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"

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"