Dreamers Side

The Little Boy
by Helen Buckley

Once a little boy went to school.
He was quite a little boy
And it was quite a big school.
But when the little boy
Found that he could go to his room
By walking right in from the door outside
He was happy;
And the school did not seem
Quite so big anymore.

One morning
When the little boy had been in school awhile,
The teacher said:
"Today we are going to make a picture."
"Good!" thought the little boy.
He liked to make all kinds;
Lions and tigers,
Chickens and cows,
Trains and boats;
And he took out his box of crayons
And began to draw.

But the teacher said, "Wait!"
"It is not time to begin!"
And she waited until everyone looked ready.
"Now," said the teacher,
"We are going to make flowers."
"Good!" thought the little boy,
He liked to make beautiful ones
With his pink and orange and blue crayons.
But the teacher said "Wait!"
"And I will show you how."
And it was red, with a green stem.
"There," said the teacher,
"Now you may begin."

The little boy looked at his teacher's flower
Then he looked at his own flower.
He liked his flower better than the teacher's
But he did not say this.
He just turned his paper over,
And made a flower like the teacher's.
It was red, with a green stem.

On another day
When the little boy had opened
The door from the outside all by himself,
The teacher said:
"Today we are going to make something with clay."
"Good!" thought the little boy;
He liked clay.
He could make all kinds of things with clay:
Snakes and snowmen,
Elephants and mice,
Cars and trucks
And he began to pull and pinch
His ball of clay.

But the teacher said, "Wait!"
"It is not time to begin!"
And she waited until everyone looked ready.
"Now," said the teacher,
"We are going to make a dish."
"Good!" thought the little boy,
He liked to make dishes.
And he began to make some
That were all shapes and sizes.

But the teacher said "Wait!"
"And I will show you how."
And she showed everyone how to make
One deep dish.
"There," said the teacher,
"Now you may begin."

The little boy looked at the teacher's dish;
Then he looked at his own.
He liked his better than the teacher's
But he did not say this.
He just rolled his clay into a big ball again
And made a dish like the teacher's.
It was a deep dish.

And pretty soon
The little boy learned to wait,
And to watch
And to make things just like the teacher.
And pretty soon
He didn't make things of his own anymore.

Then it happened
That the little boy and his family
Moved to another house,
In another city,
And the little boy
Had to go to another school.
This school was even bigger
Than the other one.
And there was no door from the outside
Into his room.
He had to go up some big steps
And walk down a long hall
To get to his room.
And the very first day
He was there,
The teacher said:
"Today we are going to make a picture."
"Good!" thought the little boy.
And he waited for the teacher
To tell what to do.
But the teacher didn't say anything.
She just walked around the room.

When she came to the little boy
She asked, "Don't you want to make a picture?"
"Yes," said the lttle boy.
"What are we going to make?"
"I don't know until you make it," said the teacher.
"How shall I make it?" asked the little boy.
"Why, anyway you like," said the teacher.
"And any color?" asked the little boy.
"Any color," said the teacher.
"If everyone made the same picture,
And used the same colors,
How would I know who made what,
And which was which?"
"I don't know," said the little boy.
And he began to make a red flower with a green stem."

I was going there with seven of my colleagues with a Avanza. We gathered at our office at half past six, and started our traveling. We reach Singkawang City around midnight.

Friday, January the 21st. We continued our travel to Sambas Regency, Marine and Fisheries of Sambas Regency, and then head back to Singkawang, BBIP Sedau, somewhere near Sinka Island Park.

Saturday, January the 22nd. We had our gathering there with the other colleagues. It was fun and amusing, we sing, danced and laughed.

Then at the noon we headed back to Pontianak City. On the way back i came up with an idea. I would like walking around in a place i never been before, meeting up with strangers. I felt seeing new faces was actually fun. So i just decided my resolution for 2012 is to go the the place i never been before with or without any of my friends or family.

Long time ago, lived a monster called nian (年) (*1). That monster was single horned, big eyed and sharp nailed. It lived in the sea, and stay hibernated for whole year. But every spring it will awaken and hunts for foods. It’s favorite food was human’s flesh. Not only hunting human, the monster also destroying the fields and crops.

Because of that monster whose hunt for human flesh every spring, so the villager always moved to the highland to take a shelter when the spring was coming. The villager prepared alot of food supply(*2). Because they never know what might happen tomorrow so they must finished their debt to each others(*3) before taking a shelter. The children will take a watch while their parents asleep (*4). They were also required to gather (*5) in the family so they can take care of each others.

The situation continued for a long time, until another spring. A beggar (*6) came passing the village to ask for food, he found that the village was empty. He walked along the village to find anyone to explain the cause of the disappearance of the villagers. Finally he met a grandmother and asked her. The grandmother gave him some foods and explains that it was due to the monster called nian. So he curiosly asked again why she stayed behind? She answered that her son and her grandson had been eaten by the monster and she is to old to moved to the highland so she intended to fight the monster as hard as she can.
The beggar began to pity the grandmother, so he taught her how to fought back. He explains that the monster actually afraid of three things : a bigger and scrarier creature (*7), a loud voices (*8) and redish color (*9). So He asked her to prepare a large cloth to make a bigger creature and painted the house in red also wore a red clothing, and he collect bamboo to make lousy noises.
After awhile, the monster nian appeared. The beggar quicke wore the cloth that already made into a big creature and asked the grandmother to burn the bamboo and beat whatever to produce lousy noices. With such a welcoming the monster was so scared and fly back to the heaven and never came back again.

With those victory, the villager celebrate it every years as a feast day. The feast was done with imitating what had been done by the beggar and the grandmother, as precautions to the returning of the monster nian. The villager visit their family to congratulate them because of freeing from the monster nian. As the return every family will provide food, beverage and cake for their guest, they also prepared candies and red paper (*10) for the children.

*1 : the word “nian” indicates a passing year.
*2 : as tradition, people always fill their barrels with rice and others food supply.
*3 : as tradition people pay their debt before sincia (faded over time)
*4 : shou yue (守夜), stay awake by playing mahjong etc.
*5 : tuan yuan (团圆), gather with family.
*6 : the beggar believed as incarnation of God.
*7 : the origin of barongsai (舞狮) and dragon dance (舞龙)
*8 : the origin of firecrackers and drums.
*9 : favorite color of sincia, poems at the door (对联)
*10 : angpao (红包)

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Wednesday, 28 December 2011, Kepala Badan Penyuluhan Sumber Daya Manusia Kelautan dan Perikanan (BPSDMKP) is visiting Pontianak due to the Final of "Lomba Kelompencapir Gerakan Masyarakat Minapolitan (GEMPITA)" with six remaning province to compete. I was assigned to documentation section at PPP Sungai Rengas.

I was amazed by the Three Ethnical Dance performed to welcome Kepala BPSDMKP and also The Vice Governor of West Kalimantan. The dance and the music is great. I never knew it was so good to watch a dance from a closer look.

The dance itself was about combination of three ethnic in West Kalimantan, Dyak, Malay and Tionghoa. While the dancers are all beautiful young girls.

I took some shoots, i'll be happy to share some :-)

I wonder how a small kitten make me feel today is gonna be a good day.
Good morning everybody :-)

I arrived in Entikong at five on Sunday. The border was crowded with peoples from Indonesia (most of them were from Pontianak, i recognize some of them). The immigration progress took around two hours. Then around seven, we departed from Entikong and arrived in Kuching at nine.

Our friend Fredy already await us at the bus station. He was with his colleagues Mery (She spoke funny English, which soon i realize most of Malays does, though i was no better >_<). Since she can only accompany on that day, we asked her to drove us everywhere :-).

From the bus station, Mery drove us to Boulevard to have a breakfast with her Kancil (car). Then we went to get a room at Kapit Hotel. The lady at Kapit suggested us to ask the girls next door do they want to join us travel or not. Since they were from Pontianak too and the car rental was a lot cheaper with more peoples.

From the Hotel we drove to The Spring. It was a crowded mall with expensive goods so we bought nothing then we had our lunch there. We shocked that the chicken were gigantic there, twice as big as Pontianak's chicken @_o.

Fredy said there's Sunday Market that day, so we went there too. But there was nothing special, except the fact that Roby got ripped of by buying SIM Card at RM 28.

Then we moved to Friendship Park. It was a lovely park with a huge pool filled with a lot of big fishes (it was already dark when we arrived there, we couldn't see any fishes that time). Before going back to the Hotel, we had a break at Starbuck which was very pricey.

The second day (Monday), we asked the girls next door as suggested and they agreed. We went to Damai Beach but unfortunately after an hour traveling with rented car, it rain. We cant play at the beach due to the rain :-(.

Then we moved to the Orchid Garden but then again it was not our day, it closed due to holiday :-(.

From Orchid Garden we went to Ching San Yan Temple. The temple is located around riverbank. The view was fabulous, to bad that the riverbank got so many settlement. We had our lunch at the seafood restaurant around there.

The next was Friendship Park again because the girls had never been there and it was at dusk. So we might see fishes which we didn't yesterday. The fishes were big and fat.

Before we ended our ride we took a break in front of South Kuching City Hall. The front yard was well kept with beautiful flowers everywhere.

We end our ride around five, it was a fun ride :-)

Recently one of my colleagues brought an aquarium to the office. "Rather than got wasted in his house" so he said.

Then he introduced me to aquascaping. At first thought it was about "water" and "scenery" coming from "aqua" and "scape". I was wrong it is much more than that. Let's take a look at wikipedia :-)

"Aquascaping is the craft of arranging aquatic plants, as well as rocks, stones, cavework, or driftwood, in an aesthetically pleasing manner within an aquarium—in effect, gardening under water. Aquascape designs include a number of distinct styles, including the garden-like Dutch style and the Japanese-inspired nature style. Typically, an aquascape houses fish as well as plants, although it is possible to create an aquascape with plants only, or with rockwork or other hardscape and no plants.

Although the primary aim of aquascaping is to create an artful underwater landscape, the technical aspects of aquatic plant maintenance must also be taken into consideration. Many factors must be balanced in the closed system of an aquarium tank to ensure the success of an aquascape. These factors include filtration, maintaining carbon dioxide at levels sufficient to support photosynthesis underwater, substrate and fertilization, lighting, and algae control."

I don't know how he worked it out, but the next day i show up at the office the aquarium already filled with some plants and algaes but no fishes. He said in order to steady the closed system and prepared the environtment, the fishes must not put in for the next few days.

Finally when the few days already passed, my friend added some fishes in to the aquarium. He said it was Rasbora, small fishes with yellow or redish body and a Lithogenes (ikan sapu-sapu).

Rasbora has a beautiful colors and they live in group, while Lithogenes is a friendly omnivorae fish.

At least our office has something green to refresh our eyes from a tiring activity such as looking at the computer or laptop for a long time. I just don't know why, but this aquascape capable of making me to spend some times just by looking at it and i just feels calm and refreshed.

When i moved to my new house, i'll like to try aquascaping :-)

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Saya, seperti anda dan kebanyakan seniman lainnya, selalu berada dalam satu dari dua keadaan. Keadaan pertama (dan yang lebih baik) adalah bersemangat, fokus, antusias dan memunculkan kreatifitas yang tidak ada habisnya. Dalam keadaan seperti ini, ide mengalir layaknya sungai. Persentase ini terjadi hanya sekitar 3% dari seluruh waktu yang saya jalani.

Sedangkan 97% lainnya, saya sedang berjuang dalam keadaan frustasi, kehabisan ide dan apapun yang muncul terasa tidak cukup. Hal paling penting yang harus diingat yaitu teruslah bertahan melalui kondisi yang menekan dan melelahkan. Pasang DVD animasi kesayangan anda dan nyalakan fitur komentar audio lalu simak bagaimana para animator profesional tersebut melalui berbagai permasalahan yang muncul saat proses produksi (karya yang sedang anda saksikan tersebut).

Satu kata: GIGIH.

GIGIH dalam menceritakan kisah anda. GIGIH dalam meraih para penonton yang akan menyaksikan karya anda. GIGIH dalam mempertahankan sudut pandang anda. Ingat apa yang dikatakan Peter Jackson, "Rasa sakit hanya sementara, sedangkan film akan abadi." Ia tentu paham betul apa maksud kalimat tersebut.

Lain kali anda menemui jalan buntu saat menulis, atau komputer anda mendadak rusak dan pekerjaan yang sudah anda kerjakan semalam suntuk hilang begitu saja karena anda lupa menekan tombol SIMPAN (selalu tekan tombol SIMPAN), ingatlah: anda tidak jauh dari ledakan kreatifitas yang luar biasa. Berjuanglah menghadapi 97% hambatan yang selalu menghadang anda untuk mencapai 3% yang akan menjadikan anda diingat oleh orang banyak.

Saya jamin, karya yang anda ciptakan akan setimpal dengan semua kerja keras yang telah anda lakukan.

Kawan anda dan saya,

Austin Madison
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