I cannot explain what happened to me when I was in Leiden last week. Perhaps it was the combination of the Dutch weather (it was raining like crazy), my lack of rest, my wild brain, and being with a partner in crime (who requested such crazy music) The result of such combination is the recording of some children songs — sung in a no-shame drunk mode :p

Unfortunately those who didn’t grow up in Indonesia wouldn’t understand the humor behind all of this craziness. But anyway…… please enjoy two of some songs I recorded….. they are about a dog and meatballs…. accompanied with a stolen guitar :p

The Heli Dog of WineHouse

The Meat Ball of Edith Piaf
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I have many stories from my adventure in the land of midnight sun, but currently I have no energy nor time to write them except this particular one. Cannot help but writing about Московское метро.

Both St Petersburg and Moscow are beautiful. Remarkably beautiful. They are gorgeous! As I mentioned somewhere else, though, these cities, unlike Western European cities, were really designed in inhumane scale aka gigantic scale, a very common style adopted by great (authoritarian) rulers who wanted to make ‘people’ feel small.

Russia really impresses me. The people, food, architecture…. One thing that impress me most is their Metro system. Not only it’s remarkably efficient and well designed, it’s architecture is also impressive, especially the Moscow one.

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A unique mass protest happened in May 2003 when Indonesia’s Islamic clerics and organizations banned Inul Daratista, a singer, from performing because her gyrating hip movement, which Indonesians call “drilling,” (more…)

It’s been too long, really. More than three years. At last, finally the book from our civic space project is out. I have my chapter there, Chapter 11, about civic spaces in Jakarta. Sadly, the book is too expensive for regular people to buy so only libraries (in developed countries) will have the book. I wish this kind of book can be cheaper. But I am trying to get my e-copy so I can put it online, just like what I have been doing with my other publications. Fingers crossed, I hope to get the file very soon.

update Dec 15, 2007: the chapter is already online here.

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“A woman living in one of the Indonesian capital’s poorest neighbourhoods incites her neighbours to recycle their garbage, save energy and grow plants to fight pollution. The area has turned into Jakarta’s cleanest neighbourhood, and is even becoming a tourist attraction.”

What an inspiring figure!

If you happen to be in Honolulu on Monday, 29th of October 2007, you are welcome to attend this event: Global Studies Focus Group Colloquium. We can chat during and after the event and perhaps go out for lunch together too

Below is a flyer for the event, made by the University of Hawaii.
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Next semester, Spring 2008, I’ll be teaching two classes. The first is JUS 394 Information Technology and Social Justice, which I taught last Spring. The new one is JUS 591/691, which is a graduate seminar. I’m excited about this one. It marks my coming back to “physical” space — well, I actually never left it, I have always been in physical space and some of my work on civic spaces too are about it. So, here it is.

Globalization & Livable Cities
Code: JUS 591/691
Type: Graduate Seminar
Professor: Merlyna Lim
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I guess you all should congratulate me, because I just got a new degree: MMF.

I considered missing one flight and almost missing 2 flights just last month as well as some missing flight experiences in the past as not part of my life, only some things that happened to happen

But today, I guess I need to consider that I am qualified for this degree a friend of mine gave: an MMF.

I am sitting now at eXtreme Bean, a coffee shop in Tempe, sipping my morning coffee at 10:53 am, and will soon drive to the Sky Harbor Phoenix airport (only 10-15 minutes from here) to catch my 12:15 pm flight. Now, I will not miss that flight, because I will only have to show at the gate as late as 10 minutes before the schedule.

But this is the third flight scheduled for me
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It could be you. It could be me. Ten minutes away from home, one night something goes wrong and we end up at the emergency room of the nearest hospital. Crowd. Cries. Blood. In pain, we enter the world of misery. Doctors, nurses, suicide attempts, broken legs, overdosis, heart attacks, gunbanging victims, drug addicts, and someone like me :p.

Perhaps almost all of us have seen the hit TV show "ER". The show that has

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It’s over 90F in LA. Other places in Greater LA like San Fernando Valley are even hotter. It reaches 119. I heard these last two days are among the hottest days ever in the LA history. Worse is that it’s kinda humid, so it feels hotter than the real temperature. With no aircon at home, I am melting. (more…)