Saturday, December 20, 2014

I WILL COME BACK!!! JUST WAIT!!

Nothing has been interesting recently, I mean my life lately is quite busy with stuffs that need to be completed. Had a little reunion with my undergraduate friends. Haven't seen them for like ages, since most of them went back right in the end of february. Although not all of them attended that urgent reunion, but it sure was fun and brought back some good memories, like the time when we performed for the acoustic competitions or just some casual performances. Didn't get the chance to take photos. But hope to see you all again in the future.

"Everything is related"

That quote I heard somewhere for over a decade ago has been playing in my mind from before I was born til recently. My brain will automatically functional when I sense something unusual or unique. Usually I end up making a theory, which has no basic at all. Just simply my thoughts and opinions. But somehow it could be apply in the real world. I can't remember who said it, but I believe that it has something to do with everything. Everything means everything, the whole universe. If one single thing is disturbed, it will affect the whole entire universe, even a single cell or bacteria.

Simple example I can think of is me. My present will somehow effect everybody's life, either good or bad (mostly bad), directly or indirectly. Directly means you've heard, saw, smelled, touched, bit, kicked, punched me. Indirectly means you have never known me at all, not even heard my name. If let say, I wasn't accepted as a student in a particular university, someone might have filled the place. This someone probably has applied to other university and probably he applied for other courses like biology or even medicine. Since this person has filled the space that was supposed to be mine(if I wasn't accepted), he would abandon what he had applied before and someone must have filled the place. This someone might have applied to other courses as well and this chain-liked thing continues. What I'm saying here is everyone has their own role. Bad or good will affect other's life. Where and what you are now might have pros and cons for other. We don't know. What you have achieved now might have crushed other's people dreams, vice versa.

So what can we do?

Do your best. Don't cheat or try to be a hero. Who knows that your failures might cause someone to discover the cure for ebola or even Aids. Our failures might save someone's life. Be positive. Just let it go and move on. There is no coincident, everything has been planned.

Somewhat it can also be applied to things we do. Simple example like the way we eat tells us about how we deal with matters. So I've been doing this unintentional research for almost 5 years. I've observed people who chose the food based on their own preferences, whether amount or what they wanted to eat. So based on how they can finish their food I've concluded that, people who could finish what they have chosen and taken, are normally people you can rely on, simple, trustworthy, they know their own capabilities and limits. Although sometime a bit pessimistic and kinda have their own preferences on almost everything (simply said not flexible). On the other hand, those who couldn't finish, are optimistic, easy going, ambitious, and are very flexible. They can almost do everything that is given to them well, but somehow and I don't know why, they tend to be a bit ego. I mean once they get what they need they don't really care about the others. They might help you but most of them just barely help. But those are just my observation nothing is right, everything is permitted.

What start will end. Everything started 2 years ago. It was my friend introduced me to you. At first I was not really interested. But my friend told me more about you. Until one point where I could not resist and curious about you. Although I hesitated to make a move, but in the end I took my chance to know you better. Then I realised that you are somewhat different. As time passed by, I know your pain and struggle, I know how do you feel about everything. I even searched several pages about you. But that what makes me want to know about you even more. Your steps and ways to solve your problems. You sure have taught me a lot.

Finally, I understand.

But sure time does not allowed me to learn more from you. About 6 months ago, you have shown that you are about to leave. The signs were clear. It just a matter of time before you will finally be gone. It sure a sad thing, but I kept my eyes on you. Since you could leave anytime soon. I patiently waited for you once a week. Sometimes even longer. At the same place and time. Just to see you. In the end, the inevitable has come. It sure was beautiful and sad at the same time. Knowing that I will not be seeing you again. No more your stories, pain, struggle and jokes. But I'm glad to know you.

Thank you for everything, you will be remembered and missed...

Naruto...

Yup, that's about it. The ending was perfect I think, unless there is this guy "shanaro" who is still mysterious for me. I was expecting that all characters are in one picture together. But the writer had other plan, which was perfect.

Recently my Fa*ebo*k account just got intruded by I don't know who. Btw it happened trice already, the first one was I think I forgot to log out at the library's computer, nothing was serious since this person just updated my status, but luckily I deleted it after getting more than 40+ likes and comments, Next day went to that very computer and logout. Second one didn't really remember where/why/how/when but on my FB wall there was someone posting about po*n. I don't know whether videos or pictures but someone wasap me in the middle of the night asked me that what I was posting was true or not. Since I was just about to sleep and my phone was 3 meters away from me and no one would ever contact me at that hour unless something urgent. So my message tone rang, I checked the message. I rushed opened my FB using my phone. But too slow. So grabbed my laptop, turned it on and I saw the post. I just deleted it and thanked the guy for telling me that. Third one, I just woke up, checked my tab, and got FB message from a friend. This person asked me why did I still online at that hour(1 am). So basically, that time my phone screen was blank coz I remembered it was already in low battery so I didn't use it. My tab was being charged and I remembered close all things before plugged it to the charger. Everyone was already sleeping before I did all of them, So I was the only one who still awake. Lastly, I did all of those at 11 p.m. and probably slept at 12 a.m. Then, who the heck was using my account? So, if you see me online around midnight, it might not be me.

I hope you can see this, but I know you wont.

Well I didn't plan everything perfectly, I know I made mistakes, I thought the second one was going to work, but it just the same as the first one, even faster. I didn't know how to handle matters perfectly nor keeping them safe. But everything was not solely my fault. I tried my best, but you've changed so much until one time where I couldn't bear you any longer. It's gonna be hard for me, like what I did to the first. But I've learned my lesson. I know that bearing with my attitude was not easy. Thanks for the tears and joys. Thanks for listening to my past, problems and stories.

Farewell..

Vony..

My dearest phone..

Yup, the day this post is posted was the last day of my second phone's service. 3 years she has been with me and now can rest in a box peace. Why did I name her vony? Coz that phone was SE Neo V. Neo is a guy name, therefore I need to start the name with V and has to be a girl's name (why girl?I'll tell in the next post). Since it is a phone, and I wanted to name it with the initial V. So, puffff, there I have Vony=phony. No complicated, mind blowing and super imagination thoughts for the name, it just appeared in my head and that's how I got the name. Ally (my first phone) and Vony (my second phone) have served their best, I hope I can see them in the future, as my daughters (high level imagination).

I'm gonna take literally one year break from my postgrad thingy and going back to my home country since I really need somekind of break for a while. I've lost several weights and probably gonna get those back during that break. So in the future don't get confused when you see someone looks just like me, but a bit fatter, it could be me.

Good bye my second home, see you in one year.

Funny sayings"People are like farts, either loud but nothing or silent but killing"

Sunday, October 19, 2014

ADMONITION

I just had one of the most shocking thing that actually had happened before. I mean somehow strange things have been occurring lately. I saw thing that I was not even sure whether it's true or not. So this thing happened a few weeks ago in my office (it's not actually an office, coz it just a room where I do all my work, but just let's say it's an office to make everything simple). So this one day all RA's were asked to do some cleaning of a former lecturer's room. Because he is retiring this year and the university wants to get rid of all his belongings. But, instead of asking cleaner or other staffs, they asked the RA. RA is not the same as staff, we don't really get any of the privilege nor even have to do any admin stuffs. We are required only to help our bosses to do their works, but need to be related to the research. Other than that, it is not our obligation to follow.

But since the university is the boss of our bosses, they can do anything to us. So what we did was removing papers, maps and thesis from his room which the whole things were literally filled every inches of the room space. Because when we opened the door, all we saw was piles of those and I wonder how did he get out of the room. After like I don't know how long and the room was half empty, we took a rest. We've found a mini fossil training excavator and brought it to our room. It's like a board made up of solid clay and inside the clay there was a fake dinosaur fossil. So we need to dig out the clay to find the bones and that thing came along with the tools. So we excavated the thing, and we need to be careful since the bones are representing the real bones even the hardness, so if we put so much power when digging, it could scratch or even break the bones.

After like 10 minutes, one of the staff was calling, and he needed people to carry some stuff into the van. I was unlucky to be chosen and there was a friend whom was picked as well. Then before we leave the room I saw one of my friend was sitting on his desk (my co-worker during kelantan trip). I wanted to asked him but since he was busy with what he was doing, I canceled my intention. So only the staff, my friend and I went. Then the staff asked me to lift one of the boxes and bring it downstairs to the van. Btw my office is at second floor. That staff has already stacked all boxes at the side of the staircase and he wanted us just to carry them to the van.

This is when shit happened

So I grabbed the box, put my hands in the right position, gathered all energy from the universe and make sure that I could lift it. So when I was about to lift that box, I saw my friend coming, running from downstairs. I was shocked, speechless and all those gathered energy just gone in the speed of light. That friend was my co-worker, the one that was supposed to be on his desk, infront of his computer, doing his work. So how the hell did he go downstairs? Who was that in the room?

Then I asked him several questions, and the point is he was already downstairs around 10 minutes. So now I have more people in the room, 4 human, 1 not sure. So it's just a matter of time before it shows itself again.

Recently just got back from a week fieldwork to Sarawak. Many things happened, but this time I didn't get the chance to see absurd stuffs like I did before in the previous trip. As expected I've got burnt again. Even my friend said "weh, you getting darker lately, what happened?" and I could only smile. Now I have billion tons of work, besides my supervisor wants to see the progress of my thesis at the end of this month. Didn't take any self or nature's pictures whatsoever, since I had only a week, but 3 and half days of effective time. Was not enough. Beside there was the time when rain came and I only able to start my work at noon. Another problem last time was the car stuck in the mud, and took two hours to get it out of the mud, with the help of lorry. The rest of the story is just my friend and I doing sedimentary logging, spent 4 hours straight under the hot sun. I was fully covered and protected from the heat and ray, but in the end I'm still burnt. I guess we can't beat nature.

People in this world are unique, each one of them has a specific characteristic that others don't have. Like someone can do 2 backflips within a single jump, someone can solve rubic cube within a minute or even seconds, or those who can read and memorize everything and remember it for the rest of their life and many more. Like myself, I have the ability of doing absolutely nothing for 15 minutes, nothing to be proud of but you get what I mean. I have a friend who does not let anyone to take picture of himself, neither alone or together. He's scared that someone might post those pictures online and something might take advantage of them, this guy has almost the same thought as I do. But I don't mind someone takes picture of me (if there is), since it just pictures. The worst case will be edited pictures of naked me on the internet.

The best thing about living your life is you have the chance to learn new things. You meet new people, with different thoughts that may sometime useful in the future. Because everything happens for reasons which give lessons. You can take or leave the lessons. So in the end, it's you who decide, nature can only guide you, but the decisions are all yours. I met this guy one day during fieldwork in Sarawak. I was doing the logging, and that time the sky was already as dark as night, and rain could come any minutes. So this guy was stopping by after seeing me sitting, looking, hammering, writing, measuring the rock in front of me. Standard question that all people ask when they see geologists looking at rocks is "looking for gold, are you?". I just smiled and told him that I'm studying this and that. So after answering questions and explaining things and now he knew that I wasn't looking for gold, he looked at the rock for a few second maybe to identify, I don't know. Then, I saw the cloud was darker from before, I thought that the rain could come any seconds, so I decided to end the fieldwork eventhough still plenty works to be done for that particular site. So I talked to this guy "Sir, I think the rain is about to come, better end this fieldwork", but he suddenly he said "Just do the work, it's not gonna rain, be positive, that's the only think you can do now" and then he left.

I don't know what to say, I mean you don't expect that kind of stuff came out from a stranger. Besides, how did he know that the rain was not gonna come soon? But in the end, I continued the fieldwork and after like 15 minutes, it stated raining. Because of that 15 minutes I got things that I would say I almost done with that site, since the rest was just taking pictures, and I did that on the next day.

So this man said, "be positive, that's the only thing you can do now" and it truly came into my mind after that. The power of being positive has seriously save me that day, not from danger, but from time that could actually be wasted. I know that we should always be positive about everything, either good or bad. Coz being positive may change how things react to us. For example you are scolded by your teachers, instead of getting angry or crumpling your face, try to smile. Coz that may change what they have in mind, like let say at first they plan to punish you. Since you show some smiley faces, they may cancel their intention for punishing you, but you'll be sent home and expelled since they thought that you are making fun of them.

Everybody has experienced of fighting, can be physical, mental and by words (arguing or debating). Among all the people I'm working with right now, I mean the RA's and students. We usually do that, but what we are arguing, are usually about opinion of general stuffs. But there is this one woman who likes to threat others after we argue, like punching, kicking tables, flipping chairs. Although it's not serious matter and something that we can laugh about, but when she loses the argument, she'll threaten us. everyone is laughing everytime she does that. So there was this one day when she lost a debate with me and suddenly she flipped my chair. Yes, flipped my chair and I was sitting on it. everyone was shocked, even myself. Then I said "relax girl, relax", everyone laughed. She thought I was going to do something about it since she moved a bit further after did that, but I didn't. Then she asked me "hey gals, have you ever punched someone? you look so soft"

After hearing that question, it triggered my manliness and brought back the old times and reasons why I don't punch people.

So I told everyone this story.

Back in primary school, I was not a good boy as I am today, I liked to fight people who challenged me. The standard reason was football and fight between groups. In one class itself there were more than 4 groups, and they were divided according to their hobbies, like sports or toys. It started with just talking but always ended up fighting, don't know why. I also fought my sister's classmate. She's 3 years older than me. The reason why I fought them, was because they always messed with my sister. You know as a brother you will have this urge feeling of protecting your siblings, especially sisters. So my sister's friend would run to me, told me that my sister is crying because of this guy. Without having so much thought, I searched for that person and normally punched him in the face. I usually ended up losing and crying, but not the baby crying. The manly tears, tears when you wanted to do something so much, but you couldn't since your bodies are beaten up so badly. How couldn't, I was fighting someone at least twice my own size and I was like 7 or 8 years old and my sister's friend were like 10 or 11. But those fight stopped when my sister entered highschool. Since then on, I fought my classmate or someone from other school, but same age.

Until this one day

So when I was in primary 5 during break time, two of my good friends were fighting over something. I don't what it was about, but I just heard that they were shouting at each other and all my friends were already circling and saying "fight, fight, fight" for boys. But girls said "enoough please,just forget it and be friends again"(I seriously don't know how to translate what the girls said, coz it has this Indonesian slang words, but it's something like that). I saw a few friends also tried to separate them both, but seemed to be useless because those guys were pretty angry and they just pushed whoever come in their way. So I ran towards them and I believed this time was my turned to calm them down, but somewhat I was wrong. I stood between them and my hands were holding both of them from punching each other. I told them to relax. That moment was pretty intense because they kept moving towards each other and I might get hit by one them. So after few seconds, the guy in my right hand side was cool down abit, I was relieved for a moment, but my hand was still holding him. Because I'm afraid that he might go on to this guy again. So after seeing him calmed, I turned my face to the guy on the left side.

But suddenly

A lightning fast of a crumpled hand(fist) hit right on my left cheek. I seriously didn't see that coming. In my head I was like "what the heck?why did u punch me instead?" It felt that somehow all veins in my cheek were dislocated, which trigger the true power that has been concealed inside of me and within a split second, I turned super sayian(someone might have seen my hair tuned yellow for a moment). Somehow all blood in my body just rushed into my right hand. I felt this urging desire to release all this confined power that has already accumulated at my fist. Without even looking at him, I directed my punch over his face and it hit on his left cheek(instinct). He flew for like 1 or 2 meters and fell on the ground. I stood still, waited for him to get up and ready for second round.

But, he stayed down on the ground. Not moving.

I waited for like 10 seconds but he was still laying down on the floor. Then I came closer and calling his name, but he didn't respond. I got closer to him, shook his body but nothing. This was the time when my sense got back and I turned normal straight away. Everyone was panicking. Then I shook again but nothing happened. Then I asked everyone to lift him to the back chair. Because the chair at the back of the class was like a long bench, so we laid him there. Everyone tried to wake him up by sprinkling water, little slaps to his face and calling his name. I stood still, faced him and wondered how did that even happen.

Everything was so fast. The time he punched me then I punched him back was probably less than 2 seconds. I looked at my hand, asking what kind of demonic power was that? I seriously thought I killed him. I've already thought what kind of life would I have if I did kill him. The prison that I'd go, how I'd be treated inside that, what my future would be. Everything.

But after I don't know how long, he started to move. That was one of the times when I felt so relieve. I was that close to be a murderer. Then I appologized to him immediately, but something unexpected happened.

Me: Hey, are you okay? I'm truly sorry for that.

Him: Huh? What happened? *rubbing his left cheeck

Me: What? you don't remember anything?

Him: Nope, What happened?

I heard everyone at the back said "don't tell him anything"

Me: Nothing, you stumbled and hit the table.

Him: oh,, okay..

After that everyone pretended nothing has ever happened. Everything went back to normal. We've never talked about it ever again. Thank god, he didn't remember anything about the fight and punch, otherwise it would be me and him having a second round. Hopefully he wont suddenly appear infront of me, when the elevator's door opens saying "You've been expected, pay back time". It'll be super weird. Seeing your old pal, standing infront of you, looking so tough and is prepared to beat your as* down. But probably this time, it'll be me who forget about the past. From that incident, I realize that I have the ability to make someone forget about the past. So for those who wants to forget something from the past, just let me know, I'll be happy to help. But the result is not guaranteed.

Funny sayings"Wise people will learn from other people's mistakes, good people will make mistakes for the others to learn"

Thursday, August 28, 2014

THE MUSING

It has been such a long time since my last post, the last time I logged-in was just clicking the word publish since I've got nothing to write no more.

The 5 days break to my home country was great, I could see things that I've been missing for two years, which is everything, especially foods. I stayed in my grandparent's house anyway coz closer from the airport. The first day was already awesome, I woke up around 5.30 a.m. and went out for a walk. The first thing I sensed was the morning breeze. It wasn't cold or anything, but the air was a very typical of Indonesian's air(not all places). How fresh the air was and the good people were. You don't really find any countries in the world which the people burn garbages early in the morning don't you? Well, here you will see it almost everyday and also it was the first time after two years, I saw chickens running around. I could only smile that time realizing that things didn't change except the people. Coz, there were new faces I saw during that morning stroll. I visited my relatives and the last time I remembered I was one of the tallest, but now is the opposite. Didn't get a chance to see ex-school mates due to the short visit and besides the day I got there I was sick since I just got back from fieldwork and seemed that my body could not too take much jet lag.

After back to my normal human life, tons of works are waiting. I need to proceed with data that I've been collected from the last fieldwork. Besides my supervisor wanted to see my progress two weeks after my come back from Sarawak. So the 5 days holiday I did not really spend it peacefully since my mind was dominated by works and lots of works but it was great anyway.

Just finished the fasting month, took a one week break and still processing the data as usual. Nothing much happened in the last two months, except that as a Research assistant I need to clock in and out at a given time. I mean last time we didn't have this rule, but because there were several people that never come to department or when needed, so the head of department decided to make this rule. But to be honest, this rule may sometimes be a problem for RA geology, coz our supervisor may suddenly ask us to go for one or two days fieldwork unexpectedly. I mean they might just send a message like 3 days or a week to inform us, meanwhile we need to make a leave report to be excused for the clock in and out at least two weeks and the leave report sometimes got delayed or wont be approved if the reason is not good enough.

Had a little reunion with my high-school friends. I realized that I am no longer young, handsome and cool(I was not either). Some of us have grown some mustaches and beards, same goes with me. There was this one friend, used to be one of my gang has already married, and brought his wife as well and soon he will become a father. Time flew just so fast even my little brother is now as tall my mom and probably soon will be taller than me.

I'm probably the only guy who's checking my own blog and read the whole posts since the beginning of time. It's weird to think of but I did this not because I want to, but because I was forced to, by my own curiosity of what happened in the past. Besides, it somehow has given me the mood will to live. So this one day I've got absolutely nothing to do, other than sleeping and eating, coz I was in my lazy day. Lazy day is the day where my body is in no condition to do anything, due to the lack of inspiration, motivation, passion and constipation. It somehow happens once in a while and sudden. No symptoms for this so it is inevitable. Those who have seen me in this condition will thought that I'm arrogant or something, but the truth is I am, but only that day. I mean it is not that I'm arrogant, I might look like it, but it just the appearance because I'm simply too lazy to do and to pay attention on something and the cure is just a very good nap. After that everything will be as good as always.

So one time during this lazy day, I just laid down on my bed, with my guitar, singing "unchained melody". But because I didn't remember the whole lyrics, I googled it. Then suddenly, I just had this idea to read my blog, but at first I didn't plan to read everything, just the last post. But somehow I clicked "older post" everytime I've finished each page and in the end, I ended up reading everything. So I read through every post, word by word, sentence by sentence and realized what kind of a person I was. I still could not believe myself I wrote all of them. I was like "what was going on in my mind, when I wrote those?" To be honest I feel stupid and shame reading my own writings since they lack in almost every aspect. But on the bright side, I could see almost every decision that I've made, steps that I've taken and things that I've lost and gained. It somehow recalls everything from the past and I'm glad I'm writing here, share stuffs that wont be read by anyone, except a few friends, maybe.

Nowadays, the news about palestine has brought sympathy over the world. I don't usually talk about this, I mean I'm at my limit where I should just spit everything out. It is somehow painful, to see things, hear things, but can't do anything about it. I know everyone has sent prayers, donation, boycott US products and any kind of help. But still, so far, there is no significant result, infact it is worst than before. My friend told me rather than boycotting all the products, it is most effective to just reduce the price of diamond. Why is that? He simply said that Israel is small country, they wont have enough space to store all the cash, so they store the money in the form of thing that is simple but expensive, which is diamond. it might effect those whose own diamond, but the value of thing does not depend on the price, but how useful it is instead, my opinion anyway. Let say I'm given two choices to choose one car, MPV and Ferrari. I know that I'm living with my family and have friends that probably will go somewhere for holidays. As we know that MPV have more seats than the Ferrari and less gas consumption. We do not need to worry about the MPV's spare parts and get scratches, since the price to fix them is considerably cheaper compare to Ferarri's. So in the end, I will go for the Ferrari. Coz I can sell it, and from that I can get MPV and probably can buy a house with the rest of the money.*think

Recently, I just finished my 8 days fieldwork to help my friend for his project. By the way, it was my RA work. We off from department around 8 a.m in the morning and reached the hotel at 11 p.m., because we had to stop at several outcrops. I haven't even fully recovered from the darkness that I've gotten 2 weeks in Sarawak and need to be burned again. But that's what I'm being paid for. I tried to help as much as I could in this fieldwork, despite little knowledge that I have since it's not the field I'm interested in.

Another great experience happened in the history of my fieldwork. Guess what? We spent 1 day on "perhentian island". Yup it was only one day, but that was actually a great reward after fieldwork for 6 days. For the first time I tried snorkeling for like 2 hours. Didn't take photo for that coz I was too excited after more than 10 months of no swimming. I was thrilled and scared when the boat guy told us too jump. I did not realise that the spot that we've stopped was the snorkeling site. It was not in the middle of the ocean but it was pretty deep and besides, my body and skills are not as good as they were. I was once skinny but everything has changed in the last one year. Therefore shit needs to be done and someone has to do it. So I just man-up and stood on the edge of the deck for a couple of seconds, looked at the vast of the sea, looked up and saw the bright shiny sun, looked at my friends faces standing behind me waiting for their turn to jump as as they were saying "just jump off you b*tch", thought about what my life has been, money that I've borrowed, people that I love and care. So I put on the goggle, took a deep breath, and in my head I was like "I can do this, yolo", then jumped into the sea.

That was the first time I saw the deep blue sea with my own eyes. It was just such an amazing view to see things I haven't discovered yet. Then after a few seconds, I realised that I was out breath. I swam upwards as fast as I could and this was when I know how different it is to swim in the pool and in the sea. In the pool you don't get what people say waves, so once your head is out of the water for air, you can simply breath in. But in the sea is different. You have waves that are keep coming and in order to breath in that kind of condition you need to be calmed and that time I was not calmed. Coz it was my first time, so I just kept paddling up as much as I could just to get my head out of the water. Then shit happened, I somehow hit my goggle and it tilted. So when the waves hit my face, the water went in and reaction occured between the water and my eyes, and I could not see a thing since then. I panicked but then I remembered what a wise man had said "keep calm and cool". So then, I tried to be as calmed as possible, remained still for like 20 seconds, and a flash back started to appear, somehow I know that the time was near for me. Then I remembered about my family and thesis.

Without hesitation and stay cool, I've got my head out of the water, took off my goggle, and swam all the way to where the boat was while trying to keep my head out of the water. The boat was probably 10 meters away, and it took probably 1 minute to get there. Last time I could swim 10 meters in probably 2-3 seconds, but there, I could not even get one meter in 3 seconds. So I was like a retard trying to paddle nothing. Luckily I made it. After that, I fixed the position of the goggle make sure everything was fine and yolo again to the water.

These are some photos from the field work and island, not nice pictures, but are the best I could find. I found them really interesting in many ways. Btw some pictures are from my friend's camera, coz both my phone and camera were already dead by the time photo session started we finished with the fieldwork, so credit for him.

This is probably one of the best photo I've ever taken with my phone. It's not that the view is good or anything, but somehow the photo pictures the exact view from what I've seen with my own eyes.



Same goes with this photo.



I don't know what I was doing here with my friend. I was laughing seeing this, seems like we were trying to do some childish stuff. I remembered we did some stupid things, but in other places.



Three geologists from different field of interest. I don't usually wear sunglasses, but when I do, I look like that. Btw I'm the chubby guy at the back T,T.



This photo was chosen not because it's good, but because it has less mature content compared to the other, except the naked guy at the back.



Just a panorama photo of a beach. Before it covered by human bodies.



Sunset? Nope, It was actually in the morning.



I Just realised that a few days back was the independence day of my country. Well, don't blame me for not saying anything, since I'm living in someone else's country, besides I was on my fieldwork and all I could think of was getting back home as white as possible, but failed by the time I went for snorkeling.

You don't meet wise people everyday, they are like all heroes, come at the right time, right place, right moment. Don't expect someone dumb to be dumb and someone smart to be smart. In the end, don't simply judge people. We all have pros and cons within ourselves and we have everyone to complete our own puzzle, which eventually is everyone's puzzle. I was once talking to my friends during the fieldwork regarding culture and stuffs. We were just wondering how did all cultures come from? So, after a very intense discussion that took probably the entire time for everyone to get into the car for the fieldwork(5 seconds), we came out with a very logic, agreeable, simple and probably the answer everyone has has been waiting for. The answer was easy. It came from us/ancestor. We created the culture, which originally from habit that were passed throughout a tribe, race or nation. Then another question arise. Why do some cultures bad and good? Like some african countries, they have the tradition to whip their bodies for a particular ceremony for example, or fight with each other for a woman. Well, I would say that it is perspective. We would say it's bad but for them it might be good. But good and bad are two different things. They are like water and oil, which will not mix. We can recognize them with our sense, mind and intellect. If we can differentiate them why would they keep doing it if it's bad? It comes from our mindset.

Originally and naturally, human was born with clear mind. Means that they don't know good and bad, but somehow they know what to do. by following their instinct. If you don't believe me, look at all the children under 5 years old. As time passes by, they get more knowledge and information from surrounding, and take those into their mind which eventually become their principle of life or mindset, which is expressed in the form of actions. Meaning, if what they have taken are good, they will become good, otherwise, it is the opposite. If they have reached the age of an adult, it's usually difficult to change, but still possible with certain events such us tragic life experience or advice from someone who can really understand and talk to them.

So, what kind of culture do we all have now? Well, it is us to decide the type of "habit" that we are going to inherit to our children. Each of us has different mindset, good or bad, both can be changed. But one thing have to be remembered, that what we carry today will be brought to our kids. So in the future, don't just blame your kids about everything that your kids do. Coz it's all are reflection of what we did in the past. Don't expect them to be obedient if you were not. Look at yourself now and see whether you want your kids to be the same as you or not.

Funny saying "Love is the strongest force, unless you are a jedi"

Sunday, June 15, 2014

THOUSANDS OF WORDS (LITERALLY)

I should have known it earlier........

You don't plan shit to happen in your life, coz it comes at the right and perfect time. So it happened the day I went to search for dinosaur fossils. I woke up earlier than normal that day, around 5.30 a.m and took shower immediately, otherwise I will sleep again. The night before I've already picked the right cloths and pants for this fieldwork. So after shower, I immediately put everything on. I took my breakfast and went off around 6.45 a.m. coz I needed to gather at department around 8 a.m. So as usual I took a train and from my station to the university station takes about 30 minutes.

I stood at the platform waiting for the train for a minute and it arrived. I was a bit shocked knowing that it was already that crowded even at that hour, so I entered the train with a little bit of pushing and goring. Then I realised something, this condition has brought back the memory from my highschool. Because that time, I always went around this hour but last time it was not as packed as today. I mean it usually started to get crowded at 7 a.m. So means that I did not get any seats and had to stand, but because I was near the door, I just leaned against it.

At the 4th station (if I'm not mistaken) a lot of people came in, but from the opposite door. So basically the train has either 2 or 4 coaches, and each coach has 6 doors, 3 doors on each side of the train. So the door will open depending on where the platform is at, either left or right. So People came in like flood, they just pushed everyone to the side to create more spaces, some use their elbows, some use their back side of the body and some use human's fragrance. I don't know why some do that. I mean, most of the people who do that are the tall people. So when they enter the train, they just simply put they hands up on the air, and release the aroma like nothing matter. For those who are as level as their armpit, getting to that train will be one of the worst experience you will ever had in your own entire life, other than failing kindergarten. Because I had one experience and at the end I went out from that train and waited for another at the next station.

So people just rushed into the train, but because I was at the opposite door, it did no really affect me, since I was already at the corner of corner. After the door was closed everyone started to position themselves in the most comfortable way and at the end I was ended up standing infront of a guy and two women. A guy and a woman were facing me and the other woman were facing the other way. So I was reading a book that time and after a few minutes, I realised that the man and woman were repeatedly glancing at me. Somehow I caught them in action, and just I smiled back at them. Then when they were about to got off from the train, they glanced at me again and looked down like they knew that I was looking at them so they pretended to look the other way. And again I smiled back.

I arrived at the university station and immediately ran to the bus stop, since I saw from the train that the bus was already taking passenger. I queued in the line and when I bought the ticket and walked in the bus corridor, people were looking at me the way the man and woman from the train did. So in my head I was like "what did I do yesterday?" and thought that it probably just my imagination that people are starting to get attracted to me coz I did nothing special last week. Then I arrived at the library bus stop and directly run to my department since I arrived at almost 8 a.m. I checked my supervisor's car and he was not there and saw my friend who are coming along with me waiting. So I put my bag beside her and went to the toilet coz I need to do some little business.

Reminder, what you are about to read contains mature and 18+++ story, you are advised to not to read it, loudly. readers take full responsibilities for any side effects caused by the story, such us cancer, blindness and being friendzoned might be experienced by the readers(writer). Batteries not included.

So I got into the toilet, positioned my self infront of the toilet bowl, put the zip down and pissed like normal(doggy style). Finished everything, put the zip up, washed my hand, looked at the mirror for a while to check my face, cloths, teeth, nose and pants. I saw my zip was still opened, I remembered zipping it up but why did it still open? So I put my washed and cleaned hand and looked for the zip's handler(you know the thing you pull to close/open your zip). So basically, if your zip is already closed, the handler will be at the top, right? and when it is opened, the handler will be at the bottom. But, in my case when I checked with my cleaned and washed hand, the zip was open, and the handler was already at the top. So what I did was I pulled it down and pulled it up. But, it was still opened. I repeated the same thing for like 5 to 6 times but still opened.

So I was like "what the heck is this??? Wait a minute.."

In 0,00000000000000000049999116 kiloseconds, all mysteries that have been playing in my mind, the reason why people were suddenly attracted to me, the reason why the man and woman in the train were repeatedly glancing and looking down were finally answered.

I did not know how far they have seen "thing". All I can say is they are all good people, what they were trying to do was to save humanity from blindness. But I was too arrogant and let my dirty mind to think what I should have not thought, and I should have known it earlier before going for that fieldwork, coz I ended up going with that zip opened.

Well, I'm done with my 15 days of fieldwork, everything did not really go well, since most of the outcrops that need to be logged are badly weathered, so the only alternative is I need to look for another outcrops outside the planned area and probably needs more time to finish.

But here are some absurd experiences that happened during those 15 days and some have brought a certain trauma. I don't even know why it happened to me, but I know there is a reason. Description that I'm about to write is based on fact from what I sensed.

The first and second day I stayed in a guest house kind of thing, because we needed to save money so we took the cheapest place. I didn't expect much from it, the room was 3X3 meters room and inside there were two single beds and one drawer. It wasn't good for staying in the room because too small, but enough just for rest. So around like 10 p.m. I finished shower and everything and ready for sleep. I laid down for like 30 minutes I guess, and when my eyes were finally reached their limit a couple went inside room beside mine. So this place which I stayed was like a building and divided into 3X3 rooms and between each room, there is only 3 cm thick of board. The worst thing was I can hear everything on the other side.

So after this couple went in the room, they had a little chat around like 5 minutes. I did not know what they were talking about since they talked in different dialect than the usual malay. Then after that, there was moment of silent for like a minute or two. Then a weird noise started and kissing sounds begun.

Then I was like "What the heck is that noise? no, no, no. It can't be happening" But yes it happened.

It lasted for like 10-15 minutes, with all the sound from that couple and bed. I tried to look for a hole in the wall but luck was not in my side.

The second day, still in the same hotel, I read some papers just to get me sleepy. It was a very quite and peaceful night, a perfect night to be surrounded by the loved ones not alone in a narrow room with one bed empty in double-single-bedded room. After like half an hour, I heard someone went inside the room, besides mine again. Then, for I don't know how long someone went inside the same room as the previous person went and after that, I heard "bduakkkkkk". Sounded like someone just did moonsault or something. Then after exactly 2 minutes, they played a video(because I could clearly hear that it wasn't not come from human and it was quite loud) and it turned out to be a blue video. How do I know?

Well, back in the high school, I have a friend that brought a very high-tech handphone, which could play video, and that time I haven't had my first phone. So one day this guy went to the toilet with his table-mate. After 10 minutes, they haven't come back and somehow I had the urge to pee. That time, we had this rule that only two people can go to the toilet at one time, so what I did was I waited until the teacher's not looking. Luckily, the teacher went outside to the office and I just run like crazy to the toilet. When I went inside, I saw these my friends were standing at the corner and watching something. I ignored them at first because I had more important thing to do. So after I done with my business and about to wash my hands, one of them called me showed me that video and it was a blue film. So simply said, I stayed and watched for like two minutes and then left, coz I pitied the girl who seemed to be suffered of what that man did to her.

So the video in that room beside mine, produced the same kind of noise as the noise from the video my friend showed me 8 years ago. I didn't know how long I heard that thing, because I felt a sleep while the sound was still going.

Many people in Sarawak love to park their cars like douchebag. The way they park their vehicles like they own that car park. I remembered one time when I was about to leave the hotel, there was this car parked like an idiot, I mean the driver. He purposely took two slots where there were a few other cars looking for parking slot. I wonder how did they get the driving license. They also like to pee at the side of the road like a boss. There were several times I saw like 5 cars stopped at the side of the road. I thought there was an accident or something and it turned out people peeing. In my head It feels like one of them was shouting "hey guys I found a good spot here, let's pee together" and everybody stopped and peed together. It seems like Africa, where toilets are everywhere.

I drove probably around 200 km at Sarawak without license, coz last time my friend was tired and there was no other choice since we needed to move on to the next location. The result of my lousy driving, I got one horn and one middle finger. Because last time I was really really really behind a truck carrying huge logs and I was behind it for like 5 minutes. So when I saw an opportunity, that there was no car on the opposite direction, I simply on my signal light and glimpsed at my side mirror just to make sure nothing was coming from behind. Then suddenly when I tried to cut the truck and exactly side by side with the truck, a laud horn just sounded behind me. I panicked and slowed down my car and tried to get closer to the truck's side, probably 20 cm to the truck's back tire and it was a white niss*n car cut and horned non-stop. I think he was cutting all the way back from I don't know how many cars, that's why I did not see it when I glimpsed at my side mirror. I mean I played CTR, Chocobo Racing, drivers 2, GTA 2 and 3, far cry 3, borderland 2, Battlefield 2 and many others cars game, so I know how to handle that situation in the most possible and suitable way and yes I survived that. After that, the niss*n passed my car, I followed him and then he slowed down, opened his window and showed his majestic middle finger. I was like "Really? Is that necessary?" I know that it was my fault, but we all survived, no one was injured and bird are still chirping. I guess I made a terrible mistake back then, well it's a lesson for me.

The final day of the fieldwork was the most memorable day in the history of my fieldwork. It is one of the most absurd things that have ever happened in my life and I should probably bring a high quality camera or video recorder next time(joking). So in the last day, I stayed in a hotel in a small town. This town is like the life support for local and native people. Because here I could see people coming from village by small trucks or vans just to get food supply and furniture. So early in the morning around 7 a.m., I had my breakfast in the restaurant just infront of the hotel. So while I was eating, I observed the surrounding, saw kids running, old people smoking and chatting, workers were preparing for I don't know what, stores were opening and dogs were strolling around. Then I noticed that there were several hotel's windows at the first floor were opened, because I was sitting and facing the hotel and could clearly see what was inside the room eventhough only top half of it.

Inside that room I saw 2 kids were playing, running around and looking out from the window. Then a woman suddenly appeared, wearing a cloth wrapped to her body, and looking out the window and talking to the kids. Everything seemed normal until the two men appeared behind her. One guy stood and the other one just laid on the bed. I don't know what they were talking but I saw them laughing. Suddenly the woman laughed, approached the guy who was laying on the bed and took off her cloth. Then another women appeared, wrapped in cloth and stood nearby the window. Without any sign or anything, that woman changed her cloth right nearby the window like no one can see her. I was like "What the heck?? Is it really happening?" Have you ever seen something that made you stunned and speechless? Well, that was the moment for me. I could not move myself, not even blink while seeing it. Billion of questions were in my head, asking for a logical answers for that behaviour. I mean there were kids, and a guy who were right there in that very room and those women simply did that? Really?

Then I remembered that there are several tribes in my country do the same as them. Some don't even wear anything. So the one that I saw was probably still have a little bit of their old behaviour or culture.

During those 15 days in Sarawak, I have only two pictures that I can't even describe in words, either it's too beautiful or complicated. BTW, these pictures were taken by my friend.


The first time I saw the outcrop above I was like "When is my master going to end? What in the world is this?". Coz based on my supervisor, normal outcrop takes about 3 days to complete. But this one is abnormal, albino, mutation of outcrop, so not sure how long.


The picture above was taken by the time I just finished the fieldwork in my friend's area. So by chance, we saw beach on the way to the hotel and luckily, we found the way to get there. I wanted to add some words in the picture but too lazy to edit. But somewhat I want to say. "Somehow, I know that I'm facing the direction of where you are now"

Well, after stranded for more than 2 years, I am finally able to go back to my home country on 16th june. Even for only a week, but that's good enough. We'll see what's gonna happen there.

Funny saying "What comes easy will go easy, except fat"

Saturday, May 17, 2014

REALIZATION

Recently, I was informed by my supervisor that he is going to look for dinosaur fossil, since there was a recent discovery in Malaysia by one of my lecturers from japan, and it was the first dinosaur fossils ever found in Malaysia eventhough just a tooth. So my co-worker and I are invited to accompany him, and hopefully we can find new fossils but the whole skeleton of dinosaur not just a tooth or claw.

Most of the international people I met in my life could not recognize my originality, nationality or even my race correctly at first. Recently, while I was jogging in the park, I saw a bunch of people doing some aerobic exercises. It looked so interesting so I joined that group. After like 10 minutes of exercise, a Chinese lady approached me. She was one of the organizing committee members and asked my name, age, phone and stuff for record. Then she asked me where I came from, so I replied Indonesia. Then she looked at me like I am a ghost or something. She did not believe that, and thought that I'm a Chinese. I mean I don't think there is even a bit of chinese's characteristic shown in my face, besides I'm dark which is the opposite of chinese, and it was not the first time I got such an impression and trust me there are more. I don't really understand why, I mean I thought it is obvious that I look like an Indonesian. But why do they still get it wrong? Do they really see me as hybrid of mixed from several different races or something? These are several incidents and conversation that I can recall and all happened in my university life.

1st year

I was walking back from English presentation class and out of nowhere a black guy appeared, I think he is from Nigeria because of his accent. Then a little conversation happened.

Nigerian: Excuse me, Do you know the way to ISC?
Me: yeah sure, just go straight, cross the road and bla bla bla.
Nigerian: oh ok, Thank you very much. Are you chinese?
Me: what? me? nope. I'm Indonesian.
Nigerian: Really? you look like chinese to me. anyway, thanks for the direction.

2nd year

There was an event for international students at my university and I attended because one of my friend was performing. I met a lot of new students both full-timed and exchanged. So there was this guy, from either Uzbekiztan or Kirgiztan(I don't remember exactly his origin and how to spell it) said hello to me. He introduced himself so did I. Then he was shocked knowing that I'm from Indonesia, because he thought that I'm a japanese. Inside I was like flying without wings, it is better than someone said that I'm genius or awesome. Well, to be honest my race is javanese, it's close to japanese, just replace the "v" with "p", so I guess that explains everything.

During the journey back to the university from my last second year fieldwork, we stopped at a stall selling sweet corn. So while I was eating and talking with friends, one of the lecturers joined and had conversation with us all. Then, there was one topic where we talked about how different we see rocks before and after studying geology. So during my turn to talk, I told something that revealed my origin to this lecturer. Everyone knew where I came from except this lecturer. Then he surprised after heard my story and he told me that he thought I came from nepal(really?), everybody laughed and I've never seen them again.

3rd and final year

One day around 8 p.m., I was starving like I haven't eaten for few days, so I sent text-message to my girl-friends(friends which are girls) and asked whether they already had dinner, because my room-mate has already gone with his gang and my gang had already moved out from the dorm. Then the girls said meet them in 10 minutes coz they need to get ready. So because I'm a guy, I did not need much time for that, just put my cloths on and ready for anything. I got out the room and went to a small hall. It was not actually a hall, just a place where there are roof and chairs just to hang out. So I took a seat, played a game in my phone and out of nowhere, beyond my imagination a chinese girl appeared in front of me. I didn't see her coming, it just that suddenly there were feet in front of me. So I raised my head because I was looking at the phone, and looked at her. She started talking whether in cantonese, hokkien or mandarin I don't know. So I replied "What?". Then she talked again in her language, so I told her that I don't speak chinese. She was shocked, looked like she disbelieved what I just said, so she said sorry and ran off.

My last semester was the toughest semester in the history of all semesters. Everyday after 5 p.m. I needed to go to the workstation to do interpretation on data that have been given to me and the result was 7500 km square map. Sometimes I went back to the dorm around 12 a.m. and the worst was 2 a.m. and it happened for 3 and a half months. So there was one day, when my eyes could not take it anymore, because I worked on computer, besides my works had lots of bright colour lines. So that day, all my classes finished until 3 p.m. I decided to go to take one day off and went to library to do some reading, comic reading. Then after approximately 2 hours I got bored and decided to go back. Then before I exited the library, a group of chinese (3 people) approached and one of them touched my shoulder, and a little conversation happened. I call them 1C, 2C and 3C.

Me: yes?
1C: bla bla bla bla bla *speaking in their language
Me: what? *confused face
2C: Bla bla bla bla bla *speaking in their language with serious tone
Me: Hah? * with my wth face
3C: Bla bla bla bla bla *speaking in their language with a bit angry tone
Me: What? I'm sorry I don't speak chinese. English please.
1C,2C,3C: oooooooo, I thought you chinese, you look like chinese. very sorry. *of course they did not say that together but that's what I heard.

The same day which I went for jog and accused as a chinese by a lady, she told me what she thought is a good way to lose some fat or body weight. She said drink alot of plain water. She said, before she did that she had severe migraine and she used to be fat(I don't know how fat). She thought that it was because she has never exercised, so she decided to do routine exercise, 3 times a week, each in 30 minutes. But she still had the migraine so she went to a certain programe where was taught some basic exercises and foods that are and are not to be consumed. So after talking to her for like 10 minutes, she concluded that drinking a lot of plain water helps to increase the loss of fat in the body during exercise. Because the more you drink, the more you sweat or excrete and those processes carry fat along with them. eventhough not so much, but better than drink less.

Finally after waited for almost 8.467.200 seconds, I'm now officially a postgraduate student plus a research assistant. Ofcourse there were troubles along the way to reach this level, including crossing the road, walked for over 1 km, went for 30 days fieldwork and gained some weight after that. Yup I've gained some weight. I knew this after went back from medical check-up on tuesday 6th. It seemed that those 30 days field work did not really do anything to my body while I was expecting to lose some weight. Well, s**t happens. At first I was not sure how and where did I get those fat from. I mean I did some little exercise each day after the fieldwork. But now, I think it was because I drank I lot of water ever since the lady told me that water is good to lose some weight. Because after she told me that, within that day itself, I probably drank 4 liters of water(no joking), coz I bought this 9.5 liters mineral water and finished it within 2 days. So basically if I count it correctly, 1 liter equals to 1 kg and I use 20%(I don't know how I got this number) as percentage of water retained by the body within a day since we are composed of mostly water. So based on nothing, I have invented two formulae. Therefore my actual body weight in the day of my medical check up was:

Actual body weight = Current weight - 20/100(amount of water consumed within a day X day elapsed since I talked to the lady before medical check up) *if you drink same amount of water daily.

or

Actual body weight = Current weight - 20/100(sum of water consumed) *if you drink different amount of water daily.

So if my calculation is right, I should be smiling now. I will call it the "non-sense equation". Limitation of these formulae are they can only be applied at maximum 5 days after water consumption to the day you weigh your weight and only applicable for water not food. But I wont dare to try with food since it is harder to be expelled from the body compared to water.

What is the most expensive thing a person can have?

"A MASK"

Why is that?

A Mask I mentioned here is not a mask which you wear during halloween or dance, but a mask which we use to impress people, to show them that we are as level or higher. Why is it the most expensive? Because you tend to use everything you got to get it, despite the price that may even make you suffer to get it, just for people's sake. For me it just does not make any sense. You suffer to impress people, which will only last for maybe 1 week at most and after that everything goes back to normal. I used to have this one friend, who bought RM 200 Z**A plain-thin-shirt, plus two buttons. While I can probably get the same shirt with different brand for RM 15-30. So with RM 200 I can get at least 6 to 7 plain shirts with maybe a bit low in quality but I would say it is better than buying a RM 200 shirt. Buying it, is one thing, but taking care of it, is another thing. I mean we expect expensive stuff are more durable or harder to break or destroyed compared to cheap ones. But here, we are the one who need to take care of it, unless you can swim in money than it's different story.

What I'm trying to say here is spend the money wisely. People are mature enough to differentiate "needs" or "wants". If you have problems fulfilling your needs then don't think about getting what you want, coz it will just make the condition worst. You may do something stupid like steal or borrow from someone just for the thing that does not even gonna improve or bring advantages to you. You don't need expensive stuff to get attention, the best way is I think to be different than the others, but in a good way. I have a friend travelling around the world not because he is rich, but because he's different than others. yes he's talented, but everyone is talented, but in different way. Make the most of your talent, don't just sitting in front of computer like me. Well, at least I'm learning to typewrite. yes, grammar mistakes everywhere, but who cares?(except my high school's english teacher) as long as my points are delivered, then it's good enough. You don't know what you are capable of until you do, not try. Because try is half-hearted. Well, it is all my opinion anyway, just ignore it.

So I have a week more left before off to sarawak for the real thing. Hopefully, I can find good outcrops and sufficient for my paper, otherwise I will have to go again next year, since I'm planning to go finish all my fieldwork this year.

Funny sayings "Everyone is born as creators, but most are creating problems"

Monday, April 28, 2014

THE CYCLE

This year will be the dark age in the history of my life. First of all, people relate dark age with tragic events that have brought sorrow through out the world, events that are not to be remembered, times when there are no lights or even times where crucial events are deleted from history. Well, the dark age here has a very straight forward meaning I can say.

DARK AGE here means the time when I'm completely physically dark. But why only this year? I wish It is only this year. Because I want to settle all field works before the new year, so I'll be going for maybe around 15 days field work on May, August, October and probably December if I don't have enough data. So during those 15 days on each of those months, I'll be dating with rocks and try to get to know them better. Not just that, I have several other field works between them, probably a week or two, depending on how much data my supervisor needs. So yeah, this year is going to be LEGEND........wait for it(I need to finish my food)....DARY. LEGENDARY!!!

Recently I just had a little conversation with friends from the past. The last time I saw them was after the primary school's exams. It was good to get in touch with them again after all these years, but there is one question that truly bothers me. First of all, it is not that I hate them when they ask me this question, but I think they should at least heard about it. Not completely clueless, since most of them are already working they should know about it and besides, it is an old thing, it is not something new. It bothers me when they ask

"What is geology"

Because after they asked that, they wanted a proper explanation, so I gave them as simple as brief as possible. But, they wanted more, so then I just gave them the wikipedia answers, since that's gonna be the best explanation and hope they understand. If they don't, the whole conversation will be me telling what geology is. To make everything clear, Geology is not the same as Geography. But there is a good thing behind that, I now have something to write here since I have no clue at all after the Sarawak's fieldwork.

So it has come to this

WHAT IS GEOLOGY??

Simply said, it is the study physical and substance of earth or to be more specific it is the study of rocks and what's inside them. This study will give you a story of how a rock is formed and what are the processes associated with it. within a rock there are minerals, minerals are like cells in human, animals and plants. The combination of minerals create a rock. They're formed at specific condition. so rock is defined by its mineral composition. Three main types of rocks are igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks. Igneous rocks come from the crystallization of magma both inside and outside the earth surface. Sedimentary rocks are formed from the eroded or weathered (physically or chemically) igneous rocks, animals and plant remnants, are deposited at certain environment and then lithified. Metamorphic rocks are formed from sedimentary rocks that are buried deep enough for the grains to recrystallize due to heat and pressure. I don't want to go further coz it will take forever once I go into one topic and yeah that's what I think geology is in general.

We as geologists do not scare of anything, we are designed to overcome almost everything and can survive in the worst condition imaginable. Thus, that make one of the toughest people in the world other than polices, athletes, wrestlers, soldiers, martial art masters and Chuck Norris. Earth is our home and we are free to explore them, unless mining sites or highways, we need to get permission to stop there. True geologist must not afraid of height, because sometimes we need to reach out a certain height due to the present of outcrops. When we see an outcrop let say about 15 meters height, and the outcrop has inclination of 45-70 degrees, we can reach that effortless. Somehow we have spider-man DNA in our bodies, which enables us to climb more than average human being. If you are walking with geologists in a fieldwork and they find an interesting outcrop, they will run towards it, if not at least they will fast-walked. If it is high from the ground with inclined surface as I've mentioned before, they will get there before you know it. You blink for 2 seconds and they're already up there, but since we are also human beings, getting down is sometimes a little bit problems.

Since everything is about rocks, we have some tools that every geologist should bring to deal with rocks in the field others than pens, pencils, erasers and books or papers. There are also tools for the lab's works, but I wont mention it here since I don't really know some of their names and besides certain tools are only used for certain branches of geology.



This is the famous geology hammer. This hammer is not sold in any general hardware stores. Because until today I still haven't found any which means that I still do not have my own hammer. We need to order online to get it and this hammer is quite expensive. Like in a game, it is a must have tool. Because this hammer is stronger than normal hammer. The handle and the part-where-you-use-to-hit are one component made from steel, otherwise it will break easily when you are dealing with rocks. Because last time during my last field work, we were required to take some rock samples for the lab's work. So we saw one good sample laying freely like waiting for us to beat it. So my friend used a sledge hammer(not sure about the spelling) to break that rock and it was granite(igneous). After hitting for 2 minutes the hammer broke, so we take another sledge hammer from the van and the same thing happened. So we only had one more sledge hammer left. My friend did the hitting for like 1 minute. Then he seemed to be pretty exhausted and finally with all his strength, with a single blow, he hit the rock so hard and finally, it broke. I mean the hammer broke, so the rock won the battle and we didn't get the sample. Then the professor from utrech used a geology hammer, three hits on other granite in the same area and GG. The hammer won. Not sure it was the professor's luck or my friend didn't really hit at the right spot perfectly. *true story



This is the geology hand-lens. It is used to see mineral composition in the rocks as well as to check grain size in sedimentary rocks if you can't figure it out by touching. The way to use it is place the lens as close as possible to your eye and place the rocks around 5 mm from the lens.



This one is the geology compass. Other than to show you which is north and south this can also be used to take measurements of the rock's orientation, like strike and dip of a bed rock, displacement of rocks by measuring striation on the fault plane or direction of palaeo-current in sedimentary rocks and there are many others. There is a little mirror placed inside the compass. I don't know if there are any others but based on my experience the mirror can be used to locate your exact position in a map during fieldwork and since some of us are women, it can be used for a quick make up just in case they see someone attractive.



This is HCL (hydrochloric acid) but not so concentrated. Why do geologists need acid? Well, rocks are formed from different types of material, like what I have mentioned before rocks can also be formed from remnants of dead animals (bones or hardparts) physically or chemically. Mostly sea creatures that have alot of hard parts, like shells and fish's teeth. So the accumulation can form a rock which is called carbonate rock. This carbonate rock will react with acid and it can only be formed at certain environment. So two rocks might look a like but the composition might not be the same, which mean that the place where they were formed was different. So the acid gives other information about the rock. Besides that If your eyes are red due to irritation caused by dust or whatever, you can put a few drops to make it clear. I mean white clear and you will probably blind after that. *not recommended and don't ever try.

Water rationing has been happening in the place I live due to the severe drought season that has been going on since February. Because of this, forest-fire were everywhere due to high intensity of the sun. During my last fieldwork when I was about to identify the rock, suddenly, bushes just burnt in front of my eyes. I've never seen something like that in my whole life and I believe this drought was the worst so far. Fortunately, the condition is getting better since the last three weeks but still water rationing has not been stopped. There was one time when I was p**ping, I did not know that, that day was the day that the water in my block was cut, so when I was about to clean my self, I took the hose (the one beside the closet), turned the water tap and nothing came out. So I panicked, then screamed, calling for help(my brother). Luckily my parents have been saving some water and I asked my brother to transfer some water from my parents's bathroom to the everybody's bathroom by bucket. That day was the day I didn't take shower for the whole day and thank God it was Sunday.

Farewell is hard, it does not matter how long you have been together with someone, coz once you see them going away somehow a part of you is just gone. I had this farewell lunch with students from Utrech University, the ones I worked with for probably two weeks, these guys are awesome. We shared knowledge, experiences, stories, jokes and even some personal stuffs, it was just simply awesome. It is sad that they need to leave but that's life. So before leaving, we got a chance to take pictures together and hope we meet again.
By the way, I'm not the one who's taking the picture, those guys at the back are students from Utrect and I'm the one who's pooping there.

Life is like an airport. People come and eventually will go, some may stay a bit longer than the others and some may just leave immediately, including myself. Nothing is forever. That's probably why I only have good friends not a best friend, because they just come and go. So my best friend will be my wife(which is not here yet), coz she'll stay the longest. Some people bring good lessons, some bring nothing and some just bring or create problems. So now it comes back to you, which one are you? Are you pearls or shells in the beach or just the sand? It sounds harsh but that's just how life works. I have a friend who got mad when one of his friend left and hanged out with a new guy. Well here, I don't really know whose fault is this. Many factors can cause such a thing and we can't really blame someone for this. We tend to blame the other person. But we can't just simply do that, it will be totally bias, since we have not even asked the person on the other side. It could be that it is actually us that don't really understand how the system works. So everyone needs to learn how to accept. It is hard, but possible.

Funny sayings"Truth can be painful and lies can be beautiful, but sleep is always wonderful"

Sunday, April 13, 2014

THE FORGOTTEN

This story is supposed to be posted on the previous post. But because there are already so much stuff there, so I write it here instead. In March 27th, I had one of the most weird things that have happened to my life. That day, I just moved to another part of my fieldwork location. It was a very tiring day because I needed to go to the place where was not included in the plan. So I got to the hotel pretty late. My french friend and I had a quick dinner with another companion of this project for this area and went to the room around 9.30 p.m. I was so exhausted but could not sleep immediately. I went online to update the previous post and studied a little about my master thingy just to get me sleepy. But those didn't work. So I just laid on the bed, listened to songs and realised that it was already 12.30 a.m. of the next day. I plugged off my earphones and covered my body with bed linen and I don't for how long, I fell asleep.

Then I realised, I was standing infront of a girl around my age, somewhere inside a shopping complex. I didn't know who that girl was. Then she asked me to choose one of several foods at the food court. Then I just randomly picked and she went to the cashier, probably ordered what I picked. Inside my head I was like "well, I think, I'm dating this girl. but who is she?". I tried to remember any girls that I've met in my life, but I just could not remember this one. I kept looking at her and didn't get any clue who that girl was. She then walked towards me and said.

"So what is it you wanted to tell me?"

Beyond of my thought I replied

"I like you, be my GF"

Seriously, I didn't know what I was talking about, seemed like my body moved by itself. I couldn't control my movements, even my mouth spoke by itself. I wonder what was happening. Then she smiled, giggled and said.

"Are you kidding? we are just friends, not more than that. You're like a brother to me" *FRIENDZONED & BROTHERZONED

Then I replied

"Okay, we are just friend then"

I stood there, looked at her and after a few seconds somehow I moved away from her. It wasn't because I'm sad but my body moved by itself and then suddenly, poof!! I woke up from my sleep. I didn't realise what just happened until I checked my phone and looked at the time. I wasn't sure about the time but my assumption it was in the morning. Then I thought that it was just a dream. I remembered that I needed to go to the University coz I have started my RA. I took a shower, breakfast and left immediately. Once I got to the university and I was about to open the lab's door, a girl shouted my name. I looked around searching for the source of the sound but couldn't find it. She shouted again and realised that it was coming from the canteen nearby. I don't remember that there was a canteen there, so I approached her and sat opposite of her. She offered me the food and said

"So how does it taste? do you like it?"

I replied

"yup, absolutely. it's nice" *I don't remember what I was eating.

She said

"Good. So, we've been dating for the past 6 months, what do you think about me? Do you love me?"

I replied

"Ofcourse I love you. What are you talking about"

She smiled and seemed to be excited by what I just said. Then she asked me whether she could leave or not, because she had classes. I nodded and smiled back and then she left. After that, I went to the lab, finished all the things that I need to do that day and went back home. Before I went for bed, I called her and talked for maybe half an hour on the phone. Suddenly, my mother came to my room and asked me to sleep coz it was already late night and I need to go to the university again on the next day. So I said good bye to her and went to sleep.

Okay, there are some points that I want to make. First of all, somehow, it is the same girl from my dream. Looks like I'm dating her now. Secondly, I have been dating with this girl for 6 months, and don't remember when we started it. Third, I started to have a memory about the girl and eventhough it seems that I've seen her somewhere, I still couldn't recognize her. Fourth, I couldn't control my movement. Lastly, how and why am I at home while I'm supposed to be in the hotel, in the middle of my fieldwork?

Then, I heard a very loud noise, the sound was very familiar, it was a song from avenged sevenfold. I hear this song everyday and finally realised it was coming from my phone. It was my alarm. I checked the time, it was 5.30 a.m. and dismissed the alarm. I laid on my bed, looked at the ceiling, thought about what just happened and tried to recall everything that I can remember. I gathered every information from my memory. It's like a scene in the movies where all pieces of information such us pictures or conversation are moving around and try to fit in a particular position. Once all parts of memories are set, a "click" sound pop in my head. Everything was clear and I remembered the whole story. I got up from the bed, looked around to make sure everything was normal and still in the hotel. Then said to myself

"DID I JUST HAVE A DREAM IN A DREAM? HOW IS THAT EVEN HAPPENED?"

I could not believe myself such a thing is possible. I immediately wrote down everything that I can remember. I was still shocked and having a lot of thoughts about this dream and remembered that it was the same as in the movie inception. Most probably and I'm pretty sure, it just happened to me and luckily, I wasn't trapped in the limbo. But there is still one question remained about the dream and plays in my mind even until today. The question that can only be answered by myself and probably can change the future of me. The question that will remain as a mystery and needs a sophisticated machine and method to solve it. The question that is even harder than Einstein's riddle. The question that I really want to know the answer even more than answers in my exam sheets.

WHO WAS THE GIRL IN MY DREAM?? *dramatic high string violin

In March 29th my friends and I almost got into a car accident. It was the last day of my fieldwork before my second break. The rain was just over and we were on the way to the hotel after a full day dealing with rocks. Everything was good, I mean there was no sign of bad omen or anything, the wind was blowing nicely and gently, the sun set was beautiful, the weather was perfect after walking, running, crawling, climbing, hammering, measuring, writing, talking, sweating, drinking and discussing under the hot sun for the whole day. The car was moving around 60 km/hour and the condition of the road was wet and pretty packed. I mean the distance between cars was probably 5 meters away. It was really dangerous moving in that kind of speed, but we were exhausted and wanted to get back to the hotel as soon as possible.

There were about 12 cars moving in the same speed, because there was a big truck and it caused cars behind it to move with same speed. Suddenly, for no reason, the truck stopped. It was a sudden stop where all drivers were not prepared for this. So the whole stack of 12 cars just stopped immediately. Our car almost hit the car infront of us, but fortunately, the driver's response was beyond speed of light, so he moved the car to the side and provided our car with enough space stop. It was so terrifying, I looked around to see the condition. When I looked forward, everything seemed fine, no crash or whatsoever. But when I check behind, 3 cars crashed. Those cars were BMW, MPV and sedan. After like one minute, the truck move to the side of the road, letting all cars behind it to pass and the three crashed cars moved to the side as well, probably discussing about who's gonna pay for all the wrecked parts.

People change through out their life, can be physically, mentally and behaviour or attitude. These changes are influenced by a lot of things from family, friends, school, environment and internet connection. Well, I have been through all these changes but the recent one is physical change. I just got back from my 26 days of fieldwork for a week break and yes, I changed/turned into an evolved creature. Even my family couldn't believe what I've turned into in the last 26 days. I arrived at the university around 4 p.m. and my family was waiting and ready to pick me up. I got off the car, picked my luggage from the bonnet, said good bye to my french friend and entered my car. Inside the car there were my parents and my sister and the first thing I realised was they all looked at me with the awe-looked. The "look" that showed amazed, shocked and sympathy. Then, with feeling abit confuse I said

"What?"

They replied

My mom "you've turned solid black, like construction workers. muahahahahahahahahahahah!"

My dad just smiled

My sister "Bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, Not construction workers, but more like criminals"


Okay, the construction worker was not so bad, but why criminals? Do I really look that bad?? That time my hair was messy and I've grown some mustache but those do not mean I look like a criminal, right? But I can't blame the sun for what has been happening to my physical form. Because it was me who did not really cover all the sensitive exposed parts. I should have dressed like a ninja, left only my eyes and hand's palms exposed. The first one week, I truly cared about getting sun tanned. I mean, I did a lot of covering and did not really go for a long time under the hot sun. But I missed alot of discussion, because all the european people wanted to get their skin tanned, so they discussed everything under the hot sun. According to them, brown skin is exotic.

I don't know why they have such a thought, but what I think is the whiter your skin, the better looking you will be. Because we don't really know what does brown colour skin means, it could be their skin tone, but, it could also be dirt. Beside if you do have white skin, people will think(what I think) that you are clean, eventhough you do not take shower. Because I have this friend in high school, this fellow is from east Asia. He looked so tidy and clean. So one day, just after the school started, this fellow and his chair-mate were talking in their language. I did not know what they were talking about. Then, the teacher came into the class, everyone did the greetings and sit back. This fellow were still talking and the teacher asked them to be silent. Everyone laughed because he was scolded. Then, his chair-mate called me, because my seat was right next to him. A little conversation happened

MCM=my-chair-mate
CM=chair-mate
TF=this fellow

CM: "hey Galih, ***** did not take shower, he woke up late, hahahahaha.
Me: What? Really? hahahaahah
TF: *saying something in his language and punched CH. "tssss, don't tell anyone"
MCM: "too late, we all heard that.hahahaahaha"

Then he gave this excuse

TF: "In my country, sometimes we don't take shower because the weather is not hot. In the winter we sometime don't take shower for 3 or more days. Because it was so cold and we don't sweat at all.

We all have never met each other again since then.

This fellow did not look like he has not taken shower, he looked fresh, even fresher than some of us because he was white. I just don't get the meaning of what european thought is "éxotic". Well, it's opinion anyway.

So in the second week, Because of what the european said, I was so motivated and in the field I was like "f**k this sun, I'm a geologist, I'm going brown-er(black) now, let me be the most exotic geologist here". I took off every covers except my hat, shirt and pants. After 26 days, I came back for the break and once I looked at the mirror. I realised I made the biggest mistake of my life.

I purposely took pictures of me before and after the fieldwork. I can clearly see the differences and yes, I look like a criminal now. So to avoid from getting caught by the police when I'm traveling alone, I decided to get a hair cut before off to Sarawak to make myself more to like normal a citizen. Due to the limited money that I had, I went to the barber shop which was located at the traditional market. Normally it will cost me 15 Malaysian Ringgit, but here is only 7 Malaysian Ringgit plus with head massage. So when I got there, I saw two barber shops. To save time, I somehow chose the one on left because the one on the right was a lot of people inside.

I got inside, sat on the chair, the barber put blanket on me to keep me clean from my own hair and asked what kind of style I wanted my hair to be. I looked at the example pictures of movie stars and I saw Brad Pitt. So decided to go on that hoping that I will look a bit like him and the barber said "no problem". After 10 minutes of cutting and probably 60 percent of my hair has been cut off, out of the silent, the barber said

"Uhmmm. I think I can not cut your hair the same way as the one in the picture, because your hair is to soft"

I did not said anything, totally speechless. So I replied with a smile

"Do what you have to do"

I cried inside. He should have told me before he cut my hair, I mean he should have known the type of my hair before even did his first cut. But I have learned lessons here, that left is bad, don't expect much for 7 Malaysian Ringgit hair cut even you get head massage, ask the barber twice or trice before having a hair cut.

So here are some pictures of my transformation and I also posted the same brad pitt picture as the one in barber which I found it in the internet. I looked like a retard here. so yeah..
The one on the right is me after finished the first day of fieldwork. I should have taken before the fieldwork because both my hands are already tanned. The picture in the middle is me after 26 days of fieldwork. The one that everybody (my family) thought looks like a criminal. The next picture is after I returned from Sarawak. I'm supposed to end up like Brad Pitt after that hair cut, but you know s**t happens.

About a week ago, my country just had legislative elections. At first I thought it was an election for presidency, so when I was about to choose, I checked all the names. When I looked at the form, there was something strange, why there were so many names in each party? Because normally each party only appoints one candidate. Then when I read the "title" on the top of the form, I realised that it was not for presidency. So here, I did not know a single person from the names that were listed in the form. I have no clue which one should I pick, but because I'm a muslim, I decided to choose someone from Islamic parties.

Then suddenly, I saw a name that I thought I have seen this name before. Too bad there was no photo. But somehow I just had the feeling that this person is someone I know, so I "poked" (that's the way to choose) on the person's name. I went online after that and checked whether that name is someone I know. After several minutes of searching, the result was positive and yes it is that person. So this person is nominated for one of the parties. I don't feel bad of what I've chosen, because I know the person and hopefully this person can do the job well in the future.

But there are people who didn't really care about this, including my friends. Let say from 10 probably only 3-4 did the election, the rest just ignored it. There are a lot of reasons, but mostly what they said are these

"I choose or not, it wont change anything to the country" "I don't know any of the candidates, so better don't pick"

I totally disagree with their opinions. Because I think it is a very important matter. This election will decide the future of your country internally or externally. We probably live outside the country and have better live here, but what about our brothers and sisters in our own country who do not live as lucky as we are. I mean I know the condition of my country here, where the poor gets poorer and the rich gets richer everyday. This is because the lack of management skills and probably "ego" is playing among the rulers. I don't want to blame anyone, because it is all our own fault. Previously, we did the same during the election, as a result we get this kind of people ruling and controlling the country. Because rules can be changed according to what the ruler's "desires". If the rulers are good, everyone is happy but it is the other way around, then we have to deal with it. So, if you do not want to do it for yourself, do it for others. Remember the needy. This is the least we can do for them. Because the future is in our hands.

P.S The trick to pick a great leader is to choose the one who does not "talk much" *real life experiences

funny sayings "If you can't achieve your goals by running try walking, if you still can't by walking try crawling, if you still can't by crawling, just ask someone to do it"