The Journey Of My Life

Wednesday, May 10, 2006, after all my job was done, i bought my airplane ticket, but since i bought it at the noon then i have to bought the next day ticket, and i have to return to the travel agent tomorrow morning at 6:00am WITA, because the mass transport (angkot) were only came at 6:00am WITA and 8:00am WITA everyday.

It was my habit to go at least half hour before the time to my destination and i forgot that this town was not as crowded as Surabaya especially in the morning, so because i have to arrived at the travel agent at 6:00am WITA, then i told the "ojek" driver to take me at 5:15am WITA. My calculation was: i’ll wake up at 5:00am WITA, take a bath and dressed for 15 minutes, leave at 5:20am WITA and arrived at the travel agent at 5:45am WITA, so i’ll have 15 minutes spare time.

But calculation was only a plan. Thursday, May 11, 2006, the driver came to my rent house at 5:00am WITA, so i have to take a bath and dressed in a hurry, then i leave at 5:15am WITA and it was only took 10 minutes from my rent house to the travel agent, so i arrived at 5:25am WITA. 20 minutes earlier.

The road was very dark, not much road lamp and not much vehicle passed. The monument’s torch lighted very bright in the dark. In short, it was very dark, quiet and a little bit scary =X, and it was the time for the moslem people to do their dawn praying (sholat subuh). To kill my fear, i started to pray (as a christian, i don’t want to lost my diligent from the moslem. No offence =p).

After i finished pray, i took a walk on the travel agent’s terrace, but because it was very dark, i didn’t saw that there’s a manhole for oiling the car, and also, the manhole was closed by two car. I stepped through, and i slipped. It was very fast that i didn’t remember anything. The only thing i remember was my jaw crashed very hard to the side of the hole and i shouted: "JESUS".

Well, there’s a power in the name of JESUS. After i shouted His name, i can quickly grab the side of the hole and balanced my body so i can landed firmly on the ground, and most of it, i didn’t fainted. (Normally, people will be fainted when they hurt very hard especially in the head).

Thanks God.

But, after i got out from the hole, i felt something was dropped from my body. Yes, you’re right it was my blood. I quickly went to the back of the travel agent and knocked at an opened door i saw first, and a man showed up. I’m sure it’s not openend by coincidence, but it was God who opened it.

He helped me so i can wash my body and my dirty clothes, and he also gave me some medicine and close my wounds using "betadine" and lint, not to forget, his wife also gave me a glass of tea. He (the owner) suggest me to sew my wounds in the hospital (well, actualy it’s only polyclinic) because it was very hard, but i refused it. As a sympathy, he gave me a special prize to carter his car to Banjarmasin….surprise!!! He was the owner of the travel agent, and also the owner of the hole where i slipped =p. But i know all of this was arranged by God, because He loves me =).

Oh yeah, to mention how hard my wounds were, i can touch my skull bone when i washed it….yuch! =p. I got hurt in my jaw and my left foot, under my knee.

Because i were use a car instead of mass transport, then i can arrived at Banjarmasin for only 5 hours…wow! It was 12:00pm WITA when i arrived at the Samsudin Noor Airport and my plane was still departed at 15:35pm WITA, so that’s mean i had to waited for 3 and half hours =(. But thanks God, i didn’t felt any pain in my wounds and i can endure it until i arrived at Surabaya, even though i was bleeding all over my travel.

After i arrived at Juanda at 17:00pm WITA (16:00pm WIB), my father and mother took me and ran me to the emergency unit (UGD). The hospital male nurse was shocked when i told him that i got hurt at 5:30am WITA (4:30am WIB), so it was more than 12 hours =p.

They gave me local anaesthetize and sew my wounds in the jaw and foot. Totally it was 7 stitchs in my foot, but the doctor won’t tell me the stitchs i had in my jaw, he only said that i my wound was about 3cm wide. yuch =p.

I feel better now, in fact i can post this blog. I’m sure that God had his plan through me after this occurence.

That’s all for now, GBU. D.R.

I’ve just arrived from my journey to Borneo. I got so many experiences and stories, but i’ll keep it as simple as i can =p

Monday, May 8th, 2006, 8:30am WIB, i departed from Juanda Airport, Surabaya with two of the main contractor representatives: my friend Alex as the project site manager, and other one named Mr. Adi as the main manager.

The flight required about 50 - 60 minutes from Surabaya to Banjarmasin, and at approximately (i didn’t wear any watch, and my cellphone was off because of the regulation) 9:30am WIB (10:30am WITA) i arrived at Samsudin Noor Airport, Banjarmasin. Well, there’s a different timezone between Surabaya (WIB time zone) and Banjarmasin (WITA time zone), where’s WITA was 1 hour ahead WIB.

Samsudin Noor Airport, Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan (Click the picture)

From the airport, we continued with a car from a travel agent and went to Tanjung city (Tanjung town if i can say, because it was very small town compared to the towns in Java). But before that, we went to Alex’s house at Banjarmasin.

I met Alex’s wife: Fefe, his niece: Yaya and his mother there. Well, i were surprised that Fefe was already pregnant for 8 months now, and approximately she will give a birth at June 2006. But my bad, i didn’t take any picture of them =(.

After we ate and finished some business, we continued our travel.

We were going through Banjarmasin-Banjarbaru-Martapura-Rantau-Kandangan-Barabai-Amuntai and Tanjung. (See map below)

Map of South Kalimantan (Click the picture)

Actually there’s still another towns, such as: Batulicin, but they’re to small and were not listed in the map. (fyi, the towns length was only +/- 2km each, not to mention the villages =p).

It required about 5 - 6 hours to travel from Banjarmasin to Tanjung, so we arrived there about 6:00pm WITA. There, i lived in a rent house (rumah kontrak), +/- 6km from the Tanjung town and +/- 6km from the project site.

Our rent house (Click the picture)

Most of the houses there still using wood for the structures, the walls and the partitions, some were combined it with ceramics for the facade (included our rent house) and for the roof, they use some materials called "sirap". Only few were use concrete and brick for the wall. +/- 80% of the area was still forests, still nature if i can say.

My duty there was to survey and search the materials, tools, and another equipments required for my work. Well, actually i only need 1 day to do it all, but because one and another reasons, i needed 1 and half days.

At my free time, i rent an "ojek" (you know, it’s a motorcycle that were rented for anyone who want to paid them), it’s the only main public transportation there.

At first, i tought i’ll need many time exploring the town, but, in fact i only needed less than 1 hour exploring all the city =p. But don’t think there’s nothing in this town, you won’t believe me, there’s a digital printing facility, hotel, and the most surprising, there’s a "what-they-called-mall"….wow!!

So if i can say, this is a town with the nuance of village =p.

Hahaha….i didn’t lie, but as you may know, except the digital printing, the others was only a name. The hotel was actually an inn and the what-they-called-mall was a two stories traditional market building, only at the 2nd floor they sell DVDs, VCDs, bags, t-shirts and jeans =). That’s why they named it "mall".

Another fact i got, previously this town was the base of the Pertamina oil and gas mining in Kalimantan, but as the time goes by, one by one of the mines were closed, but there’s still some were operated. There’s also a monument at the municipality (kabupaten) gate at the artery road (the main road that connected between two or more provincies) junction. There’s a text written at the monument: "Kabupaten Tabalong" (fyi, Tabalong was the municipality there) and there’s also a torch on the top of the monument. The torch was connected directly to the gas mine so the torch’s fire will always be burned, and the local people said, if it’s no longer burned that’s mean the gas is already used up. (You know the meaning).

I’ll continue in the next post.

Did you watched American Idol? I did, especially the 5th season (2006).

Well, actually i didn’t really interested in the singing, i just interested in the reality show, how peoples struggles to become an artist (they call it "Idol" anyway) and sometimes they did many bizzare things just to fulfilling their dream =p.

"Unless the LORD builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless the LORD guards the city, The watchman stays awake in vain" - Psalm 127:1

I didn’t say hard efforts were wrong, but if we did it without the Lord, it just return in void.

Okay, talking about AI, did you noticed the song at the end of the elimination?

They played it when the contestant(s) got eliminated because he/she had the lowest number of votes, while they show his/her journey’s flashback (his/her hard effort, emotion, memories, etc) in the screen.

The lyric was somehow like this, "cause you had a bad day, you taking one down, …" and so on.

At first, i thought it was an amused song that give some advises or some conclusions how to get rid from a bad day, to the listener.

"If you had a bad day, you shouldn’t be sad but you should do…something…something…" whatever =p –> that’s what i thought.

Then i began to search the lyric and the song in the internet, and yippee!

I found it.

The lyric was like this:

Verse:

Where is the moment we needed the most
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost
They tell me your blue skies fade to grey
They tell me your passion’s gone away
And I don’t need no carryin’ on

You stand in the line just to hit a new low
You’re faking a smile with the coffee to go
You tell me your life’s been way off line
You’re falling to pieces everytime
And I don’t need no carryin’ on

Reff:

Cause you had a bad day
You’re taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don’t know
You tell me don’t lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
The camera don’t lie
You’re coming back down and you really don’t mind
You had a bad day
You had a bad day

Another Verse:

Well you need a blue sky holiday
The point is they laugh at what you say
And I don’t need no carryin’ on

Bridge:

Sometimes the system goes on the blink
And the whole thing turns out wrong
You might not make it back and you know
That you could be well oh that strong
And I’m not wrong

…

Sorry i cut out the lyric because it’s very long. If you want to search the lyric, the artist was "Daniel Powter" and the song title was "Bad Day".

After reading the lyric, i was very dissapointed, because it’s not like what i thought. The story of the song was just about someone trying to cheering up his/her girlfriend who’s had a bad day and trying to hid it from him. He said it’s happened sometimes and his only conclusion was the girl need a holiday.

Well, that’s not a good conclusion and it’s not very amusing at all, although the rhythm was good. =(

But, it did taught me one thing, that the source of joy is not holiday, but only in my Jesus Christ.

Don’t get affected with the song. So, if you had a girlfriend (or boyfriend) and he/she had a bad day, sing it like this:

if you had a bad day
don’t you taking one down
sing a joyful song and not to turn it around

…

"Sorry…" - Simon Cowell

he…he..he… =D

"My flesh and my heart fail; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever" - Psalm 73:26

GBU.

D.R.

Borneo…you know, that’s another name of Kalimantan.

I’ll go there on Monday, April 8th, don’t know till when?! But sure it’s a big surprise. I’d already went to Sulawesi (such as Toraja & Manado), Bali (i almost bored, because it’s very often =p), but never Kalimantan.

This noon i went to the meeting, acted as the subcontractor (yes, i’m the steelwork subcontractor). After some explanation and negotiation, i have to go there for some surveys. They said, it’ll need about 7.5-8.5 hours to go to the project site (1.5 hours from Surabaya To Banjarmasin by airplane, and 6 hours from Banjarmasin to the site by car. 1 hour for spare time, because the road field is very rough =p). Wow! What a trip?!

But i’m sure God will always guide me, most of the worker was ex Petra Civil Engineering student, including the site manager there. He was Alex Binokwari, a friend of mine and a brother for J-First…..it’s a looooong story anyway.

Well, that’s all what i can say for now. GBU.

D.R.