A Song

Ballad of Serenity
Joss Whedon & Sonny Rhodes

Take my love
Take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don't care
I'm still free
You can't take the sky from me

Take me out
To the black tell 'em I ain't coming back
Burn the land
And boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me

Have no place
I can be
Since I found Serenity
But you can't take the sky from me

The Little Girl and The Wolf

After reading Kappa's blog, I decided to run a little rampant on the web, searching for some older versions and variations to well-known fairy tales. After finishing my job, I came into conclusion that the Brothers Grimm did quite a good job in transforming some tales into bedtime stories as they were today. The older versions of some stories (e.g. Sleeping Beauty, Snow White) are not as tame as their well-known versions. To find out what I meant,just read the history sections of these stories in this page.

And while cruising the web, I found some interesting variations to these well-known tales. I'll post one that really caught my eye right after this. Enjoy ^^;

The Little Girl and the Wolf
by James Thurber

One afternoon a big wolf waited in a dark forest for a little girl to come along carrying a basket of food to her grandmother. Finally a little girl did come along and she was carrying a basket of food. "Are you carrying that basket to your grandmother?" asked the wolf. The little girl said yes, she was. So the wolf asked her where her grandmother lived and the little girl told him and he disappeared into the wood.

When the little girl opened the door of her grandmother's house she saw that there was somebody in bed with a nightcap and nightgown on. She had approached no nearer than twenty-five feet from the bed when she saw that it was not her grandmother but the wolf, for even in a nightcap a wolf does not look any more like your grandmother than the Metro-Goldwyn lion looks like Calvin Coolidge. So the little girl took an automatic out of her basket and shot the wolf dead.

(Moral: It is not so easy to fool little girls nowadays as it used to be.)

The Week That Was

It's almost done. Just a little finishing touch, and my final Project report is done, and I'll be ready for the final test. Ah well, It's been a week since my last post, and I think it's time to do post some rants (again).

Lately, I'm spending more money than usual, which is not good. I definitely have to begin saving until I find some income. Perhaps it's time to get some paying projects.

And I can't even recall what I've done in this past week, save from some uneventful things. Man, I'm bored. I guess I'll finish this report ASAP, and find some excitement somewhere...

Oh, and today someone asked me something about friendship. Which left me wondering, how many of those I considered friends are truly my friend, and how many are only acquaintances? Probably not that many, especially considering my tendencies to keep my distance from everyone. Ah well, I know I should change it, but knowing and being able to do it are two different things.

Stupid hedgehog.

A Different Kind of Fool

Which is more stupid?
One who doesn't know what to do?
Or one who knew what to do,
yet can find no willpower to do it?

Which is more foolish?
One who loved everyone and not oneself
or one who loved nobody but oneself?
Tell me, then.

Actors who have many masks
But forgot what their face looked like
Philosophers who have many wisdom
Yet applied none to themselves

Lovers who loved and hurt
Shut out love in return
Afraid of hurt, they become
Not Lovers anymore

One who sees illusions of the past
Yet whose feet walks the present
Looking ever backwards
Never to the future

One who cares yet pretends not to
One who pretends to care but in truth don't
One who is blind but pretends to see
One who sees but averts their eyes.

Which kind of Fool are you?

Rants... and Lots of it.

Okay... where to start? I got a lot to rant about lately, and surprisingly (or not) most are not about myself.

Let's see. How about we start at... the legendary traffic problem in Jakarta. For those who lived there, you should know what I mean. The whole city streets are overpacked with private vehicles, public transport, and motorcycles. As some 'experts' would say, the solution to these traffic problems are Mass Rapid Transport (MRT). Hell, even a half-decent engineer like myself could figure that out.

Now, let's look at MRT. For now, Jakarta has its commuter train (which is reputedly packed and unsafe, but I leave that for readers to decide. Just try the 6 AM economic-class for a change.) and the new busway.

Suffice to say that the Busway system is... undermanned and underequipped to deal with the number of potential passengers. The newer corridors have far lesser number of vehicles than needed. As such, the arrival rate of the buses are erratic at best. Sometimes it only took 5 minutes, sometimes (more likely) they'd arrive at around 20 minutes interval, and even then, it's likely to be full and could only load only a handful of extra passengers.

Some stated that Jakarta would apply a congestion control zone to regulate the traffic. As a general rule, congestion control is nice, IF, and only IF the public transport is at least halfway decent. Which is, sadly, not the case for Jakarta. When congestion control is applied without decent public transport, people would have to choose between expensive private transport, or unreliable public transport. a choice between bad and worse. And believe me, it's not fun to be presented that kind of choice when you're just trying to make your living.

The obvious answer to transportation problems in a large city is Subway. The subway took virtually no space above ground (where it's tightly packed in large cities), and have a very good ratio of energy per people transported. Unfortunately this approach has severe problems two. One is that it's expensive to build, and expensive to maintain. This is usually not a problem, except that by being a public transport, it should be affordable to the potential passengers. 'Affordable' and 'Expensive' apparently doesn't like each other that much.

Two, is that Jakarta's underground map is sketchy at best. Imagine sewage lines, gas pipes, water pipes, phone lines, fiber optics, and all other goodies crisscrossing under there. And now imagine, how should you put a train tunnel through all that mess. Add to that, the fact that several of the agencies that overlook those mess aren't exactly well-coordinated, and some even, have inaccurate maps. Believe me, it's true. As an example, a friend once complained about an 'official' map of one of the agencies showing noticeable discrepancies of distance and scaling when compared to the field situation. And some, even showing objects that was not there. While some mislabeled an object as another. Fun, eh?

Of course, if one were to think through the problems, they should find some solutions. Ideas such as digging the tunnel deeper than the known pipes, or rerouting intersecting routes, were possibly viable.

Ah well, enough of my rant for now... Perhaps I'll continue later. Perhaps.

Empty

Again. This afternoon, I felt it again. That emptiness that's been haunting me. I know I should be working, finishing the last miles of my report. Yet, I can't help but feel it. I don't know. Was it the idyllic life? Was it my loneliness?

I don't know. Perhaps it's just reality hitting me straight in the face.

Research Life

These last weeks, I've been living in a chaotic pace, and it's begun taking it's toll on my body. I really should start stop my nocturnal lifestyle and return to normal. Well, what is 'normal' anyway? Just a perception of what the majority of people think is 'normal'. But well, that's enough.

Anyway, I've known how hard it was to do scientific research in Indonesia for a while, but yesterday was the first time I've experienced it first hand. After one year of hard work working on my research, now I got the chance to publicize it. Only one catch. I should pay for the publication fee. Yes. I should pay for it. And no, it's not a small amount, not for a student with no steady income like me. Well, after researching without payment for a year, that's quite some news.

Luckily, the university got me a discount, and my lecturer helped pay half the entrance fee. Or I wouldn't have it published. With the situation being like this in most places, I understand why it's so hard for Indonesian researchers to actually give mentionable results. And the educational climate in most universities nationwide isn't exactly helping.

With most universities pushing their students to graduate ASAP (higher turnover ratio of goods, higher income. Simple economics, eh?), 4 years max, how are they supposed to have time for anything other than studying?

One More Step

One more step. One more step, and I'll graduate from this place that's been my home for five years. One more step.

So why is it that hard to take that step? Dammit, I need motivation. At times like these, I hate being "one-handed"... C'mon man... pull yourself together.

Just the Right Way

Lost my way
In this winding road
Just don't know
Where to turn

But perhaps it's okay
Just to lose mysef
A little bit further
Just for a little while longer

Lost Things

Have you ever find yourself giving a lot of your time into one thing, and when you look up around you, you realize that in the process of doing so, you've lost contact with almost anything else? Funny. It never felt so wrong, until you've realized how much you've lost.

A Jumble of Things

Finally, It's almost over... Just one more step. But now that my proverbial train is nearing its last stop, I'm still feeling uneasy. What awaits when I step down there? Ready or not, my time's almost done here. Finally it's time to accept my responsibilities.

But well, no use in complaining. As my friend once said, you won't get anywhere without trying. I guess it's already time I got up and start working.

Anyway, lately, I've been filling my spare time (which I have in loads) with a jumble of things. I've begun writing again after a month of hiatus (Hunters in the Dark is now running again), and reposting old works (Forsaken : Black Heaven is up again at everlucid.net). And even revisiting DnD. Feels strange that after several years not playing the game, now I'm DMing several times a week.

It's a fine experience, though. I enjoyed DMing as much as I love playing DnD. It's a pity that I haven't got much time left here.