Never promise what you can't fulfill

It is substantial and true that we need to form great mind and social skill by fulfilling the promise. Today, I learned that I'm still far away from it.

One man told me that "my word is my bond". It is not that easy, though. It is even harder to catch up what you've missed.

And I'm having a bad day for it. A man who can't keep his word sucks. I'm saying it right from the deep bottom of the heart.

Everything is a mess once the lie starts. Over and over to get a sorry. Now that's when the worst situation, being a pathetic.

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And I Thought I Was Neglected

This afternoon, I was in quite a stressful situation. I was asked to make(have it printed,actually) a giant cheque for Monday morning ceremony. The request was made on Saturday. So, as our company used to, we contact our printing vendor to have it printed. After a day waiting the decision whether my vendor can do it for me or not, I found myself frustrated because of the tight time available before Monday morning @7am. Then I decided to print it on my own, with less quality.
I decided to print it in A3 size(approx. 40cmx30cm). I rushed myself to two main destinations,Hypermart and Gramedia Bookstore to check out two main items I needed: A3-sized paper and a few styrofoams. I found it even more frustrating on the streets because it is densely filled with vehicles, parking lots are occupied, foolish people taking inconsiderate parking spaces, foolish people not knowing whether they were currently taking the entrance way or the exit way, people blocking my way because they took their time while in the same time, I didn't have much time to spare. I checked out Hypermart n came to the idea of buying one pack of 500 A3-sized paper. Then I thought that I only need a few papers and the cashier line was full of people queueing. Sigh, I chose to gamble my decision to Gramedia. I checked out Gramedia, -darn- the 500 A3-sized paper pack was out. Now, I tried myself to see at least I can get the styrofoam that I can't get at HyperMart. I roamed myself to find -VoiLa!- a couple of styrofoam in 40cm x 60cm size. Now, I don't know whether it fits in my A3 paper. So, I decided to asked for its exact size to its store clerk. Unable to ask to store clerk for stationery, I asked another clerk nearby.

This is the point when I thought I was neglected. The clerk were merely showing me an A3-sized drawing book for kids and went to her station, withouting telling me what the exact size of A3 is. Darn! That is when I see that the papers in the drawing book can be torn off neatly. Aha! I found it! I don't need a 500-pack because I needed only a few. So I take the styrofoams and the drawing book. Back at the office, I quickly printed the giant cheque on the A3-sized paper torn off from the drawing book.

Just then, I thought the clerk neglected my request. But, because of her, I found the solution. We may not know how our solution pop-up around us. Just like what I had.

And I thought I was neglected.........
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Afraid of being Old

Today, my grandfather was rushed into ICU at around 3AM this morning. His condition was reaching critical level. And it hasn't been better up until afternoon. And at 4pm, we were rushed to get B-type blood to supply him. We were told to gather as many family member as we can to prepare for his last day(s). I rushed myself to the hospital to prepare for the blood supply, and now, here we are, waiting around ICU to wait for the latest info of granddad's condition. And prepare for the bad news.

It has been a few days that he has been hospitalized because he hadn't been very well at house. He hardly eat a lot, drink less than 200ml per day. It seems that he had trouble drinking or eating. I don't know whether it is because something caught up in his throat or it is that he was merely unspirited to take the nutrition we gave. All he does was sleeping for most of his days. It is his second time being hospitalized in this month. A few months ago, I still remember him able to move from bedroom to the terrace to see the surrounding and inhaling air. But this month, he can only lie down in his bed and rarely go to the bathroom to pee or poop until eventually obliged to wear diapers to prevent him unable to reach bathroom in time. I watch him drinking from glass, to drinking from a bottle of mineral water using straw until he can only drink if we spoon him bit by bit until a maximum three tiny spoons of water.

I haven't seen him in full health monitoring equipment as people say for those who has been treated in ICU. But I guess something like that is not the state I want to live in my old days.

I have two things in mind: 1, being pictured the state of old and rusty human, 2, that I'm going to lose the last granddad I have in a matter of hour.

Seeing my old granddad bring me the picture of who I will be in 50-60 years; thin, bald, running out of teeth, lack of vision, lack of hearing, incapable of chewing or even drinking. I wonder if these are the picture of someone who thinks about too many things in his mind while lacking the time to speak of it or solve his problems. He is a kind of person that doesn't like boasting or grumbling or yelling at other people that he has problems or that to the people he thinks he has a problem with. He likes it to keep everything in his mind only, speaking things that never solve his problems, saying the same thing such that it seems unsolvable. Those things keep lingering his mind for a long time. He is a type of person that finds it hard for himself to tell someone when he is wrong,or even say things he doesn't like to the person himself. He keeps it in his bottom of his heart only. Now, I can only see that whenever he has thoughts that troubles him, he got sick. And when he can't stop thinking it, he got hospitalized for his blood sugar level rising drastically, though he keeps his sugar diet.

Now, by the time I finish this writing,after two days of writing delays, I am 30minutes past his death. May he rests in peace, being released from painful and suffocating life, being freed from painful thoughts. And may this death moves us on forward.

We miss you, granddad.

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Upload Speed Assumption That Breaks My Heart

I recently read Digital Photo Pro ed November 2011. It was late in the night, so I just skip pages until I reached an atricle, "Is Cloud Storage For You?". Yes, Cloud computing has been a trend in discussion, inside or outside Indonesia. So, I read those tiny font size quite carefully. It stated that professional photography can utilize this service to backup and access their pictures everywhere in the world as long as they are connected to the Internet. It helps a lot because there are more and more company offering this service and we can store our pictures without having to bring our external hard drives along with us everyday.

But it doesn't mean that this cloud storage has no disadvantage. It will surely take some time to upload our picture collection into their server. Yes, pictures taken by professional photographers are huge in size, around 8Mb/picture. And they assume that if the upload rate of around 2Mb/s, they will count that it will take 4s to upload a single picture. You can do the math suppose that we need to upload 1Terabyte of picture. This statement that breaks my heart.

You see, in Indonesia, it is practically impossible to find retail Internet connection users who can enjoy such high upload rate. The highest rate offered by one of the biggest operator here is only of around 1Mb/s for download speed, not upload speed. It is known that upload speed is usually slower than download speed, so we can conclude that the upload speed is less than 1Mb/s. Normally, it usually takes me half an hour(if lucky) to download a 50mb file. I can't imagine, how long it will take me to upload such huge(relatively, uploading a 50Mb file is a huge file for me) file to the Internet. *sigh...

So, it breaks my heart by their statement stating that 4s is a long time to upload a 8Mb picture. Well, in here, I can take a cup of coffee and a couple slip of it if I were to upload such huge file to the Internet using the available Internet connection for retail users in Indonesia. I guess I have to wait a few billion seconds to have a hi-speed internet connection here. Or, should I just go abroad to enjoy it? That would be an expensive bypass alternative..:p

What do you say?
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How Fast Do We Turn Our Face Away After Shaking Hands

Today is friday. As a moslem, it is obligatory to attend what we call as Sholat Jumat. It is a weekly noon prayer conducted every Friday(Jum'ah). In the end of the prayer, we usually shake hands with persons, at least the one on our left and our right, whether we know him or not. I believe that shaking hands are obligatory as well, which enforce us to see someone next to you as a brother, whether you know him or not.

But what I see today, that people give different expression in each people shakes. The one on my left side gave me a smile while shaking my hand, but the on my right side turn his plain face away just a few second away from releasing my handshake. I felt happy from the smile given from the man on my left, but from a man from my right, I felt just the contrary.

I realized now that a little smile can bring different feeling towards people. I realized as well that we often give smile to important people handshakes. Whether it is important for career, love, or even a matter of respecting the authorities. And the smile must be presented sincerely, without hesitation and unwillingness.

I admit that we often give smile, even a fake and excessive smile to those honoured people handshakes, but then we give less smile while seeing our own family. So I believe that we should give smile everytime we shake everybody's hand.

Now, do we smile everytime we shake our hand? I'm waiting for a 'yes' answer.:D
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Ways To Conquer People Around You

A few days ago, I was interested to a book entitled "19 Minutes To Conquer People Around You". I thought that I can get some tips in influencing people around me. From a slight view of the book itself I can conclude one thing :

BEFORE CONQUERING OTHER PEOPLE, We Need To Conquer Ourselves First.

It all seem so simple. Yes, because it is that simple. A General of an army won't win if he can't win his army's heart and commitment. A Manager can't achieve the target given if his/her teammates are supporting him.

So, we shall be more discipline to conquer ourselves, before eventually winning the life.....
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Sincerity Can Be Found Anywhere

A few hours ago, I just had my hair cut at a mini barbershop. I don't go there too often, only once every one and a half month. Up until now, I don't know their names (there are two barbers, a father and his son), they don't know mine either. Everytime we go there, the always welcome us with the same smile they used to show. But today, I didn't see the similar smile from the 60s-year-old one. Of course, we reacted by asking him, "Are you okay? You don't seem well". And, yes, the answer was that he had a surgery a few days ago. It was hernia, I guess. So, the old man started telling his story.

The story was about how grateful he is to be able to do the surgery, though at first he felt reluctant because he has no enough money and so did his son. Eventually, they could make the surgery happen. Speaking with the low volume of voice, he admitted that he hasn't fully recovered or even at his normal state of health post the surgery. Accompanied by the sound of traditional javanese folk song from the radio, he kept making hair cuts while telling about how grateful he was and we should have.

Since I'm a type of good listener and less-than-good chatter, I chose to hear him speaking and make a few short comments to ensure him that I'm listening. Everytime I make a haircut there, the old man will surely tell that we are grateful for life, whoever we are, in a low tone as if he is not telling us what to do. In very javanese style of wisdom sharing, he provided ideas of simple happy life,sometimes advises for younger generation and teenagers.

What made me amazed that, although he was not in his best state of health, he still provided the best service. Not only making a haircut for me, but he also noticed that my hair is damaged, so he used a special scissor to cut those damaged hair. He also clean the hair on several places to make me look better.And other services but giving simple massage(a simple massage is a massage around shoulders,neck,and head. The barber usually do that after a haircut is done. It needs quite some power to do so) since he might not strong enough yet to do massage. For those extra service which is unintendedly given, I tried to give the unintended extra fee for the barber. For the normal rate of ten thousand rupiahs, I gave him twenty. And the second thing amazed me was that the face of the old man showing a very gratefu,happyl expression. I mean, man, it might be not that much, but still he gave such expression that gave me the delightful feeling to do so in the future. I was very glad to get there.

And, I was the last customer there. It was almost 9 o'clock pm. They didn't usually open in night so that they can rest a bit. Yes, I believe it was a luck, and that small luck bring me to happiness.

Yes, I like their sincerity in providing barber haircut service. In my office, where service matters, we often found out being dissapointed by our mate, and we sometimes dissapoint our mate as well. The haircut event reminds me that sincerity can be found anywhere, and it affects other people.

So where ever you are, you can always find sincerity. If we can't see any, we can always create it.

Can you?
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Sincerity Can Be Found Anywhere

A few hours ago, I just had my hair cut at a mini barbershop. I don't go there too often, only once every one and a half month. Up until now, I don't know their names (there are two barbers, a father and his son), they don't know mine either.
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Zhou Li, the excellence of foreign study

Dear readers,

Last night, when i watch NHK World, I was amazed by the story of Zhou Li a Chinese student of one of university of technology in Japan. he studied there since 2008, arriving from China in 2006. He got a scholarship to study there. He is studying in Robotic division(pardon me if I'm wrong--I was unable to find his data in Google's first page). In the story, he was building a tiny robot that can fly like a dragonfly.

In that story, it was told that the fellow students in robotic division acknowledge his hard work, because he has to overcome the language barrier, and usually, students there only add what is lacking in their previous students' work. So, instead of adding up or perfecting what was left by the former students, Li started his own work from his idea. So why does he have to build a tiny robot that flies like a dragonfly? He said, "So that we can use this robot to fly over terrains or wrecks of a building that cannot be reached by human or even places that are harmful to human. Whether it is to see the surrounding area or even to look over victims that can't be seen from far". Wow, I didn't think that simple idea need a very big hardwork and patience. First, he needs to go to Japan to study there, then overcoming language barrier, work hard to get scholarship, doing weekly review to his professors about his work, and of course, being far from home.

And why did he choose Japan? He just simply saying that he was inspired by Astro Boy and Digimon. What I can take from this simple statement is that, he only need simple reason to achieve what he does right now. Sometimes big dreams come from small admiration of one thing.

He even lives in a small rented apartment, doing his laundry by stepping on them instead of putting into washing machine, do shopping in closing hours for 30%discount, put groceries in mini refrigerator, and cook on his own for dinner. He does it all day. Very simple life he has. Even his father still write him letters instead of texting or sending emails as young people nowadays.

So far from I can see that he only need simple life, simple reason but big idea and big patience and boldness to be a brilliant person whom people acknowledge.

Do we have big ideas?

"Tired of getting someone new, or I only want you!"

Dear readers, recently I have met several people who has trouble in love. Usually, Indonesian women in their mid to late 20s are subject to the matter of "When are you going to get married?" stuff. There are those who has happily married, there are those solemnly concealing their spouse-to-be, and of course there are those who encounter challenges in their way to marriage.

There are one thing that tickles me everytime I hear this phrase " I just don't want to look for another spouse-to-be" for these reasons: " because it takes time to start over" or " because I'm too old for that" or " because I don't feel like I'm into it anymore". And most of them are said by women. I wonder, why I haven't heard from my fellow male friends...

If we take a different point of view, why don't these women uttered " I just want you to be my spouse,no one else"? It comes from the same source, but it may imply a different thing. Saying "I don't want to look for another because I don't want to start over" can imply that she doesn't have any other option of male which she dreams of. It implies that she's desperate and chooses the male available to marry with rather than finding the one she loves and loves her. That is what I regret because there is a chance that she will regret the choice she made. And as I know, women want to have marriage once in their life. Their first and their last marriage.

So, instead of saying negative sentence as such, wouldn't it better to say that " I want to spend my life with him/her, no one else". Are we brave enough to say that sincerely in front of our spouse(or spouse-to-be)?
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When what info you want is not what they give you, in the office

We know that in large company and organization, we work with an enormous number of people as its employee. We can find good things and less good things in it,as usual. Today, I just found something that is quite funny and rhetoric in daily life in an office.

Yesterday, our division--got an email,which is forwarded from head office. In this email, we were asked to get some data about several companies in our city that can be targeted for our business. The data requested are address,account number(indicating that they are our customers or not), and acquisition progress.They do that to be able to map the targeted customers throughout the nation.

Usually large companies/organization, almost every employee is provided by on-line internal database that can be used to obtain customer's certain data. In this case, I assume they can do the same thing as I can-- obtaining customer's data from the database. Now,considering that that request can be done by people from head office as well as we can, why don't they take the data available from the database?

So, my supervisor lightly recommend me to give the data available from our customer database. I guess that our teammates should have specify more clearly about the data they request us to search. If they want an update of the data,(which is not available in our customer database) then say so. Given enough time, we will do our best to deliver the request, as great teamwork is necessary.

Has it ever happen in your life?

If life is a journey,then career is just a small part of it

Some poeple says that life is a journey,some says that journey is their life. Whichever we are, I agree that we can feel life by having a journey. By having a journey, we can see the world ( at least some part of it), we can see how large our world is, we can see how beauty it is, we can see people, meet people, get to know people, and making friends. We can feel life by knowing that we are not alone in this wide and spacious world.

Through journey as well, we can also see how bad some environment can be, we can see how poor sanitation in can be, how poor our society can develop to, we can see how lucky our life can be compared to those who is suffering. We can feel sorrow, we can feel grief, we can feel dissatisfaction, and we can feel empathy and sympathy. We can feel life by knowing that we still have heart.

Through journey,we can taste different tastes of meal, we can smell different scents of flowers and wind,we can dive different water or lake, we can see the tears of a child wanting her mom to be close to him while the mother is occupied by her effort to get income to feed that child. We can go everywhere we want, or even to places we are told to go to, or even places we haven't kniwn before. And what makes a journey brings life is when we got home, we can smile a lot wider, welcomed by the hands of our smiling family, sit down and have some tea while sharing the stories we have from our journey. We feel life more into ourselves..

During my career in one of national bank of Indonesia, I have been travelling to almost every branches in the Area of Balikpapan. Although acting as a temporary assignment clerk, I can see more part of the world, at least a very small part of it. I can see a lot people, I can learn to get along faster than I used to, and I can view bigger portrait of people. Some friends feel pity for me, some feel that I'm pathetic to do such task, but I have to say that some part of me enjoying it. But for sure, I want to aim bigger than what I do right now, because though I am enjoying it, I don't want to stay just like this. Now, through my journey, I can see that I need to learn to be patient. That is for sure.

What about you?

It Is Nice to See Younger People

Asw.

How have you all been?

In the past months, I have been sharing my knowledge in english in one of english course institution. I do it twice a week in the evening. And you know what? I have found out lately that even though I only got home 30 minutes after my noon job as a clerk, I can see myself having the better spirit than working as a clerk in the morning. I can see myself as a passionate person.



Sometimes, I wonder why it can happen to me. A few minutes ago, somethings slipped through my mind.

I believe that being with younger people can give us benefit such as, we can sense their youth, their naivety, their passion to know as much as possible, their inobliging in barriers ahead, their smiles for praises and one more thing, their exhaustion of advices.

I have to admit that by giving advices, I got reminded by myself, " Have I did as I adviced?". It reminds me to be consistent as what I told them. It reminds me to be a better person that the ones in my advices. I reminds me that somewhere in my heart, I need them.

We may not be a perfect person which is invulnerable to mistake, but we can be a perfect person whose mistakes develop him/her.

Then, which one are we?

One saturday night

Dear readers, how are you?

You know, I do realize that writing can take time. As I knew that making reports and filing them are no easy tasks as they take so many time. I knew that writing needs patience as much as the number of readers reading this. I want you to know that I've been trying to get you into my mind through these posts.

This saturday night, as usual, I don't mind staying at home because the last thing I want to do is being outside with lots of people having their saturday night pleasing themselves by going to the shopping malls, cinemas, hang out places, karaokes, and many more. I don't really confident being in a mass group of people. So I chose to stay at home, having dinner with my parents, and of course, practicing with my posts. I don't enjoy TV shows too much as well, so I choose to listen to David Foster's "Love Lights the world" album to accompany me writing my posts. I want to know how good it is. And there is also a radio programme delivered in english. In the early days, I always listen to it because I am relieved that we have someone who broadcast this kind of programme. But these days, I have been neglecting them because I don't think I can get excitement in listening to it anymore. I felt bored (though I hate to say it) by their programme, lack of enthusiasm, unclear positioning (which leads to unclear messages they deliver) and their lack of influence or even their main reason of their existence; to accompany their audiences. Just like a teacher whose student are leaving him one by one because the teacher cannot get them to talk.

I have been feeling these kind of thing since I was a junior high student. I have been trying to share my enthusiasm in english. I have been trying to make them feel that english is as easy as I feel. I want to convince them that understanding english is an advantage for them. I want people to feel confident in deliverin their speech, regardless of their english skill. I always failed to consistenly accompanying them in english. I am ready, wherever whenever, someone wants to practise their english with me. I don't care who they are, as long as they want to get my correction everytime they make mistake so that they can improve themselves. But in many times, those who wanted to practice english with me began to withdraw from practicing bit by bit.

Do I dream too big? Do I want too much? Was I too harsh in giving corrections? Am I overwhelming?

I have been searching and questioning these question so many times in my life. I hope I can get a chance where I can get the answer.

This hope will never cease. It is just that bitterness has been consuming it by time..

Wisdom from Lacquer Collector

Just a few minutes ago, I was lucky to watch this program on NHK. Although I didn't watch it from the beginning, I was grateful that my curiosity lead me away from boring culinary program to this interesting program.

It was a calm, soothing, documentary program that showed the story of a lacquer collector in Joboji area, western of Iwate Perfecture of Japan. He has been collecting sap from lacquer tree for amazingly 54 years! When I start viewing this program, the program was showing how he brought back memories by playing the record of himself collecting saps. Back then, it was a glorious moment for lacquer collector until Chinese lacquer hit the market with low-priced lacquers. Slowly but sure, many lacquer collector began being out of business. But he patiently stayed in the business.

Collecting saps can only be done in summer. They get up and collect the saps by making a gouge(straight cut on the tree's skin). They may not cut too deep not too short. By making it too deep, they will hurt the tree and the tree may contract goma disease. If they do, collectors may not be able to harvest sap from that tree anymore. If they cut too short, they cannot get many sap. This old collector is also tutoring a young collector how to make good cut and collect the sap. The old collector's philosophy in collecting saps is treating the tree as living substance.

His philosophy is shown by the way he treats the trees. He makes a gentle straight tree in order to prevent the goma disease. He treats the saps by collecting it into one clean bucket, where no bad material that can damage the quality of saps can be found. He patiently collects saps even though he doesn't gain as much as he could in the past. He said, " It is the quality that matters, not the quantity". He keeps the saps as if it is his own son. It's shown by the way he delivers the saps after summer harvesting time is over to the bulk seller. He kisses the bucket as if he is letting his son go on a long journey. After collecting time is over, the trees need to be cut down in order to grow another lacquer bud into a good lacquer tree in the future. He looks sad every time the cut down those harvested trees using a chainsaw. He wishes that he can harvest the sap from the newly-born bud in the future, but in case he aren't there when the time comes, he wants it to be ready when someone younger do it for him.

Wisdom can be found from living by the lacquer tree. Can other people find wisdom by living next to us?

The short Story of Seeking Daylight's End

This book tells a story of a young and daring eagle Talan, making a journey that any other eagle would think more than twice to do it; "Seeking the place where the sun ceases".

Talan and his eagle clan lived in a mountain range. They had been living there for years in content. They had regular meetings where the elders give stories of wisdom. Then, there was one respected elder who hadn't told stories for long step up and tell them that intrigued Talan to know what there are beyond the mountain range. After confirming Talan of his intention, Cael gave Talan a simple guidance : "Listen the wisdom whispered by the wind".

Then Talan was off to his new journey. Talan experienced a lot of things;face-to-face to a kind human, getting through snow blizzard, and being cheated by two crows. The last thing Talan can be amazed about was that Talan found another eagle clan; and they mentioned Cael. Talan surprised by the fact that Cael did the same journey as he just had, very long time ago. Talan decided to lead the rest of the clan to his clan, intending to meet them with Cael.

From this journey, Talan benefited from the invaluable experiences. Talan, from a young and daring eagle, became a brave and wise eagle. He was finally able to hear wisdoms from the wind, something other eagle would never able to do. Talan had become a mature eagle.

What I benefit myself from this book is that it encourage us to do something we hadn't dare enough to do, to do something we haven't got enough courage while in the other hand we wanted to do those things very bad. The "wisdom whispered by the wind", for me, is one way to show that if we are patient enough, GOD will whisper us the hints in miraculous ways. The same thing happens to ourselves, when we are confused and have no where to go and suddenly, our heart whisper us the unexpected ideas or thought. Haven't you got those experience? This book also encourage me to go out of myself and do some effort in order to become "a better me".

I waonder if this book sometimes are not available in book stores. I hope you enjoy it as much as i do.

The Beginning of our Battle with Ourselves

Assalamu'alaikum.

Dear readers, especially the moslem ones. We have come to the month we have been waiting for. The month where we can experience joy and struggle to be a better person afterwards. It's Ramadhan.

Moslem people welcome it in various ways. Some express their joy by making activities in Masjids. Some express it by sending messages implying their request for apologizes they may make to others. Some do it by posting it in their social-network websites.

But some do it by exploding fireworks.

It happened when people are waiting for the agreement made by Indonesia government to decide whether their moslem people shall do fasting tomorrow or not. When it was decided, the refinery unit of PT Pertamina in Balikpapan blew its whistle as a sign that Ramadhan has been started. Not long ago, not far from the Masjid, there are some people or kids that exploding fireworks. Its sound was shocking. There were not only one explotion. There were repeating numbers of it. It ignited the Masjid caretaker to search for the troublemaker. The search was done in the dark night. Not long after the search, persons in that Masjid could hear the yelling of the caretaker, chasing the troublemaker.

It was a pity, because the troublemaker did it in the moment where there were a lot of jamaah doing the pray. I wonder if they realised what they did. And I believed that the troublemaker is a moslem as well. I wonder which kind of approach the caretaker should make; conservative or parental approach.

These kind of thing have been colouring Indonesia's Ramadhan year by year. I hope we can educate the troublemakers like one I mentioned together.

Can you?

A glimpse in my Granddad's cemetery

This morning, i went to see my granddad's cemetery. It's the green one among others. Placed in such a dense 'population' of cemetery, I managed to get there by carefully passing through each cemetery. When I got there, it’s already been cleaned up and poured with flowers. They smelled nice. Apparently, a member of the family came not very long before me. So I cleaned up the tiny dust and made a pray.

There are things to remember about this granddad. He was an ex-soldier who wasn’t purposed for battle. As my mother told me, he did the errands for his commander. He drove his commander to the office, drove his commander’s wife to the grocery store, took their kids to school, and many other errands he did. When he got into pension period, he continued his life by doing small-scale civil works; repairing roof, fixing electricity networks, even helping in building my parents’ house. He could fix TVs, radios, motorcycle, and even he drove a local transportation car (angkot). As if there is nothing else he couldn’t do.

He had 6 children. He lived poorly but happily. He struggled to give his kids the best education he can. He wanted to do so to make his kids have a better than his. Well, he managed to get his kids to senior high level; one of them got a diploma. Now, his kids are now grown up and having their own family.

As much as I know, he had no idea in giving up. In the age of 60s, he can do things as if he was only 40 or 50. I’m not saying that he was a workaholic, but all he did, he did it sincerely to help people and for his kids.

I had quite a few memories about him. When I went to school from elementary to senior high, sometimes he pick me up to school if my dad was assigned to another city. Sometimes, he came to our house just to have a chat and brought me and my brother nasi goreng. He gave us advices in unique and cheerful ways. He gave me a long one just before getting into college. As I recalled, he never got mad at us, but he did have mad to my other cousins. He loved us in many ways.

One that I remember the most is when he was ill deeply, it was in 2004. During lebaran, he stayed in my house for awhile, just to get better rest than his house. I didn’t think that that was my last time seeing him. Just when I was ready to depart for college after Lebaran vacation, he suddenly cried like a little child. I tried to cheer him up by saying that I believe I can see him next year. I hug him, confident that he would be okay. I left him to get to the airport. In the next few days, I got news that he passed away. I was speechless. There was a regret that I had in my heart. I regret that I didn’t spend time to show my love and respect to him. I regret that I didn’t give him enough time to say goodbye. I can picture his cry back then until now.

Now, I felt those regret as useless thing to feel. I may regret it until now but not as big as I had a few years ago. That is why I want to move on and showing love to parents and grandparents better than before. I want to be prepared to lose someone dear to heart when their time comes.

These writing come in mind every time I go there. I think that what ziarah is for.

Pengalaman Seru Mondar Mandir di kantor

Assalamualaikum.

dear readers, how are you?

We're having some rainy days lately. N I'm typing it under this chill weather, waiting it to stop so I can get swimming...huhuhuhuhu...

Well, yesterday, I had quite a confusing day. There were not so many customers, but we were not in full squad. I felt chaotic. I had no idea that I will have such kind of day. I moved to one place and another in haste. I had too many things in my hand while handling customers' requests or complain. I wasn't focus and calm. I always feel uneasy looking at the customers' eye wandering their impatient look. N yes, I made too many mistakes just by being too hasty and infocus.

And in the end of the day, I made a deep mistake. When a mystery shopper got me, questioning details about sms banking that I haven't really understand about, I gambled on the answers and I lost. They got me. I felt guilty afterward and mumbling about it throughout my explaination to this mystery shopper...very lucky me!! This was added by forgetting my promise to close an account of a soldier who was very dissapointed for waiting too long for it. I felt another guilt....


Lucky me, I can take that as an experience that told me how it felt like to have such situation..Now, I want to make myself clear that I need to be able to focus and calm so I can pick my plan carefully. I also need to rise up the challenge of my surroundings.

I have learnt from yesterday...

What about you?

A

It is easier to be a FOLLOWER than one be FOLLOWED

Dear readers, it has been a while since my last post..

I missed a lot of things. I was lost in myself. Let me whine a little bit, will you?

In the last few days, I was intrigued by the feeling of unable to look at the eyes of some successful persons. There were some kind of force that make me feel they have that inner power to be a successful person. If i may say their names, like Surya Paloh, and Elang (young entrepreneur, winner of Mandiri Young Entrepreneur). To be honest, i was jealous n i hate to look them in the eyes. But, it was my self-ego afterall.

They have put effort, drive that i haven't done up until now. They did what i did not. They bear what I can't.

Now, in the last few days, I have realised a few thing. I found it easier to be a follower than one be followed. I found it easier to be in our own circle that excluded us from what we fear of. Fear of what we may face. Fear of what we may fail in the future. Fear of loses.

We may need to put more drive in ourselves. Sometimes, we may feel tired of doing the unworthy activities or effort easier than those we may feel worthy. Again, emotions play their role more than we may need to achieve in this life. We need emotion to drive us forward, but we may not need it in facing fears.

Are we driven enough to be a great, successful person?