Renowned ‘timnas’ – a temporary euphoria?

Along with their constant victory in 2010 AFF Cup, tremendous support and admiration are attributed to Indonesia’s national football team. Indonesians are now spellbound as the football euphoria spreads across the country, making ‘timnas’ an overnight sensation, the audible song ‘Garuda Didadaku’ reverberate in every corner, and names such as Christian ‘El Loco’ Gonzales and  Bachdim emerge as long-time coming heroes.

 

My husband and I were passing Senayan yesterday and were quite astonished to see an incredible number of people cramming in Gelora Bung Karno trying their luck obtaining the 3rd class tickets of the AFF Cup final between Indonesia and archenemy Malaysia in the coming 29 December 2010. We’d known from TV the more expensive tickets had all been sold-out and that ticket buyers willingly spent the night waiting in front of the booths.  

Crowds were also around Senayan flocking the street sellers selling fake timnas outfits. My husband indeed gave me a significant gesture to pull over and buy, but I told him to get it from an authorized dealer, as we are such bad bargainers and God knows how easy it would be to get us into buying stuff much more expensive than they should be. Besides, the material of the genuine uniform would be much better, I reasoned. But apparently it has become one of the most hunted merchandises, because in every store the outfits had been sold out. He was quite dismayed. 

Some say timnas Indonesia was in their golden era in the 1950s, when the players played due to their passion towards football itself, the era when the team could hold back the mighty Russian team. I am very much proud to say this for the timnas captain at that time was my very own late grandfather, Chris Ong. 

Despite the fact, though, I am never into football, let alone being a nationalist. But this football fever is contagious and I find myself bewitched in this excitement and have actually been praying for our timnas’ success to become the champion of AFF Cup 2010. But I know, once the football season is over, I am no longer a timnas fan. By far, this is the proof that most people, including me and even the government, are suckers for victory, and that the escalating popularity of timnas may remain only if they keep on winning. 

But for this time being in this country of ours, where nationwide triumphant is once in a blue moon, timnas has been singled-out as the spearhead of the people’s solace after so many hitches in this country, and is thus hoped to not only provide consolation to the dreary hearts of the people but to also become a capstone to perk up the country’s image.  Go timnas!

"Eclipse", a humdrum crowd-pleaser?

Once upon a time I was falling in love

But now I'm only falling apart

There's nothing I can do

A total eclipse of the heart

Once upon a time there was light in my life

But now there's only love in the dark

Nothing I can say

A total eclipse of the heart

Having switched side to Team Jacob after New Moon, I felt very much touched by the excruciating pain Jacob feels all through the movie. I have read the story and listened to the audiobook more than twice, and felt deeply attached with the emotion. The song ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’, is in my opinion depicts how Jacob feels.

***

I’ve just seen the third installment of the Twilight Saga and despite many people’s accusation of the movie being overtly-publicized and mundane, I’d have to say I quite enjoyed the movie and you could say my being inevitably subjective is due to my infatuation towards the saga book and, most of all, the fictional character Jacob Black. Eclipse is by far, like what Aini wrote in her blackberry status, is the most watchable saga.. .

My husband, who very much dismayed having to see the movie when the quarter final of World Cup between Argentina – Germany was on, like many non-Twilight viewers, could not understand why the movie was a big success worldwide. So, I’d like to defend what he and many friends of mine have accused of this far from 5-star rating movie. I’ve got to admit that the movie is not top-notch and the excitement cannot be compared to Avatar or Harry Potter, nor has it superior cinematic elements that deserve appraisal from critics. Just like the previous two, it’s just – another hyped teen cult movie with a bunch of muscular guys and not so (oops...) handsome vampires, watched mostly by fanatical readers (and their boyfriends – or in my case, husband) to quench their infatuation towards Edward or Jacob. But guys, the movie couldn’t get any better than that! I mean, you should have blamed Stephenie Meyer for what you call a dreary movie, as the movie plot is exactly like the one in the book. Ok, with some deleted details, but it’s all based on the book.

The very essence of Twilight Saga, is an intense, transcreature love story, presented in stunningly appealing first-person point of view (and thus with a lot of monologues) despite the rather flat plotlines. So, if you find the movie boring, the blame should be administered to the author, instead of to the film maker. The movie couldn’t get any better! Tributes must be paid to scriptwriter Mellisa Rosenberg and director David Slade, who have done exquisite jobs for spicing up the movie with witty dialogues (“Everybody knows, I’m hotter than you,” is after all my favorite line.) and good special effects (especially the fighting scenes between the new-borns and allied forces of the Cullens and the werewolves).

What comes to my mind after watching Eclipse is: How are they going to set the mental fighting scene between the Volturi and Carlisle’s coven in Breaking Dawn without making it ridiculous? We Twilight Saga readers are deeply spellbound as our hearts throb hard reading the scene, but really, the last chapters of the fourth book is about mental fight scrupulously described in, again, Bella’s monologue. I doubt whether ‘the non-readers’ would actually get it. Let’s just see. As for the meantime, I’m looking forward to seeing the movie again.

2nd half of Glee: so far dissapointing

I wish I could still write about all the amazing elements of this so-called cutting edge TV show Glee, but no, after watching episode 17, I've got to say that the show has lost its spark ever since the beginning of the 2nd half of the season! I understand Glee now has a big name and while stars are queuing up to ‘sell’ their songs for the show, the producers and writers of Glee are thrilled to add some sparkles to make the show even better. But again, NO! The plots now have become so detached from the core that an amateur like me could see how each music piece is forced to fit in the show, like a bunch of random mosaic pieces put together in all the wrong places.

Each episode seems to have a blurred focus with more and more Bollywood stuff to fill in each slot of "musicality". It is may be brilliant to unify the situations of the characters under one umbrella of the episode theme, but don't you think it's kinda lame (and ridiculous) when it's done over and over again? In my opinion, the worst episode so far is episode 15 "the Power of Madonna". What were they thinking, beginning the story with Sue's empowerment of Madonna and out of the blue Kurt and Mercedes teaming up to get her a Madonna make over? The video clip of Sue singing “Vogue” is so long, boring and meaningless I don't feel it's worth watching! To top all the bad things, what are the odds of the not-so-lucky-in-sex-department Emma, Rachel and Finn being virgins, all decided to be deflowered in one night and later in unison all three of them realized they were not ready for it? Too much a sacrifice for the sake of fitting "Like a Virgin" in the episode, and based on the characters that have been developed since the first episode, the scenes are just NOT plausible!

As if it wasn't enough, in episode 17 “Bad Reputation” Sue was once again obsessed with another diva Olivia Newton John and a similar scene was taken: Sue imitating Olivia Newton John singing "physical". Uugh, please, I've had enough of Sue in video clip, please! Glee needs to pick up soon! I think they should stick to the catchy, easy listening songs like the ones in the first half of the season, as they really picked up the mood of watching.

Potential problems the Glee kids might encounter in the forthcoming Regional and personal problems within New Directions would be nice to watch, but please... stop focusing things on Sue!

Vampires: a modern trend of idolisation

I‘ve just had a long chit-chat with my friend about our infatuation on vampires, and how the teenagers and young adult nowadays are dying to be bitten by century-old vampires Edward Cullen, Damon or Stefan Salvatore. Almost instantly, vampire books and movies became a new trend as the perspective towards vampires changed. The fictional creature vampires are no longer described as horrific but rather as mysterious, god-like, alluring beings. The writer behind this phenomenon is Stephenie Meyer, who was successful in transforming the image of vampire in her novels the Twilight Saga.












While being the first in describing vampires as sparkling and hard as marble, Twilight was not the first novel which illustrates modern depiction of vampires. At least two authors L.J Stine (Vampire Diaries) and Charlaine Harris (True Blood) had had their novels published long before Stephenie Meyer did, but Twilight got the most acknowledgments worldwide. The predecessors were later read - in my opinion - as the impact of the Twilight Hype, when people can’t get enough of Twilight and alternatively read other books in similar genre (or run to Twilight fanfics *grin..grin*). I was one of those people (yep, I did read fanfics), and now having watched two seasons of True Blood and half-season of Vampire Diaries, I was wondering what has made Twilight outshine the other two, any why the world is in Twilight fever but never in Vampire Diaries or True Blood fevers.

The three vampire stories: Twilight, True Blood and Vampire Diaries share similar theme of star-crossed love triangle, all of which described the leading roles as male vampires who are gorgeous and irresistible, who fell irrevocably and inexplicably in love with a human girl. I have to say that in comparison, Twilight has a rather simple plotline. The problems always revolve around vampire Edward and human Bella with little development on other characters (except werewolf Jacob who became Bella’s temporary love interest). This is probably because the author wrote it in first person’s point of view (Bella’s most of the time) and so being omniscient is quite unfeasible. However when it comes to the film-series and movies, both Vampire Diaries (being only in half-season and progressing) and True Blood (2nd season, so far) are a lot more interesting in some extent: the stories and the characters seem to be layered, each of which is revealed as a twist as the stories go.

So, while her plotline is relatively flat, Stephanie Meyer’s biggest success is perhaps in presenting the characters of Edward and Bella. This is proven significantly by the universal popularity of both Edward and Bella (and other characters as well), compared to the recognition of Stevan Salvatore and Elena Gilbert (Vampire Diaries), or Sookie Stackhouse (True Blood), whose characters were not renowned before the films were aired.

In one of her blog post The Hype of Twilight Saga, my Twilight-buddy Aini gave a scrupulous enlightenment on Edward and Bella. I do agree with her that Bella represents a big percentage of women around the world: plain, an outcast; and Edward is prince in shining armor, sweeping Bella from her dull life and promising an unconditional love for eternity. Edward is described as a flawless guy, besides his lacking of vampiric traits (no fangs, no monster face): out-of-this-worldly handsome, forever young, smart, rich, and committed only to one girl, Bella. The character Edward Cullen alone is described as if the author literally and intentionally shouted the traits of a perfect guy, and it echoed around the world. Hhm, how many women have lost their mind because of Edward Cullen?

Close the toilet lid when flushing!

Have you ever realized the importance of closing the toilet lid when you flush? Lots of people don’t. A close friend of mine once told me about the importance of closing down the lid but I never took it seriously, as it comes from the person who always overstresses in sanitation by bringing her own tissue and toilet-seat paper and gel-cleaner whenever she feels the urge to visit a public restroom. She claimed the bacteria could fly up to 6 meters, leaving the walls of the restroom full with the bacteria of our crap (including on the paper-toilet provided in the cubicle). Hmmm, she’s exaggerating, I once thought.

So, I did a little research on the net myself, and the result is quite surprising. In Mythbuster episode 12, it was proven that the toothbrushes hung everywhere in the bathroom are with specific bacteria found in our ‘disposal’. Ugh, gross! I just can’t imagine brushing my teeth with an extra ‘toilet ingredient’!

In this matter, it’s true then that hygiene begins from the bathroom. Health-freak might bombard himself with lots and lots of expensive vitamins and precautions to keep healthy, but might neglect the necessity of closing down the toilet lid. Come to think of it, why bother consuming tons of megavitamins if you’re sprinkled with mushrooms of toilet-germs at least three times a day!

I don’t know how accurate this experiment done by Mythbuster is, and many people claimed the germs should not be dangerous for human. But isn’t it something to brighten up your day to know you might actually live a healthier life (for free!) by doing an effort of closing down the toilet-lid? After all, closing down the toilet lid will leave you with lots of advantages. Apart from averting things dropping to the toilet (that's how my ex-student Vicky lost her cellphones - two times!), it’ll look prettier when the lid is closed, don’t you think? And in my case, it prevents Hazel drinking from toilet.

Woof! It's Hazel.

I was wondering if a dog could have autism, but if it could, then Hazel, our beloved Golden Retriever would be a perfect example. This five-year-old, one-balled adorable dog can turn into a Greek-hydra, having the time of his life decapitating all in his sight: balls, fish nets, slippers, you name it!

We all know that munching is a habit of a puppy, so I’ve found his way of expressing himself atypical. We had a professional dog-trainer train him when he was a year old, but little fruit can be seen now as the lessons seem to vaporize as he gets older. He understands the basic command ‘sit, down, sleep and stay’ and in many cases that is what you can expect from a dog. However, as a Golden Retriever, known as “pet with brain”, he’s quite a dim-wit. Well, munching being one of the many reasons. I wonder if it has anything to do with his being a one-testicle male. ;-) duh!

As an adult dog, he's often assumed as a one-year old, mostly by looking from his not so big bone structure and his lack of mane. His behavior doesn't help either: very hyperactive – a puppy character. He'll captivate everyone around him with his innocent cute Golden Retriever face, which I couldn't agree more, but again, looks can be deceiving. In this case, I think I'm one of the few people who can relate well to John Grogan, the author of Marley and Me. Marley was a wholesome, and Hazel is too: the attention seeker, very playful, ball-blaster Golden Retriever!

Putting all his misdemeanor would be an endless list. Maybe I should narrow it to what he did in this past week:
- stealing warm bakpaos (which were supposed to be our dinner) from the dining table in stealth mode
- drinking from our new fish aeration
- munching chocolate pie left-over from the coffee table
- lurking our koi fish and presumably swallowing a small one (as we found a fish scale in his mouth)
- snitching a sausage and fish from the kitchen table
- chewing a bundle of tissue from the bathroom
- blasting a neighbor's ball
- escaping from the window to another neighbor's house
- tearing two door mats to pieces

- scratching our livingroom floor with his gigantic paw nails (as a result of trying to dig a bone underneath, perhaps?)

As we live in a cluster-type neighborhood and so it's without a gate, we usually have him tied to a 40-kg block of cement in our garden. I'd love to see him unleashed at all time but unfortunately Hazel's wayward, fun-loving attitude made it impossible. He's easily distracted and will dash out of sight once he sees something interesting (that includes leaf falling from a neighbor's garden, cat passing or kid running). But, I really marvel at the power he possesses; he can drag the block of cement with him! There's this guy living in front of us, and he's always picking on our dog playfully, with a ball sometimes. Once Hazel chased him while being leashed, dragging the cement block to my neighbor's door for the chance of playing.

Like what Marley had done in John Grogan's life, Hazel has brought colors to our life; he's both a nuisance and blessing. He's may be a transformation of a hellish creature in a comical way, whose meal portion equals to that of five persons'. But for me and my husband, he's more than that. He's literally one of a kind son of a bitch, a happy-go-lucky furry friend who'd willingly serve himself as a living carpet and follow us whenever we're with food.

On the hindsight, the blame should not be put on him. Maybe this is the result of having lots of negligence since he was a puppy. He was originally my husband’s family’s dog and used to be put in the porch. He didn’t get many people to pet him, except my husband, who also spent limited time with him – after he got home from work. Now that he lives with us, we’ve been trying to make ‘talking to pet’ a habit, and have seen a good progress: when he comes to his senses, it’s really easy to communicate with him, though there are still times when he’s more than what we can handle. It’s frustrating for us and I know it’s also exasperating for him too, being talked in a stern way.

But then, how could you be really angry when he shows this face:

Assuming his hyperactivity is a gesture of attention seeking, I hope in the near future there’ll be time when it’s no longer impossible to put towels or food in his reach, without him trying to snatch it. Let it be soon, please..

Is our emotion a blessing or a curse?

A good movie leaves the audience something to think about after the lights are back on, and so this 165-minute ''My name is Khan" is surely something worth watching because it has left me emotionally drenched with heaps of thoughts and WHAT IFs in my head.

I'm not particularly fond of Bollywood movies, but I think I have to make an exception to this one. This movie, starred by a top-Indian actor Sharukh Khan, centers in the life of a Moslem-Indian Rizvan Khan, who in a way is a modern "Forrest Gump". Both see the world in black and white and share similar virtue of perseverance and honesty because of the nature of their disease. Gullible by nature, Khan struggles hard to fit himself in the American society, facing injustice after injustice, not only because of his Asperger's Syndrome, but also due to the people's accusation and discrimination post 9/11. Khan becomes a symbol of hope in the American society's diminishing sincerity and innocence, especially towards Moslem people, whose positions in the society are in jeopardy after the 9/11 terrorist attack. He wears his disease as an emblem of blessing in disguise, moreover his strength, to see what's right and wrong - not based on one's religion or race, but on one's action. "There are two kinds of people in this world, the people doing bad things and the ones doing good things," Khan points out, and though I honestly don't know to what extent this perspective infallible, but Khan's inability to feel and show emotion and so seeing the world in black and white has got its essence. His strong grip of principals, supported with his impeccable determination and earnest intention to help others get him through the ups and downs of life and reach his goal to meet the president, and is finally able to announce: “Mr. President, my name is Khan and I’m not a terrorist.”

***

Even in continents where people are not defined by their religion like in America and Europe, terrorists correspond closely to Moslems. As terrorists continuously haunt the world, the people of the world, traumatized and angered by the terrorist attacks, become 'little terrorists' creating a hostile atmosphere to live for Moslems in non-Moslem countries. They tend to have prejudice towards the Moslems and treat them as second-class citizens. People like Rizvan Khan thus become scapegoats, the objects to unleash cumulative hurt and fury, being accused as terrorists only because they share the same religion as the terrorists.

Now, as people of all society and the Moslems believe to have been unfairly treated by each other, we build a wall of defense to protect our ideology, religion and ultimately, ourselves. In this way we destruct our society from within, don't you think? But who’s put to blame? Everybody, I’d say, for letting ourselves become the victim of our own emotion. Many of my friends are devoted Moslems, and I've got to say they share my opinion concerning this matter.

If emotion was the trigger that led Al-Qaeda to the 9/11 massacre in New York, and the same word 'emotion' led other people to defend their society or race and do something offensive or violent (like beating up a kid with a Moslem surname to death), and the very same word 'emotion' triggered one Moslem group's blood to boil and plan an attack on other religion, then could I say 'emotion' is a really a curse? For in this sense, it's the very word that has decimated the human beings.

But then, what would we become were we all like Forrest Gump or Rizvan Khan - neither expresses his feeling well? Would we embrace emotion as a blessing, for we have the prerogative to appreciate all the beauty this world has to offer?

The ideal would be having the privileges in this blessed-life of ours to express emotion wisely and responsibly and not letting ourselves be conquered by fury. But then again, the world is not ideal, is it?

Recently in Metro TV, a former jihad general claimed that there is a fatwa in Islam, pointing that "terrorism is kufur". Later I need to find out what the word "kufur" means, but it must be something bad. According to him the terrorists are worst than prostitutes and he even said that people who claim to do jihad by doing terrors are like the dogs from hell. So guys, if the Moslems oppose the terrorists' perspective of seeing what's right and wrong, why are many of us still biased about Moslems?

Underwater river in Mexico, a hoax?

A friend of mine once whined about feeling utterly useless when she was heavy with a child, alone in her parents-in-law's house, zapping channels and ended up watching a local gossip show. She pointed out that you'd know your life is pathetic when you have nothing better to do than watching such shows in the middle of a work day. But today, I had the opportunity of enjoying all my morning at home watching TV and felt totally fine with it! I got to work later than usual because my oh-so-nice boss offered to pick me up and he had something to do in the morning :-).

I think I was watching Insert, and they were talking about something particularly interesting today - gossip show style, but this was not another jibber jabber of some celebrity's life. It was about a so-called phenomenon in Mexico, in which they said to be the nature's mystery. One celebrity, Olga, was telling about his acquaintance who sent him a YouTube video of a discovery of a river under the sea somewhere in Mexico. It was shown that divers found some plants and trees 100 feet under the sea, and a stream of what they said fresh-water under sea water. Unnaturally, the so-called river doesn't mix with the sea water, forming an illusion of a river. To make things more convincing, the divers kinda opened their masks and tasted the water. Fresh water, they claimed! The presenters, and all the celebrities interviewed were referring this phenomenon as an amazing discovery and relate it to something either supernatural or non-human, just like some kind of the fabled Area 51.

Curious, I did cyberslacking later at the office and browsed the info about this alienated underwater river and learnt that it's actually an underwater cavern situated at Cenote Angelita in Mexico. The illusion of river turns out to be a dense cloud of hydrogen sulfate trapped in between sea water, and it doesn't dissolve because of the different density, and there's nothing supernatural or non-human about it. In some blogs it's written as a popular diving site, but some people would just refer it as a photographic hoax, pointing out that it would be impossible to get such clarity in such depth. Hmm, diving is really not my cup of tea, but hoax or not, the pictures showing this eerie site are just fabulous!

GLEE over matters

**SPOILER ALERT!** don't read if you haven't watched Glee.

Yippie-Yay, be gleeful and Gay!

"For the Loser in everyone of us" tag doesn't seem exaggerating when it comes to this sensational, heartening, not-so-high-school-musical drama comedy. I mean, hey, somebody finally made the satire about the off-the-record (high school) life we all familiar about, even only for a while for some people - being a loser! In some ways, I love how the characters are created as 'stereotypical' in a rather offensive way, but tartly funny and brilliant! To tell you the truth, it seems the Glee producers attempt to create a TV series about STEREOTYPE, and bring them all together on one stage: Glee - the ultimate money maker TV series! Please, I mean it in the kindest way.. I love Glee!

Each of the leading character, if not all, seems to be the portrait of the way Hollywood/Americans see one race or society.

Mr. Schuester, with his Justin Timberlake lady-killer dance style, is a typical central role that unites all the losers (read: Glee members). Being a too-good-to-be-true character, this optimistic, inspirative teacher is working his booty extra hard on low salary to meet the fat-budget of his super demanding, conceited wife. The gay member of Glee, Kurt is aloof and brand craving, and has an excessive effort to keep his face clean and all: typical gay. Finn, the football star is in a relationship with Quinn the head cheerleader (soo typical). Rachel is another typical woman leading role: so ambitious and full of energy, initially being the school prank, but is abundant with singing talents. Typical school bully: Puck (so popular at school but is destined to be a life-loser, or not?). Britanny, the typical the dumb-ass blonde; Tina, the Asian, and 'Other Asian' guy who share the same surname - Chang (Oh please, are the Chinese so unimportant that they are given the same surname? Or, is it the way to say: so many Chinese so few surnames?).

Other characters are as important as the Glee club members, and they actually are the X factors of this film. What a brilliant idea it is to have an Indian as the school principal (who's always consulting his calculator when discussing school budget), to give curry to this already tasteful comedy. Never had I heard the word mysophobia before, and I thank Glee for adding my vocabulary. Well, what guidance councilor is with mysophobia?

I never liked musicals (apart from the Sound of Music) but the film is top-notch. It comes in a complete package: biting comedy, great songs, good looks, and above all, the stereotypes.

Up to this point, 'Friends' and 'Will and Grace' are the sitcoms I can't ever grow tired of watching, and there's a big possibility Glee is on the list now, and I hope for a quite long time...

[Hmm, now come to think of it, the high school life I experienced was way more friendly (and al lot more boring) than the one I watched on Glee. Well, yeah, we do have that bullying thing at Tarakanita, but c'mon, it's not that bad! Nobody would have slushee on their face at the end of the day, apart from there wasn't any slushee at school back then. **When will Indonesian school have the privilege of having stuff like slushee? - anyone?**]