Survivor : Jakarta

For me, living in Jakarta pretty much resembles that of living in a jungle. It’s all about survival of the fittest. If you’re not strong enough you’d get left behind and if you’re tough enough you’d go for the long haul.

Catching the bus, for example, is not as easy as it looks. In Melbourne, people line up, get on and get off in queues as they would normally, but here, you have to be fit enough to go chasing the bus around and climb up the ridiculously overcrowded bus and find a few bit of space on the floor to stand on. One must develop sufficiently strong biceps to be able to hop on by using the metal handles on the sides of the doors, otherwise there is a risk of falling off and break a limb or even worse, get crushed underneath those massive bus wheels. Now, I’m not saying I’d actually ever witnessed this but it seemed totally possible for such things to happen.

And this, my friend, is only the beginning.

There are buskers. Loud, obnoxious and sometimes irritatingly talented buskers. They sing, recite poetry, do a few karaoke sessions, tell jokes, speak unintelligible language – whatever that may seem to get the passengers’ attention. Why is this such a challenge, you may ask? Because they want your money. They shove empty plastic packages to your face – this is their ways of asking you politely for donations – or hand over ragged looking envelopes down to your lap and collect them back in hope that you have put some money in them. At first, you feel sorry. Then another one comes along. And another one. And another one. And you start getting annoyed. And you feel bad for getting annoyed, but you can’t help it. You’re only human, and so are they.

Can it get any worse than this? But of course! Out come the perverts who seem to want to brush themselves all over you, pinning you down to the sides so you get less space to move in order to avoid them and let me tell you my friend, these perverts are always the same; old, stinky, butt-ugly guys who take the most advantage of the unfortunate situation that has fallen so cruelly to you. And do remember that this is all happening while you are still standing and desperately holding the metal railing on the roof to prevent yourself from falling down to some creep’s lap. Lucky for them, extremely unlucky for you.

Don’t even think that once you get to sit down, you’re safe. You are far from being safe. You could be sitting next to another creep with revolting body odor that makes you wish you were standing next to the door instead so you could get the hell out of there as soon as the bus stops. If you’re sitting near the aisle, the creep will intentionally brush his crotch to your shoulder as if this is the only contact they could ever have with the female being, and the only thing that stops you from punching him in the nuts is your conscience.

The final test of this whole torture lies to the point when you have to get off the bus. You’re not the only one getting off – there are many, and let me tell you my friend, these people are down right evil. They push and shove you like you’re a sack of beanbag and unless you push and shove back to the people in front of you, or sometimes, knock back the people who are trying to get past you, you will never, ever get off that bus. Well, maybe you will, eventually when there’s practically no one left.

And when it all ends, tomorrow is another day. And it starts all over again.

And somehow, strange enough…you get used to it. You start to realize that you’re not alone – that everyone feels the same and they have learnt to accept it. That is life, and everyone is struggling to get by, just like you. You might not like it, and you don’t have to like it, but it makes you feel glad to be home – to get away from the maddening crowds that you see day by day.

Even the cool, breezy wind of the evening will be able to cheer you up, knowing that you have survived they day and you are heading back home to the lovely bed that awaits you so patiently.

You know that you will get a good night’s sleep and perhaps tomorrow…if you work harder and God smiles upon you, something good will happen and you no longer have to endure those painstaking process ever again. But knowing that you have, you appreciate the small things in life and realize how insignificant you are, and despite all the bad things that you see happening to others, you feel lucky to have been more fortunate than them.

And this is what life is. It’s all about surviving.

Saturday Night Fever… As If!

It’s Saturday night. Again.

The most dreadful day out of all the days in the week. The day when people seem to comment on my looks and say, “You look nice…Going somewhere special tonight with a special someone?” Funny how they fail to mention that on any other days they see me!

Admitting that ‘yes, thank you, I do look nice but no, sorry I’m actually going home tonight to sit at home and vegetate’, is actually a lot harder and takes a helluva lot of pride to say.

On my way home from work, all I see were young couples holding hands and walking slowly, devouring the world as if it was their own. Lost in the love bubbles that swarmed around them, complete with colorful swirls of rainbow – as if they were in their own Hollywood-style romance movie set.

While I get to go home and be welcomed by the DVD player with that ‘Come hither’ look as if to say, “Come, Therry. I have been waiting for you. I am your loyal, faithful partner. Do not trust men. Trust me.”

Oh well. At least it can set me off. Laughing, I mean.

I’ve got some romantic comedies and drama to watch and I’m going to make meself a big cup of chocolate milk and allow myself to be hypnotized by yet another American cultural brainwashing medium.

Learning to Fly

I need a new job. I’ve lost my motivation and there’s not a day where I don’t feel sleepy and bored out of my mind I feel like I could die out of it. Coffee doesn’t work for me anymore – it has betrayed me so menacingly, I despise the very sight of a sachet of Kapal Api mix.

Some days I feel like calling in sick, and I have to fight this urge a lot and hope that the day will be better and something great will happen. Nothing challenges me anymore, and if someone asks me about my salary as my motivation, I won’t even dignify that question with an answer.

Maybe I’m being too hard on myself but I have targets to achieve and it scares the freaking bejesus out of me knowing that two years later I’ll be twenty-five, and five years later I’ll be thirty. The year has gone by so quickly it feels like it was only yesterday that I stepped foot in Bandara Soekarno Hatta upon my returning from Melbourne. The clock is ticking and like any other ticking clocks I hate, it freaks me out.

Some days I feel like the most optimistic person in the world and other days I feel like hiding myself under the duvet and sleep my life off. I wonder whether this is a normal type of fear and I have a feeling it isn’t, because knowing that I don’t even know myself, it doesn’t guarantee that others will.

God knows what keeps me going and hanging on.

Music, maybe. Sunshine. Evening breeze. Beautifully made bed.

I hope I have the strength to carry on – knowing that my life has a purpose and I’m about to find out. No one is going to help me but myself. I will build my dream with the only two hands I have and the sparks of fire in my heart that keeps on fighting to light up, despite the many blows it receive.

This too, shall pass.

Eve, oh Eve… You Sexy Beast, You!

I spent my weekend devouring pages of Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown – a very intriguing book that fascinated and horrified me at the same time I almost felt sorry I’ve been reading it.

There was so much hype accumulating around the facts and theories behind the book but I never really thought it would be about Christianity. I have to admit that most of the information in it are pretty convincing, especially since the author was confident enough to state this beforehand. It makes me feel rather like the doubting Thomas because all through reading it, questions start to form in my minds and I start to wonder whether the whole Christian religion is based on man-made creation that had the sole purpose to demean women.

The feminist in me couldn’t help feeling flattered over the whole ‘Divine Feminine’ theory because for all we bloody know, women have always been below men and it had taken us years and years of struggle and we are still not getting the rights we so rightly deserve.

The questions that stays on my mind is always the same:” How did it all happen? Was it really Eve’s fault that women had to undergo so much pain and shame just because they are women? After six thousand years of suffering and being treated and perceived as the lower gender, isn’t it about time to stop punishing them for the crimes they didn’t even commit in the first place? And furthermore, did Eve really exist or was she just man-made as a scapegoat to all the sins committed in the world?”

Eve was a female, and she tempted Adam to eat the apple, and because a female is known to be such a good temptress, she was therefore a sexual evil being.

Eve = female temptress = sexual evil being

So women, being the descendant of Eve = sexual evil beings

I remember my first encounter with the Bible was anything but joyful. Like any other normal Bible beginner, I started on Genesis and even though I was too young to know the meaning of the whole story, I couldn’t help thinking, “Why did Eve has to be the one who committed the first sin? That’s not right. There are more males doing bad things in the world.” I objected to this fact simply because I was a girl and I felt that being one meant being the same like Eve. I hadn’t done anything wrong but I felt like I was wronged already, simply for being the descendant of Eve and simply for being a girl.

I’m not saying that everything about the Bible is bad, though. I mean I love Jesus – that’s one thing that is certain. But sometimes the Bible is really doing my head in it’s just far more easier to believe in God alone and to try to love another as Jesus had taught as all to do. I do believe that Jesus was not sexist and he never taught men to be sexist.