Avianto's Journal

I am following the herd, some people tagged or asked me to do this, so I comply. Here they are:

1. I’d been living in 4 countries until now; Indonesia (most of the time), Germany, Canada and United States (currently) and visited more than a dozen countries.
2. I hold a bachelor in Architecture but never worked as an architect, I prefer architecture as a way of life not as a work for living.
3. I used to smoke a lot, not anymore right now except for an occasionally collapse of good judgement.
4. Despite used to be a heavy smoker, I never use drugs in my life and not planned to do so in my life time.
5. I don’t care about races and sexual preferences, it doesn’t matter if you are black, white, yellow or even green and while I am a strictly straight guy, it doesn’t matter if you are straight, gay or bisexual. What matters is that you are a good person and act like one.
6. I used to be very emotional but I think growing older make me more patience.
7. I love to cook, while my cooking ability is about average I think I am improving every day.
8. Movies, books, museums, galleries and live music hall were the things and places I spend my free time, mostly.
9. As a digital person, I still keep my plan and notes using a paper notebook, Moleskine preferably.
10. I care much with those who I consider as friends, sometimes too much to the point it annoyed them.
11. I prefer walking and taking public transportation than driving but I love to drive as fast as I could if condition allowed.
12. I always afraid of getting fat to the point of nearly an obsession.
13. My passion lies in creating something useful for people to use, that’s why I am in user experience business.
14. People think I am a perfectionist but I am not, I just want to be the best in everything I do.
15. I prefer being a generalist than a specialist, specialization is for insect.
16. I can be extremely cynical, it doesn’t happened so much, but when it happened, you will noticed.
17. I am starting to develop a fashion sense awareness, used to not care about how I dressed but now I put some thought when I am dressing.
18. I have a really bad set of teeth, been thinking to fix them up but it will cost me a fortune, but I’ll do it anyway soon.
19. I used to think life was suck but now I think life is as good as I want it to be.
20. I love pets but I am allergic to the hair… Bummer. I also allergic to dust so I prefer clean places.
21. I can play any kind musical instruments except bowing and blowing instruments.
22. I am an Apple geek; currently owned a white Macbook, a white iPhone and silver iPod nano, but currently using ASP.NET and Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 for work.
23. I owned avianto.com since 1998 and planned to keep it for the rest of my life.
24. I am stubborn but always open to a reasonable argument and with decent delivery.
25. While I am enjoy being online, there always be a day or two in a month I prefer to be disconnected. Talking about taking the time out.

Well, I did it. Hope you know me better now.

This entry is overdue a couple of days. I was moving to New York City and will be working with Research Foundation of City University of New York. It will be a new adventure to start a whole new year.

This entry is about my long travel from Jakarta to New York. Some of you were keep asking me about this, so here it is. Enjoy.

SQ 967, Jakarta – Singapore

My first flight was using Singapore Airlines. Not much happening during the flight, it was a short flight, around 1 hour. Landed at Terminal 3, Changi Airport around 10 PM and had to wait for the next flight at 6.50 AM. Terminal 3, Changi was a relatively new transit airport (opened at January 2008) and its amenities were first class. It was amazing how Singaporean serviced their transit visitors. On the first floor it had a huge shopping mall, standard for every transit airport, since it was better if the transit visitors spent some money while they were there, right? The surprising feature of this floor was the Butterfly Garden. It had a huge area filled with butterfly where visitors could get in and enjoy the beauty of hundreds beautiful butterflies flying around. Too bad since I arrived there at night, almost no flying butterflies in sight. Well, maybe some other time.

The second floor hold more surprises, it had small free movie theater, it was showing August Rush when I was there, transit hotel, visitors lounge and a huge eating area. I was looking for a place to spend the night since I need to wait for another 7 hours or so for my next flight so I went to the transit hotel and asked for a room. Unfortunately, it was full and since I only need a place to lie down for a couple of hours, the friendly staff recommended me to get a nap room at the visitors lounge. So I did, a nap room was a very small room, 2×2 m with bed, small credenza and blind (no door). It cost 30 SGD for 3 hours plus a couple of SGD for an access to shower. It was not bad at all, so I took the time to lie down, get some rest and taking a shower before checking in at the transfer counter around 4 AM.

Everything was cleared, my passport and visa checked out all right and I was ready to board my next flight to O’Hare International Airport, Chicago with a short stop at Hong Kong International Airport.

UA 896, Singapore – Chicago, via Hong Kong

Next flight was with United Airlines and although it counted as one flight, it actually required the passenger to change plane once at Hong Kong, so it was quite a short trip from Singapore to Hong Kong, around 2 hours, and not much happening. Once the flight landed in Hong Kong, I did not had the luxury to look around the airport since it was a really tight schedule changing from one plane to another so I just went to the boarding gate and get in on the next flight, the longest one.

The flight from Hong Kong to Chicago was long, really long, around 18 hours, and to my surprise, I’d got an Economy Plus seating which mean more leg room and my seat was a front seat so I did not had any other seat in front of me. It also mean I sat in front of the screen which was always good. I did not remember all of the movie but some of them were: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (I slept halfway of the movie, too tired I guess), The Longshots (also slept in the beginning but wide awake for the ending), Bottle Shock (which was actually a good based-on-true-story movie) and City of Ember (which I loved since it had steampunk elements on it). It was a relatively good flight, I mean my body was sore all over the place but what could I expect from sitting (and small walking) inside a Boeing 747-400?

The real adventure started in Chicago…

O’Hare International Airport, Chicago

I landed at O’Hare around 4 PM and since I need to change my flight to domestic flight, O’Hare was my point of entry to United States. So when I presented my passport and visa to the Custom and Border Protection officer, he asked if this was my first visit to the US and since I answered yes… the adventure began. The officer asked me to follow him to another room to process my documents. Well, some of my friends already warned me that this process could take at least 2 hours and they were not joking. My problem was, I need to catch my next flight to New York in 1.5 hours…

So there I was, inside a room with a dozen or so people waiting for my document to be processed. Then, another officer called my name and 4 other people and we were moving to another area. Just my luck, I was number 5 behind 4 middle-eastern looking guy… So while my documents were processed in less than 30 minutes, 21 minutes to be exact, I had to wait around 3 hours before my documents were actually processed. That was a very long wait in a not so comfortable waiting area. Was it worth it? At least, it trained my patience… But to my delight, most officers were courteous and polite, of course there are some rude officers but fortunately I did not had to deal with them. That was a little incident happened with the first person in my line, he was a Pakistani and he was standing because he said he was tired sitting for hours in the plane and in the waiting room. The officer was asking him to sit, he said no and somehow the officer was irritated and push him to sit, he was yelling and telling that he was being treated unfair and impolite. It was quite a scene, more officers came into the scene and there were a yelling contest for quite a while. Fortunately, the incident was not escalated to an arrest and it was solved quite nicely and the Pakistani guy was finally passed the process. Other than that, not so much happening, for 2 hours or so before finally, after the airline staff told me that my two baggages were left at the carousel 6 and I should picked them up before I continue my travel, my documents were processed and I was finally allowed to enter United States.

I supposed to miss my next flight because of the custom procedure. While the custom officer assured me that the airline will definitely replace my flight with another flight, I was still worried and irritated about the fact I was missing my flight and had to trouble myself with rechecking with the airline. So I brought my two large baggages and walked to the transfer baggage check-in. A friendly Philippine baggage officer checked my baggage tags and to my surprise, told me I had not missed my flight since my flight was delayed for 2 hours 47 minutes! My good luck but bad luck for others. So I checked my baggages and walked happily to the boarding gate.

O’Hare airport was so crowded and the security were really tight. And so I waited for the delayed flight, getting some lunch and coffee and waited… Until finally, after waiting for almost an hour, I finally boarded the plane. On the runway, the pilot announced the plane would had to wait 27 minutes before the tower allowed it to depart, well, great… another delay. Well, at least 27 minutes was true and the plane finally leave Chicago after the long delay. Great!

UA 646, Chicago – New York/New Jersey

The plane went to Newark Liberty International Airport, New Jersey. It’s actually one of the three airport servicing New York, the others are La Guardia (mostly local flights) and JFK. I went to Newark because my new boss could only picked me there since it was the nearest airport to his place. So, Newark was my destination of choice. The flight was uneventful, except for the 27 minutes of delay, again I had an Economy Plus seating at the window side and there was no movie on the 2 hours flight. It was practically a night flight.

Uneventful as it was, at the end of the flight, as the plane dived toward Newark Airport, my eyes caught a view that I will never forget for the rest of my life. It was Manhattan, glowing with thousands of lights and it was so beautiful and so grand, it almost brought the tears to my eyes. This was the first time I laid my eyes upon New York and I was staring at the main city glorified lights. Paris could take the title as “The City of Lights”, but I’d seen Paris and I think Manhattan could took that title now. It was amazing. I was so amazed, I made a mental note to recommend everybody who would visit New York to land on Newark at night time, it was an unforgettable experience.

Photos from dead-squid

Newark Liberty International Airport

Get off my plane, straight to the Baggage Claim area, waiting for my bags and while waiting, my new boss greeted me and finally, after communicating back and forth using email, instant text and video messaging, we finally met. I was tired, the total travel time was almost (or more?) than 36 hours, but I also happy because this was a start of a new beginning. So after collected my baggages, me and my boss walked outside to the parking lot and there I was greeted by the winter weather. It was quite a shock, since just a couple of days ago I was living in the tropic and suddenly the temperature drops to almost 0° Celsius, reminder to self: started to get used with the Fahrenheit system in this country. So we entered the car and drove away from Newark to his house, somewhere in New Jersey…

Epilogue

The story ends here. For now. Next will be about my first trip to NYC… I hope all of you, especially those who keep asking me to write this, enjoy the story as much as I enjoy experiencing it. Always have faith that things will get better, as long as we tried hard and harder.

Happy New Year 2009! Time to make our life better!

According to Wikipedia:

Dengue fever (IPA: /ˈdɛŋgeɪ/) and dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) are acute febrile diseases, found in the tropics and Africa, with a geographical spread similar to malaria. One major difference, however, is that malaria is often eradicated in major cities, whereas dengue is often found in urban areas of developed tropical nations, including Singapore, Taiwan and Brazil. Caused by one of four closely related virus serotypes of the genus Flavivirus, family Flaviviridae, each serotype is sufficiently different that there is no cross-protection and epidemics caused by multiple serotypes (hyperendemicity) can occur. Dengue is transmitted to humans by the Aedes aegypti (rarely Aedes albopictus) mosquito, which feeds during the day.

According to me:

Dengue fever is a very frustrated sickness. Not only you will need constant supply of fluids, either using intravenous theraphy or drinking a lot, more than 2 litres a day, you also will have to stay still most of the time in bed and do nothing. It will take more than 3 days to feel better and it will take more than a week to really recover but after that you will still feel really weak. No direct medication available too, the only way to fight the virus is using the above methods and wait for your own body to fight back the disease.

No Direct Medication?

True. Only supportive therapy. During my hospitalization because of dengue at the late January 2008, I didn’t get any specific medication to counter the dengue virus. The only official medicines were vitamin, paracetamol (as analgesic) and a medicine to counter my queasy. Intravenous therapy was also part of the medication to prevent dehydration and blood coagulation.

One of the distinguished feature of dengue was the rapid drop of thrombocytes from their normal value between 150.000 – 400.000 per mm³ (Mine was dropped to 45.000 on the day the first blood test was taken and keep dropping until the lowest 13.000 before they hiked up again). So the major aim of the therapy is to boost the amount of thrombocytes back into their normal range.

The Danger

Dengue fever could be very dangerous if the detection was too late. Dengue started with a very high fever for 2-3 days and the fever rapidly dropped on the 3^rd day. Most of the fatal cases happened because during the drop of the fever, the thrombocytes were dropping too, very rapidly and because of the lowest amount of thrombocytes, if there were any bleeding happened – the bleeding was having a hard time to stop (thrombocytes responsible to stop the bleeding) and it could be very fatal.

So, if you were having a high fever, please do a blood check when the fever stopped. It could be only a normal fever but if it was dengue fever at least you’ll find out soon enough to get a proper treatment.

Traditional Methods

There are some traditional methods, which not medically proven yet but really does not hurt to try, to boost the amount of thrombocytes. There is a traditional Chinese medicine called Angkak, the highest recommendation from everybody, which said will boost the amount of thrombocytes very rapidly. Guava juice also said to boost the amount of thrombocytes. Honey from dates also one of the traditional medicine recommended. Isotonic drink, not a traditional method but a convenient, also helps to prevent dehydration. Which one is actually proven to be the best? I have no idea since I used all of the above methods to rapidly boost the amount of thrombocytes.

I was hospitalized for 6 days and these were the amount of my thrombocytes for each day: 45.000 (dropped to 37.000 on the first day), 13.000, 15.000, 34.000, 67.000 and 122.000. When the thrombocytes passed the 100.000 barriers, I was allowed to went home but still need to rest and drinks a lot of fluids (but no intravenous therapy needed anymore, what a relief).

For a week after my release from the hospital, I was still drinking all of the traditional methods mentioned above. After a week, I was checking up to the doctor again to see how was my current health. Well, the thrombocytes were counted as high as 413.000, the doctor said it was called the ‘bouncing effect’ since previously the thrombocytes was pressurized to reduce themselves, now with the pressure factor gone, they were boosting up themselves beyond the necessary amount.

Health

So yeah, I was officially healthy again. But the medical advice still the same: Slow down a bit and get a lot of rest for at least a month because my body still need to adjust itself before it will tune in a full gear.

I missed a lot of deadline and currently tried to catch up all of those without extorting myself. It was difficult but well, it’s time to move back into normal life, right?

Indonesian are curiously amnesiac. Watching current news in Indonesia proved that interesting fact. There is a certain events happened in the media (television, radio, newspaper and internet) right now. It is about the same topic again and again. Most of the people, related to the topic, talked about goodness, forgiveness and reward. Fair enough, but somehow there were some missing pieces. How about the wickedness, repentance and punishment?

Being Human

As a human being we need to be able to forgive. If you are a religious person then you must believe that God will forgive anybody as long as they repent and in extreme situation, those who repent still need to be punished for their wrongdoing. So we had three main issues here: wickedness done by a human, repentance by that human and punishment for the wickedness done by that human who repent. Those train of thought were established to maintain a good society. It was not meant to hurt that particular human, it was meant to remind people about the great responsibility as a human being.

Being human is difficult. There are things a human should but could not do it. Or could but should not. Most of us picked ‘should but could not’ stance when faced with difficult situation. There are people who got so much power and most of them picked ‘could but should not’ approach to the situation. For example, people should help others but some people choose not to do it because they don’t have the ability or power to help. People with power however, they should not use their power to harm others but most of them choose to do it anyway, just because they could.

With great power comes great responsibility. Comic book lovers knew where the phrase came from. It may be a cliché but it holds the truth. Unfortunately, most people with great power did not understand this. They saw their power as a mean to escalate personal interest. Their power were so great, they even could altered the mind of people they were controlled.

Being Amnesiac

Forgiving is a good act but forgetting is not. Forgiving is an act of clearing our heart and believe people always have their opportunity to do things right, next time. Forgetting is an act of wiping our mind and try not to remember anything, good or bad, about a certain person. By forgetting, we actually gave them another chance to do their best or their worst indefinitely.

Selective forgetting is the worst act and this is what happened here in Indonesia currently. Forget all the bad things, remember all the good things and that’s all. It does not really matter if a person practically, direct or indirect, was destroying many people’s life, practising wicked behavior and economic, manipulating minds of million of people and ruining a whole country with his/her previous action. It does not matter at all. Indonesian could forget all about that and remember only all the good and great things ever did by a person. Wicked deeds did not need to be repented and wicked deeds definitely did not need to be punished. This issue will lead into bad precedence for Indonesia now and in the future.

For some people, what happened to them was the opposite. Their hatred was so deep, they could not see the good things. Their hatred was tragically reasonable enough. They were destroyed, isolated, tormented and mollified physically and psychologically. They lost family members, their jobs, their reputation, their way of life. In their hatred mind, forgiving and forgetting are the same action. How we are going to assure them that forgiving is not forgetting and forgetting is just plain ignorant? Or maybe it was not our problem.

Most Indonesian memory do not last for more than 10 years. They do not remember why thing happened the way it was in 1998. They do not remember how to life under pressure, being afraid to talk their mind, scared to say something is right or wrong. They do not remember anything about the horrible past. They do remember all the supposed-to-be thriving economy. They do remember everything were easy if you had the money. They do remember how a public servant could become amazingly rich. They choose to remember all the good things while forgetting all the bad things.

They choose to be amnesiac, selective amnesiac.

Being Forgiven

Just ask for forgiveness and be forgiven. Asking for forgiveness is hard to do because we, direct or indirectly, admit our mistakes. Especially if we were someone with great power. Admitting mistakes was the last thing we want to do because we were afraid to look weak or stupid. But mistakes were practically human. Admitting mistakes makes us human and respected as a human being. If someone being a human, they should be treated as human too. So forgiveness is also part of our humanity.

Sure, we could forgive without being asked. That’s the greatest human action we could do. Just don’t forget. Don’t forget why we need to forgive in the first place. Don’t forget so we don’t experience the same thing again and again.

Please, be a great human. Forgive everything, just don’t be amnesiac.

It was a great party! Blogger Party 2007 was a successful and memorable event. Thanks to all of the committee, workers and sponsors and of course, big thanks to all blogger who were there or supporting the event from afar.

It was a blast. Words could not expressed how I felt there. Met lots of people, some I already met before, some I knew since ages but never met and some were new. We should do this more often, eh?

Blogger’s power

For Indonesian blogger, this event was a moment of recognition and acceptance. The Minister of Communication and Information Technology, Muhammad Nuh proclaimed 27 October as a “Indonesia National Bloggers Day” and I believe it made Indonesia the first country in the world to have a “National Bloggers Day”. He also promised to value freedom of expression for all blogger in Indonesia. Hmm, should Indonesia offers asylum to repressed blogger all over the world too?

With great power, come great responsibility (Uncle Ben to Peter Parker aka. Spiderman)

So the freedom was granted and the blogger was recognized highly… Now, how Indonesian blogger will respond to that?I believe Indonesian blogger are those rare people who understand and value great power and will use it wisely and full of responsibilty. Without those value, all of this will be vanished in vain and nobody wants that to happened.

Lighter side

On the lighter side, I was enjoying the event so much. It remind me years ago when I started this journal as a mere media to express my thought, opinion, dream and experience without restraint. I never dreamed that one day, blog became a giant snowball and brought down freedom of expression into personal level, especially in Indonesia.

The joy of meeting people I respect and read their writing every day was unbelievable. I felt like I knew them for so long, I could jumped in and started conversation right away with them. Amal said to me that day: “We already know them by their writing and that was a good start since we value and respect them by their mind and not appearance and any other physical attachment.”. I believe he was right on the spot and as an admirer of human’s mind, I think blog is one way to empower a human being to achieve the next level of thinking.

I enjoyed the party too much, I forgot to take out my own camera. Ouch. I know, it was blasphemy not taking any picture during the event but what can I say? I was enjoying the event so much, I really don’t care about taking photos. Anyway, those who want to see the picture could see hundreds of them at flickr.

So thank you to all of you, sorry for not put all of your blogs in this entry – there are too many of you! You know who you are, thank you so much for brought back my faith about Indonesian people. You are the greatest people I’ve ever known, all of you.

What’s next?

Blogger Party 2008, of course! Between them, I hope there will be many meeting and hangout among bloggers. Maybe not just for fun, maybe for business, profit and hopefully for the greater cause like peace on earth or whatever.

Hopefully, Indonesian blogger are realized they are now have a great power and great responsibility. Blog is not just a ‘momentary trend’ as one of the so-called expert said some years ago. Blog is the people power, the power dreamed so many years ago by the fighter of freedom.

Well, for me… it was a challenge. A challenge for a better writing and opinion. In the end, this journal will be one of my legacy and I want to have a great legacy.

Sidenote

Some promises were made. Actively contribute articles to 3GWeek for mas Budi Putra, continue my hiatus podcast for mas Rane and of course, writing more quality content for all of you.

Thank you all. I’ll be just around the corner if you need me.