[Short Fiction] Sunrise in Japan

Walking upon the streets within Chiyoda near The Palace perhaps is normal for an overseas tourist. Though, this occasion is slightly different this time.

I have been planned to visit Akihabara for hunting a rare material I can use later in my future project. As I heard that the item is sold in a store, where locates between 3 animation franchise markets. To make it worse, today’s 31^st December and the stores are supposed to be closed earlier in preparation for communion prayer tomorrow. At that moment, I have no option but to visit the Fuji, southern of Tokyo this late evening.

As I travelled throughout the southern of this big city, many people seemed to enjoy themselves. There are some, for example, who lit up a stick that ignites a spark, or enjoying a bottle of sake wine singing their favourite songs. That’s because tonight’s the 64^th Song Contest which shows numerous renowned singers, ranged from bubble-gum pop to theme songs, competing each other. I dunno what would be the price if either Red of White Team won this match. But I’d best to rush than watching other people having fun as I didn’t get enough time for that.

Step on the feet of Fuji feels much different today. Maybe due to winter breeze greeting me as the sky is cooler and quite adaptable for me to live in. Climbing upon the hills ain’t seem easy as I have an average strength and I didn’t do exercise very often. There are a few also who climbed as well, but they have immersive endurance and overlapped me.

I finally made onto the summit of Fuji by the time at 5 AM. As I walked the summit, I see the blinding yellowish light stroking the very eyes of all climbers. This is the first day sunrise of the year, the new hope, the man’s resolution to be achieved this newly year. Those are what I can understand from the people here talking about it. As for me, though I don’t seem to celebrate like the others do in evenings, I prefer to walk on my own adventure to being stagnant in vicinity. Why bother holding your own desire to go outside where you have your only chance to shine, mate? As I see the sun rising above its horizon, I may have thought the World has ended its lifespan, yet the circulation of human dynamics carried on through the time I’ve spent. We maybe forgot what mistakes we had in yesteryear, but our willing to move on is still there inside our hearts. This is how “ganbarimasu” expression means about, right?

Anyway, Happy New Year everybody. I pray for your tranquillity and more prosperous as well as your closeness to your beloved ones. Aamiin.

Image source:
http://japanesephotolog.files.wordpress.com

Memento

Hujan yang dingin nan gerimis mengatur suhu ruanganku yang memang setiap hari pengap karena banyak sekali barang dan baju belum kubereskan. Benar-benar suasana kosan seperti begini dah…

Sudah jam 12 malam, 25 Desember. Kidung-kidung “Silent Night” dan “White Christmas” berdendang di sepanjang jalan Flinders selama Aku didalam studio flat lantai 39. Sedikit spacious iya, namun ini dikarenakan Aku beruntung mendapatkan flat tersisa setelah sebagian besar terpakai untuk mahasiswa lainnya.

Oh iya, saatnya membuka kotak kiriman dari Jakarta. Seringkali kuminta untuk mengirimkan satu boks “Tolak Angin” untuk ku-share dengan teman satu lantaiku yang sering mengadakan sesi “Let’s Play” PCnya.

Didalamnya ternyata lain isinya.

Adalah sebuah mainan pajangan yang pernah kupunya sejak aku masih SD, seingatku sejak aku mengenal Digiman lewat alat seperti “Tamagochi” aku selalu meminta agar dibelikan sedikitnya satu saja. Satu tokoh ini, “evolusi perubahan” tingkat “Mega” yang menjadi favorit di kartun Digiman Adventure, ialah mainan yang dikirimkan. Bukan Gendum, Ngamen Keder, ataupun Super Sempak, melainkan satu figure Digiman yang pernah kubeli di Hongkong beberapa tahun lalu. Kenangan yang indah ya…

Dibawahnya tercarik surat yang lusuh tertimpa mainan tersebut. Dari ibuku!

“Anandaku.

Ini adalah surat yang kesekian kalinya kunasehatkan kepadamu. Semoga kamu tidak lelah mendengarkan nasehatku dan bias dicamkan dengan baik.

Aku mengirimkan kepadamu mainan yang pernah kita beli di Hongkong beberapa tahun yang lalu. Mengingatkanku kepada pengalaman kita disana selagi tersesat di jalan Wan Chai mencari makan malam diluar, akhirnya ke kedai mi yang kecil. Keesokannya kau pernah menumpahkan segelas the milik pedagang pernak-pernik di pasar dekat hotel, hingga kau menangis mengaku tidak sengaja. Untunglah penjual itu baik dengan kita. Apakah kamu masih mempunyai sifat “nyampluk” tanpa disengaja disana?

Anakku, telah lama aku belum menerima kabarmu disana. Ingatlah bahwa aku tidak ingin apa-apa darimu. Hanya sebuah artikel tentang dirimu tentang kebaikanmu kepada sesama ataupun pencapaian sudah cukup. Ibu dan bapak mengikhlaskanmu untuk meneruskan sekolahmu hingga kau bisa menjadi orang yang tidak cuma menghargai uang tapi hati nurani.

Semoga kau sejahtera disana. Kudoakan selalu kepadamu.

Ibu

NB: Aku sudah bisa menggunakan internet, kapan2 kita telepon, ya?”

Telepon. Maksud ibuku adalah Skype-an. Sepertinya apa yang telah kusalurkan akhirnya menghasilkan manfaat juga…

Namun yang penting adalah mainan dari bingkisan ini! Sebelum aku menginjak kelas 1 SMP, aku sering bermain dengan figur ini untuk menyita waktu menunggu waktuku belajar. Selalu aku membutuhkan teman yang bisa mendampingiku sewaktu aku kesepian ataupun menggalau menunggu rapor.

Oleh itulah, kutaruh disamping figur Danbo yang kudapat dari Jepang dan menjadi penyemangat hidupku sekaligus memento dari Ibuku.

Terima kasih, Ibu. Walaupun engkau telah uzur, Ibu tetap mengingatku dan masih menjadi tempat sandaranku dikala ku menangis ataupun marah. Ampuni anakmu yang kurang ajar ini hingga aku mengerti makna kehidupan yang sesungguhnya…

Terima kasih Ibu. Terima kasih sekali.

A Scheme, Treasure Map, and A Weird Steel Barrel

"Well, mate. I guess this is the only best you could do to impress me much. But I'd say you ain't serious this time. How do you think those Spaniards would know we're negotiating over the rum, which you always have? Hell, not even a rat would fallen to this trap!"

The blabber of my superior seemed to me as a joke. I wanna go for this plan, though many would disagree and tend to mocking me. Well I gotta let this slide for now...

Returning to my cabin, I took off the robe, owned by a man I killed, before a piece of paper struck out from the pocket. It's a piece of sketch showing a point towards the place marked with red cross. Maybe a treasure lied beneath the rock would be there? I'll go find out to that island immediately.

As we finished digging upon that island, inside the crate there's a weird device made by steel, not the usual drum we often use for storing our rums. Inscribed as, "To Keyko, the real Yamato Nadeshiko I loved", the writing gives me creeps yet curious who is this about.  The moment I inspect the weird small barrel comes a hissing sound that opens it.

A very strange map, maybe blueprint, describes many complexity along with weird grass symbols upon each street. The red circle about the corner of the map leads somewhere. "Maybe this bloke accidentally buried the wrong crate?", as I thought aimlessly.

Just as I began to leave this island, bells rung all over the hull. "Captain Kenway, a convoy with 4 Men O' War comes this way!! Hurry, take the wheel!", Adewale, my quartermaster, warn me with haste. I rushed and climbed to the steering wheel, facing towards an armada of pirate hunters.

While I'm not certain who is this person burying this weird treasure, maybe this map would lead me to the legendary treasure every pirate dreams about.

Or perhaps I just hang it on the cabin's ceiling. A good souvenir from nowhere is damn rare in here, though.

[Short] The Present

It’s been days I’ve laid on the hard, wet bed since the last time a stranger carried me to a nearest hospital. Smells of medicinal alcohol, beeping monitor, intravenous injection each 12 hours, everything I see here is horrible. Though I admit this place’s food wasn’t disgusting enough to get it digested.

The middle-aged white coated man who assessed me a while ago answered my question of “What’s happening to me, Doctor?” “Well, Sir. I have to explain to you humbly that your life expectancy would be soon degraded, as we’ve found there’s an enlargement on the left side of your heart based on the chest X-Ray photo we’ve taken. The ECG furthermore adds our suspicion on the left ventricular hypertrophy, an abnormal enlargement in the heart’s left ventricle caused by many factors, though this is just our prediction. So, is there anything you would like to discuss with us, dear Sir?”

“I can’t even think what am I going to do now, Doctor.”

“I see. Anyway, did you feel your arms still numbed or maybe you felt headache at the moment?” The man adjusted his spectacles as if he’s scheming something.

“I’ve seen it worse way back before I got here.”

“If it’s so, then thank you. Your enzyme test result will be here very soon. We advise you to not moving too much and perhaps relaxing yourself very often. Farewell and fast recovery to you, Sir. And, oh, we’ve contacted your family as well.”

Relax myself. Hmm…perhaps I gotta reminisce days back the time I bought her a present to my beautiful wife to be.

I remembered when I spent my two-year personal savings for buying her a present. At that time, I can’t even think enough what present would be the best to give to her. My colleagues from my past office suggested me to buy some materials I can use instead of spending expensive, fancy items. I agreed the idea as well.

As I gathered things I needed, I began working on the ‘present’. The moment I finished it I got depraved as I worked the whole 3 days. This is the moment my chest went like crushing something. The show must go on, however.

Just as I arrived to send my package the chest pain suddenly appeared again, which I can’t even hold it. That was the moment a post officer immediately called an ambulance and rushed me away to this hospital. Along with that box.

Eventually, I had the parcel I’m going to send. Though, I can’t even imagine if she sees me in this condition tomorrow. This shoe I made for her maybe lighten her heart and I hope she wear it every day she’s going to school as a homeroom teacher. It’s not as vibrant as Hermes’s but the way you see this pair of shoes shall prove that even rain won’t separate us. It’s the vow we made that keeps us ever connected.

Sleep Affects Potency of Vaccines

ScienceDaily (Aug. 1, 2012) — As moms have always known, a good night's sleep is crucial to good health -- and now a new study led by a UCSF researcher shows that poor sleep can reduce the effectiveness of vaccines.

The study is the first performed outside a sleep laboratory to show that sleep duration is directly tied to vaccine immune response, the authors said.

The study, conducted while the UCSF researcher was a doctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh, will appear in the August issue of the journal SLEEP.

"With the emergence of our 24-hour lifestyle, longer working hours, and the rise in the use of technology, chronic sleep deprivation has become a way of life for many Americans," said lead author Aric Prather, PhD, a clinical health psychologist and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at UCSF and UC Berkeley.

"These findings should help raise awareness in the public health community about the clear connection between sleep and health," Prather said.

Research has shown that poor sleep can make one susceptible to illnesses such as upper respiratory infections. To explore whether sleep duration, sleep efficiency, and sleep quality -- assessed at home and not in a controlled sleep lab -- would impact immune processes important in the protection against infection, the researchers investigated the antibody response to hepatitis B vaccinations on adults in good health. Antibodies are manufactured by the immune system to identify and neutralize foreign objects such as viruses.

The study involved 125 people (70 women, 55 men) between the ages of 40 and 60. All were nonsmokers in relatively good health, and all lived in Pennsylvania -- the study was conducted at the University of Pittsburgh. Each participant was administered the standard three-dose hepatitis B vaccine; the first and second dose were administered a month apart, followed by a booster dose at six months.

Antibody levels were measured prior to the second and third vaccine injection and six months after the final vaccination to determine whether participants had mounted a "clinically protective response."

All the participants completed sleep diaries detailing their bedtime, wake time and sleep quality, while 88 subjects also wore electronic sleep monitors known as actigraphs.

The researchers found that people who slept fewer than six hours on average per night were far less likely to mount antibody responses to the vaccine and thus were far more likely (11.5 times) to be unprotected by the vaccine than people who slept more than seven hours on average. Sleep quality did not affect response to vaccinations.

Of the 125 participants, 18 did not receive adequate protection from the vaccine. "Sleeping fewer than six hours conferred a significant risk of being unprotected as compared with sleeping more than seven hours per night," the scientists wrote.

The researchers stressed that sleep plays an important role in the regulation of the immune system. A lack of sleep, they said, may have detrimental effects on the immune system that are integral to vaccine response.

The National Sleep Foundation recommends seven to nine hours sleep a night. (For tips on a better night's sleep, see:http://www.ucsfhealth.org/education/tips_for_a_better_nights_sleep/index.html)

"Based on our findings and existing laboratory evidence, sleep may belong on the list of behavioral risk factors that influence vaccination efficacy," said Prather who in September will join the UCSF faculty as an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry. "While there is more work to be done in this area, in time physicians and other health care professionals who administer vaccines may want to consider asking their patients about their sleep patterns, since lack of sleep may significantly affect the potency of the vaccination."

The study's co-authors are Martica Hall, PhD, Jacqueline Fury, BS, Diana C. Ross, MSN, RN, Matthew Muldoon, MD, MPH, and Anna Marsland, PhD, of the University of Pittsburgh; and Sheldon Cohen, PhD of Carnegie Mellon University.

Financial support for the study was provided by a grant from the National Institute of Nursing Research (NR008237) and by a National Institute of Health fellowship to Prather.

It's been a very, terribly hectic year since my troubling matters... AN INTRODUCTION

Saat ini gua lagi di pijet & tukang cukur arafah yg udh jd langganan bapak gua selama 5 thn..Alhamdulillah msh enak seperti biasa. Hehehe :p

It's a year passed since troubling matters came pursuing me to take more effort, ouch. (that was my pinky phalanges being massaged. Damn...) maybe I wanna tell you some stories I got from my life recorded following this year...

ATTACK SOPA, REGAIN OUR FREEDOM.

Today, taking a break from hurling racist slurs and GIFs at one another, the internet is taking a symbolic stand against SOPA and PIPA—two awful laws that would ruin the web. Behold the blackout rebellion.

Giants like Reddit and Wikipedia (plus The Oatmeal's excellent animated approach) are taking part in the blackout day to show what a post-SOPA internet would look like: barren, bleak, and dark. These laws have the potential to permanently destroy fixtures of the web, and stifle The Next Great Site. So after you check out these acts of solidarity and dissent, do something real: find your elected officials, and give them a call and a piece of your mind. If we don't do anything, MPAA and the rest of the content money warlords win.

http://gizmodo.com/5877122/this-is-what-an-internet-protest-looks-like/gallery/1

2011 Afterthoughts

There is a lot of events I have been going throughout the last 2011, including the change of attitude in which awaken after 7 years of procrastination with unwillingness prognosis. This turning point in fact will sharpen my new days and my new life as a person who is reborn, hoping that I will become much better. Also, I pray for everyone's safety out there. God Bless You, everyone. :)

There is a question that concern me: What are your interesting experiences you had along 2011? Please share yours so that your story will inspire others to going up on the hill of success. You may use any way of writing if you want as long as it understandable. :)

Well, that is all. I hope you will have a great time of struggling to be the best in this year. "Stay hungry, stay foolish.", said then Steve Jobs.


Indonesia:
Banyak sekali pengalaman yang gua udah rasakan dalam tahun 2011 ini, terutama change of attitude setelah 7 tahun tertidur lamanya diatas bantal prokrastinasi ec. unwillingness. Setelah turning point ini Insya Allah saya akan menjadikan diri saya lebih baik lagi daripada sebelumnya. Insya Allah juga, semuanya mendapatkan berkah oleh Tuhan YME. Amin.

Sodara2, menurut anda sekalian apa pengalaman yang anda telah rasakan selama tahun 2011 yang lalu? Ada baiknya untuk disalurkan kepada khalayak kesemuanya agar dijadikan bahan inspirasi untuk kita terus maju di masa yang akan datang. Pakailah bahasa yang informal namun tetap dimengerti oleh yang lain. Boleh juga pakai kata2 kasar. :)

Saya berdoa semoga NKRI yang kita tinggali ini tetap berada pada kejayaannya, bahkan lebih makmur lagi. Dan semoga nasionalisme kita tetap bergelora hingga akhir hayat kita. Amin.

Wassalam.

With Love,
Seno Triadi, GBT. (Ganbatte)

Probably the best update chain ever.

Rules of Obeying Allah

1. Give Allah what's right, not what's left.

2. Man's way leads to a hopeless end and Allah's way leads to an endless hope.

3. A lot of kneeling will keep you in good standing.

4. He who kneels before Allah can stand before anyone.

5. In the sentence of life, the devil may be a comma, but never let him be the full stop.

6. Don't put a question mark where Allah puts a full stop.

7. Are you wrinkled with burden? Come to the mosque for a face lift.

8. When praying, don't give Allah instructions, just report for duty.

9. Don't wait for six strong men to take you to the mosque.

10. We don't change Allah's message His message changes us.

11. The masjid is prayer-conditioned.

12. When Allah ordains, He sustains.

13. Warning: Exposure to Allah may prevent burning.

14. Plan ahead, it wasn't raining when Noah built the ark.

15. Most people want to serve Allah, but only in an advisory position.

16. Suffering from truth decay? Brush up on your Qur'an.

17. Exercise daily Walk with Allah.

18. Never give the devil a ride He will always want to drive.

19. Nothing else ruins the truth like stretching it.

20. Compassion is difficult to give away because it keeps coming back.

21. He, who angers you, controls you.

22. Worry is the darkroom in which negatives are developed.

23. Give Satan an inch and he will be a ruler.

24. Allah doesn't call the qualified He qualifies the called.

25. Read the Qur'an, it will show u how simple life can be.