indi + rani = noe | kei

Anda ingat tulisan saya yang menyinggung soal Kasus Korupsi di KBRI Singapura? Nah, mereka (ex-Dubes Mochamad Slamet Hidayat dan ex-Bendahara Erizal) sudah masuk kurungan (tapi tidak kelihatan malu!). Beritanya ada di Tempo: Tersandung Sisa Renovasi.

ex- Wakil Dubes Eddie Suryanto Harijadhi, yang dulu beberapa kali main musik bersama saya dan Rani di KBRI, ternyata juga menerima uang dari proyek yang sama. Total jumlah yang mereka kantongi adalah sekitar Rp 10,1 miliar.

Today, Rani and I took Jung-Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) tests, a psychometric questionnaire designed to identify certain psychological differences according to the typological theories of Carl Gustav Jung, and we found out that:

-I am an ENFJ (Extraversion, iNtuition, Feeling, Judging)
-Rani is an INTJ (Introversion, iNtuition, Thinking, Judging)

So, what does it all mean in our relationship?*

We fought hard against the #1 seeded doubles team of Singapore open. Royson's powerful flat serve and Arjun's tricky net game really killed us. They always returned our serve low over the net with a slice and the balls never bounced high.

We lost 0-6 in the first set but managed to break Royson's serve in the second set secured better loss at 2-6.

Not a bad game knowing that Royson is a tennis coaching pro at Laguna Country Club and has been playing with Arjun in many tournaments.

At least we got killed by the best!

PS: Thanks to Oom Firman, Andre, Lina, Antony and wife, Mariah, Jayson, Kae Fong and Arpita.

For the last four weeks, Rani has been taking a very good care of the kids at home during my regular tennis practice with Yodhi. Yodhi and I even troubled her by adding more to the laundry basket with our smelly tennis clothes. I felt bad that she sacrificed a lot of her time for me and Yodhi almost every weekend. From time to time, Noe came with us to the courtside and helped us collect practice balls and put them into the basket. Various Sparing matches with Andre, Widiyo, Andrew and Henry really helped us in developing better doubles teamwork.

And last night, it all paid off. Yodhi never got a double fault (100% of serves in).

My brother Yodhi and I have registered to play doubles at the Singapore Tennis Association's SONY ERICSSON Open 2008 on 3-11 May.

The last time we played in tournament together was perhaps in the 1980s where we toured around Java for junior tournaments. As for me, the last competitive tennis I played was when Ben Metzger and I won the State of Maine 1993 high-school doubles title.

With aging and heavier (and slower!) bodies, we don't plan to win the trophy. We just want to have fun and give younger players a hard time!

After sending our DNA sample to National Geographic's Genographic Project, I found out that, based on our Y-chromosome lab analysis, my body carries a true African blood.

But why Y-chromosome? It is something which is passed directly from father to son, unchanged, from generation to generation.

My neighbor Ioana Vaetoru-Fox bought me a Banana Guard from New Zealand. It's hard. It's big. It's almost manly!

I used to hate bringing a banana in my bag because it would end up looking like Gerber's mashed banana (literally!).

But this time it's different. I can confidently bring a banana in my bag to work, or anywhere else for that matter. I am tempted to carry it in my hand. It feels good. But, what would people say if I keep holding on to this thing? :)

Now that Noe is having full day activities at Carpe Diem, we noticed that they have already taught him basic alphabet recognition. Sometimes he would point at similar letters that appear in public domain and say "Same... same" (referring to the letters "N" that appear at different places).

What's next? Is he going to learn how to read at age 3? Is he going to start writing at age 4?

Anda bisa temukan rekaman wawancara Radio International Singapore (RSI) di Blog Bicara (klik disini).

Indra, kawan kami yang juga aktif menulis di Singapura, mengulas rekaman RSI tersebut sebagai berikut:

"Dalam program acara tersebut, Fika mewawancarai kedua pasangan blogger pengelola blog Indrani: Indi dan Rani. Topik hidup tanpa televisi dan membuat keju dari ASI yang sempat membuat pro dan kontra itu pun turut dibahas."

Who would have guessed that Osama contributed to a great piece of music for Obama? This Osama was playing the bass, setting the blues rhythm with Pearl Jam's drummer Matt Cameron, under the direction of Bergevin Brothers and along with many other volunteers, such as the Total Experience Gospel. The hair on the back of my neck stood up when the choir started singing!

Click on the link below to watch.