24th Ramadhan

Assalamu'alaykum, how's it going?

First of all I want to say, Happy Eid Mubarak 1435 H for everyone, may Allah accept our prayers, our ibadaat, and our good deeds.

This year's Ramadhan was very different within my 24 years life in this dunyaa. Well, I don't know. It's not like my first time I was away from my hometown or anything. In fact this was the 3rd time and I didn't feel bothered at all. Two years ago I was in Cilacap while the next year I was in Padang. This year? Obviously, Palembang. So, why should I bothered?

Perhaps, what makes this year's Ramadhan different was:

Ramadhan in Padang

Assalamu'alaykum..

(now I realize that I HARDLY say salam except on the right column of this blog as my introduction. my bad!)

So tomorrow is the beginning of Ramadhan 1434 H. I'm excited and sad at the same time. Excited yeah, because well, it's Ramadhan! Sad because this is the second Ramadhan without me gathered with my family. :( Last year I was on my on-the-job-training session and there were my friends around me. I was in Jakarta back then. This year? I'm in Padang and alone. I live in this residence with everyone is employed in the company I worked for. They are all MEN. Right now I'm still acquaintances with the wives (of course I have to socialize more with the wives). I hope because of this Ramadhan coming, our bond will become stronger and better than acquaintances. There is always a person or two with judgy personality or insecurity issue but I'm sure if we choose the right approach, we're gonna blend easily.

This illustration made for the sample as I applied for an illustration job. For Asma Nadia! She saw this picture and replied my application letter but as I told her my domicile, she apparently shut the application down. :)

Guess what?

How's Life?

I'M STILL ALIVE! So sorry for not writing too much lately because I've been soooo busy trying to fit in on my first months. You know, the job isn't really alike with how I was pictured it before coming to this place. It's waaaay busier than I thought it was. So it's been 2 months since my last post about my life before I got moved from Medan to Padang. Yeah. Padang. I've never dreamed about this before but here I am. Still in Sumatra, and well, still *cough* in HSE. Padang is so much different from Medan. The culture, the people, the traffic (Oh! I have to blab about traffic, huh), the food.. but unfortunately, the punctuality issue is apparently the same. :( So how's life in Padang?

From here I'll continue in Bahasa Indonesia. I add picture everywhere so everyone still can enjoy it, no? ;)

Foto ini diambil pas saya masih di hotel (belum tinggal di rumah dinas).

Once Upon A Time in Medan

There are a lot of story that I really want to publish (and delayed - and cancelled) here mainly about my life as a Medan citizen. But well, here are some pictures, and I will make it as short as possible - although it still long and has a lot of images. Be prepared!

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Medan. Pertama dengar nama itu, yang langsung terlintas di benak adalah: orang Batak! Hohoho. Maaf lho, tidak bermaksud SARA sih. Tapi seperti kebanyakan orang lainnya, kurasa hal itulah yang langsung terlintas di benak hampir setiap orang Indonesia - Jawa khususnya. Medan, yang pertama kudengar adalah betapa kerasnya kehidupan di sana. Orang-orangnya, lalu-lintasnya, dan juga *ehem* harganya. Hal itu membuat saya kikuk juga pada awalnya. Tapi yasudahlah. Kebetulan ada 6 orang yang seangkatan yang ditempatkan di Medan pada bulan Desember 2012 itu. Dua di antaranya (termasuk saya) adalah perempuan. So I was glad that I wasn't alone.

Hari pertama memang selalu jadi yang terberat, apalagi di tempat baru dan asing. Dengan berbekal segala sugesti dan asumsi, mau gak mau kita tetap harus berani menyongsongnya. Kalau enggak, kita akan semakin lama untuk beradaptasi. Tapi di Medan kasusnya agak lain. Gak cuma hari pertama, minggu-minggu pertama itu saya cukup dibuat pusing dengan beberapa hal. Misalnya:

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Transportasi

Bentor dan angkot, sebagai dua jenis angkutan umum populer di Medan, itu mirip banget kelakuannya dengan Bajaj. Sudah ngebut, kebal aturan pula. Kadang parno sendiri tiap abis naik bentor atau angkot di sini karena kecepatan jalannya udah kayak orang balapan. Dan klakson, di sini klakson itu murah banget! Sedikit aja jalanan terhambat, semua kendaraan membunyikan klakson. Apa gak pusing? Tapi setelah beberapa hari, terutama sekarang ini saat saya udah gak di Medan, saya kangen juga naek bentor. Abis, itu memang kendaraan yang paling gampang ditemui di Medan. Mau ke mana-mana gampang, karena dia prinsipnya persis Bajaj. Ditawar dulu harganya di depan, baru kalau udah deal, langsung cabcus deh ke tempat yang dituju. Apa gak praktis?

Namu What?

So this is a report about my trip to a place called Namu Sira-Sira, a river dam in North Sumatra. It's a trip with our office mates, especially from our division, HSE (Health, Safety, Environment). I've never do rafting before so I was extremely excited. Too bad, I forgot to apply the right sun block on my skin so right now I am soooo tanned :(

The Nusakambangan Project

So there's a small island south of Cilacap, Indonesia. The name's Nusakambangan. Despite its famous title as "the Indonesian Alcatraz", it also a tourism object that you might want to see. But well, it only has beach and ancient ruins from the Portuguese's conqueror era, it's quite worth to see. In addition, I don't really like beach. Because you know, I don't like to be wet, and I don't like to swim. It's a thing that only the lazy-bones could understand. lol.

Btw these are some photos we took from the island.

A view from the boat: there's a Pertamina ship! Woo hoo.

We Love Bali

Some people say that Bali is a Paradise island. Well that may be true. Bali is one of my favorite places on earth and I've visit the place last year for my study tour. Sadly, yesterday I've learned that there was an earthquake, a huge one (6.8 in Richter scale), happened in Bali. What a surprise. And I even more surprised because a day before the disaster came was happened to be the memorial time for the Bali bomb disaster which was happened 9 years ago. So creepy. Well, I hope that Bali will recover soon, and the earthquake stop invading our homeland, Indonesia.

 The earthquake was really a disaster. The image retrieved from Kaskus.

 

 

Selamat HUT RI ke-66!

Tepat 66 tahun lalu pada tanggal 17 Agustus, telah diproklamirkan kemerdekaan bangsa Indonesia. Semua itu berkat jasa para pahlawan, inisiatif pemuda dan juga berkat Allah SWT tentunya. Kabarnya dulu pas proklamasi itu bulan Ramadhan juga lho. Sekarang malah 17 Agustus = 17 Ramadhan. Semoga bangsa Indonesia dibebaskan dari kebodohan dan kebobrokan akhlak. Amiin. :)

My artwork for Indonesia

“Kuda Renggong” Rocks the Parade

“Kuda renggong” is a cultural performance comes from a town named Sumedang, located in West Java, Indonesia. According to its etiology, “kuda renggong” means “dance horse”, literally. But you can’t consider the dance as modern or pop dance (of course it’s not. :P). The dance performed usually a traditional dance which is built by traditional instruments like “kendang”, “gong”, “suling” and “bajidor”. (More about these instruments.) The song played here is a traditional song especially sang in bahasa Sunda, sometimes in dangdut. Although it’s told that the horse dance, the horse isn’t really dance, it’s just nod its head and legs repeatedly, which is, unique to watch and it’s need more than a tamer to train it.

While it’s dancing, the horse was accessorized by several kind of cloth. This cloth usually applied with sharp colors such as bold red, bold green or gold. Performing in a circumcision traditional party, especially around the Sumedang area, this attraction usually held like a parade. The horse will be dancing in the front line - with its tamer, the kid who circumcised will be riding the horse (actually, he’ll just sit on the back without driving the horse because the horse still with its tamer), the instrumentalist will walk on the left and right with their instruments handed (it’s weight, I’m pretty sure), and peoples will follow them. They dance, too. This parade usually held in a round, forwarding from the kid’s house to another not too far place, and then they back again to the house to bring on another show.

Since they’ve arrived to the starting point (the kid’s house), after some rest, they go to a wide place to bring another performance on. Together they will perform some moves and attractions, as we can see in many circus shows. The horse will act as it was disturbed and fight with the tamer. The tamer pretend that he was crumpled so the audience will horrified – but it was just an act. The tamer then could lead the situation –after some dramatic struggle, and then everyone relieved, with applause given to the performer.
The exciting point of this performance is, you’ll be allowed to try to ride the horse (once again, you don’t really ride it, you just sit on its back) with a tamer controlling the horse, holding the bridle and make the horse dance. It’ll give you several rounds to go and the tamer will claim you the tip.

FYI, the big parade is also held at least once per year. In this big parade, you won’t just see one to three horses, but it’ll be many more of them. This event usually held on several dates. Especially on some of big days, such as the town’s anniversary. So if you happened to come to the town, I think you may probably wanna see the event yourself. It’ll be so exciting. :)

October 2 2010
Regards,

Dewi.Isn