It seems like our dear Mr. President has been spending his time sleeping rather than ruling the country, as apparent in the many terrible things that have happened in Indonesia during his reign, such as (totally picking things out randomly from the newspaper) malnutritioned children, Lapindo mud and just recently, the ever-increasing price of oil and gas (and soon fuel).

Therefore, I dedicate this piece to our lovely Mr. President, who was more inclined to show his tears in the safety of EX cinema whilst watching a sappy love movie that looked like it had been shot with a handy camera.

Hey – it sure beats reading the newspaper articles about starving children dying of hunger and the poor Sidoarjo people losing their homes because his chum Bakrie washed his hands off the Lapindo mud and called it “natural disaster”.

No wonder one of his council members fell asleep during his speech – surely, an apple does not fall far from the tree?

I’m a dog person.

I’ve known it since I was little that whenever a dog caught my sight, I melted to goo and my heart was filled with mixed feelings of affection (because of how cute it was) and fear (because the dogs that I had stumbled upon in most cases were unfriendly mutts who had taken the fun of chasing me around the streets).

Nevertheless, the urge to own one had never faded away, as it got stronger when local TV stations decided to play dog movies with friendly canine figures such as Lassie, Benji and that huge-ass Saint Bernard, Beethoven. In my mind, owning a pet dog would be like having a friend who would love me unconditionally, no matter what.

I craved for the canine companionship so much that I’d made constant whining of “Can I have a dog mum? Can I please?” to my mother to put up with, in which she always grimly replied with, “No. It’ll dirty up the whole house and make it smell like turds.” And even when I begged her to differ by saying, “But muuuum…” whilst displaying child-like cutesy-ness in order to melt her cold-hearted resolution, she’d stop me, as quick as lightning would, by saying, “No. End of conversation.”

So to fill such emptiness in my heart that only the presence of a dog could, I had to do regular visits to friends who owned dogs as pets. Yes, it was shameful, yes, it was selfish, but I was desperate, and besides, I honestly think they didn’t mind it at all.

Take my friend Syl, for example. I got acquainted with her during my university years, in which she had to endure being interrupted during dinner time because I turned up at the door of her apartment, totally uninvited, just so that I could have a squeeze on Ashley, her Pomeranian-Maltese pup. Yes, I had no shame, so sue me.

When I finally entered adulthood (haha!) and realised that I was like any other grown-up people who had to get up in the mornings and went to work to earn money, and coming back home feeling depressed and bullied (office politic, enough said), I really thought I was fooling myself because the child in me still, after all those years, yearned for the presence of the furry canine companion.

The feeling grew stronger as years went by, and I still cooed at the sight of dogs. So when one of my work colleagues told me she owned a chihuahua, I went to visit her place and even though it wasn’t the type of dog I would prefer to have, it was still one nevertheless. Beggars can’t be choosers, right?

At the late age of 25 I finally had the courage to rebel to my mother; I brought a dog home without her permission. We got into a huge fights, say things we didn’t mean to each other, and I threatened to leave home when she finally caved in with a final warning that I had to take care of it properly because otherwise my head would be on the chopping block.

After eleven months of ups and downs in raising a little mini dachshund pup, I sincerely have to say that adopting Micah as my dog was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life. It was through him that I learnt a great deal of patience, careness and love.

There were days when I felt like giving up when Micah had not yet learnt to master the art of housebreaking, and yet there were also days when I felt so in love with him simply because of the way he looked at me. No matter how many times I’ve yelled and spanked his little furry butt for being naughty, he always pounced back, happy as Larry to see me, licking me all over and displaying his love to me in such a matter-of-fact way that I didn’t have the heart to stay angry for more than five minutes.

Owning a dog is one of the best essentials in life, and thus I know perfectly why God created dogs; it’s to teach us human how to love unconditionally.

What happens when two different individuals marry each other?The result is this:

 You can bet that’s what you’re going to see after about ten years or so;

The husband becomes pot-bellied, lazy and ignorant and starts to spend more time with his hobbies, or either find new ones (motorbikes, sports car, video games – you know, the typical guy stuff).

The wife becomes obese and develops high-blood pressure due to dealing with brats from hell, or what she calls her children.

The children are the exact clones of their parents – only ten times worse. They are the most obnoxious, selfish and spoil little people you have ever met, and they tend to show their true sides in public places like the supermarkets or the mall.

So obviously you don’t want the same thing happens to you, right?

Well the answer is pretty simple – stop thinking that ‘Getting married and having kids’ are the ultimate goals and achievements in life.

Find a partner that brings out the best in you and changes your life so that you can finally find your purpose; and no, it’s not ‘to get married and have kids’, unless you think you can do a brilliant job on it and actually do the world a greater good by doing so, then by all means go ahead and do it.

Imagine what it feels like to be stuck in a situation where you’re obese, unhappy, having bills to pay and brats to raise, not being able to make love to your partner because you’ve both fat and undesirable, and the last but not least, having to deal with all of the above for the rest of your life.

Pretty scary isn’t’ it?

Have you ever noticed that Indonesians have the habit of being slow when it comes to the importance of others?

Take the girls at the supermarket check-out counters, for example. They beep every single item of my purchase in such a slow pace, it almost drives me nuts. If I had to do it myself, it would have taken me half the time that it takes them to do it. I can’t help but wondering why they are so slow – perhaps they are dieting and skipping lunch so they lack the energy to move faster or perhaps they just have a row with their husbands and they feel a bit down. What do you think?

I also notice the same thing when it comes to those who do administrative jobs in banks or government offices. Everything is being processed in such painstakingly slow ways, totally oblivious with the build up of queues of people waiting and the impatience most people have to endure, not to mention also the time that is already wasted for waiting in line just to process something that should have taken a mere five minutes to get done.

But do you also notice that when it comes to the importance of themselves, all of a sudden Indonesian people develop a fast-paced, even impatient attitude of getting things done?

Take the freeway, for example, and count how many people are driving over the speed limits just because they want to get to their destination faster, or those who can’t be bothered to get in line behind the queue of the exit gate that they actually cut other people’s path who are already queueing way before they do, thus creating a traffic jam because instead of a one organised line there are two or three lines queueing to get out of a road that is only meant for one vehicle. I’m sure any of you have been in such situation before, or perhaps you are one of those people who like to cut other people’s paths?

The same thing also happens on a busy road where there is only a couple of zebra crosses to use. Most pedestrians can’t be bothered to wait for the traffic light to turn red so they decide to jaywalk and risk their lives by crossing the road anywhere they like. And of course because there are so many of them crossing the road, those who are on vehicles are forced to slow down and stop, which again, causes traffic jam to the vehicles behind them who are wondering what the hell is going on, because the light has turned green but the traffic is not moving.

The irony of it all is that Indonesia is supposed to be a religious country, and yet there is no other place where I have witnessed selfishness that is so potent and obvious such as what I see in this country, that to meet a truly selfless person compels the raise of an eyebrow and a wave of suspicion.

The second irony, which is far worse than the first is the fact that my fellow workmates used to tease for being such a fast walker. “You walk so fast, it makes you look like a man” they said. When all the while I kept thinking, “I’m not the one who is walking too fast but you are the one who is walking too slow.”

And the biggest irony of it all is that most Indonesians are failing to recognize the right time to be patient and taking things slowly, or when it’s time to be quick and acting promptly.

I love my country, but the people in it are making it harder for me to do so.

Girls are mean. Not exactly in a cat-fight kind of way, but more like the bitchy comments they say to each other or the negative responses they give out when other friends are doing better.

I remember when I was in high school I had this best friend (notice the past tense ‘had’) and one day when we were walking together to English Second Language class, her arm linked to mine affectionately, she casually asked me what I scored for the final English test. When I told her I got an A+ her whole face changed rigid and she snorted out, “Easy when you’re a teacher’s pet.” which shocked me to the core and I had to say “Excuse me?” to which she immediately plastered a fake smale on her face and go, “I was joking! Relax!”

But I recognised that face already and I knew what it meant. It was the familiarity of a girl not liking her friend for doing so much better than her – as if the whole thing was a competition. I didn’t notice it before but the signs became even more visible on other occasions when we were both out to the city and she bumped into some of her friends, instantaneously she stood right in front of me and started talking with them for ages, and not once did she ever introduce me to her friends, which was very rude, I must say. I am glad to say by the time we got to college we stopped talking to each other completely – which was done on her part. One day she just snubbed me off for no reason. I didn’t bother confronting her because I hadn’t done anything offensive to her and being friends with her was tiring me out – what with all those mind games and the invisible rivalry between us. So I was glad to discover that by the time we got to third year in university she had gained so much weight that she looked like the female version of a Michelin. I in the other hand had scored a boyfriend while she desperately moped around the campus and eyeing every guy she met.

But that was just one mean girl of which I had encountered during my adolescence. There are other mean girls who are not aware of the mean things they say to each other. Girls who say negative things when you are happy. Girls who make you doubt your big decision instead of supporting you. Girls who only want to be friends with you when they want you to do them a favour (I get this a lot), and girls who refuse to accept who you are because they discover that you’re not the person they thought you were.

When I finally met my ‘The One’ after so many failed relationships in which I had to keep dissecting and analysing together with my bestest friends, I was so happy and obviously the natural thing was to tell the good news to them. So I was deeply disappointed when one of them retorted disbelievingly, “How do you know if he’s The One?” when all I wanted was for her to be happy for me, because I held her opinion in high regard. Especially because she was actually getting married at that time, which was why it seemed odd to think such question would come out from her.

I am sorry to say that sometimes they feel like they have more in common with me back then when I was single, lonely and frustrated out of my wits because of the fear in becoming a spinster. We were chums when it came to talking about guys and why they were so difficult and made us so miserable. It was like Carrie and The Gang or Bridget Jones and her chummies.

So when I stopped saying, “No man would ever want to spend the rest of his life with a sad old spinster like me”, and instead sang about, “I am so happy I finally meet my other half”, they said that I had changed, and that perhaps I shouldn’t be so sure about it so much. As if it was so unnatural of me to be that happy.

When I stopped feeling cynical and sceptical about life, my friends and I stopped having anything in common. When they were cussing about relationships and getting married off, I was talking about dreams and goals and retirement plans. When they were wondering why men were so complicated, I was wondering about my purpose in life. I felt a huge gap between me and my friends, and I had the sinking realisation that none of my friends knew who I really was nor the person I was becoming to be.

People do change – all the time. It happens even to those who claim that they don’t. There are those who can accept these changes as phases in life that we all must go through, but there are also those who refuse to think that we can ever be someone different.

I refuse to have a bleak outlook in life – even if it meant becoming an unfamiliar person to those around me. Because at the end of the day, who is going to tell me to get up and do better, if not myself? It saddens me to say that sometimes, even those who are closest to you can kill your dreams as much as those who are strangers to you.