Eye for eye

A former lawyer was murdered last night in Melbourne. The police think the murder is related to Melbourne underworld gangland war which has been going for 8 years with over 20 victims killed. The police were concerned that the murder last night will reignite the tit-for-tat shooting between the battling gangs.

Nobody really know how it all started. It was once mentioned that the war involves two families and their respective cronies. Perhaps one member of a family/gang was gun down by a member of another family/gang and then all the suddent the war started. You kill my Dad, I kill you or your brother. Your brother was killed and then you kill my brother and so on.

It is a madness...

Slavery

SLAVERY IS ACTUALLY STILL ALIVE AT THE VERY MOMENT.

This is probably much worse than slavery. I am not sure if I can find a word to describe it.

A young Indonesian girl was tortured and made disabled by her "master" in one of the Middle East countries. Her disabilities include blindness and dead right arm, and for all her suffers, she was only paid 6 Real, as the wages of her 10 months service as a domestic assistant in that house. That's what I read in Kompas Newspaper on Monday morning.

She is only 19 years old, the same age as many young girls in the first/second year of their university in western countries. She was born in a village in West Java, which is actually not too far from Jakarta. Poverty has made her left her school and in order to earn some money for living, she had to find a job.

Being a domestic assistant is the easiest way to earn few Rupiahs for many girls from villages. They get used to washing dishes, clothes, cleaning their houses and their rooms anyway. Those are the basic skills taught by many parents to their girls in Indonesia. Even my sister was taught those skills when we were still kids. If you are a girl and living in a village, your parent (especially your Mom) will ask you to help her doing domestic works.

Back to this 19 year old girl, she was promised that she would get paid 600 Real per month for 2 year contract. However, instead of getting her wages, she was tortured by her boss and her boss' sons. Her back and arm were ironed and she was punched on her eyes which eventually made her blind.

It is just unbelievable!

How can people do this kind of things to their domestic assistant? This girl is not the first victim of these kind of brutal acts. There have been many-many stories printed on many newspaper in Indonesia about similar cases. From all those sad stories, I have never heard of any culprits being punished or jailed for their brutalities. They always escape punishment because those barbarian's government seem not able to do anything.

Having made the victims disabled, the barbarian just send those victims back to their homecountry, as it happened on this young girl. They were successful in getting rid of "their problem" and now they create a very very big problem for the girl and her family.

Her live has been ruined.

Endless Love

Endless Love is, I think, the title of one of Korean or Hongkong TV series which was shown on Indonesian TV station a couple years ago. I can't remember exactly when and what TV station showed it on their weekly programme, because I never followed this movie at all. But this is not about TV series, I just saw this "Endless Love" in real life. Perhaps I should not say "endless" because the love among this couple has been going for "only" 50 years.

Our Parish in Oakleigh East was visited by the Bishop of Melbourne today. He led our Eucarist together with our Parish Priest, Father Paul, and Father Maloney, the vice-rector of the Catholic University of Melbourne. After finishing his homily, the Bishop was asked to bless and renew the marriage sacrament of an old couple. It was the couple's "50 years of marriage" aniversary. That means, this grandpa and grannie got marriage in 1956, not long after the 2nd world war ceased.

For a couple to get through 50 years of marriage together is nothing short of a great achievement nowdays. It is very difficult to have a relationship which lasts as long as 20 years in this "you-can-do-what-you-want" country, let alone 50 years. Infidelity leading divorce is common thing in many places at the moment. There are more and more couples prefering "partnership" to "marriage". Even there are more man or woman who wants sex only but not relationship, let alone marriage. "Sex is for fun!" they say, and this is the way to live in the future. Just like pigs or dogs which can have sex anywhere and whenever they want. If you condemn this act, then you are called a "saddo", "no life", "ugly" or "nobody like you".

I am sure during the 50 year marriage not all is happy days, there must be days when the relationship nearly break-down, perhaps there were some quarels or even some fightings (you never know this kind of thing happens). Howeverm it is the dedication and committment of either the husband or wife to have a family which should be praised. I know of people who already have 30 years of marriage in which sometime was like hell in their house. Shouting to each other and fighting, which eventually led to domestic abuse.

Sometimes you wonder if you can have this long and successful relationship yourself, forming a happy family, doing things together, supporting each other and taking care of each other. You wonder if you can get a wife or a husband, who wants to committ her/himself to be part of the family you want to build, having children, raising them up so that they can do good things for this world and trully love you.

Back to the Endless Love and 50 years of marriage, I can only say "W.O.W..."! That's long time, very very long. I am sure that relationship is built upon their faith in God. I am impressed, and long may it continue....to the end of life....

Sack the Coach! Err...Should We?

The last game of the season has been played by Melbourne Victory FC in Melbourne this evening. A 2-1 win in the last game at home looks perfect to Melbourne. But not to Melbourne's supporters who have had high expectations before the season started. The disappointment cannot be hide from their faces. They did sing during the game, and they did give their support to the team, but they also wanted the coach sacked.

I never thought the banner will be displayed in the game. Things were going alright in the first half. Melbourne got their first goal in the 2nd minute, courtesy of a header from Mark Byrnes, a central defender, when he jumped high to connect with Kristian Sarkies' corner. New Zealand Knights FC, Melbourne's opponent, are a poor side. So the Melbourne's fans were happy and jumping and singing to celebrate the goal.

Melbourne played well in the first half, they moved the ball around very well, kept creating chances, keeping possesion, but they could not score the second goal for long time. And then somehow NZ Knights' player gave a foul in the penalty box. The crowd shouted for penalty immediately and it was given by the ref. So, Kev took the penalty and made it 2-0 to Melbourne. The score didn't change until half time.

Following 15 minutes break, the play resumed again and then a couple minute later, a long white banner was displayed by some fans in the home end.

The banner said, "Enough is Enough Merrick Out" or something like this. I was quite surprissed with this protest from some fans. Patience is now non-existent in football. Fans want instant success, failure is not acceptable, even for an unexperienced coach in a new club and a very new team.

One thing though, the coach's history in Victorian football doesn't help him at all. He, unfortunately, has got more "failure" than successes. The Melbourne Victory team which he's coaching now has not been able to help him either. The fans have lost their patiences in him. Finishing at 7th place out of 8 is indeed not good enough.

The problems with his current team are, at least in my eyes, lack of team understanding, wasting too many chances and making mistake at the back. If you can't socre a goal and not taking up the chances you created, then you're in big trouble, that is the rule in football. If you don't score goals, you put more pressure to your defenders not to make mistakes. If you can't rely on your defence, then you know you're gonna lose points.

So, is this the coach's mistake or the players' mistake? Hard to tell...both did mistakes and there are a lot to learn from....sacking the coach doesn't mean all problems will be sorted out once and for all.

Patience is really non-existent in football...

My Friend is in Doha

I sent an email to my friend last night and I got one automatic reply in the morning. Apparently she is in Qatar at the moment. I thought, "Wow! That's cool!"

I had known she would not be in her office before I sent her that email, but I didn't know if she was in Qatar. I thought she were in Libya or somewhere in South America.

She is, should we say, "an international worker". She is based in Germany, however her jobs include looking after many exploration areas operated by the company she works for.

The great things about her is, she is smart, very very smart, because she was the first graduate of her class when she finished her first degree in approximately 4 years (in Indonesia it is very difficult to finish your first degree in 4 years time, normally it takes you 5 years) on one of the best educational institution in Indonesia, even in Southeast Asia. She got a job with Total in Indonesia and they promised to give her a scholarship to study in a Master course in IFP France, however before she started her job in Balikpapan, she was offered a completely free scholarship by the French Government. Off she went to Paris then, to study in IFP.

Upon her graduation from the Master school, she was offered a job by a German oil company. She got another option to wait for an offer from Shell, in which she was reserve of employment candidates. Of course she chose the company who have offered her a real job.

She is still young, at least 3-4 years younger than me (I'm 31 this year), still a single (well, as far as I know). I hope she will be more successful with her career in the future. I am happy to see her and I hope she feels happy with her jobs. All the best Arum! God Bless You...

Internet Addicted

I know it's not good, and I know it makes me un-productive, but Jesus, please help me! I can't resist to check my email every 3 minutes, and then visit a forum in every 5 minutes, or check the latest news on the BBC or The Age or The Guardian and also check my webmail or my Friendster. It is terrible!

I am not happy with myself, you know, in the psychological term: I'm depressed! I don't know how to fight this internet thingy, I just can't resist to get connected. Perhaps the best thing is to disconnect my PC from the internet. But then I need internet connection to download papers and find information related to my research. And more importantly I need it for sending and receiving emails. Oopsstt!

Ah well, I will let it happens then. I am sure I can strive through this challenge. I better stop writing now, otherwise I will be un-productive today.

Back to work...

Stupid Database System

Some people in this world have only one name as their official names. I am actually one of them. My official name is "Minarwan" not "Minarwan Yap". My family name indeed "Yap", however it has never been used "officialy" since I was born in 1975. It is not on my certificate of birth, not on my certificate of graduation and not even in my passport. So I have never used "Yap" as my family name officialy, ever.

But now this stupid database system in my university forces me to have a family name, and since I don't use "Yap" officialy, I am forced to use "Minarwan" as my family name as well. So my name in the database is "Minarwan Minarwan". Now how stupid that is? It gave a new name, something which is not even stated on my official documents. So, I can't use "Yap" as my surname but I have to use "Minarwan" as my surname.

I think actually the person who created this system who is stupid, not the system itself.

Rant over....