The Night With Professor Shiller and Great Depression

It have not been easy for people who live in some parts of Jakarta on these past days with floods and restless nights. I may not particularly suffer from this annual tragedy, but my heart goes with all who does. 

Speaking about catastrophe, I recently read the article written by the 2013 Nobel laureate in economics, Professor Robert J. Shiller from Yale University : What Good Are Economists? 

I put some excerpts here : ..Indeed, economists failed to forecast most of the major crises in the last century, including the severe 1920-21 slump, the 1980-82 back-to-back recessions, and the worst of them all, the Great Depression after the 1929 stock-market crash. But this criticism is unfair. We do not blame physicians for failing to predict all of our illnesses. Our maladies are largely random, and even if our doctors cannot tell us which ones we will have in the next year..

I recommend you all to read the rest of it directly on the Project Syndicate's page here.

After finishing the article, I randomly browsed about Douglas Irwin and his published works about Great Depression. Interestingly, I ended up looking through pictures I found along the way while surfing the world wide web. Picture does speaks louder than words. 

Take a look by yourself. I got it all from Google.

Was this real?!

Bankrupt investor Walter Thornton tries to sell his luxury car in New York following the 1929 stock market crash (Source : The Guardian)

Thanks to Professor Shiller, now let me open my Niall Ferguson's The Cash Nexus again.

Behavioral law : Why we should talk about it deeper than before

So it was true. 

When we try to start doing things all over again, after long hiatuses or pauses, we outrageously bias about how, when, and where to start. In my case, thanks to Professor Robert H. Frank from Johnson School of Management, Cornell University, after reading the introduction to his Economic Naturalist's book, I decided to start writing my Paradigmafifa's blog again. Why? Professor Frank's simple approach to questioning the reasons behind everyday-human-behaviour, has intellectually seduced me to think deeper about it. About human, about their natural egoism, about their ambition for goals and other things that mostly valued in terms of money, about law as a means to an end, and also about me: as what I tend to believe myself 'an irrational human.' 

My interest at the behavioral economics/finance has long been started from the moment where I encountered Professor Shiller's (Yale University) video on Youtube. He famously known for his research about behavioral finance, the knowledge that brought him winning the Nobel Prize in Economics, back in 2013 (just last year). Before that, I also learned to read piece of stories about the financial crisis in 2008, from where I learned that the most certain thing in life, is the uncertainty." In other words, "uncertainty is the only thing that we must be certain about." 

Let me give one true example : In his highly praised book, 'Too Big to Fail,' Andrew Ross Sorkin provided us with complete explanations back to the doomsdays  for Wall Street bankers in 2008. In the beginning, he showed the readers about how Richard S. Fuld, Jr, the chairman of Lehman Brothers, shouted confidently, "who says we're going bankrupt?" just hours before the company did so. Human may predict the incoming situation, but did they have 100% assurance about how big or small their prediction will be about to happen?

If we all were growing up knowing that the financial system is something that we can learn and predict and then solve, I do think for now, no one (should) buy that myth anymore. We can't be so sure about something that lies far from our reach. What I see more important within this system, in a place where human races into each other to get more and accomplish more than anyone else is: the importance of law and its effect to the system. 

The basic concept of my conclusion is that, 'human tends to react freely when there is no law.' In reality, nobody knows where the law is. Do not tell that 'law is where the police officers are standing,' because those officers could be just symbol for the law institution where they work and got paid to stand all day in a street or some small kiosk in this country. Growing numbers of high rank police officers who got convicted for corruptions or any other crimes, proving that law does not always lies with the enforcer(s). They all are human, they all are irrationals too. 

So I keep questioning again : If law is too abstract, then how could we rely on the law as a system to abolish crimes and human wrongdoings? 

I propose one suggestion : Make law openly. This is such a joke for many of us, I am pretty sure about that, but there's no harm in suggesting crazy ideas to the societies. Especially when the crazyness comes from the idea to make life better :)

Humans are:

Egoist, 

Competitive,

Ambitious,

...and many other million adjective words we could identify ourselves with.

but,

Humans also are :

Craving for acceptance,

Acknowledgement,

Friends,

Loyalty,

...and other reason that simply explain  'human is a human in the end.'

We need to enter the era where legal system should be openly well-connected with two other important systems in our daily life : economy and financial systems. Think about this : 

When governors or the leader of provinces commited to crime (corruption, as we're talking about Indonesia in general,) they hadn't only violated their promises to the people they serve (violating public law), but also hurting the area's development process (by corrupting the money which intendedly allocated for that matter). The possibility for the impact of this wrongdoing is much farther than that. By witnessing this, foreign investors could withdraw their bid for investing in the area, when they found out that the leader and the cronies are involved in the unhealthy scheme of public money embezzlement (where on the other hand, we know that investment will generate more income to the country).  

We should no longer classify law only as wide as 'criminal law' or 'civil law' or 'economic analysis of law,' and many other law studies' distinctions we could find in most law schools. Since they all deal with human, there should be more emphasis on analyzing the humans as the DO-ers inside the system. 

More deep research needed to answer the questions such as : why do human tend to corrupt or commit to economic crime when they are in power? Is it because the system give them the opportunity to do that or the human quality is simply devalues moral and trust? Should we blame the system which were made by other humans? Then how we should perceive law as a means to an end?

Until then, we should not define law as a means to an end, because so far, it is still become an end in itself.

On Writing and Being an International Correspondent, William Langewiesche

William Langewiesche - International Correspondent
of Vanity Fair

 (From Media Bistro´s interview with the American writer):

I, being young and naive myself, left my job and began to fly airplanes and to write, always writing. I wrote a bunch of stuff that was not published, and I continued to struggle. My goal was never to become a pilot. My goal was to, well, become exactly what I am now, interestingly enough. I failed at that for many years, but I was lucky because I had a skill which allowed me to stay dry when it rained.

I knew that there was this magazine world in New York, with lots of slick magazines, and I knew that I did not want write for those guys, so I never approached them. I thought I would rather fly airplanes than do that. I dont know why I had a strong aversion to it. I wanted to write serious stuff, long stuff, not fast stuff. I wanted to write with quality, both quality of thought and literary quality, and I knew I could not do that in that world.

One of the reasons my writing was not good enough when I was 25 years old was that my thinking was not good enough. One of the reasons my thinking was not good enough was that I was not old enough. I did not have enough experience. Why would a reader, a mature reader, an intelligent reader want to read the work of a 25-year-old at least on serious subjects? 

I try to understand what I´m seeing. There´s a stage I go through when I´m rubbing my eyes, and I can´t understand this world that I´m in now. I feel like I dont understand anything. I cant see anything. I start asking questions, and then I very much listen to people. I listen to people very carefully. When I´m on the ground, I´m working anywhere from 12 to 16 hours a day.

Writing is thinking. Writing is a form of thought. 

The real work is not done in places like Kinshasa or on the ground. The real work is done outside. What you are doing on the ground is trying to provide yourself with the resources  necessary to think about the subject clearly later on.

For complete interview, here.

I´ve killed my TV

Manifesto 2010 (Source: Google)

Ever since I began to live in another part of the globe until I went back home with new perspective in life (including months allocated for reasonable hiatuses of thought), I´ve killed my TV. 

No kidding, I own none of that boxes since I finished college (2010), and never want to have it back in my life, again. Not that I dont want to correspond with the world through moving pictures, reportages, or a seemingly infinite number of fake faces, but I just have fallen in love deeper than ever to the world wide web. Plus, I take lots (more) advantages from the internet. 

I found the breaking news about some major world headlines (Bin Laden´s assasination, Assange´s hide and seek story on Ecuador´s embassy in London, or Kim K´s stupid-fake-days of marriage drama) from the internet first, not TV. Sorry for classifying Kardashian´s ironic incident to ´major world headlines,´ folks!

So sorry television. Sorry Philo Farnsworth.

But then what happened yesterday afternoon, was somehow revealing the long-time broken relations between me and the TV. Oh no, wait, it´s the media!

Short story: I went back to my place around 3pm, and a dorm-mate of mine greeted me with minutes of chit-chats about random stuffs. Then she invited me to come to her room where she had her TV on, showing us the infotainment (that´s how they call ´the show about the show off celebrities´) with the grand topic of the day : ¨The life of Jakarta´s Socialites Women.¨

First, I dont have any personal issue with social butterflies named ´socialites´ whatsoever. Well in truth, I had never even cared about their existence. In my opinion, even Margherita Missoni is indeed just a same human like another woman, like me. Well, we´re speaking about the very basic composition of human being, don´t we?

What strikes me the most from the show was nothing but one thing only: The overbearing pride evidenced by a superior manner from those 30 (or 40)-something self-acclaimed socialites. By telling the stories about how they regularly have ´arisan´ every month with 10 millions rupiah obligated to pay by each member (they have 30 members, fyi), or their love for diamonds, for the love of God, and their picture perfect brouhaha yacht private party in north Jakarta (Ancol) where these women amuse themselves with their laughs and never ending camera flashes on their sailor look alike costumes. 

Then here comes the ´important´ part of the show. The socialites stories about millions of millions prices of Hermes bags they bought, Chanel earings they purchased while vacationing in Paris, their Charlotte Olympia´s heels, and of course, their prideness for being a wife of public sector executives or business tycoons.

Sometimes it only takes a few seconds to hate a person. To label that person with such personal name like ´a total loser,´ ´a pain in the ass,´ et cetera, et cetera. 

For me, it´s way beyond that cheesy comments. It´s all about the missing link between the TV and the media provider. I  know there are different layers/segments of audiences out there in the real entertainment world. There are those who love news and news only, or those with tissue for tears during their TV series´ night time. Or those with sports and stuffs, and other more of them.

I think what I´d like to emphasize here, is as same as the statement I found on ´Freunde von Freunden´ journal: 

¨Immersion, interactivity, integration, impact, as discussed by media scholars and philosophers such as Vilem Flusser, Alexander Kluge and Niklas Luhmann since the last 60s, non-linear storytelling through hypermedia emphasized the reader´s role in the process of media consumption.¨

The role of storytelling, I believe is the most important role of TV media. There´s a thing called responsibility in an action of providing civil society with educating, curating the right words of choice for the show, because at some point most of the people would be weak in choosing. What they see is what they get in mind. And please, do not forget kids and their immitating acts. 

Showing the world about the abundance of wealth possesed by some spesific groups of people, is not a sin. In fact, I agree, it´s what information is all about. To spread words about the real pictures in life. 

Yes there are those who live with less than 2 dollars, and yes there are those who could spend 10.000 dollars for a day. It´s something we should realize and simply just accept the fact like the way it is. Not big deal.

But, what I would like to say to the TV media is nothing like a shallow critic from someone who live with freelance fee (ehem). Here´s what I want to say:

¨Dear media tycoons. With your money, with your strong ties to the ruling government, with your love for profits, with your power to reach talented talents around this country, with your ´act like you care for developments´ through your corporate social responsibility, and with your time for political participation in various parties, please try (even if it´s hard) to be your very own smart editor. Please curate your show. There are thousands-millions even-creative people in this world who´d love to work on that field (smart media movement). If you can´t help yourself from trashing people with trashy entertainments, just think of your kids and their future. At least.¨

Until then, I´ll be okay with no TV.

On Character and Temprament

¨Personality is composed of two fundamentally different types of traits: those of ‘character;’ and those of ‘temperament.’ Your character traits stem from your experiences. Your childhood games; your family’s interests and values; how people in your community express love and hate; what relatives and friends regard as courteous or perilous; how those around you worship; what they sing; when they laugh; how they make a living and relax: innumerable cultural forces build your unique set of character traits. The balance of your personality is your temperament, all the biologically based tendencies that contribute to your consistent patterns of feeling, thinking and behaving. As Spanish philosopher, Jose Ortega y Gasset, put it, ‘I am, plus my circumstances.’ Temperament is the ‘I am,’ the foundation of who you are.¨ - Helen Fisher, in This Will Make You Smarter : New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking.

Quote of the day

George Whitman, Paris (Source: The New Yorker)

¨Be not inhospitable to strangers / Lest they be angels in disguise.¨ George Whitman

Have You Ever Seen the Rain in This Town?

I let the wind pass me when I entered the coffee shop on the corner of Ovalo Guiterrez, minutes after I took off the bus with the red and white stripes written next to its name, Orion. My plan has changed and I felt little bit wicked about it but I feel wicked all the time, so I constantly feel terribly just fine thereafter. It was raining last night and when I walked out my building around six a.m, I thanked God for letting me bring my grey jumper. My grey jumper with navy blue embroidery accents placed right in the middle, formed the six letters city name: OREGON. I have never been to that city and haven´t think nor had imagine myself being there. And now I cant remember what was the reason for me to buy this jumper back when I was in Indonesia, couple years ago. But I dont consider ´reasoning´ as a vital aspect of buying things. Plus, I rarely buy things lately other than the things I eat. And the only reason why I eat is because I have to keep living. Let´s stop on that.

Some people say a cup of freshly ground coffee is what it takes to get people moving in, starting a day, a brand new day after last night´s fight with their lover, or mistress, or their one-night-stand´s partner, or their ex partner, or just themselves. I fought a lot with myself, like last night when I was irritated by my own mind. She said I should have become that twenty three years old female who should spend money on having fun, go to the party or just have a drink or two while watching live band play jazzy tunes at La Noche, the club where once I went with some Peruvians I had just met during my first month in Peru. Now I dont even remember any bit of that place. I just can´t picture myself in there, I just simply cant and why should I try to? All I wanna do right now is to take a deep breath, start sippin´ my black coffee and keep writing.

Today is today and tomorrow is a brand new day. What happened to yesterday? Why I feel so dark and dull when I think about the time that has passed? I become super romantic whenever I start to look back on memories, probably because they all died in my mind but live in my heart. And I´m a romantic at heart. How useless I would be if I keep writing when the sky ask me to go out and see how different Lima within a rainy day like this. Raining is not for Lima and I could start telling you how many times I have been here and watching over the poured water mingling mystifyingly. It wouldn´t take more than 5 fingers. In fact, they never came more than once in a month. I think it´s hard to be a romantic person in this city. Probably that´s why: The rain is just never want to come. Which is annoying, for me.

What´s the story morning glory?

I woke up this morning with one thought and one thought only: Damn. It´s February already. What would be the story? I dont know. Another same story? Another same question? I dont know. How to make it different? How?

Photo by Julian Bialowas. Check out his super inspiring project: 365q

Perseverance

That´s like my very voice within. Never Never Give Up! 

I just read the old post from my favourite ¨slap-me-on-my-face-motivational-site¨ Chris Guillebeau´s ¨The Art of Non Conformity,¨ with the title called ¨Ever Feel Like Giving Up?¨ To that question, I really wanna scream one thing and one thing only : YEAAAHH!!!! 

There were certain times in my life when I feel like I just wanna cry and do nothing else but keep crying. Just try to release my emotional feelings at that moment, and wish for all bad moods and sentiments will be gone away. And after that I would see my stupid face on the mirror, tired of all the efforts I´ve made on crying, yet satisfied afterwards. At least I think, I´m satisfied. But apparently solving problems by let it just go like that (by crying) and  then try to remember that tomorrow is a brand new day is not always good (my personal opinion). I recently started to believe that I dont like setting myself to just let some things off from my radar and pretend like ¨Oh c´mon there would be next time, next day, next stop, chill!¨

I learn to say these words to myself over and over again: ¨Remember, learning how to solve problem is taking yourself one step closer to what we call ´maturity.´ Do you wanna be that better human being with better personality? Or you just wanna get older by age not by its maturity in life?¨ 

Regarding to my weakness on tackling-solving problems immediately, Guillebeau´s article reminds me of one word that answer all of those worries of mine. Perseverance. 

I will wholefully copy-paste things about ¨perseverance¨ from this website. Feel free to see directly from the source site or here. It is very meaningful for me and hopefully would always remind us all about how important it is to have commitment and being hard to ourselves (for spesific reason). 

Before we jump on the copy-paste article, I wanna put Dale Carnegie´s quote here that suddenly remind me of one person and his inspiring biography by Walter Isaacson: 

¨Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no help at all.¨

Oh all the misfits and the rebels (and the drop-outs?)

Two months blogging break and question about broken life

Okay I got it. 

The last time I wrote a piece on my blog was....... three years ago? Oh no wait, it was two months ago. Several times I pledged to learn how to write consistently excellent along with finding out about how to improve SEO, while in fact I proved the other way around. I became inactive in a social world, not only on blogging but also Twitter and even Facebook (Did I just make Facebook sounds like taking shower?) I pretend like the real world is much more important than this thing inside my laptop. I have started this ´I-need-privacy´ life. No facebook status updates, no tweets other than links I provided people to click on to, and other than that, I have become an observer, 24/7 reader, and a passive entity in this social connected era.

I used to be a conversationalist. Well I think I was. I loved to talk and share perspectives with others, I actively engaged in several discussions with my friends from college, or random new people I met on new places. In a shorter words: I opened myself for everybody. But now, I think I am not the person I used to be. One of the reason, probably, because lately I have realized that I was one of those people who were mentioned on Susan Cain´s ´based on-sixth-years-research´ book called Quite, as ¨The introvert who pretend to be the extrovert.¨

Do I really enjoy being around people? Make them laugh, share stories, taking pictures and show the world how content I am as a twenty three years old woman. Or actually the whole ´being with friends´ were just only my way in order to get myself labelled as a fun-to be-with person? A way to get myself acknowledged by the society around me. Do I really that demanding with my social life even though deep down inside I have started to believe that my life is all about me and my own journey? The experiences I embrace, the lessons I learn along the way, the exquisite natural beauty crafted in my personal view, the positive marks I leave for others, the impact I create, the spirituality I found deep within me, and so on, and so on, until I believe, in life, nothing else matter.

Back to what Susan Cain mentioned on her book about ´the extrovert and the introvert,´ I keep thinking about the word over and over again. Pretending. It may sound stupid for some people to read these following statement, but I just wanna tell everybody that I even opened several tabs looking for the definition of the word ´Pretend.´ Here are the following meaning I found on Dictionary.com:

pretend [pri-tend]

1. to cause or attempt to cause (what is not so) to seem so;

2. to appear falsely, as to deceive;

3. to make believe;

4. to presume;

5. to allege or profess, especially insincerely or falsely;

6. to make pretensions.

Do I pretending my life away? What´s the matter with being radical honest within society that seems wanting us to be ´a person with million friends?´ When was the last time I told friend that I dont like the way she/he talks to me? I think, I have never said that because I was afraid to do so. I was not brave enough to tell to someone straight to her/his face about something that I dont like from them, profoundly because: I was afraid to be that person. I was afraid to hurt their feelings, I was afraid to be hated. I was afraid to have someone who would ended up talk behind my back about how rude I was. The main point is: I was too afraid to be an honest person.

There is this great point I read on Amber Rae´s post on her Tumblr, titled ¨Cut the Bullshit: Radical honesty, living naked, and the lies we tell ourselves,¨ 

¨In order to have authentic relationships with others, we first need to have more radically honest relationships with ourselves.¨

I need to be honest to myself first in order to have authentic relationships with others. That´s probably the main reason why I feel lately like I have broken relationships with almost everyone. A friend who never give any response to my facebook message, or another friend who seems to take some space from me, and other sentimental feelings I have to others. Now I realize those worries are not my main problems. The real task for me is to define who I really am, to be honest to myself, to have a two way communication with my inner space. To become my very own best friend, to find a peaceful life. To find a peace deep within me. To know what is peace and to learn more about how to achieve it. 

Two months have passed since my last post about diplomacy, another global affairs issue on my blog. I wouldn´t stop writing about that, since that is one of my interests in life. But together with my effort to learn about what´s happening outside, I also ask myself to look and carefully learn what lies inside. To have an honest relationship with myself. To be honest of who I really I am and what I really want in life. To be who I really want to be. And the most important of all: To overcome the fear of being alone. It is so okay to be alone. 

Pretending is so last centuries :)

Diplomacy? What is Diplomacy Now?

Questioning ´Diplomacy´ and its existence in contemporary global political order

China will tell you what it is.

For Beijing, it is more than what Ernst Gellner wrote on his masterpiece ¨Nations and Nationalism,¨ where he mentioned the term as something inseparable from a powerful political force. Diplomacy for Chinese is not through political approach, but more into its economic stance towards global order, or in a constelation of what Yale´s scholar Immanuel Wallerstein called as ¨The Modern World System.¨

When it comes to negotiation, China only has two things to say: FOLLOW ME, and seems like they already have many followers who will never be able to say (referring to twitterland) Follow Me Back. Thanks to its ability to stand strong among the global economy crisis and the continuing strength of its currency, has made economist even jokingly calculated that a year in Chinese time is equivalent to five years anywhere else . They are clearly unbeatable. Clearly.

No wonder, lately, I believe Chinese understand the idiom ¨Vini, Vidi, Vici¨ (I came, I saw, I conquered) more than the real Romans.

Apparently, when it comes to ´diplomacy,´ the use of this word are just too demanding for China. Just like now, when the never-ending disputes of South China Sea (SCS) appear and raise another tension again among its claimants (Vietnam, Philliphines, Malaysia, and Brunei), China has made it very clear that they will always be stony-hearted on this issue, even if they announced the other way around.

Henceforth, before the East Asia Summit in Bali, China´s Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin confidently asserted that disputes in the South China Sea should be resolved between the ´parties concerned´ bilaterally. This short statement, according to former secretary-Ministry of External Affairs of India, RS Kalha, showing that, clearly, China little did realize how isolated they had become in this issue.

In fact, for other claimants, this case is too severe to be solved under bilateral and so-called diplomatic way. But so far, Chinese still hold the remote control. They know how to act and when is the right time to.

Remembering Howard Zinn 1922-2010

¨I´m worried that students will take their obedient place in society and look to become succesful cogs in the wheel - let the wheel spin them around as it wants without taking a look at what they´re doing. I´m concerned that students not become passive acceptors of the official doctrine that´s handed down to them from the media, textbooks, teachers, and preachers...¨

Howard Zinn

The Art of Being Patient

Today is the 34th days of my arrival back home after nine months or so lived my life in far far away land. I came back one exact day before my 23rd birthday, and I feel relieved when my mom´s face was the first thing I saw at the airport´s arrival gate on August 15th, 2011. I realized how much I´ve missed her right at that moment, and we cried a bit, and then the next day I had my birthday (with no party of course, since I ain´t no like that stuff), and met my closest friends in life, had so much fun in town, then days passed and my best best girl friend married two days ago, and now here I am.

Time has passed. No more ´being on the rocky road´ with every signs popped out and available to choose, freely. The risks was on my hand, to go or not to go, to take or not to take, ultimate freedom. 

One thing I love from being a traveller is, I feel honoured to have the ability to choose with no other people involved in this part. I met people from different side of the universe with totally different ways to see how their life should go, but we´re all linked by one fact: We´re in the road, so be unite, let´s walk and observe the place, go together and laugh about life. We´re all trying to put aside reality and simply just travel.

But when it´s time to come back home, the other way around facing us (well in this case, me).

Feels Like Travel Back Time

Old couch in living room, hot tea with lemonade, magazine bought in Schipol´s transit, iPod played Teddy Picker by Artic Monkeys.

Aahhh.... Home!

Les Cayes in Portraits

Five pictures from short visit to Les Cayes, Haiti, December 2010.

I miss the moments.

The view from our front seat bus, on the way from Port au Prince to Les Cayes

The ´traffic´, Haiti style

The hidden beauty

In the middle of traditional market, on the way to Port Salud

The kids we met in Port Salud

Experience, travel, these are as education in themselves- Euripides.

I´m Connecting the Dots.

I am home.

Which road to go now? Oh, this is home already.

Nothing could beat the feeling of hugging mom deeply after nine months being away from her. Tears and joys collide into one another. I am happy, yes, but apparently it is not as easy as I thought before. Seriously it is not.

Before I decided to come back to Indonesia, some considerations appeared in my mind. Staying abroad, in my case was Lima, was definetely one of my best experience in life, ever. It was not only about being free because I lived by myself and made my own decision with no one involved on it. Heck no, it was way beyond that -post high school´s euphoria- reason. These reasons was the explanations why it was not easy to convinced myself : ¨Yes, now it´s time to go back to Indonesia!¨

Nine months living and learning  a lot while I was staying around South America, I had found the real me, the real part of me in which I was never aware that had been living inside of me.

I never admitted myself as a selfish and spoiled person. Back at that moments before I departed to Lima (November 2010), I identified myself as a super independent young woman. I had faith in me and my future, and I could say now actually that faith was such missing in a hole. The way I looked at others was very judgementals. I see diversities as something that I have to hide myself from, even though I supported multiculturalism. When I believe that something is right and the other is wrong, so I would tell to myself that I was right and people with the opposite´s perspectives were wrong.

I was very narrow minded, judged book by it´s cover, and… idiot.

El Trenta y Nueve Dias

I believe it is official now. Ayunda Afifa is such a faineant blogger. 39 days since my last post on June 29th about my sister, I haven´t post-write-draft anything at all. I could picture the dissapointment in the Blog´s God face, since we all (blogger) know and fully agree on the importance of ´day-to-day´ blogging.

Hear..Hear... :´(

In the first place, I would like to apologize for not being your trustworthy blogger. 

I have reason anyway (legally speaking, I defend myself now, ha!)

In case you haven´t know, I lost my laptop. My best friend since 2007, the thing where I undeniably commited my brain capacity into, where I saved my multimedia collections (my burger´s game, the one that released me from ´writing-thesis-self crisis´ was also part of it, remember!!), from which I learned how to type faster than when I was still using PC in my house (now you can tell I´m pretty fast on typing, ehm), and the gadget from where I befriended with many 21st century´s human invention (yeah, Zuckerberg, you named it), has faithfully gone with the wind. 

I felt irritated, frustrated, and degraded by the fact that I wouldn´t be able to write regularly like I used to do with my ACER´s laptop. But worst of all was I felt threatened by my own insecurities. The first week after I lost it, I kinda felt empty. in other words, I lost myself. I lost the way I used to fulfilled my passion in writing and paraphrase my perspectives into words. Sounds too much? It is personal feelings, I guess. It is not only about ¨losing laptop-which-you could simply just buy another one and type on it¨, but it is more into the historical values I had with my old laptop. 

Dear my Acer-super weird-laptop, I hope you feel happy now wherever you are. I miss you so much. I miss yelling at you when you couldn´t work effectively (the hundreds of errors that happened to you). I miss looking at you and thinking about the old days where I spent hours sitting-composing words-for my thesis. I miss the uncertain feelings whether to sell and replace you or not.

Rest in Peace, love. Even if you´re not dead yet, please, stay whoever you are. Stay error, the price that the stealer have to pay ;)

I am planning to write about several things this week, including the US debt woes (from my super amateur perspective, for sureeee) and my short visit to Chile. Later on, no more lazy blogger here!!!

Love from Lima,

Ayunda Afifa

DSK : '09 & '11

NEWSWEEK December 7, 2009:

"Today the storm has passed. The worst has been avoided." - Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the International Monetary Fund's managing director, speaking about the economic crisis at the Confederation of British Industry's annual conference in London.

THE GUARDIAN June 17, 2011:

"I have diplomatic immunity." - Dominique Strauss-Kahn told the police shortly after he was detained in New York on accusations he tried to rape a hotel maid.

"Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it but you can use it. You can't keep it but you can spend it. Once you've lost it you can never get it back." Quote by Harvey MacKay.

FAIR ENOUGH, huh?

The Buddhist Monk's Quote

Sunday, 3:08pm.

Another gloomy day in Lima and it seriously has turned my mood up's and down lately. Aggh.

I have story to tell. Almost one month ago, I met for the very first time with Annie Driscoll, a girl from DC. We met in Ayacucho airport before we took the small bus to go to Alcamenca district for our social works together.

Annie came and in a very short time we became friend and talked about many things. Within 2 weeks, I recognized her as one of the most positive person on earth because of her attitudes, the way she looks on life, and she also helped me to think from different perspectives about many things. She simply left very nice impressions on me about her and I hope everything will always good with her and her family in DC.

When she came, she brought a book written by Jacqueline Novogratz-the founder of Acumen Fund, titled "The Blue Sweater". It took me only several days to finish the book and one word to say after I completed it was: AWESOME.

Novogratz's life is something that probably many young people would be willing to trade off with. Travelled to Africa, became a representative of international organization, been here-there-and everywhere, worked with locals and learned the language, and the most special thing was: She had the time of her life. She made the most of her journeys.

Steve Jobs says...

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinion drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what they truly want you become. Everything else is secondary." -Steve Jobs-