Health: without it, everything is nothing

Friday, my gym day. As usual, I YM-ed Kerm late in the morning. And breaking news: he has got a mild heart attack. He said it happened when he woke up, his chest and left arm hurt, and difficult to breathe. Luckily, he took some medicine, nitroglicerine, which he always keeps, just in case his dad sufferred an attack. I was shocked. He said it might be heartburn, but he couldn’t tell. It happened several years ago, where he had EKG, blood test and all that. Nothing wrong. A person like Kerm, who is so health conscious, doesn’t smoke or drink, go to the gym regularly, eat well. How?

In the middle of the YM conversation, my sister called. My uncle just died of heart attack. Gosh. He was in his late 60s, but he had a very poor lifestyle. Stressful job, overweighted, ate almost about everything. He was sufferring from something else but then it surprised everybody that he passed away because of the heart attack. This is one of my close uncle, who was my chaperone when I studied in Bandung. I stayed at his place for a while and as a poor student, I often come to his place to ask for food, just like my other cousins who studied in Bandung.

When I picked Kerm up, we talked about his condition. He felt much better if he move. He didn’t suffer difficulty breathing when he climbed up the stairs, but felt it when he is not doing anything. That’s why he insisted to go to the gym. It worried me, but he told me that he wouldn’t do the weights. We talked about what should he do, besides visiting the doctor: catheter? CT-Scan? Being one of his close friends, of course I was worried like hell. When I did weight lifting, he was tempted but then I told him to just do stretching.

Yesterday, I had to leave the office very early because of the pounding headache. Work was extremely stressful to the point where it is not fun anymore. It was the combination of stress, not enough sleep and my depression attack. I stayed in bed for the whole day, took my sleeping pills and just slept all day. The headache was gone (but the depression stayed a bit).

It scares me that two of the people that I really care about has heart attack. Lucky that Kerm’s got the mild one. But that is not the point. The point is, it can just attack about everybody, even healthy Kerm. I told my office friend during coffee and he said, “Isn’t it scary, with our lifestyle at the moment, living in Jakarta with this awfully stressful job”. Yes, we are back to drilling mode and everybody is extremely stressed out.

Kerm had to restrict his exercises and have to be careful not to be too tired or excited. If he could get it, there is a big chance I might get is someday. Because, although I eat well and exercise regularly, I also smoke regularly, even more when I’m stressed out like right now. And I am living by myself, who will find me if I died in sleep because of heart attack?

Health is one thing you should invest at. When I look at people who doesn’t exercise, I see beer bellies and their body just shows it. When they eat all sorts of fatty food, I begin to wonder how long will they going to survive until they get some serious problems with their healths. Add stressful environment it the equation, you have a good chance to suffer some kind of disease. And what will that do? Your spouse panic. Your kids abandoned. If you die, at least your spouse and your kids will suffer the most. How many young people, in their 30s, got stroke and died? Or heart attack? Uric acid? Liver failure.

Stress is the biggest enemy in this case. I came to a point where I had panic attacks in the mornings. But living in Jakarta, working for a corporate, and I’m 40 already, don’t you need medical check up routinely? If you are stressed out, then you must seek professional attention that works for you.

Living in Jakarta, you start exposing yourself to traffic. That’s pretty stessful. Then interaction with people, contractors and work. Chasing deadlines.

And what happened if I get it? It seems to attack everybody. Or stroke. Or severe headace. Let alone those diseases, how abou things

Stressful life, stressful work and stressful way to live. We are supposed to be working in a stressfree environment. Change jobs? Same shit different company.

It all lies on us. When you have time to mingle at the coffee shop, you have time to go to the gym. Or if you can’t enjoy the gym, try walking for 20 minutes around the house.

People dies. No quietion about it. But the way we die, it is our choice. I want to have a quality life so that I don’t bother anybody. I am all alone, so I have to take every little thing curiously.

If even the healthier person like Kerm suffers it, life seems to just play around with us. Multivitamins, Vitamin-C + collagen. All vitamin we go ahead and try. Whatever to make us healthy.

Because money doesn’t mean anything when you are sick, or ill! But maybe this is also a sign from God, saying to be careful, and to not take it for granted.

Health, don’t take it for granted. Invest on health. It is worth it. Because no matter how much money you have, if you don’t have health, everything is nothing.

Things I do during my 35 hours spare time a week

Continuing what I’ve written previously on Quality Time, I just can’t resist thinking of what I do on my spare 35 hours a week. Here is goes:

Read
I am always into reading and I feel that I need more time to read. During the weekdays, my time to read is only 30 minutes before I go to sleep. During the weekends, I have more time. I have lots of books that I bought which I haven’t got time to read. Reading is important to keep my brain busy.

Browsing
Checking personal emails, browsing on some stuff that interests me, it is also a form of educating myself. Currently, I’m interested in browsing things on health and medicine, especially on vitamin and supplements. Sometimes I open up Facebook to know what’s going on with my friends.

Write my Blog
Haven’t been discipline on this matter lately, I would love to have time to maintain my blog.

Grocery shopping and car wash
This is essential every weekend. Grocery shopping takes about 1.5-2 hours including the traffic to go to Carefour, and carwash can take 2 hours (if there is a queue, more than that).

Organise my photo album
All my old pictures are still on paper prints and I would liket o scan them so that I have the digital form of it. This will take some time.

Taking care of myself
I usually do this when I get sick of looking at my toes and fingers, which is about every 3 weeks. Other things that I do is taking care of my hair, body scrub, massage, facial. These are some girly things that I like to do every now and then.

Lunch or coffee with good friends
I always like to catch up with my close friends and exchange what we have been doing. I don’t have too many close friends and they are also busy with their schedules, so if we can get together during the weekend, it is a luxury!

Visit my parents and/or my sister
Although I don’t do it much often these days because my parents are always busy with their social activities during the weekend. My nieces are getting bigger and bigger and I’m not too strong to accommodate them playing games and all that, so usually I end up feeling sooo tired after playing with them.

Health
All visit to the dentist, shrink, obsgyn, I try to squeeze it in here.

Diving
One day trip to Sanghyang or teaching in Sepa Island is something refreshing to do. I haven’t been doing this for quite a while…I should start doing this again when the weather gets better.

Taking care of Samba and Atun
Bathe them, play with them, tease them…

Checking the house, cleaning up
Any lightbulb need to be replaced? Anything dusty? Maybe I need to dust my CD collection, my bookshelf…

Taking care of my plants
Not that I have lots of them because I don’t have a big garden, but I do like to see my plants grow and add my collections. Trim the little land in front of my house and enjoy looking at the flowers.

Nice Nap
Paying off all the busy day with sleep in the afternoon is always a luxury…

…etc
Stuff like checking things that I wanted to buy, like a new underwater strobe. Or, check my diving gears from time to time, take the regulator for annual check up. Jog on Sunday Morning with the dogs. Bookstore.

Or…simply do nothing
Just be blah in front of the TV, or lay down in bed, let my mind think wildly.

I used to go out a lot at night, dancing my arse off on the Salsa dancefloor but I just can’t afford doing that anymore. Or go out and be completely toxicated, now it takes 2 days to recover from the hangover (and I don’t like spending my weekend with a severe headache).

So, that’s it. I can’t do all of this in 35 hours. Sometimes I do something impulsive, like driving to Puncak for breakfast, call up a friend to watch a movie, go to the orphanage (boy, I haven’t been there for ages). I go there when I’m really down, just to let me see that there are more unfortunate children around me so I really can’t complain with what I have right now.

So, quite occupied, hmh? I guess, living in a big city like Jakarta, time becomes really valuable. Especially for me, I start to need more space for myself after a busy and hectic days at work. Weekends are for charging myself and running errands that I couldn’t manage to do during the weekdays. Because if I don’t charge myself and keep learning, I will certainly be a dull person.

Quality time: I’m 40, Single and Living in Jakarta (part 5)

A senior colleague called me up and asked if I can attend a meeting after office hours on Friday.  I told him that I already have plans and he said, “You’re single, what are you doing?”.  Hmh, excuse me?

Which, then reminded me that I wrote something regarding spare time.  Lets calculate, at least, let me calculate my time: we have 24 hours a day.  During the weekdays, 7 hours goes to sleeping, in average.  I start working by 7 am to 5 pm, which is about 10 hours (in the office, to be precise).  That is 17 hours already.  The amount of time I spend on the road because of the traffic: 1.5-2 hours (damn, Jakarta!).  Already used up 18.5 to 19 hours.  So, all in all, I have 5.5 hours the most left for myself.

I guess I’m one of the lucky ones that still have 5.5 hours (although sometimes one hour is still doing some work related stuff at home, yikes).  My friends that lives at the suburbs (Bintaro, Cinere, Bekasi, Depok etc) probably has only 3-4 hours due to traffic.  Or, they start their days early and use public transportation or have a driver so they can catch up with their sleep on the way to the office.  So, in average, still, 3-5 hours spare time, depending on where you live and the traffic.

Three times a week, I spend circa 4 hours gym-related activities (exercise-shower-dinner-including finding parking spot at Pondok Indah Mall 2).  Gym, it is at some point already an obligation for me to go because it is an investment.  Some days are fun, some are not.  It is time for myself, but it is not ‘free time’.  It is a time that I make and dedicate, which is rigid.

So when I arrive home, I only have 1 to 1.5 hours left, usually play with my dogs and read before I go to bed.  Or chat with my partner on the phone.   The rest of the non-gym days, I tend to stretch my hours in the office, but then I will still have around 2-3 hours at home, which I usually use for chilling out with my two doggies, chat with my maid or my neighbor who is also single.  When my friends and I want to gather during the weekdays, or go to the doctor, this is the day.  At the end, I will have a quiet moment for myself for 1-2 hours.

I imagine my friends who has a family.  One of my colleague even still manage to go to the gym on the way back to her home, and arrive home at 10 pm.  She lives in Bintaro.  Super tight time management.

So, basically, during the whole weekdays, I have total of 3 x 1 hours (gym days) and 2 x 3 hours (non gym days), which equals to 9 hours of free hours.  So, in 5 x 24 hours, which is 120 hours, I have only free 9 hours left.  Nine hours at home per 120 hours. 

The pay time is during the weekend.  48 hours, I use 16 hours for sleeping, which means that I have 32 hours waking hours.  All of that goes to MY TIME, which I intend to spend for myself.  Out of 168 hours in a week, I have 32 plus 9 = 41 hours.  This excludes the ‘not fun stuff’ such as carwash, and grocery shopping, and sometimes, social obligation (weddings, family birthday party etc).  This, then, when I calculate, 37 hours free time (after subtracting car wash and grocery shopping).  37 hours out of 168 hours.  Weekends is usually time to see the family, coffee with friends, catching up with the nieces, doctors, self pampering (manicure, pedicure, facial, waxing, massage, scrub, creambath…at least every other weekend!), movies, and quality time with my partner.  Or, take car to the garage, housekeeping stuff, take dog to the vet sort of thing.  But in Jakarta, you can only do one or two things in a day due to traffic (weekend sometimes included), so if I have to take the dog to the vet, that means it’s only that and probably carwash/groceries.  Or if I have to go to the doctor, I might have to shift my social gathering to Sunday afternoon.  37 hours is excluding traffic.  Put traffic in there, I’m left with 35 hours. 

So, 9 hours during 5 days is definetely tight so I pick my events carefully during working days.  Less than 7 hours sleep, it takes days to recover and it is not fun doing that during the weekdays.  Weekend is my payback time, recharging for the next 5 days, so I also carefully choose who I meet and what I do.  And even that, sometimes I still have to do some checking on emails (I have PDA) during the weekend, so it is not clean 35 hours.  I do want to have quality time for myself during my spare time.

So, yes, I might sound selfish, but living in Jakarta with the traffic and the workload that comes with it, one have to manage their time carefully for balance.   And I don’t have much time to waste, by the feel of it.  So, if you think being a single women in Jakarta I have lots of spare time, think again.   

(at this time, My Busy Brain is screaming for vacation)

Expat Marriages: difficult to survive in Jakarta?

An old friend from work, Dale, called me several days ago, letting me know that he is back in Jakarta after taking care of his divorce from his wife.  He works in a rotating job, a month on (working in Jakarta) and a month off (home to Australia).  I don’t know how long the marriage survived, but I know he has a teenage son.  His wife was Australian.  Apparently, the wife caught him in Jakarta, in the apartment with an Indonesian woman.

We exchanged news and gossips until he mentioned another name of our colleague who is living separately from his wife at present.  He is now somewhere in Vietnam, living together with his personal trainer (who apparently has become very personal!), an Indonesian woman.  Several years ago, another friend of mine from South America got divorced from his beautiful latino wife, because he just couldn’t resist an Indonesian women.  My comment was, “Wow, now we are all full team, back in Southeast Asia and all single!” (I was married to an Indonesian though).  Dale’s comment was, “Well, it is hard to survive your marriage once you lived in Jakarta”.

Interesting comment.  Is Indonesian women really irresistable?  Are Indonesian women really that attractive that one is willing to sacrifice his marriage? Moreover, these expats mostly have no intention to marry those women. Before that, you might want to read some blogs about Indonesian Expats and the Indonesian women dating Expats are always a great topic in lots of blogs.  Like in
Indonesia Matters, and also in here, a bit braver comment here and much more.

What attracts expats, especially Caucasian expats, to Indonesian women? And usually there is a stereotype of women who are more preferred by “bule” (white expats) which you can read it here (pembantu=maids). One thing that I can understand is that for expats, Indonesian women are exotic and attractive. The tanned skin, black hair and generally smaller and slimmer than Caucasian women who they say are huge and big. Other comments that I have heard from my expat friends are that Indonesian women are friendly and warm. Another one is, easier to maintain, not as bitchy or demanding. My observation is that most of the expats go for girls who are usually not considered attractive by Indonesian men (Indonesian men prefer light skinned and ‘mix bread’ look, generally). This is where the jargon, “selera bule” (bule’ taste) is described. Most of the expats that I see go for these types are Australians, Americans and some British men, seldom mediterranian guys. But this probably has to do with the statistics of how many of them are living here.

How about the Indonesian women, how do they see expats? Some of my friends declare that they don’t want to date Indonesians plainly because Indonesian men are too demanding, less open minded and less outgoing. Most of these category are those who usually have lived abroad for their education. Unfortunately, seldom bules are after these women, probably because they are already ‘westernized’ and have good jobs and/or career. My observation is that lots of Indonesian women see expats as never-ending income source. There are lots of stories that my expat friends sometimes complain about their Indonesian girlfriends, who keeps asking for money, for example, I can even tell that they are being ripped off by the nonsense story their girlfriend tells them. And when I ask where they met this girl, it is usually in the bars, the bars that most expats hang out, like BATS, Bugils, bars along Blok M, Tigapuluh. And usually, the education level of these girls are highschool at the most, most never graduated from one of the best universities.

There is also what is called ‘ayam’ (chicks, in a notorious way), which means Indonesian girls who are basically gold diggers and they have the ‘pembantu look’. If one girl has already hooked up with an expat, the next gathering this girl will bring her friends and the friends will try to hook up with the expat’s friends in the bar. And they can get pretty agressive, one group and another can be quite competitive. It is like mafia on targeting expats, I am impressed.

And why do the expats love Jakarta so much? Because, like Dale said, in his country (Australia), he is invisible. But in here, he feels handsome. All women throwing themselved to him and makes him think like God’s gift to women. The women are so friendly, but also quite agressive. If you are a nerd back in your country, and all of a sudden you get lots of attention here, it is only human that you will like this place. But I remember several occasion when my expat friends from work dragged me to places so that I can be their “chicken repellant”.

I think everywhere in this world there is a phenomena like this, especially in poor countries. It is the economic law, supply and demand. Expats is imaged to have lots of money, the girls are after it. Expats can buy the relationship, while the girls are making a better living.

Of course this is a general view. I do have highly respected friends who are well educated and have her own career who is happily married with expats. But none of them, as far as I know, dated someone’s husband, or expect to have better living (because they can support themselves well enough). Usually they still work after they live together, while in the other case, the girls usually quit working although they are still not married. But for some reason (i.e. persuasive skill), they can really make their boyfriends pour money to them.

I am just wondering, how powerful these Indonesian women are that can make an expat leave their wives of many years. If you argue that this also happens to Indonesian men, of course it does, and maybe the marriage was already in a bad state, but when it happens to expats, it is like a sore thumb and it is eye catching. And Indonesian men usually leaves for the younger and better looks. Of course, I also know expats who are happily married with and highly educated Indonesian woman and they are so much in love. Or, expat couples who are still together and have a strong marriage. And I have enough people that I know where their marriage was ok until they met someone at the bar, Indonesian girl, then start having an affair, lucky if not get caught, be her sugar daddy, and if got caught, usually end up with divorce. And not seldom that I here from expat wives who reminds other wives to watch out in Jakarta, because you may lose your husbands to Indonesian girls. As an Indonesian woman, who works with their husbands, I do feel uncomfortable with this reminder, but i have to admit that there is a truth in it.

Especially when the guy is old enough to be their father. And the comment Dale gave me, “Once you are in Jakarta, it is very tough to survive when it comes to girls”, really tickles my mind. Are Indonesian women really that powerful? Or, heartless? Because, some of the expats wives became my friends and it is sad to see them in pain, and it is sad to see a marriage, any marriage, broken up for something that a man cannot control, or, if I may say, fatamorgana. And if it is the Indonesian girls to blame, really, are they really THAT powerful?

Smile: makes you and others happier

I was on a flight back to Jakarta after a long session of strenuous meeting in Singapore. It was a one day trip (I hate one day trip meetings but do I have a choice?) and the meeting was pretty mind-squishing. This meeting, honestly, made me really nervous and stressed out for the last couple of days.

The stewardess woke me up for a light meal and asked me what I would like to have: seabass or satay. It is a standard question that she has asked to all the passengers: “Hello Miss …, would you like to have a Sea Bass with potatoes or Rice Noodles with Satay?”. “Would you like some tea or coffee, or some wine?” “Enjoy your meal”. I was sitting on row number 18, and she must have asked this to at least 70 passengers before she reached me. Can you imagine, same questions asked 70 times, yes she still has to smile while serving all the passangers?

Next to me, there is a guy, Caucasian, in his early 50s. So, maybe this cute stewardess asked the 70th question to him, “Would you like a Sea Bass with potatoes of Rice Noodles with Satay?”. The guy, without smiling, asked back, “Do you have chicken?” (if it was me, I would’ve asked back, “Are you deaf or just plain stupid?”) but, of course, the stewardess said, “No, we don’t”, then the guy gave a very ugly look to her, while she kept asking, “Would you like some desert?”. The guy shook his head looking pissed, “Wine maybe?”. He still shook his head while rudely returning the table cloth to her. The stewardess still tried to be a nice hostess and said, “I’m sorry”, yet she talked in Chinese to the other stewardess wondering whether there was any chicken curry left. The guy next to me then loudly put back his table and closed his eyes. Five minutes later, the stewardess came with a tray of chicken curry and served the guy, “Sir, we still have some chicken left, would you still like it?”. The guy then looked at her and said, “Yes”.

Through out the whole process, I was staring at the stewardess’ face and expression. Given the pissed off look of the guy, she was feeling uneasy and guilty, clearly not feeling good that one of the passenger was not satisfied. I felt sorry for her. I tried to strike a bullshit conversation just to make her feel better, like, “That was a very good meal, thank you. Do you know what bread that you gave me, because it was good”. In a second, her expression changed and she said, “Thank you, let me find out what bread that was”. Though I didn’t really care what the bread was. But I was certain that she was feeling much better after the short conversation I kicked off.

There are lucky people that have interesting jobs but also those who have just plain boring jobs. Living in Jakarta, which is an overpopulated city, lots of people will just accept the most boring jobs with low pay to survive. Stewardess, I think, are one of those job which must be very boring, trying to keep smiling and asking the same questions over and over again during meal time. There are several other jobs that I find that must be extremely boring, which the Busy Brain keep seeing are such as:

• The security guy that checks the bomb in every cars, let it be in the office buildings or malls.  Going around and around your car with that giant dentist mirror.  Opening all the doors and luggages, although I sometimes wonder are they going to find any bomb in my car.  Just a simple, “Pagi, Pak”, will do for them
• The security guy that opens up the gate to enter the parking building: can you imagine that is what he does for, say, 8 hours? Open up and close down the portal? I usually smile and wave to him.
• The girl/boy in the parking ticket box: especially those who are inside the parking building. No sun, no good circulation, small space, doing the same thing over and over again. Not counting if the machine goes wrong, which then they get all stressed out. Usually, I smile and wave and say, “Pagi…” and amazingly they smile back.
• The girl/boy in the ticket box on the toll road: same as above. But more difficult to strike a conversation with them because we only stop for 5 seconds. A simple greeting wouldn’t even do. At least some of them put on music in their small cubicle.
• The cashier in the supermarkets: especially those in the hypermarkets like Carefour, Giant, etc. Where the queue is always long and they only swipe the items to get the price.
• The guy in the immigration at the airport: just swiping and stamping your passport. A simple greeting like, “Hi, good evening” usually works quite well.
• The girl who press the buttons in the lift at malls: just going up and down and up and down…I don’t know for how many hours and how they deal with the boredom. Maybe by looking at the people in the lift.

I don’t know how many boring jobs are out there, where the job is so repetitive it just kills the brain. Sometimes I fell overwhelmed by my job, I mean, everybody has their bad days in their office, but at least there are variations every each day and we interact with our colleagues. There are good days and bad days, but those I described earlier, where is the ups and downs there?

I’m not saying that I have always been polite to them. Sometimes when I had a bad day, I don’t even smile. I bet I’ve pissed off some people in the market when I look at their merchandise but not buying them. But when I think of them, I feel blessed that I still have a job that pays good and has all the ups and down, which gives colors in my life. With all the variations, stress, deadlines, arguments, and the next day you have different kind of stress and color.

And just try to give some warmth to them. Like, have a BS conversation with taxi drivers. Although taxi drivers have more variations in their work, but constantly fighting the traffic in Jakarta, that could be pretty frustrating. Sometimes I chat with them, from traffic, cars, people that they meet, or even politics.

At least, try being nice. A smile won’t hurt, it always works. And for some reason, it also makes me feel good. Because, they smile back. And it’s always nice to be smiled at.

If Bangkok can, why can’t Jakarta?

My last time visiting Bangkok was in 1980.  I was 13, had broken arm and was not keen to travel anywhere during vacation.  Thanks to my dominant mother she always manage to drag the whole family including my father to fulfill her desire to travel (plus, my Dad was working for Pertamina at that time, of course one should use all the facilities available while you still have power!).  

Anyways, I remember Thailand being cheep.  It was then cheaper than Indonesia.  I don’t quite remember the conversion but I remember my mom taking me to the mall and we bought lots of cute clothes.   I also remember the airport was not outstanding, it was quite standard for the 1980s.   Of course, we stayed at the Oriental Hotel.  The other thing impressive was the traffic.  In the 1980s, Jakarta’s traffic was not as bad as today, but Bangkok traffic was unbearable.  I remember me and my brother was trying to entertain ourselves by making fun of how the people spoke (mom took care of us then).   

Twenty eight years later, here I am, in Bangkok.  I have heard from people how Bangkok has developed.  Not only Bangkok, but Thailand as a nation.  During the monetary crisis in Southeast Asia, Bangkok bounced bank quite fast compared to Indonesia.  First, I looked at the airport.  Huge airport which reminded me of Frankfurt airport: simple, grey, masculine.  But it was nothing that I remembered from the 1980s.  My friend Rudy said that the architect was from the Netherland and it tries to imitate Schipol.  From outside, it looked big.  BIG.  I was impressed.  The design is quite spectacular.  I am not the kind that like concretes and grey pipes and stuff (reminds me of the rig!) but I have to admit that it was anything but ordinary.   

Luckily, my friend’s driver picked us up.  No traffic.  OK, it was early afternoon, but no traffic.  Express high way.  Well, this is quite different than what I expected!  Lots of new buildings and apartments, which means more people.  But where are these people?   Shouldn’t there be more traffic, because the last time I went there, the traffic was awful.   At some streets, it is still congested but still acceptable because it was during rush hour.   And still moving. 

Another thing I found out is that they have BTS (Bangkok Transportation System).  I have to say that it is more pleasant than the MRT in Singapore, let alone the trains in Tokyo and London which can be really packed.  BTS is very convenient and takes us almost everywhere easily.    

Other than that, Bangkok is also cleaner than Jakarta.  I can still walk down the street and jog around my friend’s apartment (well, this is probably biased since she lives in Sukumvit, one of the nicer areas).  But I did go jogging along the small river close to where I stayed, which is very much different than the Ciliwung river.   I passed by some ‘houses’ or probably equivalent to shack houses like I find in Jakarta, so there are poor people around.   I passed through a little street (gang kecil) where kids play around, similar to what I would see in the small kampungs in Jakarta.  But much cleaner.  They also have the river transportation, just like in London.  We used it when we went touring.  Although the guides weren’t helping much with the poor English, at least the trip was pleasant.  I wonder if we can have that on Ciliwung, but I suppose that we will all be narcosed by the smell of it… 

My friend told me that one of the king there at one time was a doctor.  At one period of time, education on medics were highly supported.  Now Bangkok is one of the places where southeast Asians or even other people from other continents come for medical care, besides Singapore.  What amazes me is that there are lots of plastic surgeons (well, it is Bangkok after all), but also orthodontics there.  I know couple of my fellows in my previous gym went to get their boob or nose jobs there.  Then the next emperor seems to be into agriculture, therefore the agriculture went booming.   I tasted the fruits there, one that impressed me was the mango.  It is different than the mangoes here, and I suppose there has already been engineering involved in producing high quality fruits.   Lets leave the rice, the rice is extremely good quality and that is nothing new about it.  

I was impressed by Bangkok and how it turned out to be after almost 30 years.  I guess it is because the government or the people in power think about long term plans.  Compared to Indonesia, where everybody thinks short term and none of the projects comes to reality, Bangkok seems to be doing very well.  I suppose when the economic crisis hit, Thailand probably felt the effect but stood up quickly because they have smart people who are dedicated and have high nationalism in developing the country.   

Within 30 years, Jakarta has also developed lots of things but it still seems like a chaos.  Traffic and flood has never ever resolved and the development of the city is poorly planned.  Trashes everywhere and bad smell all over the river.  No sidewalks for people, sidewalks are used by people selling on stools.   I think I am not overreacting comparing Bangkok and Jakarta, because in 1980s these two cities were pretty much having the same problems.  But look at how Bangkok evolved.   I think the key word is education.  The government probably care about the education very well that the medical and agricultural world became developed there.   That is a great country, and you can just tell that the quality of the people in Bangkok are better than those in Jakarta (except for one thing: difficult to communicate in English because some of them even don’t read latin…they just read the Sanskrit alphabet).  

Bangkok trip was good.  It is good to see how other countries cope within 30 years and maybe we have to learn from them on transportation system, instead of going far away to Bogota to have comparison study on the busway.   Rudy and I talked about our country quite often, and finally we just sang part of the national anthem (changed the Hiduplah to…), “…Itulah Indonesia Raya…”. 

Kicking Depression with Exercise

Feels like years from the last article I wrote.  It has been a hectic start of the year at work with the drilling programme.  When drilling happens, our phones have to be on 24/7, especially when we are logging the important section.  If lucky, logging happens during the day, on weekdays.  My experience is, it happens during the weekends, or, during wierd hours.  I spent valentine’s day, 00:00 am in the office, waiting for the main logs to come in!  On top of that, I had to deal with non technical things (people-related issues), which is mentally tiring because this is a new field that I don’t master: dealing with people.

 The stress at work doesn’t cease after the drilling ended as well.  More deadlines for producing maps and next location to drill.  Luckily, I managed to take care of my health quite well by watching my food intake and exercising regularly (thanks to Kerm!).   However, as a person diagnosed to be a depression-prone person, no matter how I try I still have those days when I feel blue, or even pitch black.  And the last 3 days was those days.  If you suffer or have sufferred from depression, you know what I’m talking about: everything seems dark, fatigue, lost appetite, difficulty sleeping, lost interest in doing things once you enjoy, just low and feeling downward spiral.

I might be one of those who has chemical imbalances to start with.  It could be hereditary, or I just happen to be that way.  It could be that my serotonin level can go really low, especially when going through PMS (which is already gloomy for normal women, but with me, I can have all the symptoms of a clinically depressed person, including feeling suicidal), or if there is a trigger for it.  The grey weather just makes it worse because I also have SAD (Seasonal Affected Disorder).  So here I am, sufferring insomnia again, feeling low and fatigue since Sunday.  It just creeped into my life Sunday night, and awful feeling on Monday and the worst was this morning.  I tried to think what triggerred it but I couldn’t pin it down, then realized that it was one of those days in the month.  I do feel cranky, mood swings and yucky during my PMS, but this was the worst one that I could remember of: sleepless nights, sad, even suicidal (this surprised myself).  I took my ‘magic pill’ subscribed by my shrink, didn’t work.  I was even consuming Vitamin B, in which B5 was supposed to be one of the substance to reduce stress.  I take Omega-3, which has DHA, which is said to improve mood disorders.  So, after all these healthy stuff I’ve been taking, why am I still getting sucked into this dark hole?  I was desperate, cried in the office, feeling, “Oh no, not again…”.  And the worse thing is, I don’t dare tell anybody about my condition.  Useless, because not everybody understands depression. Usually it even cause more depression because they say the wrong things (not intentionally, but I don’t really need it).

I decided to leave the office early to visit my shrink, trying to figure out what is actually going on with me.  It is a painful situation.  Why do I feel like this over and over again?  I am off anti-depressant for about a year now and the thought of taking Zoloft again really drops my spirit.  It was already 3:30 pm and I was still stuck in the traffic, while my appointment was on 3:00 pm and Wednesday is my gym day.  I almost text Kerm to tell him that I skip gym, but I still have the last hope: maybe after exercising I will feel better.  I was literally dragging myself to the gym.

Running has always been my stress relief (including running from reality!).  After 30 minutes of cardio exercise, I found myself sweating like a pig and felt much better (after my nasal operation 10 days ago, it has been tough doing my regular weights and cardio, terrible anasthetics).  I continued with my weights, adding more weights than usual and pushing myself to the limit.  And after finishing the sets, I felt great; like sense of accomplishment.  Having a buddy like Kerm helps because he gives me the support, like, “C’mon…two more to go…”.  Feeling the muscles at work gives a nice feeling.  And during my exercise, I was able to smile again. 

On top of that, Ayi showed up and joined the weights, so we chatted in between sets.  The more the merrier is correct.  After that good, fulfilling exercise, we went to have dinner.  With Ayi joining, the dinner became alive with laughter and silly stories (with the main star: me).  I told Kerm that I feel much, much better. 

It could be the endorphine released from my body.  Or the dopamine, due to several accomplishments in the gym.  In here  it says that exercising can help people with depression, I hope this can help other people like me. Lucky me, I have always been exercising regularly and have a buddy to motivate me. And on my way back home, I found out the trigger: that stupid paper that I have to submit this month, which is not even close to finished, on top of the hectic daily work. Just the pressure that I can live without. I forgot that it has been a rough month at work, nasal operation and my vacation to Phuket has been cancelled (and I really, really need a break, it has been a mentally stressful month).

Well, those endorphine and dopamine is released occasionally and I believe that I am still a depression-prone person. I managed to avoid any situation that will cause me depressed and managed to accept my condition and work around it. I still have to solve why I still have the blues with restless nights, physically and spiritually. But after exercising, half of my depression problem has been solved. I was able to smile driving back home.

Today’s keyword: rigorous exercise, motivation and hard will, good friends. And, of course, I kept praying so I was able to survive the dark days. And it was answered.

The Gym: the inconsiderate, annoying, B/SOB

Some annoying things in the gym usually doesn’t come from the gym itself, but from the other member of the gym.  It is great to see lots of people are conscious about their health now, but it is grim to see their mental and their inconsiderate attitudes, which, to some extent, really gets to my nerves.  You expect those who are the members in the gym are quite educated and, at least, middle class citizen.  Unfortunately, Indonesians should be taught or told on how to behave in the gym. 

• Those who doesn’t wipe their sweat:  This is pretty disgusting and annoying.  Looking at a machine, wet with sweat is not something that I like to see.  It is still fluid from your body, what is the sweat in wiping your sweat? 
• Those who doesn’t share the machine:  This should be an ethical code I thought everybody knew, but apparently not.   Usually, when I am using a machine and somebody approaches, I ask him/her, “Wanna share?”, then we swap after one set.  I have already found lots of members, especially woman, who rest on the machine after each set, although she knows somebody is standing right next to her waiting.  Usually, the rest should be around a minute before continuing the next set, but sometimes it takes forever for them (don’t they read how to train?).   I find this very inconsiderate.   When I was in the States, where the gym is packed, almost everybody knows this code.  Here, even if you stand in front of the person, she will just ignore you.   And when I ask, “Can we share?”, they will look at you and say, “I’m not done”.   Usually, if the person doesn’t know this code after couple of minutes waiting, I just leave and use another machine.  And you know what, after 5 minutes, this person is still, STILL, just monopolizing the machine!
• Those who doesn’t return the weights :  There is a big writing on the mirror of the gym that says, “If you are strong enough to lift the weight, you are strong enough to put me back”.   Somehow, not everybody has the attitude of returning the weights to the place.  Inconsiderate.
• Those who make loud sounds when they do weights:  Usually those group of narcist men do this.  I mean, I’m also concentrating here…what are you trying to say, like, “Look at me, I’m strong!”?  If it is only like the last counts, and not too loud, that’s tolerable, but when they are loud that the whole gym can hear him, I mean, really ‘kampungan’ (can’t find the right word in English).
• Those who smell:    Aaaaargh…c’mon, you are going to the gym, you know you will sweat, can’t you be considerate and use deodorant?!
• Those who, in an annoying way, tell you how to do your exercise:  I am willing to listen to some members that gives free advise on how to get the most out of the exercise.  But sometimes there are people that tells you in their own annoying way that their way is the correct way and lecture, and talk about themselves.  I had someone commented on me after I did my abs and he said to me, “Well, you will never get a sixpack that way”.  And started telling the story of his life.  Gosh.
• Those who (tries to) talk to you when you are doing your sets:  I mean, can’t you see me groaning and concentrating, please stop talking to me until I’m done with my set?  At least, you can talk to me in between the sets!  I had a guy selling insurance at one time while I was stretching.  In another occassion, I had one of the Rapid Result Coach trying to have a conversation with me while I was in the middle of pumping the glute machine.  

Anyways, I’m sure there are more but these are those that I can think of at the moment, which happened this week. 

Direct Transportation to Airport: one solution for traffic in Jakarta

Every year around December-February, Jakartans are warned for flooding.  When I was still living in the Cempaka Putih area, I’ve never seen my fridge and gas stove downstairs during these months.  Once or twice during this month, the filthy water comes into the house without early notice, just entering the house whenever it feels like.  We will be listening to the news for when the watergate in Bogor will be opened, which means Jakarta will be flooded.  We will not be working because we have to clean the house.  The smell stays for weeks, the stain on the wall was forever, never had a nice furniture.

There are worse cases, of course, where people just accept the fact of this yearly event and live with it.  What cannot be tolerable, in my opinion, is the traffic to the airport.  If you are a Jakartan, how many times you experienced stuck in the traffic or missed the plane due to the traffic?  How many times the tol road was closed due to the flood, or a broken dam, which made you stuck in the airport?  Which in turn, translates to, how many hours you spent circling around to reach home or work?  I’m sure some of you have paid ridiculous price for a taxi to get to the center of the city?  And probably been blackmailed for more money in the middle of the traffic?

The Sukarno-Hatta or Cengkareng airport has become a vital landmark.  Which airport isn’t (which makes me wonder, why it was decided to be located at the current place)?  Thousands of people depends on the airlines everyday, to go to other cities or outside the country.  One would assume hundreds of thousands of dollars are thrown away whenever the flood hits the Cengkareng toll road.  Hundreds of business decisions being halted.  Hundreds of family in waiting for their loved ones to  safely arrive home.  With business rising in Singapore, for example, lots of people commute from Singapore-Jakarta, often, one-day business trips.  This makes the access to the airport very crucial, in which, the government has to put lots of thoughts in it (still haven’t seen any concrete work or plan by Fauzi Bowo due to flood..hello…?).

This is when I think the Malaysians excel than the Indonesians.  In KL, there is a metro that takes you from the airport to the Central Station in the middle of the city, which is about 30 minutes ride, free from traffic.  It also at a reasonable price.  That way, people just go to the Central Station and catch the metro to the airport.  No hassle driving into the airport.  This is also true in London, which costs an arm and leg to pay for the yellow cab to Heathrow.  This traffic-free metro is a great invention for people to be able to catch their plane on timely manner.

I think Jakarta should have this kind of transportation system.  With lots of cheap airlines available these days, more people choose to travel by airplane.  It is only reasonable to have a support system for this high demand.   For example, it will be useful to have a monorail, or metro that can directly take people from the center of the city to the airport without depending on the toll road.  Say, probably one station at the business district in Sudirman or Blok M, and one at Thamrin.  The metro can take people every 30 minutes during peak hours.  Wouldn’t this be one solution for the traffic in Jakarta, not only during rainy season but also in general?  This way, the cars going towards and from the airport will be eliminated from the cause-of-traffic in Jakarta. 

 At this moment, there are some busses that takes people to the airport but still depends on the condition of the traffic and the toll road.   There is Damri busses that takes you from the Blok M area to the airport.  Or, if I’m not mistaken, from the Sultan Hotel.  Although convenient, they still depend on the toll road.

I wonder if this has been thought over by the Jakarta governor.  As I’m typing this, I’m wondering about the monorail project (quo vadis, monorail?).  Probably the funding for the monorail project could be shifted to this airport transportation system project, if there will be any? 

For this matter, I have to say the Malaysians excel from the Indonesians.

Future relationship = virtual relationship?

Had some interesting discussion with Kerm, who is single as well.  Questions that are always raised by others, “Aren’t you afraid of being lonely when you are old?”.  My answer is usually, “I’ll think about it when the time comes.  In the mean time, I’m enjoying singledom”.  Which, invites further annoying questions and advises.  Kerm’s answer is somehow more interesting, “What will the future internet world look like…with all this connections, am I ever going to be lonely?”.  This answer is pretty effective to shut people up. 

I joined FaceBook last month and I find myself spending lots of time on it, especially the iThink application.  FaceBook is by far the best networking thing (I don’t know the word!) than the others.  I meet lots of interesting people from all around the world.  I get my information.  I joke around, send stuff, express myself in there.  The iThink application is my favorite, where I can exchange thoughts, some silly, some serious, with others.  I get information about autism from a lady who is married to one.  I sent email to a lady who is clinically depressed.  I asked where to go for holiday in Vietnam.  This is much better than hanging out in the bar!

One of the guy in iThink wrote something interesting: It is funny when people actually set a date and have sex online. The Busy Brain visualize a person, nice dinner, candle light and …. laptop.  How funny!  But is this where it is going?  Are our grandchildren would be hanging out in front of the computer when they say, “I have an appointment” and chat?  When I talk to my bosses in the office and tell them to check some work stuff via internet, they said, “Let me kick my kids from their FaceBook”. 

Then the words like “Hang Out”, “Dating”, “Have Sex” will have a whole different meaning in the future.  Even the word “meeting” is now different: teleconference.  Look how convenient it is to hook onto the internet and you meet thousands of people that you can pick to talk to.  It is much easier than going to the local pub, park your car, can’t smoke, and pay for drink!  It’s more convenient to just turn your computer on, in your shorts, drinking whatever, with your leg up.  It is also convenient; usually in a bar, those who gets to have fun are the good looking ones.  Through the internet, all you have to be is interesting and smart. 

But will this be the future of how relationships are?  Communication and information, yes.  But relationships?  Maybe Kerm is right.  You will not feel lonely in the future.  With this pace of technology development, the way we live will change.  Just imagine before mobile phone or email was available.  And look at how the world is now. 

I still enjoy holding hands and looking into my partner’s eyes, feeling the touch and all that jazz.  Maybe in the future there will be a gadget that allows us to feel all that.  We can now visualize the person we are talking to.  Maybe later on we can feel the people across the world. 

Scary?  Nope.  It is actually interesting.