A (Night) Meetup Session with Nicko Widjaja and Rhein Mahatma of Systec Group

Next Tuesday, Nicko Widjaja and Rhein Mahatma of Systec Group will come to Singapore for few days. They would like to meet and have small discussions with students and professionals who have interest in entrepreneurship scenes in Indonesia. It is open to all nationalities.

Nicko Widjaja is currently CEO of Systec Group and Adjunct Professor in Universitas Pelita Harapan (UPH) - Business School. He has 11 years of experiences in marketing and entrepreneurship. His career includes founder of IncyteLab, an ethnographic and consumer insights firm that focuses in investigating the upcoming trends and consumer culture and also co-founder of Thinking*Room, a design agency.

Rhein Mahatma is currently Associate of Systec Group and co-founder of StartupBisnis. He has experiences in content and social media strategist.

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Event Details

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When: Tuesday, 23th October 2012
Time: 8pm 730pm
Venue: will be informed to those who RSVP!
Fee: Pay what you order!

There is limited space for this event, so if you are interested, please kindly drop an e-mail at egi.septiadi@gmail.com with e-mail subject "Systec Meetup" by Sunday, 21st October 2012. Please indicate your full name and contact number, because the confirmed venue will be informed to all attendees via SMS and/or e-mail.

Nuansa'12: Canting, Was Enjoyable But ...

I attended Nuansa'12: Canting with no expectation, due to their last year show. I have been watching Nuansa Musical Show Production since 2010 and this 2012 show satisfied my eyes and ears, although there are some scenes that required my minds to patch it all together, which makes me wonder whether there are synchronization for story flow between my two friends who wrote the script. For example, I was confused from scene when the lead actress pregnant and all of sudden at the next scene, she is no longer pregnant. They should have developed the story in between first in my opinion, or perhaps there is no need to show the "pregnant scene", instead just skipped it directly to the scene when the kid already grown up to avoid momentary confusion. That's just one out of few confusing moments in the point of audience's view.

Nuansa'12: Canting ticket and handbook

As I mentioned that my eyes and ears were satisfied with this production, and I can say satisfy is underrated word to describe how I feel towards this musical. Firstly, they really have great choreography, which I found it as really a splendid item and indeed it showed great talent of dancers and choreographers from Indonesians in NUS. But, great choreographers item in this production is also a weakness of this production. Believe it or not, dancers who are supposedly serve as supporting casts for some scenes become a center of stage, which I found it is not right at all. For example during the lead actress did monologue, meanwhile there is a couple dancers did their contemporary dance item at another side of stage. In my opinion, supposedly dance item serve as support item to represent the lead actress monologue. Instead of feeling that way, my brain told me to focus mainly on the dance item.

Beside the choreography, the light and stage manager did a splendid job when they played around with the light and other visual effects. There are only few concerns for room of improvements after I discussed it with few friends. Some people who I talked to, found the visual effects background during "Dukun" scene and "Flood" scene i.e. fire and thunder visual effects respectively were not necessary. Visually, it ruins the scene awesomeness.

Moving on to musicality aspect. I found music arrangements of this production were really great. When I read the description of their Music Director, the experiences, awards, and formal education in Music justified the quality of Nuansa'12: Canting music arrangements. But, the production team should really check all the equipment, because there was microphone faulty (I think) during the show for first few scenes and it happened again somewhere towards the end of the show.

Overall, Nuansa'12 team really did a great job, with a score 4 out of 5 in my opinion, although I still prefer their 2010 show. Their strength points are their dance items and music arrangements, but the story flow and actress/actors skills should not be forgotten as the main focus in any kind of musical drama shows, not the other way around.

After the show, took picture with one of producers and lead actress!

A Week to My Birthday, But A Company Ruined It [Author's Corner]

It was Friday 14th evening, after finished giving my tuition at CCK, I headed down to Tiong Bahru area. As the clock kept running, I realized that I have an hour to kill, so I decided to sit in Coffee Bean and ordered my favorite drink, Iced Caramel Macchiato.

As the time approached to my interview schedule, I prepared myself before walking to the interview place. When I walked toward the direction that I thought was correct direction, I realized that it was not the right road and I decided to check it in Google Map.

"Fuck My Life!" That's my first reaction when I realized that I was not supposed to go to Tiong Bahru MRT, but Redhill MRT instead. So I decided to take Bus 33 and alighted at Redhill then walked to the interview place. Lucky me that the person in charge who sent me the e-mail asked me to come 30 minutes earlier, so instead of came at 18:00, I reached the interview place at 18:15.

Some people asked me about what company that I attended for this job interview, but I will give a logo clue instead of giving their full name. :)

By the time I reached interview place, one of the staffs handed over me 4-pages form and 2-pages structure questions that I need to fill and answer accordingly. So I tried my best to finish it as soon as possible and I handed the filled form and answered structure question papers about 19:00.

After handed over all of those, I checked my phone and the yellow color on my battery sign alerted me to turn off my phone, because my evening still long since I will have meeting at 8pm in Clarke Quay and also because I could not find any available power sockets around. During waiting time I just realized that there were quite numbers of candidate that waited with me at the same time. It was 7-9 people in the room, excluding myself.

Waited, waited, and waited, until there were only 2 other candidates and me left in waiting room when the previous candidate just finished his interview, but it was already 19:50 (I was bored and I decided to turn on my phone to check any messages and time). But after this, the interviewer was on the phone and walked around when he answered the phone for about 15 minutes, then he called the next person without any "sorry for make you waiting" or so whatever line to the next candidate.

So it was about 20:05, when it was only me and another candidate, called him Mr X, in waiting room. This another candidate handed over his filled form and answered questions papers to the staff after me, so I thought it will be my turn to be called after this, but apparently when the clock showed 20:30 and the interviewer finished with the candidate, the interviewer called Mr X instead of me. My reaction after that was "WTF! Forget it, I have better things to do and I am already fucking late for my meeting". So, I decided to walk out from waiting room and headed down to my meeting in Central @ Clarke Quay. Along the way, I sent an email to person who contacted me to withdraw my job application, since I can't find any staffs around to tell it on their face.

It is not like my first time attended job interview. I could say that I have been through quite some, but from this one I learnt few things:
1. Respect other people time, everyone has their own limit for waiting.
2. "Sorry" is an important word that some people might forgotten sometimes, unnecessary showing that you are inferior from others.
3. Treat your guest(s) with great hospitality as possible as you can provide.
4. Employees attitudes are part of company's image, especially their working culture.

Welcoming Second Half of 2012 with Bus-Car Accident, Hello Singapore! [Author Corner]

Seems like this year my life is getting further beyond the social life drama. Started with mistakenly caught by police towards ending of first half of 2012, while this time I just experienced bus-car accident for the first time in my life.

Call me lazy or what, but I took bus with longer travelling time because I was too tired standing all the way during the journey back home. Well, there was a bad sign when I just reached the bus stop nearby YMCA building in Dhoby Ghaut: bus 502 doesnt pass that bus stop, which surprised me at first. (un)lucky me that there was another bus, 174, which going to Jurong Point, so I took 174 instead of 502.

There was no other bad signs anymore, unless if I want to count high traffic along Bukit Timah area as bad sign of the journey, but I am already get used to with no-moving at all traffic in Jakarta, and I have times that I can spare, thus I didnt even bother to worry about it. I am not pretty sure whether bus 174 driver or the car driver that should be accused as a wrong party during accident, but bus 174 was about to turn right, so it was moving toward the right side of the road, while the car (I think) tried to took over it from the right side as well, and TADAAAAAAAA, I experienced the very first bus-car accident in my life.

At first when I heard the sound, I thought it was the wheel of bus 174 that exploded, but when people who sitting at the back made noises, then I took a look and saw a car that can not move at all, as the picture below.

Is it wrong focus? O.o

Obviously due to this, all of bus 174 passengers need to alight immediately and change to the next available bus. Lucky us, it was not at quiet area of Bukit Timah, but it was in Bukit Batok area that has quite number of buses to choose. As for me I took bus 157. While waiting for bus 157, I tried to take few pictures of accident from bus stop.

while waiting for a bus to change

help reached within 10 minutes, considerably fast?

"Titik Nol" Preview Session: Reminded Me of My Mother, but Showed Director *** [Performing Art]

Knowing director or/and scriptwriter of a performing arts show will give audiences different insight of the play itself. At least, that's what I felt when I watched the preview of "Titik Nol" (monologue version by "Siti") just now in Telok Ayer Performing Arts Centre.

Titik Nol is a play which was originated from a short film by Nicolas Yudifar, who also involves in play production. Earlier, the play was showed in Substation, Singapore from 1st to 3rd March and from 9th to 10th March 2012 in Jakarta for first time within the region.

"Titik Nol" poster/flyer for last March 2012 show

Unfortunately, I was in Indonesia for short-break when it was showed in Singapore and I was in Singapore when it was showed in Jakarta, so the show and me were not fated together back then. But lucky enough for me that few days back, Agnes Christina told me that she will have a closed-preview session in Singapore for the upcoming Titik Nol show which will be held in Yogyakarta. The show in Yogyakarta itself will be held on 29th September 2012. Also, they will bring the show to Bandung and Semarang somewhere in December 2012, but with possibly another format/style.

As a person who just watched it for the first time, I was quite impressed by the actress, Emanorwatty Saleh. It was a monologue version and she needs to tell us the story which was previously played by not only her, but also another Indonesian actor, Agus Nur Amal. During the preview session, I can imagine and feel the situation that they tried to deliver to us as audiences regardless of limitation of props, lighting, and sound system. At personal level, first part of the scenes (older version of Siti) reminds me of my mother, somehow. Nevertheless, there are some areas that still can be improved which were discussed after the preview session among few people who had opportunity to watch, i.e. character development, timeline clarity, etc. The post-preview discussion was partly serving its purpose to give feedback to team prior to their real show.

I would say that it was new and interesting experiences for me attending such session and would like to thanks to Agnes for inviting me to the preview session.

I Need "Words of Affirmation", What About You? [Author Corner]

Some of my friends knew that every Saturday I joined this "secret gathering" from period of February to April 2012. During one of sessions, the discussion about Love and Relationship, and just happened there is this little quiz about knowing of a person Love Language. I never knew that actually there is someone who quantify it in such way and when I tried to google about it, I found that it is already been around since 1992, means it is already for over 20 years.

During the session, I found that my primary love language is "Words of Affirmation" and according to a website, it means

Actions don’t always speak louder than words. If this is your love language, unsolicited compliments mean the world to you. Hearing the words, “I love you,” are important—hearing the reasons behind that love sends your spirits skyward. Insults can leave you shattered and are not easily forgotten.

Well, it is possible that a person has same score for more than one language, just take it as you are a bilingual or maybe even multi-language person. It is kinda good in my opinion understanding what your love language, as you might realize whats the most important for you in relationship and for your partner to know about it, so yourself will be felt more loved by her/him.

If you are curious about the quiz, I tried to consolidate the quiz and the result brief explanation. Simply download following file  (password: egi). Sorry, but the file I protected, so it is Rad-Only file mode.

The Five Language Quiz

There will be 30 pairs of statements. Read the statements and imagine yourself having to choose ONE out of the two statements. Choose one that fits you best, and put "1" under your choice column. I tried to make it easier, so by the time you finish all of the questions, simply go to the Result sheet to find which one is the most dominant.

Indonesian Cuisines are NOT Only from Ayam Penyet Ria, M Nasir, and Tambuah Mas [Food]

Whenever people in Singapore mentioned about Indonesian cuisines, residents or tourists, somehow their association to it will be somewhere quite well-known places i.e. Ayam Penyet Ria, Tambuah Mas, or Warung M. Nasir. Well, in my opinion those places are fine, but if you want to find somewhere that not really mainstream, perhaps you might want to try these following five other places that I tried before.

1. Warung Lele

With their wide various choices of menu, actually you can try something new that you never heard before (even for some native Indonesian). Located just outside the exit of Tanjong Pagar MRT, Warung Lele is quite convenient for commuters, and not really that crowded whenever I came there during dinner time. So if you thinking to book a place with big group for a dinner, actually this place is one of best choices due to the availability. Price-wise, usually I will spend about 8-15/each person. It really depends on how many menu that you ordered, since the style is more to a-la-carte, or in Indonesia we usually call it "menu tengah" (center menu). Their menu varied from Ayam Kalio to Es Teler.

2. Ayam Bakar President

The name of the shop itself literally means Chicken Grill President. Located in Lucky Plaza, I think they want to perceived that they have a top notch quality in their grill stuffs, which I am kinda agree. This place has the same style with Ayam Penyet Ria. I usually spend about 8-10/person in this place. My favourite menu will be Empal Bakar, Nasi Goreng, and Avocado Juice.

3. Sinar Pagi Nasi Padang

In Singapore, usage of "nasi padang" phrase is overused island-wide. Some of the stalls in hakwer centre use the phrase without any kind of understanding the different between Malay cuisine and Padang cuisine. Well, it is true that Padang people indeed are Malay people, but it does not mean that all Malay people are Padang people, and it applies to food as well. First time found this place was during my internship, and it all thanks to SGEntrepeneurs co-founder, Ms Gwen who brought me here. Located in Circular Road, with nearest MRT will be Raffles Place or Clarke Quay, this place passes my standard as a true blood of Padang people (both of my parents are from West Sumatra, practically Padang foods are my daily food back then in Indonesia), or even I can say one of few places in Singapore that serves good-quality of Padang cuisines. If you come here alone, you always can order "nasi campur" (mix rice) like what I ordered, but if you come here with a group of friends, I will recommend you order "menu tengah"-style. Normally I will spend about 5-11 SGD/person, it all depends again on how much you want to order. Just take note for sensitive stomach person, some of their foods are spicy, although they already tried to adjust it to local standard taste.

4. Resto Surabaya

I tried the branch in Far East Plaza before, but according to hungrygowhere, there is another branch in Lucky Plaza as well. This place has an interesting menu called  Ayam BumbuSate (Chicken Satay Sauce). Well, the satay sauce is not really that Indonesian taste I can say, as they try to adjust it with local taste as well. Perhaps, they could make it become 2 different type of sauces, because in my opinion there will be some people who prefer Indonesian-style of sauce (talking about myself indeed). Price-wise will be similar like Ayam Penyet Ria or Ayam Bakar President.

5. Pondok Jawa Timur

Well, if you know about Indonesia map well, at least Java Island, you might wonder why so many people from this island use city/province names as part of their restaurant names. Well, for Indonesia restaurant, most likely the owner itself is from that location, not because the foods they sell are the cuisine from that region only. Pondok Jawa Timur used to be located beside Plaza Singapura, but the last time I ate here it was relocated to Wilkie Edge, a mall after Pomo, behind School Of The Arts (SOTA). After tried some places around Singapore, the satay here is the one that really close to Indonesian satay taste. The portion of each skewer is quite big, which justify the higher price, on top of the taste of it as well. Beside the chicken satay, you might want to give a try Bakwan Jagung as well. But if you are ordering a set meal, Nasi Kuning Komplit will satisfy your tongue and empty stomach.

Well, the numbering in this post doesn't mean anything, and all of the write-up above are only based on my experiences and my own judgement, so it might be different to others. Hopefully, it will give you more places to go for dinner/lunch next time you are in town! :)

NTU is not Singapore, walking around might get caught in SG! [Author Corner]

Sorry, my house in Indonesia is secured enough and we are not really that kaypoh about what other people doing around us, but we indeed know each others around neighbourhood. 

That's what I felt like to tell that policeman last night when he asked me "what will you do if someone walking around your house area in wee hours?". Pardon me for being anal about kaypoh-ness of neighbourhood here and sorry also for my grammar mistakes.

Well, basically last night I was unlucky, because usually when I walk around waiting for my friend, nothing happened to me. But, perhaps I need to learn it in hard way that waiting for your friend in void deck at wee hours might get you being suspected for something illegal to do in Singapore.

It was started when I couldn't sleep last night, so I asked my friend who stay in Jurong for supper, simply want to talk about some stuffs. Aggreed to meet in McDonald, but after I finished all of foods that I ordered, he was not there yet. So my decision was walked to his block and waited for him at void deck. Oh to make it more details, it was 230 in the early morning. 

So while waiting, I walked around, while I still constantly contacted him through sms and phone call, yet no responses. That's the time when police "caught" me. Oh well, there were three policemen, and from my observations, each of them has their own job-desc when holding someone momentarily. One will check all of your belongings, including the contents of your phone, another one will call the station to confirm what should they do to the person, while the last one will start small talks to the person to ease his/her feeling. I thank to myself, because I don't have data plan at that moment, and lucky me for not having any indecent contents in my phone (maybe only a video that my friend sent thru whatsapp). But seriously, they need to make it right when reporting to their station in the first place, while another policemen still questioning the person on hold at the same time. 

"Dude, you don't have the full story, yet you reported to your police station like you know everything". 

Lucky there were only few groups of police who patrolled around, I can't imagine if they have a lot, and at the same time with same SOP that they have and they treat all the same as what they did to me, cant imagine all the crowds that they might have in police station. 

Well, I was suspected because I have similar descriptions with the report that they received earlier. When I asked, what are the descriptions, they told me can't reveal everything, but what they told me it was related with nudity in public.(Yeah right, I will run naked in public like nobody business). At the time they told me that, I was like "oh God, why you gave me this physical body appearances thus I need to get thru this kind of things". To my friends, congrats to all of you who said I have perverted face, you guys might be right all this time. *proven by Singapore policemen* =.=

Moral of story: NTU and home country are not Singapore! Do not walk around during wee hours. You might be questioned by policemen if you do.

Shadow Puppet: 45 minutes show under the moon [Performing Art]

Supposedly, this post was published last month, right after I attended the show, but somehow I postponed it and only after Self Awareness Day I have a chance to publish it, guess why? :P

It was my first time experience watching Wayang, shadow puppet play from Central Java and Bali, and I was totally impressed and enjoyed it much. The dialogue of Wayang was re-written by a person I know: Agnes Christina. According to her, the story itself is based on the original book that she has and she simply made the dialogues with casual jokes which in my opinion any other people who understand the language will understand it despite of their education backgrounds or so whatever.

Information from the booklet given before the show

Within more or less 45 minutes, audiences were entertained by the dialogue, the sound (or can I say music?), and a good Dhalang, master puppeteer and storyteller. As I mentioned, the dialogues were meant for public consumption as long the audiences understand the language, mix of Malay, Indonesia and English. Well, you notice that I separate between Malay and Indonesia because indeed those 2 languages are different, to those who think they are the same, please upgrade your dictionary. :)

All of the sound effects were executed digitally and I love it how it creates the atmosphere of show become contemporary style, yet it still portrays what it supposedly to be shown. I was kinda surprised with the fact that it was the first time experience for sounds effect guy to do this kind of sounds. When it comes to Dhalang, my comments only what a great show by her. First, she can make quite range of different human voices for few number of characters within the show. Yup, it was only her who dubbed the voice of characters. On top of it, there are skills needed to play shadow puppet in my opinion and again she is a first timer as well.

An attempt taking picture

With all of first timers in this show production: script writer, sounds effect person, and Dahlang, I would say it was well executed, as I did not really have any expectations since it is a free admission event as well. But in case, you a bit curious about the write-up for this event, here we go:

This Wayang Kulit performance tells the story of Bima's journey to find the holy water of life in a contemporary manner and features elementx found within the three faiths of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam.

And this is the video by Suria.

My Haircut is 5 Cents More Expensive Than My Mouth Ulcers Dissolvable Film! [Author Corner]

Recently, I've been out of my comfort zone twice. First is related to my mouth ulcers and second is about my hairdo. So here we go.

This past week, I've been suffering from gastric problem which lead to mouth ulcers. The logic is like:

gastric problem --> could not eat something sour --> less intake of vit C --> mouth ulcers.

Lucky for me, by the time the ulcers appeared, my gastric problem is getting better, so I can consume those vit C without upsetting my stomach and make it worse. But knowing the fact I couldnt really force myself to consume sour stuff, so my friend suggest me to use Dissolvable Film for Mouth Ulcers (picture as shown below).

Payment that contributes to additional 5 cents coin to my wallet

It is so weird (till now I still feel weird), because there is something stick in your mouth wall, but I've been treating it like a candy. Well, from my experiences, when you use this you could not eat or drink. So for now it only works for me when I am going to sleep. So I can sleep well without worrying about my mouth ulcers. *to be noted as well, I have insomnia, which mouth ulcers make it worse*

As I mentioned about my hair, I've been contemplating about trying new hair style since 2 weeks ago and only yesterday I dared to try it. I wanted my hair style as nice as this, but of course my attempted to let hair stylist know was failed. First because I think she has her own imagination about what I mentioned verbally and second I was in a rush to meet a friend who came late for an hour at the end. If only I knew my friend will come late, I might ask the hair stylist to redo my hair. :-(

Well, luckily I used voucher my friend gave to me, so instead of paying 28sgd, I only paid 8sgd! Even cheaper than that QB House haircut fee. So I guess, I could not really complain about the result eh?

Tried to play around with my hair this afternoon, and below is another fail attempts by me.

F'FRIENDS by this collective is NOT For Parents [Performing Art]

A very first post for 2012 will go to this event that I just attended last night with my ex-roomie from my second year in NTU.

Reading a text from your friend to let you know he/she has free ticket to a show already made you happy, but when you watch the show and you like, you are even more thankful for what you have at the moment. Well, at least thats what happened to me yesterday.

It was my first time to watch a theatrical drama show with Black Box theater as the stage. It was pretty amazing for me to realize in such small space with no so much space of backstage, the director can executed it with good flow without any black men at all. The black men are the cast itself. With 6 scenes that the director wants to show to audiences, I could enjoy it with no interuptions. The process in between one scene to another is just like when you fast forward your DVD to next part, where somehow yourself still can enjoy it. On top of it, music for scenes transition also build the atmosphere for next scenes. I would say, continuity of the show is there! :)

The story itself is revolved around group of "couple" that somehow related each other who live in HDB flats. As I mentioned earlier, there are 6 scenes, with title for each scene as following:
1. Natural Disasters
2. Just the Three of Us
3. What Friends Are For
4. Things Happen
5. Gingerbread Men
6. Toilet Talk

Basically, all of those scenes are really in urban (liberal) human life style point of view. When you watch the show, you will understand what I meant.

Among those 6 items, I can relate to everything in fact, but 2 out of 6 are really slapping my face when I watched it in fron of my eyes, namely Natural Disasters and Things Happen scenes. Since I do not want to keep this post too long, I will talk more about those 2 titles instead.

Natural Disasters scenes are about opposite-sex close friends who live together in same flat. I think it is called Natural Disasters scene with some reasons. First, it want to attract people attractions of course. Secondly, indeed it is Natural Disasters, where naturally as people growing older, they will presumes a lot without asking the other party about the matters, until problems come up which forces a person to ask about it. But well, thats how adult survives in world, ASSUMPTION PREJUDICE AND OTHER WORDS FOR IT!

In another hand, Things Happen scenes are about opposite-sex so called friends which apparently both of them had sexual experiences each other before, that nowadays we called it FLING/OneNightStand/SO WHATEVER. When it was supposedly that way, but one of party felt differently and want to bring the relationship further while another party still not so sure or even want to stay it that way. With such conflicts and quite a lot of technology things that being raised up during conflicts, you also can see how technology changes relationship among human in such fast pace i.e. unfriended a person in FB which sometimes we consider it nothing much is actually as same as cutting down every contacts with the person in real life.

Well, I tried to google or FB search for it, but apparently I could not find any link related to this show, but what I know from my friends, the show that available is only for this Saturday, 21st January at 8pm. The other 2 slots, Friday and Sunday are sold out. The show is in Art House. If you are curious about the director and script writer, she gives lecture in NTU and if you are taking Minor in Creative Writting, you most probably will meet her in near future. Her name is Jocelyn Chua. Hopefully none of those 6 scenes are part of her life, because some of them are sad, but some people said anything a person writes, should reflect of her/his life, although not everything. And back again to title, Yup PARENTS ARE NOT ADVISABLE TO WATCH THIS AND IT IS M18 Rating! :)