slippery road.

February 6th, 2010

was having 2 loaves of bread and a glass of coffee this morning, while checking emails, including uni email as usual. daily routine. got a feedback from one prof (not the “einstein-look-alike). reading the first sentence, i couldn’t finish my breakfast.

I am very sorry to say that I cannot support a Schein for this project.

Sincerely,
………..

that was the last sentence of his about 8 paragraphs of feedback, and surely that word “sincerely” does give me an irony of the day. to summarize it, i failed this project successfully. after around 1 month research and all that hard work, it goes to nothing, he refused to give me a Schein (certificate) for this seminar/project. even now the word “hard work” i wrote just now sounds funny to me.

soo..as a human being, i feel terrible, awful, down, you name it.

well, i am split into two parts actually.
the first part of me says: oh i failed, i’m a failure. i couldn’t do better than this. i’ve tried my best but still i failed, everything goes to nothing. perhaps i should just quit believing in my potential (if there’s any).

but the other part of me says… oh what the heck, you failed this time and so what? it motivates you even more to do better. to be more bold. to try again, this time with a better strategy. failure strikes you like lightning and then you gain new power through it (sounds like FLASH the superhero?).

cos everytime i am faced with failure, i am always split into these 2 personalities.  it’s like the other day when the road was so slippery but i wore sneakers in purpose instead of boots. rafe bilang koq sengaja gitu udah tau licin malah pake sneakers? dan gue bilang.. iya gue juga ga ngerti, tapi ada satu bagian di diri gue yg kayanya emang pengen sengajain… a sense that you don’t want to be on the “proper” attitude all the time. a sense that you demand challenges from a slippery road. that what-the-heck kind of thing. i just can’t explain it. and rafe said, “oh, that rebel side!” and i laughed.

ya, maybe. i like to call it the rebellious side. the brave and the bold side. that the more you get into trouble, is the time when you say to yourself hey this is real, this wakes me up. “the more real the reality” is, the bolder you become. i have it inside of me, maybe we all have it inside of us.

the problem is, there is this other part of me, the first part i’m talking about. eventhough it looks more timid, but it does have a strong voice as well, even sometimes much stronger than the rebel one. it is myself that i’m facing now, the self that we’re having trouble with the most. another decision to make. so it goes :(

well just wish me well as always. i’m wishing all of you well too. in fact, not just well, i’m wishing you all a great life. oh well.

essence.

January 31st, 2010

ok, once you’re on this page, look a bit to the left side.

yes yes your left, not mine. i’m back twittering, or tweeting, whatever. as a lousy netizen, once i was quite active twittering.. or tweeting (gosh, wish they announce soon the proper verb for that). anyway, twittering or tweeting is a piece of cake cos i’ve been attending series of twittorium held by universitwitts every tweetday with each session consisting not more than 140 characters.

yea rite, why 140? why not 150 or 155? why does it have to be 140?

zzzz…

why why why me back tweeting/twittering? well most of you might not even care huahaha. but i dont care either whether you care or not. actually, me back twittering/tweeting is a part of a revolutwittnary act against the chinese government that has banned twitter since a long time ago. thank God i dont live there, cos perhaps at any time soon you won’t even be able to type in certain words such as “essence” and “gay” without being blocked by a particular filtering crapware they call it. -.- i mean come on the word “essence” what’s next? “zipper”?

it’s a side-effect of watching “imaginarium of Dr. parnassus” really. i must say, the animation of the movie isn’t that brilliant that it even ruins my imagination watching it cos it doesnt support the essence of the story. you got what i mean? the essence! yes, essence essence essence essence… :D essence! uwww how happy i am typing that word that i wanna slip it in every sentence -.-

what am i talking about here? not really sure. it’s 1 am now and honestly my mind is at the very moment troubled by family matters. well there’s really nothing much i can do from here anyway, so let’s just hope that everything’s gonna be alrite. i really do :(

dankepidemic.

January 28th, 2010

read the news about this 16 year old girl (darlene etienne) in haiti who was buried alive under the earthquake’s ruins for 15 days and is still alive. she was in a very weak condition  as the rescue team found her. 15 days and alive from drinking bath water! perhaps if she was found a bit later, she would not had survived. the only words she said was “thank you” as they brought her to the hospital.

thank you (danke) is such a sweet expression. it does give us a feeling of being appreciated, even for a little act of goodness. not to mention for rescuing your life!

here in germany, we say it all the timeeeeeee! in one fine day we say it for almost more than 5 times (of average situation).
di sini juga, we do have other favorite expressions: guten Morgen! (good morning), schönen Tag noch! (have a nice rest of the day), and in case you stepped on someone’s shoe, entschuldigung! (excuse me), and the most universal one: Hallo!
those 4 expressions, we do say it everyday. it has become the culture. it is the culture here.
ketika saya keluar rumah, ketemu tetangga kita akan langsung bertukar guten Morgen! atau Hallo ke siapapun yg berpapasan selama masih di dalam area Wohnung. to strangers we say hello too much. we say entschuldigung everytime. we do hold the door opened everytime there’s someone behind us. we do it automatically here. it is contagious. once someone does it to you, you would find yourself doing it to someone else. once you feel being appreciated, you would likely try to appreciate others more.

jadi inget cerita sibling, waktu dia ke carrefour di indo dan bilang hallo ke kasirnya, dia malah dipandang dengan pandangan aneh as if he intended to tease her or something -.-
oh ya, we do say danke too many times in a day. like a lot!

aaannddd… we hug each other everytime we meet friends! and you know that a hug means more than just a hug.

my point issssssssssss… well, you’ve got my point lah.

jadi inget, setelah kemaren gue merasa sangat ga enak hati gara2 “gagal” nolongin seorang nenek di supermarket yg tongkatnya jatoh. with the other people behind her, i was just standing there staring at her trying to pick up tongkatnya dengan susah payah -.- you  know, i have a weakness for old people. i would give such a remarkable amount of money to old people begging on the street, whereas i would not give even a single rupiahs to young beggar. i do have a weakness for old people and puppies -.-
no seriously, gue sangat ngerasa ga enak kemaren sampe2 malem mau tidur masih kepikiran how could i be such a ruthless person to let an oma-oma kesusahan ngangkat tongkatnya yg jatoh dan cuma mandangin aja??? nyokap bakal bilang apa kalo dia tau? how could i how could i masih ga abis pikir.

alhasil!!! mau percaya atau kaga, semalem gue berjanji sama diri sendiri sebelum tidur, besok saya mau nolongin stranger. ya ya, it sounds stupid i think, but i did say it to myself.

so sore tadi, waktu turun dari kereta, masih dengan headphone di kepala syubidam syubidupp-an, saya dicegat oleh 3 orang bapak2 asia dengan tampang bingung dan bau ke-turis2-an. dgn bahasa tubuhnya, satu bapak acung2in jarinya as if telling me ” could you take your headphone off cos i want to ask you something?” so gue langsung copot headphone dan nyamperin mereka.
me: yessse?
bapak1: friedrichstrasse?
me: friedrichstrasse? oh you’d better take the S-Bahn.
bapak1: S-Bahn?
me: it’s down there, let me take you there, follow me please.
*bapak1, bapak2, bapak3 following me obediently*
me: of course you can also take the train i was from, but easier to take S-Bahn.
bapak1: *ngangguk2*
*nita, bapak 1, 2, 3 jalan ke atas ke tempat S-Bahn*
me: yup, here you can wait for the train to friedrichstrasse.
bapak1: can i call you?
me: hah?
bapak1: are you from korea?
me: no. -.-
bapak1: thank you.
me: u’re welcome. enjoy.

yay! i’ve made it, walaupun mereka tampangnya gak terlalu tua, tapi at least muka bingungnya membuat mereka terlihat 10 taon lebih tua. *halah

weekend’s trivia.

January 24th, 2010

sabtu.

woke up finding the sun was shining brightly after several weeks being sunless. it would be such a stupid thing to just stay home on a day like that. the sun shining has been some kind ofa phenominal thing now, whose appearance might affect (believe it or not) or precisely lighten up your heart and mood. i mean, after weeks without the sun shining generously, since God knows when everyone’s sunglasses were kept hidden, yesterday you would see in the streets most people with their shades on. it was like oh my God we have to put them on today otherwise we’d never know whenelse we’d be able to. you know, the ‘ it’s now or never’ thing.
anyway i went outside for some grocery shopping and to look for this ear-cover bandanna for running. ceritanya saya mau aktif lari lagi in this new neighborhood. couldnt find any at the shop i went into *sigh
i was planning to go to the pillowfight at reichstag but cancelled it since i think that this pillowfight flashmob is less interesting compared to dancing flashmob. if it’s dancing flashmob i would really want to go as a bystander. but anyway if it’s dancing flashmob, people would not publish it in internet and i wouldn’t find out about it. anyway whats the point of dancing flashmob if everyone can find it out through facebook beforehand, it wouldn’t be a flashmob (except pillowfight flashmob).
malem pas mau jalan pulang, the temperature was like minus 20 or something and it was so windy and i only wore a thin scarf and nothing to cover the face and ears. think i’ve dropped the nose somewhere. anyway if i still insist on running in this temperature i might suffocate saking dinginnya or kepeleset karena jalanan licin, so… tunda dulu kali yah -.-

minggu.

back to sunless which is okay since we’re used to it anyway. temperature hasn’t changed a bit. this time i was smarter, i wore this superduper long thick wool scarf around my neck, covering the ears and mouth and nose (which invited some comments like “itu syal atau handuk?”). this also led to that at church everyone was like, “hey nice haircut!” i was “heh?” and another one after that “hey you just had a haircut?” i said no, it was because of the scarf that i put too tight around my neck and head. went to the kitchen, another one asked again “hey had a haircut?” no i said, it’s because of the scarf bla bla. another guy said “hey you had a haircut?” i said no, it’s the scarf bla bla.. he said “oh, you should do it more often then” -.- went to the other room another one came up “hey nice hair cut!” i was like again “no, it’s the scarf thing bla bla..” and A kept insisting in few minutes interval “oh come on, you must have had a haircut” nooo i said, i did have it in jakarta, but not here. she said “no, you must have had it again, i dont believe you” i grew tired convincing everyone that I DIDN’T HAVE A HAIRCUT.
i mean, whats the point of denying that you just had a haircut??? when i’m being serious, how come everyone has a hard time believing. but when i joke, they just buy into it in an instant. gosh, people… what can you expect from them? =p

ps: a good news for those who often ‘forget’ to make the bed in the morning. but please make sure you read through the whole article ;)

fear p. 2

January 19th, 2010

so i did go to the prof. this morning before his seminar. asking for feedback and comments and in some sort of way defending myself. he went through the “sin” list, and most of my mistakes were technical mistakes. i basically made one particular mistake, which 4 others had also done the same, daann singkat kata, i feel ehmm.. discriminated?
he wouldn’t let me talk, and yahh… everyone has pride, while admitting a mistake when defending a certain opinion in academic background might not be the case for him, but admitting something that would affect his being professional might be an issue for him.

phew, anyway i’m really considering to have his seminar next semester. i’m going to prove that i can do better, as to challenge myself.

still committed to the library now, today is so foggy. mysterious fog. once you come out of a building, you’ll feel like coming out of the back  part of the closet in the movie narnia. and it’s weird now that i feel nothing, not even fear nor relief.