Life goes on, it gets so heavy.

I am still spending my vacation with some internship. I have more works to do now, even though it is not as regular as what I expected. I managed to read so many (random) Wikipedia articles, and it is really fun indeed. I wouldn't say that I got knowledge from those articles, but having any additional information is always good (except for things that we classify as 'too much information', e.g : how many times does *insertanynamehere* go to toilet for a day and so on). And the best thing is that today is 25 June! Well, you know some company prefer this date over the beginning of the month.

Enough with that, I shall tell you the main story now. What is the morale value that I get from internship? Now I understand that every single person tried their best to stay alive. Probably not everyone, but I think generally human being will do anything to stay alive. I am not talking the extreme context like what we saw in SAW (yes, that freaky movie), but more to the hardships that everyone do for their living.

It is kind of mundane, going to work everyday at 7:30 AM with millions other people in this tiny land (Singapore) hopping onto train just to get to office. Men wearing well ironed shirts and trousers plus loafers. And women wearing more variety of clothing that is somewhat still considered to be 'formal' enough. Arriving the Central Business District, everyone rush to the exit and dozens of people are waiting for us - yes, as in the commuter. Holding hundreds of brochure, standing beside piles of free newspaper, and trying to give us anything they hold, one by one. Sometimes we need them, but most of the time we pretend that they don't exist. Taking the escalator up, more people are waiting for us, with brochures defnitely. There are also people doing fund raising for something I don't know what. One big guy was walking around selling some souvenirs to raise fund for his relative (probably) who is suffering a serious (again, probably. I did not see the his notice board clearly) disease. Even more surprising, there are people who beg for money. Yes, like what we usually see in Indonesia and in other developing country. But this is in Singapore, a country with virtually zero percent of poverty. Well, nowadays people tend to measure economic power from spending instead of income.

I don't know how should I react. I feel sad yet I am sure that I can not help every single of them. Nor that I feel bad for not helping them because of all the limitation. And it is not any random people responsibility. I don't think being lazy is the sole reason of poverty. What I am sure is that, everyone should and are doing their best in life. See you next post, Insya Allah..

Hi, Welcome to the Real World I

It is summer now. And typically, summer is associated with things like going to beach, stay over at friend's, backpacking, and so on. However, that is not the case for Asian students who is living not so far away from the equator that makes beaches nonsense. Having inspired by my fellow Singaporean friends (and some kiasu Indonesian friends), I decided to take a summer internship in a banking and finance sector (yes, my major is pure physics where you learn how to get 3/2 in the kinetic theory of gases). Internship is actually compulsory for some majors like engineering or business, and not for me. However, I feel the urge of exploring new knowledge apart of the thing that I am used to.

So far, one week has passed and things went pretty much plain except for some data entry projects (like typing  tons of information from a magazine to excel file). But that is not the main point of the story, I learned how life works in a different way. For example, I always thought that finance and banking are the most boring job that exists in the world but actually they are really interesting (since I have not met the electrodynamics of finance anyway). I feel like my 'financial consciousness' has finally awaken from an uber long hibernation. And reading corporate finance textbook plus random wikipedia article for 8 hours is also very interesting (including history of Myanmar, biography of Dalai Lama or even sophisticated philosophy related article). And my conclusion is, money is important (you don't say), but reading wikipedia article is much more interesting.

Starkov dan Blukupu

Every ending is a beginning for another chapter, even in this mundane life. My second summer vacation (in university life) will need to be postponed soon because of internship. I will be working in the research division of a finance related company (wish me luck for this). What I am really happy is that I managed to meet so many friends during this vacation. Well, they said that silaturahmi is a great virtue. So  instead of doing nothing, I think this is one of the best think that I can do. Furthermore, meeting old friends is very relieving in many ways. It should be putted on my to do list from from now then.

I will also have an important thing to do this weekend, wish me another great luck for this.

Yes, Starko and Blukupu are cat names. My friend gave it to his cat. Strange one isn't it?

Revoir

Daridulu pasti pernah dapat pertanyaan ini walau sekali, "Siapa idola kalian?" Saya yang beragama Islam, begitu juga  dengan kebanyakan teman-teman saya di Indonesia pasti pernah (dan seharusnya) menjawab Rasulullah sebagai idolanya. Tapi jujur saja saat saya bilang tokoh islami (siapa pun, baik anggota khulafaur rasyidin maupun great Muslim scholars manapun), saya tidak benar-benar merasa dari lubuk hati yang terdalam bahwa mereka mempunyai kualitas luar biasa yang saya familiar dengannya. Bukannya mereka kurang keren bagi saya, tapi saya kurang paham (sejauh ini) dan itu terasa betul karena kekurang dekatan saya dengan mereka (yang physically memang jauh).

"Tak kenal maka tak sayang"

Begitu kata peribahasa. Menurut saya itu you don't say sekali sih, gimana juga caranya sayang sesuatu yang kita tidak kenal. Mungkin sejauh ini orangtua saya lebih masuk akal untuk jadi idola saya. Ya, mereka memang tidak menyebarkan agama Islam dengan luar biasa ke seluruh penjuru dunia. Tapi saya tahu betul betapa peran mereka berefek banyak bagi saya dan menurut saya itu keren. Atau ambil kasus ekstrim, Lady Gaga, yang walaupun ditentang banyak orang masih dapat dukungan dari banyak orang dan kreatifitasnya dalam mengenakan kostum daging (walaupun loyalitas fansnya tidak ada apa-apanya dibandingkan loyalitas sahabat terhadap Rasulullah, dan kostum daging yang.. kreatif sih, tapi err..)

Liburan ini menyadarkan saya, saat saya diberikan waktu senggang yang luar biasa banyak untuk apa saya pergunakan? Saya memang mengisi waktu untuk beberapa projek pribadi, silaturahmi (baca : main ke sana dan kemari), maupun main game bagus dan menamatkan komik bagus (saya merasa komik/anime/game bagus bukan penyia-nyiaan waktu :v). Tapi tentu saja, banyak waktu yang terbuang untuk sekedar malas bergerak dan berpikir abstrak entah kenapa. Dari situ saya berkesimpulan, alangkah luar biasanya hidup saya apabila setiap momen yang saya jalani dilakukan dengan sepenuh hati dan bermanfaat (be it kayang di depan gajah). Dan dari situ saya menemukan, cuma Rasulullah (dan mungkin beberapa sahabat-sahabat dan orang hebat lainnya) yang menggunakan waktunya sebaik yang saya deskripsikan. Hidup saya sampah? Tidak juga, hanya saja masih bisa ditingkatkan efisiensinya dengan jauh lebih baik. Carpe diem.

Sekumpulan makhluk yang menjalani hidupnya dengan sia-sia di lembah sia-sia yang menceritakan cerita tentang anak-anak yang sia-sia dan diulang selama dua kali hanya karena ada kata "lagi-lagi.." Sungguh sia-sia. (Tentu saja kalimat ini nonsense) (courtesy teletubbieskorea.blogspot -__-)

Not Useless

According to older comic theory (probably around 25 years ago), the main difference between american comics and japanese comics (representing two largest comic industries in the world) is the panel distributions. We can clearly see that every panel has its own function, be it to deliver action-to-action, subject-to-subject, or any other scene. American comics are mostly comprises of  'action' scene, and not surprisingly the same thing also applies for japanese comics. However, japanese comics serves a greater percentage of 'situation' panel. Yes, those unrelated panels that only show sun ray, cloud, cicadas, and crowd of people. Those panels aren't useless, they are meant to make the reader understand the feel of the situation better.

So does every moment in our life.

That's it.

Angel Beats!

Setelah sekian abad (tentu saja berlebihan) tidak menamatkan satu seri anime, akhirnya saya berhasil untuk menamatkan satu. Dulu, nonton Busou Renkin cuma 18 episode karena dvd nya memang baru keluar seperti itu, lalu Kanon (2006) 10 episode, Heroic Age 7 episode, dan terakhir darker than black 7 episode. Eh, pernah juga saat masih freshie berusaha menonton Rozen Maiden 8 episode kayaknya, atau 6? Pretty much otaku? Probably, mungkin bagi kalangan teman-teman "standar" saya iya tapi tidak bagi teman-teman tidak "standar". Dan akhirnya, di exam period kali ini saya sukses mencapai dua accomplishment, menamatkan main Super Mario World dan menonton Angel Beats Sampai Tamat. Pesan moralnya?

Ya, dari bermain Super Mario World (via VisualBoyAdvance) saya belajar untuk memfungsikan save state sebaik-baiknya. Mungkin kesannya tidak penting, tapi esensinya adalah untuk menge-save setiap progress yang kita dapat. Ga deng, terdengar serius tapi lebih untuk mencari excuse. Tapi kalau sudah mulai main game sekali saat exam period harus ditamatkan, agar nantinya tidak ada alasan untuk procrastinate lebih lanjut. Satu quote berharga dari Mario.

(image courtesy from inintendo.net)

"What doesn't kill you, makes you smaller"

-Mario-

Lanjut deh, berikutnya Angel Beats. Terlalu spoiler kalau diceritakan secara lengkap, tapi mungkin ringkasnya bahwa bagi remaja (youth maksudnya) yang meninggal dengan penyesalan dalam hidupnya akan dibawa ke sebuah alam yang berbentuk seperti sekolah (ya, sekolah normal) untuk mereka menemukan kebahagiaannya masing-masing sampai penyesalannya terpuaskan. Saya seorang muslim, jadi tentu saja konsep kehidupan setelah mati yang saya percayai tidak seperti itu. However, seandainya dunia after life seperti yang dibayangkan oleh Angel Beats! pertanyaannya adalah apakah kita akan terbawa ke dunia itu apabila kita meninggal sekarang? Saya rasa hidup manusia yang terbaik adalah yang dijalani tanpa penyesalan (ini murni jawaban duniawi saya), karena after life yang saya percaya tidak necessarily senyaman dan sedamai yang Angel Beats! ceritakan. Sekalipun after life a la Angel Beats! terjadi, tetap saja kayaknya menyakitkan (walau membahagiakan) utnuk hidup di dunia semi eternal untuk mencari kebahagiaan. Intinya apabila anda orang yang agak anti anime tapi punya waktu untuk nonton american TV Series, ***** you (isi dengan kata umpatan yang anda rasa paling pantas)! Banyak entertainment dan juga value yang bisa diambil, kenapa kalian meremehkan anime dan manga awuakuawkauwk (ini cuma bercanda, yang penting ditonton).

(image courtesy from wikipedia.org)

"That's right. Our weakness is that we're stupid"

-Yuri-

arutaki.

Halo semua, kali ini saya akan menulis dalam Bahasa Indonesia. Saya akan mengumumkan tentang projek rahasia saya yang terbaru. Projeknya sendiri masih rahasia (terus kenapa diumumin -___-), cuma minta doa agar diberikan yang terbaik. Terimakasih banyak.

Sincerely,

Al Atiqi