Disastrous

I still remember i was in the middle of translating FORSEL's donation proposals when i read the heartbreaking news about Mount Merapi's huge deposits eruption. My heart swirled as i kept updating the news through MetroTV. Ya Allah...the situation was exceedingly spine-chilling. I'm not planning to review the horrific situation reported by the media all over the world here. Solely watching or reading the news, then we can sense the whole fear the disaster caused. 

[Source : somewhere at social networking site]

I spent almost half day panicking because i was unable to contact my family. Everyone seems completely forgot to charge their cellphones' battery or just left them elsewhere; not my father, my mother, nor my brother-sisters, including my sister-in-law. *Sigh. Finally around midday, i was able to get in touch with my sister. She told me about the whole horrors happened there and how horrible the situation in the neighborhood was. "Ini parah banget, Mbak. Sampai sekarang masih hujan abu. Mana tadi malam hujan deras, jadi abu bercampur dengan air dan semuanya berlumpur", she sounded very anxious. At 4pm, i can finally speak to my father. He said, all family members were heading to Jakarta. "Mamamu sudah di Jakarta sejak beberapa hari yang lalu. She always has a good hunch. Tante Pitmu bahkan sudah di Pontianak", he mentioned. "Mbah Kung dan Bulikmu itu lho yang susah sekali diajak mengungsi. Papa sudah ingatkan terus. Tapi tetap saja mereka belum mau bergerak", he added in such an uneasy utterance. WHATTT??? My aunt's house is in SAWANGAN which is only 15 km away from Mount Merapi. While my grandfather's house is located 18 km away, only 3 km from aunt's house. My father has done his best to pick them up this very early morning, headed to their places, but came back empty-handed. He wanted to wait for them but my other aunt who lives in Jakarta kept telling him to move to the west as soon as possible. "Kau usah nak macam-macam, Jal. Cepatlah ke sitok. Kau tak ingat ke iye bencana di Danau Toba, lengis semue. Tak ade manusie agik", my father tried to express his older sister's concerns to me. That's why he decided to do as she said. I'm guessing they are still on the way until now. Ya Allah, please protect everyone....

Then, when i was also checking up my-hard-to-explain-blood-unrelated other uncle, Pakdhe Fahmi, whether he has evacuated, he replied my text like this "Pakdhe dan Budhe sedang di Banjarnegara. Bapak dan adik ipar Budhe wafat. Do'akan husnul khatimah. Pakdhe tidak ingin hijrah ke tempat lain kecuali sidratul muntaha liqaullah". Hauuuu....i was failed to stop my tears running down from my eyes after read his text messages. Ya Allah....Ya Allah...lindungilah saudara-saudara hamba dari mara bahaya....

The Precious One

I love being organized, in everything. At home, i always be the one who responsible for the spick-and-span thingy. When i went home, i'm glad after found my sister, Citra, already replaced me for that home duty (*errr...kind of =p). Related to preserving memories, i always documenting everything as well, mostly doing scrap booking and picture taking. When the era changed, i realized that i'm no longer an avid scrapper. Pictures are the only visual representation of objects i've photographed in order to stop a moment from running away.

Addressing about picture taking, it can't be separated from the device to take it, the camera. My very first personal camera was Pentax ESPIO AF Zoom. I remember my cousin bought it for me from Bundesrepublik Deutschland as a birthday present (Hmmm...i guess she found it at the flohmarkt in Berlin or Frankfurt). The Espio is still somewhere at home. 

[Source : http://www.flickr.com/photos/93694546@N00/4380199683/]

Honestly, i'm not really that into technical photography stuff, considering i merely taking pictures as records. But of course, i have my own taste in the objects i'm targeting. Well, since i got The Espio, i'm getting more devoted in archiving my life's milestone through my camera lens. 

In connection with this post, the precious one that i implied is this picture :

I'm completely in love with this old days picture of mine. I hang this picture in my room and always giggles every time i look at it. The picture was taken when my brother was still 6 months old and i was three years old back then. It was in Jakarta, at Tante's house. My face looked very tense because we were sat on the wall. It was very high, i recalled. I was holding my blue balloon on my left hand while my father was tightly holding my brother on his stomach. The funny thing is, even though in the picture my brother's face seemed fine, he was scared to death. Thus, he was grabbing my skirt until my pants was disclosed [censored-unseen]. Haghaghag...such a scaredy-cat.

Sadly, after i'm leaving for Taiwan, this picture's frame glass was broken and the fungus was successfully invaded in. Hence, it became moldy. I was devastated after found it severely damaged :((. Moreover, I never have its negative film. I've tried to bring it to the photo studio to get it fixed, but after came to 5 different places, all of them said it couldn't be fixed. *Sigh. Luckily, my father took a snapshot of this picture before it was damaged. Well, despite the fact that he only took it with his cellphone's camera, at least i can still see it. This occurrence made me even more cautious in preserving my treasure.

Saman Dance

It's over, at last. Glad and relieved, that's what i feel. Two weeks practicing for the sake of performing in the International Festival at campus, has paid. Despite the mess on one of the Saman dancer's costume and the mistakes we've made during the performance, i can proudly say that we've SUCCEEDED. Alhamdulillah...alhamdulillah :).

Recalling last year's International Festival which also presented this what so-called dance of a thousand hands, i can crystal clearly compare the differences; extra dancers, extra energy, more tricky moves, more complicated to set the practice time and extra bruises caused by fatal mistakes of dancers' moves. Xixixi. But all in all, this year's Saman was AWESOME \m/!!! This is from us to you, Indonesia....

Check out this video to see our performance and sing along with us ;)) :

P.S : Thank you very much to Laskar Tainan for lending us the Saman costumes^^.