Ah.. How fast time flies. It is the election day tomorrow, which means public holiday, follows by Good Friday and it’s weekend! I am so much in a holiday mood now. Hehe..

Anyway, last Sunday my Dad dragged us to attend this gathering dinner courtesy of Lyson & Associates (a taxing company) at Nelayan restaurants. It sounded boring but free dinner, so why not?

Since most of the members of Lyson & Associates are the members of PIB political party and also caleg/candidates of this upcoming election, we received several campaign attributes such as pin, calendar yadayada.

In the middle of the karaoke-ing session, we had a ‘tutorial’ session about how to use the election paper and choose the desire candidates. From there only I learn about the different colors’ papers and the meaning of it; what Dapem yadayada. In the above picture, the MC and one of the candidates were holding the actual paper. So huge, so many folds and we will have 4 papers on the actual day.

I shouldn’t be talking so much about election topic, not my cup of tea.

We are 10 days away from the election day. If I’m not mistaken, it’s the first time ever that we (Indonesian) get to choose the parliaments members ourselves instead of choosing the political party and let them do the job in picking who to sit in the parliament.

It is a good thing but on another side it doesn’t seem to be a very good/efficient idea especially since we have 44 political parties! As if that is not enough, one political party can have more than 10 candidates and according to research, there is around 481 candidates in total. Whoa! I don’t understand why can’t one political party just nominate 1 or 2 person? Why do we need to have such a competition in one political party? My small little brain doesn’t have the room to digest this.

Mock up of the election paper

Anyway, the huge number of candidates contributes alot to the length of election paper which almost reach 1 meter, in details : 54 cm x 84 cm. *roll eyes* That’s more than half of my height already. I think we will break the world record for having the longest election paper ever. Or is there any country with longer election paper?

Eh wait.. That’s not the end of our misery yet, cause everyone will be given 4 papers instead of 1, since we will have to vote for 4 different kind of parliaments (whatever the name is). I don’t think 5 minutes is enough for one person to go in the cubicle, unfold the 4 papers, look for the particular party, tick the particular nominee and fold the papers back. Even filling the registration form to be a member of chick flick book club books is not that complicated.

I already felt confuse when I saw the mock up (above picture). I get even confuse when I step out of the house, cause the caleg‘s (read: the legislative candidate) faces are everywhere; on billboard, on trees, on the electricity pole, on somebody’s house door, on pedicabs, literally everywhere! My brother’s teacher in school even throws out this joke, that every five years the trees will have a guard, something like that cause they stick the candidates’ posters on the tree.

End of the rant. I don’t want to go into the rant about the candidates or the silly campaign’s posters.

I was somewhat reluctant to go when Jan invited me for a visit to the orphanage house. Not because of the fact that we would be going with tonnes of people whom we barely know (read: strangers, a group from WALUBI – Buddhist association thing), but because we would be going there on 9am Sunday (which is yesterday). Oh well, after a week of doing extra work, I thought of having a good rest (read: wake up late, watch TV, etc) on Sunday before going to the education expo and wedding dinner. *lazy mode on*

But, the other side of me gave me this buzz,”Wth? You’ve been working at home during the weekday and Saturday. Now, get a break and drag yourself out to see the world and people.” I mean, even insurance brokers from top notch company like Allsup also have their Sunday off from selling disability insurance and meeting with potential clients. And, I also deserve one eh?

It became a battle in between the angel and the devil side. But like usual, the angel side won. Hehe.. So, there I went to ‘donate’ my time by helping them, which turn up that I wasn’t really so helpful and wasting the car space only (I think). But, hey, presence counts eh?

Anyway, *cold joke mode on* I think they were following India timezone cause they picked me up at around 10.30am instead of 9am. I know, I already got a free transportation, free lunch, free watch-movie-session and fun time but still complain about the late pick up time? So un-thankful hor?
(more…)

Oh. My. God. So, the news is true! Mum has told me about this on yesterday afternoon. I hardly can believe it, cause the whole story sounds like a scene in local Indonesia drama and she knew about it from the daily-gossip-session with the aunties from the neighborhood. But heck, it is true! It happens in real life.

Dua remaja tewas terkurung di kamarnya setelah rumah mereka terbakar. Mereka yang biasa dipanggil Tasya (15) dan Melvin (14) ini tidak tertolong karena pintu kamarnya terkunci. Seorang pembantu bernama Sri diduga mengunci rumah ini tanpa alasan yang jelas.

quoted from Kompas website

Bottom line: Two teens, 15 yo and 14 yo, die in a fire incident which happened on midnight. Their bedroom’s door was being locked from outside, hence they couldn’t escape from the 3 (or is it 4?) floors house. Their parents went overseas (Hongkong) when incident happened.

They have 2 stay-at-home-maids, one was being locked from outside too but managed to escape from the window, while the other one wasn’t at the location (highly suspected for causing the fire). The Nissan X-trail also went KABOOM. Sigh.

What I heard from my neighbors (the gossip’s aunties) is…

- they are richie people

- the teens studied at Singapore Piaget Academy (with Singapore curriculum and sky high tuition fee)

- the mother is well-known for being arrogant (this is an opinion, not a fact yet).

- the parents went to Hongkong cause the father wanted to go Macau for gambling. He likes gambling, often goes to Macau (the gambling paradise) for that, and the wife always follows him.

- few days before the incident, that highly-suspected-maid kept on bringing an unknown man to the house. The other maid already warned her not to do so, the parents and the teens did too. It draws to the conclusion, probably it was the unknown man that provoke her for doing so. It often happens like this, the innocent maid from a small kampung did a criminal thing after be-friended with an unknown man. Sigh.

- when incident happened, the 15 yo teen girl still had the chance to call her Grandma and said that she was holding the hu-po (some Buddhist charm).

This case is still being investigate. But it is highly suspected that the fire is caused by the other maid which is missing. Sigh. This is oh so scary / insane / crazy / unbelievable / cruel, if she is the one who cause the whole thing (not only burn the house but also the family members including the dog).

It is enough if she wanted to burn the house. But why the need to lock their bedroom from outside? That is probably one of the the cruelest ways of doing execution to innocent people! Sigh. May they rest in peace.

Lessons to learn (note for myself):
- Treat your maid well. You won’t know what she can do, when she holds a grudge towards you. Well, actually, not just limited to maid but people around you.
- Never ever leave your maid at home while you go to work/outstation/overseas.
- Never ever let your maid go out and befriended with unknown guy.
- Best of all, don’t hire any stay-at-home maid!

Went for a dinner supper (food came at almost 10pm, we waited for more than 1 hour. Whew.. ) with boyfriend and my family at a seafood restaurant, Cemara Asri area.

The place was oh so crowded, where people gathered at the huge round about there. Babies, kids, adult, elder people, some people even wore something like pajamas (ready to go home sleep after the count down) but sorry, no sexy lingerie whatsoever. Never know Medan has so many citizens. Boyfriend said the crowd looked like as if there was a concert going on.

Fireworks was released from around 8pm and reached the peak on 12o’clock. Managed to get a picture of us with a little firework behind. And, it started to rain around 12.30am after the crowd was dismissed and count down ended. Amazing how God works eh?

Happy New Year 2009! I was greeted with a good news. SimplyWP, our almost 6 months old blog design for WordPress, is now PR 4 (went from PR2). What a sweet gift on the first day of 2009. How’s yours?