African American?

Obama is as much white Kansan as African American.

Post election that's all I hear, the first African American President.

Big deal, get with the program, we have a white Kansan / African American president now, stop guffawing.

Obama is American pure and simple, in fact he sums up American aspirations like few others.

How effective a president will he be? Only time will tell.

Pregnant and Single in Yogya

Interesting account of a single mother's pregnancy in Yogya.

Yogya, it's a university town, but pretty conservative (at least that's what I thought that the one and only time I ventured).

The 'Hood

I never lived in a neighbourhood with so many TV camera crews, photographers etc. before.

Anyways, here is a rather wry picture taken around the corner from me : ) [by some AFP guy, not mine, too busy talking people down from ledges...]


Brings down the tone of the place, eh?

JCI Spreadbetting

Anyone know of a spread betting site that lists the Jakarta Composite Index?

MyIndo Meets Peter Fennema

One of the things you I love when I visit Indonesia is the pop music. All around the archipelago from Manado to Medan to Makassar you hear some great tunes (and some extremely dodgy ones -- like karaoke on the ferry from Banda Aceh to Pulau Sabang for example).

Fairy [ones of my fave bloggers] of MyIndo fame interviews Peter Fennema, who takes these songs and records his own versions of them -- which are bloody fantastic btw!!

Here Peter's a tribute to Chriseye:

Poverty in Bali

I don't know much about Bali, somehow I thought Bali was much wealthier than the rest of Indonesia. I suppose it could be a lot wealthier and nevetheless have child labour, which is kind of shocking.

Buying a Mac

Macs are pretty good value. Official Apple upgrades cost a bomb though.

I upgraded the RAM from 1GB to 4GB. 4GB cost me about $90. An extra 3GB upgrade from Apple would've cost $300. It was Corsair RAM (you don't get a better brand for RAM) and saved a cool $200+.

You could do the same trick with your hard disk or processor even. For example 1TB hard disks costs just over $100 nowadays, whereas Apple will charge you at least $250.

MAC ATTACK

I got an iMac recently. And shock horror, I think I got some kinda virus!!

(maybe I still have it, but I seemed to have cured the symptoms for now...)

What it did was was change the DNS settings, which meant evertime i tried to login to gmail or Google it would redirect me to a site called wsearch.

Nice... Really nice....

I fixed it by manually setting up my network settings - deleting the automatically inserted dns entries and lookup domains, and entering sane ones.

I gotta switch back to Linux soon!! : )

Spurs are Back!

"I thought I was David Pleat running up the touchline when Lennon scored," smiled Redknapp. "I don't usually do that. Mind you, I don't have a suit or shoes that colour. I just worked on the players' confidence."

Schadenfreude

Zero sum games occur when one person's gain is another's loss.

Certain pundits believe that harrowing losses in the finance industry mean that their ilk (socialist ideologues) and the poor (cos we all love the poor) will somehow gain.

This is wide of the mark.

Banks going under will directly hurt employees trying to support their families, and as a knock on effect, will probably reach into places like Indonesia and hurt the poor quite acutely.

Look at Indonesia's last monetary crisis in the 90s. Suharto's cronies were mainly hit in their pockets, while Indonesia's middle classes had to pull their kids out of college and its poor were left starving, many having to give their kids up for adoption, not a few dying in misery.

Few benefit from times like these, life will get very tough for many honest hard working people whether on Wall street or in the local kampung.

While some wring their hands in delight at the possibility of hand wavy new world orders, others are trying to put food on the tables for their families. Get real.

Pasrah

As I understand it, pasrah means to accept ones fate. No complaining just acceptance.

Maybe it helps sometimes, but I am sure also that sometimes it is not. This is a good article on curing blindness in Bali.

[...] the hardest part of building the cataract program was not the fund-raising for mobile buses to get operating clinics into the remote areas of Bali, but getting people on the bus for treatment. There is such a strong belief that cataract blindness is their fate.

Padang Fast Food

Interesting blog post from Mr. John.

Ashes of Time Redux

I saw Ashes of Time Redux by Wong Kar-Wai tonight, a complicated movie about regret.

Bu Ani

Bu Ani has picked up quite a few enemies by doing good - a bit like Batman or Harvey Dent. Let's just hope she survives.

Power

I haven't been following Indonesia much lately. But it i interesting to read in the Jakarta post that SBY is top of the polls again.

Interesting how a guy who hiked fuel prices is now back on top, huh? Not 100% sure what has happened in the intervening period, but the guy has guts. Think how powerful Suharto was for example. Hiking fuel prices were never a plausible option for him, cos he was scared shitless of the popular reaction (with good reason).

The Malaysian PM had a similar problem this year. SBY genuinely has a popular mandate however, and he's got real power - and now he's popular again too!

Premen

Fascinating article via Dilligaf.

Moving

After reading the latest of Brandon's musings on immigrating, I thought I'd jot down some of my own experiences and thoughts.

I've moved countries three times.

First time was ten years ago. After school I went to college in Germany. It was probably the best decision I have made. Ever.

At 18 I picked up so many experiences that I otherwise would never have done. Living in communist era dorms. Meeting up with people from all around the world.

A guy telling me about stories from his home Sierra Leone and his family in Freetown while rebels where at the gates. Spine chilling stuff.

Partying with Bulgarians all decked out with Matrix style sun glasses. Listening to old Russian folk songs played on guitar. Cooking up fake Indonesian dishes with cat food and passing them off as authentic at faculty culturual gatherings (there were v few Indoensians in my faculty, so we could get away with it :)).

Indonesian, Ethiopian, Indian, Ukrainian and Chinese pals sharing food with me. I'll be forever grateful for those meals and their friendship (not that I didn't cook myself) but sharing food is a deep thing. Maybe we fell out in the years since, and one or two in particular have good reason for falling out with me. But I will always be grateful for their kindness and their friendship especially in those early years in Germany.

Towards the end of college, I found myself getting bored of Germany. Nothing new. I was slightly bored, but also slightly worried. I would need to find a job. I taught English through that latter years of college. It paid well, I loved my colleagues (as I end up doing in all my jobs it seems) and things were comfortable. But I had no interest in pursuing teaching English long term.

I decided to leave Germany in 2005, and come back to a booming vibrant Ireland - a stark contrast to the situation in Germany. I found myself an OK job. Thing was I left my girlfriend behind. I met Tika on my second or third day in Germany all those years ago. We were great friends for years and later went out and lived together.

Well I never settled in Ireland. My girlfriend, my friends were all back in Germany. Soon Tika and I would break up acrimoniously, as sometimes these things work out. I never gave Ireland much of a chance. Things were tough. I was looking for a way out.

I had this idea that moving away from Ireland would change "stuff". It's weird. Cos when you think about it, moving geographically shouldn't really have an impact psychologically, but humans are weird things, and traveling to a new place can throw new challenges at you. Breaks you out of your fenced in thinking.

So one year, I told my boss I wanted to leave and work for a charity in Jakarta. He gave me a raise and I stayed. Next year I said I was leaving to work for some micro-finance research group in Jakarta. He offered me the possibility of a more interesting job and a move to New York.

And here I am. 10 years after my move to Germany. Living just off Wall Street. My colleagues and my two flatmates, other than that i know no one here.

First move was a good one. Second move at least in the short term may well have been a mistake. Third move, who knows, early days.

Just like my thoughts before the first move, I feel I have little to lose now - and who knows what I have to gain from my time in New York. I'll just have to wait and see I suppose. And if things don't work out here - despite my best intentions - maybe I'll get to live in Indonesia sometime soon.

Krismon II

Krismon II?

I reckon Indonesia is better placed than most to deal with this. It's learnt lessons from recent history -- which the US and Europe have yet to learn.

Mulia's Home

Mulia has been blogging on her travels, but now she's back it will be doubly interesting to hear how she copes in the Big Durian : )

Best of luck Mulia!! : )

New York 2

So last time people were astonished that I am in New York now. None more so than myself.

What am I doing? Working a hell of a lot. I am a financial risk analyst, so business is very good at the moment.

I am also eating too much take away food, in the office.... Not soul food, definitely not good for the soul...

Plus I am in the enviable position of having an apartment on 5th Avenue (soon to be given up, it's a corporate place) and a place off Wall Street at the moment. Still find it weird to be here...

I know so little about New York and the US in general, lots to learn and figure out!!

Hopefully I'll post up some pictures of last wknd's trip to San Francisco soon also, keep your eyes peeled! : )