kodok ijo dan tiga bocah petualang

Frankly saying, I’ve been to both Turkey and Texas, yet a simple journey to whichever nearest trashing-spot we could find with Bedjo, an impetuous-driver, and a queen-of-goofy-jokes always beats any luxurious and sophisticated trips.

Well. Let’s just start with a facile introduction.

1. Bedjo
Although named like some old-ish Javanese men’s, it actually is a cool Green Mercedez-Benz A140. Sometimes aliased as Makasih Verde, since a French word for “makasih” or “thank you” is “Mercy”, and “Verde” means “green”.

2. Impetuous-driver
(Read: pengendara super ugal-ugalan 2010) Mochamad Emir Agustaman is his real full name. The owner of Bedjo, is the name-giver as well. Hold a record of never-ever-fastened-seat-belt. And 100 kph as his minimum speed on toll roads.

3. Queen-of-goofy-jokes
Also known as smile-producer or laughter-creator: Melissa Indria Pertiwi. Just get into her radius of 5 meters, and you’ll continue pitying yourself for listening to lousy-yet-funny quips.

In January, I’ve been “traveling”–to allay the word “trashing”–with those 3 twice.

In the first trip, the itinerary isn’t any further than places we’d been visiting in high school: Poins Square-Emir’s house-PIM-Kharisma Bangsa-Lebak Bulus Terminal.

It then developed in the second journey, which has just happened today: Memes’s flat in Cempaka Putih!

Err–that sounded pretty much normal, didn’t it? Then what’s so special in the journey?

First thing first, disupirin sama Emir elu KAGAK BAKALAN BISA DUDUK DENGAN TENANG. Terutama kalo duduk di kursi depan. Meskipun udah make sabuk pengaman. Banyak kali gaya anak yang satu ini (gaya ngomong Putri-Juli). Tiba-tiba tangannya yang dua butir itu dilepasnya dari gagang setir. Membuat aku syok pula itu. Lalu diteruskannya dengan menginjak gas sejadi-jadinya, kalo sudah benar-benar mepet mobil depannya baru diinjaknya si rem sampai mendecit di jalanan. Bah. Macam naik jet koster pula lah itu.

Secondly, si ratu lawak itu takada dia brenti-brenti mengoceh dan membanyol. Termasuk menyanyi. Dengan buta-nada sekaligus dengan pede yang meluap-luap dan berlebihan. Nggak sinkron kan? Bidang lo ngelawak ya ngelawak aja Mel, kagak usah banting setir gitu dah. Makhluk ini, apa pun dijadikannya itu lawakan. Kalo diingat-ingat sekarang sudah lupa pulaknya aku ini. Pikun kali memang.

Tiga, percakapan ngalor ngidul kita somehow sangat enjoyable sekaligus memorable. Waktu aku bilang ngalor ngidul, maksud aku itu betul-betul kesana-kemari. Serba kadang-kadang. Video klip Bad Day. Lagu Open Happiness. Disney Princess. Ongkos toll. Ngegodain mbak-mbak. Gay versus lesbian. Game konyol di iPhone Emir. Harga tomat (ngasal). DVD bajakan. Temen-temen Emir di Prasmul. Ke-MAHO-an Melissa dan Emir. Atau apa pun yang diketemukan di jalanan.

Empat, mentang-mentang dimodalin bensin, gua sama Melissa yang nebeng dijadikan babu sementara oleh sang supir. Disuruh ngebukain kue, disuruh bayarin toll, bayarin parkir, ngedorongin pas mogok (cerita lama sih yang ini). Ancemannya, dia akan cabut bersama Bedjo tanpa membawa serta kami. PICIK!

Lima, enam, tujuh, masih banyak terusannya. Tapi ngantuk. Melissa lanjutin dong.

BETEWE:

“(Sebuah lagu femes mengalun)”
“Anjrit ini speakernya bagus banget! Bening mampus! Hape siapa nih? Hape Emir? (iPhone, super wajar 2010) Hape Memes? (Curve, oke lah) Hape gua? (Meski suka ngadat tetep aja BB)”
“Bukan Fu. Hape gua.”

SAUDARA-SAUDARA! DENGARKAN SAYA! NEXIAN! NEXIAN! Sebuah NEXIAN dengan anggunnya mengalahkan speaker iPhone dan Blackberry! Emir yang gengsinya tinggi mampus aja mengakui kehebatan speaker tersebut.

Lesson learned: do not underestimate anything cheap.

trains and lessons

Through the past 6 months, I’ve been metamorphosis-ing from the homebody dormitory student into the independent commuting adventurer. Sounds over-rating, but that’s the fact.

The alternation started as I applied job at a funeral cars company. I was gladly appointed as the marketing coordinator there. Living in Bogor, I should take trains to get to the office which is located on Gatot Subroto, Jakarta.

Exchanging my money into a ticket for the first time, I was–frankly–a little bit excited and nervous!

Various extreme calamities and accidents were continuously knocking hard on my head. Like,
“What if the train slipped? Got hit? Human errors?” Not to mention my fear to the so-called pocket-pickers. I could hardly enjoy the trip.

However it’s a way different story today.

Getting used to trains, I put away all the bad thoughts, started to–literally and conceptually–’see’ the crowd and ‘learn’ life from them.

One thing, competition happens.

If you crave for promotions at offices and money in markets, SEATS are now on demand. Pakuan expresses are okay, yet seats are incredibly scarce on economy-class trains.

To have a glimpse on the cover, it’s plain normal. I mean, hey, people always compete for what they want. But if you want to dig deeper, you’ll see something more.

The phenomenon reflects life, with miscellaneous types of people in it:

1. Mas/mbak yang suka sikut kanan sikut kiri demi dapet tempat duduk, kayak orang-orang yang menghalalkan segala cara buat dapet jabatan dan posisi tinggi di perusahaan.

2. Mas/mbak yang suka senyam-senyum dan ngajak ngobrol ibu-ibu yang duduk, biar setelah ibunya turun kursi itu dikasih ke mereka, kayak bawahan yang suka ngejilat atasan berharap dapet jatah jabatan.

3. Bapak/mas yang dengan ikhlasnya nawarin tempat duduk ke nenek tua atau ibu yang bawa anak, kayak orang-orang tertentu yang tau kalo ada jatah orang lain di rejeki yang kita terima. Dan mereka termasuk langka.

4. Ada juga pembela kebenaran yang nggak punya aset untuk berbuat langsung, misalnya mas/mbak yang ngingetin bapak/mas lain buat ngasih tempat duduknya ke nenek tua atau ibu yang bawa anak. Mereka kayak mahasiswa yang ngebela rakyat dengan cara demo di depan gedung DPR.

5. Terakhir, tipe yang kayak gue. Tipe yang masa bodoh tapi nggak mau dibilang apatis, tipe yang kalo dapet tempat duduk ya sukur, nikmatin aja, kalo nggak dapet yaudah sih emang belum rejekinya. Nggak pernah ‘niat banget’ buat dapet duduk, nggak pernah juga ‘niat banget’ buat nolongin orang lain. Toh semua udah ada yang ngatur.

Well those are some patterns that I’ve observed so far. There exist more casts, various ones. Yet I may haven’t met them yet. Now that I decided to commute everyday (to the campus), I sure got bigger chance to learn and perceive more interesting things from people on the train.

Anker, that’s how they call themselves. Anak kereta. Tetot.

By the way, I just got a nickname from a good friend of mine: venture-seeker.

Kinda love that.

alien eyes

I used holiday reading this powerful book by Stephenie Meyer. The Host. I know that–again–I damn am belated, do blame the IR students’ high activity rate for this. I actually bought the book like, 5 months ago, but didn’t possess enough time to read.

Befriending with Wanderer and Melanie, I study ‘human’ from an entirely new point of view. Especially on how we love each other differently. I see us from alien’s eyes.

There are tons of quotes that I’d love to share here, but having finished the book I’m utterly indolent to re-open any page of it. Here are two that I took from the last pages:

“What was it that made this human love so much more desirable to me than the love of my own kind? Was it because it was all exclusive and capricious? The souls offered love and acceptance to all. Did I crave a greater challenge? This love was tricky; it had no hard-and-fast rules–it might have been given for free, as with Jamie, or earned through time and hard work, as with Ian, or completely and heartbreakingly unattainable, as with Jared.”–Wanda

“It’s not the face, but the expressions on it. It’s not the voice, but what you say. It’s not how you look in that body, but the things you do with it. You are beautiful.”–Ian

One thing why I enjoy the book pretty much is on how Stephenie could elaborate ‘human’s love’ in such unique way.

She showed how our love–human’s love–is exclusively subjective, and how it differs from the love aliens–or souls–possess, the objective and universal one.

Human could kill thousands life to save one.
Human would die to save a child.
Human can fall in love with a complete stranger.
Human admires person he barely knows from written texts.

Human, is a very illogical creature.

I comprehend this by reading The Host. The Host is surely a book you shouldn’t miss.

ask me anything

Gue adalah salah satu contoh korban trend. Ikut-ikutan yang laen kalo ada yang hot. Awalnya mau jual mahal, eh ujung-ujungnya sign up juga di formspring.me. Here are some (weird) sample questions that I answered:

Siapa yang lo suka saat ini atau sejak dari SMA?

Can you change the question to “what” rather than “who”? Because iPod Touch 3rd generation 64GB would definitely be the answer! As in who, well, I do have someone.

What’s the most embarrasing moment in your life?

Sang a self-remake song at a friend’s birthday party. The worse part: did it voluntarily.

Afu! Name top 3 countries you want to work in as a diplomat/embassador. State your reason(s).

You’re quite lustful to know the answers, aren’t you? Got a typo there.

One, is Israel. If only we could establish an embassy there. Reason: “Indonesia’s FIRST Ambassador for Israel: A Superb Two-Childed WOMAN” would make a great headline. I love the word “first” as badly as I love reading books. Besides, befriending some Jews fellas seems a quite challenge to me.

Two, is Japan. Reason: PENGEN KENALAN SAMA MAS-MAS DAN MBAK-MBAK TUKANG KOMIK yang pada canggih. It’s very likely that I could have some free merchandise, too. Want some serious one? To practically learn of how an Asian country could become so developed.

Three, is… Why did you throw me three? Well, France would be great. The romance, makes honeymoon everyday for me and my darling husband.

To what extent would u tolerate untruth, that is, what (kind of) ‘white lies’ that u, although not suggesting, would not oppose?

When it protects feelings. When telling truth would hurt so bad. Not only ‘tolerate’, I also am practicing a white lie. The question is kinda personal, I wonder who’s throwing.

What about you? Got any question to ask?

http://www.formspring.me/afuanswers

retweet: follow @afutami

http://twitter.com/afutami

I do sound like some belated tech-users who created Twitter account like months ago but felt that I was having fun more using Facebook.

Now that I’m kinda fed up trashing on my Facebook account, I try to find something new. And.. here it is! Twitter!

Compared to Facebook, Twitter has less features but thus makes it simpler to use. You can’t upload and tag a person on Twitter, but to fill up your socialization need, Twitter is much more than fun plus useful.

I quickly like new things and quickly get bored as soon as I can’t find something to explore. That’s why I sort of lessen my time spent checking Facebook notifications. Same thing happened to this blog. Neglected blogging for some busy months because I got plain bored. Tired of writing. But, along with those properties, I also am the type that misses old days. That, is why I again started typing.

Well, okay, Twitter isn’t new at all. But I newly am using it. So it’s fair enough to say that Twitter’s new. Novel to me.

Anyway, I’ll admit that the main purpose of this post is to advertise my twitter account! So give it a little shot:

http://twitter.com/afutami

and click “follow” under my profile picture. For you who didn’t have an account, do sign up. You wouldn’t regret having one.

Enjoy twitting! :)

queen’s daughter

Being an IR student, you can’t avoid “hal-hal berbau kekuasaan dan hirarki” in your (supposedly) normal life.

Eh pembukaan dulu ya mestinya? Ehem. Hello. Here is Afu–an IR 2009 student of Universitas Indonesia–writing. This probably is gonna be my last post this year. And guess what, it’s not some “sparkling resolutions” or “self-reflection through the past 12 months” thingy. It’s something else. Something…different.

So, here I am, 3 hours to 2010, sitting on a wood-chair next to a stage where a ‘gempal’ woman is singing some Sundanese song. I’m not enjoying the song–at all–tapi gue mencoba menghargai budaya Sunda, a tribe which I belong to.

Oh. Well. That’s not the point.

Jadi acara nyanyi-nyanyi ini adalah dalam rangka peresmian kafe punya kantor emak gue, sekaligus perayaan menyambut datengnya taun baru. Klise lah.

Jadi masalahnya apa?

Alas, being a queen’s daughter, you’re gonna get special treatments from your people. And that’s not for something you did, but simply for being your mother’s daughter. For being born as you.

Dan gue sebel aja.

I mean, people treats you well because you’re HER daughter. They didn’t even KNOW you. You’re a plain NAME to them. You’re their boss’s child.

And that means they could get fired if they didn’t do so.

Ah kok gue jadi ngalor-ngidul nggak jelas. Sudahlah.

Sekarang penutup:
Demikian curhatan nyampah saya di akhir tahun ini. I now am celebrating another new year’s eve in Ciwidey, Bandung. Shaking, frozen, and yet glad to have reached 8.000 Batang Cokelat visits by the end of 2009!

Alright, fellas, keep your minds open, keep yourself needed and useful, and more importantly, keep reading Batang Cokelat!

See you next year :D

benda dengan kekuatan magis

Does look yummy, huh?

Lagi iseng browse gambar-gambar cokelat, tiba-tiba nemu ini. Dan langsung ngerasa: harusnya buat gue nih!

I mean, a keyboard to WRITE that can be eaten with such taste as CHOCOLATE? That’s just perfect! Nggak usah susah-susah mikirin kado buat 25 Januari loh, udah di umumkan disini.

*berkhayal (mana ada keyboard cokelat–atau cokelat keyboard?)

if only he was alive

Baca judulnya pasti langsung pada salah paham.

“Temen lo ketabrak mobil Fu?”
“Cinta pertama lo kanker Fu?”
“Lo batal dapet jodoh Fu?”
(Yang terakhir pertanyaan versi Tintin)

Tetot. Salah semua. Gue bukan ngomongin tentang orang yang ‘tadinya’ idup, tapi tokoh anime yang emang nggak pernah idup.

Namanya Yoichi Hiruma.

Aaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh! (5As, 5Rs, 5Gs, 5Hs, note: I use 2s of each at normal circumstances) Gue ngefans mampus! Bisa gila bisa gila bisa gila!

Si Hiruma-senpai ini tokoh di cerita Eyeshield21, quarterback andalan (emang satu-satunya sih) tim Deimon Devil Bats, yang super jenius dan keren mampus.

Sumfah. Sumfah. Sumfah.

Dia nyebelin, ahli provokasi, omongan-nya kasar (selalu pake “sialan” di belakang nama orang), tapi selalu siap ngeback-up temen-temen yang sebenernya berharga banget buat dia. Menurut gue, dia tukang pembuat strategi nomor satu! Kalo orang punya plan A dan B, mungkin Hiruma udah nyiapin sampe Z. Atau bahkan Z’ (baca: Z aksen).

Karena nggak pernah diurusin sama emak-bapaknya, kelakuan dia emang brutal abis. Bawa pistol gede (yang sekali nembak langsung keluar beberapa peluru, gue nggak tau istilahnya apa) buat nembakin anggota-anggota yang males latian.

Pada dasarnya Hiruma itu kaku, bukan tipe yang bisa ngekspresiin perasaan dengan blak-blakan. Dia punya caranya sendiri. Kalo dia tiba-tiba nendang pantat temennya tanpa ngomong sepatah kata pun, itu artinya dia lagi muji. Atau ngasih semangat. Dan menurut gue itu punya arti yang lebih “dalam” dari bacotan nggak jelas.

Dia bikin kotak sampah handphone palsu buat ngutilin kamera dari sana (sekarang dia punya 169 HP, 1 bijinya dirusakin Kurita). Kamera itu dipake buat nolong orang i.e. cewek yang dilecehin Om-Om mesum dalem kereta.

Jago banget maen judi dengan kemampuan poker-face-nya yang tak tertandingi. Gara-gara itu dia gampang dapet duit dan jadinya ultra tajir, meskipun nggak ngerasa kalo uang adalah segalanya dan jadinya sering ngebuang-buang (atau ngebakar-bakar?) dolar.

Yang khas dari Hiruma:
Sorakan menang: “Ya-ha~!”
Ketawa girang: “Kekekekeke,”

Love the expression!

Kalo dirangkum pake 3 kata, Hiruma itu: brutal-sadis-jenius-keren. (Lah, jadinya 4 kata ya? Whatever.)

INTINYA

Susah di-deskripsiin pake omongan gue! Tapi kalo dia idup gue mau jadi ketua fans club-nya!

Go Yoichi-senpai! Go Yoichi-senpai!

*sekarang saya sudah benar-benar mulai gila

love, that is

I have a story to tell. And a question to ask in the end. This is about a special feeling that belongs to human and humanity;

A kind of intention or demand within your body which pushes it to react abnormally every time a specific person is nearby.

(Define “react abnormally”)

Well, the phrase means to have some butterflies flying in your stomach, or ears burn like hell, or heart jumps straight to your throat, or giving unrelated answers for his questions, and more awkward things happening.

• • •

A kind of eagerness or even addiction to do whatever it takes simply to make that specific person happy.

(Why would you do that?)

Because seeing him smiling and safe feels like winning a million-worth lottery, with that super sweet smile as a bonus. You’d rather get yourself hurt than find a pain on his face.

• • •

A kind of affection or sincere to forgive that specific person, like there’s always a justification for any bad thing he did.

(Justifications should still make sense, right?)

When you’re having this feeling, you lose your senses. Visions, sounds, odors, tastes, touches, all sensing organs you have seem to be broken. Your favorite steak doesn’t look interesting anymore. You see whites as pinks. (Oke, gue mulai lebay) The point is, you can make up reasons just to see him “right”.

• • •

A kind of possession and protection to keep him as yours and not somebody else’s, which disturbs your peace or even invites your anger when someone’s trying to take him over and vice versa.

(But he’s not a toy of yours!)

He isn’t, but somehow you just want to make him belong to you, to take and possess him as yours, or you can either give him to someone else, someone he longs, to merely protect his feelings. The idealists call the latter as “true love”. To the writer, possession fills 1/4 of the feeling itself. It’s never gonna be 100% without it.

• • •

Unimportant trashy chats become invaluable. Small souvenirs are now your precious treasures. Simple treats can’t begone off your mind.

How do you call a disease with these symptoms?

the unstoppable

Sadar nggak sadar, ada satu lagu universal yang nggak pernah–sama sekali nggak pernah–berhenti berkumandang dari zaman Nabi Muhammad sampe sekarang. Sedetik pun.

Apa?
Adzan.

Emang iya?
Yup.

Bukannya adzan cuma pada 5 waktu tertentu?

Coba sekarang bayangin bumi yang bulat (pipih di kedua kutub, iya iya) dengan 24 garis time zone-nya. Udah?

Once an adzan has been recited at a specific mesjid from a particular time zone, the nearest mesjids (yang waktu adzan-nya terpisah cuma beberapa menit) will start theirs.

Once they finish, the next mesjid would commence another adzan, and the pattern continues, crossing the globe–all 24 time zones–until it then again reaches the initial city.

Bukan cuma itu, lagu agung nan merdu yang memanggil seluruh warga muslim dunia untuk berkomunikasi dengan Tuhan mereka itu bahkan dinyanyikan seisi bumi dengan teknik canon tingkat 5. Dinyanyikan berbalapan, 5 kali dalam satu putaran. 5 tempat berbeda dalam satu waktu shalat.

Harusnya adzan didaftarkan sebagai salah satu keajaiban dunia.

Subhanallah.