Category: Diary

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Diary Linguistic

In This Deep Pool Of Español

Today included, I have thirteen days to prepare for my upcoming Spanish examination.  Over the years, I have this recurrent dream.  In this dream, I would be inside an examination hall staring at exam questions that I have no clue on how to answer.  And it is always this sense of anxiety that wakes me up.  If I am to trace the root cause of this nightmare, it would likely be pointing to the time period when I was studying for my degree.  You see, in my four years direct master course, I only had three examinations.  In addition, only the last two mattered.  There was no examination at the end of the second year.  In theory, one could be bumping around for three years only to face the brutality of a series of tests in the span of a couple of weeks that determined one’s future.  You can imagine the boiling pressure.  No wonder we have so many pubs within the university perimeter, thanks to student’s syndrome.

How do you study for an examination?  For me, I often start with a timetable, laying out what I need to do on paper.  Systematically work through the activities and assuming that the plan is good (it has to be), everything is going to be OK.  This time is different.  For a start, after close to three years of learning Spanish, I am still hovering at the basic level of hi-how-are-you and my-name-is-so-and-so.  I may have learned a lot along the way.  But language is a skill that if you don’t use it, you don’t have it.  So I am doing some soul searching lately, on the things that I suck when it comes to Spanish.  I am looking beyond this upcoming exam and am looking at where my Spanish learning journey is heading.  I think I have been bumping around for a bit too long.

Our Spanish teacher has a beautiful way to describe the necessity of learning grammar; something to do with the structure of discourse; something to do with the expression of one’s wisdom.  Lately, I have been reading about communicating grammar in a discourse level.  I am no linguist or learning expert.  The jest of it, from what I have internalized, is that learners should interact naturally in a real communication act.  Since Cynthia is also learning Spanish (she is the reason why I am in this deep pool of español), we should use each other as a practice target communicating on topics that we have no idea where they are coming from (versus artificial learning environment whereby we know what is to come).  Why haven’t I thought of that?  I could talk about the monthly S$7 lunch special at my canteen today.  I could talk about the pumpkin soup, assorted German sausages, sauerkraut, potato glatini, salad, black forest cake, and a drink I had today.  I could talk about the friendly patrol attendant I met today, whom was surprised that I know the timing of their shifts.  He would be surprised had he know that I also know besides pumping petrol, he has to clean the kiosks and clean the toilets.  I could talk about this lovely song I heard over the Spanish Internet radio station while I was stuck in the traffic this morning.  I wrote down the lyrics and it went something like “deep inside you cry cry cry, don’t let your hope die die die”.  I could talk about how I love Google because with a mere fragment of lyrics, it tells me that the song is by Oceana and it is called “Cry Cry”.  I could talk about how I am determined to memorize the verb conjugation, to relearn something basic such as numbers, seasons, and days of the week, to practice Spanish using the two textbooks we have bought and have yet used, and to inject some Spanish vibes into my head through the Spanish Internet radio every day from now till March 8.

OK.  It is time to do some serious research on how to say all of the above.  Be right back.

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Diary I See I Write

Did You Catch The Glee Flash Mob At Orchard Singapore?

Cynthia and I are known as “the late couple”, especially so during weekends.  There are hundred and one things to do such as not wanting to get out of bed (that is Cynthia), not able to get back to sleep after waking up ridiculously early (that is I), spending too much time reading the papers over home delivered McDonald’s breakfast  (that is Cynthia), playing too much online game while having breakfast (that is I), doing housework together, and then this, and then that.  Soon, time flies and we are late for our weekend appointments.  Hence the title – “the late couple”.

We were informed that there would be a Glee flash mob performing in front of Ion Orchard last Saturday.  Miraculously – by that I don’t mean speeding on our beloved highway – we had 10 spare minutes to dash from the car park to Ion.  I can tell you what exactly happened at 5pm.  There was heavy downpour and we thought the performance would be canceled.  Fortunately, there is an invisible shelter at the open area in front of our prestigious mall, right in front of Dior (OK, there is a huge glass shelter high up above us).  And the show was on!

Despite the heavy rain, there was a good turn out.  The Glee Flash Mob is Fox International Channels’ effort to promote Glee on Star World, which I am sure you know that Glee is now on Season 2.  As always, Cynthia and I like different things in this TV series.  She thinks that Rachael is hot, and she can sing.  I am a man.  I am in love with Quinn, the cheerleader (duh!)  Quinn is hot.  She can even convince her then boyfriend that she got pregnant while sharing a fully clothed hot tub with him.  Which one is your favorite Glee episode?  For me, that has to be – cheerleader joke aside – the one with featured guest star Barney from “How I Met Your Mother”.  The rendition of Aerosmith’s “Dream On” is my all time favorite Glee track.  That episode has won Neil Patrick Harris a well deserving Emmy, as a guest actor.  Neil, you are my hero.

Back to the flash mob, there were about 70 dancers.  A few of them are professionals while the rest are students and volunteers.  It must have been a rewarding experience for them.  Cynthia and I love the atmosphere.  It was a fun watch.  I must be amongst the first group of audiences who clapped with full conviction.  Either Singaporeans are not well trained in the displays of appreciation in public, or the audiences were waiting for more.  I think it was the latter.

To the dancers, thank you for putting so much effort in preparing this (800 man hours according to my reliable source).  For those who have missed it, fear not.  The video has arrived at my mailbox today, here for sharing.

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Diary Travel Blog

Bandung Chronicle – Part 6 of 6

This is the final installment, of my trip to Bandung, divided into 500 words per piece.

… rinse them inside a tank of water, and make sure that they are towel dried as they may catch a cold.  Porcupines can swim.  And the best thing about keeping porcupines?  When you need to leave home for a prolong period of time, just keep them in dry ice (why not put them inside the fridge?).  The porcupines will hibernate and you don’t even need to worry about feeding them while you are away.

Neat eh?

Towards the end of the program, the TV anchor asked, “Why do people buy porcupines?  Does anyone buy them to eat?”  The farm owner calmly replied with a smile, “4,000 years ago, Egyptians were used to eat porcupines.  Now, we keep them as pets.”

I love Indonesian television programs.

“This is Bandung airport.  Unlike others in the region, we get to walk around in leisure, taking pictures on our way to the plane.”

10. New Year Eve

Christmas went by without much of a bang.  We have attended a Mass on Christmas Day but instead of celebrating Christmas, it was a Mass for the Holy Family, which was meant for December 26.

I must have put on some weight.  Because I keep eating and eating, reading and reading here in Bandung.  I wonder what would happen to my S$900 investment on tailor making my shirts and pants prior to coming to Bandung.

Each trip, I deliberately want to learn some words in Bahasa Indonesia.  Proud to say, I have discovered the word bau (means smelly) one day when we were shopping in a supermarket.  Like a kid who has learned a new word, I kept repeating bauuu! with the hand gesture.  Cynthia could not stop laughing.  I picked up angker from a cinema poster.  I used it to describe my experience crossing the streets in Bandung.  Cynthia laughed and corrected me that angker is horror, but in a spooky sense.  No, I have not seen ghosts when I crossed the road.  Rather, the incoming traffic scared the living soul out of my body.  Our niece Felicia liked to repeat the word malu.  Maluuuu! has the same magic as bauuuu!, phonetically speaking.  But it means shy instead.  At the rate I am going,  I will be able to speak fluent Bahasa Indonesia when I am … seven hundred and ten?

I have finished reading the sixth book from my stack of seven this morning.  It is “Inés of My Soul” written by Isabel Allende.  The Chile Conquest, is bloody.  Forward to 2010 going 2011, the world is still in conflict.  Peace seems so fragile, so hard to attain.  Given the knowledge of knowing what we are, will the end state of our civilization ever reach peace in totality?  Or war and conquest is the only mean to propel our progress?

What shall I do in this New Year Eve?  Cynthia may surprise me with some grapes from the supermarket, I do not know.  And we may do the countdown, in Spanish style – swallowing one grape every two seconds, as we countdown from ten, nine, eight, seven …

“This is another photo taken as we approached the only airline that flies direct from Singapore to Bandung.”

*     *     *     *     *

Author’s note: This chronicle ends with the countdown, in a form I visualized.  In reality, I felt asleep at 11pm (which was midnight in Singapore and Hong Kong).  As I was peacefully entering into year 2011, I was woken up this time not by the blasting of the speakers from the nearby mosques, but by the loud bangs in the air.  It had the same 7.1 stereo effect as the 4am prayers.  The first thought that struck my mind was: Get out of bed!  It is an air raid! In real life, nothing was as dramatic.  It was fireworks everywhere, close by from different locations.  Indonesians sure know how to welcome the new year.

Why 500 words a piece?  Some time ago, I have dedicated one full month to write blog entries that were limited to a word count of 500.  It was fun, as it forced me to be concise.  Why 500?  By my research, most online readers don’t have the time to read beyond 500 words.  In the world of Twitter and Facebook status update, 500 is a big number.

To recap on the entire chronicle, click here.

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Diary

A Chinese New Year Dinner

The beauty of keeping my website current is that I can always go back in time and find out, say, what I did last new year.  It is hard to believe that one year has passed.  Reading what I wrote last year makes me feel that it was only yesterday when Bethany was a tiny baby.  OK.  My niece Bethany is still a little one.  Even with a little bit of motivation (such as doubling the content inside her hong bao this year), she has yet to learn how to call me kau fu, or in English, uncle.  I am a patience man.  I know that day will come.

“A home cooked dinner. From right to left, little Bethany, Benny, my sister Lora, Cynthia, and I.”

This year, my mother is not in town.  So, it was I who wore the apron and cooked up a few Cantonese dishes.  I even had the honor to heat up little Bethany’s dinner, specially made by Benny’s mother.  I have no idea what kids love to play when they are one year old.  But I have discovered that Bethany likes to play with buttons.  And I have tons at home.  Such as my remote controls, my computers, and my amplifier.  With much restraint, I tried not to say ‘cannot’, ‘no’, or ‘not that‘, for it is not quite cool to have Bethany repeats those words I say.  Instead, I brought her the walker and said, “Go to you mama [and please stay away from my stuffs!]”  Or in my attempt to divert her attention, I took out my Indonesia drum and said, “Play this”.  Bethany seemed to enjoy playing the drum, although I really wish that she plays the piano instead.  Maybe she will, when she gets older.  I am thinking of Moonlight Sonata.  I am thinking of Chopin.  I am thinking of chilling out with my books while Bethany plays the piano all day long.

Some traditions should remain, like our family dinners on these special days.  As I was guiding little Bethany to walk next to my sofa, looking at those eyes and ears that are the exact replicas of my sister’s, I could not help but to feel that it was only yesterday when my sister was a toddler, when I was learning to play my big brother’s role in taking care of her.  Decades have passed, with a blink of an eye.

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Diary Travel Blog

Bandung Chronicle – Part 5 of 6

This is the fifth installment of the Bandung Chronicle, sliced up at 500 words a piece.

My beloved Nathaniel, he who calls me Oom Pea Prit.

“My beloved Nathaniel, he who calls me Oom Pea Prit”

… “Shouldn’t you ask him the questions instead?”  I blushed.  I mean, Nathaniel is like a boss.  He who shares the same birthday as mine, he who climbed onto me with eager, watery, and tender eyes of affection while his sister was busy orbitting away, he who writes the letter ‘J’ in the mirrored vertical opposite, he who calls me: Oom Pea Prit instead of Oom Wilfrid (oom means uncle in Bahasa Indonesia).  Nathaniel, my two years old nephew, mischievously tried to say my name a few times, each morphed into names that sounded more from an untold fairy tale.  Eric, his dad, laughed and said I should take “Pea Prit”.  I laughed and gave Nathaniel a goodbye hug before they left Bandung.

Children, they orbit.  As they grow older, the orbit gets wider.  Some, you hardly see, as they grow up.

9. Porcupines

Indonesian television can be entertaining.  There are so many local live shows.  One of them is called “Indonesian’s Got Talent”.  It is an eye opener to see such diversity of talent.  A 14 years old girl who sings exceptionally well performed like a professional opera singer won the show.  In front of the national television, in front of millions of I presume Muslim viewers, she thanked Jesus Christ.  I am in awe with her courage, more so for the millions of viewers who voted for her.

“Check out 14 year old opera singer Vania Larissa’s rendition on Evanescence’s Bring Me To Life.  Especially the ending bit after 1 minute 50 seconds.”

There was another reality show.  A guy was caught red-handed in a Karaoke bar, with a female companion, and after some chitchatting, he was about to purchase a condom for I presume an upcoming sexual act.  The camera then cut to his wife storming into the KTV room confronting her husband on I presume what the beep this was all about (the entire program was in Bahasa Indonesia sparsely translated and opined by Cynthia).  It was quite awkward to see the couple screaming at each other in front of the national television. Why didn’t the guy storm out of the room and – like in the movies – say ”˜no comments’?  I do not know.  But hey, at least he intended to use a condom.

The most bizarre program took place inside a porcupine farm.  There was this long hair, attractive, and young female TV anchor who obviously did not think that keeping porcupines as pets is cute.  And there was this farm owner who boosted that each porcupine can fetch from a few hundred thousand rupiahs to five million rupiahs.  To be honest, porcupines do not look very huggable.  They look like hamsters, two to three times as big as a hamster.  They mate like hamsters and you can feed them with dry food that is made for cats or dogs.  For the pregnant ones, worms and insects are recommended (the TV anchor did not seem to have an issue handling worms, but not the porcupines).  Every month, you should brush their backs with a toothbrush and shampoo, …

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Diary

Bizarre Drivers, All In A Day

Evening at SLE

I don’t know which is more hilarious.  The huge lorry with a speed limit sticker of 60km/h traveling at the speed limit of 90 km/h on the rightmost fast lane.  Or the taxi driver behind me kept on high-beaming asking – I suppose – the lorry in front of my car to move away.  We are not suppose to do more than 90 km/h anyway.  And I have no clue if lorries nowadays are allowed to do more than what their stickers behind indicate.  More hilariously, the electronic signal board above said: Heavy vehicles keep left.  The three of us followed each other for quite some time.  I moved off the fast lane because the lane on my right was finally empty.  The lorry driver must be angry because even after overtaking the slower vehicles, he still stayed onto the fast lane.  And the taxi driver must be furious that he could not speed.  Hence, the incessant high beaming.  People should learn to chill out.

Early Morning Prior to Entering CTE

OK.  This is common in Singapore.  But still, since I feel very passionate toward this, it is hence worth mentioning.  One driver cut into my lane, without signaling.  Later on, cut back to her lane, also without signaling.  I don’t know how other drivers can do this.  Personally I feel very uncomfortable not to signal before changing directions.  I am unsure if this is due to some being extremely self-centered.  If so, we have quite a lot of self-centered drivers in Singapore.

Early Morning on CTE

I have seen this on our highways before.  But what the ambulance did was quite uncommon.

The traffic was heavy.  But cars were still moving along.  From my rear mirror, I vaguely saw a blinking ambulance.  In fact, I saw two.  I quickly moved out of the fast lane like I always do and the drivers on the slower lane in general give way.  Because it is, after all, an emergency.  This red BMW was hogging the fast lane, moving quite slow indeed.  In fact, I on the slower lane managed to pull away from the ambulance.  The first ambulance grew impatience, moved onto the slower lane attempt to – I suppose – undertake.  Now, there was an ambulance on the fast lane still stuck behind the red BMW.  And there was another ambulance on my lane.  Which lane shall I move?  I moved back onto the fast lane and the two ambulances disappeared from my rear mirror soon after.  Still stuck behind the traffic.

There is a joke in Singapore.  It goes something like this.  If you need to go to a hospital fast, call a taxi instead.

Early Morning on ECP

Every working day, after dropping Cynthia off at the city center, I take a quiet highway to my office at the east.  Most of the time, it is a pleasant drive.  The traffic is smooth and thanks to the frequent police operations on ECP, most cars do try to keep to the speed limit.  More or less.  Once in a while, I do come across drivers who like to waver, reckless dashing in and out of gaps.  It’s no big deal.  But this morning, I have seen the most aggressive lane wavering from not one, but two cars racing on our highway, in broad daylight.  It was so aggressive that even the F1 stewards would frown.  I feel sad about this of course.  Give our highways some love and respect please!

Early Morning on a Quiet Road Near Expo

This morning, I took my car for a compulsory inspection.  On my way back to my office, at a quiet junction near Expo, I saw a right turning taxi nearly banged onto an incoming motorbike and an incoming taxi.  Lots of honking, of course.  I pity the biker.  It must be quite a scary moment.  Are we the impatience ones?  Or are we lacking the skill to judge the speed of the vehicles?  I think it is a bit of both.

Early Evening on ECP

Massive jam from my office to town.  It must have been an accident.  True enough.  Not just one, but two.  Both incidents were on the fast lane.  The cars involved were badly damaged.  Such a rather quiet highway going against the flow of traffic in this hour, it is hard to imagine accidents to occur.

While most drivers were moving patiently through the near standstill traffic, one white Lexus behind me together with another white car cut from lanes to lanes and finally sped away via the road shoulder.  In places like Malaysia, it is a common scene.  But here in Singapore, it is always unseen of.  Rather shocking, really.  No one drives on the road shoulder.  These youngsters looked like they were friends.  The other day, on the radio, the DJs reported that young drivers contribute more to road accidents in Singapore.  They tend to be more reckless and have this-won’t-happen-to-me attitude.  I sincerely hope that the DJs are wrong.

On a Happier Note

Today is Friday.  Next week I am on leave.  It was a crazy and busy day at work.  But our team had a drinking session at Harry’s (Changi), blessed by our boss who is on an overseas trip.  I left my bag in the bar.  Fortunately, this is Singapore.  My bag was safe and sound, stored away by the staffs awaiting for my return.  I took the opportunity to bring Cynthia to Changi and see where I work.  We had our dinner at Harry’s, watched the squash championship final on TV (I love to play squash), and listened to Class 95 on our way back.  It was “Viva Forever” on radio.  For just a brief moment, Spice Girls brought back good memory, erasing the stress I saw on the road today.

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Diary

Highway, Go Away!

This is the view from my window.  In the year of 2011.  Far ahead is the reservoir, and the country club.  We love this view.  We love our home.  By year 2020, there will be a new highway – North-South Expressway – smacked right in front of our home.  More than 800 square meters of our condo is going to be acquired by the government.  Freehold or not, it doesn’t matter.  We don’t own our land in perpetually.  Screw this.  I know which party not to vote in this coming election.

It is somewhat depressing, of course.  For years, people living up north have put up with the highest cost of traveling.  I have to drive through three ERP gantries (our version of manual-electronic toll system) to go to work in the city via CTE.  And two ERP gantries to return home.  Is CTE congested?  To be totally objective, the rest of the highways during peak hours are just as congested.  It is hard to imagine that in a small country like Singapore, we need so much space for cars.  If our government is seriously thinking of building more roads to solve the traffic situation, I would propose building more cycling lanes.  Perhaps covered cycling lanes.  But wait.  We do have a system in place to limit the number of cars on the road.  What happens to that?  Our government really needs to drop the mindset that building highways is a mean to make money.  There are only that many cars we can accommodate in our city center, regardless of how many highways we have and how smooth they are.  I am not sure if the government has thought about that.

It seems rather coincidental that on this somewhat depressing day, I am being assigned to help out a wealth management project.  It is the content that strikes me.  What is my dream?  How do I envisage my home to be?  What about my family?  Looking at the content, I daydreamed at work.  I think by 2020, I shall move out of my beloved home, away from that highway, which I have not signed up for.  A home that I thought I would happily retire in.  Once that thought of a new home got seeded into my head, the next question is: How do I get there?

All of a sudden, I feel as though I am back into the money making mode (a rather debt free life kind of soften you, I reckon).  Maybe I do need to demand a promotion and a pay rise.  Maybe I do need to hunt for a job or a role that has a better career progression path.

When I was young, my father in Hong Kong used to tell me that outside our home was the harbor, where he was used to fish.  Along came the land reclamation and a highway built right next to our apartment.  Then came the noise, and the pollution.  I left Hong Kong because I prefer somewhere less crowded.  Looks like I am back to square one.

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Diary Travel Blog

Bandung Chronicle – Part 4 Of 6

This is the fourth installment of the chronicle, a journal of my year end trip to Bandung at 500 words per piece.

… the humming got louder and louder.  All of a sudden, there was cracking sound from different directions, like the humming of the bees – cracking sound that sounded very human, incoherently human.  I woke up sitting straight, grasping for breathe.  The galloping sound was on my face and soon I realized: it was praying time for the Muslims.  The sound came from many speakers nearby.

Next morning, over breakfast, mom (my mother-in-law) told me that her house is surrounded by at least five mosques.  Each mosque has someone or a group of people singing with devotion and conviction, starting at 4 in the morning, five times a day, all on different tunes, different prayers.  Such conviction so very early in the morning.  A fierce competition due to the proximity of the mosques and the ever growing power of the electronic speakers?

One special evening, I slept through the 4 am morning prayer.  Next morning, I blurted out in excitement, “Did they oversleep this morning?” Mom broke down in a paroxysm of hilarity and said, “They never oversleep!”

Edit: After I returned to Singapore, I shared my experience with my Indian colleague.  He told me that in Egypt, there was used to be mosques broadcasting prayers just like what Bandung does today.  Soon, the Egyptian government felt that it was not appropriate to have different mosques broadcasting different prayers jamming the ‘air wave’ in that manner.  Since it is even more inappropriate to ask her people to stop praying, they have an Imam – one who has a very divine voice as I can imagine – to lead the prayer on a local radio.  And the mosques simply tune in during their praying session.  Personally, I think this is a jolly good idea.  I shall write to SBY again.

8. Children, They Orbit

“Cynthia had a fun time trying to catch Felicia for a family photo.  Their mother, Julie, also had a fun time trying to get Nathaniel to stand still.”

When children are young, before they can walk, we the adults orbit around them.  As soon as they learn how to walk, then run, they orbit around us.  Round and round and round non-stop.  They laugh, giggle, fall down, get back up, and continue the orbiting ritual.  That was exactly what I saw when Cynthia and I met our niece and nephew – Felicia and Nathaniel.

It is quite impossible to catch Felicia.  She keeps on running and running.  I think she will make many boys go crazy when she grows up.  Nathaniel on the other hand is relatively calm and steady.  He is like a boss, commanding this and commanding that.  Tidak boleh (means cannot), he would say.  His elder sister would follow.  Soon, the entire time spent with them is full of tidak boleh.  He does not move as much as his elder sister.  One time, he took up an exercise book and asked, ini apa (what is this)?  I would say, seven wheels.  Ini apa? Ten oranges.  Ini apa? Three houses.  It went on and on until mom and Cynthia turned and asked, …

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Diary Travel Blog

Bandung Chronicle – Part 3 of 6

And the chronicle continues, onto its third installment, with 500 words per piece.

… and form a city beautification initiative.  I am not sure what natural resources Bandung has, but I would put tourism and perhaps a regional business hub as a top priority.  In my Bandung, trash would be cleared out before the dawn breaks, water would be gushing into the households of my beloved citizens, streets would be nicely paved, a new monorail transport system would be built, the entire road grid would be revamped, the sky would be blue, and the air would smell clean.  New conventional centers would be built near to the new International airport, and there would be a new stadium for International stars such as Taylor Swift and Ayumi Hamasaki, sport events such as ice hockey.  On top of the Bandung hill (in which a new cable car network would be built), I shall have my new residency as a visionary celebrity mayor.  On the ground floor, a Olympic size swimming pool, and on the second floor supported by marble pillars over the pool, a living hall large enough to hold a little rock concert of my own.

Dust, so much dust stirs up on the streets.  I wonder if others would share the same dream as I do.

“This is the garden of my mother-in-law’s house. Quite definitely the best maintained garden in the neighborhood.”

6. Melinjo

To eat a melinjo, often cooked in a soup, you first peel away the softer exterior that is mostly red in color.  At times orange, and at times green.  The second layer is a hard shell that is slightly trickier to remove.  The reward is a white flesh no larger than a typical antibiotic pill that is slightly chewy and upon consumed, leaves a slightly bitter aftertaste.  In Sundanese, it is called tangkil.  Melinjo or tangkil is a key ingredient in making a special type of cracker called emping, which is one of Indonesian’s favorite snacks.  It should come as no surprise that emping, like the melinjo, too leaves a slightly bitter aftertaste.  Mom likes to cook soup with melinjo.  It always takes me a long time to consume them.  Because I prefer using my teeth to my hands.  Cynthia and mom would look at me, amused.  Like I look at my Indian friends eating noodle not using chopsticks, amused.

When asked if she is a Chinese, a Sundanese, or a Javanese, Cynthia would pick Sundanese.  I can understand the dilemma.  Most Indonesian Chinese after generations of (forcefully) abandoning their Chinese names and leaving behind their Chinese tradition find it hard to associate themselves as Chinese.  Whoever born in Java is, I suppose, a Javanese.  But in Bandung, people speak Sundanese.  It is like the people in Barcelona prefer to speak Catalan to Spanish.   No doubt, Cynthia may feel closer to Sundanese than to Javanese, closer to Javanese than to, say, Chinese.

7. Humming of the Bees

One night, I was sleeping.  It was pitch dark when I started hearing the humming of the bees.  I thought I was dreaming as …

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Diary Silly Me

Hard Disk On Fire!

PS. Thanks for your messages through Facebook, SMS, IM, and even phone calls.  Miraculously, my computer is still alive and kicking.  I will try to address all your questions at one go.  This post also serves as a community reminder that a computer is an electronic appliance that if left unattended can be a fire hazard.

Today I work from home.  In fact, the doctor asked me to rest for two days.  But since the supposed drowsy medicine has yet to knock me off my feet and since workload is manageable, why not respond to work related queries while recovering from my flu?

This morning, the air conditioning was off.  Because the weather was (and still is) nice and cool.  And if this global cooling is to continue, I fully embrace the change with open arms.  This morning, while working with my desktop, I detected some burning smell.  Our condominium is currently under another round of renovation so I thought the smell came from outside.  Soon, I saw smoke rising from between my legs!  White dense smoke.  I thought to myself, “Woah, this is no good!”  I bent down like Beckham, relying on my then semi-defunct olfactory capability (due to semi-blocked nose) to sniff out where the problem lied.  It is a jungle down there.  I have so many wires and transformers and since my computer was still working, it did not occur to me that my computer was on fire.

But it was.

Besides the fancy blue neon light emitting from the fans of my computer, through the transparent panel, I saw a burning flame!  Like a tea-light you see on the table when you take out your partner for a romantic dinner, except, the flame was upside down.  It was surreal.  Something was burning inside my computer but it was still working.  Like a beast that suddenly sensed real danger, my heartbeat went up.  The first thing I did was to properly shutdown my computer.  And then I thought, “This is taking too long!”  I switched off the main power (in retrospect, that should have been the first thing I did but hey, aren’t we all programmed to shutdown the computer properly since the good old days of Windows 95?), tried my best to take out the screws of the casing in record time, and when I came face to face with the naked flame, I give it a huge blow.  Fortunately it went off on first attempt.  When I took out the hard disk – with my oven glove – I saw a charred body as seen in the photo above.  Bones would have loved to see it.  You can’t quite see clearly in this picture.  Half of the disk was burned.  Miraculously, the rest of my computer seems to be working fine.  I have my data resided in a Network Attached Server (like a home file server) as well as a hot backup external hard disk, so I was not that concerned about the loss of data.  However, the thought of a computer catching fire is scary.

I am not sure how many of you have this habit of leaving your computer on, unattended.  I certain do.  But I don’t think I will any more.

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Here are the answers to some of the frequently asked questions.

Has this happened to you before?

Not exactly.  But one time, I saw sparks coming from the computer’s transformer, smelt the smoke.  The power was tripped and there was no fire.

Do you have a surge protected power extension?

Yes I do.

Was there lightning?

The sky was bright.  Only after the fire incident, raindrops started falling from the sky moaning over the death of my hard disk.

Were you gaming?

Oh please.  I was working from home, nursing my mild flu!

Have you called an electrician to check the power usage?

I took one of my friends’ suggestion and called for our in-house “electrician” or rather our condo’s handy man.  Mind you, he was the one who dug his entire arm into one of our drainage pipes and fished out debris when the pipe was blocked.  A very hands-on man, I must say.  He did some very basic inspection and concluded that since the power was not tripped, the fire incident is an isolated problem.

How many hard disks have you stacked together?

Three in total.  In retrospect, I could have spread the disks further apart.  It is one lesson learned.

How was the airflow inside your computer?

6 fans are still in working condition, including the blue neon light coming from the fans.

What brand is the hard disk?

Western Digital.  Not sure if it has to do with the brand.  If so, I am in deep yogurt because all my hard disks are made by WD.

What have you learned from this incident?

Technology hates me.  Time and time again.