C(h)oke Bottle

Okay, many people know, Agnes Monica aka Agnez Mo (in her way to go international she has changed her name, or at least her stage name) has launched her first single with Timbaland.

Long before the launching, there was a youtube teaser video of her performing in a club somewhere (claimed to be in the US). Well, in the video, she is dancing but barely putting the microphone before her mouth. Is that really her singing? Or? Well, you know it.

As a used-to-be fan of her when she was a child, I am not so impressed with her mature look and ambition. I mean, she is just simply a copycat mainstream singer. When Pink was popular, she tried to be like Pink: leather jacket, pink punk hair, underground video. Then came Rihanna – she is just like Rihanna wanna be. Then came Beyonce, her concert is just Beyonce-like. Even a friend of mine joked that Beyonce got the concept of the concert from her. And then Lady Gaga, and… well, you know it. Just name any prominent US Divas, she might have copied every each of them.

Inevitable, some of her news stuck in my timeline in twitter. Well, you know, she is famous. More or less, I know what she is up to from her fans aka lovers.

Several weeks ago, she tweeted that her single was at the top of a website, which happens to be the place for illegal downloading. Fine. But, you don’t have to be proud that your hardwork is pirated, right?

At the same time, I saw a tweet about another Indonesian musician, Addie MS. His album topped the iTunes chart. He was surprised, even when he got the news from Apple itself. How about our diva-wanna-be idol? She promoted herself. Of course, with the help of her “lovers”.

So, out of symphathy, I retweeted the link, mentioning her. I wanted to say, being humble never hurts. It is better than campaigning all over the world without a concrete result. Then, here comes the interesting story.

One of her fans told me that her song is not sold in iTunes Store Indonesia, but only in the US and Australia. I couldn’t compare it to Addie MS, whose album “only” charted the Store in Indonesia (although I can also find it in the US Store). Fine. I went to the US iTunes Store, searched with some keywords (including the “alay” one like Agnez Mooohhh – ah, it reminds me of a cheese advertisement). And tadaaaaaaa……. Nothing!

I later learned that her single was released last week. And as usual, her fans are screaming that her single is charting the iTunes Store in the US. Ouw, not bad. Her dream might come true. Searching in Google, what I found were some websites written by Indonesians living in the US. Maybe one of her friends who happened to let her stay at his house.  Here is the funny part of the blog:

“People here in the states may not know who she is, but Agnez Mo happens to be the most decorated pop star in Indonesia. (Feel free to go to Wikipedia and provide more info).”

Well, you count on Wikipedia to decide somebody is famous? (Go create your own page and you are famous!).

As a matter of fact, I think it is unfair if I only look for information created by “haters”. So, trying to be neutral, I went to iTunes Chart Top 100, with the hope to find her face there. At first, I was so happy that I thought I saw her face at position 3. But too bad, it was not her, it was her idol, Lady Gaga. Ah, maybe she imitated Gaga so well that I couldn’t differentiate them anymore.

So, in order to verify the news, I tweeted the link and mention her. Who knows, she might give me some insight. Then came her lover, maybe without even clicking the link, stated that the link I posted was made by haters. Hello? Tell me how this website can be a hater-made http://www.apple.com/itunes/charts/. Even if they are, they won’t even sell her single  at the first place.

Well, at least, I got what I wanted: reading her fans reactions. You know, they are bunch of fanatic fans with no…. Ah, you decide.

A Tooth Fairy's Tale

When I was studying in the States, we were required to do some sort of assignments called “reflexive questions”. It consisted of several questions about activities you have done and how you felt and what benefits or loss you might conclude from the experiences. The purpose: do something, learn from it, which in the end, learn about yourself. That, plus the great possibility that I suffer from histrionic personality disorder (really, the more I think about it, the more I am sure I have a personality disorder), makes me reflect on what has just happened to me and the reason behind it.

Some of you who have known me for quite a long time – especially if we went to seafood restaurants quite often – might have seen me crushing crab shell or opening a bottle of beer or biting off a label tag with my teeth. You might have felt the pain within yourself, as if YOU yourself had done one of those things.

Well, last weekend I had toothache (again, the same tooth for probably the last three years). I knew it clearly, as it has always been, that I wasn’t fit. This particular tooth was filled when I was in the high school. And everytime I am dehydrated or about to catch a cold, it hurts, as if giving me signal that I need to pay attention to my body and health. I took it for granted. I drank a lot of water, slept or recuperated myself as soon as I noticed the signal. Good thing is: the pain went away as soon as my body was fit again.

But, this time, things are different. The pain stayed put. It dragged my gum since Thursday (or probably Wednesday) and didn’t go away until Monday, regardless what I did to reduce it. On Tuesday, I decided to see a dentist, which I believe is not anyone’s favourite thing. The dentist decided to drill a hole in that tooth so that the heat, as a side effect of inflammation on the gum, to break out from my mouth. I had to go back the next day. He couldn’t pull it out as the inflammation was still there. “Come back tomorrow and hopefully it is fit enough to be pulled,” he said.

On the next day, I was ready and so far three dentists have handled me. The newest dentist tried to pull the whole tooth. This is understandable as it takes shorter time, less work and everybody is happy. But he failed.

“I need to cut the tooth into two so that I can pull each part of the root,” he explained.

I looked at the four surgery lamps above me with the hope that they could blind all my senses. Maybe this is why people hate going to see dentist.

He finally cut it and tried one more time. I don’t need to explain how it felt like when he hold the half-tooth and made a circular movement. He couldn’t do it, either. Oh, good. Then came the second doctor, a rather cool one with ponytail. He took a look and took over the surgery. Oh, man, I bet he does weightlifting quite regularly. I even felt numb on my anaesthetized left jaw when he finally pulled out one part of the tooth.

Thanks. That helped.

The new doctor continued the work. After a little more efforts, he finally took the second part.

Oh, thank God.

“Wait, what is this part?”

Wait. What?

“There is something more. Be patient, we’ll be finishing soon,” he looked at me smiling, trying to soothe me.

After the cracking and wooshing sounds from the machine, the tooth was finally gone. And here comes the explanation.

“Your tooth has three roots, that’s unusual. As you may have known, most teeth have two roots only,” he showed me a picture of anatomy of tooth. “We didn’t see it on X-ray because the film is two-dimensional, and this one hide behind the other.”

“Another thing that makes our surgery today a little difficult is that the root is not pointy at the end as the usual root. Yours are a bit thick at the end. Imagine pulling a bended nail,” he smiled.

As a bonus, I was allowed to see my tooth before it was thrown away. I saw at least six pieces bloody calcium. 

What a tooth!

After that I kind of thought to myself: That is why, I was able to bite off those hard things. Some of them might have more than two roots. I felt grateful that I decided not to wear a brace seven years ago. Maintaining my uniqueness is more important than having the same look like others as I might be defined by my teeth.

Eternal Rivalry and The Victim

One, who is a psychology student or having interest in psychology, should know Sigmund Freud.  Well, in case you don’t know, he is (or was, I am having difficulties to decide which tenses to use) the founding father of Psychoanalysis – once one of  the popular fields in psychology. And his fundamental theory about personality is the Id, Ego and Superego. Some people, including me, have difficulties differentiating those three, which are responsible for our behavior. Some of you may argue that his theory is outdated. But believe me, if you trace deep enough through the modern psychology, you will come back to these famous three.

Okay, enough about psychology and Freud. Let’s talk about those three directors of ours. Id is the part of you, that wants to enjoy the life as pleasantly as possible. That includes all the hedonic urges in you – hunger, sex, buying expensive but unimportant things. On the other hand, there is the police of the mind – the Superego – who regulate or limit the Id so that you don’t live like animals or simply destroy yourself with those desires. So, everytime you want to do something - or behave - these two legendary rivals will fight, or I should say, negotiate. Imagine the devil-and-angel thing like in films or cartoons. The result, or the treaty, of the negotiation is the Ego, things you finally express in your behavior – smiling and say no when a stranger gives you something or nod your head in front of your parents although you didn’t agree with what they say.

And of course, there come times when your Id is so strong but your Superego is surprisingly diligent in doing its work. For example, you want to swear (name all the derogatory words, mostly marked with derog. in a dictionary) but your social values don’t allow it. One thing I find interesting is how our Ego turns out to be, accommodating the hateful feeling yet socially accepted.

Instead of saying the word that means excrement, some people say “Shoot!”, with the same intention and tone of swearing, of course. Some replace the word which means sexual intercourse with “Fudge!”. If you are following the series How I Met Your Mother, you will learn many replacements – such as surgeon for a person who hasn’t had an intercourse or witch as in wicked witch to refer to seducing, annoying behavior of a woman or sandwich as a reference to the leaves that is illegal in most part of the world. In this way, they are safe from trouble: when somebody got mad, they could say, “I didn’t say the bad words.” At the same time, their loath was expressed.

Some people go smarter. Instead of showing one forbidden finger, some show three fingers with the caption “read between the lines”. Or pretending to rub their chin or eye, but the only active finger is that particular finger – as for this one, some do it subconsciously – and here comes another theme: defense mechanism. Oops!

Remember: there will always be a negotiation between Id and Superego within you. And the result is your Ego, for example, this article (and the avoidant of some words, oh, you know what I mean).