daily tips
world had become so shopisticating, grow very fast and swept all the slow, so that the technology, it grow very fast exponentially. but sometimes you can cheat the technology. see the amazing picture below :
trasnparent LCD
transparent apple LCD
Well whaddaya know: It’s only been three months since I wrote and posted the first chapter of the happy at work book and now the whole book is up on the blog (minus one chapter which is almost done).
I’m having trouble believing it myself: Not only did I write a book in three months, I’ve also taken a holiday in that time, worked on other projects and done a serious amount of blogging. This means I actually wrote the book in twenty writing days, writing only before lunch.
So how’d I do it? Well the answer is obvious isn’t it? Clear goals, hard work, perseverance, sticking to it, eliminating distractions and writing no matter what, right?
Wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. I tried that. Didn’t work. So I tried the exact opposite and that worked.
Here are my top 10 tips for fun, creative and productive writing, which can be applied to blogging, writing a book, an article, a report at work, a thesis, a term paper or any other major writing project.
On writing days (ie. days where I feel like writing and have nothing else to do before lunch) I get up whenever I wake up (typically around 7:30 or 
then make my way down to a local café with free wifi. I set up my laptop, order coffee and breakfast and start writing.
My desk at MJ Coffee
Getting out of the house means I’m not distracted by all of the other stuff I could/should do at home (from washing the dishes to finally fixing that loose door handle). Also the café has noise, music, people coming in and out and while this may not work for everyone, it’s a nice level of distraction for me, and actually allows me to concentrate better than I do in a quiet office.
This may be the most important tip. This way the battery life of my computer sets an upper limit to how long I can write. I can’t sit there all day – I have 3 1/2 hours at the most. This means I spend zero time surfing the web, checking up on news, etc…
Also, I could never write for a whole day. I have about 2-3 good writing hours in me per day before the creativity, productivity and qualityof my writing starts to plummet.
I start by lining up all the chapters, so I know what sections the book has and which order they will come in. I don’t write the chapters in that order, and I also change this outline as I write.
But I do know where each chapter will fit, and approximately what it will contain. This saves me from moving a lot of text around and it also makes it easier to write the chapters without always having to refer to something that’s coming later in the book, something I find sloppy and indicative of a messy structure. (more…)
Pariangan is a neat little village on the slopes of Mount Marapi in Indonesia. They say that the Minangkabau people of Indonesia first arrived here after their ship landed on this mountain when the world was submerged in water and only the mountain’s peak was visible (That’s some kind of cruise!). Well…sitting in that old village, with the evening just setting in, I could almost believe that familiar fable. This place was pretty different from the city lights of Chicago, where I live. You could feel that oddly tangible sense of history around here.
![[Wayang+Kulit.jpg]](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Ug9sb9IJXvA/S12So4419mI/AAAAAAAAAHs/jufILCBpwP0/s1600/Wayang%2BKulit.jpg)
They were just setting up the puppet show. I had come all the way from Chicago to see this thing. It is called the Wayang Kulit, and it is an ancient Indonesian art form. “Wayang” literally means “shadow,” and you can understand why they call it that if you see how the puppet show works. I have seen puppet shows elsewhere, but most of them have actual puppets being moved around by a set of strings. The Wayang Kulit is different; here you don’t see the actual puppets. You just see their shadows.
They set up a backlit screen. The screen looks like it is made with Japanese rice paper; it has that peculiar texture. The light behind the screen is a diffuse yellow. The puppets are placed between the light and the screen and what you get to see, sitting before the screen, are their shadows. There’s a very different visual impact of this “shadow dancing” from the usual sticks-n-strings puppet shows I had seen before. Things look more black and white, and visually, the show is very powerful.
I had read up on Wayang Kulit, of course. It is a peculiar Hindu art form of very ancient Indian origin. Wayang Kulit did not originate in Indonesia; it was brought here by Hindu colonialists in the 8th or 9th century CE. The first performance of Wayang Kulit is mentioned in a 930 CE inscription here which says “si Giligi mayawang” or “Sir Giligi played Wayang.” Apparently, this “Sir Giligi” (Sir?!) was a famous wandering entertainer around these parts. The theme of Sir Giligi’s ancient puppet show has not changed much even today. These themes are almost always stories from ancient Indian epics, and they talk about ancient war heroes, gods, demons, and not a few princesses, I guess. The actual religion-oriented themes didn’t interest me much, to be honest; but I was fascinated by the continuity of this art form, and the strong visual impact of the shadows dancing on the yellow screen.
The show starts off with peculiarly resonant drum music. If you have heard drummers beating to the tune of the Balinese dance music (YouTube?), you will see what I mean. This is a small drum with a wide base, and the sound has a strong high bass note to it. I can well imagine some of our Chicago rapper brothers getting hold of this thing; they would love it; I did.
Then they start off with the actual puppet dancing. There is a sort of “soul” music that goes on with it. It is done in a strangely nasal voice; I guess they are talking about the stories and themes of the show. I am not sure I understand what is going on, so I just stop worrying about it and focus on the shadows.
The shadow puppets are mesmerizing. The puppets themselves are very well designed, with lots of details in the peculiar headdresses and the style of clothing. They move with a fine grace. If you are watching this thing at night, in an unknown, strange village like this, you are bound to feel something different. What can I say – it’s a very out-of-the-world experience!
The Wayang Kulit continued for an hour into the night. There we were, about two hundred ethnic Indonesians, one extremely garrulous Padang cab driver and an American from Chicago, and we all sat engrossed in the strange beat of that drum, that weird, interesting music, and the shadow puppets dancing away on the screen.
The cabby was unnaturally quiet on the way back to the hotel, as if he could see the little shadow puppets dancing around the car in the darkness of the Indonesian night, and had to focus on the road so he didn’t hit one of them.
written by : Thea Elfleda
punakawan : consist of petruk, gareng, semar and bagong.
they are a comedian figures on puppet shadow
“Omen Anak Ben!” dalam Senggol Jakarta: Jakarta Senggol Dikit
traditional bike
funny comic by arham kendari
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