Quick News

Quick News! I'm updating my poems tab. I posted one from 2016, I have several others from that year which I might post later. My poems from 2017 are all stuck on Tumblr (which is blocked).

IBO (part 1)

Look who is posting again!!! It's been long and tiring ears, but I've finally resurfaced haha, Seems like I miss writing too much to fully stop. And here is me fulfilling a part of my promise. Enjoy!

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Eventhough it’s been years, IBO is still one of the best thing I have ever experienced. It was such an honor to be one of the delegates, and sometimes, it felt surreal for me. I always had bad scores at practical exam, so when the lecturers announced our names from the lowest rank and arrived at the 5th name, I thought to myself “It’s fine if you can not go now” and repeated it again and again. Then they scrolled down the screen, and well, it was not my name. I have forgotten what I felt at the moent, but it was somewhere between happy and relief. I could not believe I could represent Indonesia again after years since elementary school, and I could not believe that I got to go to Europe, for free! See, Europe is  like one of my obssession. I do not know why, but for some reason I always dreamed to go there. So, I’m not really sure which part I was happier with, the IBO part or the Europe part.

The things before we went to IBO were fun too. Studying felt different somehow. It was more serious of course, but somehow it was more fun too. I could redo the practicum that I kept messing. Changed this variable into other variable. Tried various ways to be faster. We would take a walk around and picked flowers to study them, while wondering what kind of flowers they had in Denmark. We would cut shrimps, squids, worms, grasshoppers (but why didn’t we cut fish?? *cry*). We tried to solve questions from past years while hoping that it would not be this hard.

I  and Hana could go to mosque for Tarawih prayer (it was Ramadhan) that was a bit far from our place because we did not have that many task as before. We threw a birthday party for Peti, complete with roses and all. We went to several midnight walks to buy ice cream, or even to a department store where they had some big sales. We prepared our visa and passport. We had an invitation from the ministry to Jakarta, and I had to borrow Hana’s veil because I didn’t bring any formal ones. We also went to buy dresses (and tux for Valdi).

Going to Denmark was not the first time I went abroad, but it certainly felt very different. Denmark is in another continent which was 14-16 hours flight away. We flew with Emirates, which was said to be one of the best airlines in the world, and I knew most people hate flights, but I don’t. Most of the time, I actually love it. Sure, flying for hours was tiring and people hate airlines food because of its small portion. But well, I have never eaten much anyway, it was exactly my portion of food, and I think they tasted good. We flew for several hours before the plane transit in Dubai, and I am the type of person who actually like airports. So even the transit felt like a nice experience to me. I tried to revise on the plane, but the lecturer sitting besides me said that it was past the time to revise, so I watched Lord of the Rings movies instead (and I finished the three of them eventhough each was almost 3 hours-long).

We arrived in Copenhagen. It was not the venue of the event, but our lecturers thought we should at least adapt to the time and temperature difference for several days before the competition. It was summer so the temperature should have not been that different, but still, the average temperature was around 13-15^oC (even lower sometimes), with chilly winds, too long day-time, and too-short night (the sun set around 11 PM, and rose around 2 AM, it messed up the prayer time too). We were picked up by some people from Indonesian Embassy, and they drove us to our hotel. The first thing that came to my mind while we were driving was that the city was so empty, especially when I was used to the crowd of Jakarta. There were few people on the streets (It was actually even fewer in Aarhus, I only saw 1 or 2 people from the bus). There was no traffic.

The City Centre (and the “right” Scandic)

Indonesian Embassy

Our hotel was in the centre of the city, so we could walk to places easily. There was a funny story during our first day. In our first walk through the city, our lecturers asked us to meet them in a kebab place near a building named Scandic. We thought it would be an easy stroll, I’m pretty good with directions too. But it wasn’t. Because it turned out that there were more than 5 buildings named Scandic, so we walked far from the correct place. I think we walked for around 45 minutesbefore we arrived there to eat. In Copenhagen, we also bought souvenirs (yes, we bought them even before the competition started), and went to Indonesian embassy. The embassy was not a big office-like building, it was more like a house actually. A lovely brick house with beautiful flowers in the garden.  We stayed for three days before we went to Aarhus by train.

In front of the hotel

I’m going to talk about IBO itself in the next part of the story, but now let me talk about Europe. As I have written above, Europe was like an obsession for me (read this to find my escape-to-europe dream), so I was really grateful to be able to go. And here is some of my impressions about it:

1.       I remembered Peti said the first time we stepped outside the airport “There are so many bule!”, and we just laughed. At the same time, I realized one thing. There, we were the odd ones out, especially as I wore hijab.

2.       The second thing I realized, was of course the cold. I wore 3 layers of clothes every time I went outside, and before you said that we felt it just because we were not used to it, the people there also wore jackets outside.

3.       Food is one thing we need to think about. IBO committees provided halal food for us, but in Copenhagen we needed to find it by ourselves. We mostly eat in kebab and curry place, or buy variety of breads. We can drink from tap water, which is kinda weird because you can actually fill your bottles in the bathroom. Probably out of the context, but the first time I went to 7-eleven, was not in Indonesia, it was in Denmark (to buy food for the train)

Kebab

Chicken Masala and Mango Juice

4.       Flowers are actually thriving there! I think it’s the combination of cold weather, and the sun of summer, the colors were vibrant and so so beautiful. Not only in Indonesian Embassy, we also found flowers on the pavement, and we could actually smell the scent. And since I DO love walking (but hate running), I tried to walk different paths from city center to the hotel, and I was delighted to find a secluded garden behind a museum with kinds of flowers I had never seen in Indonesia.

The park behind the museum

5.       Since Denmark is in Northern Europe, we could really feel the long summer day here. The sun rose around 3 in the moring, and set around 10 or 11 at night. Prayer time? Subuh was around 02.30, I forgot Zuhur and Asar time, but every time we came back after activities around 21.00, it was still Asar time. Maghrib was around 22.00, while Isya was around 00.00. The time difference with Indonesia was around 5 hours, but I didn’t have any trouble sleeping there. Though in the first week that I came home, I slept for almost the whole day on each day (no, I don’t think it was because of jet-lag)

6.       Bikes were everwhere here. Our LO said that even their minister bikes to work.

7.       One of my lecturer who had taken his PhD in Europe said that actually, almost all city in Europe is similar, at least in ambience and architecture. And if you need to find some food, go to the station. There were many stalls there.

8.       I noticed that there were not many shopping mall there. Most of the shops were at the street. We loved going to supermarkets there because there were, of course, many kinds of stuff we could not find in Indonesia. We loved the fruits and tea selections too!

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Don't ask when I'm going to post the second part, just trust me, I will ;)

#What Makes Me Happy: Finale

For this project, I originally planned to write ten things that make me happy, but now let me just write the last one, and maybe, the most important one. One thing that makes me happy is writing. I know it's hard to start sometimes, but the drive is still there, and as soon as I write, the words just flow from my mind. 

Writing can really help me sometimes. If I feel down, I write about how life sucks, sometimes in the form of poetry. I write until every negative things are out, then put a big cross in the paper, or delete it if I write it on sticky notes or tumblr. After that, I write my own solutions, my own plans for the problems, and wow, everything's solved. 

I've always dreamed of having my own book or novel published since I was a child, but it's really hard for me to keep up with it. Why? because I get bored so easily. For example, I have this one idea, and then I start to make the outline in my head. The endings, the highlight sentences, even the back cover of the book. But then I see other stuffs and get new ideas, and it is like those new ideas are more interesting than the old ones. So I do it all over again. I've read that if you want to write a novel, you should stick with an idea, and eventhough you think it's awful in the middle of the work, you need to stick with it until you write the ending. But I can't do that. And that's why I like writing poems and drabbles more nowadays. 

At last, I want to tell you the point of this project. I want to show you that in order to be happy, you don't have to get extravagant things. These small things that make up your life, are as important as them. I'm happy to go to Denmark and join IBO, but those things don't happen everyday. So if you keep waiting for the big things to be happy, you might never be happy for your whole life.Even the fact that you can breathe easily, that you can see the world in colors, that you can hear the music, those little things should make you happy. Because out there, there are people who can not afford to have them all but still put a smile on their face. It's the end of 2015, let's be happy.

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Can't wait to write again for this one-and-a-half moth holiday!!! It's been so busy lately for me with all the tasks and exams and all the things I need to do to adjust myself in this new environment, but anyway, I feel like I really should start writing again. I know this year writing project of mine didn't go well, so I'm going to put my last article for that in a few days later. I'm going to update the "Poems" tab too with new poems I've written in 2015. And you know what? Eventhough I can't say that I'm a great poetess, I know I've been improving. I will write one post to summarize this year's story as usual, and also one not-so-usual article about IBO 2015 (yeay!). And last, I will inform you about my next year project which does not only involve writing, but also designing! I'm suck at graphic design, really. But I think maybe I can practice a bit here. So.. that's all for today, Hope you all an amazing holiday ^^

12-10-2015

Tasks and studies might fill up the most of our times, but I believe we shouldn't let them take our time to do things we love and time for our family and friends (friends, not classmates not teammates not organization-mates, though they may overlap). Our hobbies, family, and friends have as much right as the tasks to fill our time. Never think of times spending with them as wastes.

There is even one more thing we shouldn't forget. God, above all, has the right for all our time. In our busy times, it might be hard to pray and remember God, but don't forget that those prayers could help make those hard times easier.

The most productive person, for me, is not the one who can do his/her tasks fast. Not the one who can handle the most number of classes. But the one who, with the same 24 hours he/she has a day, can do his/her study well while still living his/her passion and maintaning a good relationship with his/her family, friends, and the most important one, God.

01-10-2015

Blessing is not always about big things, like going to one university that you've been dreaming for forever, or getting medals, money, or Nobel Prize. For me, blessing is when you buy one wrong cereal pack because you don't like full-cream milk, but when you open the other one, there is two packages of chocolate milk that you like. For me, blessing is finding a book for reference after a countless nights of searching. For me, blessing is when God still let me stay strong and true to myself despite everything that is happening.

Blessings are literally everywhere, we get them everytime we breath, everytime our hearts beat, so why don't we be grateful from now on?

18-09-15

Everytime I feel tired and start to complain about my life, I think of my mother.

I usually go to campus from 8 to 3. Yes sometimes I need to stay until 6, but that's only like, one day in a week. Some days like today for example, I only have to stay until 12. But my mother, she works from 8 to 7 four days in a week, and 8 to 5 for Friday. I wear a tired expression when I meet her, while she wears her best smile.

Yes, I have tasks. I sleep late almost everyday. I am tired. But so is she. She said she had some problem with her memory as the effect of some therapy she had years ago, so she had to read and learn all the materials and laws about taxes in the night. But then she still wake up at 3 or 4 to pray. For her, for me, for our family. She still spends some time to help my sister with her study. She still had the time to come right away to my place when I got sick, while I don't even know if she is sick.

Sometimes I feel like asking God to switch places with people. Sometimes I feel like complaining again and again. But now as I think about this, I can only ask myself, "Do I really have the right to ask for it? Do I even have any right to say 'aduh, capek banget hari ini' ?"