Pageant: Miss Universe

It’s kind of late but I can’t help to give a comment about this beauty contest. It’s entertaining to watch Miss Universe on TV because we can see full of smiling beautiful woman with brain and beautiful dress, off course. Top 5 have been announced. I don’t know how the jury picked them. Let’s accepted it. The top 5 finalists are Miss Paraguay, Switzerland, USA, Japan, and Puerto Rico.

Here are my comments:

• Miss Switzerland: She’s so European with that blonde hair and blue eyes. She looks like Nordic gal. You know Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, and others. Truly a European beauty. If she wear white gown maybe we can see Snow White :). Thing make her appealing is the red gown she wore. Good choice to her. She’s confident and look a little bit snobbish. It’s not a problem. A beauty smart gal usually looks snobbish. I don’t care.
  

• Miss Paraguay: I don’t thing she’s confident. Because every time the MC announces her name as top 20 then top 5, she looks surprise. As if her shock expression tells us, “Oh My God! I’m in!! I can’t believe it. Why me? I don’t like that big green gown she wore. The motif is too big. It’s just like she wear a bedsheet. There’s no elegancy and grace. Plus she wears big green ear rings. Oh my God, who is responsible for her wardrobe? Good point on her is she’s the tallest of all 5 contestants.

• Miss Japan: She’s so confident and friendly. She has a gut to say to the audiences how happy she was on that stage. She looks free without any pressure. I can’t believe Asian gal can be stood out among those western gals. That’s make her the most appealing gal on the stage. I’m impressed when she wears national dress with samurai on the hand. Give her more power.

• Miss USA: I couldn’t find any prominent thing on her. She’s beautiful, blonde, nice teeth and smile, but it’s so so to me. Maybe it’s because her hair is not as long as the other contestants. Because long hair make the girl more feminine, more elegance, and more beauty. That’s what Miss Universe need for (I mean, beside brain, presentation is important, right?). I think the dress design is not too good. The good thing is she’s the one who can speak English well :).
  

• Miss Puerto Rico: Fantastic dress!! The wire style all over the dress makes her look elegance and glamour. That’s definitely boosting her appearance up even though her face is not that beautiful. She answered the question fine.

I thought Miss Japan will be the winner but I’m happy Puerto Rico won the crown. Maybe the world (sponsor, exactly) is not ready to choose Asian as the fairest one.
Unfortunately, Indonesian delegation hasn’t passed the top 20. Well, maybe we blew it out this time. But we still have 5000 way to win the contest :) :). Just wait and see.

Loud Speaker for Identity Crisis

I don’t know who started or when it starts first, there’s something occurred in my place which is personally not acceptable to me. I know some of you wouldn’t understand what I’m talking about because this is certainly a local customs or manners issue. As Balinese Hinduism, we have several ritual/ceremony for God that is performed in different time among us. It depends on place and time based on Hinduism calendar.

The situation I regret is when a group of people usually one big family held a ritual, they set loud speaker in their house to air chanting or something to do with ritual music stuff.

WHAT THE POINT WITH THAT??
Looking for attention is the point, I guess.
Some of us follow something that is not suitable for our sake. It looks silly to me. In Mosque, there’s a loudspeaker to remind Muslim to perform ritual prayers. Using loudspeaker still make sense because at that specific time, every Muslim in this planet is praying. And now a group of Balinese people implant loudspeaker too, who they gonna remain but their own selves in radius about 20 m? Beside in Mosque (this is the important part), they stake the loudspeaker in the highest place of the building (the Mosque mostly is a big building) so the sound come out from loudspeaker will not interrupt the neighbors.

Back to this ignorance people, if we stake the loudspeaker in the ordinary house, which is usually small to medium building, it certainly annoying the neighbors. After all, sometimes the loudspeaker still on air at midnight, the time we should have rest.
Why should we need people attention when we’re connecting to God? God ritual is internal need not external need. It would be the same as a people who told everyone how generous he was after giving money to the poor. There’s no spiritual essence left.

The bottom line is I think we’ve through an identity crisis here. If I comfort to my self I won’t do such thing to attract people attention especially in a silly way. Moreover we have to be selfish by airing high decibel sound that could injure people ears. Sound from a close loudspeaker certainly is not the same as home theatre or orchestra. Thanks God, none of my big family member proposes to set loudspeaker for our God ritual. Fiuhhhh...

Anyway, this is not a religion matter but merely a customs issue. I hope this customs will not become a trend. We supposed to be wiser to think and act and never let pride or ego spoiled us.

Last movie watched: The Machinist
(Gosh, Christian Bale just likes escaping from Nazi Concentration Camp! The rib, jaw, and back bone stood out. Ewww... Dark movie but bring us a lesson to bad deed we might done. Just an inspiration thought, if I could have more weight maybe I look better ^_^)

Self Healing

Doctor in my office clinic said I got positive Dengue Fever symptoms. She found petechia (a small red or purple spot on the body, caused by a minor hemorrhage) on my arms, I feel severe headache and nausea. She told me to perform blood test in the hospital.

It was busy time on that day. I don’t have any breakfast and I just recovered from flu. That is why I feel headache and nausea. So... the best way to get rest is go to the clinic. Damn, I should eat something before go to work. It’s too late to eat. I need rest. And finally... I have that shocking news. But weird thing is my blood pressure is good, my body temperature is fine (no fever), and no pain in joint or muscular. I told her I’ve got flu in the past seven days.

I was a little bit stress not because of Dengue Fever that could possibly make me lay down hopelessly accompanied with intravenous fluids in one of hospital bedroom (since I don’t believe what doctor said). But I was stress of Blood Testing!!! They will suck my blood! They will stick needle right through my vessel blood! It must hurt. What if the nurse is inexperience so she will stick me several times. Arrrggghh....

Why should I end this day by having blood testing? :(
When I entered emergency room, every time the nurse wants to stick the needle to my arm, I said “hold on, please...” and sigh. It happened twice. I know it started irritated her and she said “Just close you eyes, okay. Make a fist!”. My God!! What should I do? Hiks, my eyes glistened. Ok, take whatever you want, blood sucking.

Well...apparently, it doesn’t hurt that bad. He he he... like ant bite. I feel like a dumb. Forgive me for my ignorance. After waiting for 15 minutes, doctor said my blood status is good. My platelets (thrombocytes) are 200.000 per mm3. A normal platelet count in a healthy person is between 150,000 and 400,000 per mm³ of blood. He gave me vitamin (Imunos) and I can go home free. What about the petechia, headache, and nausea? He diagnosed I was recovered from Dengue Fever. My brain and body need lots of nutrition. Take a rest, drink a lot, and eat a lot.

It just funny, show time of my dengue fever should be the “fever it self” not the “recovery”. Whether it is misdiagnosed or not, I am grateful. As I said before, only the body's immune system can effectively destroy the virus. Doctor/hospital just gives you vitamin or paracetamol to reduce the symptoms and intravenous fluids to prevent dehydration. That’s it.
Lesson learned I got is eat and drink a lot after recovering from illness. Give appreciation to your body after having hard battle. And don't wait till you feel hungry.
I feel like a vampire for this couple day. Every time I got a little dizzy, I will find sweet drink as soon as possible. I prefer drinking than eating to supply nutrition. It needs less effort and time.

Last movie watched: Brokeback Mountain (After reading the short story, I want to watch the movie again)

Are You A Philistine?

I was going to buy The Machinist DVD, unfortunately the attendant couldn’t find it. Then my eyes were directed to DVD titled The Squid and The Whale”. I remember one of Josh Hartnett movie’s related to something with “Whale” so I grab the DVD and there’s no name of my fav actor added to it. Wrong DVD! Anyway, I bought it because Roeper & Ebert said “Two Thumbs Up!!” :) Beside, this movie won Golden Globe Award.
Thing make me interesting about this movie is one quote that sound cool:
“Are You A Philistine?”
According to this movie, a Philistine is described as a guy who doesn't care about books or interesting films.

I never imagine two hobbies that seem unrelated each other apparently lead to one direction which is culture. And they create a term for people who don’t have/like this hobbies combination. So it must be bunch of people out there that we can include them as culture or uncultured man by knowing his/her hobby.
Maybe we can make a quiz:
Quizzer : “Do you like to watch movie?”
Victim : Nope!
Quizzer : “Do you like to read book?”
Victim : Nope!
Quizzer : “OK,You’re a barbarian.”

Am I a philistine ? :)
As far as I can see, ...I seldom go to the Cinema (cineplex 21) when a box office movie is released. My budget just reaches for DVD level :). I don’t have thousands of DVDs collection. But I do realize movie is a great amusement in a way. Lots of thing you can learn from movie.
I feel excited to scrap of plastic wrapper of book I just bought from book store then feel how beautiful the cover design (it will enrich the color of my book pile). I feel excited to read the first page that would plunge you into a certain imagination. Though, I don’t finish reading some of the books. I guess because of wrong book choosing.

Speaking of book, I just found E. Annie Proulx’s short story!! Can you guess the title? Yes!! It’s Brokeback Mountain. Wow, long long way from America, there’s an Indonesian publisher from nowhere care to translate this short story then distribute to a tiny place in the planet called Bali and coincidentally found by me. No matter how many times I watch the movie (10 times I guess), it still breathtaking after reading the story. I cried.

Last movie watched: The Squid and The Whale (duh)

Drugs Jargon

An employee in my office talked about how miserable she was when attacked by chicken pox. It hasn’t spread all over the body yet but fatigue, pain, tiredness mix into one. She continued talk about the medicine she used and make sure we buy one if we had chicken pox. She said it was very effective. I can’t even remember the name of the medicine. Gone with the Wind. I’m too blind for this thing. I remember long time ago, when I had fever, a friend told me to buy Paracetamol. What is it? Is it a drug name or trade name?

However, there’s an explanation for my medicine ignorance.

I’m a person who believes in self healing. When flu, cold, or fever attacks you, just let them go. I don’t go to the doctor or use any drug (even generic drug that can be easily found in the store). Drug just reduces the symptom. Only the body's immune system can effectively destroy the invader. Drink hot tea or soup to heat your body so that the virus growth slow down and the body can produce mass production of antibodies faster.

I visited doctor once when I was in college. I wanna go home so I thought by having doctor prescription, there’s a reason to go home. Unfortunately, after having my med/drug I feel better on the next morning. I even wash my hair to get cold but it doesn’t work. One of the employees in my former company said I’m skinny, eat below human standard, but very seldom got sick.

As we getting older (hiks hiks), I knew we can’t have fit body all the time. Iron touch by oxygen will make it rusty. Human body absorbs oxygen for metabolism will make it older. On November 2005, I have flu and I guess the worst flu ever. I can’t work, I have migraine, and I feel heat on my chest. It never happened before. Avian influenza was hot news that attacks our country on that time. Kind of worry so I decided to go to the doctor. Thanks God it was just an ordinary flu. :) Fiuhh... relieve...

Anyway, after hearing the story about that chicken pox med, maybe it’s time to care about drug jargon. There’s nothing to lose. What’s the different betwen aspirin, paracetamol (acetaminophen), and ibuprofen. Which one is drug name and which one is trade name. What drug is supposed to be used when we got sick. At least you keep on track when people talking about medicine/drug. If you have no experience it doesn’t mean to be allowed to know nothing.

Last movie watched: X-Men II
(Kind of curious because someone said X-Men II is the best episode of X-Men movie. I don’t impress. LOTR still #1. It is the best visual effect movie ever combines with its great story)