Why We Run

We run because we have to - in my case I have to (official assignment back in 2010)

We run because some of you don’t think we can.

We run to go fast, and we run to go far.

We run for fun when no one’s around.

We run to clear our mind - try for yourself if you don't believe.

We run because we’re crazy - every one kept on saying we can't. WE CAN!

We run because we’re happy.

We run because now we know what it feels to nod at another runner. We understand them, and they, us.

We run to lose weight.

We run to keep it off.

We run to eat creamy cakes and ice creams.

We run to eat lontong cap gomeh.

We run when others won’t.

We run and sometimes we hate it.

But we run and we always love the feeling.

We run up hills and we run through puddles.

We run because it’s poetic.

We run because it’s bad ass.

We run while people sleep and we run because it helps us sleep.

We run because once we have that medal (in my case the finisher medal), you can’t take it away.

We run.

And we run together. We run far. Next year: Half Marathon is my aim.

I WILL RUN HALF MARATHON IN 2013

If I Ever Had an Indian Name, That Would be "RAIN"

I love when it rains, especially at night. 

To me the rain is the closest thing I ever get to nature in the big city. The nature we can see, smell, touch, feel, hear and taste. Rain has that full senses effect. A feeling of nature taking its course, something completely out of my control. But I don't care. I like it. 

I want to walk out from under my cover and enjoy it, feel the cold water run down my skin. Once again, I'm going back to my childhood dream, playing in the rain, pretending to fall down so that I'll get wet and gives a heaven of an excuse for me to stay outside.

I hear the drops. The water falling. 

Cool. Water drifting through my hair. It feels like it is in a rush to get somewhere, then it stops, not knowing where to go next. After a moment of hesitation, it is off again in a new direction, pushing my hair back and forth.

A feeling of calm and peacefulness washing over me. Makes me extremely reflective and introspective, bring about a ton of thoughts about anything.

I love listening to the rain softly hit the windows or the roof as I go to sleep. It almost creates a feeling of comfort and being safe and that in itself will tend to lull me to sleep.

We've come on a very friendly terms, the rain and me....

Between a Humanitarian, a Former Prime Minister and A Comical Couple

The Book of Eli

Saw this last week. I have to say I’m impressed with the post-war futuristic yet apocalyptic and grim setting of the movie. In some common Hollywood movie, we will get a visual satisfaction of what the future would be, and certainly not the one captured in this movie. That is what makes this movie interesting. The idea of "The Book of Eli" is to rebuild society, but who will carry those ideas? The clash between Eli (Denzel W) and Carnegie (Gary Oldman) is quite interesting to watch. As Eli, Denzel’s performance is impeccable. Oldman is a remarkable actor, we are all aware of that. But to see him in this movie is to be aware that he allocates his entire spirit and personality for this role (Carnegie). I can’t stop observing his performance and I think it’s inimitable.

Lastly, I like the movie partly because it is a reminder to us human, not to waste things, to have a respect for objects we threw away, we might need them someday.

One particular quote I remember from the movie: "Before, people had more than they needed. They threw away things that people would kill for now.”

Verdict: 4.2 out of 5

The Ghost Writer

The movie is directed by Roman Polanski. Couple of years ago, he was quite famous.... for being a pedophile. For some time we seem to forget the great director behind the man. His latest big movie was The Pianist, gain Oscar nomination, but not quite as entertaining as Rosemary's Baby. It was my favorite Polanski movie by far.

Well.... I think the great director is back. Now I can remember him as the Director of Rosemary's Baby. As RB, I can also describe The Ghost Writer as a dark thriller. It's a dark political thriller and it gave me an unsettling feeling, through the uncertain nature of conspiracy. The movie was made with precision, supported by a great cast and a creepy atmosphere, Polanski left no detail unattended. The story centers around a politician and his support for America, or should I say his service to America to follow and back up whatever its direction lead him. Was Mr. Polanski inspired by the “love” story between Tony Blair and GWB? I think so. It’s a brave subject to begin with, Mr. Polanski. (I think I'm going to see Rosemary's Baby for the umpteenth times). Verdict: 4.5 out of 5.

Date Night

I'm very critical of comedies, so the fact that I giggled throughout the movie is a good sign. I like Tina Fey, so I took a chance on it. I didn’t like Steve Carrell, I always thought he looked stupid, but this movie proved me wrong. Still not loving him, but I have to admit he is a good comedian. They both are and they had great chemistry. The plot is silly, but the dialogue was hilarious. I would put this in the "dumb movies that are funny" category. I'd recommend it.

Verdict: 3.7 out of 5

How to Spot a Drama King/Queen?

You know this person. He always seem to make mountains out of a pile of grass. She always manages to be stressed by small events.

Interacting with this person is very exhausting, you often mumble or comment something like:
"I wish he wasn't such a drama king" or "there she goes again...sweating over small stuff"

Or probably you ARE the one receiving such comments from your friends and family? :)


How to tell if someone or YOURSELF is a drama king or queen?

1. This person can't seem to control her emotion. Always make a big deal out of everything.

2. Every words coming from his mouth is all about him, he thinks he's all that! All that he ever talks about is himself, being the coolest person on earth.

3. This human species always panicking all the time and the next morning seem to having a permanent memory loss of the previous day incident of having burden everyone with his problem.

4. A self-consumed man who likes to stir up drama. For instance: he might like to cause cat fights between two women for the pleasure derived from seeing two women fight over him.
Now, here's the difference between Drama King and Drama Queen: A Drama Queen overreacts over anything. A Drama King enjoys drawing these traits out in those around him. Especially if it can draw more attention to himself. In other words: a self obsessed SOB. The girls are screaming at each other! And Look at the drama king. He is just eating this up.

5. He or She is an attention whore, narcissist, self-centered and self-absorbed person (in today words: banci tampil).

6. Always complaining on everything! I mean EVERYTHING is always the worst to him/her. This is the worst day EVER. This is the worst coffee EVER. This is the crappiest movie EVER.

7. He thinks his life is on a crisis proportion, way bigger that the Palestinian. Puhleez!!! Get over yourself.

Hey Drama King/Queen, you are toxic to me, to us..and you know what....the complaint department is closed!

You dramatic narcissist weirdo! :p

Anti Smoking or Anti Smoker Campaign?

If you think this is cool, think again!

My dad and mum used to be smokers, but they quit like a over decade ago. Being a heavy smoker for like 20 years, my dad quit soon after finding out he has a heart disease and my mum (being the supportive wife) follows not long after. I still have a task of persuading (and threaten if have to) my brother to quit. Surely, no need to mention the serious implications to himself and others. Forget the environment for a moment.

This is about smokers and non-smokers.

Seriously......this is my third post about smoking and eventually I have to decide whether to post about the people who are actually DOING the smoking part.

They are called SMOKERS.

Personally I have nothing against them.....

Nope. Wrong! My mistake.
But...to think of it... it is kind of personal to me.




What's wrong with being personal?

It is personal when you feel like breathing (which is kind of your natural habit) to the already-not-so-fresh Jakarta air that has just been burdened by another pollutant.

It is personal to me when I sip into a nice cup of tea (that's right TEA, instead of coffee, as I'm trying to limit my caffeine intake) @ the warung kopi in Cikini with some friends and "accidentally" inhale some large amount of smoke release by a certain person into my lung.

This person is a very beautiful young lady (I have to say not yet reach to her 25th birthday) that decidedly with a mind of her own trying to shorten the life span of her amazing and soft skin (she was sitting quite near to me so I can see that she has great skin).



It is personal to me when a friend of mine arrive with a baby and decide to get another seat after seeing the young lady sitting next to me. Not because she felt threatened by her beauty (of course) but mostly because being the responsible mother that she is, it is impossible that she would let her 1 year old daughter breath that polluted air.

It is personal to me when that friend decided to get another (less comfortable) seat and table as far away as possible from that beautiful young lady.

It is VERY personal to me that I breath the polluted air (=smoke) that was released from her pretty mouth. I feel like receiving a CPR from her (with extra smoke).

Lastly.......I have nothing against smokers. Naaah.... I have EVERYTHING against smokers.

Can we hope for a "greener" Indonesia?

Indonesia's environmental problem is considered large. From illegal logging that causing the destruction of our rain forest, poor environmental law enforcement, floods, landslides, toxic garbage, air pollution, high level of emission from industry and motor vehicles, and the corrupting quality of our water supplies. There are several indicators that can be used to measure how big exactly our problem is.

Environmental Performance Index

There are several environmental indicators we can use to see how serious our problem is. n this post, I am using EPI (Environmental Performance Index) as a barometer. EPI is an index to environmental performance of countries around the globe, produced by Yale University.

EPI is not without flaws. The weighting is considered bias to more advanced and wealthy countries. EPI has several categories. For in stance, environmental health was given a 50% weight while climate change only 25%.

Being more well equipped (with finance and technology) the more advanced countries thus have more capacity in preventing environmental pollution to their nation’s health compared to developing or even under developed countries. On the other side, advanced countries have the largest portion of energy consumption and therefore contribute the highest to global climate shifting. This aspect was given a smaller weighting. There are several other reasons why the EPI is considered bias.

Though considered bias, at least it’s a start and basic to see whether a country’s policies are environmental friendly, especially to those that have yet established similar indicators, while waiting for a far better and improved index than EPI.

According to EPI, two largest problems (amongst many) we are facing right now is air pollution and water supply quality.

Air Pollution

Air pollution is perhaps our most serious problem. Air pollution imposes costs of at least $400 million to Indonesian economy every year (World Bank). It also has very a serious impact on public health.

Motor vehicle is the largest contributor of air pollution in Indonesia. Many of these vehicles are motorcycles or scooters, which lack the catalytic converters required for cleaner emissions. Moreover, almost no motor vehicles in Indonesia use unleaded gasoline.



Jakarta's air remains among the dirtiest in the world. Forest fires also contribute to Indonesian air pollution. Often these fires result from illegal logging of Indonesia's rain forests. Indonesia's industrial sector, which contains chemical, petroleum, coal, plastic and rubber products, and food industries, also is a significant polluter. Unfortunately, there is limited quantitative data on their overall impact.

Water Supply

Water supply and sanitation in Indonesia is characterized by poor levels of access and service quality. Over 100 million people lack access to safe water and more than 70 percent of the country’s 220 million population relies on water obtained from potentially contaminated source. With only 2% access to sewerage in urban areas is one of the lowest in the world among middle-income countries. Pollution is widespread on Bali and Java. Women in Jakarta reportedly spending US$ 11 per month on boiling water, implying a significant burden for the poor (ADB).

There is another effective yet simple indicator to see how big our problem is. Just google Indonesia and environment in the same sentence and you will be amazed that problems are 90% of the search result. I also conduct some searching in "environmental graffiti" and find a similar match. In the environmental department, Indonesia is mainly famous of its problems and poor environment quality.

We CAN change those results into a more positive ones. How can we change that?!

Anti Smoking Ads

Continuing from my previous post on smoking, I can't help post these really interesting anti-smoking advertisements....

Here is the benefit of passive smoking

Yet another famous ad describe the effect of passive smokers so well...
A confused smoker (the Marlboro Man) weeping over his dead horse
(died of passive smoking)

Here's another 'benefit' of smoking... premature aging
(the process that frightened by both men AND women).

In the end.... before rushing in to your next destination here......

Or even here.....



That can end up here....

You really should give quitting a shot.....it kills not only you but US.

All images in this post are courtesy of http://adoholik.com

Thank You for Smoking!

Do you smoke cigarettes?

If not currently, have you ever smoked? I’m particularly interested to hear any news on how heavy smokers quit smoking. Both my parents were heavy smokers. My dad quit smoking after finding out he has heart problems and my mum soon follows. They quit smoking in 1996.

My brother is a very heavy smoker and never intended to quit. I sometimes worry so much about what he is doing to his body. I wish I could find a way to make him stop. To make him WANT to quit smoking.


Me? I tried smoking, 2 or 3 times during my university years. My "Kost mate" back then was a very heavy smoker. She smoked about a pack a day. I try to be a smoker for about a week but I actually hate it. My throat was burning and the taste in my mouth was horrible.

Let’s just say it wasn’t a positive experience.

Thankfully, that single bad experience turned me off smoking for good.

Now... a smoker is slowly becoming uncool, thank God. As this country ban people from smoking in public places, including restaurants, cafes, and office buildings. The vast majority of citizens are in favor of the ban, with almost 80% saying they supported a public smoking ban in a recent survey.

So how has the environment been affected? You’d think, or hope, that a smoking ban would be good for the environment. In theory, less people would be smoking because it’s more difficult. This would mean less smoke being emitted, at least.

A new study says that’s just not happening. It argues that the smoking ban has actually caused far more harm than good, at least in environmental terms.

The main reason the ban has been bad for the environment is because of cafes' and restaurants' efforts to make smokers more comfortable when they head outside to light up. There has been a significant increase in the number of exhausts in bars, pubs, restaurants and even office buildings! Can you believe that?

Smoking ban impacts are supposed to be positive and therefore shouldn't be causing more problems to environment AND other people. I say this wholeheartedly to all you smokers out there: "Please give up smoking, or simply buy yourself a jumpsuit and an astronaut-like mask."

:)

PS: The post title was taken from a black comedy-satire movie with the same title, starring Aaron Eckhart and Katie Holmes.

All Images in this post are courtesy of Irene Mueller (http://www.pbase.com/daria90/smoke)