New Resolutions from Delirious Dreams

So, I was sick for the earlier part of this week. The weather has changed to becoming rainier for longer parts of the day, and motoring around through the pouring rain is never a great idea for one’s health. No one knew exactly what I had, but they narrowed it down to either “masuk angin” (enter the wind) or “panas dalam” (hot inside). Despite the very descriptive names, they remain meaningless to me. And anyway, both of the symptoms seem the same...kind of like the flu.

In my delirium, I had an amusing dream, afterwards which I confined myself to two days of bed rest.

It was Monday morning, and I was at the mosque, listening to Aa Gym’s weekly inspirational speech to the Daarut Tauhiid staff. (These speeches by the way, start at 7am, which according to me, is just a wee bit too early.) Anyway, this week, he was taking a new tack to his sermon. He wanted to encourage us to always try to do our best. To teach this more directly, he was introducing a competition that would be decided by the end of the day. We each had to go out and create a collection, of all things, of Spiderman. We could only shop at approved stores, each of which Aa Gym owned, thereby profits would go straight to him, and thereby the pesantren. In my mind, I grumbled. “Way to go, come up with a plan to increase the sales of your own stores,” I thought to myself. Very convenient too, since his sales had been notably down since the discovery of his second marriage. At 2pm, the competition would be ended, and the person with the best Spiderman collection would be publicly acknowledged, and the compilation would be awarded to Aa Gym’s youngest son, who as it turns out was quite a Spiderman devotee.

As previously implied, I was not amused, and was not inclined to waste my time or my money. But my friend Rahma, who I was sitting with, directly stood up, and steered me to the first store. I expressed my discontentment, and she only replied, “But he’s an ulama (Islamic religious leader)! Just do what he says and you’ll feel better.” So shopping we went. And man, did we get into it. Some of things I bought were really abstract, like a bar of soap shaped like a lighthouse, and a ceramic frog. Don’t ask how it fit it. Others were more obvious, like Spiderman the firecracker, and the complete Spiderman pencil set. The end result was that I felt very proud of myself, and was sure that my collection was far superior to Rahma’s…very in keeping with religious principles of modesty, right? At 2pm, I showed up at the competition site, only to find an irritated shopkeeper demanding payment, because apparently earlier I had forgotten to pay. “Don’t worry, I already started writing you some checks,” I said. “Just tell me what name to write on them.” I reached into my pocket, pulled out twenty signed checks, each for the amount of $200, and proceeded to write his name on each one of them. He looked at me in bewilderment. “Why didn’t you just write out one for $4000?” he asked. I looked up, surprised. That would have been easier, I thought. Oh well,I looked back down and continued to write his name again and again.

So, despite the entertaining repercussions in the dream world of being sick, especially because it was such a cynical portrayal of the dude I'm here to study from, I’ve decided to try and take better care of my health, which mostly involves drinking more water and getting more sleep. The Indonesian method of 3 hours is actually not enough sleep for an active schedule. However, my plan is far more advanced than that. It also involves the following shopping endeavors!
1) Buy a sheepskin leather jacket. First, to increase my coolness factor on my motorbike, and secondly to shield off the wind and rain, cuz it does get pretty cold riding after dark.
2) Buy a mask, to filter out the noxious fumes from the other cars on the road, because unlike other parts of the world, they do not have quite the same emission standards here. I never thought I’d regret that, since it often involved me paying quite a bit of money to get my beloved, though not quite new, cars to pass. But I’m happily recognizing the error of my ways. Anyway, this lowers my coolness factor a bit.
3) Buy a pair of shoes that do not consist of sandals. So when it rains, I won’t always have wet feet. Not so comfortable, that. I'm not sure the rating on this one, but I don't think it has any effect on my coolness factor.

So it comes out about even. And many thanks to “Enter the Wind” and “Hot Inside” for tomorrow, it’s shopping day! I always wanted a leather jacket.