An old farewell song: Graduation Ceremony SD Cipta Dharma 1992

"I Remember Your Love"

Since you said "good bye", I sit alone and cry.
No one ever knew such pain.
I recall your face and miss your warm embrace.
My poor heart's going insane.

I remember your love, oh my darling my love.
I will never forget you it seems.
I remember your love, when the moon shines above.
I remember your love in my dreams.

My first public performance. I played the keyboard for the closing choir of this song.
A nice song taught by Bu Suan, our 2nd grade school teacher. However, I don’t know who composed the song; I can’t get any information from the internet about it.

Mental Attitude: Whether or Not Environment Affects?

This experience happened in Surabaya airport. I was just walking around on the waiting hall. But then, something was catching my eyes. A guy smoked in the non-smoking hall while having chitchat with his friends. It's was very clear that the sign of "No Smoking" was just above his head.

a situation @ Surabaya airport (29/4/08)

I was so disappointed and mad seeing such thing. Can't he read the No-Smoking sign? Or he just selfishly felt that, "I do whatever I wanna do", as there was no security officers around (the smoking guy was in the far end of the waiting hall. Well, maybe security officers in Surabaya airport were too lazy to patrol up to that corner end, and if they did, maybe they were too "reluctant" to warn the smoking guy there!)

You won't see any regular patrol by security officers along the hall, at least not as much as the one in Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, China, and any other place. It seems that Surabaya airport does not need such patrol, as everything is just always under control...hmm!)

That just made me wondering, how we can change the attitude of such people to be more discipline. Not to mention the discipline of time (arghh..."Indonesian Time!" We do have that phrase, and I'm certainly NOT proud of it).

It is very difficult indeed. People with such moral, eventhough they are moved to a better environment, an environment with high environmental awareness people and strict regulation, they will just be the same individuals with such attitude. It is not easy to change their behaviour to follow the system eventhough they have been inside the system. Once they get 'chance' to do the same thing like what they comfortably used to do, they will intentionally or unintentionally do it over and over...littering, spitting, and smoking not in the proper place!

...yeah, yeah...that takes time...takes time for such changing to adjust with the better system...but for how long?
And yes, I have seen my own Indonesian colleagues (not only one colleague) who did that when we’re studying in Australia. And I felt sorry about that! I did tell them though, and they just smiled, and I didn't know whether they smiled because they were ashamed or because they were too bothered with my words.

Having said that the effect of the environment is less influential than the root of the moral of each individual, it doesn’t always seem to be true for every case. I remember my experience in front of the lobby of Sheraton Hotel Surabaya (18/4/08). A caucasian person with a local chick were entering a taxi. His cigarette was just recently lit. The cab was full AC, so he had to turn it off. But what happened?

He entered the cab while sucking deep his cigarette, opened the window and dumped his cigarette in front of the Sheraton staff. I was really sick off his attitude. I assumed that this "bule" (an Indonesian word to refer white people) had lived in Surabaya quite a while. At least he had experience seeing locals littering not in the proper place. But, why a bule must downgrade his moral to do such thing, particularly in an exclusive place like in the gate of Sheraton Hotel. Want to show off his power? That he is an expat? That he comes from developed country? That he is a dollar/euro holder so he can afford to stay in 5 stars hotel? or to look down Indonesian people knowing that in Indonesia, we don't have such a heavy fine due to littering like in the Singapore strict regulation???

As the taxi moved away from us, the valet parking staff picked up the cigarette and dumped it to the closest rubbish bin.

If only I were a Harry Potter (or a least I had my own wand), I would put him under my spell to stick the dumped cigarette back into his mouth for 24 hrs, so he can not talk and kiss that bitch!!!%#~*)$#%@#*

***
This indicates that environment can change people's attitude, moral, and behaviour too! How significant it affects people's attitude and moral? I guess, it depends on the characteristic of individuals. Therefore, keep your mind open!

Earth Day

They've killed the lizard

I was waiting for my driver to pick me up in the parking area of marine building. There were 2 staffs with me at that time. Suddenly, I saw a big lizard crossing the road at the next block. I just excitedly said: biawak!...while pointing at the lizard. Unexpectedly, the guy next to me, abruptly ran toward the lizard while yelling out loud at his friends: biawak…biawak!!!

The others enthusiastically followed him. The first guy who reached there aggressively attacked this lizard with stones. They caught the wounded lizard.

A monitor lizard “biawak” (Varanus sp.)
I’ve heard that marine crews here (not all of them though) eat anything that moves on land except vehicles! My 1st day in marine building, I’d seen them catching a cobra, about 2 m in length. They fried and ate it together. I’d been told that couple days before, they also caught a biawak and cooked it. Not only cobras and biawaks, they also slaughtered cats (as plenty of cats around marine building). It seems to be ordinary meat for them as their food resources.

But, what I’ve just seen just now was such a brutality. It was really disturbing me. I feel sorry! If only I didn’t tell them, the lizard might still be alive. The following day, the guy who cooked the lizard told me that it has 14 eggs inside the body. He fried all of those eggs and ate them with his friends!!! That made me really really bad!!! Not only one lizard could still be alive, but also her 14 offspring as well…if only I kept my mouth shut!

Lesson for me! Next time, I should not let them know if there’s any lizard or snake or other wildlife around. If necessary, I will distract their attention from any passing wild life around the marine building. At least, this can prevent their instinctive brutality, hopefully.

The cute one from Marine Building

There are about more than 20 cats around the Marine Building. But, this one is the cutest one and very tame to me. Well, a bit moody, naughty, spoiled, sometimes well behaved, sometimes rough...Yet, he is just a little felis >^-^<

Dinner (farewell) party @ Willis Hill

Last dinner with Mr. Lao.

A Thought: THE MATRIX & BUDDHISM

I’ve watched all series of The Matrix several times. Last night, The Matrix Reloaded was shown again on TV. I didn’t know why after watching it, my head seemed to be filled with lots of inter-connection about things happened in that movie. Until this morning, I’m inspired to write my thought here. I found that the concept in The Matrix, to some extent, is similar to the concept of life according to Buddhism!!!

World Dimension
In The Matrix: they are struggling in the real world, riding a hovercraft ship observing all things that happened in the “programmed” world, called as the matrix. They have transporters to move them from the ship to the matrix; and the other way round, from the matrix to their ship using particular portals such as public phones and any other hard line.

In Buddhism: Buddhism believes in Karma. Depending on the karma, after one death, a creature can be born in any of these 31 (4+1+26) dimensions: hells (there are 4 different hells), 1 universe (our universe, but not necessarily in one place, could be in separate planet in any galaxy; earth is only one out of many other places), and heavens (there are 26 different heavens). Just like in The Matrix, a creature can also “move” from one dimension to any others and returns back again to the initial dimension. This concept in Buddhism is known as karma and punarbhava, a continuous birth and rebirth from one realm to any others before reaching Nirvana, the highest state of eternal happiness where the wheel of rebirth has been stopped.

I remember a short story told by my spiritual teacher:
A couple of husband and wife lived in heaven. One day the husband went out to pick some fruit. But then, he accidentally fell down from the tree, dropped off from heaven to earth. He’s born as a human baby, becoming adult, getting married, having children, getting old and eventually died. He then was born again in heaven, the same heaven as his previous place. His wife suddenly came and asked him, “Where have you been this whole morning? ... I thought you were picking some fruit!”***
I guess the story may give you a clearer idea, right? …that we all also live inside the “matrix”. But of course, we would not be able to move at anytime from one world to any other dimensions like in the movie using transporters and portals.

The rule of life
The matrix is created by the “Architect”. Within the matrix, all evil creatures like vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and demons are the form of system anomalies which are ruled by a programmer called the Merovingian. It is the Oracle the one who guides humans to free from the attachment of the matrix.

In Buddhism, the primary concept of Buddhism is “Life is suffering”. Since the 1st time a human is born, he/she will struggle with his/her craving (tanha), the main cause of all physical and mental suffering. Consequently, controlling our self from such desire leads only to 2 things: good or bad motivation/action. You have good motivation, you are making a good karma; bad motivation bad karma! That’s why where we lead our life depends on our self. It’s we are the one who have power to control our self.
To illustrate: when you lose a competition, you should congratulate the winner and say “I’m happy for you, I will put my effort to improve my self, so wait for me in the next competition”. This is a good thing, good motivation, hence a good karma. However, if you can’t accept this condition for not becoming the first, the winner, the best; you even talk some nasty swearing and do destructive action due to jealousy, you are accumulating your bad karma!

Furthermore, each of us is the “Architect” of our own life. We plan, control, decide what we WANT to do in living our life. Of course, in this process of living, there will be good things (as what our “Oracle” guides and advises us to do) and also bad things (as characteristics programmed by the Merovingian that leads to our own upheaval). Finally, it takes our hard effort to control our self, to free us from any attachment, to liberate us from suffering. Peace!

Acknowledgement: Diyono Puji Harjoko (Pak Puji)

Bubur Candil

Prepare:
- sweet potatoes (steamed till soft then pealed), u can use either purple or yellow sweet potatoes or mixed between them
- tapioca flour
- palm sugar and white sugar
- pandan leaves (2 pieces)

Rounding dough into small balls
Mashed already steamed and pealed sweet potatoes, add tapioca flour little by little, mix it by hand till the dough seems to be saturated with flour. You can add some more water to enable mixing more tapioca flour. The more tapioca flour you put, the chewier the texture will be (as some people prefer chewable texture).

Take the dough into small pieces and round them tightly into small balls.

Preparing palm sugar brown syrup
On the half way making the balls, you can prepare the brown syrup.
Estimate that the amount of water used is enough to soak the whole balls. Boil water, put 2 pieces of pandan leaves, couple pieces of palm sugar (just enough to make the syrup brown). Add some more white sugar to make it sweet enough for you. Turn off fire when all sugar has been dissolved and the syrup gets boiled. Strain it.

Note: you can add some more dissolved tapioca flour (± 2 spoonful tapioca flour dissolved with water first) when cooking the syrup to make it thick (It’s supposed to be very thick)

Boiling the ball dough
Using other pan, boil water (make sure it’s enough to boil whole dough balls). You can put in the balls only when water has been boiled.
Once the balls floated, lift the balls, and immediately put them in the already cooked syrup.

Preparing coconut milk
Grate coconut, soak in hot water, and squeeze it.
Boil the milk with medium heat, put 1 piece of pandan leaf, and add couple pinches of salt.

Note: You can also use fresh milk with a pinch of salt instead of coconut milk. My mum and I prefer using fresh milk.

Suggestion: put this candil in the fridge. Eat cold is better as a dessert. Just spoon out the candil in a small bowl, pour coconut milk or fresh milk. And…Bon Appétit!!!

Thanks to Iko Indrayana of TPPI Lab. Tech. for the recipe.

Condiment for Vietnamese Spring Roll

Vietnamese spring roll is easy to prepare. I would recommend to serve this dish during gathering, spending weekend among close friends, chit chat, well...making spring roll together, the more people the merrier it will be!

Basically, you need rice paper. Soak the rice paper in hot (not warm) water for couple second then you’re ready to wrap your own spring roll. You can combine your filling with anything you like: Sliced cabbage, carrot, fresh mushroom, alfalfa, meat, banana, avocado, coriander leaves, mint leaves, or boiled glass noodle.

Prepare in a bowl:
- a small can of pineapple, sliced into small pieces, use also the juice
- 5 bulbs garlic, chopped coarse
- 3 bird’s eye chilies, sliced thin (dump the seeds)
- 2 small tomatoes, sliced into pineapple size
- freshly squeezed lemon juice
- fish sauce / squid sauce (don’t put too much, you have to taste whether or not it is salty enough)
- a little bit sugar (optional) for sweetener, if not sweet enough

Thanks to Mbak Mariaty - Townsville, Qld

Thai Salad, for coriander lovers

Try Thai Salad for fresh oriental taste. Mix following ingredients:

1. glass noodle / rice vermicelli (soak in hot water for a moment)
2. boiled shrimp (as many as you want)
3. coriander leaves (as many as you want)
4. fresh shallot (cut thick)
5. lemon grass (sliced fine)
6. fish sauce (you can also add some salt)
7. freshly squeezed lemon juice
8. white pepper powder
9. fried shallot

***** easy to prepare for gathering
***** unique oriental taste

Thanks to Icha for introducing this marvelous taste