February 2021 In Recap

February always feels shorter as it only has 28 days, but this year's February felt like zooming past me. I spent the days taking in my colleague's work load, my own work load and also working on my other clients' assignments. 

This month I still had three projects from the SG-based clients and two projects from my ID-based clients on a fixed contract. Meanwhile, I was also working on the revision on the Sumba Island project and starting on the earthquake aid relief project. Whenever I woke up from my night sleep this month, I quickly checked the day/date and the to-do list that I had wrote down the day before. This habit actually helped me to stay on track and finish every daily/weekly tasks on time so that I still had time to work on the other projects.

In the past, my colleague often joked that I have this mechanical response and work on a predetermined schedule. Well, look who's benefiting from my unique trait, none other than herself! 😆

Anyway, the writing assignment on the earthquake aid relief turned out to be in either raw form or in limited amount. Some of the data are in the form of newsletters, while some others still in the form of audio/video files. I also had to do additional interviews (note the plural form!) via Microsoft Teams, transcribe the audio/video files into text and then compiling the words into comprehensive articles.

Tangent: after using Skype and Webex for the SG-based client, I have been using Zoom, GMeet and WhatsApp Call for various work purposes. However, this was the first time I used Microsoft Teams and I was impressed. Teams can allow a computer to take over another computer so it can browse the content of the overtaken computer.

If I had more time to work on this assignment, I could enjoy the process more. But it was all about catching up with the deadline, so to be honest, I would say that it was not one of my best work. On a normal situation, I would beat myself for not giving the best result. During this pandemic, I just want to end the assignment as soon as possible, I could not wait to feel at ease again.

Works And Occupational Hazard

After completing the Sumba project, I thought I could have calm days ahead. However, another write-up project has waited just around the corner. This time, it's about the earthquakes that hit Lombok Island in 2018. I did not have to fly over to Lombok Island as the team promised to provide me with the necessary data. However, the data compiling process was not as smooth as I had expected and there were some interviews that I should conduct via Microsoft Teams, so the project was a bit delayed behind schedule.

 

The main issues that I needed to write were about emergency relief and disaster risk reduction. I am excited to work on the project because it is a relevant issue for Indonesia, which sits on the Ring of Fire and is vulnerable to various kinds of natural disaster. 

Tangent: it's a bit funny that I have been getting works on long-form articles because a few months ago, I sort of complained to a friend, wishing that I could write long-form articles.

 

Due to this Lombok earthquake project,  I downloaded Microsoft Teams on my cellphone, as my trusty old laptop (which will turn 11 years old this June/July) could not download the app. I simply hope that my cellphone (which will turn four years old this May) will be able to keep up working with Skype, Webex, Zoom, and Google Meet that have been downloaded previously.

Another issue that happened this week was my work partner experienced hernia nucleus pulposus (HNP) due to sitting for hours on the floor without any cushion during this Work-From-Home period. She was hospitalized for a few days, and then she was scheduled for MRI or CT scan (?).

On HNP, I have a few friends with the conditions, so I have been trying to connect my work partner to my friends. All of my friends with HNP recommended swimming or walking on the swimming pool as part of the physiotherapy. I relayed the information to her, but at the moment, she insisted on going to an acupuncturist.

I had to take over her duties because she was still in pain if she sit for too long. So this week, I had to adjust and worked around my schedules to ensure all works were completed on (or before) deadlines. My boss asked whether I needed a back up, but I think it would be a hassle to train an intern just for several months. I think the works are still manageable, as long as I stay on course.

Anyway, this incident that happened to my work partner has raised my awareness on the hidden risk of working from home. As working from home is far more comfortable than working from office, sometimes most of us could sit for hours, and this is not good for our backbone health. Now, I try to have a five-minute break after one-hour of work to stand up, stretch my body and have a glass of water. 

I guess I will have my schedules busy in months ahead, until she gets better and resumes her works. In the meantime, let's keep working and carry on stretching in between works and breaks, people.

When I Tried To Cook Prawns, But The Foods Did Not Turn Out As Instagrammable As I Expected

After months in the pandemic situation, people would start to do the unexpected. In my case, it was cooking. I can cook for survival, but I would not find any joy if I have to do it on a daily basis. This cooking journey began with me missing the restaurant foods and trying to be frugal since we have yet to see the end of the pandemic and the economy crisis. I ordered a pack of shrimp (or is it prawn?) from an online shop. 

Most of the recipes are from Devina Hermawan's YouTube channel, with a few tweaks because sometimes I did not have the exact ingredient at home.

Can you guess what these are? Well, they are supposed to be "lumpia udang ayam kulit tahu" (shrimp and chicken wrapped in tofu skin spring roll). The ones sold in the restaurant are usually in small sizes, but since I felt hungry and generous, I made them gigantic. Despite the ugly appearance, these tasted  quite okay.

 

This one was supposed to be Singapore chili prawn. I was afraid that it would turn out too spicy or sour, so I kind of reduced the chili and tomatoes, resulting on this pale-looking dish. But it still tasted good, at least M said so. We both ate this dish in one sitting.

 

I was trying to recreate ebi furai (fried crispy shrimp) of Hokben, and lo and behold, what the hell were these chonky-looking bent prawns? While I currently could not pass the appearance test in cooking, I tried compensate in the taste department. These were actually good and delicious.

 

I believed this dimsum was the most successful prawn-based dish I have made so far. But again, you can never fail in making dimsum. The best thing about dimsum is you can keep them frozen and steam them later.

While I enjoy cooking these dishes, I have to take a break from the prawns, because the cholesterol level has spiked afterwards. M actually loves it when I cook, because it means she does not have to cook. I guess you will see a similar post in the future under this label :).

Let's Do Something Different This Year :)

Found here

2020 Was A Year Of Life In The Time Of Corona

Here we are in the end of the year to look back on what have we done in the past 366 days of our life. I hope 2020 has been kind to you. Because it did not for many people.

2020 started with news on Coronavirus outbreak, which shook many industries from travel to livestock. China and Indonesia are quite close, and we have heard about the previous pandemic, SARS, in 2003. However, little did we know that Covid-19 would change everything we thought we have known.

January kicked off in a rather normal pace. A cousin asked me to accompany her to a wedding reception of her colleague. The wedding was held in Nias tradition, and it was the first time I saw it. The guests danced together to close the wedding, it was quite fun! I had scaling at RSGM FKG UI in Salemba and donated blood to Indonesian Red Cross in Kramat. Then there was a dine-in event to celebrate the birthdays of former bosses (yeah, we still keep in touch, LOL).

In February, I started working with an ex boss on the topic that I love: environment! It was a daily job, with one report to be submitted before 11.45 am. I also got another work contract for a corporate newsletter, which would focus on construction and infrastructure (my past love!). After signing the one-year contract, I began to build a schedule for my daily work. It would soon dawn on me that I could not juggle three reports in my morning schedule.

By mid-March, the pandemic has arrived in Indonesia. The government started to implement various policies, from social distancing to social restriction. Many people took the pandemic lightly, because the news said that the virus that causes Covid-19 was a relative of the virus that causes SARS. Nevertheless, the panic buying happened. Disinfectant, face mask, and wet wipes went missing from the shelves of supermarkets. Unlike other people, I decided to pile up books to accompany me on the social distancing period through the last public event I attended this month, the 2020 Big Bad Wolf 2020. I went to this event with my friend Ebf, and we went a bit wild with our purchase, because we sort of predicted that we might not be able to leave our homes for book shopping in a near future.

April saw Good Friday and Ramadhan, with both religious events being observed in quiet and calm manners. To be honest, I enjoyed this year's Ramadhan because there was no obligatory breakfasting event. I could spend the whole month just focusing on work and fasting.

This May marked the first Idul Fitri at home. I also decided to quit one of my daily jobs (I had three, and the deadlines were only one hour apart from each other. My replacement turns out to be my former colleague at TJaP, Reynette. My manager asked me to give her some tips on the job, so we got reconnected again. We have a soft spot for stray cats and now our daily chat would include tips on cats.

June and July were a bit quiet. Nothing of importance had happened. 

In August, a friend invited me to take a staycation at Sultan Hotel. I asked her about the safety level, and she said that everything had been ensured to meet the health protocol. I decided to take her offer. I went to the Red Cross to donate blood before joining her at the hotel. But I was rather shocked to see the Red Cross office was swarmed with people queueing for blood donors. One of them even boldly asked if my bloodtype was A. Dude, even if it were, I would not say it. Anyway, the staycation was okay. I did several laps at the hotel's swimming pool.

September was a bit gloomy for me. A client asked for fee reduction, while another decided to terminate the contract due to budget restriction. I still have other jobs and the fee is enough to get by, but my concern is what will I do with the leisure time in this pandemic? I prefer working at home than exposing myself to the virus. I took one day off anyway to clear my head up.

October was the month of demonstration. On Oct. 5, Job Creation Law, or omnibus law, was passed, and a lot of the people raised their disagreement against the law. The demo did not affect me physically, because I worked from home anyway, but it affected my workload. One of the things discussed in the law was telecommunications, which is a key word for one of my daily jobs. So I got more than 5,000 news links to check everyday. My manager thankfully supported me this month, she even taught me a new tips to speed up my work pace. I also had a soft launching of another business venture with my Master friends.

Early November, a friend asked if I would be interested to work on a story gathering project in Sumba. I had a long thought process for the request and finally agreed to go. I sent in a proposal and after several discussions, I departed to Sumba on the last day of November. For this trip, I took leave from two daily jobs and a weekly job.

After coming back from Sumba, I had to catch up with all the reports and other obligations that I put on hold due to the trip. Then I closed the year by renewing my driving license at a Mobile Driving License place. It was the first time for me to renew my driving license at such place, and it was impressively quick. I would definitely come to this place again five years from now.

Whoa, I thought 2020 was pretty bland. But when I looked back at the highlights, while it was indeed bad, it was actually not that bad. How was your 2020, by the way?

2021 may not come any easier than 2020. However, if we survived 2020, then there is a chance we will make it in 2021.

Sumba Story Gathering Project And #TravelInTheTimeOfCorona - Part 3

Enough with the work talk, this post will have photos on East Sumba.

Before the pandemic, I would be irritated if things did not go as planned. Now that the whole world are well into the ninth month of the pandemic, I have learned to improvise, prepare several back-up plans and accept if things could not go as the initial plans.

I must admit that this latest trip to Sumba has given me a lot of last-minute surprises. I've told you about the quick process of the project. But that was just the beginning of many surprises. Another surprises was the videographer could not make it to check in to the airplane on the departure date *insert horror music*.

When I turned on my cellphone in Ngurah Rai Airport, Denpasar during the transit, waves of messages were barging in to the inbox. The most shocking one was:"Mbak, I could not check in to the flight." I did not need to check the sender to figure out who sent it. I quickly replied with a short sentence:"Wait a minute, I need to go to a restroom now."

It was a 4.30 am flight. I left home at 1.30 am, arrived at SHIA at 3 am and had to catch my breath to run to the departure gate. And all my videographer could say was that ambiguous apology? This is unacceptable. I was angry, but also, I needed to think carefully on how to approach this problem. After all, we still had to work for a week in Sumba.

So I sat down at a cafe, sipping a very strong black coffee and laying out my backup plan. I contacted the people in Sumba to delay the schedule by one day, asked the driver to find a hotel (although, I would not worry about this part, because all hotels would be vacant in this pandemic) and decided that I would go to the beach in the afternoon.

 

This is in Walakiri Beach

It was the first time I ever went to all the tourism sites in East Sumba. I just realized that had it not for the videographer's mishap, we might be going straight to the villages, and I would not be able to go to the beach.

 

In Walakiri Beach, a stargirl will find herself surrounded by the stars

 

The driver, Jack, kindly asked me where I'd like to go. I said,"Jack, this is my fourth visit to East Sumba, and I have never been anywhere touristy. You can just take me to any place and I would bet that it would be my first time going there." Jack just stared in disbelief,"But what did you do on your previous visits?" I raised my eyebrows,"I worked, obviously." He just sighed and said,"Ok."

Fortunately, Jack likes photography and he offers to take my pictures. I have a driver and a personal photographer. It's like hitting two birds with a stone or one paddling that takes you past two or three islands (do I even get the last proverb correctly translated? LOL). 

 

This is in Hiliwuku Hill. Sumba has several spots of such hills, with Wairinding as the most famous (you can borrow a piece of Sumba weave fabric as photo prop or ride a horse there).  

As we waited for the videographer to land, Jack had unconventional ideas on places to take photos. The following is an example :D.

 

This would be the first and last time I ever pose on an asphalt road in the middle of the day in Sumba. It was scorching hot, and I believed a part of my butts (if not all) got toasted. Man, being a model is tough.

 

 

Sumba is known for its savanna, so seeing the lush paddy field like this is also a surprise. This might look like a regular view in Java island. But if you notice the house on the background, that is not a Javanese traditional house. Also, the picture does not show, but there are sandalwood horses behind me, just outside of the frame.

 

A closer view of the traditional roof in Kampung Raja Prailiu.

 

 This one is too close, though :D 

 

The videographer and I had different flight schedules as he would leave one day before I did. I asked Ridkey about this, because I thought it would be useless for me to go to field when the videographer had left Sumba and it was Sunday, the day when everyone go to church and had family time. My photography skill is also below the acceptable, and I don't think it's fair to ask Jack to take the photos/videos. He should be hired professionally by the institution. 

 

At first, I thought of leaving on the same day as the videographer. But then, the cost to change the schedule was more expensive than one-day car rental and one-night hotel room, so I stuck to the schedule, but Ridkey allowed me to have day off. Yay!

I decided to go to Waimarang waterfall on that last day.

 

It was not the smoothest journey, especially with the pandemic situation still running at full steam here. Nevertheless, it was a memorable one.

Sumba Story Gathering Project and #TravelInTheTimeOfCorona - Part 2

The project is about meeting the people and listening to their stories, especially about energy usage, renewable energy and their hopes for the future. It's often difficult to get photos of myself working, but here are some still images from the  previous trip.

This is how people work during the pandemic: online and video conference. While we were in Waingapu, we reported our progress to our bosses and a collague via WhatsApp call, with one boss in Sawangan, Depok, one in Larantuka, Flores island and our colleague in Bandung. We had the call at a cafe in the city center called Cetroo Cafe because the WiFi was quite decent. After worrying about the signal in Waingapu, it turned out that it was our boss in Sawangan who had a bad signal reception.

We visited a community health center (Puskesmas) to check if they are ready to welcome the vaccine. They do have a freezer to keep the vaccine, and it is powered by Mbakuhau micro hydro power plant.

 The WiFi system is also powered by the renewable energy.

We had a short discussion before the shooting process. Video shooting is indeed a meticulous process.

One of the SOPs is to ask consent from all sources. After a shooting session, I asked this Puskesmas nurse for his consent.

I will close the post with a YouTube video on our visit to an elementary school that uses solar power plant to supply for the electricity.