Talking About The Winner

Yesterday was Saturday and I did rather unproductive stuffs: waking up late, facebooking the morning, going to campus to sign an attendance list, and enjoying Jakartan’s favorite past-time activity that is wandering in a mall. (Grand Indonesia, to be specific). To balance that “negativity”, I decided to revisit this blog I love. And what could be a better topic to ease my homecoming than the timeless American Idol. I’m too lazy to think, anyway.

Yeah yeah, we all got the news last week. Kris Allen virtually stole the American Idol winner title from Adam Lambert’s grasp, engendering mixed, if not all-negative, opinions from critics and the public. Adam, who has been the judges’ golden boy throughout the competition, had consistently dished out outstanding performances and built an unorthodox image on his looks and stage appearance. Apart from his excellent musical talent, his wardrobe and make up each night would shame my mom – she admitted that she could learn a thing or two from him. The world thought that they are ready to just hand him the trophy of American Idol that night.

On the other hand, Kris Allen was someone whom you could expect to be there. The typical cute face, nice demeanor, and totally-not-freaky performances combination is arguably the key to American Idol stardom. Not having photographs in drag costume and questionable poses helps too. He is a great singer, nonetheless. (IMO, his version of Kanye West’s Heartless is simply irresistible; instantly got that on my iPod). Perhaps Ryan Seacrest said it best on the result show, it was “the guy next door (Kris) vs the guyliner (Adam)”.

At the end of the day, Kris Allen won. According to relevant sources, there were several factors that contributed to his victory. An opinion pointed out that Adam’s consistency in giving superb shows from the start to the end did not actually help him in the finals. In contrast, Kris Allen’s slower rise to visibility (I didn’t even notice that there was a Kris Allen until the season was halfway through) built more momentum for his win. People saw Kris improve and they voted for him.

Another possible factor is that Kris inherited third-placed Danny Gokey’s voters, who preferred him to Adam. The notion of “Christian vote” floated around for a while, especially as the public’s curiosity tried to solve the mystery of Adam’s sexuality. Last, it is very possible that Americans are not ready to have Adam Lambert as an American Idol winner and they chose the more conservative Kris.

Then Perez Hilton joined the fray. He alleged that AT&T helped Kris by providing free cell phones to a gathering of Kris’ supporters and teaching them how to “power text”, i.e. sending 10 votes at the touch of a button. Read the whole news gossip here or the Wikipedia article here. Trust him or not, it’s your choice.

As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have any complaints regarding Kris’ triumph. I did root for Adam Lambert (hello, he’s like fantabulous!), but since the Top 4 –Allison Iraheta, Danny Gokey, Adam Lambert, and Kris Allen- I didn’t care who would win, all of them are fantastic. So what do you think?

It’s Been Too Long

Here’s the lowdown: school has taken hostage most of my time. I’m currently going through (and hopefully surviving) Neuroscience, one of the scariest monster in med school…not counting the lecturers. Hahaha, just kidding. The scary lecturers part. The school’s taking hostage of my time is real. I have been diving into the realm of human’s nervous system, and I’m trying hard not to lose my anchor to real life.

Evidently, this blog has been eeriely dormant since the beginning of this month. The last post I did was about SBY’s being squeezed into the Time 100 list. It is naturally a good news for the country, yet I think if SBY is really that influential, Time should have asked someone else to write about Dear Leader SBY. All he got was a writing by Anwar Ibrahim that came straight off Wikipedia. Yay…not. (Why am I writing this!?)

I am doing this post around midnight, suspecting my GCS is lower than 15, and I have a freakin’ lab time tomorrow. So let’s end this fast: I still update my tumblr regularly – link on the right. Most are written in Indonesian, but there aren’t too many texts posted there anyway. It should work just fine for everyone.

Nevertheless, I am looking forward to once again actively updating this blog, which I suddenly have an impulse to call “my first child”. Okay, that “child” thing means I need some sleep. Bye.

He’s In!

Every year, the Time magazine produces a list of 100 people they think has greatly influenced the world. I never really wait for that particular issue, but when the magazine plopped down the driveway this morning, I knew that I just had to read who’s in the list this year. And who’s writing about him/her. That is another reason why I love the list: for each Time100er, the magazine got another famous person to write about that guy/girl. It gives another fresh view of that person since we can see it from another perspective. For me, it is also a reminder that no matter how hugely popular or immensely influential a person is, they still live in this very Earth, together. Obama and Sarkozy lives here, so does Tom Hanks and M.I.A. And no, Zac Efron does not live in Wildcats-lalalaland where one sings for every mood change.

However, this current issue of the magazine has gained relatively bigger attention from Indonesian public compared to previous list. The reason is that, a few weeks ago, our dearest leader Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (I somehow had taken to refer to him with a sarcastic “our dearest leader”) was reported to be in the list. The presidential website put up the news, after it had received a letter from Time magazine saying just so. News spread fast these days, and in a blink of an eye, there were rumors going around that it is a hoax. Yeah, following Supertoy and Blue Energy gaffe –or scandal, whichever suits your taste, it didn't sound so weird if the President had indeed received a fabricated letter. Thus, we could do nothing but wait until Time comes out with the list itself.

And yes people, he’s in! Let me get this straight, in real life I do not sound that perky or feel that happy for him. Nevertheless, this should be a source of pride for the nation because it means that the magazine have considered that SBY has influenced the world quite a lot to deserve a spot. I’m no fan of the big guy, but as far as I’m concerned, he is not a complete whack. Moreover, it should serve as a motivation to all Indonesians to really really go for it, whatever they're doing. In fact, SBY can be succeeded in the list next year by anyone, not by the next president only.

As for the writing, his spot was filled by Anwar Ibrahim, who wrote a short piece regarding SBY’s job as Indonesia’s president. I’m not gonna lie; I think Anwar did a plainly meh job of describing my president. SBY is the president of the world’s most populous Muslim nation…blah…transition to democracy…double blah…a more prominent position in Asia and throughout the Muslim world…extravagan-blah. Perhaps he should have been allowed to read what J.K. Rowling wrote of Gordon Brown or Madeleine Albright of Hillary Clinton before he began to write the piece. Note to Encik Anwar (if that’s the correct Malay way to address him): we want an insight into how outsiders perceive RI-1, not some facts we could copy-paste from Wikipedia.

For the online version, go here and don’t forget to check out the also-annual, always entertaining Joel Stein’s own version of Time 100.