Sunday, April 26, 2009

Sunday Stroll (April 26th 2009)

Jakarta, 09.00 P.M.

It's been quite some time since the last time I write something, and now I'll write about what I just did today...

After a blasted array of inhumanly merciless exams of Humaniora bloc, I managed to spend some time to take a nice walk around the city to relieve my tension… Well, not literally walking around since walking around at noon in 32-34oC temperature would be a futile attempt of stress-relieving…

Anyway, since my younger sister has just finished her High School National Exams and she would like to eat some delicious treats, we went to Pacific Place, a mall combined with Ritz-Carlton Hotel Jakarta, where most of the things inside I wouldn’t bother to take a look due to the highly tagged prices. We went there only for one reason: Pancious ^^

Pancious is, well, a pancake restaurant. The name came from “Pancake” and “Delicious” combined in a unique way… but what matters the most here is the taste, not the name. Indeed it’s expensive, but the pancakes are worth the money we spent. Simply delicious. Even the standard, butter + maple syrup pancake/waffle tastes soooo good ^^.
They serve other creatively combined pancake and waffle delicacies, like waffle-ice cream, pancake-cheesecake, burger pancake, omelet pancake/waffle, etc… but no Dolphin Pancakes though ^^. They’re all look delicious, but my wallet keeps me from buying them… I’d just go with a standard pancake, because I’d rather spent my Rp 42.000,00 (about ¥400) for 4 jars of Mr.Color Paint than for 2 pieces of pancake with a vanilla ice cream and few blueberries or oreo chunks… Ah that reminds me, I haven’t made any progress on my Sinanju… Please be patient, Sinanju. I’ll resume on working your arms & legs as soon as I have more time to spend…

After costly dining at Pancious (I envy my sister. She seems to eat A LOT but gains weight a little to none…) we just stroll around the mall & laughing at the ridiculously expensive dress and shoes they got there… and how could these people with too much money bought a pair of shoes that costs even more than 2 PG Astray while right outside, there’s still people struggling to get food as a daily basis.

along the way I came across this book on a bookstore: "Full Frontal PR [Public Relations]"

so this book would like to teach us how to be a Public Relations like Full Frontal, eh? Enforce yourself with Sinanju, and slice everyone who's not listening to you... quite an effective way to be a good public relations... ^^

Then, before we went home, we came across a local supermarket that sells some imported goods. I remember Danny’s article about Snyder’s of Hanover Pretzels and soon I began the hunt ^^.

After some time, I found the LAST Snyder’s they have… And it’s on SALE (maybe 50% off, I don’t know exactly but the other items on the section was on “buy 1 get 1” promo), so I decided to loot it due to curiosity ^^. It’s expensive (for me). Costs about 3 Mr.Color paints, and it’s the on sale price? Then the real price would cost the same as 6 Mr.Color paints! Damn all the taxes… Money from tax in Indonesia most likely ends up in our corrupt government. All the political bullshit to rationalize their actions of gaining wealth, self-supplying and self-fattening makes me sick.

Well, this post has no intentions to criticize politics or other heavy things, I’ll just continue… Next is a funny pic...

Same item for different species ^^

Next up is the nostalgic sector of the supermarket… they sell traditional Indonesian snacks, toys, and almost-extinct sweets like these:

Warung-style goodies! Ahh... those sweets brings back memories...

My childhood snacks are here! ^^

Charlee and the chocolate Factory ^^

It’s almost 10 years since the last time I had a cigarette-candy, or “lizard eggs” (“telor cicak” – that’s how we used to call the multicolored, smarties-like, candies in Bogor, I guess)^^ sweets, or Charlee gums… brings back memories back from my elementary school days, where everything seems to be fun (“God’s in His heaven, All’s right with the world” ^^)… These items should be cheap – almost as cheap as dirt, since a whole package of cigarette candy should cost no more than Rp 500 (¥4.5) at the local market – but since it’s entered the mall, the price increases over tenfold. What a way to gain profit…

That’s all for today, now I need to get back to work. Medskills, TEMILNAS research, and AtmaSEARCH activities are waiting…

I’m still in high spirits of attending Medical Faculty, even though the Humaniora bloc has blasted my motivations… I just can’t see the correlations of memorizing to the letter from the book of Ethics, or understanding the crappy outdated way of thinking from the Church, and being a good doctor… I personally think that religion doesn’t take part in morals and ethics of a good doctor, or good people.

There are many good people without religions, as well as there are a lot more indecent people with religion.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Ninth Entry: Holiday

LOG 8
April 10, 2009

part 1: free from humanity
It's easter holiday here, at last I can take some rest from Humaniora studies at campus. The medical education unit arranges a curriculum that aims to make us, 1st year med students, to be more humanistic, caring, and empathic towards people... what they don't know is that the curriculum of Humaniora makes the students- or at the very least, me - to be less human. Literally, since I feel apathy towards humanity issues are better than "save the people, save the world" approach...

and what disgust me most is that we need to study "Religion" and Civics. go to hell, all politics and bureaucracies! even the Church itself is a politic-mongering power with "divine intervention" disguise...

my spirit to be a doctor weakened a little because of this curriculum. Practically all things to be learned from this curriculum is useless, except the Biomedical Ethics and Culture Studies. I decided to attend medical faculty to help people with my talents - NOT to "Serve God" or "Serve this pathetic country"... I don't believe in God, and I don't respect nor trust politicians in my country. period.

I miss the Molecular Biology, Physiology, and even Biochemistry...

part 2: Election
I'll just cut it short: I hate the democracy system in this country. I want to kill all the politicians in this country who wanted the position at Legislative for their OWN sake, i.e. they will definitely CORRUPT - thus, they don't need to be elected, but ELIMINATED, permanently.

part 3: *GUNPLA* ^^
after all the negatively-charged issues above, here comes the balance of my Chi, source of my positive energy :D (sorry for the exaggeration ^^)

finally I managed to spend some time on my beloved beautiful Sinanju.
This MG kit is awesome! Loads of runners and decals, the most complicated (and the most expensive) GUNPLA I have up to now. I'll definitely took my time on building this babe, as she'll be my masterpiece...

up till now, I made little or no flaws in cutting and sanding, but painting is a bit difficult. All those curves and "embroidery" linings doesn't come in separate parts, so I need to put a lot of effort into details... I tried to use Testors Metal red + Tamiya detailing brush for the chest "embroidery", the results was pretty satisfactory but it took 4 hours of regulating respiration rate and staring intently at the part I want to paint while my cerebellum is desperately trying to balance-control the movements of my brushing hand... my hand ended up cramping all night long...

anyway, here's the current progress of my Sinanju:






Kinda reminds me of Alpha Azieru...



Sinanju is truly beautiful, isn't she? ^^


*note:
custom parts used:
AKO Creation stencil decal #13
AKO Creation Metal Energy cable medium

colors used:
Tamiya Acrylic - Metallic Grey, Metallic Blue, Black, Royal Blue
Mr. Color - Metal Black, Burnt Iron, Character Red, Gold
Humbrol Acrylic - Gun Metal
Testors - Metallic Red


***** Happy Gunpla-Building!!! *****
End of Log 8