Friday, February 23, 2007

Pulau Umang

Just recently tested, I have uploaded some pictures of the family trip to Pulau Umang here.

Ode To My Car

My car, which has been christened with the same name as me (because, as my friends say, we are so much alike), is a very old car, with its share of odd parts, quick fixes and recurring problems. The car will never be 100% done, but at least its mine, and i'm proud of it!

Down And Out

Yeah, it's been one of those months again, where time just flies by with work (and apparent lazyness to turn on the computer over the weekend) to post something here. These are very critical times for my ongoing projects, and everything has to be in place by March. And that's not talking about all my other projects bubbling under...
When you're busy with work (and busy forgetting about work on the weekends) you tend to take a lot of things for granted; including health. I eat regulary (of course I do!) but do not maintain a balanced proportion of what is supposedly good for the body; plus apparently I don't get enough rest daily, thus lowering my immune system capabilities.

So now, I'm down and out.

God has seemingly just brought this upon me, nothing so bad as to have to go to the hospital, but bad enough that I cannot go to work. Saski says the fevers, other than the unbalanced diet, may be due to stress; I tend to agree because someone said that Jakartans live a life so full of stress, they are not aware of it anymore until it snaps. It certainly is a stress-laced city; all those motorcycles I swear at on the road (another sign of stress, actually) are driven by stressed-out people, cutting corners, jumping sidewalks, cutting in lanes and going against any perceived law or manner of road, just to get wherever they are going quicker. The illusion of victory against all odds (going faster than anyone else, breaking traffic laws) rewards a lot of us with a sense of false accomplishment, all on a subconcious level, to counteract the high stress levels we also endure daily. Hell, maybe even not traffic laws; if you catch yourself doing any small act of stepping on someone else, you may be a nutcase with all that subconcious stress.

The same subconcious stress made me almost helpless; between high fevers, headaches, a cough and a runny nose, life has told me to just stop everything and rest. Get everything in your head in order. Make sure you're aware of all that subconcious stress; doing nothing can make it surface for identification (it apparently did: on my first night with high fevers, I was still yammering about work).

My body may be sick, but I think my brain is taking a well-deserved holiday from daily life, so I can go back and mend myself. Let's just make sure the medicine is right; if I get high fevers again tonight, I may have to get a blood test or something.

Meanwhile... after catching up with my blog, I think I should go catch up on my DVDs...


Saturday, February 3, 2007

Paralysis

Since Thursday night (Feb 1st), Jakarta and its surrounding areas has been hit by very hard rains. What was a late-night visit to Saskia's turned into a 2-night stayover, since all roads coming in and going out of the Bangka-Kemang area (where Saski lives) have been blocked off by floods. To add to the misery, the rain kept relentlessly pouring down, and the power in the direct vicinity of Saski's house was down for those 2 days, as the power junction was submerged.
The rest of Jakarta was similarly afflicted, either cut off from other areas, with or without power, the worst submerged under 3 meters of water from who knows where (well, other than the sky).
Political figures blamed each other, while the regular folk just went along, rolled up their pants and sleeves and tried to help each other. Policemen guarded various road points to divert traffic from flooded areas, while some people actually made money pushing their wheelbarrows carrying people or motorcycles across the water. People stuck on their second floors started to starve, while a force of people too small for its task tried to help them out.
It's bad out there, and today the floods have not subsided; many are warning of return of higher floods due to hard rain in higher Bogor, about 50 km south of Jakarta.

I just got back to my house at 2 PM today, taking advantage of a lull in the floods opening up one of the roads from the Kemang area; and now, it's starting to rain again.

My prayers go out to those afflicted by the floods. An aunt of mine lost everything; her house sits behind a small creek which overflowed and took everything with it, even pushing her car out of the garage to the road...

I was planning to make my next post about my recent gadget acquisition, a Huawei HSDPA modem with a good yearly plan for internet usage, but it seems kind of pointless.