Kulam Ikan Tetangga

Which is first? Chicken or egg? Which is first? Music or dance? My friend's daughter, hardly two years old, reacted to all kind of music by starting to dance. The movements aren't complex, she just started to move, bending her knees and swinging her arms. Sometimes, when the adults reacted to her by clapping hands, she would imitate the hand clapping. She reacted to all kind of music indiscriminately. Drillbot bottom shaking moving... uhyeah! :D Last month, during another friends' wedding party, the little girl couldn't resist the charm of the live dangdut wedding singers and didn't stop dancing for ages. Her parents whose music taste barely include dangdut were a bit mortified. But, who could resist the age old drive to move your body to the rhythm? Which is first? Names or Sound? Which is first? Language or Music? A discussion turned into the subject of language one night, particularly about onomatopoeia, the formation of a word from a sound associated wit...

oh.my.GOD PMS is looming! Since adzan Maghrib I had been eating nearly incessantly like a pig. All carbs. I ate four times the whole night. Four times big meals! And once a snack. Oh I am so full right now I can't move. I feel like a ... a very full boa constrictor lying contented after swallowing down a whole water buffalo. Nah. Although I am tempted to google an image to show you what it looks like, I won't do it :D Google it yourself ! :D Food. I think I promised to write about it. J loves good food, and he can cook good food, particularly the good food he loves. This is sensible. Her Majesty Queen of My Universe said this when she taught me the basic cooking skills: "Nak, at the very least you have to know how to cook the food you like to eat." And you can't get anymore sensible than that. The thing is, I like to eat junk. So everything I cook has the tendency to lean to that direction. J doesn't eat junk. What he does is smoking, and eat good food. So...

Did you have a bad day? Sorry to tell you, everybody has one. But my day was great. And I won't apologize for that :) But, I do feel sorry for you. Not like I care. You didn't want any, anyways. Well, Actually, I don't have any idea what to write right now. Since trying to describe the thing that baffled me today is verging to pointless. HAHAHA. Today after 6, Nyi Geni Sambernyowo , Nyi Jaran Poni and Nyi Sumbermengo, decided to celebrate their pay day by going to this cafe at the North for coffee and cakes. They invited me to join them. We went here, Parsley Bakery in Jalan Kaliurang The place was small and cozy, and we sat right in front the home band of three playing, live music by request. Right next to these musicians is a white screen with Travel and Living projected at it. We had coffee, and tea, and a cup of hot chocolate, and cakes, while watching Bobby Chinn does his thing, and completely ignored the home band. HAHA. We didn't clap our hands to show o...

The first thing I did when I woke up at 8 am this morning was getting a glass of cold coke from the fridge and finish it. Hahah! No fasting today. This poster promotes that any girl who drink this soda beverage would look this awesome. Even the puppy has that dreamy grin on its face . I hadn't feel too fantastic throughout the day so house chores were done sparsely.The only highlight of the day was me discovering the wonder of human made technology inside a 500 rupiah plastic sachet. EUREKAAA!!! I am the kind of person that let her laundry piled up into a mountain, for not wanting to waste detergent suds and buckets of water just to wash three pieces of clothes everyday. Also, I don't really like doing laundry. I think washing machines are awesome and whoever invented them must be promoted and canonized into sainthood, or at least be given a Nobel prize . Seriously. The last week I had noticed that the small hill in the back porch that is my laundry pile was reaching a re...

Started the day averagely at 10.30 today. I changed my alarm set up from the unrealistic 5.30 to the realistic 8 am, but the result was still disappointing heh heh heh. The fact that I slept around 3 am didn't help much. I have to learn to sleep early. Unlike the days before, I didn't stop after finishing house chores and gave in to an hour nap after 3 pm. Instead, I showered and went out to the nearest public library to sip the wifi connection. AHAHAHA. After weeks of limited connection, it felt liberating to have a proper internet session. :D There were so many to catch up with, I didn't know where to start, and ended up updating photos for my online social network and downloaded several chapters of audiobook for Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. I so need an iPod now, to listen to Jane Austen's work being read at any given time and place, I tell you! >:] Miss Austen is making a lot of sense J had to run errands here and there so he couldn't come...

When I was still in University, usually I spent the last half of Ramadan at my parent's house. One time, before I returned to Surabaya, my friends and I had a farewell dinner in one of the junkfood restaurant, and the restaurant offered Powerpuff Girls drinking bottle as a bonus when buying certain meal package. I was still crazy about the Powerpuff Girls, so we bought the meal package, and I brought home the Buttercup water bottle. Buttercup, often mistaken as the middle child when she's actually the youngest :) Each morning after sahur, while waiting for imsak, I would fill the Buttercup bottle full with water and finished it empty. That's about a liter of water, each morning. I knew I would immediately peed like 80% off it within three hours or so, but gulping down a liter of water kind of gave me confidence to face the fasting during the day. Ha ha ha. Well, afterall, Surabaya is famous for its hot weather. A couple of years later my Mom noted how we had to replace t...

Now I remember why I don't really like sahur at 3-4 am. Am too lazy to chew. Had nasi padang too early at 11 pm, the bread toast was shared between me and J. I was still up until half past three this morning, and there are still left over of the toast, so I finished it off. It was just one slice, but it took like five minutes for me to chew and swallow. Tonight I would probably had my sahur as late as 2 am. Later than that I would be too lazy to eat anything. Yeah, it doesn't sound right does it? Me, lazy to eat anything. Haha. I woke up at ten this morning. This is quite early by average. I did the house chores while updating news through plurknation. Internet connection is as slow as ever. And it's a hot hot day. So hot and dry, I resorted to the wonder of olive oil for my parched parched skin. I skipped my hair because I planned to chop it off today. Since I planned to write something about batik, after house chores I kept myself awake for another two hours or so, e-...

Second day of fasting, I didn't eat anything other than the fried duck J bought me. Had it with rice and killer sambal at 10 pm. I fell asleep at about 3 am after trying to finish some work on text and writing a review about Channing Tatum's hot ass . So, because it's Sunday, and to preserve energy, I slept until around 12.30. Only woke up to go to the bathroom, turned some music on, and turning the modem on. Connection was slow as usual so while loading pages I fell asleep again, and was awake briefly to check if the pages loaded properly, if not I had to reload the page and... fell asleep again. Yes, life is good. J bought fruit soup again :) but from different hawker because it had smaller fruit chops with pinkish syrup and more ice cubes. Last night, on his advice, I marinated a piece of chicken fillet with salt and black pepper, which rebelliously I added two more ingredients in accordance to my own imagination: thyme and some olive oil. The chicken fillet was supp...

Me : I'm waiting for J, he's coming to take me out and watch movie. Cherie : What are you going to see? Me : GI Joe Cherie : Ooh, Channing Tatum's ass is *HOT* Me : :)) Me : Oh, gotta go, J's here. Talk you later, Cher! Cherie : Bye bye And so we went to see GI Joe. We left the house at half past eight and the show started at 9 so I wasn't sure we were going to get any ticket. Among the films that were showing in Premiere XXI were the local war film Merah Putih, the horror flick Orphan, the animation UP, and District 9. It was relatively quiet compared the movie blockbuster time in the last couple of months, but I am always the one with pessimistic mind heheh. So my escape plan was, if we didn't get the ticket to GI Joe, let's see District 9. But at 20:48 we did get the ticket for GI Joe, so we went and bought a bag full of chips, a bottle of apple juice for him and a bottle of mineral water for me, in we went into the theatre and sat at the right hand top ...

The first day of the Ramadhan. I just realize recently how very little I remember about the year I spent living and working in Jakarta. I remember some events where I went out with my friends, and some times regarding work and the office, and also the weekend travels I often made to Yogyakarta for the sake of romance, but not much in between. This memory loss includes the Ramadhan I spent last year in Jakarta. Apparently at the first two or three days of it I still made posts and then stopped, for I don't know why. Haha. The Ramadhan before that was spent in Yogyakarta. Last night J took me out to see GI Joe. :) Verrry nice film. heheh. We got the tickets for the 21.00 show. My friend warned me about Channing Tatum's ass, and yes I must admit it's a fine ass. Marlon Wayans is very funny. And the Korean actor playing White Storm is so cool he burns. The film was pleasant and I could go on rambling about it, but I will save it for a film review. Ahaha. Ai lai lai kutang b...

Perhatian! Foto di atas bukanlah foto band emo Semenjak hari Minggu tanggal 9 Agustus kemarin omJ pergi, sebagai satu dari ratusan (mungkin bahkan ribuan) orang yang berbondong-bondong ke tanah suci Fort Canning Park, untuk menunaikan ibadah wajib kaum industrial pada tanggal 10 Agustus 2009, konser Wave Goodbye-nya Nine Inch Nail . Untuk keperluan ini omJ sudah membeli tiketnya semenjak bulan Maret, dan sudah memantau harga tiket PP Yogya-Singapura-Yogya semenjak April 2009. Selain omJ, jamaah industrial yang juga berhasil menunaikan ibadah tersebut adalah Nyai Jebret Putri Walet yang tercinta. NIN sekarang, nampak semakin matang (baca: menua **dan** tambah sangar) Konser musik dengan artis internasional yang terakhir gue lihat adalah pas Jamiroquai datang ke Indonesia (ke Sentul, tepatnya) dan mendadak gue berangkat ke sana bareng teman kantor. Mendadak kayaknya sudah jadi tema dalam perkara perkonseran ini. Sebelumnya gue juga mendadak berhasil nonton Bjor k. Kalau a...

Mari kita mundur ke suatu hari di tahun 2004, saat gue lagi menyatroni kamar kosan si Onyit kecil buat nagih jatah keamanan (kehkehkeh) dan di atas karpet lantai kamarnya tergeletaklah sebuah buku berjudul Embroideries. Hmm, benda apa ini? Halaman-halaman buku itu berisi gambar-gambar minimalis yang sepertinya digambar memakai kuas, mirip seperti ilustrasi. Figur-figur tokohnya bernarasi dan berdialog dengan balon percakapan, seperti komik tetapi tanpa garis panel seperti pada umumnya komik yang eke kenal. Dalam bahasa Inggris, ia berkisah tentang kehidupan perempuan di sebuah negara yang sepertinya penduduknya mayoritas Muslim dan pemerintahannya cukup opresif (belakangan baru ngeh kalo negaranya adalah Iran). Pengarangnya Marjane Satrapi. Oh! Perempuan! India? Pakistan? (Iran, bert) Dan ia menggambar sendiri semua 'ilustrasi' itu. Keren sekali! Sekitar beberapa pekan kemudian barulah gue untuk pertama kalinya mendengar istilah "Graphic Novel" atau "Novel Gr...

Dear God, I need entertainment. Dear God, I need a washing machine.

Nicolas Cage does not aged too beautifully. He gets bald. In between projects he even sometimes gets fat and scruffy. His private life out of the screen can readily be accessed through the internet at any given time. At least the part of life that's captured by the paparazzi aiming for a picture worth thousands of dollars. wtf... ...where was I? Oh yeah, I was going to write... My fondness to Nicolas Cage as an actor does not have a clear beginning. When I was a teenager, I saw several films with him starring in. Some of those films I couldn't quite understand the plot, and most I nearly forgot the story lines, but apparently I had decided since very early that he is a good actor. I didn't watch all his films, though. I haven't got to that point of obsession with any actors/actress or director be it Holywood, Bollywood or Indonesian. Oh, there is this one Nicolas Cage film that I do not want to see, though. Captain Corelli's Mandolin. I saw the sneak peak and...