The Fatty I Love

December 23, 2011

I don’t understand why these Indonesian people loves giving bad nickname for people that they love. Of course the meaning is not bad when you’re giving nicknames to each other because you love this person, but what the hell…?

Today I read the Facebook status of my friend’s wife. She said, “I am so lucky to have Si Gendut.”

Once again. What the hell? Gendut means Fat, Man!

I just realize that not only her, but I think most girls kept giving names like that to people that they care about. When I was toddler, one of my aunt also called me with this kind of nicknames. When I was with si Onyed, she called me with “Chubby”, which means… fat. I didn’t do better, I should admit. Sometimes, I called her with “Bodoh” which means “stupid”.

Why insulting someone else’s physical appearance could be a love expression?

Does that mean that you call him/her with that way, shows you that you love him/her more? Does it mean that if you destroy someone else’s self confidence shows that you care about him/her more? Are you trying to say that “oh, even if you’re fat i love you still”? Are you trying to knock down his/her spirit so you can came up with this heroic “I’ll save you Dear” action?

I just realized that I hate that expression.

In the other side of the world, when you like someone, you’d give a better designation. You showed the affection with the good things that you feel. You’re either gonna call her/him: sweet heart, sweet pie, love, honey, hunny bunny… or worse, “baby”. But not “fat” or “chubby”, or maybe “stupid”.

I know that in Indonesia, giving sweet name to the person you love would sound so stupid. Sometimes cheesy. Or… almost all the time unnecessary. But how hard is it to NOT calling something that would build up a bad self concept in someone’s mind? Is this Asian kind of thing? No wonder many Indonesians are engaged with obsessive diet and become so defensive about jokes, their self confident are ruined by people that they care about.

Anyways…

I was just wondering. Nevermind.

 

Cheers ~

Good Girl

November 22, 2011

Because of the last post, and the comment from AK, I remembered one of my eyeopening discussions with Mr. Atheist. It is about how guys like himself would rather chose a Cewek Baik, instead of Cewek Baik-Baik.

Well… I couldn’t just translate those two phrases, because I have to explain why he chose to use the phrases. First, in Indonesian language, sometimes the repetition of a word could make a huge difference in meaning, sometimes, it change not only the meaning but also the sense of it. Second, in Indonesian language, when an adjective is attached to a different noun it can completely change the meaning and the sense.

For example: Cewek (noun) is a slang for “girl” or “woman”. Baik (adj) means Good. Baik-baik (adj) also means Good, but in different sense. When they’re combined together, in google translator, both Cewek Baik-Baik and Cewek Baik are translated as “Good Woman”. But actually in Indonesian, Cewek Baik-Baik has the sense of reputability and respectability, while Cewek Baik emphasize more on the attitude or the kindness of the individuals.

Anyway, let’s leave the translation things to the translation students or the real translator, because that’s not the reason why I write this piece.

So, what I was going to write?

Oh… yeah!

One day, Mr. Atheist changed his status on BBM with: “a guy doesn’t need Cewek Baik-Baik, but (he needs) Cewek Baik”. I don’t know if this mindset is universal or just some people believes in this, but for me it makes sense.

I think this should be the consideration for people who wants to get married (not that I want to), that respectability is not everything. How many times we heard that a woman become the victim of domestic violence, with black and blue in her face, or worse, beaten to death by her husband, who… probably, a respectable guy, with a good job and came from a family with good reputation. How many times the arranged marriage ended up in this kind of situation?

Most of the time we’re blinded with image that has been made in the society. We were fed with the information about what’s considered good and what’s not, but we’ve never been given a chance to actually question the truth of it. Sometime we forget how easy it is to create an image in the society… Trust me, I am a communication student, I learned about image management… Now, even politician can create good image if they have a good PR team behind them…

But we’re not politician, aren’t we? We don’t want to be one of them… And we don’t want to be fooled with those images, do we? We know better… don’t we?

Birthweek: 24

November 2, 2011

H-7

I went to the city center, to some phone stores to know what offers they had for me. I went to T-Mobile and asked the salesperson about the contract they can give me. It was not so cheap so I decided to wait and gave myself some time to think before doing anything impulsively. I also went to several other stores, like 3, and orange… The main goal is, to get one blackberry phone which worth every penny.

I decided to go to Tesco, to grab something that I can use to make my birthday noodles the next day when Denise come and cook at my place. I dragged my feet lazily, but that’s the only thing I can do, because to be honest, I really didn’t want to go home. But I found chili pepper in this store.

I have tried many places to get chili pepper, but never been able to find it, and that day, I just found one! Suddenly I felt better…

H-6

I called home, because I promised my parents that I would call them at 00.00, WIB. That was the first time I called someone in my birthday, it’s usually someone else called me. I felt better already because of the chili pepper, so I can talk to my dad about my lost phone. Which was actually not that hard to do.

I have a previous assumption that my dad will be all hassle about my phone, and it would make me even more drowned into desperation. But he only told me not to worry about anything and be happy for my birthday. I decided to agree with him.

H-4

I chatted with few friends and also Mr. Nottingham. He told me something really nice which I surely will remember for my life. It was a Chinese proverb: “jiu de bu qu, xin de bu lai”, which means: “If the old one didn’t go, the new one would never come”. Suddenly I know, that I can choose to enjoy every second of my birthday.

H

I had the best video chat with Mr. Atheist. He literally sang a happy birthday song for me, and playing a guitar at the same time. Oh wait, I should say, he played a guitar, and singing at the same time. He played guitar really well, but I had to be honest he sang really bad! LOL. But I loved that moment. It was one of the most beautiful moments in my life and I owed him that.

Miiya sent me a happy birthday message too. What a surprise! I know I said I hated surprises, but this is a nice one. And it didn’t make me angry or something. I love her too :)

H+6

Shan, one of my flatmates told me that there was a beer festival in Norwich! She gave me some information, which was the best birthday gift she could ever give me. Information! With Alcohol in it!

Birthweek: The Beginning

October 31, 2011

I believe I have told you before in the previous entry that suddenly I started to think a lot about my birthday here in Norwich. Not that I wanted to make a festive birthday celebration, but I was thinking of being kind to myself because of what I have been doing so far. I really needed to appreciate myself. A lot.

So, when I heard that Coldplay was going to have a small gig in my campus, I decided that the gig was going to be a birthday gift from me for myself. But, unfortunately, in that fateful morning, I couldn’t get the ticket. Like what I said before, it was a small gig, so there were only few could get the ticket, and according to the rumors, the ticket sold out only in several hours.

Lots of student who queued got really angry, because there were many outsider came and bought the ticket. But that wasn’t what made me angry… it was because I couldn’t even give myself something good for my own birthday. I started to feel sorry for myself, and drowned to the most pitiful state, which I didn’t need to do. Little did I know it was the beginning of all troubles for the next days.

First of all, I really got drunk. And, there were so few I could remember about what happened that night. I am pretty sure I did something stupid, I don’t need to explain here in the public area, but you know how stupid anyone when they got really drunk. And, when I am thinking about it now… I feel so silly that I have done that, because it was not supposed to be like that.

And then, I lost my glasses. That was the second hit, because I really love that glasses. No, I don’t have any emotional attachment to that glasses, but it was my favorite glasses, and it was the cheapest glasses I have ever bought. So it meant a lot to me. But I couldn’t find it anywhere in one morning… Like what I have said, I just couldn’t remember anything. Even until now.

Desperation struck me, and I lost my mood to celebrate my birthday. I didn’t talk about to anyone. I just wanted to sleep my birthday away… But this is still the beginning…

Lebaran On The Road: The Batu Experience

September 9, 2011

Batu adalah tujuan terakhir kami, dan kami menghabiskan paling banyak waktu di sana. Kami menginap di salah satu villa dekat taman bermain yang sangat besar di sana. Harganya, luar biasa mahal, tapi untuk satu villa kami mendapatkan 3 kamar tidur, dan makan gratis untuk pagi dan malam. Lagipula, sebenarnya lokasi villa itu dekat ke tempat-tempat wisata, jadi saya rasa untuk harga segitu, apalagi di musim liburan, cukup sepadan. Sayangnya, di villa saya tidak bisa mendapatkan koneksi internet.

Di Batu, Malang, ternyata tidak sedingin yang saya perkirakan sebelumnya, apalagi di siang hari. Rasanya terik dan sumpek, selain karena matahari yang menyengat, juga karena di tempat wisata yang kami kunjungi sangat penuh orang. Saya biasanya dapat dengan mudah menikmati yang namanya kebun binatang dan museum, tapi kali ini saya harus berusaha keras untuk dapat menikmati semuanya.

Bukannya saya rewel, tapi di taman rekreasi itu sangat padat dengan pengunjung yang berjubel. Bukan hanya itu, tapi dari pihak pengelola taman rekreasi itu, pintu-pintu keluar ditutup sehingga kami harus mengikuti rute yang telah mereka sediakan. Maksudnya sih baik. Mereka ingin semua pengunjung dapat menikmati semua wahana yang ada di sana, tapi bagi kami yang tidak ingin melihat semuanya atau ingin memilih sebagian saja, jalan-jalan di taman rekreasi itu serasa siksaan tanpa akhir.

Kami juga pergi ke taman rekreasi yang tidak terlalu baru. Lokasinya memang agak jauh dari villa tempat kami menginap. Pemandangannya memang bagus, tapi lagi-lagi terlalu banyak orang berjubel dan membuat nafsu foto-foto ngedrop seketika. Akhirnya di tempat ini kami hanya duduk sebentar di sebuah kafe di dekat pintu masuk, ngelihatin orang berenang, dan pulang setelah menghabiskan segelas minuman.

Mungkin yang paling bisa saya nikmati adalah acara memakan strawberry. Setidaknya di tempat ini saya menemukan kesukaan saya yang baru. Ternyata saya menyukai strawberry. Beberapa waktu lalu saya sempat komen di blognya si Bedjo. Saya mengatakan bahwa saya senang banget liat strawberry tapi takut memakannya karena saya tidak doyan asam… tapi ternyata bukan cuma doyan… saya doyan banget :p

Sebenarnya saya ingin ikut ke Malang, karena di sana teman-teman blogger saya sedang ada acara, tapi ternyata jadwalnya bentrok dengan jadwal BNS (Batu Night Spectacular). Yang agak mengecewakan adalah, ternyata kami tidak jadi ke BNS juga. Akhirnya, nggak ke Malang ikut halal bihalal, nggak ke BNS. Tahu gitu kan saya maksa pergi ke Malang, ya nggak?

Tiga hari di Malang bukan cuma sukses membuat saya pegal-pegal, tapi juga membuat kulit saya terbakar matahari dengan acara jalan-jalan ke taman rekreasi itu. Ouch!