Wednesday, September 21, 2011

On the road

I'm on the road again. After 22 days in Kyoto, I am back on the road, this time southward.

But truth be told, I'd rather be northbound.

Last month, I went northbound twice, and they made up for the best summer ever.

If you had asked me before, I guess there's little chance I'd answer a summer pronounciated with physical work be the best summer ever; but it did.

For the first time in my life I actually wielded power tools: I drilled screws to create wood prisms (way harder than it looks), I unscrewed out the screws that once held walls together, I cranked the lever to restore the stone block back upright, I ground the edges of wall boards to smooth it out, I cut new wall boards to be installed on a warehouse. I had a crowbar that was almost an extension of my hand--deftly (if I may say so myself) pulling out the roof of a destroyed house, tearing out wall boards, pulling away the screws to make the beams usable again. And there's also caulking fun--at the expense of only my jeans, t-shirt, and baseball cap, now all stained with silicone sealant and I have no idea how to remove that.

Sure, I didn't get to play with the chainsaw. I also didn't get to drive the forklift (Sheila did that). But maybe it's a good thing--I haven't driven a car since ages and the last time I did that I sent Glagah's old kijang to a ditch. On an uphill road. Smack dab on the intersection to Bosscha observatory. So yeah, that's a good thing. And maybe I'll get to play with a chainsaw when zombie apocalypse finally arrives.

Until said apocalypse come, you shall be content with me for coming week or two describing said best summer: part two in Tohoku (now with extra five days from part one!)

Saturday, September 10, 2011

You can only go further away

"Remember when you read him out loud the writing on the cheap book?"
"'To be number one'? Yeah, how can I forget that? I insisted that 'one' is read as ow-nay, I was reading that using Indonesian reading key,"
"Well, you are Indonesian. A six-year old one. There was no reason to assume the phrase wasn't Indonesian,"
"Yeah, but I insisted I was right, despite him telling me that it's English, it isn't read that way, and the correct pronunciation was 'one',"
"Well, you were six years old,"

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

On indignity and sex


There is something undignified about sex.

Politicians fall from grace when pictures with them in unflattering light surfaced (think Weiner), or when testimonies of their questionable sexual behavior are picked up by the media (I forget the name of the politician, but there was this one politician satirized in Pearls Before Swine who employed the excuse of "I have a wide stance," on his sexual behavior in an airport's toilet).

But it is not limited only to politician. Ordinary persons are not immune to it as well. Ask the Scottish siblings who caught romping in an elevator by CCTV camera.