And so it be - A fiction

She used men, just as men used her.

The night has been easy for her, not too cold not too warm, the johns are equally easy. She scored an easy $500 for the night, in views of her day job its small change. Yes, she has a day job, not a waitress kind of day job, but a sit-in-a-million-dollar-office-doing-million-dollar-project kind of job. So, why? I don't think even she can answer that question.

On another night she would be strolling the streets looking for preys among lust driven men, the other girls gave her a wide berth, they know not to mess with her. But tonight she had enough of the streets, the image of warm sheets, chilled wine and romance novel has been on her mind the entire evening, calling like a siren for her to come home early. With the image getting stronger she walked towards the alley where she parked her car. She didn't notice the shadow following her, getting closer and closer, grabbing her by surprised as she was about to open her car. "Going home, little whore?" Hoarse voice accompany the cold glint a knife resting silently on the base of her throat. She can't move, not before assessing who he really was. A wet lick of tongue on the side of her neck "You taste so damn good little whore" whiskey breath, foul and dirty makes her gagged. She started to feel annoyed, the man are still rambling behind her, calling her "Little whore", pawing her thigh and breasts with his free hand, while the other hand wielding the knife from side to side of her neck.

The man pushed her towards her car, trapped her between himself and the car door, still rambling. She lets out a bored sigh in between his ramblings, the man is just a mediocre psycho, not someone worthy of a torture. He won't stand even a minute with her. With that making up her mind, she elbowed her attacker stomach, surprising him, catching his wrist and with a simple flick stealing the knife from his grasp. Another well placed punched, the man sprawled beneath her feet. She straddled his chest, the knife glinting in the moonlight, the table has turned. No more lust can be find in his eyes, terror and cowardice is the only thing inside.

"You annoy me!" The man doesn't even have the chance to scream before the knife moves from side to side on his neck. Blood splattered on the streets, she took out a handkerchief from her purse, cleaned the knife handle and toss it. No need to be hasty and leave a finger print in this kind of situation. An annoyed sigh came from her before she enters the car, a blood spatter has landed on her pantyhose, that would be another hose down the drain. It's so hard to clean a blood stain. She gunned her car from the alley, the wine and novel became a more interesting past time for the night after all the excitement.

The body of a man found with a neck wound the next day, the knife on his side presumed as the murder weapon. The police is still looking for the perpetrator. But beneath all of the official looking investigation, the girls on the street feel a little safer without him around. Maybe they will give her a thank you nod, the next time they see her.

Jakarta, 2011-01-07

To hate and love

People said "it's a thin line between love and hate", but how do you actually distinguish it? When hate reside do you actually want to talk to the person? Or you talk but you mainly talk trash about them? And when you love someone, do you talk all the time about your feelings to them just to justify that what you're feeling are love? See how confusing it is between love and hate.

What about feelings that changes then? When your lover left you, dump you or cheated on you do you turn your love to hate instantly? What if said lover beg for your forgiveness? Do you think you can erase or ease that hate and turn it back to love?

Life is already complicated as it is, but I still wonder about the people who entangled themselves with so much love and hate. There are so many questions about those two adjectives without any concrete answers. Even as I think this through, I still can't get any conclusion about it, I feel that you can't love without any hate, and you can't hate without any love. So, I guess what you can do is have a balance of Love and Hate, and make the best of life.

Long overdue post

Sooooo... more than a year since I posted a blog! What happened to me? Actually life happened..:) True, not so many things happened to me this year, but still somethings just occupy your. First of all I got a job! *yay for me* a teaching job for secondary students and the weirdest thing of all, I LOVE IT!

Long story short at first I applied as a member of the marketing team in the school, they hired me as one too, to be honest...I sucked being in marketing! Never ever again should I touch anything that has any connection to marketing or management or administrative. I was thinking of what time should I submit my resignation letter, when the mandarin teacher for secondary school resigned and they needed a new teacher ASAP! Bam... I asked if I could try, they interviewed me, and in less than a week I'm their new Mandarin teacher. I took teaching like duck to water, it just came to me. Other than that, I still do subtitling and translations. Managed to find old contacts in various research company that needs some translators during breaks.

Life has been good and I thank god for it.

My life at the moment

Dear Life,

You have been taking a big turn recently, resigning from your job, getting your boss to agree to let you out a month earlier than you think you would, a hectic week of screening, throwing and packing your stuff ~thank God Mom came to the rescue~ add to it, it's all being done in the fasting month. You manage to slipped in some good times for me and my friends at Xi'an, I always appreciate that, and then it's time for me to come home.

Home, a house where I share a room and a bed with my sister, where my parents often stay the night, where I spend a majority of my time stuck like a glue with my laptop (but then my laptop always stuck with me all the time anyway). I love my home, and the good thing is I'm gonna spend a lot of time making it mine again, after all I left it for a year.

Anyways, It's the end of fasting month. It's Lebaran time, spend a lot of time with families and friends, getting stuffed with absolutely delicious foods, getting a stomach ache, and not a whole lot of other thing to do. So, I'm gonna write and write and wait for a reply to my various job applications, and write some more. Good thing Indonesia doesn't block blogspot!!!!

Sincerely yours,

Me

My Post Idol Fever and my realisation about choir

In my frenzy of coming back home to Jakarta on the end of May and going back again to Xi'an in a matter of two weeks, I've given the chance to watch Idol Marathon and the Idol finale. That would be my turning point of not going to have an Idol to fan about. I watch Adam Lambert and fall in love with his music, I yelled *quite loudly* from my bed when he didn't win, and I kept digging for more glambert in the internet.

As I dig more and more videos, I found duet videos of Adam and Allison, and another of Kris and Gokey *note how I only use Gokey's last name*. At first I only notice how good Adam and Allison were and how not good Kris and Gokey. Then I found another video, this one is from the finale show, where Kris and Adam were singing with Queen, another Duet. I found that Adam and Kris really make a great duet, how Kris tried to rock his voice and Adam would adjust his timbre with Kris's voice. It takes effort of both of the singer to make a great duet, they have to adjust to one another.

This draws me to the question, if two singers have to adjust to sing a good song, then how about in a choir? There are about 35 people in one choir, and to sing a good song you have to adjust all 35 into one voice. Shit!! That's hard man. But I know it can be done, I myself is from a choir who can sing as one voice. So when people sometime under estimate choir group as an outlet for singing *because you don't sing Solo, nobody wiil know/recognized you* I think that person is stupid. Because singing in a choir is harder then singing Solo.

From my FB Notes June 3rd 2009

Kepada Kita, Kami dan Mereka

Aku marah, lalu aku teriak!

Aku kesal, lalu aku mengomel!

Aku sedih, lalu aku menangis!

Aku..aku... kenapa harus aku. Kenapa tidak Kita, kenapa tidak Kami? Mungkin karena aku adalah aku, tidak bisa dihindari bahwa aku adalah aku! Kita sedang sibuk dengan pekerjaannya, sementara Kami lagi sibuk bermain di negeri mimpi.

Aku berjalan di tengah kota Mereka, kadang dingin kadang panas. Dingin dengan salju yang menumpuk, panas dengan matahari yang membakar. Mereka cukup baik pada Aku, tapi Aku tetaplah Aku. Ia tak bisa menjadi Mereka.

Aku gembira, lalu aku tertawa!

Aku ingin di dengar, tapi Mereka sibuk dengan diri Mereka. Kami masih juga tidur, Kita sepertinya sedang pergi dan tak bisa dihubungi. Aku kembali berjalan, kembali kedinginan dan kepanasan. Aku menulis, Aku membaca, Aku hanyalah aku. Aku tidak tahu bagaimana menjadi Kita, Kami atau Mereka.

Aku marah, dan kali ini aku teriak lebih kencang!

Aku bingung, tapi Aku belum bisa menemukan jawabanya. Aku akan terus berjalan dan mencari. Apa yang di cari? Mungkin mencari Kita, Kami dan Mereka. Aku dengar semua sedang berada di negara antah berantah. Mungkin saat tiba disana aku bisa menjadi bagian dari Kita, Kami, dan Mereka.

From my FB notes June 7th 2009

The CNN Factor

If you're like me, stuck in a hotel room for most of the day and the most exciting Channel in your TV is either CNN, or Discovery channel, you will notice more and more the CNN factor. Is not that I watch CNN all the time, but watching someone build a bridge across some big lake or chanel became boring after a while. So CNN it is.

Here I am, saturday noon, watching the political Mann, and I guess that is one of the way to understand a country called United States of America. As I watched the report about republican slamming President Obama, republican slamming other republican, I can't help but laugh. It seems that no matter if you are from developed country or developing country people are people. They have their own ego and the urge to fulfill their own needs, the never feels satisfied trait. That is people.

Watching CNN, understanding a developed country, makes me think about my own. We have the same problem with them, but we are trying to mend ourselves. True that we are one of the most corrupt country in the world, one of the poor country in the world, one of the most populous country in the world, but I think we can mend that. If we have the intentions to bring our country to the world eyes, we should be prud of ourselves, and help mend the country we born in. I guess that's the CNN factor for me.

from my FB notes June 13th 2009