quickly spread, spread quickly

It's summer time! I already anticipate the heat since almost month ago, days were quite hot sometimes then got chilled and windy again. But definitely, now it's summer. People seem to like it. A summer fashion is created: minimal dress, maximal sunbathing. But I can't stand it. Please no frown...Im serious, Im deadly hot! Although Im from tropical land, this dry and strikingly hot climate is killing me slowly...Especially in our flat. Since we live a bit near to the sky:-) you bet the sun is friendlier to us and not hesitated to come by our windows all the time. Not that we are not in enmity but moderation is always the best.In winter, our flat is warmer than others' houses, and in summer, reality also reveals the relevance. It's hot enough baby to bake something, err... everything!! You can imagine what would dominate our waste produce; drinking bottle s or boxes.

Mentioning produce, summer creates other fashion namely reluctance. Such reluctance that cause people not being friendly, not giving in to other drivers on street, not queuing, not giving seat to others on public transport. My contributions include reluctant to go down to drop my rubbish into the common bin at the ground floor, reluctant to enjoy the sunshine and preferred to walk fast and hide in the shadow. These habits surprisingly spread and become fashion. Alrighty, it was only people around me. Alrighty then, until I start it as followings.

Firstly, my flat's neighbours have followed my bad attitude by resting the waste bag outside the door overnight before throwing them away. You can imagine the smell and potential disease coming out of those waste!!!

Secondly, when I disobey the traffic light for pedestrians, people suddenly also cross the road feeling justified by my misbehave hehehe...

Thirdly, I was not comfortable when older people stand on public transport. Not only do they barely stay steadily and then bump into or step on me but also they squeeze and lean on me. And in summer it will involve lots of sweat, CO2, and NH3 (psst... i mean those fragrance and bad air you know.....), so that's enough. I cheat on my manner and snap youngsters for not giving seat on older people. Sometimes they are shocked coz they dont really know what I mean but sometimes they are ashamed but dont know what to say coz Im foreigner. Usually, after that, many people suddenly have manner and some give seat to older or weak people. Fashion spread.

Forth, romantism increases significantly coz people are happier (please exclude me:-)) and in the mood of hugging and kissing and touching their lovers in public places or transport. When they both wear minimal outfits of course we can see almost all activities involving body exploring. Some people put efforts not to look on vulgar couple, moms will try to hide it from their kids, olders will indignantly look on them, while other like me? will look eagerly, hehehe... OK, you may think that I should behave but what about those who overly make out in public? So I stare at them and sometimes hope for seeing new techniques. Those couples usually not happy of my staring at them but I am reluctant to see or move to other directions coz the metro/tram is packed and we are destined to facing each other hihi...
And after a while, suddenly many people also boldly look at them and enjoy the view because of a pervert like me:-).

Naughty, naughty me! But it's not my fault! It's because of summer! (Yeah, sure:-)). I am reluctant to actively move my body and eyes somewhere else out of their views:-(. Bad things quickly spread, spread quickly indeed.

One month passes...

We are looking back to 21 May when some thrills developed in the big day preparation.
Facts: Prague was heavily rained, chilly, and gloomy in May.
Result: that saturday was a fine day, totally bright and fine day. Thanks God!

We are looking back to our families' one heart and mind on fulfilling this dream.
Facts: we are bringing with us different culture, past, and expectations baggage.
Result: everyone bigheartedly embraces each other and bound as one family.

We are looking back to our long and painstaking discussions on budget planning, venues, and programme.
Facts: Expenditures should not exceed the treasure:-)
Result: Invaluable supports, amazing gifts and miracles have overtaken our anxiety and compelled us to be grateful!

Having my family visiting and spending time with us was also part of our gratitude. Our official honey moon was splendid! We went out, eat out, and teased each other throughout all journey we made with them. What a precious time catching up days with them.

Then one month passed, all back to routinity and we do not feel huge differences except for my missing out my family. The sun still rise, the night still come, we still snore and disorganized:-). We witness no angels singing in the sky but gloomy days and tough times. Is something wrong?
Nope, everything is right! The world is still evolving, the life resumes. This is life! A real world with realistic life. Getting married may change your life choice and may not. But definitely a realistic choice to resume life. As the priest' saying on our ceremony, Marriage is a hope, a true hope. I married an alive human being! and he also:-). That's why we need to work out our dream and keep on hoping.
I am not sorry for abandoning my single life, hauling this boat trip to a real hope and future, even though we wont change alot, it is a worthy journey....

In short, as inspired by Thomas à Kempis in Imitation of Christ's "Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.", here we share our favourite piece from Susan Schutz to face our real marriage life:

I cannot promise you that I will not change
or that I will not hurt your feelings
or that I will always be strong
or that I will not have many different moods
Or that my faults will not show
But
I do promise that
I will always be supportive of you
I will share my thoughts and feelings with you
I will be completely honest with you
I will give you freedom to be yourself
I will laugh and cry with you
I will help you achieve your goals

But most of all
I do promise you that
I will always (learn) to love you..

Appreciations should be truly given to those who crossed over their comfort zones and financial rationales by supporting our wedding in tremendous way. We salute you!

choose your own superstar and banana

How many people do you think in this world who do not know Singing Idol contest show and banana? Maybe you ask what connects Idol contest with banana? As some of you may guess, it is what I call the web of global interconnedness, or to put it simply, globalization.
You may like it or not, but one thing we can not control is the global and complex forces which intrigue many countries into world membership club. What I mean is that despite all suspicion and loathness, nations are becoming bound to each other in many aspects of life.
At least two current phenomena in Praha has shown it, people anxiety towards Czech superstar contest and the 31 May seminar on questioning European Union Constitution.
"Czech looks for Superstar" is a licensed program by Fremantle which handles singing contests around the world such as American Idol and Indonesian Idol with World Idol as the final project.
Its procedures, the sms polling as the ultimate voting system, also to mention the hysterical supporters:-), are typical and similar with other countries contests. Cheers and blues sweep the audience and supporters whenever their Idols pass or eliminated. And in the end, of course, someone who is supposed to get major votes (read national support) becomes the winner.
Maybe it is not a special event for you but what interested me was that the winner is not a pure Czech. Alright, please dont regard me as a racist or ethnocentric. What I want to say is that it is a huge improvement in Czech history (for me of course:-)) that a gypsy-Czech is officially a new Czech Superstar. Blood and skin color are not the issues here. What a beautiful day! What a beautiful dream! Someone's destiny can change instantly. Many people struggle to fulfill that dream too. Being famous and rich in such a short time and worldwide known.
But does having worldwide impact improve many lives? Or is that merely a euphoria of equal participation and wide acceptance?for example, what about the life quality of people who live in banana's producing land? as we enjoy the best banana, there are so many local farmers and industries striving for equal competition. As there is no perfect system, this liberal one also brings about some repercussions and questions in terms of the number of benefiters.
Having been concerned with european membership club, President Klaus also hosted a seminar on questioning European Union Constitution. Young people were invited to speak their opinions.
As I recorded the event while Ondra was being one of the speakers, one topic was raised. Czech do not mind the global openness and relations as now they can pick their best banana from all over the world:-) however do not mean that they give in to the rigid european union constitution which overly regulates affairs.
It is a paradox that on one hand people are intrigued to cross their national border, peek on their foreign neighbourhood, and grab their best produce and live happier. While on the other hand they are nervously afraid of being evaluated, invaded by foreign resources and goods, robbed in a way that leave them nothing except their own dignities and the exposure.
So in the end, does the web of interconnectedness give you abundant choices or do you actually trade your abundant choices for the sake of the web? Can you be satisfied with your freedom of choosing the superstar and banana, while your own life and fruit cannot win over the competition leaving you biting your own nails?

afternoon tea and its company

After a long and tiring day or even dull day, I often crave quality tea break. It doesnt mean that I will only stick to tea, I enjoy other drinks too such as coffee and chocolate. However, since I dont really fancy cold drinks and try as much as possible to moderate my cafein and alcohol intake, so voila.. only some are left, namely tea and chocolate.
Prague is quite pampered by extensive option of tea room and cafe. However, I need to admit that Australia is better in terms of tea'scompany. You can indulge in huge variety of cakes and sweeties to enjoy your afternoon tea. From devil chocolate cake to New York cheese cake, all serve to make your afternoon part of your satisfying epilogue. Boy, I miss those days:-).
However, I religiously visit sweet shops here to enrich my knowledge and assessment and to appreciate the tea break per se:-).
I like to notice the frequenters while sipping my warm drink and dug into my cake. Most are lovers and middle age people.This old group hangs out either to spend their afternoon or have chitchat. Some may meet up with friends, some will sit in the corner alone and look moony. Sometimes, they share the table or merely smile to other aged people simply because they are in the same boat. This kind of batch solidarity also appears on public transport in Prague.
Here are some frequent scenes.

Scene I.
Mr. A, an old, respectable guy with fancy suits and elegant walking stick gets on a tram in a bright yet windy day. The tram is packed but one young guy gives his seat for him. But Mr. A, a respectable man has a noble plan to give it to an old lady who barely stands straight. Then a very rushing old lady grabs the seat and sits nicely and pretends not knowing the situation.
Then the atmosphere becomes awful. All are coldly silent and occasionally stab each other's eyes with killer look. Two elder ladies save the day by giving seats to these old people. Ffuiihh almost!!

Scene II.
Some old people are getting on but the tram is fully packed. The youngsters automatically give seats, however still some are cheeky and do not feel obliged to do that.
Then we can see two groups of these elderly persons:
first one will remain standing and keep their dignities by not begging for seats
the second one will snap on these youngsters and deliberately ask for it and the youngsters will pout and reluctantly stand up hehehe..
What about for aged but not too old people? Seniority prevails mate:-).

Scene III.

Gradually people get off and leave some vacant seats for other not too old but tired matured group. Then Mr B, a very old and poorly groomed man gets on the tram. Mr. A, the gentleman, gives his seat for this guy. At the same time, the lady next to him also stands up and both go and face the other direction of tram. Mr. B then has plenty space for him and his heavy and old bag. I dont know whether he is given seat because people want to avoid sitting close to him or just a matter of honor.

Scene IV
This is the moment when Mr. C gets on the tram. He is a sleek, handsome matured man with a beautiful wooden stick to support him. But he is not old enough to entitle himself the right to request the seat:-). Me, myself, is standing all along too.
Then some old people get off and Mr A and B now can comfortably sit facing each other.
They start to smile and make friendly gestures even though I know they dont know each other. This is maybe some kind of ethical code of old times passengers.
They sometimes seem to struggle to make some conversations but then restrain to cross the border of privacy. But I notice that they secretly evaluate each other's outfit and hair color and walking stick and shoes. Since they are gentlemen, they attempt to do it inconspiciously throughout newspaper reading or dreamily looking to other direction or yawning.
If one happens to be caught by other, they will start awkwardly smiling and nodding to each other and stop watching each other for few minutes and then helplessly do it again:-).

Ups! I have reached my stop. That's my today's afternoon tea and its entertaining company. I bet I will encounter more interesting events. Next time maybe I will review the sweet shop but manana amigo, manana:-).

To my parents...

Patience has been my lifelong enemy:-). It has tested me so many times, sometimes I won the battle, sometimes I lost, still those lessons have not brought much improvement to my relationship with patience, but when my parents came for my wedding and went around Czech Republic, Patience again played with me and tested my strength:-).

It started on the very first day.The family boarded very late, we had to wait for ages (OK, I exagerrate it:-)) and already felt not comfy waiting so long for them coming out from the imigration while others already were.
Then it continued in the following day, when moderate walk exhausted my parents. I did not realise (or did not want to realise:-)) that they are not as fit as before. Age has consumed them.
Missing the scheduled underground and tram were among those potentials for me to wage war with patience. And the list went on.
HOwever, in the end, I led myself and won the war:-). This forwarding mail contributed to my peace and reminded me of the value of parents for me...

Ma and Pa, I wish you peaceful and enjoyable days. Aku sayang kalian.


KETIKA AKU SUDAH TUA
WHEN I AM OLD NOW

Ketika aku sudah tua, bukan lagi aku yang semula.
WHEN I AM OLD NOW AND NOT WHO I WAS BEFORE
Mengertilah, bersabarlah sedikit terhadap aku.
PLEASE UNDERSTAND ME AND BE PATIENT WITH ME
Ketika pakaianku terciprat sup,
WHENEVER SOUP BROTH STAINS MY CLOTH

ketika aku lupa bagaimana mengikat sepatu, ingatlah bagaimana dahulu aku mengajarmu.
WHENEVER I FORGET HOW TO TIE MY SHOELACE, REMEMBER WHEN I TAUGHT YOU

Ketika aku berulang-ulang berkata-kata tentang sesuatuyang telah bosan kau dengar, bersabarlah mendengarkan, jangan memutus pembicaraanku.
WHENEVER I REPEAT TELLING SOME STORIES, PLEASE TAKE HEART AND LISTEN

Ketika kau kecil, aku selalu harus mengulang cerita yang telah beribu-ribu
kali kuceritakan agar kau tidur.
WHEN YOU WERE YOUNG, I HAVE TOLD YOU SOME STORIES THOUSAND TIMES SO YOU HAD NICE SLEEPING

Ketika aku memerlukanmu untuk memandikanku, jangan marah padaku.
Ingatkah sewaktu kecil aku harus memakai segala cara
untuk membujukmu mandi?
WHENEVER I NEED YOU TO HELP ME TAKE BATH, PLEASE DONT BE UPSET,
I ALSO TOOK TIME TO PERSUADE YOU, MY LITTLE ONE, TO TAKE BATH

Ketika aku tak paham sedikitpun tentang tehnologi dan hal-hal baru,
jangan mengejekku. Pikirkan bagaimana dahulu aku begitu sabar menjawab
setiap "mengapa" darimu.
WHENEVER I AM DUMB WITH NEW TECHNOLOGY PLEASE DONT SCOLD
REMEMBER WHEN I WAS RELENTLESS ANSWERING ALL YOUR SIMPLE QUESTIONS

Ketika aku tak dapat berjalan, ulurkan tanganmu yang masih kuat untuk
memapahku. Seperti aku memapahmu saat kau belajar berjalan waktu masih kecil.
WHENEVER I BARELY WALK, PLEASE LEND ME YOUR HAND
AS I DID IT TO YOUR SMALL, FRAGILE HAND AS MY BABY CHILD

Ketika aku seketika melupakan pembicaraan kita, berilah aku waktu untuk
mengingat. Sebenarnya bagiku, apa yang dibicarakan tidaklah penting,
asalkan kau disamping mendengarkan, aku sudah sangat puas.
WHENEVER I AM LOST IN OUR CONVERSATION, PLEASE GIVE ME TIME
ABOVE ALL, WHAT MOSTLY MATTERS TO ME IS YOUR PRESENCE

Ketika kau memandang aku yang mulai menua, janganlah berduka.
Mengertilah aku, dukung aku, seperti aku menghadapimu ketika kamu mulai
belajar menjalani kehidupan. Waktu itu aku memberi petunjuk bagaimana
menjalani kehidupan ini, sekarang temani aku menjalankan sisa hidupku.
WHENEVER YOU GLANCE AT MY AGING FIGURE, PLEASE DONT BE TROUBLED
ACCEPT ME, SUPPORT ME JUST LIKE I HAVE DONE TO YOUR LIFE STRUGGLING
NOW ACCOMPANY ME LIVING THE REST OF MY DAYS

Beri aku cintamu dan kesabaran, aku akan memberikan senyum penuh rasa
syukur, dalam senyum ini terdapat cintaku yang tak terhingga untukmu.
GIVE ME YOUR LOVE AND PATIENCE, AND I GIVE YOU MY GRATEFUL SMILE AND LOVE WITHIN


DARI AYAH DAN IBU
FROM DAD AND MOM