Family reunion of American (to be) Presidents

Got this news from Yahoo firstly in the morning...interesting! Since my ancestors were from China, I wonder of whom I am related with...Deng Xiao Ping? Hehehehe...

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BOSTON - This could make for one odd family reunion: Barack Obama is a distant cousin of actor Brad Pitt, and Hillary Rodham Clinton is related to Pitt's girlfriend, Angelina Jolie.

Researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society found some remarkable family connections for the three presidential candidates — Democratic rivals Obama and Clinton, and Republican John McCain.

Clinton, who is of French-Canadian descent on her mother's side, is also a distant cousin of singers Madonna, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette. Obama, the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, can call six U.S. presidents, including George W. Bush, his cousins. McCain is a sixth cousin of first lady Laura Bush.

"You'd think with all that singing talent in the family she'd be able to carry a tune," Clinton's senior adviser Philippe Reines said. "But now it makes much more sense how she snagged a Grammy."

Clinton won for best spoken word Grammy in 1997 for "It Takes a Village." Obama also won a Grammy in that category this year for the audio version of his book, "The Audacity Of Hope: Thoughts On Reclaiming The American Dream."

Genealogist Christopher Child said that while the candidates often focus on pointing out differences between them, their ancestry shows they are more alike than they think.

"It shows that lots of different people can be related, people you wouldn't necessarily expect," Child said.

Obama has a prolific presidential lineage that features Democrats and Republicans. His distant cousins include President George W. Bush and his father, George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Harry S. Truman and James Madison. Other Obama cousins include Vice President Dick Cheney, British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill and Civil War General Robert E. Lee.

Obama often jokes about his cousin Cheney at campaign appearances.

"His kinships are across the political spectrum," Child said.

Child has spent the last three years tracing the candidates' genealogy, along with senior research scholar Gary Boyd Roberts, author of the 1989 book, "Ancestors of American Presidents."

Clinton's distant cousins include beatnik author Jack Kerouac and Camilla Parker-Bowles, wife of Prince Charles of England.

McCain's ancestry was more difficult to trace because records on his relatives were not as complete as records for the families of Obama and Clinton, Child said.

Obama and President Bush are 10th cousins, once removed, linked by Samuel Hinkley of Cape Cod, who died in 1662.

Pitt and Obama are ninth cousins, linked by Edwin Hickman, who died in Virginia in 1769. Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, declined to comment on the senator's ancestry.

Clinton and Jolie are ninth cousins, twice removed, both related to Jean Cusson who died in St. Sulpice, Quebec, in 1718.

The New England Historic Genealogical Society, founded in 1845, is the oldest and largest nonprofit genealogical organization in the country.

A piece of trip experience to Goa

Yesterday was my bad day. My research proposal was rejected by the university committee. The bad side is I don't get the fund (and how bad is that?) but the good side is I was given time time to narrow my proposal and propose it to the same committee. I don't know if I have time to do that, since now I am very busy my head is full of thesis proposal for my PhD (permanently head damaged) degree. I am now ready to have a head damaged, since my hair now is already damaged. Hehehe...

In between activities, I wanted to recall some of my experiences during Goa. In fact, Isamu wanted me to write something from Goa experience, along with Manisha from India and Bold from Mongolia (Manisha has finished her part, but I don't know about Bold, I really miss this Don Juan and his dream of kissing 2 women at the same time hehehe). So this is an exercise before I write something serious for Isamu.

This time I want to review the trip I took from Jakarta to Goa. I took SQ (Singapore Quality? Waaakkksss... Singapore Airlines is its other name) from Jakarta to Singapore. It took only 1,5 hours to get to Changi airport. I sat at window seat with 2 Indian fellows. They talked so much I couldn't resist to overhear them. Sorry. Why didn't they talked in Hindi or Urdu instead of English? And they used cell phone a lot while we're on taxi, I was afraid I couldn't even get to Singapore alive.

The stewardesses were very polite. Though we couldn't use the video in front of us (maybe it's because of the short trip), we could order any drinks even if they didn't offer it. They had many many juices, tea, coffee, mineral water. There were wine and beer as well. You cannot get this special drinks in Indonesia's aircrafts. Hehehe...The very interesting scene was, the stewardesses couldn't say "we don't have it sir" or "we can't serve it because we're landing now". They had to serve no matter what. And these Indians (sorry to my Indian fellows, these are Indians who live in Jakarta or Singapore, not Delhi :)) were very hectic. They kept calling them to order something. I think they only wanted to see the stewardess' face. But from the experience I felt that this is truly an SQ. Garuda is way too far from this, and Garuda's service is much better than any other flights in Indonesia.

Before landing, one of my fellows took his cellphone and got it on. I was in horror, hello....we're not even landing yet! What did he do then? He took pictures from the window. Alamaaaakkk...if I knew about this, I would've asked an aisle seat instead of window seat.
I usually go to lavatory during flying, but this time I decided not to go there since I had to get through these 2 guys. I can have it in Changi. Moreover I will have another SQ to Mumbai for nearly 5 hours, maybe I will use lavatory more than twice.

Upon getting off the plane, I could breath normally. I got off in Terminal 3, but the transit hotel was on Terminal 2. How can I get there? Mary told me that I only had a half hour to check in to the hotel, otherwise they would give the room to others. Sadis. I have checked in for Mumbai in Jakarta, so I didn't have to wait for baggage claim. I took the travelator and celingak celinguk to find directions. Well, Changi has skytrain to connect the 3 terminals. The direction was very clear I didn't have to call somebody for help. So I got on the skytrain and head to the Terminal 2. It was like a big giant mall there.

Nature called. First thing first. So I got to the toilet, the best toilet ever. Usually I don't sit on the closet in public toilet. I just bent my knees and get some exercise on it. Hehehe. But this time, they have this alcoholic liquid to clean the toilet before I sit there. I didn't think twice to sit on it (of course after I cleaned it first). Cengkareng must learn from their toilet. I don't like toilets in Cengkareng airport, they are all dirty even in International Terminal!

Then I went to Ambassador Transit Hotel to get some rest. Before getting myself cleaned, someone knocked on my door. It was Mas Yuli. He already got cleaned (we're not in the same flight, he was 2 hours ahead of me). I asked him 15 minutes to get clean, then we went to have dinner. Now I remember what was wrong! I owed Mas Yuli dinner and a 3 dollar toothbrush at Changi!! O my God....Hopefully 5 US$ change is enough to compensate dinner and toothbrush. Hehehe. While in Mumbai on our way back home, I still had INR 900 in my pocket. It's about US$ 25. Mas Yuli only had US$ 20, and I agreed to exchange the money for 20 bucks. That means he owed me US$ 5. Hahaaha...maksa deh.

That night when we took a walk at Terminal 2, we met Wataru. Mas Yuli already knew him, they were in the same board at API. He was in a hurry to his room, refused to join us. So I walked with Mas Yuli to internet cafe and have 15 minutes online there. I checked emails, and wrote some in 15 minutes. Then we went to a pond nearby after buying a toothbrush for me at 7 Eleven. After taking some pictures of beautiful orchids at the pond, I saw a big screen down there and people were watching football games. Not far from the big screen, there was a stress-release "rub it from scratch" to make our own woodblock prints. I took as many as possible icons, and this is my first scratch. Not bad for a beginner.

Given these all facilities, I think if you happen to transit in Changi you don't have to sleep on transit hotel's bed especially if your plane is only 6 hours ahead. As for me, I had to wait for 12 hours before going to Mumbai. That's why I had to get a quality sleep :P

The next morning was an almost wonderful trip. We took off from Changi at about 8 am. I was on a window seat again but this time there were many empty seats. I had a sitting fellow from China, he couldn't speak English. He had a Chinese friend sitting in the center row. He was a nice guy, except that he couldn't speak English. There are rows filled by a person only. They all were very lucky to have other 2 seats empty, so that they could sleep on the 3 combined seats. Oh...I couldn't do that. Maybe if I could persuade this fellow to find other seat, I can get a proper sleep.

But it turned out I didn't have a gut to ask him out of his seat. So I just made myself comfortable enough by selecting videos to see. Too bad I had seen all the videos they serve, so I got bored easily. Listening to some music also made me bored. In SQ, we can have a call to any parts of the world using the remote device attached to our seat. The device has 2 functions: one side is used for telephone, and the other side is used for remote control. But the telephone is not a free service, you must use your credit card to use it. So I just stared at the screen to see where exactly we are now. We had all information about the flight position, altitude, time left, temperature outside, time in mumbai, time in singapore, anything we wanna know about the trip right before our eyes. Cool....we also had many many drinks here. That's why I had to go to lavatory 3 times. I didn't drink alcohol, just juices, many kinds of juice. Hehehe...

We're already in Mumbai after almost 5 hours flying. I already had my exercise on the plane, learned it from the brochure they provided, but still...my ass hurt. We had to transfer to domestic terminal and get the IC (they named this Air India IC...I don't know what it stands for) to get to Goa. IC is the same as Garuda in Indonesia. They have the privilege of International Terminal in some airports, but not in Chhatrapati Shivaji Airport (I hope I spell it right). They are building a better airport there, so I couldn't compare it to any other airport in Indonesia. But it seems that Cengkareng is much more humane than this Mumbai airport. Moreover they separated male and female passengers, since they had to carefully examine passenger all over their body. Maybe to make them easier if they needed to get the passenger nude.

This IC, in my account, is the same as Pelita Air (the CN 235 aircraft from Dumai to Sei Pakning that I always took while I was little kid). Hehehe....Garuda is much more cleaner than this aircraft. I think Lion Air, Batavia Air, even Air Asia are more cleaner than IC. I don't know. Maybe because I smelled some stinks from the left food under my seat. I just couldn't relaxed until I got off from the plane. We landed in Goa at 3 pm Goa time (so it was 6.30 pm in Singapore). We had to get on the bus and spent almost 1 hour to get to the centre. At the centre, we couldn't get sleep even for a while since F4 was waiting for us to have some ice to break. Huhuhuhuhu.....

Remembrance from the past experience

Hari ini aku dikasih deadline sama si mbak promo untuk mengirimkan semua materi-materi pelatihan di garuda. Sebetulnya deadlinenya tgl 5 kemarin, tapi garuda has mercy on si mbak, and si mbak gave some mercy on me, the real deadliner. jadi aku diberi waktu sampai besok pagi untuk mengirimkan semua materi pelatihan, dari modul, case study, games, sampai ke soal-soal pelatihan (heran nih, masih ada aja tes-tesan pake multiple choice untuk pelatihan). sampai siang ini dari tiga modul dan case study yang harus aku buat, tak satupun kelar. banyak sekali noises dari segala arah. bertubi-tubi. help.

KC on the other side, was pushing me very hard to push back mas aten yang kebanyakan mikir daripada nulisnya. Aku pusing jadinya. Really. Aten kebanyakan janji dan pekerjaan sampingan, plus (katanya) harus menyesuaikan dengan format si KC. Di satu pihak aku kasihan sama KC, di pihak lain aku kasihan sama Aten. Lalu siapa yang kasihan sama aku? Hiks!

Aku menemukan komunitas baru yang membuat semangatku tetap menyala: BABA retreat group. Pertemuan tak terlupakan di antara 20 peserta dari 13 negara, namely: aku & mas yuli (indonesia), alwin (filipina), mai & nook (thailand), tomoko & wataru (japan), bold (mongolia), xiang-xiang & li (china), toan (vietnam), tui (lao pdr), kyi kyi (myanmar), bikram & pay & manisha & bijen (india), swarabh (bangladesh), thero (cambodia) and han (south korea). See...I recall them all without even see their pictures!

Fantastic 4 dari Jepang yang menjadi fasilitator kami sudah berhasil membuat kami terikat secara emosional. Big applause for them, despite all the complaints regarding their unarticulated English. Sing penting, kita menjadi sangat dekat. Kata fasilitator kami dari Baba 1 dan 2 (Henry & Cuong), this is the best Baba ever. And I said, yeah this is the best Baba ever, karena aku tidak menyaksikan Baba2 sebelumnya :)

Terlalu banyak cerita manis dan pahit di sini, aku sampai tidak tahu harus mulai dari mana. Aku bisa menasihati Aryo untuk mulai bercerita di blognya, tapi aku tak bisa menasihati diri sendiri untuk mulai menulis. This is too hard. To start with, mungkin Henry and his cheerfulness. Henry dari Malaysia ini adalah peserta Baba 1 yang diminta ikut kembali sebagai fasilitator di Baba 3. Dia betul2 fasilitator sejati, membuat everything menjadi easier. Cuman sayangnya, energi yang dia miliki tidak dimiliki oleh semua peserta, sehingga ketika dia ingin mengadakan party at night tidak semua bisa ikut serta. Capek boooo....Tapi aku punya satu haiku buat henry"No henry...we're lonely".

Benar saja, ketika dinner terakhir di Baga beach, hampir seluruh participants bisa ikutan kecuali Henry karena dia sudah balik ke negerinya, Malaysia, dan Wataru yang ikut rombongan F4 having some Indian massage. Hmmmm....Dinner itu terasa betul kurang nyawa...nyawanya Henry!

Eh, ada juga cinta lokasi di sana lho...antara Bijen (India) dan Han (Korsel). Kalau ini sih perkiraan kami saja, karena mereka terlihat selalu berduaan kalau lagi going out. Kalau saja hubungan itu tetap berlanjut, mereka akan menjadi the first couple of Baba. Hehehe...sebetulnya aku juga suka sama seseorang di sana, tak usah disebutkan namanya. Tapi karena mission impossible, ya sudah disimpan aja perasaan itu, bersamaan dengan disimpannya foto2 dia yang seabrek-abrek itu di album. Hahahaha....

Friksi-friksi ketika mengerjakan pekerjaan kelompok pasti ada. Namanya juga berkelompok. Bahkan friksi dengan fasilitator pun tak dapat dihindari. Terakhir friksi dengan beberapa resource people.' Sebel bener deh sama 2 orang resource people yang ikut-ikutan bikin communique dan menambahkan hal-hal yang gak esensi pada communique. Emangnya itu communique siapa sih? Kan yang ngejalanin COMMUNIQUE itu kami sendiri, berikan dong hak buat kami menyelesaikannya sendiri.

Ketika kami akan berpisah satu sama lain di Goa, Han adalah orang yang pertama kali nangis. Kami rada terkejut like "o my god, she's really crying!" dan menenangkan dia dengan bilang "someday we will meet again". Orang kedua yang menangis adalah Xiang-xiang. Tapi kemudian I found myself crying at Changi airport while writing impersonal email to them at the gate before boarding. Mungkin saja aku menangis bukan karena berpisah sama teman-temanku, tetapi karena Mr "I'm crazy about you" yang kebetulan baru berpisah denganku di Changi (dari Goa sampai Singapura kita selalu bersama-sama). Kapan kita bisa ketemu lagi ya? That is my dream right now...