A surprise

A very beautiful and loving surprise

Hari sabtu adalah hari yang kutunggu-tunggu, karena hari itu adalah hari terakhir bekerja, dan aku bisa tidur awal setelah pulang, tanpa perlu merasa terbebani bahan mengajar di keesokan hari. Hari sabtu sekaligus juga merupakan hari yang paling melelahkan, tenagaku tinggal sisa-sisa doang, setelah bekerja sejak hari senin.
Setelah hampir seminggu feeling blue without any clear reason, (padahal aku ga sedang PMS loh!) hari sabtu kemarin aku ingin jam enam segera datang, agar aku bisa segera pulang, mandi, dan ... menikmati hangat dan empuknya kasur, guling, plus bantal, sembari menikmati kicauan anak semata wayangku. LOL.
Sekitar pukul 17.40, kuterima sms dari Iput, “Invitation! Farewell party mas tyo/dude, ntar jam 18.00 di rumah om budi seli, puspowarno, + pembagian award, mohon datang tepat waktu.” Serasa aku mendapatkan suntikan energi entah darimana, aku jadi merasa begitu alive, dan kasur yang hangat dan empuk pun menjadi kurang menarik. (spending time with my dear b2w friends is mostly my favorite time, besides swimming, of course. )
...
Aku sampai di rumah mas Budi sekitar pukul 19.00 (molor poll yah? hahaha ... aku rencana mau langsung ke sana sepulang dari Tembalang. Tapi, karena mengharapkan akan ada CNR setelah itu, aku pikir sebaiknya aku pulang aja dulu, trus ganti baju plus naik sepeda. Rencana jadi agak molor setelah Angie bilang, “Mama mandi dulu dong! Masak setelah seharian pergi ga mandi sebelum pergi lagi?”), mas Tyo yang jadi lakon utama malam itu yang membukakan pintu pagar tatkala aku datang. Dari sorot matanya kulihat dia begitu bersedih, karena demi masa depannya, dia harus pergi begitu jauh, meninggalkan keluarga, plus teman-temannya. Aku jadi ikut ngelangut ngelihatnya.  but at least, keinginanku untuk bersalaman dengannya (kok jadi kayak selebriti aja dia? hahaha ...) dan secara langsung mengatakan, “Met jalan ... semoga sukses mendulang dolar di negeri orang ...” kesampaian, ga hanya lewat milis, maupun sms.
Di ruang tamu yang mungil itu sudah ada Maya, Iput, Eka, Zacky, dan Darmawan, selain Tyo. Yang punya rumah malah pergi karena harus menghadiri suatu acara. Tidak ada hidangan spesial yang mengatakan bahwa acara ini diadakan secara mendadak (lha wong paginya aku dan mas Tyo sempat berkirim sms sejenak, dia ga bilang apa-apa tentang acara gathering ini). But it did not matter, yang penting kita ngadain acara berkumpul untuk ‘nguntapke’ alias to say goodbye formally, secara organisasi, kepada mas Tyo.
Setelah Lila dan mas Nasir datang, acara dibuka oleh Darmawan. (Ga nyangka bakal ada susunan acara, sambutan-sambutan, padahal beberapa bulan lalu waktu sibuk rapat untuk mengadakan BIKE TO WORK DAY 29 Agustus 2008 kita ga pake acara pembukaan, laporan notulen oleh sekretaris, de el el...) Aku sempat heran, “Weleh, serius to ki?” LOL. Sambutan pertama diberikan oleh mas Nasir, mewakili organisasi b2w Semarang. Sambutan kedua diberikan oleh mas Tyo, yang akan pergi. Dia mampu berbicara sepatah dua patah kata tanpa menitikkan air mata, LOL, meskipun dari sinar matanya aku masih melihat rasa haru dan berat untuk meninggalkan organisasi yang baru dia ikuti selama beberapa bulan.
Acara selanjutnya adalah pengumuman pemenang award.
Swear, aku pikir Darmawan cuma bercanda. Lah wes piye? Aku kan termasuk pengurus inti b2w Semarang, karena aku bisa dikategorikan pioneer tatkala beberapa orang mendeklarasikan berdirinya b2w Semarang pada tanggal 26 Juni 2008. Masak ada acara sepenting itu—pemilihan salah satu member b2w Semarang yang dianggap konsisten dengan berbike to work sebagai somewhat ‘role model’ bagi member yang lain, cie ... duwur banget je!!! LOL—aku sebagai pengurus ga tahu?
Aku pikir organisasi akan memberikan kenang-kenangan buat Tyo sebelum dia pergi. (biasanya ibu-ibu PKK itu memberikan kenang-kenangan kepada salah satu warga yang pindah ke daerah lain!) selain juga karena setahuku Tyo sangat konsisten dengan berbike to work, selain pak Wargo yang telah kujadikan ‘feature’ di blog ku, bahkan artikelku itu diterbitkan www.superkoran.info juga.
Waktu Darmawan bilang,
“Setelah memilah dan memilih dari segenap anggota b2w Semarang, ada tiga nominator utama. Yang pertama mas Tri ...”
Aku langsung berpikir, “Wah ... bercanda nih!!!” bukan karena apa-apa. Kalau parameter-nya adalah kekonsistenan berbike to work, mas Tri kalah dong dengan yang lain, terutama dengan pak Wargo dan mas Tyo.
“Alasannya ... karena dia rajin posting di milis ...”
Tuh, ga nyambung kan? Aku cuma tersenyum mendengarnya.
“Nominator yang kedua ... Firman...”
Aku langsung berpikir (I am quite a quick thinker! LOL), “Karena Firman adalah ketua b2w Semarang, dan dia lah yang memiliki contact langsung dengan b2w Indonesia (Jakarta).”
Darmawan melanjutkan, “Kebalikan dengan mas Tri, karena Firman jarang nongol di milis...!”
Langsung meledaklah tawaku.
“Lucu ... lucu!!!” teriakku. (NOTE: sebelum itu karena banyolan Darmawan, Iput pun memberikan topik gathering kita, “ben lucu!”)
“Nominator yang ketiga ... saya sendiri...” lanjut Darmawan.
Ketawaku tambah keras. Aku semula berpikir nominator yang ketiga adalah mas Tyo, kemudian dialah pemenangnya, untuk memberikan kenang-kenangan sebelum dia pergi. Pernyataan Darmawan, “ ... saya sendiri ...” merupakan hal paling lucu yang kudengar malam itu. Itu sebabnya, aku langsung nyahut, “Pemenangnya akan ... diguyur dengan air!!!” sambil tetap tertawa-tawa.
Darmawan langsung berkomentar, “Bener loh ya mbak, entar pemenangnya diguyur air!!!”
Aku langsung merasa ada yang ga beres. My sixth sense mengatakan, secara tidak langsung, Darmawan bilang, “You will be the winner. You will be showered by water!”
Namun karena aku juga berpikir Darmawan sedang ingin menghibur Tyo yang akan pergi, yang terlihat muram semenjak aku datang, aku tetap berpikir Darmawan bercanda.
Ujar Darmawan berikutnya, “Namun berhubung kedua nominator lain tidak hadir malam ini, dan saya menjadi satu-satunya nominator yang datang, maka menjadi tidak adil kalau hanya saya yang menjadi calon pemenang. Untuk itu, panitia memutuskan untuk mengangkat nominator lain, yakni mbak Nana ...”
Nah!!
“Setelah melalui diskusi yang cukup alot, panitia memutuskan yang mendapatkan award adalah mbak Nana!!!”
Mendengar kalimat Darmawan tersebut, aku tetap tertawa-tawa, (hah, ternyata teman-teman pengen ngguyur aku pake air toh? LOL) tatkala tiba-tiba Maya dan Iput menggiringku keluar dari ruang tamu menuju teras, sembari menutup mataku. Aku membayangkan di luar aku akan diguyur air (ealah, apa salah dan dosaku? Kok aku dikerjain kayak gini? LOL.) Atau akan adakah kejutan lain di luar?
Sesampai di luar, Iput melepaskan tangannya dari mataku, sambil menunjuk sebuah sepeda kepadaku, “Hadiah buat mbak Nana ... sebuah sepeda baru yang bisa mbak Nana naikin ke kantor, maupun ikutan cross country bersama teman-teman!”
H-A-H!!!
I was extremely surprised!!!
Very-very surprised.
Aku masih berpikir teman-teman bercanda, dan kompak ngerjain aku. (Piye toh, lha wong sing meh lungo adoh mas Tyo, kok sing dikerjain aku???)
“Serius nih, sepeda ini buatku?” tanyaku ga percaya. “Bercanda nih...”
“Piye toh, orang kita merencanakannya selama berhari-hari kok dianggap bercanda!” sahut Darmawan.
“Why me?” tanyaku, tetap tak percaya.
“Alasannya akhiran katanya a. Kalo alasane, akhiran katanya e.” Jawab Darmawan, tetap bercanda.
Kemudian aku langsung ditodong untuk mencoba menaiki sepeda itu, putar-putar di sekitar Puspowarno X.
S-U-R-P-R-I-S-E!!!
Dan aku pun menjadi bintang utama malam itu. (dan bukannya Tyo. Hehehe ...)
Kita akhiri gathering dengan berbondong-bondong ke jalan Gajahmada, menyambangi jualan nasi pecel. Maya menaiki sepeda WINNER ku sampai rumah, sementara aku dipaksa naik sepeda yang baru.
Paginya (semula aku rencana mau berenang di hari minggu 23 Nop. 08, as usual when I am feeling blue, I want to be alone, away from the crowd) aku ikut pit-pitan ke pantai Maron, ‘ngreyen’ sepeda baruku di tempat becek-becek. My feeling blue reduced a bit.
I am surrounded by loving and caring big family of b2w Semarang community.
Thank you for the loving surprise, dear friends. I really appreciate and feel proud of our brotherhood and sisterhood as well as togetherness.
I love you all.
-- Nana Podungge –
PT56 23.16 231108
P.S.: I am still curious to know the mastermind of this surprise anyway. Hello anybody, will you tell me? :)

My sixth sense? LOL

Last week, I felt restless as well as anxious the whole week, without any clear reason. I was somewhat fed up with my routine: wake up at 4.30, start doing my morning chores, take a shower, have breakfast, then take Angie to school at around 06.10. From there, I directly go to my office. In one day, I usually teach four or five slots, and sometimes have to supervise students in the library during their library hours. I leave the office around 15.00; mostly I go home afterwards. At home, I take a shower, change clothes, then go to my other office: I have one class at 17.00-19.00. Sometimes a workmate asks my help to substitute him/her at 19.00-21.00 and I usually don’t have a heart to say ‘no’ forgetting that maybe my physical strength does not support; not to mention my only daughter needs to spend time with me that I have only in the night (plus in the early morning, before I take her to school). This is my schedule from Monday till Thursday. On Friday from the office at 15.00, I go to my other office that is located in Tembalang, a hilly area, to teach at 16.00-18.00. Then I go home. At home, every Friday evening there is ‘pengajian’ (reciting Alquran together) held by my dear mom for our neighbors so that automatically I cannot directly take a rest. On Saturday, I have classes at 08.00-12.00 then at 16.00-18.00. Sometimes at 14.00-16.00 I substitute a workmate who has to leave his/her class due to something important.
Last week, oftentimes when I was sitting in the teachers’ room before the other teachers came (because I always came earlier than the others), I felt I wanted to be alone there the whole day so that I could do anything I wanted; such as singing loudly while listening to media player, or putting my head on the desk while I was attacked by sleepiness, reading books since I was somewhat bored to read the teaching materials (haha …), writing poems, etc. I cannot do all those things since my workmates would find me weird, or maybe they would think, “Hey … you are here to work, not to read books or write poems!” LOL.
This boredom really bothered my mind, I suppose, so that I wrote some lonely and sad poems. (Especially on eighteenth, reading the three sad poems I posted at MP blog, my Abang messaged me, “kok puisinya sedih melulu?”)
Besides blaming my boredom to my daily routine, I also tried to look for another ‘scapegoat’ (LOL): someone was missing me badly! LOL. (FYI, some time in the past, when I was missing someone badly, I liked to do ‘telepathy’ on him, to tell him that I was missing him. When I focused strongly, I often could ‘move’ his heart, and then he contacted me. WOW. LOL.) Or, I became the ‘topic’ to talk about by some people. My ‘sixth sense’ told me. LOL. Only, I didn’t have any idea who and why they were talking about me. What kind of trouble or problem have I caused in their life?
And …
I found my sixth sense was true!!!
W-O-W!!!
Last Saturday, around twenty minutes before I finished teaching my class, I got a short message from a b2w friend, inviting me to attend a so-called farewell party of a member who is going to go to Qatar to work. I was suddenly full of spirit, although before that, I was so exhausted, wanted to go home soon, to go to bed early! Being with my dear b2w friends is mostly my favorite pastime. Besides, I also wanted to directly say goodbye to Tyo, the one who would move to Qatar, and shake his hand.
From the office, I went home first, to take a shower and change clothes. Since the place where the farewell party was held not far from my home, I decided to go there by bike. In most gatherings with my b2w friends, I come by bike.
In the middle of the moody atmosphere in the gathering, since Tyo was about to leave us for at least two years, I got a surprise! My friends secretly planned to give me a bike, as a reward since I was selected to be one good example to bike to work. They had been planning it for more than a week for the surprise! N-A-H!!! I proved that my sixth sense was true: a group of people were talking about me.
For the surprise, I would write another article, in Bahasa Indonesia.
PT56 22.10 231108

Nana blogging

 

I posted the first article in a blog in March 2005, when friendster the first time offered blog feature to its members. But, I started blogging regularly in the beginning of 2006. My first love for blogging was at www.blog.co.uk with my blogsite at http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk What made me fall in love with this blog? The members at this blog network diligently visited my blog and left comments in my posts. They were mostly from Europe, some from America, some others from Asia and Australia.

Then, in February 2006 I opened an account at www.blogger.com with blogsite at http://afeministblog.blogspot.com by posting the same articles at the previous blog. What was my reason? I heard grapevines about people losing their blog and definitely I did not want this to happen to me. The second reason was I became more narcissistic with my articles, writing styles, and my somewhat weird way of thinking (compared to the majority of people in Indonesia, especially people around me.) When finding out that this latter blog attracted people around Southeast Asia that mostly opposed my way of thinking, I became more challenged as well as annoyed. At the same time I also tried to introspect myself whether I did not write thoroughly when explaining about a certain issue--for example my opposing idea against polygamy--so that people did not catch the main idea I expressed. (Then, I found out that they were just old-fashioned stubborn people who did not want to look at things from different point of view, especially from feministic perspective.)

In the middle of 2007 I became more serious to blog at the latter blog so that I somewhat discriminated the first blog, moreover the previous members who used to visit my blog and leave comment disappeared one by one. 

Recently I have left that first love of mine, especially since August 2008. 

A dear friend just complained to me some time ago why she did not get new articles of mine sent by the admin of the blog. She is one of the subscribers. She thought that I had deleted her email address as one subscriber. It somewhat slapped my face because I had ignored that first love of mine. 

So? I signed in this blog of mine (FYI, I have got warnings from the admin whether I wanted to continue blogging there or not. ) And I was surprised, finding that the visitors of this blog of mine were still as many as before I ignored it. 

Here is the record of the visitors in my first blog.

Month Total Pageviews Total Visitors 

October 2008 11033 3704
September 2008 10512 3378
August 2008 10945 3155
July 2008 11217 3782
June 2008 12135 5157
May 2008 23607 5576
April 2008 20420 5765
March 2008 10204 4973
February 2008 11506 4308
January 2008 14230 5104
December 2007 14429 3888
November 2007 11871 3963
October 2007 12160 5288
September 2007 6404 3673
August 2007 13352 2696
July 2007 19898 3318
June 2007 7890 3933
May 2007 2516 1308
April 2007 2803 1242
March 2007 3637 1705
February 2007 3481 1596
January 2007 2733 1453
December 2006 4656 1377
November 2006 3991 1460
October 2006 3313 1265
September 2006 3304 804
August 2006 3886 1076
July 2006 3428 1044
June 2006 2721 709
May 2006 2555 603
April 2006 577 273
March 2006 512 237
February 2006 176 95 

January 2006 63 36
December 2005 3 3

People still love visiting my blog, although I don't post new articles. As a blogger, of course this is very awesome!!! 

So, Nana, keep writing, expressing everything that crowds your mind, ease your own thought. 

C-Net 20.20 131108