The King of Cats by Nabila

(This is a guest post from my friend, Nabila. For those who forget, she's one of my office friend back in Medan, as seen on this post).

Greetings! My name's Nabila, I shared a house with Dew in Medan. Suddenly in an early Ramadhan morning, I felt the urge to contribute while giving Dew a glimpse of her old life in Medan. I'll warn you first, though: It'll be different. Dew's naturally witty & cleverly sarcastic. Me, I just try to be. I have absolutely none of Dew's skill with drawings, & my very own skills of writing is almost nonexistent (so not true - Dew :D). Still, it's been a terribly long time since the last time I wrote, & so I figured, time to start honing. And what better place than here?

Have you ever read J. Norman Lippert's fanfiction of JK Rowling's Harry Potter? He made a series called James Potter (after Harry's eldest son). The second book contained a chapter entitled "The King of the Cats". Here's an excerpt from James Potter and the Curse of the Gate Keeper where one of James' friends tells a story for the Wizard Literature class:

The Tough-ing Theory

In the middle of anything-I've-been-currently-doing, I watched movies a lot. I think it's a way to distract me from my endless routine on my work place. Here I don't make friends a lot, even after 8 months, everyone is just acquaintances (a hint! you don't really make friends in the office, mostly you'll just make plain "relations"). Uh, the melancholic side of me.

Dream Theater

This is not about music. In fact, I know none about that band. Yeah, this is about the dream theater, literally. Well, this thought has been wandering inside my head for quite some time. In my mind, I imagine myself as several persons who act in some kind of boring theater.

The first person is the artsy one. She loves to draw so much and can't live without it. She adores the freedom and whimsical artist life. The second is a nerd one. She's a geek who loves studying and will be very happy if she can enter prestigious college(s) until she's tired of schools. The third is the workaholic type who has ambition to reach as high as possible the carrier she's been living in. The last one (okay, I said I have SEVERAL, not only four, but let's face it I have to make this short and readable), is the phlegmatic-home based-peace lover-simple girl who will be very happy to live an ordinary simple life: doing house chores, a little busy by a small-wages-regular job, live with her parents until she's got married and think about nothing but her new family.

This is not a battle-themed theater, nor a boring satire (I already said boring, actually). Since all four of the roles are important, you might be wondering: Who's gonna win? Well, who's the heroine, actually?

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And there are 4 persons in my Dream Theater. Illustration by Me.

A System Failure

Apa yang anda pikirkan ketika mendengar istilah "akselerasi"?

Anda yang lulusan teknik mesin, atau paling tidak, menyenangi bidang otomotif tentunya sudah tak asing lagi mendengar kata tersebut. Menurut salah seorang teman saya yang malang melintang di dunia permesinan dan otomotif, akselerasi berarti "perubahan kecepatan, atau percepatan". Hmm hal ini sebetulnya tak jauh berbeda dengan makna istilah tersebut dalam Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (KBBI).

akselerasi /ak·se·le·ra·si/ /aksélerasi/ n 1 proses mempercepat; 2 peningkatan kecepatan; percepatan; 3 laju perubahan kecepatan (http://www.kbbi.web.id/).

Ketika saya bertanya lebih jauh, teman saya ini melanjutkan bahwa semakin tinggi akselerasi suatu kendaraan, maka semakin baik karena dibutuhkan waktu yang lebih sedikit untuk mencapai suatu tempat, dibandingkan dengan kendaraan lain dengan akselerasi lebih rendah. Terdengar seperti hal yang bagus bukan? Karena zaman sekarang ini, yang katanya globalisasi, semua hal dianggap tidak berhasil kalau tidak cepat. Cepat pun, tentunya cepat yang berhasil. Bukan cepat yang gagal. Lah emangnya ada "cepat yang gagal"?

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