Ubud unfamiliar Writers and uninformed Readers Festival
In keeping up with the recent travelbug I’ve been having for the past few weeks, today I spiced my work routine by checking out news on this year’s Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. Like all good Googlian in the world, I did not check the Festival’s website (no further news until August 2008) but look for unexpected stuff from Big Brother Google’s pockets.
One of the interesting treasures I unearthed came from Eric Forbes’s blog. I found what I’m looking for in one of the blog’s post:
The underlying theme of 2008’s 5th International Ubud Writers and Readers Festival on October 14-19, 2008 will be “Us and Them.” Together with established writers, emerging writers will confront the issue of cultural collisions. Invited guests include Nobel Prize-winning author Wole Soyinka, acclaimed Chilean writer Isabel Allende, British-Caribbean author Caryl Phillips, Mexican writer Alberto Ruy-Sanchez, Australian novelist Helen Garner, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks, and Vikram Seth.
What’s interesting for me is that those names are unfamiliar to me. Now wait, before you crucify me, I admit that my knowledge in literature is limited, and the reason why I did all this digging up is to ‘broaden my horizon’. Hahaha.
Well, the thing is, back in 2007 when I went to UWRF as a volunteer, I was struck by the fact that most of the authors there were (you guess it) unfamiliar to me. And I’m not even talking about Indonesian literary figures who got only a small portion of spotlights there (We all know that. After all, this is Ubud, one of the most innocently touristy places in our backwater country, where everything has to be extremely local or absolutely global). I’m talking about how little I know about literature, despite the ever-growing collection of books in my room. So many authors out there. A whole universe of words and pictures.
Anyway, if you’re a member of BungaMatahari , you’d love the Festival’s Poetry Slam event. Damn, it reminded me so much of BuMa’s KebunKata.
So, still many months before that fine fine day when I can sit in Casa Luna and pretending to be rich. Eating an overpriced (but dear God in heaven so feckin tasty) cookie, while waiting for the next session (Indus? Three Monkeys Cafe?) to start.
Meanwhile, I’ll try and gather what’s left of my intelligence to find, buy (borrow, if possible), and read all that books by those wonderful authors.
One Morning With Elvi Sukaesih
Today and tomorrow (Friday-Saturday, 29 Feb-1 Mar), I will be going to Maverick’s Away Day in Ancol. The location is supposed to be a secret, but I found out about it just last week.
I hope it’s gonna be fun. Too bad I have to give a presentation to my colleagues on our media relations program later at 10. It’s not that I suck at presentation (I sometimes do, but that’s another topic), it’s just that with the workload lately I haven’t been able to get enough rest, and haven’t been able to prepare well.
And last night’s session with my friends did not help at all. It’s not like I don’t enjoy hanging out, it’s just that I was so tired. I got home at 1.30 AM, and still have to do some sidejob. I finally went to bed at around 3 AM, and got up at 6 AM. Talk about bad time management.
No wonder I’m sick all the time.
This morning as I got into the cab and about to plug into my Nokia 6681 music player, I caught some familiar notes from the driver’s radio. Something old-fashioned. It’s a (melayu? dangdut?) song from Elvi Sukaesih. Gosh, of all the songs I have to listen to this?
But somehow as the song sunk in, it sounded perfect for this morning. It’s something so Jakarta. I asked the driver, “Who’s the singer, Pak?”
“Elvi Sukaesih. It’s an old song. I’m not really into today’s songs,” He said.
“It’s a nice song,” I said. Simon and Garfunkel will have to wait til later.
Such a light morning with clear traffic and slight signs of rain. It took me another one and a half songs to get to the office. What a way to start an away day.
Simple VS Complicated
Today I spent two hours attending the Writing Clinic, a training on how to write properly. Although the training was designed for our colleagues the media trackers, associates are welcomed, if not encouraged, to attend. A time well-spent, I must say.
In my previous office we used to have lots of trainings, and one of the routine ones are Friday English sessions with Julie, where she refreshed and retaught everything I’ve learned in college. Great sessions, despite the fact that some of us from the Corporate, IPC, and IT divisions always brought chaos to the class.
The Clinic felt a bit like Julie’s sessions, same relaxed manner and lots of laughter, only it focused more on brevity.
For example, our partner Ong would scream bloody murder if we ever come up with something like “In order to…” instead of a simple “To…” Hehehehe. I got a taste of this in my first week, being used to writing proposals in flowery languages.
Our partners always stressed that our business “is to make everything complicated sound simple and make everything simple sound important”. Something that is easier said than done.
The fact that my writings tend to be long and complicated proved that I’m still far away from being a good writer.
poor old thing
Yesterday I was sick and couldn’t come to the office. The rest did me good. Got to sleep of the pain. Caught up on my dvd dose too.
My Blueberry Nights and Darjeeling Limited. Nice movies. Good looking Louis Vuittons. Naked Natalie. Straight-faced Jason.
Today I was sorry for being sick, with the load of work I have now, and wished I didn’t take the day off. Plus the freezing air conditioner. And the instant coffee. Cream. With sugar.
Workloads. Day offs. Sickness.
I am getting old. You poor old thing said my girlfriend.
on bad roads, gold phallus, and showing off
It was only last week during my weekly hang-outs when one of my friends raised the issue of Jakarta’s bad roads. He used to drive a motorcycle, thus he got to feel the holes and bumps more than us bus-and-taxi riders. As always, every time someone throw a new topic, our attention deficit disorder kicked in and all of us jumped and gave our own versions of bad road incidents.
Today I read a post from another friend mentioning basically the same thing and an article in The Jakarta Post highlighting the issue from a national perspective. The article said:
The state of land transportation is not only poor but seems to be getting worse, a seminar revealed, citing a global survey that put Indonesia’s ranking in a worse position this year than last year.
Bambang Susantono, deputy to the coordinating minister for the economy for infrastructure and regional development, said Tuesday that Indonesia was ranked 91 among 131 countries surveyed by the World Economic Forum in the transportation infrastructure area.
We’ve had our independence more than half a century ago. Our satellites are among those objects scattering the globe’s outer atmosphere right now. We build a feckin gold-headed phallus in our capital for cryin out loud. We have a goddamn PhD president today. And we can’t even build good roads?
I’ve been to several cities around Indonesia, and the most striking things I’ve seen are not the beautiful views these regions have for the tourists, but the palace-like government buildings they all have to show the foreigners. No matter how poor the region is, the government just gotta have the shiniest marble floors and the tallest concrete pillars for their newest offices.
While across the road people are living in shanties.
The fact that this was first mentioned by my Australian client, did not make me feel any better.
Indonesian’s love to show off. Maybe more than some nations in the world. And we do it at any cost.
There’s this stereotype about the people from North Sulawesi, especially my parents’ hometown Menado. They say people from this area are known, anecdotally, as lebih baik kalah nasi daripada kalah aksi. Or ‘better to talk the talk than to walk the walk’.
I guess its not just us Menadonesse.
2nd Windows Live Session
Bear with me for a while. The first post was successful. I’m quite pleased with the result. Let’s try some more.
Oh, unfortunately it doesn’t support blogging in Multiply. Damn. Or is there something that I missed back there while customizing this?
Anyway, gotta go home. My girlfriend’s waiting. I’m gonna buy her this how-to-draw book, and then we’re gonna go to have some sushi.
Windows Live
This is my first post using Windows Live Writer. To be honest, I was already comfortable writing from my Multiply page and then exporting whatever it is to my other blogs. But hey, reinvention is the name of the game here. Learning new things would be great for me. I can’t always be the technologically ignorant Ney.
We’ll see how helpful this new tool would be for me.
Heroes or Cheerleaders?
Two weeks ago I was excited when I read an article in the International Herald Tribune about a plan to offer free books online. The publishers who did this want to increase sales by allowing readers to get a feel of the book, which hopefully will increase their buying interest.
Unfortunately, my fear that this is still a long way for us Indonesians is confirmed when I read an article in The Jakarta Post today. A group of publisher is against the government’s program to provide free online books for students.
A representative from The Indonesian Publishers Association (Ikapi) argued that:
1. A government plan to provide online textbooks would not reduce the cost of books for students.
2. While publishers could trim book prices by usingcheaper paper, other people would end up paying more by downloading and printing learning materials themselves, due to the cost of Internet access and binding services, as well as fewer paper choices.
3. The effort to get textbooks ready to use would take extra time and energy.
4. Not only will people have to spend time printing the materials, but also with having them bound.
Okay, I don’t have enough information about the government’s program, and the article itself does not provide enough information on what was said during the publisher’s meeting.
I only hope that the Ikapi’s reason for having doubts on the program was not based on fears of losing their profits. Being critical towards the government’s plans or strategies is always a good start. Some of the arguments stated by Ikapi as quoted above may have been reasonably grounded. However, I do hope that the publishers would not take a too pessimistic stance on this.
Yes, in most areas in Indonesia, internet connection is still a luxury, if it exists at all. Yes, there might be extra cost that users would bear if they want to download the materials. But please remember that our country is so far behind in education that every step we could take to ensure a widespread distribution of knowledge among the people is worth a try.
It’s just last week that I read about how the government is planning to cut down on educational subsidies.
At the time when even a big country like the US is starting to lose the race in education to India and China, where do we want to stand? Do we want to be heroes or cheerleaders?
stupidity loves company
I can’t wait for this government to step down. Damn fools. Not only they want to create more poor people, they’re so eager to produce more and more stupid people.
Maybe that’s because they’re so desperately moron they need company.
They oil price hike is supposedly the culprit behind recent government’s decision to cut down the education budget by 15 percent. The House of Representatives, despite the morons residing there, actually ‘confronted’ this decision.
According to the article linked above:
The government said the reduction was necessary because the global oil price could raise the government’s subsidies for oil-based fuel and electricity to Rp 250 trillion. To meet this, the government would need to reduce other subsidies, including on education.
Subsidies. Cutting on subsidies. How about those high-maintainanced lifestyle you presidents, vice presidents, and ministers have enjoyed so far? It wouldn’t hurt them (and yes you to legislators in DPR/MPR!) to stop using people’s money to hold meetings in hotels, restaurants and such. Show some empathy.
Instead of cutting on subsidies for education, let’s cut down your necks first you assholes.
And our country is supposed to be proud to have a PhD president? Yeah right. Eat your title mister robot!
Update Feb 25: Somehow the link above no longer directs to the original article. I don’t know why. Maybe they scrape out the article. I’ll try and find out.
The Presidential Idol
Today, presidential elections are have become more and more like entertainment events. And who could do it better than the US of Aintertainment? We Indonesians who live thousands of miles away are as interested to Barrack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain as our brothers and sisters in Timbuctoo or Malvides.
Thanks to Uncle Sam, we now have Presidential Idols to accompany American and Indonesian idols.
That’s why some of us Indonesians are so concerned about who will be the next president of the USA. Lately, the concern becomes a bit overwhelming as Barack Obama entered the stage. I guess that fact that Obama used to live in our country when still a kid and the trauma we ‘suffer’ after seeing what Bush junior the moron has done to the world have turned our attention to the black senator.
A superpower’s fart reaches a long way in this flat world, and whether the resulting gas will kill you or simply struck you sober depends heavily on who’s stomach is sitting on the throne.
Surprisingly, not many people (at least in my circle of friends) show interest or support to Hillary Clinton. Perhaps the lack of interest towards Mrs. Clinton is because we had our experience with a female candidate and even a female president, which (sorry to say, friends) turned out to be rather disappointing.
I don’t share my friends enthusiasm on Obama for reasons I couldn’t explain (aside from the usual suspicion on anything political). And when I read these cautious articles in last week’s The Economist and today’s The Jakarta Post, I now know what’s been keeping me from jumping into the Obama-mania.
Just because Obama used to live in our third world country, speaks eloquently, and has so far been able to force fellow Democratic candidates to defensive stance, does not mean we have to put our faith on him too soon.
I would totally support a President Jed Bartlett, but damn, he only existed in the West Wing series!
We had among us prophet-like president, sultan-like president, technocratic president, idiotic president, eccentric president, and now, robotic president. A year from now we will enter our own Presidential Idol. It probably wouldn’t be as exciting as the one’s Uncle Sam is parading today, but it sure as hell gonna be ours with our ass’ destiny tied into it.
So who cares who’s gonna be the next US President?
