Thursday, August 5th: Campus in the morning to attend Dipo's presentation, where he was more or less slaughtered by the examiners. Another reason to be grateful that I had it easy on mine, moreso because we took on similar topics and got asked the same questions.
From there it was on to a celebratory lunch at Sop Konro Karebosi way up in Kelapa Gading, in which me and Jamal ended up partially footing the bill with Dipo as part of our initial arrangement (Ardian backed out, citing "lack of funds"). Then it was all the way to Depok again - ah, the responsibilities of being a guy with a ride. But oh well, what goes around comes around: after nine years or so of always being dependent of others for transportation, I guess it's my turn to drive everyone around.
Friday, August 6th: Was going to attend Septi's presentation in the morning, but I got up late and wasn't keen on dealing with the traffic. Several hours later, I got a call from Avie, asking if I was going to head to Depok because Septi was going to treat us to pizza. I said, "Yeah, I'll be on my way soon. Why?" She said they needed an extra ride. D'oh! But eventually they went there ahead because they were too hungry to wait for me to get to campus first.
After lunch, went back to campus and hung out with Avie, Ardian and Jamal. We talked about vacation plans for our class and the possibility (futility?) of realising them, bearing in mind our historically low collective success ratio of actually getting something off the ground. And then talk shifted to that old standby topic, namely love and all of its little complications. A topic that never gets old, especially when you're young, single and insecure.
Our talk eventually revolved around a rather unusual sight: two girls sitting closely next to each other, and a guy sitting about two feet to their right. The guy and the girl nearest to him faced straight ahead, and took turns in talking to some imaginary conversation partner right in from of them. Then it dawned on us: the guy and girl were actually talking to
each other. In ordinary circumstances, I'd consider this a freak show, but they were dressed in pious Muslim attire. Presumably, this was their way of getting past that pesky "no interacting with unrelated members of the opposite sex" rule. I've lived in Saudi Arabia, where they divide restaurant seating into "Men" and "Family" sections, but even I found this taking it a wee bit over the edge. Oh well, we all do what we can to avoid what we consider to be wrong.
Also stopped by Aquarius Pondok Indah to peruse (and write down - even when I'm relaxing I'm working) the latest releases. Went upstairs to the DVD section, and holy crap! Tons of new music DVDs had just arrived, a good deal of which were quite desirable. Normally whenever this happens, I just make note of what I want, wait until my next paycheck, and hope that no one's snatched it up before I get there again. But in this case, I just couldn't resist. After much deliberation, I went with
Later...with Jools Holland: Cool Britannia. FYI,
Later... is a long-running British music show hosted by the afore-mentioned former Squeeze keyboardist, in which an eclectic bunch of acts from various eras and genres are gathered together per episode. A typical line-up could run something like The Darkness, Moloko, The Thrills, Simply Red, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Sam Brown.
Anyway, as the title suggests, this particular DVD collects performances by a number of cool British acts who've appeared on the show over the years. Previously I'd already bought the first installment of the
Later... DVD series (
10 Years of...), but this one was way more appealing, because: a. it consisted almost entirely of no-brainer bands that I like (Ash, Blur, Coldplay, Doves, Embrace, Franz Ferdinand, Keane, Manic Street Preachers, Oasis, Pulp, Radiohead, Starsailor, Suede, Super Furry Animals, Supergrass, The Darkness, The Libertines, The Verve, Travis); b. I'm not really interested in old fogeys and world music. There are several other DVDs in the series, but if it comes down to it, I think I'll only go for
Louder, because it supposedly rocks.
So that's my big non-comics purchase of the month then. Hopefully the next time I get there with a decent amount of dough, what I want (and that's a lot) will still be available.
Saturday, August 7th: I hate Saturdays. To be more precise, I hate Saturday morning/afternoons when I have to get out of the house. It's a weekend, so theoretically it's supposed to be more relaxing than weekdays, right? On the contrary, I find that they're even more stressful than weekdays. From Monday to Friday, you expect traffic to be lousy and for it to take you ages to get anywhere. Saturdays are supposed to be easier to navigate through, but they're not.
Case in point: today I had to drive the parents to a wedding. I am very reluctant to leave the house between 9 and 12 o'clock, because all I have to do is look out the window at the gridlock and go straight back to bed. As it so happens, today's wedding was at one, so at least traffic would have eased up slightly by the time we left home. And ease up it did...for about a quarter of the way through. Then it was the type of traffic that induces road rage, compounded by Dad's insistence on telling me that I had to keep the turn signal on at all times if I wanted to change lanes. And then Mum 2 forgot the exact way to the venue, and I was just about ready to flip out.
But then we got there, after about an hour and a half on the road. After exchanging pleasantries with the happy couple, I stepped outside and returned to the car because I couldn't stand the obnoxiously loud volume of the dangdut wedding band. Then Dad and Mum 2 promptly followed, also due to that damn band. Total amount of time spent there? About 20 minutes. And then it was straight off home. The lengths people go to in order to honour invitations...
