Rudy Yuan’s Streak oF BluE

Have you been to FX? *sigh* for you who are not gaul enough Jakartans, among which I
used to be counted (I know you notice the past tense I use…  you just can’t let me say myself gaul enough now, can you?!
@#@*^&#%* still, I state a fact!), fx is the new mall in town. By “in
town” I mean it is indeed truly literally factually in the centre of modern
civilization of Jakarta and worth some mentioning (I implicitly mock the places
of outskirts Jakarta which boast “malls” in their own sense. It is not “in town”
for me. The fact that I do happen to live in one of those places doesn’t have
anything to do with my mocking, of course…)

Yup, I think fx is the newest mall as when I write this.
There are just several things I noticed there that I wanted to write. (Oh come
on, I know you start to move your mouse to the address bar to type some other
addresses and or cruise the pointer around the red button of close button. Hold
on a minute laaah ).

I had been there only twice, and the first time I didn’t
really notice anything since we were such in a hurry that we climbed all the
escalators to the top floor, went down, and then were out of the mall (now
after I write this, it does sound like we’re doing some strange exercise IN a
mall that time…). On the second time, though, I managed to notice some
peculiar and interesting things.

Let’s start with several things. Good things.

You can see a
“Ducati” standing in the front of the main lobby. For a non-racing-enthusiast,
like me apparently (oh gosh, what kind of sport am I enthusiastic about then??),
it is a brand of a racing sport motorbike (I guess… you gotta search google
lah). It’s supposed to be a cool bike. I guess it is. Does anybody know how
much it costs (coz I have no idea)? coz you might be able to get it for just
100 thousand there. Not shocked? I talk about IDR not USD here… oh come on, be
shocked, please. Don’t be too hopeful yet, it’s not like you can hand out
100thou rupiah to the guard and take it home. It will long be gone already if
anybody can do that! you need some tricks for that, which I will reveal, if you
don’t know yet!

Fx is actually a nice mall. Do you know the EX plaza, the
one next and connected to PI? (now if you don’t know what these are, maybe it
is a wise idea to consider buying ‘Jakarta for dummies’. They have everything
for dummies in stores lately. I wonder when they will get to ‘peeling fruits
for dummies’ coz I need one!!).

yup, EX and FX were told to me to have some connection. (I’d
like to use sarcasm again, prepare yourself) for you who do not have fully
developed adult brain yet, the connection is of course that ‘f’ comes after ‘e’
in the alphabets. (Hush hush, I know it’s a big revelation to some of you, but
stop making that “O” shaped lips, will you?) Actually, I was told that both had
the same developer (or owner?). I don’t know for sure, that’s why I use the
“was told” thing, right?

And they indeed share similar features. (I hate to admit it,
but I did notice this after some
emak-emak told her husband, ‘yes yah, it looks a lot like EX’. And not
after I did some architectural analysis did I come up with agreement. BUT what
the heck do I know about architecture?!?!!?).

Anyway, most of the shops were occupied by restaurants still.
I even got the impression its concept was like Citos but with full AC indoor
(yes, it’s Cilandak Town Square. Someone actually managed to ask me once, if it
was the snack Cheetos that I meant to tell).

There was one
particular floor (I forget which since I have SUCH great architectural analysis.
floor F2, I guess) comprises almost entirely of restaurants, but the walkway
was kinda twisted here and there that I once ended up to a single restaurant (I
suppose it was a dead end, but I never found out since I stopped when the
waiter approached me. I didn’t plan to eat since I was still waiting for a
friend and instead of walking back away [which would make me look stupid and
entirely not-charismatic like a poor kid, which I tried desperately to cover of
course, which i am not!], I asked him the first question came to mind, ‘where is the escalator
ya?’ it proved to be a dumb question. He indicated the way with his fingers
[while suppressing an urge to laugh out loud, I think! He had that sly smile, I
swear! ], and it was where I just showed up moments before. Grrr, I should
start studying this mall more. Luckily it was kind of dim so he couldn’t have
seen my reddening face. Hahaha, no lah!).

This floor also had some kind of standalone transparent
pod-like rooms. I didn’t actually know what this place for, but my power of
observation was above normal, you see. Apparently, some rooms were occupied and
they used it as a gathering place, like for business meeting while you can dine.
It has a TV for presentation purpose, I guess. It was claimed to be able to
provide gaming and karaoke too. Hm, cool huh? But who wants to karaoke in
transparent room while many people might actually pass by and watch? Isn’t it
the whole idea of making karaoke room to be as private and as obscured as
possible just like a whore house? But there might be, of course, in this crazy
time of generation.

The main attraction to this place is of course the
much-talk-about ATMOSTFEAR. There were lots of review already, but I’m entitled
to give mine, so stop complaining. Haha.

It was a slide (like a kindergarten children slide),
designed as a tube extending and twisting downwards from the seventh floor to
the first. It is available for a ride, of course. You will be lent a jacket,
knee caps, helmet, and hand gloves to make you look cool (No lah, it’s for
safety, you nowadays-want-to-look-cool-always-but-not-knowing-how-to kid). Then
you will be given a mat to hold on to while sliding inside. After you are ready
and on your position, the crew will push you into the slide.

Now, I was cool at that time thinking, ‘ah, just a slide and
it isn’t that inclined too. Moreover, what can happen inside a tube anyway?’ But
no matter how cool I was, I kind of broke inside! Haha. I didn’t expect it
would be THAT fast. What I feared most was me toppling over my head and rolling
inside instead of sliding. It was ridiculous of course.

I wanted to shout out loud (for such ride shouting is the
best relieve, really!), but I was cool remember!? With millions of people
watching the slide ON EVERY FLOOR how could I embarrass myself, rite? (Well, I
exaggerate the millions of people, but it felt like that to me! Haha). So all I
managed was tiny falsetto sound of “ooooo..oohhh“ “uuuuuu” during the downwards plunge (now I recall
it sound like Thai-men when they speak. I just noticed in several Thai-movies
lately that no Thai-man speaks quite with macho-vigor, are there? Maybe it’s
just their language. ;p). There were others who didn’t hesitate to
“AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHH” a lot, ESPECIALLY the girls. You, who’s got balls, shout
please!

No need to worry if you feel sliding too fast, that you will
crush yourself to pieces in the landing mattress on the first floor, coz there
is a slowing mechanism somewhere in the middle of the slide for you to catch
your breath and guts. And the mattress was comfy too. I felt a little bit dizzy
after crashing (I think it’s because I was not wearing glasses at that time.
yes, perfect excuse reasonable explanation), but there was a man helping me up.

And they timed you too. They claimed you could get to the
landing in 12 seconds. (mathematic update: if you can guess the height of each
floor, time it with 7 [floors], then divide it with 12 seconds, you will get
your average vertical drop speed. I tempt to calculate, but I don’t want to
make a fool of myself guessing the wrong height. Arrgh). They got a TV display
at the side of the landing opening showing how many seconds you did the slide
(I overheard someone asking his girlfriend, what the number on the display
meant. Geez, THIS is what I called a non-updater or tidak gaul. Hahahha. Maybe he’s just making conversations with his
girlfriend lah. Or maybe he’s a super busy executive who doesn’t have the
leisure to check on such not important feature of a new mall like I do someone).

I got 10++ seconds. Hmm, I had a theory then. The heavier
you were, the longer you would be inside. (I know you argue the heavier oneself
is, the quicker he drops. That’s false of course. If you had given more
attention to your hateful annoying physics teacher, you would have known what
Newton proposed, of course: mass does not affect the acceleration given by the
gravity. It means if you drop a feather and a barbell from the same height,
they will reach the ground at the same time, given the air is vacuumed. It is
not applicable on Earth of course, since the air friction will cause heavier
objects to reach bottom quicker than lighter one. If I need to explain this, I
will open a physics class soon – and I’m not sure what I said was right either.
hahaha). So, the heavier you are, the bigger the friction between your body and
the inclined plane of the slide surface, making you slide slightly slower. It
proved right with me and my friends. She was ‘definitely’ heavier than me, and
she needed 11++. But two experiments can’t be used to confirm a theory. Try
find out yourself lah!

Interested? You can get this ride for free! Well, not really
free actually. You need to spend 100thou rupiah in this mall and exchange the
bill with one ticket (moronic statement coming…: yes, you need at least 200thou
for two tickets, 300thou for three, etc). So it is in a sense a free ride,
since you get what you pay for plus a free ATMOSTFEAR ride.

And for every 100thou
purchase, you could get a coupon for the Ducati prize lucky draw. It’s like
throwing a single stone to kill three birds: first bird your purchase, second
bird the ATMOSTFEAR ride, and the third the coupon. The third bird would be a
tricky one though, since it was an acrobatic bird that’s hard to hit with a
stone. (you got what I mean or do I have to explain it? Please don’t say you
need to… *oh well, I’ll explain* you will need a grand luck to get the Ducati
prize since it’s a lucky draw, of course *sigh* *geleng-geleng*).

Now let’s get to the peculiar things I mentioned.

The toilet. Instead of having a usual writing of ‘gents’ or
‘ladies’ or their variations or simple symbols, they put carvings of “a lady
sitting on a stool” for ladies, “a man peeing with his pee visible curving
downwards” for gents, and (sorry I forget what it is) for babies.

And inside the gent’s toilets, they put a long mirror in
front of the urinals: a perfect idea to check out your handsomeness while
peeing, or to distract you from your unbearable urges to take a peep at your
neighbor’s little brother (euw), or if you are interested in his little
brother, then you can check out the owner’s face through the mirror. What a
homo-philic toilet! I don’t know, maybe it’s just there to remind you to pee
quickly if there’s a queue behind you or maybe someone stalking you or doing
weird things or what lah, just like at the ATM, rite?… And just right across
the urinals’ mirror, there was a big mirror for the washstand. Oh yeah, you can
check the butt of the little brother’s owner out when you (pretending to) wash
your hands.

you ask me about the ladies’? what do you think I grow two heavy breasts and one scallop suddenly ar? how the heck do i know!

One shop. If your eyes were keen enough, you would notice a
shop with a name of “cintamani”. Pornographically sick, daring, and cool huh.
(for you who don’t understand this [yet again?], try break the word into
‘cinta’ and ‘mani’. Don’t you dare ask me what ‘mani’ is: it’s sticky, it’s
white, and it’s claimed to be sweet..? it contains million souls. Got it yet?? **No, it’s not a thick milk!!** **give up explaining..**). I thought it was supposed to be an English
or Chintcha Lauwfra version of the city Kintamani in Bali…? Whatever it is, there’s no ‘cinta’ or
obviously no ‘mani’ or more than obvious no “cinta mani” related things inside!
You wish!

Well, I don’t really have fun here except for the ATMOSTFEAR
ride. The shops were not in my league both for my taste and financial point of
view. There were no shops for the usual brands I liked, and the prices were
overly expensive, and mostly they were girls’ stuffs. Open up some FCUK stands,
maybe I’ll change my mind…

HEY, they have a website for this, checkout http://www.fx-generation.com/

[THEN WTH am I typing this all for if I can give you the
link from the beginning?? SO you will read my blog, of course!!]

okay, i’m truly honestly out of any busy-ness here, so idle i can’t think of anything else to do. but these several months of my work is worth writing, i hope.

let’s start from where i am now.
right now i’m sitting in the balikpapan airport check-in hall (if you can call a room with a line of desks with no room for maneuver a “hall”), on a chair with a sloping surface, where i have to use extra power of my butt muscle to keep me from sliding down. and only sitting 15 mins now gives my butt numb pain that i know will exacerbate my constipation (though i don’t see how it relates hehe). i am now wishing for a little luck.

some time before, i thought i was indeed lucky. i thought that the god (or gods, up to you) had finally put their favors in me, that they finally saw what a pitiful person i had been all along and finally gave me a turn of luck (i’m not that pitiful lah, i’m making hyperbolic writing style here pal hahaha).

for you to understand the nonsense i’m making, we have to flash back some little bit.

some of you might have known that i was sent to ambon two months ago (is it 2 months already??), a remotely isolated island in eastern indonesia that some people even had enough guts to ask where it actually was while they were claiming themselves indonesian *sigh*.

now, usually when we are sent for a job, we have to set up all the unit and things. you can say it’s all muscle and sweat job nobody really likes (it’s called “rig-up” for your future reference so you can use it to make you sound “cool” to know such phrase. **you’d be ridiculous to believe it, to no end**).

anyway, this time i went there when the job was already ongoing and thus was spared from all the muscle thing job. it’s not uncommon though. but i consider myself “a little” lucky. read on..

so, just like at the start of a job, we are also obliged to undo all the rig-up we’ve set up in the first place, pack all up just like its original before going home. (it’s another muscle job too, if you didn’t get my point on the previous sentence. and the cool term for it is ‘rig-down‘… of course…). so several days BEFORE the job was supposed to end, i eventually used up all the workdays my coordinator had promised me and by promise, i could request to return back to town. which is exactly what i did (which any man with a sense would do, unless if you feel like do not want to go home where all the hitman or your chatty wife would be waiting with accompanying thousand demands).

and so i left the field and another engineer was sent there and eventually 3 days later he had to do the rig down i had managed to escape by that little coincidence. what a pity for that fellow… another luck for me! read on….

and afterwards i got a permission from my coordinator to go home to my sweet hometown to satisfy my missing to all the delicious food there!!

anyhow, after i spent 10 days in my little hometown, i went back to jakarta to be on call for jobs. it came a week after. i was sent to an another ONGOING job in kalimantan. if you are smart enough, yeah you would quickly get the idea (oh geez, you don’t get it? i managed to miss another rig-up!!). and better still, i would be going there only as a trainee but got a full pay. wahaahah. i started to like this job more, i thought.

*duh my butt hurts more now* okay, read on.

so i stayed for 15 boring days at the rig, learned some this and that, and idled most of the time. and yesterday, tada, we met our target (after some problem here and there) and prepared to go home. if everything went according to the plan, we would have finished everything (including rigging down) by thursday morning. the five of us would go back some time in the afternoon.

problem was, there was only one car available. cramming all five into a two-row-seat ford was really an enticing idea to develop brotherly relationship. but who cared with THAT. we just wanted to ease our butts and had a nice trip back.

somehow, later that night, there was suddenly another car available since a senior engineer had just finished his task somewhere else there and decided to go back EARLY thursday morning too. so after a lengthy discussion over the “i-wont-miss-for-another-year” dinner, it was decided two of us should go along with the senior engineer. one of us had a need to go back quickly for one of his kins had apparently died, so he wanted to leave early. and for the other one, (YES i know you can guess it already, smart) me! why? because i was the most useless engineer there. hahahaha. ever be thankful for being useless? think positive!

ANYWAY, nothing special in that by the time it was decided, since if everything went per plan, we would have finished most of the rigging down before the early departure (which means it was supposed to be around midnight till morning and i would have to work along too). i don’t know what wind blew that night, somehow the rig crews worked slower. we practically slept all through the night and were just able to start at dawn. i did only a little part of the whole rig down, since i had to rush to go home along with the senior engineer (remember??). and thus i missed another muscle wrecking job! oh my god, i thought, two rows of job with no rigging up and rigging down? can’t wait for another job like this. hahahah.

wait wait, it ain’t over yet. apparently we left a little bit late that morning. not so far leaving the rig afterwards, i got a call from the coordinator.
–my coord: “blablabla (telephony courtesy)… where are you now?”
–me: “in the car, on the road. we’re just leaving the rig”
–coord: “ooh, you have left already? I wanted to ask you to stay back just now. an engineer at *a neighboring rig* fell sick and i thought it’s best you replace him.”
–me in my thought: WTF??? i dont’ wanna stay arrr, i want to go homeee. (it’s not that i didn’t like the place or the job, but i had put all my living spirit on the prospect of going home, and now this man is telling me i have to stay back and ruining my dream?? it is pretty much like when you’re peeing halfway and stopping forcefully. painful right??)
BUT SUDDENLY the coord says: “well then, if you have departed already, then there are no reasons for you to head back. it would be too much trouble. okay lah, blablablaba (bye-bye courtesy).”
–me in my thought: “THERE ARE a lot of easy enough ways to have me stay back, with no trouble at all! i’m still a stone throw away from the rig anyway!” I was gonna say that…
BUT i put all my years-long-trained hermit superpower to keep my mouth shut. i AM a very honest person you know, and i can spill it out easily unconsciously (subconsciously??), which i was about to, for god’s sake. but the spirit within (what a phrase huh?) got hold and thus i was saved and went home!! close call…

*my butt hurts badly now i have to stop typing and continue later*

okay, that was how i ended in the airport sitting on the damned bench. BUT actually i hadn’t got any reservation for thursday flight. i called the day before, but all flights were full, and so do all for the next day and i could just get hold on the flight the day after that (that mean saturday baby, in case you are so lame in counting days). that means i had to stay in balikpapan for two nights. now, what the hell was i gonna do in that city?

and thus i decided to go to the airport instead and hoped for the best that there was a sudden empty seat somehow so i could slip right in.

bad decision. i couldn’t get into the 1240 flight. i decided to wait for the next one (during which i decided to sit on the damn chair, mused on whether i had done right by coming straight to the airport, and started to feel i was not so lucky after all. and then i wrote this).

the next one was at 1530, and full too. damn. i started to ponder whether it’d better for me to go to the staff house and obediently took the flight two days after.

but suddenly i remembered all the japanese movies and animes stuff about not giving up easy (naruto, dragonball… what the?? of course not lah. it’s my pride that wouldn’t let me give up. it’s my way of ninja, ups engineer. hahaha. isn’t quite catching, is it..?).

so i decided to wait for the next flight, at 1805. you could imagine how long i lingered in the hall! the counter boy looked at me pitifully. damn, i didn’t have any self-esteem anymore. hahaha. i even managed to meet a friend from the uni and chatted. i spent hours listening to the iPod, eyeing people, experimenting several facial expressions and several romantic lines… okay okay not true! it’s not that pathetic. but it was boring! and waiting alone didn’t make it better: you started thinking nonsense like how useless you are, how it would be easier to end the life right then… (hahaha, totally not true! all i thought was: could the luck be any worse than this. well, now i rethink it over, it is not THAT bad luck after all. my waiting alone seemed to make it graver, somehow)

nevertheless, patience were indeed rewarded (not so fairly though). they said i could get into the flight if i was willing to pay additional 200thou. sucks! what was the use of my having a SILVER frequent flyer membership after all if they could still squeeze me in time of dire situation like this, after i waited half a day in that damn chair-less airport?!?!? i would carry the grudge to the grave, you greed.

i wouldn’t have wanted to pay if i hadn’t flashed back that i had earned easy money these several days for being a trainee with full pay. maybe it is indeed ‘JUST’ for me (for you with poor english, ‘just’ is the root word for justice. now you know, go spread the word. hahaha, no hurt feeling. condescending is needed sometime to survive bro! love me and hate me).

so i paid, and flew back home, and here i am now, sitting in my beloved HOT room. i am not thinking about the money anymore, but what will i do tomorrow to worth the money i’ve paid. hmm, i got it: maybe i’ll do some more shopping… (now now it is not a WISE decision baby. but it’s my life, heck. hahahaha). hmm, maybe fcuk or esprite or armani exchange (oh i just found out the latter cost really a fortune!)

anyway, i was not so lucky in the end, but at least i managed to get home lah… looking forward to tomorrow. though still clueless what to do.

It could have been perfect.

The sand was white and soft below. The moon was almost full,
its fringe enveloped by its radiance whiteness and a circling halo. So
mesmerizing you thought you could never find another more beautiful moon. And
it glowed like a beacon of hope in the sea of darkness of the night sky.

The water was glowing under the moon, casting soft shiny
reflection. The light was dancing as the water rippled softly as some
water-animals waded their way through the depth. It danced as if to the melody
of a ballad playing in my ear. The song was a perfect companion too; soft but
not too mellow, encouraging but lonesome. The singer had a golden voice.

Yes, it could have been a perfect.

Except of course it was not.

The moon was not the only glowing thing that night, as the
oil rig was standing more than 100 feet tall above ground, as if trying to
reach the moon and to merry the glow. The two sources strangely complemented
each other though, one none the starker than the other. And it felt both
natural and unnatural at the same time.

And the sand, on closer look, was not as smooth as my boot
felt it. It was coarse, most likely dug up somewhere from the depth of a river,
at which it was formed through the multiple breaking and grinding of the sedimentary
stones by many years of alluvial and geological force. It looked white then. As
tomorrow, when the stronger light of the sun gave the sand its true color, it
was actually dirty light brown of color.

And the water had not been as perfect in the day. Plants
grew wildly surrounding it, and it was dirty for years of no circulation. It
was never meant for recreational place anyway.

And the sweet melody came through a piece of wonderful
technology I carried around called iPod.

Yes, for that instant moment, as the clear sound of the song
flowed through the earpiece to my ear, I felt like it could have been a perfect
place to muse and relax. It could have been somewhere else quiet and sacred,
not a rig site. It could have been a sweet romantic place. Me to my own.

But soon the sound of the noisy rig seeped in through my
consciousness and someone was calling my name. I had to go to work. But the
moon kept tugging in my head, as if whispering a secret no one knew. As if
calling me to lie down and let all go. And there I was, feeling as if I were
naked and pure, and I let the soft glow washed over me. It could have been
perfect…