Merendah, Untuk Meroket?

Litotes. Sebuah majas yang penggunaannya saya rasa nggak asing lagi di kehidupan sehari-hari. Dalam form yang berbeda-beda, kita bisa menebak kalimat tersebut menggunakan majas ini atau tidak. Litotes, majas yang fungsinya untuk menurunkan kualitas sifat atau keadaan sesuatu atau seseorang dari sifat atau keadaan faktualnya. Digunakan biasanya untuk merendah, supaya kesan yang lebih lemah lembut bisa tercapai. Contohnya dalam kalimat kasual:

"Santai aja, walopun duit gue cuman seperak tapi gue mau kok traktir lu pada,"

Seperak dalam kalimat itu nggak berarti duitnya bener-bener satu perak. Ya, mungkin duitnya nggak banyak tapi seengganya cukup buat traktir temen-temennya. Kesan yang dibuat dari kalimat itu jadi terasa lebih nyaman, sehingga si pembicara nggak terkesan mengagungkan hartanya.

But time changes, so do things. Penggunaan litotes sekarang malah jadi ajang buat meroket alias menyombongkan diri. Banyak contoh yang nggak perlu dibahas lagi dan pemakaiannya udah sering digunakan sehari-hari. Beberapa mungkin digunakan dalam konteks bercanda atau gurauan. Tapi gimana kalau konteksnya malah jadi buat 'beneran' meroket? Menurut hemat saya, kalau memang mau meroket ya sekalian aja gunakan kata-kata yang emang apa adanya. Kalau memang sarkastik, ya sarkasme-nya pakai aja jangan tanggung-tanggung. Untuk meroket dengan pernyataan sarkastik aja udah cukup bikin kesal, apalagi pakai litotes. That is very despicable somehow. Dan inilah kenyataannya, litotes udah bukan dipakai untuk menghaluskan atau membuat kesan lebih lembut pada suatu kalimat. Sekarang, litotes udah bisa dipakai buat menyombongkan diri.

"Apaan, aku orang nggak punya,"

Padahal hartanya kebanyakan, sampe garasinya gak cukup buat koleksi mobilnya.

"Aku nggak bisa apa-apa,"

Padahal multi-talented.

Jadi bagaimana seharusnya kita menggunakan majas litotes itu? Dan bagaimana supaya penggunaan majas litotes kita nggak dianggap sebagai 'merendah untuk meroket'? Use it properly. Kalau memang kita punya kelebihan dalam satu atau beberapa hal, maka bersikap transparan aja terhadap kelebihan itu, dengan tetap tidak menyombongkan atau melebih-lebihkan kelebihan yang ada. Kalo memang kita ada kekurangan, ya sudah jangan ditambah pake litotes. Kekurangan yang kita jelaskan pake majas litotes malah bikin kita seolah nyari simpati. Apa adanya saja. Nggak perlu merendah untuk meroket, karena sebuah roket meluncur itu dengan dorongan mesinnya, bukan ditarik dulu ke bawah lalu dipantulkan kayak ketapel.

The Old Man And The Rain

I couldn't remember precisely when did I take this picture but it was taken at Braga street. It was rainy afternoon. I enjoyed coffee time with my brother Izi and our friend, Shady at a cafe. The atmosphere was so soothing that I did not want to leave the place. Else, it still rained so yeah, we got to stay for a while.

Rain stopped gradually and when it became lighter, I walked out and looked around the street. There was an old man riding bicycle toward me. I immediately prepared my camera, set the focus, and (I wished) accurately pressed the shutter button as he passed me by. Got it! I got the picture. The picture looked great and dramatic.

An old man rode his bicycle through the rain, even though the rain was not heavy.

A Stranger Comes, And He Ruins Everything

What the deuce! I think somebody is trying to ruin my family. I don't know what's on his mind but I am pretty sure that shit has fully loaded his mind. So, here I am, grumbling and cursing him to perish away. How can he come into my life and turn good things into bad?

Yesterday, I had free time so I went to nearby mall with my family. My elder sister also joined me. We spent time by having lunch together, buying books, and playing games at arcade. My sister's boyfriend knew about that and guess what, he was so jealous! He behaved extremely weirdly, sent stupid messages to my sister, and made me fed up of him. He said that my sister and I were meant to be. What the hell did he say? I'm her brother and I, of course, cannot marry her! Was he dumb or something? Well in other words, he forbid my sister to go out with other boys, including me, my sister's little brother. It was unbelievable and very irrational that I couldn't stand it anymore and tweeted something sarcastic.

The next day, I checked  my Twitter and he replied my sarcastic tweet. Oh, so he was about to 'murder' me, eh? Not that easy, dude! You do not even belong to my family so who the heck are you to forbid me? You're not my brother, neither my father nor my God. You're just a stranger! I was upset and I sent message to my sister, explaining that I could not stand it anymore. My sister cheered me up and tried to make everything okay. Several hours later, she said that her boyfriend finally understood so the problem was over. Well alright, I wouldn't talk about it anymore with her, but still I could not forget and forgive him, somehow.

And now I do expect him to perish away.

Aromatherapy Bath-Salt

So I was tidying up my bedroom and guess what, what I found this!

Guess what I found! It's a bag of aromatherapy bath-salt. I bought it a year ago at Soaphisticated. Yeah, it should be a very long time ago. I rarely used it due to my daily activities. It still smells good and relaxing, despite the dusty beautiful blue fabric. I forgot the name of smell but it should be rare.

Wondering how to use it? It is not something you can use to scrub your skin. No, it isn't. If you install a bath tub or whirlpool in your bathroom, pour two or three tablespoon of salt into warm water, let it dissolve, and just bathe. Enjoy the smell because the smell is (mostly) relaxing. Soaphisticated sells different fabulous smells of their aromatherapy bath-salt stocks. I've once found a coffee-aroma bath-salt, but I was not very interested so I didn't buy it. They also sell products like goat-milk soap and body scrub. Well I do not know how to use the body scrub, since it's not my thing so I just bought aromatherapy bath-salt.

What makes me interested is, that they pack the salt in a fascinating package. As you can see, they sell the salt, packed inside cute colorful fabrics. So be aware because they do not sell sweets!

Mein Bruder und Mir

So I bet I was (kind of) celebrating my brother's arrival from Singapore. Izi, he unpredictably showed up and made me shout "OMG you're here!". I'm going to skip to the best part. Today, I attended a mini-concert and, yeah, I also performed on the concert. Mein bruder attended the event and watched me with my jiejie and my friends. And you know nothing of him impressed me. I thought there would be something new of him, but he didn't change. Hahaha I saw him as bruder Izi like he used to be.

Izi is the one who sits in my left side, on the picture. He had cut his hair, it looked shorter and I felt a bit weird. As usual, talked about random stupid things but, he spoke English much more fluently. I didn't have difficulty to talk with him in English since he spoke Singaporean English. The topics would never be far from things like musics, stupidities, and he often put rude and slang idioms in his sentences. He did not change, dear spectators.

Well that's all I want to share. Let's say that this post must be short and, it's probably a bit useless. But that's all I want to share. My brother came home from Singapore and he didn't change.

Er ist etwas sengklek und viel kabetrik...

PS:  You might find out the meaning of sengklek and kabetrik in your Sundanese dictionary.

Basketball and Me

Okay, let me count the days since I launched my latest post. Hmm, it must have been a week, or probably a couple days. Then now, I'm thinking what to share. Candies? Chocolates? or DJMAX? Okay, enough. I'm going to tell you a story about me, and basketball.

Hey, I have to tell you from the very start that I am not a basketball player. Yes, I'm not a basketball player. So if you think that I'm a basketball player because I write such a title, you're wrong. I've never really played basketball before. Let's say that I probably have once played basketball, but it wasn't a match or competition. Just trying to shoot the ball and getting the points, well just that. No competition, no regular practice, no team.

I have basketball jerseys. But it doesn't mean that I play basketball. I liked basketball when I was in elementary school. Yeah, I liked it anyway. I preferred basketball to soccer or baseball, and I don't know why I liked it. One day, I heard my jiejie talked about basketball with her friends. Soon I saw a basketball competition and I suddenly felt like I had to buy a basket ball. I didn't have much money at that time so I decided to save money so I could afford a basket ball. It didn't need a long time for me to collect money. I bought it a couple days later. My jiejie's friend taught me how to play basketball well. She showed me how to dribble the ball properly. I started playing by myself. Alone. Shooting the ball, dribbling, I did it alone.

As I grew up, I started being focus on music. I didn't play basketball anymore. Even I didn't do sports, except jogging and swimming. I didn't even understand the rules. I didn't know name of the teams. Talking about basketball, I could only mention these names: Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. That's all. The ring is too tall for me to reach. The ball sometimes bounces too high so I have to jump higher to get it. My opponents are taller than me so I can barely get the ball and shoot. I can't run faster to chase my opponent. I'm not good at playing basketball.

So what's the main point? Hahaha, let me tell you that sometimes, what I dislike today has such a story related to my past. Probably no one knows that I liked basketball, but not today. Today I do not either hate or love basketball. I sometimes watch a basketball competition. and sometimes feel like not going to watch. I sometimes wear basketball trunk and sometimes I don't feel like wearing it to certain places.

It's kind of funny anyway. 

And Finally... Technika 3 Platinum Card

I cannot determine how long I've been addicted to this game, DJMAX Technika. At the first time, I was not really interested in DJMAX. I saw it for the first time at Game Master in Paris van Java. I was very, very addicted to Pump It Up and it was the first version of DJMAX Technika. Else, it spent more credit from your swipecard so-called Power Card. I remember the credit deducted for the first DJMAX Technika was IDR 6,250. So I could only play DJMAX once if I deposit IDR 10,000 to my swipecard. I didn't think to pay that much for one-credit play so I didn't play the game.

One day, DJMAX Technika 2 was released and for the first time I played DJMAX Technika 2, I found it quite difficult to play. I remember I lost the game at the very beginning of the song. It made me feel trolled anyway. Later, I played it again from the easiest mode called Star Mix. Star Mix is similar to Pump It Up's Compact Mode, where the options and song level provided are simpler and easier. After feeling good at playing Star Mix, I tried to play songs in Pop Mix, where the difficulties vastly varied.

I started being addicted when I finally succeed playing songs from Maximum level. I still played DJMAX even though I didn't have the Platinum Card. Platinum Card offers you special advantages such as songs, DJ title, and so on. To play some certain songs, well I had to borrow my friend's Platinum Card. I found it a bit bothering because I couldn't play some certain songs without using the Platinum Card. When I finally decided to buy Technika 2 Platinum Card, a friend of mine suggested me to buying the Technika 3 Platinum Card, instead of the Technika 2. She told me that Pentavision would release Technika 3 as soon as possible.

I've waited Technika 3 for so long until one day I saw Technika 3 at TimeZone. There was a long queue that I was sure I couldn't play. So I just bought the card and waited until other video arcades would have at least one Technika 3. And yeah! Finally Game Master introduced Technika 3 and I was so lucky because there was no one playing Technika 3 when I arrived at Game Master in Cihampelas Walk. So let's say that I was one of the first players of Technika 3 at Game Master in CiWalk. 

Thanks God, I finally got my own Platinum Card...

Photography: Beautiful Dusk

Cuaca yang cerah di sore hari nggak jarang bikin langit sore nampak indah, apalagi kalau cerah berawan ditambah angin sepoy-sepoy. Suasana seperti itu pasti bikin kita nyaman.

Saya dari dulu sampe sekarang memang mengagumi suasana-suasana seperti itu. Pemandangan langit sore menjelang matahari terbenam bikin saya amazed. Cahaya matahari ngasih efek keemasan pada langit biru keunguan. Semakin mataharinya tenggelam, warna langit semakin jingga kemerahan, yang akhirnya jadi semakin gelap. Awan-awan yang ada di langit bisa ngasih sentuhan unik. Dari mulai awan jenis cirrus, sampe stratocummulus, awan-awan selalu punya cara sendiri buat menghiasi langit.

Ada nuansa berbeda di sore hari yang sempat saya tangkap gambarnya ini. Tenang, berawan, cukup cerah, dan berangin. Suasana seperti ini bisa ngasih nuansa damai yang bikin kita nyaman dan tenang. Seolah-olah suasana kayak gini jadi pelarian istirahat setelah beraktivitas selama seharian.

Just Three of Us

Due to different activities and business, I rarely spend time together with my brother and sister nowadays. We probably meet, but just meet and you know, less chit-chat and sometimes it sounds like "Hi-and-Bye". So that's it! My sister is hospitalized for being sick now and my brother, well he must be so busy doing his assignments, just like me.

I can have a little chit-chat with my brother, just a little chit-chat. Borrowing shirts, sharing songs, asking news, telling jokes, trolling, well it's kinda common for me. My sister has the most sharing sessions with me; telling about problems in life and something else. But what I want is that we can go somewhere together. Just three of us! Spending time together, enjoying cups of coffee, playing DJMAX, buying apparels, biting stroopwaffel, tasting nachos, watching movies, or anything!

I must have talked too much. So hereby I'd like to emphasize that I need time to be with, just three of us...

Bedroom Avenue

These are a few of my photo-project so called "Bedroom Avenue". The project was done in my bedroom, exposing my favorite stuffs such as headphone and travel magazines. The idea came when I was viewing photos stored in my digital camera and looking for unique places to shoot. All the pictures taken were then edited and turned into monochrome.

Sometimes you just need to put something here and there, probably tidy up your bedroom and clean the mess, and turning your bedroom into a photo studio is not a magic.