Twas the first blast

The title meant literally. On Saturday, 13th of December 2008, I had the effort of climbing a rugged hill just to get to a great view, in seeing... my first blast (shed a tear :) )! We almost missed on taking photos but we were prepared and that is sometimes good :P. In some sense it made many markings in my life.



It's a marking of:
- I get to see somthing blow up without a metal frame arounding, meaning a TV frame.
- Geez I have a lot of work starting from now, it's finally a working mine
- This probably means I'm an environmentalist on a mine for the day. Discussing processing stuff while waiting for the blast. Tomorrow could be usual. Not necessary an evnironmentalist, but just a worker somewhere out here.
- Seems like I'm still fit enough to climb this hill, although panting desperatly for more air in lungs
- I still have my stupid gut feeling to participate this ridiculous idea to climb up a steep hill and just take a great picture while getting my back burned. Not to mention great company! An silly bule. No regrets for sure!

Bt the way, that is something else I've learned while discussing things with Daniel, my company at the moment.
I like to follow ridiculous plans. It's intregiung. If it's a little absurd: I'm all for it! Too absurd: no thanks. Not absurd: I'll do it anyways with such low effort. Not absurd ideas tend to be less fun.

Back to the blast... Am I proud of it...? A part yes, I get to see such an enourmous effort that humans have been able to come accross. And believe me, not all people can see such an incident as one might say. It's a small event, but a blast is a BLAST.
The other part, it's not such a big deal. While in once place something is blown up, somebody probably is getting a nobel prize, while another is getting free meal ticket. You know what I mean?

Twas twas... looking forward to my next twas....

Were we ever prepared... to all those remoted...

Being in a developing county is sooo interesting. You see so many things change or even stay the same. There is sooo many problems that you can't even ignore and it keeps your mind open and working... at least to just complain.
I happen to say this because I found an interesting phenomenon latetly. the major resource industries are very interesting. Especially if you are working for oil, gas, and metals. Everything is built up to very high standars. I was just talking to a very good looking paramedic today from SOS International, and he we were just talking about emails. He was also complaining on how quite today was, not much people was wondering around. Tis Friday at noon, so probably they're praying or taking naps since it's a longer break I say, while checking out his goatee.And then we parted.

It came to mind that he isn't very use to a quite life, and so do most of the people working in a mining area. Mining are usually located in remote areas. You'll be lucky if there is a lively village around that you can visit. But in our example, we are just we. Now, the people in mining usually come from cities with the fortune of going to schools. So the loud busy lifestyle is what they are accustomed to. Yet, they have to work in the quite scene. Of course they teach you all the theoretical stuff in school, but did they ever teach the lifestyle to them. Were they ever warned about the life in the jungle, in the remote island, in the middle of the ocean?

I know they were taught about the manly-hood of it all. But I know that is definitely a third layer of necessities.
For the biology major like me, we are taught through field excursions, but we never actually was prepared for living in the wild. I personally think. Camping out hell yeah, we were taught that... and that was even rawly tought by my seniors and NOT by my lecturers, and I had the sense to join in the student unit. Maybe because my school in specific was in the middle of the city anyways. Maybe it would be different for the universities in the outskirts of the city. They do have a better field records then we did. But were we city kids prepared for such a quite situation?
I know for sure, some kids that grew up the the way smaller cities (which means all city except the capital of province) can bare more than the pure city kids. I've seen some examples. But shouldn't there be some kind of precaution principle to let them know what they will face... not just business tricks up their sleves?
I ask this because I clearly can not stand people complaining about remote areas while they now this was a risk to start with. Benefits are what you bosses promise you, and not a default...

My point is, there should some hint to what we are dealing with. I probably am out of my core here, but hey I know everyone else was never prepared for this kind of work. A lot of my friends in other site are bored to death dealing with more then 3 weeks of work in the natural field. We all say that we would love to work in a natural environment, far from polution and noise, but who knew you couldbn't bare to be far from friends, family, internet, cellphones, and Kentuky Fried Chicken? Everyone has their perks, and you won't know it untill your stranded.

There's this... and there's that...

I just read a blog of a friend. Well I don't know her that well but she had accomplished something big in the past few months. So I thought I browse her out and I found her blog.
She is an extraordinary girl I have to say. She did a lot of things and she accomplished much compared to many of us. But as I read through her blog, I can't help but not being so interested in her personality. I should, shouldn't I? I should be inspired and want to know more of this figure better. But I don't. I don't find her interesting. She's extraordinary but less interesting. Does that make any sense?
I had a small chat with siskha yesteday and we spoke of how we miss meeting passionate and interesting people. I have to narrow it down because there are a lot of passionate people that aren't very interesting to me.
So I thought about who am I really interested in? I'm interested with the uninteresting, turns out. The freaks and ghouls as Smashing Pumkins would say. I'm not interested with people that make 2 million dollars a month. I'm interested with people that eat spiders for fun. Well maybe to those that make 2 million dollars a month and eat spiders for fun. The wierd and unexplainable. The ones that make your face change it's expression. From a squint to a smile or a frown or even disgust. They are the interesting people for me.
I don't have to like everyone right? Just as not everyone likes me. But I am trying to accept everyone as they are.
One of my work collegues is so harmless and yet I don't like him. He tries too hard to blend in and some how that is just a turn off in any senses. And althought I feel guitly neglecting him, I feel better because I don't torture my self. I avoid him.
So I'm realizing that I have to admit this, that not all people are interesting, and even the interesing has their uninsteresting days... the world goes on, and so... as the cafe I went to one night would say. Oh that's life.

By the way, That's Life cafe is a small new cafe I went to last night. It's on Gunawarman road, from Sudirman, take a left at the KFC on the juction. It's on the left.
Coffee - average. Ice Caramel coffee is not bad. Cappucino: froth to light, and too milky.
Ambience - slick urban but humble by wood funiture. Doens't really describe the phrase 'that's life'. Well depends, what kind of life you have. My life definitely isn't represented in this cafe. Like the lighting though.
My idea of that's life is when everything is so complicated, disordered... that you just accept. I wonder if I can make that kind of coffee shop?