The Relation of Unrelated Events

Life is about connection of events that seem totally unrelated but actually closely connected to each other. Read this out.

First event: October 28th, 2003 Mark Zuckerberg, while sitting in his Harvard University dorm room at 19 years of age, started Facemash, a social network system that works for students at Harvard.

Second event: On February 1st 2011, I was compensated with a 100 Euros voucher by KLM for 4 hours delay at Kuala Lumpur Airport. I arrived very late in Jakarta at 22.30. My parents, sister, and girlfriend waited for me at Cengkareng Airport. And somehow what Mark Zuckerberg did in 2003 plays a part with the delay.

What is the connection between the two?The delay I had with KLM flight started in Schiphol, Amsterdam. In a chaotic boarding process, little did we know, KLM changed the airplane that was supposed to carry us to a smaller one. The airplane was then 100 seats smaller than the intended one. They did everything they can to put everyone on board, manually – since the computer system failed. Everybody was given a new seat number. The ground staff did a very good job except that they forgot to inform the people in Kuala Lumpur about the aircraft change.

In Kuala Lumpur everyone was asked to step out of the plane, including transit passengers who are going to Jakarta, and leave the hand-baggage inside the aircraft. Sadly, we were not given a transit card. They ran out of it. We were then refused re-entry of the carrier while our luggage were still inside. The new flight is simply too full with the extra passengers that were not registered in the system, since the plane was smaller and they did not anticipate more passengers. There were 30 passengers who had to wait in Kuala Lumpur because Schiphol forgot to inform Kuala Lumpur about the incident. KLM compensated the 30 passengers with 100 euro voucher that can be cashed in KLM office in Jakarta, and a voucher to eat at Burger King Kuala Lumpur Airport.

The plane was exchanged following the turmoil in Egypt. KLM had to send our supposedly aircraft to pick up Dutch nationals in Cairo to be flown back to the Netherlands.

The turmoil was caused by Egypt revolution in taking down President Hosni Mubarak’s 30 years of reign. The movement started on January 25th, a national day in commemorating the police force in Egypt. A lot of people were gathering in Cairo.

This movement was arguably initiated by the April 6 Youth Movement. It began as a Facebook support group for a 2008 workers’ strike. By the following year, the group claimed to have a network linking 70,000 people.

Wael Ghonim, the Google officer in Egypt who was arrested by the government, a 28 year old, one of Egypt’s revolution icons says, that Facebook started the Egyptian Revolution 2.0. It is through social network that people are aware of what is happening in Egypt.

What Mark Zuckerberg had started at a Harvard dorm room in 2003 somehow made KLM to compensate me with a 100 euro voucher in 2011.
The two unrelated events are more connected than you think. This makes me, and hopefully you too, aware that everything we do are and will be related to other events. Mind what you are doing, for it could change the course of someone’s life.
Oh, and in a totally unrelated story, I thank Facebook too for connecting me with my future life partner.

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One Comment

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