July-August Reflection
Hey there… Back again. I think this blog now is the umpteenth time I sort of “revive” my Blog after long months of hiatus.
Let me recall on what I’ve been doing (and having) since last July. Sorry for my incongruent English here, I think it’s due to the fact that I haven’t written a single complete essay for a long, long time, and I know I have to punish myself heavily for that. I can never forgive myself if my English proficiency ever demean, you know, because it would mean that all my hard work and arduous study in Singapore was like nothing. And I hate to even have the slightest thought of that.
July was... Earlier in the month, I attended the Photography Workshop for one full day. It did help me brush up my photography technique a lot (thanks to Mr Santoso, the teacher), as now I know how to focus things. Then, around the midnite of 10 July, came saddening news upon my family. Nin, my maternal grandma, passed away, and at that time it came like a shock upon those of us who had been expecting her to; at least, go for Hajj before her death. I felt very sad for the fact that Nin’s last wish to go for Hajj had not been fulfilled yet. Nonetheless, I know this is a much heavier burden for her own children than for me as a grandson. The only thing I could feel glad about was the fact that I had asked forgiveness to Nin for all the wrongs I have done to her about a month before her death, and I felt very relieved about that. I understand how heavy the burden would be if I hadn’t done so, as there is at least two persons in my family who should be feeling guilty about that. Anyway, I’m not gonna name them here, but anybody in my family would indeed know who am I talking about.
On 13 July, my family moved from our rented, cramped two-storey-house in the much urbanised Tanah Kusir district of South Jakarta to the suburbs of Pamulang. The new house now is more or less like twice bigger than the former, and its spaciousness is the main thing that has made me content with this new (yet still rented) house.
One thing worth noted here, I call both buildings – the one in Tanah Kusir and the other in Pamulang – as “House”, not “Home”, simply due to the fact that both are not permanent buildings which I can reside in. Anyway, I ain’t gonna ponder further into this question about “A Place I Call Home” as it is a matter of an unforeseeable future.
On 21 July, Dad went to Pakistan for his new job as a General Manager in the coastal city of Karachi. The hotel where he works now belongs to a globally-operated hotel chain, giving him the possibility to have a transfer elsewhere should he do things well in this Karachi hotel.
On early August, I bought a new computer with specifications as such:
1. 1 GB RAM
2. Intel Core 2 Duo
3. Win XP
This computer is of course, to replace my old “Win 98 + Pentium 2” computer which was produced before the invention of USB slot (thus preventing me from keeping data. Its floppy disk HD was even spoilt!)
The new computer was manually built, with all the specifications I have asked even to the smallest details. It costed a relatively inexpensive Rp 5.5 M (US$ 600)
Now, anyone who is a tech-maniac would certainly freak out noticing “Win XP” was among the specs and question me, “If you wanted the latest cutting-edge processor like Core 2 Duo, why don’t you just ask for Win Vista? It would’ve no problem at all, you know!”
Yeah, I know that perfectly well.
But I’m kinda traumatised with the experience I had with Vista.
One day, I went to a net café and was delighted to see that the computers had been equipped with the newest OS. This delight soon turned into an utter disappointment: its eye-candy UI was damnedly supplemented with a high-security system, resulting in difficulty in downloading, long-winded process of installing my flash disk, etc. It made me think, “What the hell is Bill Gates thinking?!!”
From that day onwards, I decided that I would never ever have a Win Vista in my comp/laptop should I buy one. Vista’s advantage from its predecessors is only its UI (which I admit I like very much), and this display alone can be obtained by installing a “Vista Transformation Pack” software I found by accident in www.download.com. Now I’ve been enjoying this ‘Vista experience’ all along with my new XP-comp…
Precisely 3 weeks after buying that comp, Mom finally agreed having Indovision, the main TV cable provider in Indonesia, to be installed at our home. The installation took almost no time, and now I could enjoy the numerous channels I’m flicking thru as I’m typing this blog.
