, even in experienced hands

General advice:

• Avoid contact wherever possible as cures can be expensive!

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Only found in Indonesia: Food stalls located beside garbage dumps

One of the main oddities of Indonesia (or perhaps in some other developing countries too) is that we have the street side food stalls (commonly called Warteg or Warnas) located just beside garbage dumps.

You don’t need to look far, just have a look at our biggest city here, Jakarta. My apologies for no pictures everyone…but perhaps any of you would like to upload one? I’d appreciate it, and would link to your picture (or blog, if you happen to have one).

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When Japanese film actors speak fluent English

I find it odd (and annoying too) for Japanese film actors to speak fluent and coherent English when playing Japanese roles in Western movies. For example, in The Last Samurai or Silk, those Japanese roles speak English fluidly despite the fact that a coherent English is something you would rarely heard from a Japanese’ mouth, even by today’s standards.

Suppose that it’s for the world audience’s understanding. Then why did not the Western actors speak Japanese instead, and putting subtitle in order to be understood?

By speaking English, those historical Japanese (albeit Hollywood-made) movies had lost their real nuance. They gave in what was supposed to be originality for the sake of audience comprehension.

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When things get tough...

When things get tough and it seems like there's no longer happiness in limiting communication thru internet means, keep in mind always that Mandela was only allowed one letter every six months.

Which means only four letters in two years. At least we're still having things much better than he had.

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Indo-lyric: Teruskanlah (Agnes Monica)

English translation:

Go on

Have you ever spoken
yet not listened to
not deemed
at all

Have you ever been unguilty
yet are blamed
not given
any chance

Reff:
Whom am I living with
you don't know whom
you're my lover but
you're a stranger to me

only occupied with yourself
just living with your world
go on.. go on..
be like that

You don't know me
I'm a statue to you
love is not
your need

back to Reff

Original lyric in Indonesian:

Pernahkah kau bicara
Tapi tak didengar
Tak dianggap
Sama sekali

Pernahkan kau tak salah
Tapi disalahkan
Tak diberi
Kesempatan

Reff :
Kuhidup dengan siapa
Ku tak tau kau siapa
Kau kekasihku tapi
Orang lain bagiku

Kau dengan dirimu saja
Kau dengan duniamu saja
Teruskan lah.. Teruskan lah
Kau begitu

Kau tak butuh diriku
Aku patung bagimu
Cinta bukan
Kebutuhanmu

kembali ke Reff

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My Mind

by Nadine Kamarwan

You enter a maze and you're instantly lost
A puzzle that can never be solved
Where fantasy and reality mix
Call it "something not broken, that still can be fixed"

With screws, coils and all the gears
A being that grows bigger with years
Something filled to the brim, yet still so vast
With plans for the future and dreams of the past

The worries of the present, wild and untamed
Carefree happiness with rage inflamed
Total chaos with a sense of order
Freakishly insane from border to border

From softened stories to cold, hard truths
Like the filled-up shelves of an empty booth
Like the most common thing you could ever see
To the weirdest things that something could be

Sarcasm, irony, wit and charm
Dangerous but they do no harm
The most peculiar thing you could ever find
That is how I describe my mind

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Stance on premarital sex repositioned

It may seem kinda blatant for me, a 19-year-old who had lived most of his life in a largely conservative country called Indonesia, to be frank about my views on sex.

But what the hell.

I used to put a big No-no for premarital sex, but as Rob had once told me that I’d change, I think I have to reposition myself on this stance.

No, I no longer think of premarital sex as a taboo. But I only think that it’s only appropriate when done between two consenting adults when they are mentally and financially ready.

C’est tout.

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How to smuggle food pass the airport check without having to pay duties

A family member of mine (I couldn’t tell here who it was, and for the sake of anonymity, let’s call him H) once smuggled a lot of food when he entered USA without having to pay a single pence for duties.

How did it pass the X-ray?

He told me how.

It may be a classic trick to some, but to me it seems kinda smart so I’ve decided to share it here anyway.

“What do you bring? Could you open your suitcase, Sir?” asked the immigration officer.

“Sure. No problem” H answered, unzipping the suitcase for the officer.

A stench smell reeked.

“Ugh..Yuck! What the hell is that?”

H answered nonchalantly, “Dirty laundry…I haven’t got the chance to wash them for a week”

“Now that’s disgusting. Go, close that suitcase back!” he seemed annoyed with all that smell.

In the X-ray, the food and clothes lumped together without any clear distinction between each, so it was indeed credulous enough for H with his ingenious trick.

On the bottom of the suitcase, he packed all those food stuff into one, and on the top of them, he stuffed a lot of dirty clothes.

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Neighbour drink spilling accident

I was reminded of one accident that made me forever careful when borrowing a friend's stuff. It was 1996 in Richmond, Virginia (yes, 13 years ago).

That time a friend lent me his storybook about dinosaur. I couldn't recall whether it was a storybook or an educational one, but one thing for sure was that an interest in reading had largely been cultivated by Mom since I was small.

This neighbour of mine was initially reluctant to lend me the item, but in the end he gave it anyway (much to the coaxing of her Mom).

Then it happened.

I accidentally bumped into a jar and spilled orange juice into that book, which instantly soaked it wet. Mom and I who witnessed that incident quickly paid more attention into the book than the spilled jar.

Unfortunately, what had happened had happened.

So there I was, back at my neighbour's house, with Mom on my side giving me full encouragement so that I myself could make the formal apology. They didn't show any sign of anger, but this friend of mine surely did show a sign of remorse...why had he chosen to lend an untrustworthy friend an important item anyway?

It didn't shatter our friendship though.

Several weeks later, he bought a handheld gaming device (I couldn't recall what it was called, since those are the days before the Gameboy-era).

To my surprise, he didn't show any reluctance when he offered to lend me his device.

But unfortunately, it was her Mom who had lost trust in me.

She came over to my apartment, and politely demanded back the device to me and my Mom. It was all done in good manners of course, since my Mom and his had a quite cordial relation.

I was disappointed. A lot.

But truth be told, it was a lesson to be learned. If someone had lost trust in you because of your own fault, you only have yourself to be blamed.

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Indo-lyric: Status palsu (Vidi Aldiano)

English translation:

Fake status

Half of my heart is with you
and I continue with this love
trying to be your lover
I tricked you
I told you I love you
but that's the best I've given
you're not a choice
bcoz there isn't any passion for you

Reff:
I feel forced to love you
just for a fake status
half-heartedly I get involved with this love
bcoz I don't like you
I give you my love
though not as pure as my heart

I hope you'll never know
my love for you
is merely on the lips
the heart has not in the least spoken
I hope all this time
you don't know that actually
I'm not in love

back to Reff

if only I could be the kind of man
you've always wanted

Original lyric in Indonesian:

Separuh hati denganmu
Kujalani cintaku
Berusaha tuk jadi kekasih
Aku menipu dirimu
Ku bilang cinta padamu
Tapi dariku itu yang terbaik
Kau bukan pilihan
Karena ku tak sedikitpun Hasratku padamu

Reff :
Terpaksa aku mencintai dirimu
Hanya untuk status palsu
Setengah hati kujalani cinta
Karena aku tak suka denganmu
Kuberikan cintaku
Meski tak stulus hatiku

Kuharapkan engkau tak pernah tau
Rasa cintaku padamu
Hanya dibibir saja
Tak sedikitpun hati bicara
Semoga selama ini
Kau tak tau bahwa sesungguhnya
Aku tak mencinta

kembali ke Reff

Jika aku bisa menjadi lelaki pujaan
Yang selalu engkau impikan

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Do you know that positive thinking can actually make you feel worse?

Good news for pessimists. You haven’t been living the wrong thing all along.

Repeating positive statements to yourself doesn’t appear to help people with low self-esteem, according to a new study. Researchers asked students to repeat statements like “I am a lovable person” to themselves, then measured their mood. Those with low self-esteem typically wound up feeling worse, the Washington Post reports.

The results fly in the face of self-help orthodoxy. “From at least as far back as Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking, the media have advocated saying favorable things to oneself,” the researchers wrote. “At this moment thousands of people across North America are probably silently repeating positive statements to themselves.”

Apparently true, at least in my own case.

Keep repeating the phrase “I am having a good fortune!” over and over again while the fact remains that you have just been fired, now broke, and having three children to send to school does not necessarily heighten your self-esteem… On the contrary, you worsen it.

(because such paradoxical phrases makes you realise how UNLUCKY you actually are).

If you still don’t get it, try watching the paradox of positive-thinking in Yes-Man movie.

Ah, and the above “fired and broke” thingy doesn’t have anything to do with my own life… I was just citing an example.

Albeit a very similar one.

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New World

by Winnie Aisha Y.

SMP Labschool Kebayoran

This is the gate to the new world
The sky is crimson red,
It is burning with forty degrees of humanity
This is the scene when
A servant separates from its master.

There, white tents are built.
Famine, plague and wars have become our today
This is the new world you insist it to be.

And there were days when you?
The leaders, the nobleman, the educated and the rich
Had gathered and dressed
With masks and multicoloured eyes
Laughing and dancing around a starving boy
Who awaited his death at a vulture's beak.

Is this the new world you had described?
I only see refugees in their homeland
Falling skyscrapers and starless sky behind a midnight curtain
Where could you be?
Did you fall into the space between the earth and its death?

While, on this wounded earth, from far away
I can hear the rattle of guns and rifles.

We are all brothers
Waging war on humanity.

This is the broken gate of the new world.

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