Lesson from cats

I don't like cats. Infact, I would never had one even though it was given to me for free. I'm always into dogs. I would have a big lean labrador dog in the house if it was up to me. But bad luck, my sister and mother were totally unagree with me. They LOVE cats, especially my sister. When we were still at home several years back, she got those little skinny smelly cats from somewhere in neighborhood where nobody wanted them. There were three of them, all could barely open their eyes because they were so young, and partly because of those dirty blob stuck on their eyes. Fortunately, my dad shared my believes about cats. We tried to prevent my sister from get them in the house by asking her hard responsibilities upon them: she should clean them up, feed them, bring them to the vet, trained them to behave properly. I thought it should prevent those wretch from being the part of the family, but how wrong I was.

My sister was glued to them already, and she bravely said yes to everything we asked. So begin the Invasion of Smelly Tickle Cats; they went everywhere around the house, unrestricted, sleeping sometimes together with her, and were craddled most of the time in her arms. They jumped on the table when we had meals and sniffing around with those dirty wet noses. Can you imagine, those hairy smelly misreable cats walking around our gleaming floor? Had anyone ever heard of taxoplasma or e-coli or worm infection through cats? Nothing like vaccination have ever happened to them. I didn't even remember if my sister cleaned them up properly before bringing them into the house. I had to apply a court order for they not to get closer than 2 meters from me. But however good my sister was to them, one day one of them accidentally being crushed to death by my mother's car. My sister conducted an honored funeral ceremony on a hill close to home, attended by her friends and my mother and my gran. Have you ever heard of such a fuss being made over a dead cat??? Oh, how I hate those creatures!

Then something changed my view about cats in general. Several years ago when I first came to Holland and saw Holland's cat for the first time, I couldn't believe my eyes. Were those fat, fluffy cute animal the same kind with the skinny miserable wretch we had at home? Their price was more expensive than what my parents earned in one moth. Their size was like twice as big and three times as fat as our cats. They normally curled up comfortably in a sofa in front of the heater. Their foods were probably better than what my people eat at home; pure meats or cat biscuits supplemented with nutrition and all vitamins you could think of. They were always smiling and playing around, they looked exactly like the cats you see in book covers or Lucifer's box. I didn't even know such cats exist at all. I always thought those advertised cats were graphically made :D

On the evening, they troddle behind their proud owner who makes sure they were properly cleaned and fattenned up. During the weekends, they went to a special training place where they were properly educated and ensuring well-behaved. Vaccination papers and documents were lined up in order for each of them, and you can trace their ancestor up to probably 50 years back. You know, probably their great great grandcat have been the cat of the great-great grandmother of Queen Wilhelmina? How could I not love them when they purred and looked at me like Puss in Boots from Shrek??

You see, it is easy to take care of something trained, clean, and expensive. It's effortless to make friends with cats whose luck and lifestyle might be overly inhumane (yeah. with foods brought up to them and no work needs to be done except being nice to their old lady, what else could you want more??). But it is very difficult to love those cats I had back home, with their infected eyes and smelly fur. What beautiful was, all the nasty digusting things necessary to take care of the cats back home was done with pleasure by my sister. The last time I saw them, they were not as bad as before. They fattened up a bit, most of the wounds have dissappeared, no tickle anymore ( I hope), and their eyes were clean as a clean cat eyes can be. They were nowhere near Holland's cats, but everytime I remember them I was amazed (a little bit) by the magic of bravery and love; those of my sister for accomodating others who were in need.

I wish I was her

She smiles happily in the picture I saw on the digital web. She took one arm of her beloved and hugged it tight in her own. She graduated with a very satisfactionary degree from a top university. She work in a top finance company and earn enough to get her settled with her new family.

She once have had the heart of my dearest. They made the most beautiful memories I can never see. She could just walk accross next door anytime she wish to see him. He once said she was the one he wished to spend the rest of his life with.

Her house was big enough to accomodate 50 people. The door to her house complete with flight tickets are always available upon her requests. Winter and summer holidays with the whole family are written in the annual agendas.

She worships God our Lord as how He want us to do. She never misses one Sunday without praying to Him and thank Him for His grace. She never feels poor nor miserable because she knows God will always be with her.

She posed with mini skirt and cute top and high heels. Her long hair flew around her face and her lips parted in that sweet aquiescence. She was not pretty yet she was radiantly beautiful.

Let the waves of oath befall upon me for my envy and ungratefulness, for I wish I was her.

G.H.O.S.T.S

Let me guide you one of the topics I'd like to discuss the most: ghostly incidence and the behind story. I've always been a fans of horror movies, literatures, or actual phenomenon. By horror, I mean not a texas-chainsaw-massacre kind of things, but more like Shutter-type stories.

Right now I want to bring you to recognition that sometimes the spirit from the past could be recorded on the several digital devices, such as radio, computer, or cameras. This has been proved by the existance of several potographs which contained figures that were not there when they were taken, or simply could not possibly there at all for the recorded figures had since long gone. However, since it is now very possible to animate pictures, it is difficult to judge if a picture is genuine. Therefore I choose several classic photographs which were unlikely to be animated. Those mostly were taken in the 60's.

There are 5 photographs out of maybe 30 that left a certain impression on me. I will share them with you and see if they also left the same impression on you.

This photo was a group potrait of a military squadron which had served in World War I, taken in 1919. In the back of the man positioned on the top row, four from the left, can clearly be seen a ghostly image of another man (see circle). The face was easily recognized by the airmen as belong to an air mechanic who had accidentally been killed two days previously by airline propeller. His funeral has taken place the day this photograph was taken.

It was suggested that this man, unaware of his death, had decided to turn up on this group photograph. It is such a scary yet touching assumption that he was very devoted to his squadron even after his death. In my mind, I think people would always want to come to the place where they were happiest the most. Maybe then for him, the happiest moment was when he served with this squadron.

The second photograph (and slightly scarier than the first) was that of a lonely-looking young woman in an out-of-date white dress sitting on a tombstone. of her body (in the leg area) were a bit transparent. This photograph was taken by an infrared camera by a ghost hunting group who had experienced some anomalies with their equipment as they got closer to the spot.

The woman in this picture indeed seemed so lonely yet undisturbed. It makes me wondering who or what possibly was she waiting for. Was she burried in the same area, or was she just came as a visitor. This photograph was in my opinion a very good and clear snapshot of a parnormal phenomenon.

A woman was visiting the grave of her daughter in Australia, in 1947 or 1947. Her daughter had just died several weeks earlier at the age of 17. She took a photograph of her grave, but did not see any unusual when she did so. However, when she developed the film, she was astonished to see an image of a baby sitting happily on her daughter's grave. The ghost child seemed aware of her camera and looked directly at it. The expert has rule out the possibility of double exposure. Moreover, she did not recall of any child nearby the spot. She also did not believe the ghost as that of her daughter's.

This was scary because the baby seemed very real, yet it certainly did not. For one, usually it was difficult to depict a face in a ghostly figure, but the baby's face in this picture was clearly visible. Again, it's leg was transparent and she wore a white out-of-date clothing pieces. What makes white garment so special for those paranormal creatures? If she's still there until now, I'm glad that at least she was happy with her surrounding.

This photo was taken in 1959. A lady was visiting a grave site of her mother with her husband. She brought along a camera to take a picture of the grave site. After taking a few snapshot of the grave site, she took a photo of her husband who was sitting alone, waiting in the car. At least they thought he was alone. When she developed the film, they were surprised to see a figure wearing glasses sitting at the backseat of the car. She immediately recognized the figure as her mother, whose graveyard they had just visited that day. Experts have judged this picture as genuine.

The figure at the backseat did not look happy at all. There was some dark shadow surround it that made her glasses glowing. It looked as if it was watching the man in the front with a lot of awareness and suspicion. How far did it followed them that day? Was it coming home with them at the backseat of the car that day?...

The last and the scariest of all is the ghost of Tulip staircase. This famous photograph was taken in 1966, and initially was intended as a memorabilia of this elegant spiral staircase in the Queen's house section of the National Maritim Museum in England. Upon development, the photo reveal a shrouded figure climbing the stairs, and apparently holding the railing with two hands. Any possibility of tampering had been ruled out be the experts. This picture was apparently not the only evidence of ghostly presence in Tulip Staircase. Several people have witnessed a figure of a lady gliding from room to room, an unexplainable choral chanting of children, and the figure of a pale woman frantically mopping blood at the bottom of the staircase (said to be a maid from 300 years ago who was thrown 50 feet from the highest banister to her death), a banging doors, and some more.

This shrouded figure does not look like human to me. It is more like some unshaped creatures between cat or lion with human hands. What kind of creature climb a stairs like that? If someday that shroud was open, what would be visible underneath? I don't want to know.

Karena meskipun kau ganteng, kau bukanlah untukku

Aku tahu kau ganteng.
Tubuh tinggi rambut berdiri hidung mancung,
Bibir merah, mata menatap tajam dan dada bidang.
Kau berlari dua kali sehari dan berenang dua hari sekali
Demi figur Apollo yang melekat dengan indahnya pada dirimu
Tiap kali kau berdiri di depan cermin
Dari belakang kukagumi ciptaan Tuhan yang satu ini.
Tiap kali kau tersenyum memamerkan gigi putihmu yang kecil-kecil,
Ku merasa dunia ikut tersenyum bersamamu.

Tapi sayang, sungguh sayang
Tiap kau bicara yang keluar hanyalah celaan
`yang ini cerewet, yang itu tidak cantik´
`yang satu munafik, yang lain jual diri´
Tapi sayang, sungguh sayang
Yang ada di kepalamu hanyalah drama Jepang dan Angelina Jolie dalam tiga dimensi
Kau hanya diam saat ku tanyakan tentang Laskar Pelangi dan Haruki Murakami

Jadi sayang, sungguh sayang
Tiap kali kau bicara atau diam ku tak lagi melihat Dewa Yunani di cermin pagi tadi
Matamu yang tajam menyipit dan senyum mu menjadi seringai
Taring panjang menggantikan gigi putihmu yang kecil-kecil
Ejekanmu menutupi semua gaung tawamu
Dan kau bukan lagi Apollo dari legenda Artemis
Lebih mirip Cyclops si raksasa bermata satu
Yang ditakuti semua awak kapal Oddysey

Jadi sayang, sungguh sayang
Meskipun kau ganteng kau bukanlah untukku
Kau buat ku palingkan muka karena kesinisanmu
Kau buat ku gertakkan gigi karena kemasa-bodohanmu
Selamat tinggal, hybrid Apollo-Cyclops ku
Karena meskipun kau ganteng, kau bukanlah untukku.

Welcome to my world

The line below was a typical conversation during the first week's Monday meeting in my office. One pHd student and his/her technician give a presentation about their progress and their work. Since our research centered in the mechanism of natural immune system, all member of our research group work with materials from patient and donor, mainly bone marrow, core blood, saliva, or such.

Presenter : "...thus so far we are still trying to figure out how to generate enough cell from a limited sample in order to see the expression of this and that marker on this and that population, and to do this and that future experiment. We also wanted to relate clinical phenotype with the result if that's possible, which so far isn't because of confidential reasons".

Colleague : "Can't you thaw frozen materials from this patient, or get DLI materials from other patient with similar phenotype?"

My boss : "The problem is we only have 3 patients that meet our criteria. We certainly cannot access patient's detail, but I can tell you that the material in which we are interested in couldn't be recollected. That particular patient experienced swelling and fever while on holiday, and the doctor who treated her just removed the lession and throw it away without preserving anything. What a waste. She died shortly afterwards".

.....

Then, we all take a glance in the slide which represented the time of injection, immune response, course of treatment, and relapse of the patients. At the end of the line, there was three very small crosses which was colored red, blue, and black.

Colleague : "Ah. So all three patient have died already?"
My boss : "Yes. They all died within 5 years course. ".

......

Okay, okay, I get it. I will treat every bone marrow aspirates, every buffy coat, and every thawed cryo vials with respects and care, since maybe the original owner of those materials are watching me from heaven while I centrifuge a part of them in a 96 well plates and analyze them in FACS machine (hoe they are praying for the success of my experiments as well). Those part of them will live long in the FACS sheets folder in my table, at least as long as it takes for the paper to keep intact before time and air destroy them.

...Because I'm neither dumb or blind

I used to think that my life was a big ship adventure where I rode and just follow the wave . Life was a bungee-jumping game where you could just close your eyes, jump, and when you fall, there would be a rope tied to your leg that prevents you from crushing on the hard ground. Life was a lullaby in the cotton cloud where you would be caught in case you fell. And life was a big of unknown dreams where you could shape it the way you wanted.

I could have decided to just jump to the ocean when I thought I have stood too close to the brink of my ship, and there would be no way back. I could have let a shark ripped my soul to pieces in that dark water, and they would have been floating away lonely and miserable. I could have decided to let the rope in my leg tightly loose, just for the sake of its thrill. I could have let my head brushed against the hard ground just to see if I could duck right on time. It just take a little push of an index finger, since I'm just a human whose mind is fragile to temptation. There were a lot of others who have let themselves free and screaming out loud, asking me to also be there.

But I was created with two eyes to see, two ears to hear, a heart to listen, and wisdom to think. All I need to do is just stop for a while, set my eyes and ears open, and take a look around for I will see the little paths and step holders that I fail to see in my rush. All I need to do is open my heart to the voice of Doubt, for doubt means that wisdom is guiding me to see the light I fail to see when I blindly walk. There will be times when I fall, but it´s alright because I know I could still turn back. For I´m neither dumb or blind...

Wish list

As a follower of a recent trend among my friends, we are no longer guessing the appropriate gift for a birthday person, but instead, asking them directly for what they wanted. The birthday person is also unashamedly making a wishing list that contains something totally impossible (a.k.a very expensive), to something that they know they could get. Here it is, the wishing list of mine.

1. iPhone (okay I know nobody's gonna give me this)
2. iPod video (ehm.. I think I can still hope)
3. Samsung f480 Touchwizz
4. Laptop stand with fan
5. Kadobon for Bijenkorf
6. kadobon for SPS

But still, I want iPhonee huhu