Express Courier

The facility of delivery tracking by DHL on its website is awesome. I’m truly impressed with it. Am I just being ignorant to know that it’s a standard of international courier or it’s an exceptional service from DHL ? With its friendliness staff and this facility, I would say that I have a very good customer experience with DHL and will continue using its service for future overseas courier.

Picked up in the evening of Wednesday, my package was received on Friday afternoon. Speedy service, while the progress of the delivery can also be tracked, including the time! From Jakarta to Singapore, to Leipzig, to East Midlands, to Newcastle. Good job DHL!

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‘Pamer Paha’

Surfing through the web reading article in one of the leading portal in Indonesia, I had a glimpse over one article’s unique headline ‘Bandung Pamer Paha‘! Eyebrows raised. Bandung Pamer Paha ? To kill my curiosity, I immediately clicked the link to learn about it, and tada… gotcha! it’s about the terrible traffic jam in Bandung today. Know what Pamer Paha stands for ? “Padat Merayap Tanpa Harapan”, similar to “crowded crawl with no hope” in English I guess.

It’s the interesting aspect of Bahasa Indonesia. New words, phrases and idioms are growing rapidly and suddenly become commonly spoken by people. The source might be from abbreviations of phrases, such as the case with Pamer Paha, Sembako (Sembilan Bahan Pokok – Nine main necessities), absorbed from other languages (common as in other languages) or even out of nowhere. Well, maybe it’s me of being ignorant, but to date, I still don’t know where the hell do the words “lebai” and “termehek-mehek” come from.

Indonesian people are so creative in producing abbreviation that I find it interesting and at the same time amusing. I can understand the reason behind abbreviating places like Plaza Semanggi to Pelangi, Senayan City to SenCi, Bendungan Hilir to BenHil, but it’s just a bit hilarious for the case of Pamer Paha.. haha..

Some other words and phrases resulted from abbreviations :

1. Kutilang Dara, from Kurus-Tinggi-Langsing-Dada Rata <- Thin, Tall, Slim, Flat Chest. 🙂
2. Cipika Cipiki, from Cium Pipi Kanan, Cium Pipi Kiri <- Kissing right and left side of cheek
3. Dugem, from Dunia Gemerlap <- Shining World, refers to night activities such as clubbing, etc
4. Titi DJ, from Hati-hati di Jalan <- Be Careful in your journey

I bet there are abundant out there which I still don’t know.. Care to add ?

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King Rafa Rules Australia..

Just when you think Mighty Roger Federer moves a step closer to equal Pete Sampras’ record of 14 Grand Slam titles, here comes the spoiler, Rafael Nadal Parera! The 22-year old Spanish showed another classy performance by edging out Federer in 5-set : 7-5, 3-6, 7-6 (3),  3-6, 6-2 in 4 hours 23 minutes. Not only stretching his record over arch rival to all time 13-6, the win also earns him the sixth time career grand slam title, following last year Wimbledon, and four consecutive years of Roland Garros triumph since 2005.

What Nadal has achieved in age of 22 is phenomenal. While the tennis world has long predicted the emergence of this tennis prodigy some years back, I think pundits didn’t expect that it would be in such a short time, not when Roger Federer seemed unstoppable by dominating the ATP tour in 2004-2006 and considering that Roger, born 1981, still considerably young.

As comparison, Nadal won the first Grand Slam at French Open 2005 (19 years old) and clinched the world number one in October 2008 (22 years old). Roger Federer, on the other hand won the first Grand Slam at Wimbledon 2003 (22 years old) and topped the world ranking in February 2004 (23 years old). It seems that the rivalry between these two players is set to continue, promising an exciting times ahead for professional men tennis competition. The rising of other young tennis player such as Jo Wilfred Tsonga, Gilles Simon and Novak Djokovic further adds fuel to this for sure.

The strength of Nadal in particular is his powerhorse stamina. Having defeated compatriot Verdasco in more than 5 hours and despite having one day less rest compared to Federer, he showed no sign of fatigue at all in the Final match! Well well, it seems that the only way to stop Nadal is by not making unforced errors and pushing him to make errors. Easier said than done! :p

Federer is likely to surpass Sampras’ record, but I reckon Nadal will go further, and set more records, provided that he doesn’t suffer any serious injuries along his career ahead.

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