11-11-11

What does a day mean to you?

Most people will probably answer that a day may just be another ordinary day. But if the question is "what does 11-11-11 (November 11, 2011) mean to you?", many will say that it's a special day to them.

It's human nature to try to differentiate oneself from others for the sake of creating a self identity. This includes picking a memorable date such as 11-11-11 for a huge event of one's life.

Media reported that on that specific date there had been a significant increase of the number of weddings held and babies born. Somehow I haven't heard any news about someone choose to die or get divorced on that date...

Actually I was not a keen follower of such frenzy. I always think that if we want to consider an event to be important and memorable, then it will speak for itself. However a movie ad saying it will be shown for the first time in the cinema on 11-11-11 caught my attention and I thought, "Hey, I haven't gone to movies for a long time with my husband, so why don't he and I just go?"

Despite the poor review, we went to watch the movie anyway. Here's the memento:



So now, if one asks me "What did you do on 11-11-11?", I will simply say, "I went to the movie with my husband."

Like it's important *grin

A(n) (un)worthy fight

A week has passed yet my mind still lingered on what happened last Friday at Pacific Place, Jakarta. That day there was a sale of BlackBerry Bold 9790 (or fancily called BlackBerry Bellagio) at 50% discount (means the price slashed down to Rp 2.3 million or around USD 255) for the first 1,000 buyers. It's a new series of BlackBerry and the producer had decided to make the first launch in Indonesia (Jakarta) of all places in the world, presumably to honor the country which has contributed to the rise in BlackBerry sales when the smartphone sales in other countries dwindled.

Apparently to many Indonesian people, "new gadget" plus "heavy discount" or "low price" equals to "must have!". What's the evidence? Here they are:


metro.vivanews.com



euligo.com


The event organizer (EO) must have understood this equation well, so they handed out red-colored wrist band to the first 1,000 visitors. What they forgot to anticipate is the mass of people who did not manage to get the wrist band: How to handle these people? How to get rid of them properly?

And chaos was what followed. Having been left without a word to leave the spot because the quota had been reached, a lot, a whole lot of people who did not get the wrist band persisted to stay in vague hope of making into the 1,000 early buyers or that the EO had at least extra stocks of the phone on hand. Many had come since dusk, even spent the night at the location. Therefore when the EO finally announced that they have got the 1,000 buyers and tried to disband the crowd, it was too late.

The tired mass had become easily aggravated, so when some people tried to walk through the queue to reach the front line, the orderly lineup broke out into angry throng. It was almost like a stampede: People pushed their way forward, leaving many stepped over, wounded, fainted, or worst, died.



mobile.solusihp.com


I was not there. I got the account of the story from media and words of mouth. But that's enough to say that it was so sad. Were the efforts, the pain, the victims really worth it? It's only a phone, for God's sake! A phone whose value will deteriorate when a new version comes out. A phone which is not considered the ultimate gadget in the universe one must have.

And it's not like those people did not have a phone already. I'm sure they have had one, or two probably. Were their time, their attitude and manner, and most of all, their life, really worth another phone just for the sake of 50% price cut or the phone brand?

Was it the last drop of water on earth? Was it a livestock one must secure because of its scarcity? No. No. It was not.

On one side, the incident sent a good loud and clear message to producers of gadget and other life style-related goods: Indonesia is a great market where you can sell almost anything at almost any price as long as you can convince people that what you sell can lift their pride and prestige. Be sure to not miss this market.

On the other side, we should remember that in Indonesia too there are still many lineups such as these:

kaskus.us



rimanews.com



Didn't these pictures make you wondering: Where have our humanity and humility gone?

Secret Garden

Was a non believer, now a believer.

I am talking about my recent fancy in the Korean drama "Secret Garden". I used to question why there are so many fans of this drama when the synopsis says:

The drama tells the story of Kim Joo Won (Hyun Bin), a seemingly perfect man who hides an arrogant and eccentric side, and Gil Ra Im (Ha Ji Won), a stunt woman whose beauty and body are the object of envy amongst top actresses. One day they went deep into the mountains and entered a strange house, where a strange grandmother offered them chocolate to eat. The next day they found themselves in the other's body.

Okay, just how strange could that be? But with so many friends of mine recommend the drama, I need to find it for myself to see what it is they like so much about.

And boy, ain't the first episode got me nailed already!

Source: koreanchingu.wordpress.com

Really, the drama was much more than body switching. It's about an attraction between a man and a woman which seems bizarre at the first place: A rich arrogant man falls in love with a poor stunt woman who is way below his social class. He never befriends with women of lower social class, yet the first encounter with this particular woman already disturbs him to the point of him questioning his sanity because never once in his wildest dream to fall in love with some woman who does not have wealthy parents, flashy education, or job with high salary.


What I love about this drama is not only of how good the story plot is, the smart twist at the end of each episode which makes you yearn to watch the next, and how natural the acting that the actors and actresses performed, but also (most importantly) how I can relate myself to the love story of Joo Won and Ra Im.

I was once a person who questioned myself, why I fell for someone who had never been my type: I used to picture a man of the same ethnic group as my future husband, not some Middle East descendant, yet such guy appeared in my life out of nowhere and tried to convince me that he loved me. I dreamed of a life partner who kept his face cleanly shaved, yet this person got bushy beard on his face *sigh






Still, no matter how hard I tried to talk myself that this was not my dream guy, I still fell for him in the end. I must admit, it was his fervent effort to approach me that stole my heart. What Ra Im said in the drama's episode 14 well represents how I felt at the time: "My body turns away, but my heart won't leave."

Unfortunately, my parents took a strong disliking towards him, especially my mom (much similar to what Joo Won experiences). She told me stories about failed marriage of women whose husband was from the particular ethnic group due to the guy's laziness or rough treatment. She also said things like, "Yeah, go love him like you can feed on love", since he did not have a steady job. I could not accept her words, believing that you cannot assume ALL people of the same ethnic background share similar traits. I could not obey her words to abandon him if difference of social strata was the reason (I fortunately come from a better social status than he does). And although he worked as a non-permanent lecturer, it was better than not working at all. At least he showed some effort to land a job although it was a temporary one.

For my stubbornness, my mom turned a cold shoulder to me.

I thought it was only scenes in Indonesian drama (sinetron) in which the mother with bulging eyes yells and speaks harshly to her child to convey her disapproval of her child's choice of husband/wife. No, it turned out that it happened in real life, as that was the case with my mom. She yelled at me, threatened to disregard me as her daughter if I continued to like him. She would not talk to me, treating me as if I had not been in the same room when in fact I was there.

That was the most difficult period to me as I was torn between honoring my mother and standing tall for what I believe. I cried a lot during those days. Songs about two lovers who steadfastly hold on to their love despite utter differences between them would either make me hopeful or put me in tears. Among them, there's a song which precisely illustrate my situation back then. Here are some parts of the song:

If I don't need you then why am I crying on my bed?
...
If I'm not made for you then why does my heart tell me that I am?

Ha, you must know the song already. Yup, it's "If you're not the one" by Daniel Bedingfield. I always cried every time I heard the song. I can still feel the chill vibe from the song lyrics. Thank God I did not watch "Secret Garden" back then (impossible actually, since the drama was produced in 2010 while my "dark" period was 4-9 years ago), or I would weep my heart out until my eyes swelled (you wouldn't want to see me in that condition. It's horror, I'm telling you).

It took me 9 years to finally get the approval from my parents for me to get married with my now-husband. It's an approval to marry only, since my mom still does not want to talk to my husband, thus not really accepting him to be her son in law. Thankfully, she recognizes her grandson (my child) and with that I cannot ask for more. I realize that her rage in the past was only her way to protect her daughter so as not to let her daughter suffer in the future. So if my mom can only go that far to recognize my family, that is enough.

So if you have watched "Secret Garden", by now you will realize how much similar my situation with the love story portrayed in the drama.

In the end, I'd like to conclude that a love union which is struggled to achieve will always be well appreciated (at least I do), and every time the couple look back to their journey, they will cherish all the moments, both the ups and the downs. Just hold strong to what you believe. As long as it does not go against God's order, fight for your love and ask Him to show you the light at the end of the tunnel.

Bonne chance!

F5

Whenever I see pictures of my son, I can't believe it's already more than a year since he was born. Everyday it feels as if it were only yesterday that I carried his fragile body, with my mind constantly filled with worry and fear whether I had done things right when it came to taking care of him or whether I would be able to consistently take good care of him. Having been a perfectionist (not 100%, though) always made me jittery and kept thinking "what if this or that happened."


Thank God things went well, although of course some accidents happen (I still shiver as I recount the many times my son fell off the bed when he was younger). Keeping the habit of positive thinking and a belief that "things happen because they should" have been a major help for me to lead a sane life. Now as my son has grown bigger, I want to start to get back to my old ways of life, and that includes blogging. I feel my brain has gone wasted and my English skill deteriorates so blogging is really a way out for me from growing ever more to be an idiot.

And so let this posting be a fresh new start of my blogging life...