The Umpteenth Journal Attempt

I haven't graduated university. Maybe I could've been out of there by now had I been a better student, but there's no point in regretting the past, is there? Truth be told, I've hated the educational process since high school, and when I do graduate, I'm not sure going straight for the masters' degree is what I want to do. And it's not like graduating quickly is a sure-fire guarantee of unemployment, as several of my friends will attest to. I'm fine as I am. Sure, I wish I were out of here right now, but the reality is that day won't be until several months from now. There's no point in worrying about it, so it's better to just shut up and do what needs to be done to get there.

Now, what bugs the shit out of me regarding this situation is, well, being bugged about not having graduated. Especially by my dad. I bloody hate it when he (and others) look around at other people my age who have finished school and are currently living the corporate drone life they've always dreamed of. (Not that there's anything wrong with being a corporate drone.) The reasons for my delay are multiple; some are entirely my fault, some were caused by circumstances beyond my control, all of them are not worth dwelling upon. My dad says he feels "mental pressure" whenever people ask him why I'm still in school. How does he think I feel whenever people ask me the same question directly? It's no barrel of laughs, but once again, it's no use if I let it get to me. If I'm not that agitated about, why should he be? (Yes, he pays the fees, but he's said that that's not the problem. My tuition has been relatively on the cheap side.)

What also bugs me is that he keeps saying I should quit my work, because there's no way to get my final assignment done with all those other distractions. First, he's retired and I need money to buy stuff that'll keep me from trying to off myself from sheer boredom. Second, he keeps underlining that he says what he says based on his experience. Well, his experience isn't necessarily my experience. He might think it's impossible, but I don't think so. He keeps mentioning how sweet it'll be when I graduate because I poured all my time and energy into it. Well, I keep thinking of how sweet it'll be when I graduate in spite of holding on to my jobs. I'll show him. I'll show everyone.

A mostly unevenful day. Well it did rain down like hell, but luckily that didn't last long. Went to the comic shop and then it was on to Aquarius to peruse the latest product. Bumped into none other than Eross, Adam and Sakti from Sheila On 7. On numerous occasions, there've been famous people whenever I'm there, but I usually just leave them alone and pretend not to notice, haha. But in this case, considering I just saw them yesterday and they probably remembered, I said hi and gave 'em a few purchasing tips. Tried to get 'em to buy the Ben Folds Five The Complete Sessions At West 54th DVD, but to no avail. Eross in particular was thinking of buying the Bjork Family Tree box set, but the weighty price tag - plus the fact that he already had several DVDs in his arms - made him balk a bit. After the brief hesitation - plus a little goading from yours truly - he eventually shelled out. Good to see that even one of the most succesful songwriters in Indonesia today still thinks twice when he's about to blow a hole in his wallet. I think there's a lesson to be learnt here somewhere...

On the drive to campus this morning, I listened to half of the second volume of Forty Licks. Much more enjoyable, and more representative of the type of music I typically associate with The Rolling Stones. 'Start Me Up', 'Brown Sugar'...aces.

After campus, made my way (with Maggie and Fitri along for the ride) to the Hard Rock Cafe for a press conference: the launch of Sheila On 7's soundtrack to the movie 30 Hari Mencari Cinta in conjunction with this new-fangled mobile phone gizmo that sponsored the album (and probably the movie, too; I haven't seen it). To be honest, the only reason I was there was to enhance relations with Sony Music's reps, so I can drop by their offices and pick up some freebies. And the (excellent) free food and drink, of course. And maybe get a glimpse of the movie's lovely leading ladies. Who didn't show up. Drats.

But guess who did show up? As I was signing in at the press table and making small talk with the label reps, I suddenly heard a rather squeaky male voice exclaiming, "What the hell are you doing here?" and a miniscule, male frame trying to shove me over (before you get your mind in the gutter, I came to the male frame conclusion because of the voice. Perverts.). It was Yoga, and as it turns out, he was one of the guys behind the mobile phone thingy. You can read his take on things here. Ooh, crossover!

As for me, the tech talk just flew over my head, so I can just ask Yoga to explain things to me in dummy terms. When Sheila On 7 came down to talk about the album, I wasn't that eager to ask, as I didn't really have any good questions that nobody else would've thought up. But given the usual idiocy of the media when it comes to decent music journalism, I ended up asking anyway. And then there was the quiz part, where the prize was a starter pack for the mobile thingy. I decided to give it a shot and won, which wasn't too hard for anyone paying even a miniscule shred of attention to proceedings. Finished things off with getting their autographs. Well I had the CD in hand, so I might as well...

From there, me and Maggie went on to djakarta, making the usual pit stop at Duta Suara. A day or two earlier, me and Yoga had been talking about Ryan Adams. Turn back time a bit earlier. Cue Yoga asking me if Adams' latest album, Rock N Roll, was going to be released here. If it wasn't, he was keen on getting the import. I said I had no idea, and started to consider buying it myself, having seen the album a while back. I'd read the hype and interviews, but hadn't yet been moved into purchasing. Eventually I just bought it, since I had the dough and didn't have anything better to spend it on. I don't know if Yoga ended up buying it too. Cue to last Saturday, and Yoga sent a text, saying that the album had just been released locally on CD and cassette. One of those "D'oh!" moments. (Incidentally, if you go to Adams' website now, there's a cute little mention of this release.) Anyway, Yoga mentioned something about getting drawn into the hype for Love Is Hell, Adams' album which was held back by the record company for being "too depressing". I didn't give much thought about it, but when I saw Love Is Hell Part 2 at Duta Suara...let's just say I got sucked in, too. Another one of those "Geez, maybe I'd better snap that up while I'm here and have money" purchases. Gonna look for Part 1 soon...

- Went to campus for the first time in, like, a month. Got the transcript for last semester, thankfully I passed all subjects. So it's full speed ahead for graduation this semester...well, it'd better be, otherwise six years will have gone down the bloody drain...

- Saw The Last Samurai. Since I'm no fan of period dramas, I wasn't really looking forward to this. But I enjoyed it; just enough humour in it to make the endless babbling of honour bearable, plus some pretty awesome battle scenes. Was surprised that Tom Cruise didn't get to schtup that Japanese chick. It was practically on the cards, but the closest he got to any action of a non-Samurai sense was when she helped him dress (though I admit that scene was pretty sensual).

- Bought Rage Against The Machine's Live At The Grand Olympic Auditorium again, this time on CD. Unlike the recent Red Hot Chili Peppers CD purchase, I hadn't lost the Rage tape (though I'll eventually pass it on to someone). It was just a case of getting around to something I figured worth getting on CD, and having the dough with which to get it. Of course, the album rocks like a bastard. Too bad Zack "Laughing Boy" de la Rocha couldn't see the funny side of his bass player making a monkey (literally) out of himself in public. Ah well. Quit while you're on top, and all that. Speaking of which...

- "Beatles or Stones?" is one of those eternal debates. I've been a Beatles guy since '95, mainly because I've never listened to the Stones in depth. Having been heavily into Jet for the past few weeks, I finally got around to listening to the Forty Licks compilation that's been gathering dust for over a year. I've only heard the first part so far, but from what I can tell, the odds are still in the Beatles' favour. I dunno, I guess they're just more my style than the Stones. And they can really sing, as opposed to Mick Jagger's constant struggle to stay in tune. I guess a few more listens are in order, so I can understand what the big deal is. But I don't think I'll end up collecting their albums, as enticing as the re-issues are. I've had my fill of tracking down albums and spending oodles of cash during my Beach Boys obsession days.

- After going several weeks without a California lasagna, I finally decided to just buy it myself. I bought two boxes, for good measure. Turns out, when I got home, Mum had already bought four. Ah well, no complaints. Since the household help's on vacation, we're going to have to be more self-sufficient anyway. Did the dishes, and for some reason found myself enjoying it. Not that I aspire to be a dish-washer; heck, I don't think anyone does. But if given a choice of household chores, I'll go for the dishes. As long as they don't have tomato ketchup, chili sauce or mayonnaise smeared all over them, that is. Ewww.

- Consultation service was resumed after the regular Patient was out of town for the weekend. For some reason, the Patient saw fit to compare my English speaking skills to her (Indonesian) teacher, and insisted I communicate only in English with her from now on, in order to prove myself. Needless to say, I showed her what's what. Apparently she doesn't read this blog...

All day at home, mostly sleeping. Later on I realised that it's a bad thing to be out of the campus loop for an extended period of time, as I tend to be unaware of things. Case in point: payment for this semester. In 11 semesters, I've never been late, but apparently my record has been tarnished, eheheh. Bah, gotta pay a fine. Well at least it's still under a million rupiahs...

Just some quickie updates for the past few days, so as not to have it all pile up and end up with me abandoning this journal out of laziness (which is how I came up with the title, y'know):

- Thursday evening/Friday morning: Did some work but figured there was no way I was going to get it all done in that state of mind, so me and Halief went to Plaza Senayan for the first time in, like, months. Hung out at Coffee Bean with the Malesbanget guys until closing time, and a spur-of-the-moment decision led to a late-night karaoke session which ended sometime around 2 a.m. Of course I still had to get my overdue work done, so when we finally got home (just before 4), I went straight to work until sometimes around 8.

- Friday: The djakarta! work was done, and all I had to do was the last of the Golf Digest articles. But first I had to get some shut-eye, seeing as my brain was about to explode. Managed to finish at around 3, went to sleep again and woke up in the evening. Around 7, went to Aquarius Pondok Indah to buy the Linkin Park: Live In Texas DVD/CD for Halief's birthday. Had some money left over, so I bought the Phantom Planet: Live At The Troubadour DVD. This is another DVD that falls in the "rather head-scratching" category. Only seven songs, around half of them are from their new album, which at that point hadn't been released yet. I dunno, maybe it was a stop-gap teaser of some sort for fans. Anyway, I bought it because it was quite cheap (which lessens the "rip-off" factor), and their show in Jakarta was one of the most unforgettable gigs of my short concert-going life. Bit of nostalgia there. The DVD featured their new drummer, the replacement for Jason Schwartzman, who left during the recording of their album to become a full-time actor. So far he's made some pretty good movies (I've only seen Rushmore, but he was also in Spun), so if his career really goes nova, I think that autographed album sleeve will be worth quite a bit, plus I'll have something to tell the grandkids...

- Saturday: Spent the daylight hours at home, going nuts on IRC because I really hadn't chatted much for the past week due to work (but for some reason I'm always able to find time to post on the Malesbanget message board or fill in this blog). Gossip aplenty, long chats with Nadya and Tasha...my fingers are aching now. Later on went to dinner with the family as is the usual Fadhol family birthday tradition. Halief had this place in Kemang in mind, but as it turns out it was booked for some occasion, so we ended up in Tamani Kemang instead. Oh well. Very generous portions, except for the beef lasagna, which is what I ordered. Got home in time to catch the end of the first half of Tottenham-Liverpool, but unfortunately the team was having a stinker (especially Igor Biscan) and ended up blowing their good start to this year. The defence was a puzzler: Jamie Carragher and Steve Finnan are fit again, Riise and Otsemobor are also available. So why the hell did Houllier go with Henchoz and Traore as full-backs? Henchoz's not the quickest of players and is more suited at centre-back, while Traore is Traore. They should've just dumped Biscan and Traore, move Henchoz inside, and put in two out of the four other full-backs. Instead, it pretty much caused the loss. It's decisions like this that make me feel guilty about being sympathetic towards Houllier. I'm no manager, but even I could tell that wasn't the ideal defence. No grounds for claiming injury-related weakness. D'oh. In the words of a friend, "Biscan and Traore are Houllier's threesome buddies, that's why they get to play." At least Manchester United lost. To Wolves! Hahaha. Of course, this half-smirk will disappear if Liverpool slip up at Wolves as well.