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Reality Shows…My 2 Cents

6 Apr posted by

Survivor

Being a stay at home mom means I spend a lot of times at home and although I barely have time to sit down and watch the tube I can’t help but noticing the ongoing trend of local television shows in Indonesia. At first glance, I was kinda impressed that there’s a reality show that looks real enough and shows people how poverty are a huge part of our society and it’s a real problem. Instead of stupid local soap operas with actors & actresses who can barely hold a line, with overdone mask as make ups and unrealistic story lines, watching these kinds of reality show felt somewhat of a fresh air.

However, as usual other channels quickly jumped into the bandwagon of sad-tearjerker-poverty-stricken-reality shows and I can’t help but wonders what’s going on. Are these stations just trying to capitalize on it and just trying to get their dough or they really do want to bring reality closer to their viewer? Is their goal really to bring social awareness? Is exposing these people with their hard lives really help them out? Are the people who watch it take these shows as mental detoxification? Does it bring gratitude for our own lives?

At first I thought these kinds of shows are good especially for the younger generations to shows them how life isn’t just evolved between their newest BlackBerry phones or their branded obsessed little minds. There are people who could barely eat let alone splurge on the latest gadget trends out there in our own backyard! Yet when all stations starts to air pretty much the same concept shows, I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Maybe I’m just being cynical to the underlying motives of these stations. To me, giving these poor people 1 million or more rupiah will only helps them so far while the stations are picking revenues over revenues in million brackets from commercials and high ratings. Won’t it be better if they also provide these poor and usually low educated people with skills that they can use to support their families in the long run? Not just some tearjerker half an hour to an hour show that soon will be forgotten?

Well, that’s my two cents of the whole so-called TV trend.

2 Comments
Filed Under: Indonesia, Jakarta Livin'

Missing Dr. McAllister

2 Apr posted by

Taking our lil’ one out to see the doctor has been a challenge ever since he was hospitalized twice when he was just 14 months old.

You see, he suffered from Bronchiolitis and had to be hospitalized twice within such a short period of time. First of all, our son was considered a preemie baby since he was born 5 weeks early due to me suffering from a really bad pre-eclampsia, resulting in his emergency c-section. Although he was healthy and weighed more than we expected, he had a bit of a breathing problem when he was born. Who knew that would lead into Bronchiolitis over a year later?

Anyway being hospitalized twice were enough to scar him for a long time, I’m afraid. He was poked and prodded so much during that period that the sight of a doctor or a nurse used to make him jumped in fear. Poor thing! He did overcome some of it but not fully. For example, he still gets antsy just before we walked into the pedi’s office and he would not let the doctor examine him, which makes it so hard for both us the parents and the doctor. He will throw a fit and hated being pinned down for examinations.

When we were still living in Alabama, our pediatricians were superb and so very patience with him since they knew so well the history behind his trauma. One of the two pediatricians that worked with our Lil’ A, Dr. McAllister is my personal favorite doctor. She’s the only doctor I have ever met that would actually took her time to get down to his level, talk to him, let him relax, play with him until he’s comfortable enough to let her check his breathing and do other examinations. No rushing, no weird judgmental staring as if we’re bad parents who have a very unruly little boy (yeah I received them from some doctors here!)

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I know we can’t expect all the pediatricians we met would have the same understanding or patience but I really can’t help but missing Dr. McAllister a lot! Especially since Lil’ A has been sick with a really bad cough & cold again. His pediatrician now is a really good doctor who knows what he’s doing, very accommodating to my questions and have patience too but I can’t make him get down on the floor and plays with Lil’ A before he examine him LOL. He just has too much patients to be doing such a personal approach, however I am satisfied with how he take care of Lil’ A.

Hopefully in times, our little man will get rid of his fear of doctors.

2 Comments
Filed Under: Jakarta Livin', Toddlerhood

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