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Let’s Party

August 11th, 2004. Published under Daily Journal. No Comments.

This is really the week of parties. Today, Pratu, my colleague, a true anime-lover, celebrated her birthday. As usual, the whole office made a small party for the birthday girl, with cakes and a candle. Jonathan, our photographer, aggressively took the pictures of everyone with his beloved digicam.

Pratu’s birthday was only just a beginning, in terms of food I mean :p. At about 4.30 PM we got another party. Lisa Gunawan and Lisa Handayani, Shirley W., Yendy, and Yenny were celebrating their graduations. While Vebby opened the party, Marisa was the one who prayed for us. This was the funny part. Marisa prayed like she never did it before, and she admitted it. We couldn’t even wait until the prayer was finished and we started laughing out loud. In fact, we knew that we should appreciate the prayer but we really couldn’t help it.

Anyway, I don’t think that we really mind it, what mattered most is the food :D. They provided a lot of food for all of us to eat. Let’s see, fried chickens, barbecued fishes, green veggies, fried mayonnaise-covered prawns, and cocktails. They were quite delicious. I heard they bought them from the Primarasa restaurant. Maybe I could add it as a recommended one.

During the party, Jon kept tooking pictures. His victims were Eva Soeryono, because she’s gonna leaving soon, and Vebby. Vebby made some funny poses, like kicking Bambang and acting like the dead. So funny, she could be a good model you know, for The House of The Dead.

Unfortunate Day

August 10th, 2004. Published under Daily Journal. No Comments.

I used to work at the first shift every Tuesday but I overslept. My auntie woke me up at 7:10 AM, meaning I only had 10 minutes, not more, to get ready and go to the office on time. So I skipped the breakfast, took a shower and brushed my teeth, and changed my clothes ASAP. I was so surprised when I opened the garage and brought my motorcycle outside. The rear wheel had been deflated. Shoot! I only had 40 minutes left. There’s no way I could be there on time. Well, I took my cell phone and sent Yunus, my colleague, a short message. I told him to tell my boss about the condition and that I would take the second and third shifts instead. It meant that I could not play badminton today. Bah, the hell with that, I still felt kinda sleepy. I changed back my clothes and got back to my bed and continued my sleep.

I woke up at about 11 AM. The second shift starts at 1 PM. So I still got some time to sleep. Hey sleepyhead, remember the tire. Damn… Well at least, let me have my breakfast. I brought my motorcycle to the nearest mechanic that is “just” five blocks away from my place. Ah, finally I was there. I could sit and just wait for the mechanic to repair the tire. What? Did you just say something Mr. Mechanic? Arrrgggghhhh… he said that a f***ing nail pierced my tire deeply and widely so it couldn’t be repaired. Okay, I said to him. Just replace it with the new one. What again? Did you say that you didn’t have one? F***!!! It couldn’t be worse. I had no other rides at my place. My auntie took the other motorcycle. My uncle took the car. Oh my God, why was it happening to me? Stop it, there is no time to be a crybaby. I still had my feet so I started to walk to the nearest shop selling replacement tires. That meant another ten blocks. While walking, I realized that I didn’t have enough money to buy the tire. Even last night I borrowed Carla’s money to fuel my motorcycle. I must stopped by the nearest ATM to withdraw some cash. Fortunately it is “near” the shop, only about 300 metres away. Another fortune was showing up when a pedicab (a.k.a. becak) passed by. I called the driver to take me to the mechanic. It should save much time though it cost me some money.

Fortunately, I arrived at the office around 12.30 PM just before Yenny wanted to leave. She had been waiting for me to talk about the ADS scholarship. After that there was nothing special happened at the office. Oups, it was 5.30 PM and I had not told Yosep that I didn’t come to play badminton. He must be wondering so I sent him a message. In the mean time, Jon told me that he wanted to buy KFC for dinner. My favorite fast food, so I didn’t skip it. After all the things that happened in the morning, I started to feel fortunate. When we’re eating our KFC, Vebby gave me half of her rice, while Lisa Gunawan gave me all her rice. Thanks to them, I was reloaded fully.

Does Sharing Hurt?

August 6th, 2004. Published under Daily Journal, Games, Sports. No Comments.

So dizzy so sleepy. I didn’t sleep enough last night. The Ninja game kept me awake all night. Worse, I was scheduled for the first shift on Friday. I got to get up early to get to the office on time. Well I made it. Luckily, Vebby offered me a breakfast, Nasi Kuning. It really helped.

After another lunch at Jula-Juli, there was a knowledge sharing about colors and their psychologies. Yenny, who happened to study visual communication design at UK Petra, shared her knowledge nicely. Unfortunately she couldn’t answer a question from Jonathan. He asked why did we use the CMYK coloring technique when printing instead of the RGB one. Well, as usual, when posed to this very kind of situation, I spontaneously joinned and tell them my opinion. As I predicted, I saw some people looked sarcastically at me. Maybe they thought that I was showing off but I did know the answer and I just wanted to make everything clear. It supposed to be a knowledge sharing anyway, right? This happened almost every time but I couldn’t help it. If something went wrong, I automatically tried to correct it. It’s natural.

Because of this, when I was in the high school, my friends called me Mr. Know-it-all, Walking-dictionary, Computer-brain, what-so-ever. Honestly, I don’t know things better or more than anybody else. Maybe the only difference is that I shared my knowledge more than them. I always enjoy sharing my knowledge because I also learned something when sharing mine. The more I share the more I get. Well, in Yenny’s case, fortunately she has a humble heart. I my self could never imagine if I was at her place. Having someone taken over my place like that is like he’s throwing the mud on my very face. That’s why I tried not to ask any question to her during her session. I didn’t want to humiliate someone with that humble heart.

Friend of the day: Vebby

Today my work was appraised by my boss. Productivity, quality, discipline, initiative, and teamwork got the very usual values. When it came to teaching and learning, I didn’t get that high value because I gave no tutorial or training last month. To boost the value, I mentioned that a few days ago I did share my knowledge about the Microsoft .NET with the division heads. My boss then told me I should share the knowledge with everyone, not just them, to get a point. Wow, I didn’t know there was such a rule. Well, because I had not read the rules thoroughly anyway, I didn’t argue. It wouldn’t go to the teamwork either because it had nothing to do with my job.

My boss then advised me to write and post articles to get more points for teaching and learning. Honestly, I didn’t really know what to write. The things I learned were mostly so technical that I didn’t see the chance anybody would understand. I believed that noone would be interested either. I didn’t mean that everyone in the office is idiot. But my job was so different with theirs. They had nothing to do with my job as well as any knowledge about it. Actually, there was only one person sharing the same job with me. But I believed it wasn’t efficient to post something in a public forum that would be read only by one person. Anyway, I’ll give it a try one day. Maybe they will need the knowledge later. You’ll never know.

After the appraisal, Vebby, who sat next to me, asked whether I had mentioned the .NET thing. When I explained the situation she looked a bit upset. She even inquired Jonathan, one of the heads, whether he had written my name on his teamwork list. He said yes but he didn’t know about the other heads. She didn’t feel quite satisfied with the answer and continued discussing this problem. I knew she’s such a caring person but I was affraid she would go too far so I stopped her and told her that I didn’t mind. Anyway, my average appraisal values was quite pleasing. Well, thank you Pei, what you did really meant a lot to me.

From badminton to Ragnarok Online

Today I should have a badminton practice with my friends. I was just arrived at the gym in Barata Jaya when I got an sms from Yosep telling that there’s no practice today because somebody just passed away and the gym was used to place the body. Okay, no badminton game, but I could just play another game, Ragnarok Online :D. My swordsman character finally reached the 30th level. Still much more to go. The maximum level is 99. Can’t wait until it reached the 50th level when I can change the job to “knight”. It really needs a lot of time. Surprisingly many people have reached the higher levels. Yeah they used bots to play the game for them automatically. Cheating, huh. When you’re cheating on a game, it ain’t fun anymore. You better not play it at the first place.