Suharto dies at 86.

Suharto of Indonesia, whose 32-year dictatorship was one of the most brutal and corrupt of the 20th century, died Sunday in Jakarta. He was 86. Suharto had been hospitalized on Jan. 4 with heart, lung and kidney problems, according to medical officials of Pertamina Hospital in Jakarta. His condition worsened dramatically over the weekend and he lost consciousness and stopped breathing on his own, they said. -The New York Times, 27th Jan 2008.

The most brutal and corrupt indeed. However his huge contributions for Indonesia were invaluable, and so we have to respect him. My heart goes out to his family and to other fellow Indonesians.

Introducing KAFEINFO beta

We have been working on a project for weeks. Inspired by Digg Social Bookmarking, one of the most famous sites today, my boyfriend came up with an idea to make the Indo-version. Therefore, the language is in Bahasa Indonesia, obviously, or at least for now. Since my boyfriend is an IT pro, he deals with all the technical details, whilst me and Dimas contribute by promoting the site and dealing with other creative details. Also, thanks to Chucky for naming KAFEINFO! The site is not final just yet, we are still in the testing phase. Thus, your constructive feedback will be greatly appreciated! However, we expect you to register today and start contributing news links that you find interesting. For a celebrity gossip freak like me, there is also a “celebrity” category where you can update yourself with the hottest gossips! Bottomline is, you don’t have to write your own stories, you just have to copy-paste links from other sites! no frills! The more votes you get for your story, the higher the rank amongst other news links. Visit Kafeinfo at www.kafeinfo.com (it’s a temporary domain, before made permanent to .com, hopefully in the near future), register today, submit as many links as possible, and of course, tell your friends, families, foes, teachers, drivers, landlords, employers, pak haji sebelah, si embok, EVERYONE YOU KNOW to join Kafeinfo! Dank je!

My Heroine

“The wife of a colleague who also collected newspapers and used paper from our office introduced me to a school for a community of scavengers in Pondok Kelapa, East Jakarta. Irina Amongpradja, the force behind the school, is dedicated to providing an education for young children between the ages of five and 15 who assist their parents in collecting trash. Unfortunately, the local education office reneged on a promise to let them use a vacant government office free of charge for five years; after 18 months, they were told to pack their bags because, apparently, the children were not “fit” to receive an education. The students, now numbering 150, and the volunteer teachers relocated to a scavenger settlement near the banks of a river and built a simple bamboo structure.” Melinda Hewitt, The Jakarta Post, January 21, 2008. / Title: Our Inconvenient Truths

I have been to that school, I have spent times with those kids she’s talking about, most of all, I know very well the woman mentioned in this article. Irina Amongpradja, my mother, my heroine, my inspiration. What I am now is all because of her. Her hard works, tears, blood and sweat. My goal in life is simple. I want to make her proud. Thanks, Bu. I love you!

The Next Major Transition

I have been a student my whole life. 15 years (kindergarten doesn’t count). I still remember clearly the first days I spent in every school I had attended. The anxiousness, eagerness, cheerfulness all rolled into one. I have gone through a lot of great things during all these years, the fun, the nonsense, the tears, parties, pranks, friends, enemies, flings, first love, first kiss, first job, and so on and so forth. It’s a never-ending list. If everything goes as planned, my life as a student will soon end. 6 months and that’s it. Finito. In fact, after this week, my classmates are going in different directions to work on their final thesis. Some even leave the country and will be back on graduation day in July. Me? I’m going to move to a new apartment, start my internship in 2 weeks, and will be very busy writing my final dissertation. Being the biggest wuss I am, can’t help but feeling emotional just writing this post. haha. Where will I be after these 6 months? In Europe? Indo? somewhere else? working? doing a master’s degree (albeit unlikely to happen any time soon)? There are just so many questions.

Que Sera Sera, for now I just want to enjoy my final 6 months as a student to its fullest.

PS: The pict. above was taken in 2004 during our first month in Holland.

 

Will Tobacco Companies Survive?

What will happen to tobacco industry in 10 years from now? We all know that there have been ever-growing regulations and restrictions on so many aspects related to this FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Good). To name a few, raising taxes, contributing to a spike in cigarette prices in many countries, packaging warning messages about the risks of smoking, ranging from simple texts to graphic images, and of course, more and more countries issuing anti-smoking regulations in Horeca. The latter regulation has come into effect in France and Belgium since 1st January 2008 and will come into effect in July 2008 in Holland. Hence, tobacco companies have to focus their promotion strategies on building loyal customers value through one-to-one dialog, this also applies on customer acquisition to prevent enhancing the under-age to smoke, as there has been much debate about whether mass media promotion of tobacco product brands can influence under age smoking. The main keys are to build consumer loyalty, operate responsibly and most importantly, constant innovation and development. No matter what, there will always be people who decide to smoke, so there will always be a market for cigarettes.

Rudy Giuliani’s Scare Tactics

I just watched this new campaign video of Rudy Giuliani, a prominent United States Republican presidential candidate, and couldn’t be more appalled. The video begins with images of large groups of shouting Middle Easterners with a narrator warning viewers that the United States faces an “enemy without borders”. The video includes images of Islamic rallies, Osama bin Laden, car bombings, etc. The ad touts that, in a world where leaders such as Bhutto are assassinated,”democracy attacked” and that the Unites States “needs a leader who’s ready”, but uhm..ready to do what?

This ad is a perfect example of negative campaigning, trying to win an advantage by referring to negative aspects rather than emphasizing one’s own positive attributes or preferred policies. For me, the video looks like a bad taste, worst horror movie trailer ever. No offense, but I personally think that scare tactics won’t bring any good to the campaign. “The next crisis is a moment away!” sounds like a very serious threat, and people are growing tired of such negative appeals. So why not focusing on the solutions he has to offer rather than the problems we know exist? People know the ‘whats’ tell them the ‘hows’. There are other layers of the message in Rudy’s other ads, of course, but people are judgmental. When they find a loophole, they usually don’t bother to see the other side of the story.

I am not a big fan of politics, but the upcoming US presidential election is just too interesting, isn’t it? I just wish everyone worldwide could actually vote, because we all know that the whole world will be affected by this election. May the best man (or woman) wins.

Visit Indonesia 2008

Dimas just told me that Indonesia finally tosses a national tourism campaign. Check out the ad here, very heartwarming. Oh I’m so proud! We all know that Indonesia has great potential, unfortunately it takes too long for such campaign to be launched, especially compared to our neighboring countries (not to mention Malaysia). According to The Jakarta Post, the ministry of culture and tourism had to revise the slogan because of a minor grammatical mistake. “Celebrating 100 years of nation’s awakening” was changed to “100 years of national awakening”, forcing Garuda Indonesia to repaint 10 planes servicing international routes that had already been daubed with the slogan. Oh boy! they should have checked it before launching such huge project! But anyways, it’s fixed now and so we have to be proud and fully supportive! tell the world how great our country is and tell them to visit Indonesia at least once before they die!

Sunshine, anyone?

Just came back from my four days Paris trip and already I feel depressed. Funny how soon I decided to check out some online travel agencies and saw what kind of interesting (red: cheap) offers they have. And voila! I bumped into some tempting holiday packages to Portugal or the Canary Islands. Staying for 8 days long in a beach apartment including plane tickets for only 350 euros p.p!! Even better, the apartment has 3 bedrooms for max. of 6 people! The offer is available for departure around March/April. It is always a good incentive for me to work my ass off when I know that I’ll be having a great holiday afterwards. Moreover, it might be a perfect cure to my homesickness that I’ve been suffering from since a couple of months ago. Winter in Holland can be very frustrating. I haven’t decided yet whether or not I will go, but it is definitely an option. join me?

On why I started blogging (again).

I have to admit that this isn’t my first blog account on WordPress..In fact this is my third weblog after Friendster and another WordPress account. So why would I spend my time creating another account that might end up like the previous two, which are virtually useless? No special reasons, I just feel like writing. I might not update it on a daily basis, but I surely will when I know or experience something worth mentioning.