“Don't hope for a life without problems. There's no such thing. Instead, hope
for a life full of good problems.” ― Mark Manson
This blog post is a regular review of what happened in my life in 2017, what
went well and what went wrong. Hope we can learn something from here.
Bukit Merese, Tanjung Aan, Lombok
Intermezzo: For better year-in-review contents, you should watch the
following videos and then just skip all the remaining article.
January
I think there is no better way to distract ourselves from negative things than
doing a lot of productive works. It definitely helps us to move on to the next
better things.
This month I volunteered in
Kelas Inspirasi Lombok
for the first time. As a teacher I shared about my profession and my life story
to elementary students in MI Bilok Petung, Sembalun. FYI, Sembalun is a gateway
village to hike to the famous
Mount Rinjani.
It was also my first experience visiting Lombok island, so I took a leave for
few days to travel around
Gili Trawangan
and southern part of Lombok. I think South Lombok (Tanjung Aan Beach,
Merese Hill,
Kuta Beach,
Seger Beach, etc) will be as popular as Bali in the next decade if the development is
progressing well.
Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the
world to work — whereas economics represents how it actually does work.
The first book of Freakonomics series
Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life. And understanding
them — or, often, ferreting them out — is the key to solving just about any
riddle, from violent crime to sports cheating to online dating.
We all learn to respond to incentives, negative and positive, from the outset
of life. An incentive is simply a means of urging people to do more of a good
thing and less of a bad thing. But most incentives don’t come about organically.
Someone — an economist or a politician or a parent — has to invent them.
There are three basic flavors of incentive: economic, social, and moral.
Very often a single incentive scheme will include all three varieties. Think
about the anti-smoking campaign of recent years. The addition of a $3-per-pack
“sin tax” is a strong economic incentive against buying cigarettes. The banning
of cigarettes in restaurants and bars is a powerful social incentive. And when
the U.S. government asserts that terrorists raise money by selling black-market
cigarettes, that acts as a rather jarring moral incentive.
Whatever the incentive, whatever the situation, dishonest people will try to
gain an advantage by whatever means necessary. For every incentive has its dark side. A thing worth having is a thing
worth cheating for. For every clever person who goes to the trouble of creating
an incentive scheme, there is an army of people, clever and otherwise, who will
inevitably spend even more time trying to beat it.
The conventional wisdom is often wrong. Crime didn’t keep soaring
in the 1990s, money alone doesn’t win elections, and — surprise — drinking eight
glasses of water a day has never actually been shown to do a thing for your
health. Conventional wisdom is often shoddily formed and devilishly difficult to
see through, but it can be done.
Thursday evening, December 22, 2016, I got an email from
Kelas Inspirasi Lombok about the
selection result for the volunteers. Thank God, I was selected as one of the
teaching volunteers in Sembalun region, nearby Mt. Rinjani. It was a refreshing
experience to meet new people in Lombok, have interaction with all teachers and
kids in MI Bilok Petung, and contribute small things there.
Kelas Inspirasi Lombok 4 (2017) – MI Bilok Petung, Sembalun
We were blessed with a group of good people with various backgrounds in our
team: Agung,
Sherli,
Zahra (lecturers),
Andini (project manager),
Satriyo (engineer),
Kamaria (photographer),
Lusiani (head of tax
officers),
Meyliawati (export
planner),
Muazzin (school
administration),
Raharni (midwife),
Ramoth (chemical
analyst),
Reni (accountant),
Siraj (videographer), and
me. While most of us have ever joined Kelas Inspirasi in other city, we were
more than excited to share our life and career stories to the students in
Sembalun, Lombok. π
A post shared by Anggriawan Sugianto (@anggriawan_s) on
Arrived at Lombok
Friday morning, January 20, I took the first flight from Jakarta to Lombok and
turned out that flight was full with volunteers of Kelas Inspirasi Lombok. Most
of us took one or more days of annual leave from the office and arrived at
Lombok before noon. Once we arrived at Lombok International Airport,
the second largest airport
in the country, we went to the meeting point in the old Selaparang Airport to
take bus provided by the local committee to go to Sembalun. It took around 3
hours from Mataram to Sembalun by car. Around 4pm, all volunteers gathered in
Wisma Cemara Siu Sembalun to have introduction briefing from the local
committees. Later, we parted as groups and my group traveled again for another
hour to Bilok Petung, northern part of Sembalun region. π
A post shared by Anggriawan Sugianto (@anggriawan_s) on
Finally we arrived at school around 7pm, and the principal was already there
welcoming us warmly. It was quite strange that we saw a lot of students in scout
uniform were still in school at that time. Later we realized that the principal
asked the kids to gather and camp at school to welcome us with a scout ceremony.
After we joined the ceremony / scout inauguration and were introduced to the
students by the principal, we went back to one of the classrooms. All female
volunteers slept in the principal's house, while all male volunteers slept in
the classroom. π€
"When you try your best, but you don't succeed." – Coldplay, Fix You. That was
what I thought when I couldn't get the ticket for Coldplay concert in Singapore
last November. As a Coldplay fan since high school (early 2000s), when first
time I heard that they were going to have Asia tour, I was excited and hoped
that Coldplay would perform in Indonesia. Unfortunately they didn't come to
Indonesia, but to Singapore, Thailand, and The Philippines. Unbelievable.. π€
Coldplay – A Head Full of Dreams Tour 2017 at Singapore
Few days after the first batch of Coldplay Singapore tickets sold out in few
minutes and crashed the system, Live Nation Lushington announced that they
would hold additional day for Coldplay concert in Singapore. After getting
standby an hour before the ticketing started, I finally managed to secure some
tickets! Yeay!! π Meanwhile, most of my friends who couldn't get ticket on this
second batch decided to wait for the Bangkok tickets.
Thursday, March 31, after putting my stuffs in a hotel in Bencoleen Street, I
decided to take a walk around the bay before coming to the stadium. I went to
Gardens By The Bay to see their (artificial) nature park. Later I regretted
since it is really huge (~100 hectares) and my legs were tired after walking for
more than 4 hours. π° At 3pm I went back to my hotel, took a shower and rested
my legs for few minutes before going to the stadium.
Although the gate actually opened at 6pm, many crazy fans
came to the stadium from 12pm. I arrived at the stadium around 4.15pm and the
queue was already very long. Well, the long queue was only for standing ticket
holders, not seated ticket holders, as we all paid more to be closer to the
artist. Luckily, some of my friends came earlier to the stadium so I could slip
into them. π At 6pm the gate opened and we ran to the ticket scanner, took the
Xyloband, and ran to the
front of the stage to secure the closest space to the stage. Everyone's super
excited! π
Waiting in the line
After waiting for 2 hours outside the stadium and another 2 hours inside,
finally.. an early 20th century soprano aria titled "O Mio Babbino Caro"
was played in the stadium. This song is the opening intro of all Coldplay's A
Head Full of Dreams tour all over the world. And then the lights turned off,
some intro videos played, and then it got dark again...
...then suddenly all xylobands were turned on red!! Chris, Jonny, Guy, and Will
were walking to the stage just around 10 metres in front of me.. π±
#starstruck
A Head Full of Dreams – as the opening song, which was also the title of
this concert tour, was played amazingly. This song was so ecstatic, colourful,
and explosive as Chris ran forward to the stage B while singing to the refrain,
then he jumped and the colourful pyro exploded. Holy sh*t.. I was more than
excited...
