June art

It’s nearing the end of June 2008, so here are the artworks I’ve been doing this month. Not too many, I know. I tried.

“Moon and Earth”

“Be The Light”

“The Redeemed”

“Celestial 04 - Gaia”

All of these you can see at my DeviantART gallery. Enjoy! Oh, and Happy Birthday to my mum who celebrates her birthday on 29 June!

~Anna

My style of Zen

Recently I bumped into an interesting question in Yahoo! Answers: “Do you enjoy the simple things in life?” The enquirer listed “reading a book”, “writing in a journal”, “walking in a park”, “watching the birds”, and “walking by a lake or pond” as his examples. I definitely love the simple little things in life and these are the Top 15:

1. Everything the enquirer mentioned above

2. Painting. It’s my ultimate meditation.

3. The starry night sky.

4. Walking around the city just for the sake of walking and being in the world.

5. Enjoying the flow of water when swimming. I sometimes just lie flatly in a prone position, head in the water, and let the small waves play with my body.

6. Sitting at the corner, being incognito and just observing other people. Or when I’m with a group of friends, I can just follow them around without much talking, and just absorbing things about them: their smiles, their laughters, their remarks, how they touch each other, etc. These things are just irreplaceable.

7. Touching the dangling leaves and watching them sway.

8. Enjoying a delicate object with my hands, exploring its nooks and crannies. Usually it’s a seashell, a flower, or a curious rare item like a sheet of a mummy’s bandage x)

9. The smell of freshly cut grass, and the wet earth, during or after rain.

10. The smell of new books (perhaps I sound like I have an OCD but I’m pretty sure books have this distinct pleasant smell that signals divine inspiration).

11. Sunsets.

12. The wind blowing my hair. I just don’t understand why so many girls will act so upset when their hair gets messy because of the friendly breeze. I believe the mess is part of being… err… sexy sensual.

13. Ancient articles. Stone temples, an old stringless violin, a path in the woods, a piece of yellowing historical document, old couples laughing and drinking tea in their garden and savouring every second of their life (mustn’t we all?).

14. Watching small flames, like in a bonfire, or barbecue.

15. Maybe this sounds so narcissistic, but I like dressing up and doing make up, looking beautiful without intending to go anywhere or to show anyone. (Afterwards just put the clothes back and wash off the make up. No harm done.)

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I can’t think of any other right now. What about you, do you find beauty in the unextraordinary? Please share

~Anna

Your dream is a carrot, and you’re an ass

Title: “5 cm”

Author: Donny Dhirgantoro

Category: Fiction

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Look at me. Just one book down and I already strayed away from the original list. Couldn’t help it. A friend came up and told me I should read this book. There’s a little sticker saying “Bestseller” on the top right corner of the front cover. Yes, I noticed that “5 cm” had been staying comfortably in big bookstores, currently in its 11th edition since May 2005.

Well, I have LOADS to say about this so-called bestselling novel.

“5 cm” explores the theme of friendship. Friends together, friends gone, friends reunited. A bit too clichéd for Indonesian standard (Indo loooovvess social-related themes. Friendships and romanticas, that is). The five friends are Genta, Ian, Zafran, Arial, and Riani. Later on they are joined by Arial’s twin sister, Arinda (affectionately called “Dinda”). The first two chapters elaborate the story of their activities together: walking around Jakarta, having meals here and there, watching films here and there, smoking, visiting their high school at night for a bit of reminiscing. Then someone suggests them calling off their friendship for 3 months, which means they must not contact each other during that period. They then meet again on the 14th of August, and to celebrate it they go climbing Mahameru together (Mahameru is another name for Mount Semeru in the province of East Java).

Now the ugly stuff first.

Please understand that I myself am NOT a professional in the world of (published) writing, but I do know a thing or two about how a good book should be written, fiction or not. Spelling, people, spelling. It’s crucial!. I decided to discuss these errors first because, being a perfectionist at heart, they are what caught my eyes first.

In the book	In real life
Andrea Corrs	Andrea Corr
The Chambers of Secret Sorcerer Stone	Oh come on, everybody knows this!!!
“Irish” - Goo Goo Dolls	“Iris” - Goo Goo Dolls
service excellent	service excellence
Rene Zhalweger	Renée Zellweger
Atlantic Star	Atlantic Starr
blast on	blush on
Gwyneth Patrol	Gwyneth Paltrow

What is very ironic about #2 is that, the five characters are mentioned to be big fans of Harry Potter. Well they should be knowledgeable enough to know that “The Chamber of Secrets” (note the correct location of the ’s’) and “The Sorcerer’s Stone” are two different Potter books. And “blast on” versus “blush on”… well, I’ve never seen such a ridiculous misspelling. It is said that “5 cm” is Dhirgantoro’s debut, but I don’t think being a newbie is an excuse — the author should have done proper research beforehand.

The book is full of redundancies: phrases, words, and expressions. I’ve been taught that unique, unusual, words should not be immediately repeated, even only once, because it would be too much. “Immediately” here means two or three chapters later, or maybe more, or even the entire book, so that there is only one of each catchy words. In “5 cm”, such words are repeated so many times it starts to be pretty annoying to the eye and to the ear. The most bothering is the repetition of jokes. One character, Ian, is described as very fat, and he’s being compared to an elephant, a clown, a banana boat, a Teletubbies doll, and some other vast-bodied things. These concepts are repeated again and again, each time as though they are brand new, and you guess it, they stop being funny.

I think Dhirgantoro also spends too many pages describing the five characters’ daily activities before their separation. When they are together, the story pace becomes pretty slow. Not to mention that “5 cm” contains more than 10 song lyrics, almost fully written out, word by word. Trust me, the feeling of being schooled about songs (and their singers, the vocals, the lyrics) is one unpleasant consequence of reading “5 cm”. Sorry but personally I’m trying to care about the characters and perhaps the tangible, visible impact of the songs on them. I don’t care about the songs themselves.

And then there are the philosophies. [My hands are extremely itchy right now, can hardly wait.] Besides friendship, “5 cm” also revolves around the idea of dream and hope. Regardless of the topic, however, there is no healthy exchange of thoughts between the characters. When one of them says something, some cool thought, some amazing life philosophy, the others will listen and then nod in agreement. Nobody denies, nobody disagrees. Nobody tries to prove or disprove. Black and white are clear cut here. Atheists are definitely people who get no emotional / spiritual benefit. Things in life are freely chosen, not predetermined. I mean, it’s okay if that’s the author’s position, but the way he shows / defends his position is too… superficial. He clearly does not try contradicting these ideas himself (either explicitly or by displaying the character acts against his own philosophy). I dislike this aspect very much from “5 cm”. I feel like being stationed as the stupid student while the author is the clever teacher. No asking, no protests, no cons whatsoever.

Now on to the sweeter tidbits.

The most (or the only?) engaging part of the book is the characters’ journey to Mahameru, all the way from Jakarta. This time Dhirgantoro’s (otherwise boring) details play for his advantage. Very few people have been to Mahameru, and for those who haven’t, they can gain bountiful info by reading “5 cm”. We can know how the edelweiss marks the end of the woods, and the tips and tricks for climbing vertically on rocky cliffs. Pretty useful for climbers like me, who have nearly zero experience (not even worth to be called “climbers”). Sure, the nasty redundants are still there poking out their heads, but now the grand mountain has succeeded in eclipsing them. For a while, at least.

Oh, before I forgot, why do I name this entry the way it is now? Okay, so there’s this concept at the end of the story: we must hang our dreams and hopes 5 cm (hence the book’s title) before our forehead. Keep them there so you won’t lose sight of them and you can go on to reach them. Well honestly, this is actually a recycled idea. There’s an English adage, you might have known, about hanging a carrot in front of an ass (as in donkey, not butts) so that the ass would pull the cart. So there you go, the ass and its dream.

Long story short, “5 cm” is Indonesia. The good, the shameful, and the ignorant.

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~Anna

10 assumptions that I hate

Okay, maybe Lewis Carroll did say “What I tell you three times is true”, but if you point to a plane and say “it’s a bird” 10x does it mean the plane really IS a bird? We have the tendency to take whatever is repeated many times as the truth. We assume things, and our assumptions are repeated over and over again until it (almost) sounds like the truth.

Anyway, these are the Top 10 assumptions about me that I very much hate. What are yours?

1. I only want books.

People give me books on my birthday. People give me books from overseas. And guess what, what I really want is actually SEX. Well seriously. I love reading. But I’ve learnt, perhaps a bit too late, that it’s very wrong to admit myself as a bookworm / book lover, however true it is. People will start forgetting (or deliberately dismissing?) my humanity. They don’t bother to look for the possibility of other interests. They start showering me with books. Good books. Which is nice in a way, and thank you people, now I’m beginning to feel like a bookshelf.

2. “You must be following on your mum’s footsteps!”

My mum’s a doc. I’m a med student. Sorry, but the fact is, I entered med school because I had nothing else to do in my spare time.

3. I must be a glam girl.

This pops up into their mind when hearing that my high school was Sekolah Pelita Harapan. SPH is an international school, and in Indonesia, international schools are identical to glamorous lifestyle. I’m not sure exactly what they mean by “glamour” but I’m certainly not into clubbing and getting drunk and having my butt sitting on some stranger’s lap. Not all international students are glam. There ARE such people, but hey, there’s one in every family!

4. I’m a good girl…

Oh I don’t know. I own quite a handful of pirated stuff. I eat meat, and I grind ants with my flip-flop.

5. …and therefore I must hate snakes, rats, naughty girls, and zombie films.

I think snakes are charming. I don’t fear rats (I don’t want them in or around me and my house, but I don’t run away when I see one). I actually kind of admire naughty girls as many of them are tough minded. [Good and artistic] zombie films make my day. I’m NOT a serial killer, though.

Similar assumption: I only listen to mellow, good-natured pop tunes.

What I’m proud of: my high school friend Freddy once told me that I was the first girl he knew who likes Star Wars.

6. “Anna must know the answer / how to do it.”

I get irritated every time I hear someone says this. Well, I know that it means people put a big trust on my ability. BUT, that sure-as-the-sun statement also puts a tremendous burden on me; I’m expected to live up to people’s expectations. What do you think, how should I react to this?

7. I can have anything and everything I want from my parents.

The usual idea after knowing that I’m an only child. If only they knew how strict my dad is, especially during my earlier phase of existence, they would refrain from thinking so.

8. I am [only] mathematic / science-minded.

I’ve been walking my life with this neon sign on my forehead blaring a huge pink “SMARTIE”. If you are like me, and if you live in my country, the disadvantage of it is that people will automatically think you’re a very mathematical/scientific individual, and you know absolutely little (if not nothing) outside “The Brief History of Time”. Such is our stereotype. I wonder if this is similar in other countries?

Oh, and to give you the fact, I am NOT a mathematical person. I’m better at language than numbers, really. If the occasion calls for it, I can do my share of algebra (no geometry, please), but I never consider maths as the divine-inspired purpose of my being. Thank you very much.

9. “Woowww, you’re a med student! So have you touched dead bodies??”

A med student = corpses. The topic of corpses is usually the very first to be asked when meeting a med student. The second would be blood / surgery / gore-related themes. The third would be injection. Nobody has ever asked me about, say, how to deal with cancer. Or, how it feels to pull out worms from someone’s anus. Nope. We are white-coated gravediggers, still.

10. You can say anything you want because I will should be tolerating it.

Let me clarify. So if I’m about to say something harsh in front of you, I’m perfectly permissible to do it because hey, I’m in charge with my mouth but not with your feeling. YOU are in charge of your feeling. If you are hurt, then it’s your fault, why do you take my words to heart?

Sigh. What is up with the world? I thought toleration was a two-way thing. I have my right, but it shouldn’t clash with your right and your right shouldn’t clash with mine either. So please, CONTROL your freedom of speech. It’s not 100%-free freedom, it’s freedom with boundaries. What are the boundaries? Other people’s freedom. Other people’s needs. Sheesh.

Sorry for my emotional rambling. This last point is, funnily enough, NOT aimed to teenagers, because my experience shows me how they can be much more polite than adults. In fact, no. #10 is aimed to adults who speak carelessly to the youth like me. I don’t understand what’s behind all this: is it age? Is it pride?

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The human mind. So much for my love-hate relationship with it.

~Anna

Are you one of the five people I meet in heaven?

Title: “The Five People You Meet In Heaven”

Author: Mitch Albom

Category: Fiction

Other titles: “Meniti Bianglala” (=walking along the rainbow)- Indonesian translation

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People had long been talking about this book. Indo celebrities had been caught reading it. And yet I had to wait until recently to lay my hands on it. In a nutshell? This is a terrific book.

The premise is simple: an old guy named Eddie dies rescuing a little girl from a malfunctioning ride. Then, Eddie goes to heaven. Only, Mitch Albom’s heaven is not like our usual image of heaven (a vast meadow with evergreen trees and flowers, a land flowing with milk and honey, you get the idea). Albom’s heaven is a place where the deceased’s life is explained by five people. Some may be the deceased’s loved ones, some others may be complete strangers.

This novel is abundant with moral values and heartwarming realities. Eddie learns about love, sacrifice, death, and most importantly, how people’s lives are interconnected. We may change other people’s destiny, and others may change our destiny, without any of us knowing it. We may even have killed someone and still think ourselves as pure as cotton. I think the concept of the story is clever; Albom has successfully created something extraordinary out of the ordinary. He’s clearly unafraid to weave not only the good, romantic side of Eddie, but also his dark, hateful, anger-filled past. I admire Albom’s attempt at realising his version of the afterlife: the constantly-changing sky, the five “layers” of the divine world, and how the deceased can “choose” their final resting place. Eddie’s adventure in heaven overlaps with fragments about his past (each fragment is from one of his random birthdays) and fragments about how life goes in the real-world time after his death.

Don’t be fooled by the thin appearance of this book. It’s one that is really worth reading.

~Anna