How could I not be mad, Bali?

Bali dancers by Ario Pratisto

IT WAS VERY UNFORTUNATE for Bali for having me in the time of rage (you know, rage is an uncontrollable anger). But then again Bali might never be so lucky, ultimately, because I am always mad (you know, mad is an adjective, and it means: insane).

I went to Ubud, Bali, last week from 4 to 10 October. I volunteered for the 2011 Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. A five-day writers festival, the biggest in Indonesia, and among the top six best literary festivals in the world — so the Harper Bazaar, UK, reported.

I didn’t really check the writers lineup. I only knew Junot Diaz was confirming to come (apparently he didn’t, but it’s not really surprising, no?).

But I wasn’t angry because Junot was ill and couldn’t keep his oath to visit Bali, the beautiful city (oh is it?), and Ubud the quite and peaceful place (it’s true!). I was in a temper because a week before I actually walked on Ubud streets for an hour to just reach the Volunteer Basecamp, I met a journalist from Bali.

We met in a national conference for female journalists in Jakarta. I was (am?) mad not because of the meeting, because I must admit it was a quite lovely meet up. I was mad cuz I learned that Bali is now growing old and sad, so my friend told me. Old like our grannies losing their youth and beauty, living with wrinkles and tasteless porridge because she suffers from diabetes (please, Anita!) and sad as in the old lady couldn’t even remember that she too was once young and pretty.

“People are now queuing for transmigration programs. It’s not easy to find jobs in Bali, 80 percent of properties in Bali are owned by Jakarta people or foreigners,” she told me.

I am not a stupid racist or a chauvinist pig. But I met a group of journalists from Papua several weeks before I eventually met that female Balinese journalist. I even wrote an article about them and their documentary writings on kampongs in Papua.

You know what they told me? That Papua too is not happy. Kampongs in Papua are all lack of basic facilities, such as schools, community health centers, bridges, water supplies. It is 2011 but many people in Papua still rely on rainwater for drink. It is indeed the year of intellectual celebration because we can prove that God is an insignificant element in the creation of universe, but do you know that a lot of high school students in Papua could hardly read? Do I? I thought I do, but maybe I simply don’t.

Dying of malaria and tuberculosis are not news there, because you need hours to reach nearest Puskesmas and should consider yourself lucky if you ever find a nurse or doctor in that small community health center.

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I think I have some issues with…

I DON’T HAVE AN ANALYST. Why? First, because talking to analysts is not very Indonesian, not even for those who live in Jakarta. And second, they are too expensive for someone who just listens and gives suggestions — a job that your friends or even you yourself can do it.

But I have a problem now. And I think I need an analyst, or at least friends who can really tell what’s going on with me.

Believe it or not, I am worrying myself lately. Why? Because I have been fast forwarding films I watched — especially those with suspense in them. I also skipped scenes with blood and those where the main characters got humiliated. I just couldn’t help to not skip those kinda scenes.

Yes. Those things have indeed left me with a question: God, is there something wrong with me?

Because a friend borrowed these comic books of mine, and I told her easily, “Hey, Ms. X is going to marry Mr. Y in the end.” And she was all like, “What? Why did you tell me that!” And I was like, “What? I thought that that would make you even far more eager to read it by yourself.” Then she replied, “What? No!”

See, my today’s problem is: I am very much okay with spoilers.

I used to read reviews before watching a film. But they were only reviews! Not spoilers. These whole lot spoilers are more than reviews, I am afraid this state will somehow affect my psychological condition *serious face*

Actually, I have tried to find some helps. Thus, I tweeted this important question like days ago, and a friend, Caroline Damanik, replied. She said it was a syndrome of “instant generation.”

Am I one of those who believe in the instantaneousness? That could be true. I might be don’t have that enough patience, especially for just fictions!

But Freud would have said more than that. You cannot ignore fictions and how you react to them. Maybe, I am just tired of sad endings? But wait, I just have one or two sad endings in life, I got more happy endings. And no, my life’s good, not sucks. I mean, I am going to [hopefully] meet Junot Diaz this October in Ubud, how can you call that sucks?

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And I had this funny dream and all

DID YOUR MOTHER EVER tell you about the “forbidden hours” to sleep? That if you insist to sleep at those hours you’ll have funny dreams that will definitely drive you yellow and all, and you’ll feel suffocate in your sleep because some monsters are chasing you down and all? Never? Oh boy, my mother did. She sure did.

She told me that I must never sleep at… well, basically at around 6 a.m or even 7 a.m. My family is — well, we are practicing Muslims and all, so after we pray in the dawn, mother said we couldn’t go back to sleep — especially after 6 a.m when the sun is shining! My mother also told me that I must never go to sleep when the sun is almost set or around 5.30 p.m and so. And even if I am sleepy to the point that I think I could sleep standing up without batting an eyelash — I must hold it. Oh boy, that’s my mother. When she says something, she means it.

“You’ll have some funny dreams if you couldn’t hold it. Hold it for an hour, then you could go to sleep,” she said, suggesting me to just sleep after 6.30 p.m.

I am not living with my mother now. But I sure still remember what she said.

But yesterday, I accidentally broke that forbidden-hours-to-sleep rule. And I had this funny dream that drove me banana in my sleep.

Honest to blog, I am glad that I broke it. I miss my dreams, and to dream them. You know, the celebration of your true desires and all, so Mr Freud said. It is sad that these days, when I wake up in the morning, I forget all my dreams. Sometimes I even think that I do not dream at all, so scary!

Yesterday, I woke up like at 5 a.m, and then I read this book you wouldn’t careless what it was. But an hour later, I felt so sleepy and all, I couldn’t hold it. So I slept. And dreamt.

My dream was: I was in this building and there was a flood. I was with some people, they were my new friends, I just met them and all. So two weeks ago I helped AJI hosted a regional symposium to discuss about freedom of expression with participants from ASEAN countries etc — it looked at how bad/good is the freedom of expression in Southeast Asia countries plus India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka [that turned to be not good at all — no surprise]. So in my dream, I was with these people from that symposium. But strangely, they weren’t the same people I met in the real symposium, if you know what I mean. They were different people, but from that symposium two weeks ago.

AJI asked me to help them out, you know, if they ever needed something or just directions to go to some places. In that dream, I also did that job. The difference was, there was this massive flood in the end of the symposium. I helped participants carrying their luggage around and all. But it was a real crazy flood, soon enough all of the streets were covered with gray water, and there were crocodiles. Seriously, some crocodiles, I am not joking. They were swimming so fast, waiting for us to jump into some dry land/spaces and fail and would probably eat us. And indeed, we were forced by the flood to move to those safe spots.

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Watching the world change: Priceless

WHOA. PEOPLE, HOW ARE ye?

It’s kinda late to post this, but so what. Have you watched Julian Assange posing for a commercial? Uh huh.

Click here or just watch it below.

Twenty secure phones to assist in staying anonymous: $5,000.
Fighting legal cases across five countries: $1 million.
Upkeep of servers in over 40 countries: $200,000.
Donations lost due to banking blockade: $15 million.
Added cost due to house arrest: $500,000.
Watching the world change as a result of your work? Priceless.
There are some people that don’t like change. For everyone else, there’s WikiLeaks.

You know what the coolest part of the video? Yep. That Assange is using the exact same laptop as I am! Hahaha. I know, silly, silly, silly.

Like what @apathoni said: And those of millions of other people RT @freudian83: laptopku sama kayak laptopnya julian assange

Oh btw, are you the “everyone else”?

PS: the only thing bothers the video is the ads tagged along on it. And lo, Google, are you seriously doing this? Visa Platinum ad when Assange is, literally, cutting his credit card? Sweet!

A Nobel Peace Prize for the Indonesian President

Nobel Peace Prize Medal. Image is from here.

LENNON DESCRIBED HIMSELF and I perfectly right in his Imagine: we are dreamers.

My dreams are — oh you’re getting sick of reading this again and again — being a war correspondent and win a Nobel Peace Prize. I know those two seem somewhat contradictory, and they might not sound practical and realistic to many of you. But what can I say? I am a dreamer.

Even so, don’t worry, I’ve got a plan. You know, a dream without a plan is merely a wish, right. So this plan goes specifically for the Nobel Peace Prize ambition.

I’ve screened all Nobel Peace Prize winners from time to time to get a clearer picture of what these incredible people had done to deserve receiving one. Except for the 2009 winner, who was Barack Obama, and few others, I think all receivers had done tremendous works in bringing about peace, equality, and justice for the people at across the universe.

Look at the 14th Dalai Lama, Aung San Suu Kyi, Al Gore, Nelson Mandela, Jose Ramos-Horta, Kofi Annan, Yasser Arafat, Mother Teresa, and Liu Xiaobo. They are the people who made countless efforts helping people and making the world a better place to live. They are the extraordinary people.

With all due respects to all the names I have mentioned above — you all are heroes — I need to say that I should find a way to get one myself. So I think I need to know how to get it.

Without belittling the meaning of the Nobel itself, I think these are the formulas to win a Nobel Peace Prize: you are basically just “nobody” who do the humanitarian-and-related works with all your heart and soul, gain trust from the society, receive a lot of coverages in the media because of your hard work and dedication, win it, keep doing the work. Or, you have an important position in your country [let's say you're a statesman], work and get paid — because that’s basically your job, some coverages in the media, do the work well, get exposed again, win.

After considering a thing and some, I think I’ll take the second order to win, it looks easier. But I know that if I desire to take the second path, I need to become the President of Republic of Indonesia, or at least the Minister of Foreign Affairs or Minister of Manpower. So I might need some years to get elected as a president or appointed as a minister.

Here’s my idea, that I hope neither my President nor Foreign Affairs Minister would steal it to save the Nobel Peace Prize for themselves:

Do you know that there are bunch of things you could do in Indonesia to bring about peace and justice? The nation poverty rate [2010 stat] is 13 percent or around 31 million people. Unemployment reaches 7.41 percent or about 8.59 million people. Tens of thousands people lost their homes and hopes to Lapindo mud ‘disaster’ in Sidoarjo, East Java. And look at the recent stat: 303 Indonesian migrant workers are facing serious charges including death penalty overseas, especially in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia. Indonesian government cited recently that some 22 in Saudi Arabia are waiting to be executed in near future.

Just earlier this week, Indonesian people were in mourn and enraged for Ruyati binti Saputi, a migrant workers from Bekasi, who was beheaded by sword in the western province of Mecca without notifications. The s**p*d Indonesian government did not have any idea that one of its citizen worked in Saudi Arabia was dying alone — they soon blamed Saudi Arabia for not sent them a notification.

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