life's like this - avianto's journal

Life, currently: Less writing, more taking photos. More on flickr

Law existed to protect people. Law created to make people feel safe. But somehow, it worked the other way around in Indonesia. Law was used to shackle people, to keep people on the leash and to shut down the voice of freedom. The story so far This was the case of a mother of two children against the all mighty private hospital with divine and majestic name, Omni International Hospital. The mother wrote an email about her dissatisfaction of the hospital treatment to her, which she claimed was bad and horrendously unsatisfactory. The email, naturally, spread around certain mailing list / Read more …

I am following the herd, some people tagged or asked me to do this, so I comply. Here they are: I’d been living in 4 countries until now; Indonesia (most of the time), Germany, Canada and United States (currently) and visited more than a dozen countries. I hold a bachelor in Architecture but never worked as an architect, I prefer architecture as a way of life not as a work for living. I used to smoke a lot, not anymore right now except for an occasionally collapse of good judgement. Despite used to be a heavy smoker, I never use / Read more …

Some of you asked me, why given up a good living in Jakarta with managerial position, good salary and good reputation to go to New York with middle position, decent but minimal salary and no reputation? On top of that, why made a move when I already in my 30s and still not married. Well, sometime I also asked myself, why? Career Career-wise, my decision was a step back in career point of view. I was already in managerial position, 8 digits salary (in Rupiah, of course) and had a huge network among multiple disciplines and industries. It was a / Read more …

Things I notice after living and working for around two weeks in New York: On the street and public transportation, English was not the major language. Almost everybody was talking with their own language here; Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Germans, Polish, Yiddish, Tagalog, Indonesian, Malay, French and others are just a fraction of multi cultural reality in New York. Everybody was jaywalking. I mean EVERYBODY. If you were not jaywalking than you better step aside because New Yorker would push you anyway. iPod and/or iPhone was ubiquitous, in the subway, bus and even the street. Most New Yorker were listening to / Read more …