Laper

“Haduuuh bokeeek…”

Keluhan standar saya tiap bulan. Salah saya. Suka bikin ‘kunjungan dadakan’ ke Mango, Zara, La Senza, dan sejenisnya. Gesek sana, gesek sini, pulang hepi.

Ah…

Terus mikir, kok meski gaji nambah, kebutuhan seakan ikut nambah ya? Hukum ekonomi? atau hukum menjadi manusia?

Teringat saat dulu masih junior art director. Yaaa, memang duluuuuu banget sih. Tapi tetep aja, nominal yg kecil banget kerap membuat saya meringis dan bertanya, “kok dulu gue masih bisa survive ya?”

Bukan lebay bukan drama, tapi ini true story.

Dulu banyak cara untuk ngakalin gaji pas-pasan dengan kebutuhan hidup di ibukota yang gila-gilaan. Bawa botol kosong ke kantor untuk refill aqua, kadang ngambil tissue toilet (maap ni maap), kadang ngambil gula di pantry (hehehe gak selalu kok). Tapi satu yang paling saya inget, dan mungkin selamanya akan selalu nempel di ingatan saya yang lumayan short term memory ini.

Saat itu kantor saya lagi pitching indomie. Salah satu materi presentasinya adalah mendisplay semua jenis kompetitor dalam bentuk produk-produk yang ditempel di board, dan semuanya mie instant!

Saat itu saya beneran enggak punya duit. Ada sih duit, tapi cuma cukup buat bolak balik kantor naek ojek selama beberapa hari sampai gaji ditransfer.

Jadi pilihannya, enggak makan, atau jalan kaki.

Saya pilih enggak makan. Dan hasilnya… ya laper 😦

Pitching indomie sudah berlalu. Hasil pitching-nya enggak penting dalam story ini, tapi board presentasi itu digeletakkan begitu saja di sebelah mounting booth, dengan mie-mie instant masih menempel di atasnya!

Yah, seperti yang sudah para pemirsa duga, besoknya mie-mie instant tersebut sudah berpindah ke kosan saya 🙂

Moral of the story, kantor saya enggak pernah pitching indomie lagi.

Dari 15minutes

2 rants in a day (in bahasa indonesia)

Gue dan kembang kristal

Menurut gue punya kembang kristal buat dipajang di ruang tamu itu norak.

Tapi gue gak pernah ngejelek-jelekin orang yang punya kembang kristal. Atau maksa orang yang punya kembang kristal buat ngebuang koleksi kembang kristalnya.

Mungkin mulut gue gatel buat nyela, tapi kalo di depan temen gue yang suka banget ama kembang kristalnya, gue bakal diem aja.

[read more]

Dufan dan buku harian Ayah.

Dulu waktu Dufan baru buka, saya masih es de kelas dua. Ibu saya janji, kalau saya masuk ranking 10 besar, akan dibawa jalan-jalan ke Dufan.

Saya belajar mati-matian sambil tak henti-hentinya membayangkan serunya naik Niagara-gara. Hasilnya? saya masuk ranking 5 besar.

Banyak hal yang udah saya lupain akibat umur, tapi scene ini masih detail terekam di kepala saya. Ruang tamu (merangkap ruang keluarga) di rumah kontrakan kami di Gunung Batu, Bandung. Karpet merah tipis yang menggundul di beberapa area, tempat saya suka tidur-tiduran sambil baca lima sekawan. Ibu saya duduk tercenung di kursi rotan sambil menghisap dalam-dalam rokok surya 16 beliau.

“Duh… darimana Ibu bisa dapet uang ya?”

[read more]

I peed at Tabac, and I didn’t buy anything.

I used to love Tabac Kemang. Until tonight

Sure, some friends like to say “what’s so great about that place? It’s bloody expensive, pretentious, and the crowd is not even that flattering”

Well, I felt differently. I went there occasionally. As a meeting point to meet friends, or as the final destination after a fun night of club hopping 

I had fun memories there. From doing a split just to amuse my friends after a few glass of beers (see pic below), or simply having a fun night out for winding myself down after a stressful day at work.

“Let’s meet at Tabac”is something that my friends heard quite often from me.

Until tonight.

It was after a pre production meeting outside the office and I was in the mood for a pleasant night out after some very hard week

A friend that I was planning to meet was still caught up in a meeting so I decided to stop by at Tabac and told him to join me there after he’s finished.

After all, I loved the place, I figured a beer or two would make it even better.

My producer kindly dropped me there, and I went inside, straight to the toilet to answer nature’s call. After doing my business, the friend I was planning to meet sent me a text message, telling me that his meeting is going to be longer than expected, at which point I decided to cancel my plan and go home.

When I was walking out of the door, one of the tabac’s security suddenly stopped me in a totally disrespectful manner. 

I will write his words in bahasa Indonesia and translate later;

“Mbak, saya perhatikan tadi mbak masuk ke dalam. Saya buntuti dan Mbak langsung masuk ke toilet, lalu langsung keluar lagi. Saya perhatikan juga, Mbak ini sudah sering ya melakukan hal kaya gini. Tolong nggak usah diulang lagi, Mbak, tempat ini bukan toilet umum”

(Ma’am, I noticed when you went inside and I followed you. You only used the toilet and then you went out again. I seem to remember that you’ve done this several times before. Don’t do this again, as this place is not a public toilet)

I was speechless.

What would you do if you were in my shoes? Never in my wildest dream have I ever imagined getting such treatment from a person representing a place where I count myself as a loyal costumer!

I was too angry to mention these things which I believe make sense.

1. Why would he followed me to the toilet? Does he do that to everybody or just me? If it’s just me, what is it about me that he think is wrong? Was it because of my daily office clothes (namely; a tee, jeans, and adidas sneakers)?. It’s hilarious. Tabac is full of advertising agency and production house people. Their staff should have know better than to judge people from their casual wardrobes.

2. Putting my (hurt-hurt-hurt) feeling aside, he might only be doing his job (namely; throwing away people who come there only to use the toilet).
But note what he was saying ” ….I seem to remember that you’ve done this several times before….”

Oh my God. It was a very cruel,humiliating and WRONG thing to say. 

He didn’t see me as graduate from one of the toughest university in this country
He didn’t see me as a fun loving ,hard working professional that I am.
He didn’t see me as a creative group head of a multi national ad agency. 

He didn’t see me as being a loyal customer who had spent MILLIONS, and bringing her crowd there for a fun night out.
He simply saw me as the girl who peed without buying.

And how did it make me feel?
I could hardly breathe. 
I guess the thing with public humiliation like this, it made me feel dirty, and unworthy. It was like this person just take my self worth and trash it. 
It somehow feels like a dignity rape.

Let’s learn something from this experience, shall we?

In a second I finally understood why Public Relation is considered to be one of the most important element in a venue. Sorry to say, Tabac’s PR department has a lot of learning to do.

Even now I am trying to put this as a misunderstanding. I honestly think no business would ever KNOWINGLY do this kind of thing to their customer. Neither can i blame Mr Damar (the security guy), he probably is only doing what his bosses is telling him to do (and not even paid all that much to do it ,I’m sure…)

All the same, I can’t help the fact that from this moment on whenever I think of Tabac Kemang, in my head all I can hear is “…INI BUKAN TOILET UMUM MBAK!!” (THIS IS NOT PUBLIC TOILET, MA’AM)

PS:
To reward Mr. Damar (the security guy) for catching a non costumer who treated Tabac’s toilet as public toilet, I gave him Rp. 100.000,- He can consider that as a public toilet fee. 

Buy something nice with it, Mr. Damar.

21 version 2.0

Don’t hide, come out, wherever you are.

I know you’re waiting until midnight.

It’s alright. Stay there until midnight, then. 

You’re probably thinking that I hate you. Unlike 17.

I was dying to be 17.

I would kill for 21.

But you?

It’s not your fault, really.

I don’t hate you. You’re going to be part of me for the next decade,

so I think we should get along, yeah?

I can hear you node. Good.

Doesn’t mean that I am desperately waiting for you, either. It’s just… you come with a lot of baggage. Baggage of Questions. Of kids, of career, money, responsibility. And you give little something to ponder every now and then. One wrinkle for every stress, one white hair for every drama. 

But you must have something good, then. I mean, by having you I can have the experience in life that 21 couldn’t give. You can also boost that confidence of being capable to do something, which sometimes 21 couldn’t provide. And you might help me in redirecting the changes in my life. Like a stepping stone, or another stage in life.

So you’re not bad at all. You’re just a new version of 21. You’re 21 version 2.0.

I can see you’re smiling now. I am too smiling at you. Screw midnight. Time is time, you’re part of it. Let’s become one now. You can own me, as much as I can own you with pride and joy.

Because I will always be young at heart. Even when 40 and 50 come knocking on my door.

Welcome 30 years old.

Let’s rock another decade in my life 🙂

Happy birthday me.

 

Jakarta, half an hour before 13th November 2008

I am better at dancing and making puppets

On the contrary on what I said about why I blog, I think I forgot how to blog again.

I’ve been spending too much time on twitter. Waay too much. And I’ve been saving some tweets/ threads which told stories in my tumblr. Saving them was as fascinating as arranging them into a more readable stories. It sort of change the way I write, I guess. I tend to write shorter. Like this. Yes.

I am back on making video blog again. I tried it once here, here, and here. Then I just lost the appetite on it. I never care why until my friend in twitter, @asil interviewed me for her writing about video blogging. She interviewed me with @kapkap. Then she encouraged me to start making one again.

So I made one. I sort of made it for one of my twitter friend who got married. I never met her in person until her wedding day, so it was kinda special… in a way. She was so nice inviting us whom she never met beside the twitter world.

So this is the result. It’s nothing fancy. Recorded with my ghetto digicam (courtesy of @javajive to call it ‘ghetto’ hehehe), 4 megapixel and very grainy when it deals with low light. I edited in iMovie, after converting some scenes in http://www.zamzar.com (free, easy, recommended!). This is the result. My twitter friends loved it. One of them told me she even cried, because she hoped the friendship we had was somewhat special. And I don’t think she was being corny, I agree, friendship is a gem, no matter how weird the way you find your friends 🙂

I was happy to be able to make something that pleased people. Although it was only a small silly vlog. I remember the satisfaction is similar with the day I was inspired by John Merrifield. I think once in a while I need to get out of advertising to do something different. And even if at the end it’s only a silly video of happy friendship, I still think it’s priceless because it makes people happy.

So one time you’re happy with the friends you found in the internet, but then another time you also sad by looking at something like this. A guy felt offended so he said goodbye to twitter and deleted his tweet. I don’t want to make any further comment on that. I just want to say that it makes me feel sad. Twitter people I met online and offline are all nice people. They’re unique individuals but basically they’re nice. 

Some blogs were made to response to the situation (and maybe even more beyond my recent knowledge), but one of them is here. The last blog post I mentioned actually got me a bit er.. sad too. 

The internet is a free media where everyone can speak and stand on what they believe. It became so free it rather scary. The blog post made me remember how I hurt somebody else’s feeling without intention. It was pure joke. And made realize how many other people I have harmed. The blog post also made me feel shallow in a way. What have I done? I mean, really? what have I done? Ads? Proud to got them displayed? Shitty way of showing off my knowledge to the world like here? Or proudly presenting myself and my achievement like here, there, and everywhere? 

Gosh, I am almost 30 years old in a few days and I feel shallow.

So what should I write? Or post? without offending other people’s feeling? My dying dog? Is that safe enough?

Or maybe stop blogging and just keep tweeting?

Or learn to grow up and behave properly. And stop whining like some 5 years old.

Forgive this rant. I am better at dancing and making puppets for Sam than blogging. I should just stick to puppets. They were cute and didn’t cause any harm.

Too historical to be missed

267/365 via MAribeth Coghill in flickr

Aldo : “Alfa, Obama wins!”

Alfa : “Yay! I know…”

Aldo : “You’re watching tv?”

Alfa : “no need… I am watching twitter”

::tweets from about three hours ago::

javajive Impressed that Twitter has held up thus far.

aulia It’s not the campaign, it’s the message! Indonesian politicians and voters, WAKE THE FUCK UP!

javajive Wow, Wyoming and Oklahoma = 66% McCain? Sup w/ that?

asil LOL I just saw my friend on TV, in a cafe with election results on a big screen. And they did NOT just take the source from Facebook 😀

budip On Digg: Photos from the Obama Rally in Chicago: http://plurl.me/27x Please Digg! RT @acmaurer

nanashambles My ‘traditional’ co-worker yesterday said that he’s uncertain Americans will vote for Obama. He thinks America is still full of racists.

javajive @nanashambles Unfortunately, it’s true, there are plenty of racist people in America, but I think that holds true for nearly every nation.

jkottke Lots of political Tweetenfreude predicted for this evening.

LeonnieFM @javajive @nanashambles, I was thinking about that too, but I also believe the urge for change will overcome racist-issue.*crossing fingers*

budip Everyone projects that Barack Obama has now been elected president. Via @slate

LeonnieFM 297 : 139 http://edition.cnn.com/ELEC…

aulia this is ridiculous. i’m crying. XD

asil Fuck I want to be at Chicago right now. Just to feel the spirit. That is something you don’t see everyday. Except in sports events.

aulia Somebody put Kevlar vest on That One. Please.

patvandiest Halo Indonesia! Obama terpilih menjadi Presiden Amerika yang baru. Apa pengaruhnya buat Indonesia? Diskusi sekarang! 😀

aulia Go and make that change.

budip Welcome, President Barack Obama! Thanks, Americans!

jkottke I hear yelling and cheering in the streets.

aulia I think Twitter just exploded. Congratulations USA.

rizalrenaldi Obama win. Congrat. Save the world, Obama.

::tweets from about two hours ago::

javajive Ok, Twitter just got oddly silent. Are people celebrating, glued to the tube, or just in awe?

LeonnieFM http://edition.cnn.com/2008… Yup, it’s OBAMA… wuih… what a ride! what a show

savitri Got the feeling they’re going to throw some party in Menteng, Jakarta, to celebrate Mr President Obama.

kapkap Obama as President of United States. Congratulations for USA 🙂 You guys restoring my faith. Thank you 🙂

xgray w00t!

aulia First time I can sincerely say, AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!

savitri @aulia …

nicholaspatten wow, nyc is going crazy, so loud outside.

spruiked BBC has called the election 306:145

LovelyPink Good morning everybody ^^

LovelyPink Does Obaman win??

ndari @aulia not just you, my eyes are all watery :))

gueamu now where’s my change?

savitri FYI (just in case you don’t know abt the song): http://tinyurl.com/5p63lw

javajive Being an American overseas for 6 1/2 years, this is one of the proudest moments I’ve had of my country – finally. Congratulations.

enda VIVAT OBAMA! VIVAT OBAMA! YES WE CAN!

snydez i wonder why nathan petrelli is not president of US..

aulia BARACK OBAMA TO THE BLACK HOUSE. No?

enda Obama 333, McCain 155, 270 needed to win. Ladies and Gents, we have a New President of United States of America! Vivat Obama!

javajive “The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly.” McCain to Obama.

aldy and we all will welcome the new golden Age lead by the Socialist Republic of America

neofreko bagi yang pengen memonitor #election08 via map, yahoo dashboard http://news.yahoo.com/elect…

asil I’m so happy I can’t sit tight.

richstyles Say good bye two decades of Bush/Clinton/Bush

ndari Obama’s coming to Jakarta (from CNBC). SERIOUSLY?????

asil http://isobamapresident.com/ is counting down to the next 77 days for the change he promised.

somemandy Obama wins! I’m so happy!

kapkap Okay. The US Elections went well. Yay. INDONESIA, NOW IT’S YOUR TURN. Er, wait. Or we lost the hope already?

somemandy I’ve been having a series of bad luck. But I don’t mind them now! OBAMA WINS!

ifahmi Congratulation, America.

LeonnieFM starring at the blue Florida & California with a big smile. Virtually hugging many crying American fellows 🙂

aulia Slightly disappointed it wasn’t a total blackout. America, Paint it Black!

vmahmud believes the world are Americans once again. Good show guys. Now make sure you don’t blow it like that other guy.

serendipify Obama menang, boleh cuti nggak ya?

chibialfa I hope by having Obama as US President, Indonesian President will not approve the stupid anti porn bill #wishlist

chibialfa I hope this will be the end of racist war everywhere on the world, and by God, hopefully it’s the end of war at Iraq, too #wishlist

kapkap Okay, I didn’t watch the speech but did Obama wear Kevlar? Somebody please do it. Remember JFK and Robert Kennedy guys…

deon @serendipify obama menang gaji naek gak ya?

aldy Obama’s Victory speech=I have a dream 2.0

ndari YES WE CAN! *all teary-eyed

chibialfa Obama menang, kira-kira gue bisa kerja di amrik gak ya?

anima somehow this reminds me of the finale of Heroes season #1. does Obama have a little brother?

amalia_sari mengapa aku terharu ya Obama menang, roda berputar dan yakin semua bisa berubah

serendipify Harga rumah Obama di Menteng berapa sekarang?

deon @serendipify 56 M ya kalo gak salah? jual aja.. buat bayar utang luar negri.. hihihihi

deon @chibialfa obama menang dibuatin movie sama miyazaki gak ya? *makin ngaco..:P

ndari kenapa presiden kita kalo pidato ga bisa kayak gitu?? HAH??

jakemarsh President Obama has left the stage, and I’m sufficiently teary-eyed. I can’t explain how happy I feel right now. Again, thank you, everyone.

xgray wow. I can listen to that for the next four years.

chibialfa yes, we can http://tinyurl.com/5jcjwc

chibialfa @deon obama menang, fiskal dihapus gak ya? #wishlist alias #ngarep

anima What if Obama fails? Okay I didn’t just say that.

kapkap @anima – Then we have our day-to-day in politics Re. If Obama fails.

savitri Twitter flooded indeed.

aldy yes get the black guy to clean up a white man’s mess again

serendipify @chibialfa @deon Obama menang, orang Indonesia jadi tambah waras?

enda Posted: Obama untuk Dunia yang baik http://tinyurl.com/5t55ad

chibialfa @serendipify Obama menang, check dulu sekarang dollar jadi berapa

chibialfa glued to cnn http://tinyurl.com/65xs6m

aldy “Politics is like driving It’s “R” to backwards and “D” to go forwards.”

chibialfa temen gue: “Hah? Rhoma Irama jadi presiden amrik?” #gubrak

chibialfa temen gue : “Wuih, Obama = David Palmer” #gubrak #24 #obama

GordonWSmythe Nation proves that, for once at least, idiots don’t win EVERY time.

GordonWSmythe Sarah Palin runs back to Alaska with a stuffed suitcase screaming that those clothes are HERS!

chibialfa another friend FB status update : keep Sarah Palin… she still hot!! #gubrak #gubrak

chibialfa O&M Worldwide CEO and Chairman,Shelly Lazarus, encourages her employees to take an hour and go vote on November 4th, 2008. http://is.gd/6nyV

bening abis lari lari keliling koridor teriak teriak “OBAMA MENAAANG!” XD

anima are we done talking about Obama winning? 😐

chibialfa makan apa ya sekarang? *answering @anima ‘s tweet*

ifahmi This is one beautifull remark: http://tinyurl.com/5k8yfz

jkottke I collected a bunch of election red/blue maps from various media outlets: http://tinyurl.com/6q2phn

budip Virtual world celebrates Obama’s win http://tinyurl.com/6adv52 (via @msnbc_tech)

Ruby1201 wonders if i hear one more obama schobama, i’ll hurl.

chibialfa @Ruby1201 RHOMA SCHOBAMA IRAMA XD

chibialfa retweet stat FB glenn marsalim Glenn sebagai perwakilan dari tim sukses Obama saya menghaturkan terima kasih atas dukungannya selama ini…

rizalrenaldi Kenapa kok pemilihan presiden sono, kita yg ‘sibuk’? .. soalnya kita negara dunia ketiga. Mereka hancur, kita lebur. -tukang bajaj.

chibialfa RT @asil FBstat: doesn’t have to be an American to care about the US election, the way she doesn’t have to be an Iraqi to feel their pain.

Fix You – A creative writing workshop

 

Me and my big mouth.

I guess Fajar Jasmin’s idea about this viral creative writing workshop blinded me. I mean, it’s a great viral idea, got me excited and all that. Chose one song from 100 lists he provided that will trigger our creative juice most, and make a blog post based on that title. So after Kapkap tagged me (based on my oh-so-not-very-ladylike request) I chose Fix You by Coldplay.

[and now I am looking at my blank type editor]

[looking]

[looking]

[still looking]

As he suggested, probably listening to the song itself will help. While it’s being played in my iPod, I closed my eyes, shut all my rational thoughts from the left side of my brain, and I see… a dark hospital wing, at night. Doctor’s feet walking in slow motion. And myself there, sitting, waiting, alone, closing my face in despair, too tired to sleep, too arrogant to cry…

Light will guide me home, and ignite my bones… and he will try fix me…

Wait, he… who is he? Who is the ‘I‘ in “I will try to fix you…”?

It became clear to me why I always find that song moves me. It reminds me to the lowest points in my life, which allows me to pity myself (I don’t know why it painted hospital pictures in my head) and provides me with some sort of believe that some miracles (in any kind of form) will fix me.

The song is ambiguous. At first I thought it’s all about me, me, me… my despair, my sadness, my oh my help me help me. But the real message is being tucked gently at the end of the lines. 

And I will fix you.

I don’t care who he is. He engaged me by knowing how much I am longing for help. And I love with that song because with its own way, it does fix me.

And if I want look at that statement from a different angle, I will ask myself a question,

When was the last time I fix somebody?

I suppose “fix somebody” here means do anything good without hoping anything in return.

I… don’t know when. I forgot when was the last time I did something without the thought of me standing in the center of the universe. Because I feel, I want, I need, I, I, I, began with I and ended with… me, and myself.

I gave money to the poor just to shoo them away, I tipped my maid because I appreciate her work and expecting she would keep on doing the good work, I pat the dogs and cats in the street because I love animals, I (this will sound very ugly) will do free ads for NGO not because I care so much for the world, poverty, and its global warning, but because if it’s cool enough it might win any awards for me, me, and of course… myself.

I want to be fixed, but I have never fixed anyone.

No, I am not proud of it, and no I don’t need to be pitied. I know I have to start somewhere, somehow. I am not a doctor like my dad or my brother who is living the life of fixing people, that they often forgot how much they have helped others. I am not my mom who gives all her passion in education and own this ‘fixing other people’ by default.

I am who I am. I will be 30 years old sometimes next month. I don’t know who or what and how to fix. I just want to be a happier person. Hopefully, this will be a good start toward that direction.

See? Again… I am the center of my own universe… *face palm*

[…]

[end as a start]

 

The deal said, I have to tag 2 people that will take this viral thing to another level. So I tag barijoe, because he appreciate good songs a lot more than I do, and treespotter, because I have never tagged him 🙂 Enjoy the task. And don’t forget to comment on this page to ‘book’ your choice of song.

It’s tough being judges

When my boss was given a task to judge a local award show from another country, he invited another creative directors and group heads (including the freelance one, how generous of him) to join him in the judging session. He thought more fresh eyes would help, and at the same time it gave us the new experience being the judge of other people’s works.

 

Beside, there were also free pizzas so it was pretty cool.

Unlike the One Show award show judging I put as illustration above, we sat there inside the CD room, facing a large monitor, brought nothing but our eyes and minds. First thing we have to do was look through all the works based on categories. And say “in” or “out”. “In” if we feel it deserves something, “out” is well.. out. Then we look through all the “in” ones again, to decide if the works deserve finalist, bronze, silver, or even gold. We voted by raising hand to stand our point.

The process took about 2 hours (thank God it was only 56 entries, compared to 3000 entries my boss judged in the last ADOI award) and it was tiring. Until then, I had always seen award shows from the glamourous side, and envy those judges who sat there in their own special chairs, had done the judging session inside the most expensive hotels with cool swimming pools and booze and expensive sun glasses but anyway… One thing I realized now, being a judge is TOUGH.

It’s tough to be mean. Seriously, these works are other people’s babies. I can imagine the art directors staying several nights crafting the layout, supervising the photo shoot and digital imaging process by holding on to the words from his/her creative director “this can win something in the next award show”. It’s also has something to do with the good karma, I guess. You will never want your own works to be treated with disrespect.

It’s tough to be nice. Aside from the ideas or even the crafting, one thing I noticed that how important it is to present your work. A few years ago, our agency got negative comment from some judges in a local award show because we printed our work more decent compare to others. But hey, it’s a beauty show, and beauty queens sure want to look their best when being judged, right? How to present your ideas is another crafting you have to do before entering any award show. It’s simple, if they don’t get your idea, they won’t buy it no matter how good it is.

It’s tough to fight for your believe. Imagine you’re sitting next to big names like David Droga, or Yasmin Ahmad, and you heard them sigh impatiently and yell “OUT” on the first place, when you’re about to say “IN”. Omg, what to do? I don’t want to look stupid in front of them but how if I really really like the piece? Worst, how if it was MY piece and I believe in it and I have to influence them to vote for it? In this case, it matters to have ego to boost your confidence so you can stand on what you believe. Of course it’s easier said than done. Because I don’t think I am capable yet to do any of that.

It’s tough to be fair when you’re tired. First round when your eyes and minds were still fresh, it was okay. Some judges are known as the good police, when they gives a lot of opportunities in the beginning. But even the nicest judges get tired, and when they’re tired, they can be very mean. Now I understand why Khai said award shows are pretty much like lottery games. But only if your works really really good, then it will raise to the top like the creamy bubble on top of the beer.

So before the the glamourous award night and getting wasted in the after parties, it is tough to be judges. I raise my glass to all the good award shows judges out there. You simply deserve the luxurious hotels and all that.

When I had the one time opportunity to go to Pattaya and see AdFest several years ago, my former group head thought me this little geeky game which was pretty fun. We had two days to see all the work entries being displayed in the largest labyrinth walls I’ve ever seen. It was hundreds of print and outdoor works. All the tv works were being played in a small cinema next to the huge labyrinth. I spent the whole two days checking out all the print and outdoor entries and putting my own votes in my own little note book, pretending I was one of the judges. The day of the winner announcement, I cross checked my vote with the results. Of course, I missed a lot, but still… it was fun.