A.L.I.E.N

IGNORANT

2017-01-12T04:44:00.003-08:00

This year will be my first fasting month away from my family. It happened before for for short period of time. But now is for real. I know some of my friends have been there earlier than I am. Now I know the lonesome that can't be explain, but it sure feels empty. The first day was the hardest I guess, when it used to be merrier than what I have now.But this is the life I've been given, to nurture me to be a better being, preparing for the even worst future. I don't complain, while at the same time it teaches me that family is the greatest possession I could ever want. I'm glad to have been in this situation realising that I've been given this priceless chance to be with them longer than some of my friends. Yes, I have friends with me, breakfasting together, staying late at department til midnight, but it's not sufficient enough. There is always this missing part, everytime I remember I spaceout for seconds. But soon I'll be off back home for good. This time is sure since my contract is finally over. No more extension whatsoever.

Rejection is always hard, regardless the excuses given to me. First, second and then third time still no positive answer, but yet appeared promising and gave me hope. The overwhelming frustration and disappointment effect the surrounding. I've given my best but the reality turned otherwise and not what I was hoping for. I guess giving my best was insufficient. However, The thing that matter is the process. I know I made mistakes along the way, but I've learned from them. I'm not giving up just yet and I will try again until the time averts me from doing so. I will get my paper published somehow.

Lately, especially after I return to my home country few weeks ago, there is this different feeling regarding the sense of where I belong. A certain thing I'm sure of is that the way I see my own country as a home. Last time, when my family and I were living together, going back to my home country felt like just going for holiday, with the obligation of coming back abroad and thinking that my place is here. But since a year ago, my perspective has changed to the opposite. The way I see the condition of where I'm now is an optional of my preference, with an obligation of returning to home country.

Just had a thought recently about the world I live in. First I don't like to judge people, coz I don't stand on their shoes so they may have their own reasons for whatever things the're doing. But, the thing is that I just don't get those people who do thing because they're just simply following the trend. I mean if it brings good or positive results then its okay otherwise it will just be the full of whys?? Don't they think that everything they do reflects their own personality. So, if you live simply just following others means that you dont;t really have your own personality. In other words, you are living on others expectation without realising that you have your own uniquness which differs from other. Recently (about a month ago), there have been this pokemon fever throughout the entire world. People from around the world are hyped about this game. First I tried the game for like 2 days, it feels just like any other game. But only differ in the possibilities of finding different pokemon. Besides, we are required to walk or travel for certain distances in order get different type of pokemon. Then after two days, I gave up coz its just too boring. Yes, I dont have the spirit to catch them all, because I simply have other things to do and moreover the only challenge is that you just need to travel farther or in different places in order to get variety of pokemon. I'm not that crazy about getting this imaginary pet where the only purpose is too train and make them fight. In the end, it will be deleted.

Also had a thought about the muslims being accused for terrorism. I've heard a statement that "all muslims are not terrorist, but all terrorists are muslim". I just don't get the idea people believe that that muslims are terrorist, so in the end in certain countries they made a ridiculuous rules. Like muslim women cant wear covered swimming suit, or hijab are not allowed for muslim women, or muslim are not allowed to practice the religion (this I heard long time ago). That statement I mention earlier is like a poison. If we trully understand the meaning of terrorism, which I dont, this kind of accusation wont only be put on muslim. How many countries are having cold war? or dispute within their own country parliament or government? lots of them. But the media only bring up islam, because it's islam. It's like they really want everybody to hate islam. What did islam do?

First islam is only a religion, the name itself comes from the arabic word which can be translated as "peace". it teaches the best way to live our life. Then what happen about that suicide bombing and all the shooting? do you actually believe that islam did that? Okay as all as I know from the moment I was born, there has not been any teaching which allow to kill myself or shooting the innocent. Yes, not all muslims are good, but the bad ones are still wont be a suicide bomber or shooting the innocent. Those who are doing that are misguided or don't actually practice islam. It's like when we are taught in highschool to throw garbage in the thrash can, respect the elders, smoking is bad for health. But there are still some people ignore that, regardless their religion, parents, or schools (favorite or not/public or private). But that does not mean they represent their school, parents, and religion or taught wrongfully. It is themselves that are bad. So stop generalising muslim as so-called muslim terrorists. I'm a muslim but will never terrorise anyone.

I believe those of you who said all muslims are terrorist must have failed math in their school. why? let see, there are about 2 billion muslims in this world. okay let me simplify, let say there are only 1 billion muslims in this world, and about 300,000 so-called muslim terrorists in this world, and I simplify again 1 million terrorists (am I not kind enough?)

all muslim ; 1 billion= 1,000,000,000
so-called muslim terrorist; 1 million= 1,000,000
So "normal" muslim ; all muslim - so-called muslim terrorist = 1,000,000,000 - 1,000,000 = 999,000,000

Percentage of "normal" muslim = ("normal" muslim/all muslim) x 100
= (999,000,000/1,000,000,000) x 100
= 99.9%

Percentage of so-called muslim terrorist = (socalled muslim terrorist/all muslim) x 100 = (1,000,000/1,000,000,000) x 100
= 0.1%

As far as I remember from my kindergarten math teacher, majority is represented by the highest percentage. So saying that, IF majority of muslims are terrorist, which do bombing and all those shooting, means that earth would/should/could have turned into craters like the moon, but it didn't. Talking about bombing and shooting. Which country did those or still doing it nowadays? I guess I don't have to mention. Coz in the end islam will still be put to blame.

From my point of view to stop this terrorism is simple. But it appears complicated because of there are these "political agenda" causing "visible and invisible" conflict/war. I don't really read news because the media made it this way. Then, how will I know that the ones I read is true, knowing that I don't read news much?? Common sense. Why would a country be conquered by another? What makes a country intervening other's political issues? It's a public secret that there is this nation wanting to capitalize or conquer natural resources for its own economic power. So I surmise, if this nation leaves all these conquered countries, there would be no terrorism. Because why would we disturb others if other don't disturb us? unless, we are bullies.

Besides the number of people killed on this "islamic terorrism" is considered small compared to the people who have been killed in the middle east countries. I'm too idiot to understand the logic behind muslims are called terrorist while they are actually the one being bombed and shot. I know that there are only small percentage of parties saying that muslims are terorrist while majority of the world population don't think that way, but apparently, the media makes that there are quite numbers of people believe in that.

I wonder what's the function of this UN thing. I thought they are supposed to fix this problem or at least find the solution (its very clear). The world hunger and middle east problems seem to have not found a way out while there are countries able and wealthy enough to suppress these problem, it happens more than decades already, but yet they prefer to make weapons anyway.

Human made mistake so did I. After my contract was over, my living style has changed a little bit, coz things didn't go according to plan. I have been very conservative regarding the money I spend. Because I have unfinished business, especially my paper which is currently being reviewed and my thesis is being evaluated. So now I'm solely relying on my savings, which I need to safe to keep me alive until the end of this year and I have to make sure that everything is done before that. In order to do so, I reduce my junk food consumption and eating outside, but buying raw stuff instead. The result is actually unexpected. I'm able to save 50% from my previous expenditure. But, ofcourse it didn't come easy to control/suppress my animal appetite for the first 2 weeks, but it gets easier through time. Besides, the good thing is that I can customize(not sure about the word) my meals.

So one day, I bought bunch of bananas, I think there were like 12 of them and already riped when I got them. So I ate like 1 or 2 bananas in a day coz afraid that they might spoil quickly and my housemate did the same. After like 3-4 days there were 3 left, and my housemate and I just came back from uni and were starving. I remembered that we still had 3 bananas left and I ran to the kitchen to grab one immediately. I offered my housemate and he said just leave one for him, so I did. After that I took shower and laid down on my bed, with half fulled stomach enjoying the last moment of dusk. Then my housemate called me and little conversation happened.

Him: Galih, how's the banana you eat just now? still okay?
me : Yup, nothing wrong with the taste I guess.
Him: No, I mean is the banana still okay?
me : What do you mean?*curious
Him: Come here for abit hurry!!
me : What is it?
Him: There look, maggots!!
me : Holy sh*t!!,
Him: Didn't you check?
me : Nope, I'm dead.

I might turn into maggot man any moment now.

I almost forget that I have this unsettled post and this could be my first visit to this beautiful and wonderful piece of blog after like 3-5 months away writing the best shit I could do into my thesis. Hope the panel can handle this very true sedimentologist's mind, who knows nothing yet acts humbly.
About my thesis, I don't even remember what I wrote in all those pages, every information from countless source of journals. I still remember when my supervisor asked about several stuff I wrote in the thesis. I was like "what am I writing here? How the hell is it appear there? What in the world is this?" It just that sometimes (all the time) things get really mix-up somewhere. I had like 8 drafts before finally able to print and submit my thesis. There is this funny thing about my final draft. The other drafts I named them normal (draft 1, draft 2. etc), but my final one I named it "Thesis Galih Ultimate final draft". In my head I was like "if it doesn't get through, I don't know what to do anymore". Fortunately, it did. Now I can see the University gates are opening wider for my departure although I see them almost everyday.

It almost a month now being back home eating mom's cooking everyday. After I submitted my ultimate thesis I decided to take a month holiday just to ease my mind from hectic in this cruel and brutal world. But as usual, things didn't go according to plan. On the day of my flight my supervisor sent me a text message asking when will I submit my paper (for ISI thingy) draft. In my head I was like "really? is this how my holiday is going to be?" So I replied that I will submit as soon as possible, But I submitted to him exactly a month later, after received twice reminder from him. It was the first time since usually I submit everything early or ontime. So it was a disappointment I guess. How couldn't? my mood was holiday mood and the atmosphere is different when I'm home. Ofcourse my productivity will decrease 83.79%. Let say in normal productivity mood I can work from 4-10 hours of optimum performance. The duration also depends on the matter like idea and type of work. When it comes to reading, I suck. I hate reading, not because I don't like to read. It just that when I read local or international journals, a sentence be ambiguos or can have more than one meaning. Therefore I need to be alert and super careful. Besides my english is bad and I always forget new vocabularies learned during the reading. So maybe for the same word in the same paper, within the same day I may need to check like trice and normally will forget on the next day. I'm not complaining just share one of billion things I hate.hehehe

Happy new year mina san.

MEMENTO

2016-05-27T08:40:00.000-07:00

I've been doing great in the last 2 months (march-april), I mean my life has been little bit colourfull with activities I have never done before, like hills/mountains climbing, explore jungle/jungle tracking, swim and play in a lake (well, I did this when I was a kid), star-gazing. During my adolescent I skipped all these activities due to the fact that most of them require some amount of money, and me in the past was saving money as much as possible just in case my parents are away, so I dont really need to depend on them, and it did happen. But now since I have a little bit saving from my salary I guess I could use it to atleast "rewarding" myself after I did some progress on my work. I mean I have this method of rewarding myself with something which could release me from tension or refreshing my mind, like play long games, movie marathon, eat special food, anything that is simple but effective (for me). But I did this rewarding thingy everytime I've completed some big progress, just to motivate myself and keep my work going. However there were also times when nothing is done, and that's the time when I got demotivated. So in this situation I just sit in my desk, look at the ceiling, sleep and let the time find the solution. In other word I will just fool around.

I just did my candidature defense for my master program. Knowing that one of the panel would be one of the lecturer I scared the most, I felt anxious that he might ask some weird questions. I prepared my slide within a week coz there was a mistake I made on my interpretation. Since the more you study the more you understand, so I just got an idea regarding my stuff little bit later, and thank god I managed to do it. This is also the moment when I know my body better than before. So basically, I'm the typical person who likes to prepare every single thing in the most convenient way. I like to plan everything long before I do something. Also I hate last minute work or study, since I don't like to stress my self, but it doesn't mean I hate critical thinking, because I need and want to be fair with everything. Like planing my thesis or presentation. I thought everything was clear months before I did my presentation slide. But somewhat unfortunately/fortunately, a week before my presentation, Monday at 8.45 a.m. I read a paper which has blasted my mind and in the end I came up with a new idea. At first I wanted to ignore it coz it'll be troublesome to change here and there (slide and thesis), but in the end I did it anyway. From 8.46-9.00 am, was one of the time when I used my full brain power, I planned everything in the most efficient way. Started by looking my slides, see the flow and it didn't fit/suit/correspond/match/ with the new idea, making me worry and stress at the same time, knowing that I might have to change my entire slides. Then I realised something. So, when I stressed out I tend to have ulcer, lots of ulcers and my hands and feet start to excrete excessive sweat (not sure about the term), head starts to itch and light fever.

So at first I had 25 slides within my presentation and after that "innovation" I've come up with 40 slides and I knew that I need to change almost everything when the first slide that need to be changed was the introduction. Therefore the only one stayed from the previous slide was the cover/front page. I had 5 days, starting from monday, my presentation was on friday the same week, I planned to show my slides to my supervisor on tuesday expecting he comes up with the feed back on wednesday, do the correction asap and I could do the dry run on thursday, so I'll be ready on friday. Those two days were exhausting, I came to department at 7.20 am and arrived home like 11.30 pm. This was because only 5 slides including 1 page of cover, reference and other 3 I can't remember had words, the rest was fully diagrams, pictures, photographs, tables (not even words), and models. I recreated and rearranged everything so that it goes with the flow. After I've finished I submitted to my supervisor right away and he is a very meticulous person. All correction he did to my thesis was somehow demotivating, but constructive at the same time. So I was expecting every slide has at least one correction and, worst comes to worst I need a major correction if he's not agree with my idea. I waited anxiously on wednesday from morning til the afternoon but no reply from him, so I decided to go back home early (10 pm) since the working hour was over and no sign of him replying my email.

The next day (thursday) around 10 am, I received an email from him with the same title I sent two days ago. In my head I was like "be nice to me, don't give too much correction, at least accept my idea and model". Then with full power I left-clicked my mouse and found no attachment. I was worried sick thinking that he forgot to see my slides. But then I read the message he sent me, it says "It looks good, however I would combine the intro slide with the locality map on the next slide" and then I just did the fastest correction I've ever done in my whole life, 10 secs with the cut-paste-edit-combine-save. In the afternoon I did a dry run infornt of my friends and the feed back has truly helped me improve the presentation. From a 35 minutes of talking non-stop to 20 minutes, although the dry run took almost one hour coz I asked them to stop me everytime I did something unnecessary or they didn't understand what I was saying, in other words if my delivery was bad. I wouldn't say that 15 minutes reduction was bad though, because in the end its all about the content and I was able to deliver everything within that period of time.

Then the day came, there were 4 presenters and my turn was the third and it was held in the lecture hall. When my time arrived, I just walked forward confidently, with my over-sized formal suit. Why oversized?? Coz I forgot to buy and that was the only formal attire I could find, and it was my father's, somehow inside my luggage (I was lucky to have one). So then I stood infront of the computer, opened my slides, looked at the audience, smiled like a retard and waited for my supervisor to give a signal, he looked at me, nodded and my time to shine was finally arrived. After it was over and talked for like 18 minutes I guess, saying thank you and bla bla bla, I just realised that I was about to be raped with questions from panels and one of them was the person I mentioned earlier. Funny thing happened (well, for me) during that Q and A session. So I was given 5 or 6 questions if I'm not mistaken, one of the question I couldn't answer. Firstly, because I didn't know whether it was a question or just a statement, Secondly, she spoke softly and I couldn't hear properly, even asked her to repeat that thing twice. That time I knew I was doomed, so I sought for a help from my supervisor, because supervisor could help his/her student to answer but not giving the answer. so I looked at him hoping that he got my signs of asking for help and maybe could lend me a hand, but the reality turned otherwise. He did look at me, but looked down immediately after seeing my face. Then I was like "wth??,really? why u no help me?Imma your student.why u look down.nooooooo!!!!!" So then in the despair I said to her "I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly, but I'll try to answer, bla bla bla" The other panel whom I mentioned earlier, I debated with him a little regarding my interpretation, I was worried because he's an expert and American. I always have this thought that western people are expert. But I was totally surprised when he said "it's the first time I hear you talking and it was nicely presented" I was flattered and thought that this person is not so bad at all.

I wouldn't have thought that I might come back to the field this year. I thought that I would have a normal year like any other normal students (other than geology). But you don't know what comes a head and what other people might have planned. It was in the middle of February when I just returned from a 2 days trip with my friend, accompanying him to his study area. I don't consider it as fieldwork since its only in short period of time and besides it didn't feel like field work at all. So right after that when I reached home I chatted with my friend whose having nearby study area with mine, and after long conversation talking about the contract thingy she said"Btw, are you planning to go to your study area? because I'm thinking on coming back this April for maybe a week". Suddenly tears burst inside my heart. from that moment I realised that all of my not-getting-dark plan was going to an end.

However, the feeling changed right after I landed at the airport. Somehow the atmosphere has drastically changed right after I arrived , like I had this feeling something interesting/unusual is about to happen and I was looking forward to it. Bytheway, this time, I went trio with another local friend, I mean this person lives not-so-nearby our study area, since she's going to help us and vice versa, so spent a week for each of our study area. The first week was a normal sedimentoloical field work and since I was there to help my friend, I did nothing much, except that I practiced with my photography skill using my phone since one of us (obviously not me) is a pro in this photography thingy so I learnt as much as I could from her. Then another week I spent in my friend study area and since her field of study area is different from me, I couldn't really expect much what would we do. Yes, I did ask her regarding the methodology or do we do any field interpretation or just simply collect data and sample. After the first 2 days of her fieldwork, my body started to disfunction. Somehow everytime I took a break/sit for more than 10 minutes, my body lost its power. It feels like the aftermath of carrying a super heavy object. So basically her type of fieldwork is more to the walk-alot kind of fieldwork, where you need to keep on moving under or covered from the sunlight. While my type of fieldwork is just a stand-still kind of fieldwork where only small amount of movement is required. However I need to be under the hot sun, coz most of the outcrops are found that way.

The feeling of "something will happen", the one I had before the fieldwork was real. Lots of thing did happen during this fieldwork and all were unexpected and last minute planned.

The first day my friend and I were picked up by this local friend and she offered to stay at her house before we moved to our study area, making it easy for her to take us. I was at first worried because I guess this was the first time I overnight in my friend house, her parent's house and for more specific girl's house. It felt more awkward for me because I was the only guy in the group. First time I arrived she told me her parents are away. So in my head I was like "Eh??So only three of us will be staying tonight?no it can't be". I don't know for some people but for me staying with girls under the same roof is odd, not sure I'm the odd ones or what, I'm just not used to that. Along the way to her house my brain thought about millions of possibilities that could happen from me being uncontrollable to the other way around. I was afraid that my dark side would emerge. Then when we reached her house she opened the gate (coz there were dogs), and then I saw a guy walked out the front door and brought the dogs away to the backyard so we could enter the house. Then I asked my friend about the guy, and it's her brother. I was like"okay, that's a relieve. at least someone can stop me just in case I lose control. Now I can rest in peace". I didn't sleep well that night.

The next day we went around 250 km southwest to my friend's study area and along the way we tried to get to the field work mode. It may take few days just to get your mental ready for being scorched under the hot sun. my friend drove this 4x4 hilux and after traveled 3/4 of the journey one of the tires exploded, luckily my friend successfully controlled the car calmly to the roadside eventhough her face said otherwise. 2 hours we took to change the tire coz we got stuck removing the busted tire, We tried kicking and pulling, but didn't work. Plus the tire has this iron threads which is new for me, since this was the first time I changed this 4x4 tire. In the end, one of us (me) went under the car and kicked it from the inner side of the tire and with a single kick it got off, plus there was this lock blocking the spare tire and the key hole was filled with mud, so it took quiet amount of time just to make sure the key went to the hole. So basically we wasted like 1 hour with all these kicking and pulling and maybe 5-10mins to get the key hole cleared, while the remaining was the time of despair. It was 2 hours of worth new experience of life. I don't know but I prefer this kind of experience, something unexpected that can happen anytime, rather than visiting new places, eat new foods, try new activities, although I don't deny any of them. Because it gives me this unexplainable sensation and have more chance to be remembered.

A minute after the Journey begun (happy faces. too young, too dumb to realise about whats gonna happen)

2 hours later*in the despair, 5 seconds before thinking of committing suicide

Me doing the key-hole-lock cleaning) (they want to see this online)

Key-hole filled with mud

after 2 hours of faith *look at the feet, that's because of the tire-kicking action

The next few days found new outcrops which made me so excited and could be a prospect for my Phd program if I want to pursue further. One best thing about this fieldwork was there is this restaurant selling indonesian food inside the town I lived in. Although this restaurant is simple and not extravagant, but the food was excellent. It has been I don't know how long since the last time I went to indonesian restaurant which could satisfy my tongue. Besides the price is considerably cheaper. Another "best" memory happened when I was helping my friend looking for this paleocurrent (flow direction) underneath the rock. So there was this exposure where the cliff was >70 degrees and I from below I saw this huge scour marks which could be a good indicator of flow direction. But the problem was that it is 7 meters high up and since I needed to get this reading ,so I climbed up that cliff. Getting up was easy but stabilizing your-self to get the reading was pretty hard, since it is sedimentary rock and would easily break if I put too much pressure on where my feet were steeping, so I had to adjust my position accordingly. Above this cliff is a flat surface and since I was like a meter away from it and wanted to get more data, why not I get up there, coz I was hoping that I could get better view. So I raised both hands tried to reach the top, grabbed it and suddenly the rock where I step on collapsed and so I solely relied and hanged on my both hands.

Sedimentologists intense outcrop discussion

Me in action *stuck

It felt like a life and death situation. I was scared to death. I tried to move my feet sideways, hoping that I could get something to step on but nothing. Below me was like 5-6 meters high, ofcourse I wouldn't die if I fall, unless head first. Besides there was no flash back so the worst might be broken bones. My manly tear was about to break and I was just about to let go my hands and a picture flashed in my head. I somehow got this 3 seconds super-strength and finally managed to pull my self up to the top. I laid down for like a minute just to get my head clear form that thrilling moment. I stood up look around and luckily found what I have been looking for, but I need to get down to the cliff again coz it was 3 meters away from the previous one. The shity part about climbing is going back down. It took me like 2 minutes to get into the position to where that thing was. I adjusted where I step on, just to make sure that it's stable. So to get this reading we need this specific geological compass (I don't know if there's specific name for it). I took it from my pocket, positioned underneath the rock (coz it was flute cast underneath the rock), but blocked by this debris. So I cleaned up this debris and guess what I found. yes, it was a blackish scorpion. It was medium sized (5-7 cm) but still made me panic like hell. I was like"what the heck, no,no,no!!!". I was freaked out plus panic, but more to freaked out. I moved back and lost my balance immediately, I tried to reach anything within my grasp but too late.

In my messed up head I was like "is this it?is this how its gonna end?die as dedicated geologist?I haven't even completed my master. why no flash back?? I see, so its broken bones then"

Everything happened in a flash, I didn't even realise that I was already laid down and facing upright. I tried to move my legs and arms but didn't work. I thought I was done with the fieldwork, but then I waited for like 15 seconds, took a deep breath and with all my strength I finally able to stand up and then immediately walked towards my friend. I was like "what the hell just happened?how did I survive that?"

Next day we went back north and stopped by at he beach. It has been I dont know how long since the last time I went to the beach. It was pretty relaxing day before continuing the fieldwork next day. Then I found this beautiful rock while we were about to go back. It's recent sedimentary rock I guess embedded with broken part's sea-shells. Then from looking at the rock I realise something "its perfection comes from the imperfection"

This is a perfect of imperfection

Some snapped photographs

Little grasshoppers

Aligned furry-ball plant *I don't know the name of the plant, just found it interesting

Glowing stick-like dandelion *Not sure about the name

Lonely wanderer

Then time for my local friend's fieldwork where lots of stamina was needed coz there were lots of hiking and walking. It was really tiring week but fun. My friend and I were invited to the dinner with my local her family. The whole family member was there except for one elder sister working in KL. But it sure was very warm atmosphere which I haven't felt for quiet sometime, made me miss my family. One day before the fieldwork ends, we went to this waterfall, where 15 minutes hiking was required. The girls made and packed the food for this little picnic. It was a good ending before going back to the reality in the next day.

moments to remember

Lost

Walk away *it was the last time they saw me

A lot of things happened during this fieldwork, like laughing, fighting, sharing, discussing, falling, sliding, sitting, standing, pissing, pooping. Good memories and bonds were made among us, even fell in love with a stranger. However, I can't carry everything with me. I let whatever happened stay where it is, coz I'm not planning to bring it back anyway. The time spent was worth, as feeling grew stronger everyday. But In the end, I need to leave it behind and forget whatever happened, even the precious ones. Otherwise, I wont be able to move on and trap in this endless uncertainty, knowing that my heart and thought go separate ways. Time has brought us together for a reason, but I've decided to let this go. Because I know how it will end if I decide to follow my heart. Eventually, time sure will lead us to different paths, so I guess it's better to let things go this way, maybe it's all part of a plan (edsheeran). Goodbye my shoe and slipper, you'll be replaced soon.

So after approximately 4 years both shoe and slipper finally reached their retirement time and I threw them away for good, before coming back to KL.

These are the faithful shoe and slipper. 10 seconds before I threw them into the garbage bin* the shoe looks okay, but the rubber at the bottom part was torn.

There is this one weird thing which I just realise after I went back from this fieldwork. So basically, my existence for this fieldwork was to assist and help my friends. But in the end, I got the most sun burn.

HABITUAL

2016-04-01T07:17:00.004-07:00

I don't know what makes people get so hype about this new year thing. Most of them were mentioning all of their new plans, or goals for this 2016. I know that it's the beginning of the year, but new goals can be set like everytime. We don't really have to make a plan on the first day of new year. Unless you are running a company and to make everything organised. It's not that I get irritated by all these "new plans" they are talking about. It's just that most of the plans they made, have not really come true. Like you see someone saying them out loud infront of you, and by the end of the year nothing really came true and when you ask them they said" well I don't have the time for that", "I have something more important to do"

Recently, I just realised that the way I do and choose things has really changed for the last 5 months, exactly right after my parents went back. Last time, I didn't have to worry much about daily meals and house rent. I used my own money to get things I desire and daily stuff but still when I get home I was supported by my parents. So, in term of personal finance (minus the study fees), it was comfy for me. But everything has changed when ~~the fire nation attack~~ I have to live based/relied on my saving/salary. There are expected and unexpected things which I have to buy or get in order to sustain a good life style, well at least average life style. Like daily meals, water supply, paying electric/water bills, house rent, internet fees. These are all the "everyday" stuff and the rest are unexpected, which I don't really know what. Anyway, I just bought a fan for my room since the old ones is spinning like snail, making me wake up in my own sweat.

Week days routine

Then: depart from home at 7.30 am and arrive at home around 6 pm, interact with family until 11 pm and sleep around 11.30 pm
Now : depart from home at 7.00 am and arrive at home around 10 pm, sleep 10.30 pm (take shower and sleep).

Going shopping
Then: This shirt looks good and the price is considerably okay (RM 20-50). I guess it's worth to buy.
Now : (look at my 8 years old shirt) nahhh. this shirt can last for another 3 years.

Taking meals
Then: (look for quality and ingredients of the food) hmm. The price is not so bad, it looks tasty. I'm taking this.
Now : (look for the menu) hmm. May I have plain rice with scramble egg, please.

Weekend plan
Then: go outside, visit new places.
Now : Play games, clean up my room and sleep I guess.

The last 5 months have been pretty much repeating the same thing over and over again. Having fieldwork once in awhile have been very helpful and felt like I could temporarily release tons of burden. I guess this is what people said as "I have no life". Nevertheless, I'm still lucky/grateful to be here.

As the oldest man among my sibling, I somehow feel the kind of responsibility to take care the others. I didn't build it coz it somewhat came naturally knowing that my parents are hundreds miles away. Like my father always tells me "Gal, you are the oldest among them all, take care and look after them, be a good example, and may the force be with you" remove the last part. But that's pretty much what my dad always said everytime I was about to departed or when he's about to be away for while.

So this one day, in one beautiful afternoon. I was just finished my lunch and heading back to my office. I guess I had like another 30 more minutes before my lunch break was over so I went online for a while. 15 minutes of scrolling around the internet has truly made me exhausted then I decided to take a quick nap (Normally 10-90 minutes). I put aside my laptop, removed papers from my desk and ready to land my head on the hardest mattress in the world, my working desk. Suddenly I heard a ringtone, and thought that I know the sound. After few seconds of thinking I realised that it was coming from my pocket. My phone was ringing for like 10 seconds, I checked the phone number and it was unknown. I was like "who the hell is this? could it be her?nah impossible"

I picked up the phone and these were lines I heard "Hallo, this is Iko, Resti's friend. Your sister is in emergency room in *** hospital. Could you please come? Coz I need your help here, hurry!!!" This was the time when my brain stopped working due to the after lunch disease, plus tired of scrolling around the internet combined with sleepiness. I replied "Aaaa hah?? seriously?? ok I'll be right there in a flash". I hung up my phone, put all my stuff in my bag, left the building and headed to bus stop immediately.

Along the way to the bus stop, I thought about the fastest way to get there. The options were taking LRT-LRT star or LRT-Monorail. Both options were pretty much the same, the only different is the possibility of the train delayed time. In my head my brain works like a computer. Using some maths formulae I've learned from my primary school I was somehow able to measure all the estimated time taken to get to the destination using both ways. In the end, I need to take a bus which probably takes around 10 minutes with waiting time of at most 15 minutes coz I missed the previous bus. Then the first LRT will either take approximately 10 minutes if continue monorail, and 15 minutes if proceed with LRT star. Based on the Pythagoras theorem mixed with relativity formula, the monorail will take around 25 minutes and LRT star will take 7 minutes. However, I need to take a walk for around 1 km using LRT star, or around 400 meters using monorail. I can get 1 km in 15 minutes and 400 meters around 5 minutes, with deceleration of 0.02 mm/s2. Plus another 10-15 minutes because I don't know where the emergency room was.

After 2 seconds of intense thinking, I decided to take a cab from the bus stop, coz it was probably the fastest and most efficient way in this situation. On the way to the hospital, I was thinking of several possibilities regarding what happened to my sister. Because she has been sent to the emergency once in the past. If im not mistaken it happened because she had this typhoid and she was so ill. I don't know who told her, but My grandma traveled from Jakarta to Bogor (around 80 km I guess)and took her to the hospital, and she said that my sister was looking very pale. In my head I was like "What could it be this time? is it because she's eating less? working too hard? relationships? dengue? typhoid again?"

Then I got a call from her. She said "Gal, where are you now? btw don't tell mom" then no sound.

This was the moment when I went full panic. But since I was in cab so I couldn't do anything. I just prayed for the best hoping that nothing serious happened. I arrived at the hospital, go to the emergency room and then I saw a guy greet me"Resti's brother?" I just nodded. "please we need this amount of money, coz we need it for your sister medication and ward" I nodded twice and told him that I have no cash with me, so I went to the main building collected some money, got back to him and proceed with the payment. While waiting for our turn, I asked my sister's friend whether she fell ill or fainted. Then he replied "Her eyes are swollen, I guess she has food allergic or something" this is the moment of jaw dropping and stress relieving. I thought something serious (it was actually serious) happened. After the payment was settled, I went to see my sister and her face was totally changed. Her eyes were swollen like an aftermath fight. Then I laugh, she just smiled. After talking for quite sometime I asked her about why the phone was hung up during the call. Then she said there was no signal in the room. I grabbed my phone and she was right.

The doctor came and talked to my sister for a while, I guess asking about the possible cause of the allergic. Doctor said everything was looking fine, the swollen has becoming less and don't have to stay in the ward. Then everything went back as usual.

I am the kind of person who is really careless about food. Especially when it comes to the edibility of the food itself, not because good or bad, halal or haram, healthy or unhealthy. But more to whether the "food" is a food or not a food. So few weeks ago, I was having this starvation because I did not take breakfast, due to overslept. And in this new house rule we always eat together (my housemate and I). So we already set up when we will eat, thus whoever missing or sleeping during that time will be left behind. Ofcourse we remind each other before going. But my sleeping skill is different, when my mindset is holiday, nothing can bring me up.

So in the despair, I tried to distract my mind by cleaning my room, coz it was sunday. Somehow I made sunday as cleaning day, I don't know why, just feel like it. Then miracle happened. A pack of chocolate flakes laying inside a plastic jar. I guess my mom did this, packed all the left overs before moving to the new house. Along with it there were many others, but my eyes were only interested on this delicious chocolate flakes. I grabbed that thing and just pour everything into my mouth. I think I've finished almost half of it before finally get bored with the taste. So everytime I felt hungry I just eat that thing. But one day, I just realised that the taste was a bit different. I mean I've tried the same brand before but this one was something different. Then I remembered what my mother said "Always check the expiry date" and guess what, it was already expired in April 2015 and I opened that thing december 2015. I guess it is just the matter of time before my time comes.

Another one happened a week before the end of January 2016. So I bought this cookies and it has chocolate chips in it. I've prepared it just in case I oversleep again and I did. So right after I woke up, showered and everything, I opened my laptop and watched the downloaded movie with the cookie besides me. Since this is cookies, they tend to crumb when we eat so those crumbs were spread out on the floor. I ate the big crumbs but left the nano sized particles. So there is this time, when the chocolate chip fell to the floor. Those chocolate chips are the best thing about the cookies, nothing can stop me from eating that thing, even if it falls to the ground. So this chips fell, and I didn't really pay attention where it fell coz I was watching this movie. So I just glance to the location where it probably is. I saw this black circled thing and grabbed it with all my might and just put it in my mouth, coz I don't want to miss the movie's part. So I have this habits to chew the chips just to get the flavor out of it. After chewing for like 2.112 seconds, I realised something, it wasn't chocolate flavor. It wasn't like any other chips from the cookies, and I've never tasted anything like that.

Since my brain is very slow, the realisation came right before I swallow that sh*t. I just ran to the kitchen full speed, get to the sinky and rinsed my mouth with water, brushed my teeth and drink the left over apple juice from the fridge just to get rid of the taste. The sensation was thrilling, it gives me goosebumps everytime I think about it. I just can't imagine what would haave happened to me if my brain was just a little bit slower, coz that time it was normal . Now I still wonder what in the world could that be.

Few days ago I went back to Indonesia coz previously I thought that my contract was over and staying abroad would be pretty costly. I was about to say good bye and have gone to some memorable places to take pictures and all those stuff in the weekend, just want to see the change in the future. So I went back, booked for the cheapest one way flight. The next day, the day I was supposed to pay for the flight ticket, I went to the campus just to do daily routine, I was planning to do half day and proceed with the payment. I went for lunch with my colleagues within the campus area to save money. On the way back I met my ex supervisor (coz I was already unemployed).

my friend and I: "good afternoon Dr is"

Dr. Is: "Oh, hey, good afternoon, anyway, I've just submitted the progress report for our project. So your RA's extension notice will be out in a few weeks. However, it will be only for 6 months, since the project is gonna end on June"

my friends and I: "Alright Dr, Thank you very much"

I canceled my flight and booked for return flight right away.

People change physically as they get older (obviously). People I've spent time with, either for long or short period of time, will continue their life for better or worse. I met this person the other day who I know for quiet long time and after I don't know how long I didn't see and talk, I've met this person once again. At glance, I didn't remember who it was. But when I did a closer look, I could still recognize. I don't know whether my brain is getting worse or everyone has changed so fast, but I bet, if I've given 5 more years and then meet this person, I will not be able to tell, eventhough she stands and facing right infront of me. Few years ago my highschool friend called me when I went for holiday back to my home country. I was still using my old home phone number so everyone could still contact me. So one day I went to this mall to get something (I don't remember what), and when I got off an escalator 2 girls walked cross infront of me. I looked at two of them, did a quick observation (man's instinct) to one of them, so I looked at her and she looked at me, our eyes met ~~then we kissed~~ and looked away. I just looked at her because she was there and ofcourse when we get off the escalator, the first thing we do is look forward, and it was just happened to be her. So then I just continued walking coz I was still looking for the shop. Then after getting what I wanted I went home. That night a friend from my lower secondary school called. I didn't know who it was coz I've forgotten everyone's voice but I know it was my classmate since it was looking for me.

After chit-chatting for few minutes she asked me whether I went to this mall or not, wearing this t-shirt and all that. Then she said "why are you so arrogant? I was infront of you and you didn't say anything". I stood still, remembering the face of that girl I met infront of the escalator and still couldn't believe that it was her. I just laugh coz she changed alot, not sure because of make up or what. But the point is that these changes from physical or the way people dress, can seriously trick me. My expectation may not follow what the truth is appeared to be, so don't blame me.

I thought this post was posted a few months ago. I guess I forgot to click the button. pardon my language

Advice from a friend "Catching up with the others may sometime drift us away from our own dreams"

FAREWELL

2015-12-18T06:36:00.001-08:00

The perk of doing research is having to know something people might have not heard or studied. You are also get the chance to know the latest information regarding your topics or whatever field you are in. However and somehow, the more you study the more you know that you are absolutely know nothing and somewhat this makes me think that "am I going in the right direction?".

I don't know the level of confidence of other researchers when they first started their research. Do they really know what they are doing? or do they just simply and randomly do whatever their supervisors tell them to do? Yes, we did our desk study, read the previous works, but the level of understanding during that "early age" is I would say still immature to decide something. I mean I'm doing sedimentary geology and the first time I did my research I thought the end products would be only the depositional environment, how the sediments were formed, what are factors affecting them and so forth. But, by time, I feel like "is that it? is that why I do all of this?" Because otherwise you will be stuck infront of your computer, looking at your halfway progressed work and completely clueless about the next future progress since you are already know the story of everything and only need to write/type them down. And I'm at that stage now.

I guess there are levels that when people do research they might have experienced them. I mean this is just how I feel after few months of doing it. So here are the levels:

Level 1: this happened when the first time I started my research. At this level, I felt like clueless about everything. All I did was just read books and journals.
Level 2: this stage happened 6-12 months after the research started. I felt like I already know everything. I could do and perform everything, judge every journals that I read, and start correcting others people's work. Complaining why everyone did such an interpretation.
Level 3: This stage is when I know that I actually know nothing. When all my problems started to come, I tried to read as much as possible and I realised that my knowledge is very shallow, knowing that there are millions of terms which I haven't heard about. Then I started questioning myself. Would I be able to complete this? Am I really doing it?

Few days ago my friends and I talked about politics and complaining about what those people on the high seats are doing. I don't really know the stuff so just kept quite. Then one of myfriends said they are bunch of losers who are thirst of power and wealth. At first they are okay, but by time they misuse the rules for their own benefit. Looking at their background they are actually pretty much badass in term of education. Most of them have their PHD's and have worked in big companies. However, high education does not always produce highly educated people. Some people are just knowledgeable not educated. I guess their PHD's are just another level of PHD's (pizza hut deliveries).

Out of nowhere the talk turned into their experience of finding about people's attitude and behavior. They said people in the village are more civilized compared to those living in the city. Because "villagers" have more manner towards each other and they do everything accordingly. Then they mentioned billions examples what villagers do and those townsfolk don't. Which could be said that villagers are sometimes more educated compared to townsman.

So out of millions things that we mentioned these are few that I remember.

throw rubbish in the right place
queue patiently
park your vehicles in the provided area
flush the toilet after use
put the thing back from where it was taken
apply learned lesson in daily life
spend money accordingly
necessity over desire
family is more important than friends
be fair to people

I just got one of the most useful reminder about life (I guess). It's about being grateful for everything that has happened to me. Everything happened for reasons. I was once looking at all my friends whose having a very "dreamy" life around the world, means that their dreams of style or ways of living. I think I've written somewhere about it before, that I would consider myself the as luckiest man alive. Not because I have everything, but I have what I need so far. I've failed alot, almost everyday, do things my way and of course with guidance. I do believe that As long as I have done my best, nature will bring the best to me, could be something I hate or even unexpected regardless what the results might be.

When I look back to what I was and what I am today, I could not say any words than just being grateful. These are few "things" which made me the think that I'm the luckiest man.

I was once bullied and avoided in kindergarten by almost everyone in the class, especially with the strongest guy, because I attended late (kids stuff). Just like what my parents said, always smile to people. After a few weeks, that strongest guy became my good friend.

I took a test for lower secondary school recommended by my teacher in primary school and got the privilege to join the "superior" class. I rejected it at first but my father insisted and asked me to join. Then, I entered secondary school without having to think about taking the general test for public school application, which almost 90% of my classmates failed.

After I finished my secondary form 2, I moved to malaysia and applied for international school. I did every test well except english (I did badly) so I need to repeat form 2. But after a few consideration they passed me.

I did my O'level exam pretty bad for non science subjects, coz I was planning to go back home and the results would actually be useless for entering indonesian highschool, since they have different syllabus. Yet, I applied for indonesian school in KL, did some tests and they passed me.

Again I did pass my final exams miserably, go back to indonesia applying for university, but failed coz I was not qualified enough to compete with other students and not well prepared for every test. I came back to malaysia, applied for uni, and got the best uni in the country.

I finished my degree, this time with so-so result, not good, but not bad either. I was just decided to further my study and planning to look for scholarship cos I wanted to be independent. I went to uni and talked to my friends and immediately he mentioned that his supervisor was looking for one more RA for the project.

According to the written rules and regulations, I was not supposed to be accepted for this master program due to some subjects which I did badly (I hated those 2 subjects, coz everything was about memorizing), the requirement was I need to get at least B's, and I got below that and didn't retake the subjects. But somehow I'm now a postgraduate student.

Whoever (mistakenly) sent the RM10 credit to my phone, I would like to give you my deepest condolence for not being able to call whoever you wanted to call and hope you'll get whatever you wish for in exchange for that good thing you've done.

It's almost the end of the year and just within a few days I'll be officially an unemployment since my contract is over. So my home country, here I come!!!!

good bye!!!

SUBLIMINAL

2015-11-14T08:13:00.000-08:00

This post is supposed to talk about every major things that happened to my life since the beginning of my journey in my second home. But due to the lost of some photos and notes, I decided to write something ~~not~~ less important/usefull, exactly like what I always do. (ignore)

You'll never know that things from the past can be brought forward. Few weeks back I just did something I've left behind. Something which I thought I would have never done it again. I mean it's not because it's harmful, but I guess because I've reached my limit to do such a thing and should just move on to my real life. So one late night, right after I went back home, I got a message in FB from my junior. The last time he messaged me was asking about thesis and stuffs, so I was expecting something similar. So feeling a bit lazy (since I was so tired), I opened the message and what I saw was something I would never expect to come. He asked me to join his band and perform for this ID FEST thingy.

Everything felt so unclear with all this tiredness. So, without thinking so much I agreed. Then somehow, I remembered that my instruments are no longer with me except this acoustic guitar which has been with me for 9 years of playing. I mean this guitar has seen my struggle of practicing day and night. I guess my blood is there as well, since during the earlier days I've got lots of scratches on my finger tips and this thing happened to the beginners.

So if I asked my parents to send me the guitar it wont me reach on time, coz some of the moved stuffs haven't been unpacked, which include my stuffs. I still remember the last time I put them away was just right after my degree convocation day. Before leaving the house I played for like half an hour just to check the condition and put them back to the cases and have never been opened them ever since. I didn't even look at them when they were being wrapped during the moving out few months ago, except my one and only stratocaster.

I intended to bring it with me but my parents said that I wont need it anymore. Well, I guess they were right at some points since I've given up on jamming and anything to do with band or performing. But now I just agreed to this, and to be honest I was not sure, but then flash back of the good old days came to me and felt like the universe has given me this chance and I don't know why. So I was like "ok, there is nothing to lose, better give it a shot, I've done it before"

So I joined the conversation group in the next day, discussed the songs and that time we haven't found the singer. After discussing for I guess 2 days I remembered someone who could sing, I mean I have performed with her before and we won second place in a competition, I guess there's nothing wrong asking her to join the band and luckily she agreed. Immediately we planned the time for practice and the songs coz we only had like 2 weeks before the day and we didn't know what each of us were capable of, then we marked weekends and 3 weekdays for practice.

A very important thing I've forgotten about this was "everything does not always go according to the plan". Lots of things happened and we almost forfeited the band from performing. One of us almost quit the group for some reasons. It reminds me that similar things happened in the past and it was exactly the same. But, it went happy ending. The others were stressed out regarding this matter, and the only solution was to find a replacement, coz canceling the band was not an option. After few days of practicing on our own, we got a good news coz we found the replacement. Then shit happened. The person who quit the band was joining back. But, Thank god the replacement guy was so understanding. So he stepped back and he told us that if anything happen again we can always contact him. (he got my salute).

We're on to the real deal now and with only 6 days left before the day, still haven't found the right songs, unsynchronized tempo and tried to modified here and there. I guess those 6 days were one on the longest 6 days of my life so far. I had to go to the university at 7.am and do my stuff until like 5 pm. Then practice until like 10.30 pm. then reach home around 12-12.30 am. took shower and everything, reached bed 1-1.30 am. then repeat for the next 5 days until the day. Just like the old good times.

You'd never know and realise when "the day" has finally come and exactly the same feelings of anxious, nervous, scared, unconfident and all other billions of negative feelings. But at the same time I felt excited for some reasons. I mean I miss all these feelings, standing infront of people, entertain people, bringing good vibes to the atmosphere and those kind of things. So finally before going to the stage we grouped up, said the prayers, and did like all those football teams do before they start the game where everyone is gathering in a circle, and screaming their team out loud (I don't know the term for that). By the way the name of the band was "Finally symmetrical" Because it was originally formed by one of the band members, long time ago during his highschool. The original name was "Asymmetrical", but because it was his final performance and he was the only one staying for the band until this very last minute, since all the other members left to find their own paths in this cruel world and to create a good ending of the uncertainty of the band, the name "finally symmetrical" was given. The reasons may sound childish but that's how it is.

Our time to shine have finally arrived. The moment we've all been waiting for, where we put all our efforts to the fullest. The struggle, laughs, joys, angers and tears will be shown on the stage. feeling a bit hesitant I walked on to the stage behind my friends, get in position of my instrument and realised that there will be no turning back.

Up against this hesitation I grabbed the guitar, plugged in the cable, looked at my friends waiting for the signal to start the song. Once the signal by the piano was sounded I looked at the audience and this overwhelming feelings arose. Then I realized one thing

"No matter how hard I try to forget, something will bring me back to you again"

Then the song begun.

Thank god everything went great although I made mistakes here and there, but overall it was a success.

I just came back from my home country a few days ago, took a week break from all this misery of life. I did nothing much, since its solely purposed to visit my family and besides, my house is still under renovated, so I just watched the workers doing their jobs, watched TV and sleep. By the way during this break I was on "see food" diet, means that when I see food I eat. Somehow, my belly could store everything, like endless starvation.

During the first two days I ate uncontrollably coz I missed the foods so much, especially my mom's cookings. I ate whatever she cooked and bought. But due to my uncontrollable-animal-appetite of eating too much, I ended up having a severe stomach ache. So basically, I went back and forth to the toilet like 10 times in a day to do the "number 2", starting from the time I woke up till the evening before I was finally given a medicine. I guess my body could not adapt and catch up with my ego and appetite, since the feedback was so painful. However, we as human are born to struggle and survive, and no sacrifice no victory. In order to survive and satisfy my animal-appetite, I trained my self and ate like crazy in the next day in order to gain what I've lost. Luckily, I survived and did not suffer the same thing, so then the "see food" diet was on again.

There was something interesting happened during my break, which is still amazed me until this post is released. So the story started in a beautiful morning, no signs or anything suspicious, except I just had a very weird dream, I met my highschool junior asking to choose one of them for a particular event and I still don't remember the details. Okay that morning I went outside to get fresh air and gathered all souls since I was half alive. Infront of my house is small alley and there is someone's house on the other side. Everything seemed normal until I saw 2 girls, sitting, not the owner of that house, and one of them looks exactly like an old friend from highschool. I could not believe it at first and I thought it was just my imagination since I was still half alive and maybe my eyes haven't really working properly. I focused my eye sight right to the face, trying to analyse the details and 99% is positive. Then, I thought maybe it was just a coincidence, I mean I heard that there are at least 7 people whose face are similar to us.

Then I wondered what her name is, I mean, just want to make sure that only the face is similar. But, just right after I had a thought of that, the other person called her name and guess what? the person name is the same as the person in my highschool. I was like "Holy shoot, What the heck is this". Then I thought that if she shows one more similar thing, I'm gonna ask her personally, not to ask her out, just to make sure certain things. Thank goodness her voice sounds different, otherwise I would go and talk to her, and she might think that I am a weirdo or something.

I think have found out something very funny regarding the current hairstyle in my home country. Well, this is just my assumption so it might be wrong. So I was planning to have a haircut just right after I performed at the IDFEST thing, but I remembered that I'll be back home a weak after that day and because of the price is considerably cheaper, I decided to have a hair cut later when I go back. I'm a bit picky when it comes to the place for hair cut since I had a very bad experience which I have told last year. So back in my country before I moved to malaysia, I always go to this barber, located 5 minutes ride by bike. This time I went there with my father coz he wanted to have a hair cut as well. I went there and saw a few other customers and I guess that I have enough time to pick the style from the posters.

So basically, they have 6 posters attached to the wall with different hairsytle. So I looked at them, one poster after another, observing the details and found out something interesting. 5 out of 6 posters show the same kind of hairstyle where you have this little hair at the sides and bulky on the top. The different were only the hair intensity, the models and small patterns which are not actually significant. I used to call the hair style as "no-future-hairstyle". Coz I used to play this MMORPG game during my highschool and I don't know why I hate this kind of hairstyle. But now has become the hairstyle people want the most. The one last poster was not even better. yes it shows variety of styles in one single poster, but they were all 80's styles. I was like "How the hell do I choose this".Then I looked at the barbers and realised that they have the "no-future" hairstyle as well. So when my turn came I just told him "make it tidy" and now I ended up having "no-future" hairstyle as well but a little bit better, since the sides are still abit bulky.

Now here I am back to reality and the struggle is on again.

SCRUPLE

2015-09-23T08:42:00.001-07:00

The time has finally arrived. I've moved out from the place where I was raised and nurtured. I'm on my own struggling and surviving in this very world. Looking for a place to build the confident and power to strive for my dreams. Yet, my prayers and doings have finally been answered and I'm few steps ahead of my plans. Few more steps and I'm ready to pursue to another level.

Recently, I've been obsessed with japanese, especially anime. It's all started during my last fieldwork in Sarawak. So one late night, I was chatting with my old friend, started talking about what has been going on and then reminiscing the past. Then somehow and I don't clearly remember how, the chat turned into this person love's story. I didn't say much during the chat, I just listened and said few words and just gave few advices although I'm a complete idiot in this field and I don't think my advice will work since I've failed before. Then this person said that I said the same thing like one of the anime this person watched before and this fellow thought I copied all the words from it. I don't even watch anime, except naruto and one piece, and a few others like digimon or dragon ball, and the last time I watch them was like two years ago, and I don't remember I've watched any romance anime, since most of them were mostly about fighting. Then this person told me the name of the anime and asked me to watch, plus wanted my opinion about it. Ofcourse I rejected it at first since I don't really watch romance anime, but it said to be different than any others. After few minutes of debating and did some critical thinking I said yes.

The next day after fieldwork I downloaded the anime coz I moved to the new location where the hotel had internet connection. So basically, this anime has 24 episodes and the "thing" I did the same was in episode 4. I was like " hhhmm. I see what you did there, that wasn't a bad advice" After few days I completed everything and gave my opinion and was suggested another anime. And that second one has truly moved the piece of rock inside my pure human's heart. It was just so heart-warming and peaceful. All problems were solved in unexpected ways and the best part it has happy ending. From then on I crave for more.

My obsession did not stop there, I tried to watch different "kind or genre" of anime. Ofcourse I asked my friends for suggestion and this is also the time when I know what kind of anime they watch as well. I've been recommended from the normal ones (the ones that are just depicting normal daily life) to the not-so-normal ones (zombies, adultery, vampires, actions). This has been affecting my living style as well. Like japanese sleep on the small mattress and I did that too. Not because I wanted to, but I had to, since my bed was already sent back to my country during the moving out few months ago. I've started learn to eat sushi and have been practicing for almost 3 months. At first I could not swallow without having a drink after. But after 3 months of practicing, and constantly ate sushi for at least once a weak, still the same, no change and no improvement at all. I guess I have no talent to be a japanese. Somehow I feel like this anime living style is so beautiful for human being. I mean the school, food, romance are just too perfect. I wonder if their living style and everything are the same as shown in anime or not.

I just had one of the most devastating and frustrating presentation in my whole life. It's not that my topic was not good, it's just that I think they don't seem to be interested in new findings. I mean I did this poster presentation and prepared for everything perfectly. I've practiced that at least I could finish everything in 10-15 minutes (standard time). I thought it was like any normal presentation where you are given reasonable time to present and answer questions. But the truth is I was only given roughly 2 minutes and then shake hand with the panels and that's it. what the hell was that?? More over, I was only told when I stood beside my poster and guess what?? I messed up everything since my brain can only work on a planned stuff, otherwise it will lag and sh*t might happen. I didn't even know what was coming out from my mouth. I just blurted out every single word that I've learned since the beginning of time. I believe I said "my name is jeff" or "I like turtle" at least once during the presentation.

I was listening to the songs from random playlist the other night, planing the next work for the upcoming month. Thinking about doing lab work or just proceed with the next writing since I haven't got the result of the age of my rock, which supposedly can be collected by a few weeks back. I have been thinking, maybe I just do the lab work, get the age by myself, otherwise I wont be able to conclude any events. After thinking for I don't know how long, I didn't realise that it was already late and several songs have been played. I decided to close the light and laid down. I was thinking about absolutely nothing and just randomly looking at the ceiling. Suddenly a song I haven't heard for ages was played.

The first 4 notes made me shiver and goosebumps, you know the feeling when you hear something beautiful and it reminds you about the sad or beautiful memories and this was when I felt that my heart just skip a beat since it brought so much memory from the past just like its title "From the beginning until now". I guess this song has the most beautiful intro so far. So out of the blue atmosphere in the dark night and the swing of the melody from this song, I wrote this short of confession which I don't usually do. I mean the atmosphere somehow made me to do it.

I know you wont see this
But let me spill the truth
A little bit of the indescribable
As an important piece of my life

You're the first thing I'm eager to see
You've given me the perfect love
You've shown me the complete affection
That's purely irreplaceable

I still remember the face you made
When tears were dripping down
Millions of thoughts and memories were shown in a single expression
Brought from the moment I met you

I still remember all the things you said
They were not actually bothering me
You've given me the best regardless what I said
Now have become things I want the most

Started with a second, then a minute, an hour, a single day, a week, a month and now a year will be apart

I just can't believe that it's happening
The moment I fear the most has arrived
And things wont be the same anymore
Knowing that I wont have the same chance

I'm dying to meet you
I'll do my best to see you just like I did before
With thousands of excuses
To create a moment just for you

I met you in a dream
Saw you in the distant
I wish it could last forever
Since I could only see you when I close my eyes

I wish I could turn back time for a second
To the moment when we were parting
To tell you the unspoken
That has been kept silent

The days have changed ever since
I could't hope my luck to come again
I've failed to express myself
Knowing that time will separate us

This very moment I spend missing you
All I could do is whisper all my wishes
And let the wind blow and tell you that
I want to see you again

That's about it, it may sound gay but that's what happen when something pushes you to the limit and all you can do is to spill everything out.

A friend of mine gave me a riddle, which led to a certain answer of my questions. I have an answer in mind. However, if the one I have in mind is correct, then I'll prefer to remain silent. So this is the riddle

My name does not reflect what I am
My shape does not reflect my form
My position does not reflect where I am
I'm reachable yet untouchable

This year will be my first year of spending ied alone, thousands of kilometers away from my family. Now I know how my friends felt. Nothing can match this emptyness (well, so far), knowing that you'll be celebrating without the loved ones. It makes me think that everything will be gone eventually, like chances or time for your precious ones. So I need to learn more about being fair and prioritizing my time in the future.

IT'S ABOUT TIME

2015-05-31T08:40:00.001-07:00

This year is going to be more epic than the past years. Lots of fieldwork and travelling will happen, and it's gonna be another dark age. So far from the beginning of the year, I've been through exactly 30 days of fieldwork.

The first one happened in january about a week if I'm not mistaken, it wasn't intended for me but for the undergraduate students. So basically I was there to assist them doing sedimentology fieldwork. It was fun and good for sure. Reminiscing what I used to be during my degree. How ignorant I was and get to know the juniors was great. But, somehow knowing the fact that some people were scared of me was kinda suck. I mean, I just knew that some people during my time staying at dormitory, were scared of me, including the student's committee members. Now I know why they only sent the same person to see me.

The next fieldwork was for the master petroleum students. The good thing about going on the field with master students is they come from different background. Some did engineering as their degrees and some are working at one of the top companies. Their interpretations sure were varies and to be honest kinda extreme in someway.

The third fieldwork was for my RA thingy. Well this one is more to structural where I'm totally a complete idiot in this field. I mean my basic is okay, but beyond that is just too much to understand.

Well, It's just the matter of time before leaving my second home and go back to where I belong, since my family is already going back, one by one, and soon my time will come. The time spent was worthwhile. I have nothing to regret for spending almost 10 years being abroad from home and grateful for everything that has happened for all those years. Thanks for being such a great country and patient enough to nurture my ignorant to be a better being. But still there are stuffs I need to settle, something need to be told and after that I'll be off for good.

I just packed up everything and still remember what happened during that moment. Saw stuffs that I thought were long gone, found my lost treasure of memories, which have brought everything from the past to the present. There were also moments when I looked and hold some stuffs and all I could do was just smile and little bit of manly tears to think that "I had those moments".

Speaking about recent stuffs, I've been catching up with time to complete what I've planed for this year. Those 30 days of fieldwork have really made my plan went off the track. Besides I'm in another 2 weeks fieldwork in Sarawak now and this is gonna be my last fieldwork of my postgraduate program and after that, I'm coming home, since I expect to get everything in my hand after this field work and then all I have to do is just writing. I seriously didn't expect things to be this way, I thought I will have another one or two years. But sure things change and I guess my country wants me back earlier. LOL.

Looking at my post earlier, I realize that it is super unorganized. The first paragraph was created I think between january and March. Just look at the grammar and words from "will" to "I've been" within one paragraph. So basically I created those 3 or 4 lines in three months. What a progress. Don't blame me for this, cos it's due to the no free and leisure time. I mean my life has been full with stuffs, not like those people who can post daily pictures or status in social medias. Even what i'm writing right now is just automatically came out and I don't know what's the meaning of this.

I just remembered to tell why all my phones have ladies's names. Well, the reason is simple. Because they were all white in colour, if black or other than light colours I'd give gentleman's names. I don't know why I'm telling all these, but just write on.

A shitty thing just happened a few days ago, the first day of field work to be precised. I mean, I stayed in this small hotel (the one I heard weird stuff the other year) and everything was perfect except before falling a sleep I saw a huge cockroach strolling on the ceiling, wondering around and somehow I knew that shit is about to happened. As prevention I took and unwrapped my legendary weapon inherited from the god (slipper) and hunted it down, but too bad it escaped.

I stayed awake and waited until it came back and unfortunately it didn't. My eyes were already at their limits so i decided to switch off the light and sleep. I did not know how long it took before I finally high in my dream.

Suddenly I saw this woman laying down on the bed and she was about to give birth that time. I don't know who she was, but the doctor said to me to keep looking at her, so I just stood there since I could not control my body. So the position was I'm standing right infront of her, but I could not see her "thing" because it was somehow censored.

Suddenly something came out of her and splat onto my face. It was just a dream but felt so real. I immediately got my conscious back and grabbed my face just to check things out, and I can feel it clearly that something huge and legged was there. I just threw whatever was there and it did not stop there. I felt something moving on my feet and then I hit it with my all my heart content and sticky thing came out from it. Bytheway, the condition was dark that time, and I used only my sense to do all of those.

Then I switch on the light and saw a big cockroach on the floor was badly injured and tried to escape. But the thing it did not know was that it was crawling towards my legendary weapon. Without hesitation and with fully confident, I grabbed my weapon and hit that thing with full power. I thought it was already dead but I was wrong, it stood up and ran towards the space under the door. I opened the door and saw nothing, for a moment I thought it escaped, but it stayed still where the door was closed. Without wasting more time and letting this chance away, I hit it with full power and it flipped over, a sign of surrender probably. Then my human sense came and I realised that it is also a living thing, so I stopped there and just pushed it further away from my room.

But I remembered that there were two things on my body and so far I only saw and got one, it means that the other one is still in the room. I checked under my bed and nothing. But when I lift the mattress I saw it underneath. It looked into my eyes, probably saying something bad after seeing me brutally beating his friend/brother/father/grandfather/uncle/wife/child. After a few seconds it left and went behind the wardrobe probably running or planning for revenge. But nothing happened in the next night.

So I guess this is the only leisure time I have to spend here before the next post, which I don't know when. Btw, I just had a very bad experience and I've learned something important that don't ever sing freely during fieldwork, especially at rural areas, or otherwise you will hear the most beautiful sound you've ever heard in your life. So I visited this outcrop a few days back just to refine and double check my work there. After looking at the rocks for while I got bored and just started humming just to cheer and fire me up. My friend was in the car and so I was alone. After a while this humming became singing. I'm not sure how long I've been singing, but then I found something interesting at the rock and stopped my singing immediately. and just right after that, a sound of a woman blew my concentration away. The sound went for about 5 to 10 seconds and I was like "okay, I'm sorry, it wont happen again". Then after few minutes I heard my friend coming and I asked her about the sound. But she just silent and shook her head. I guess she knew what I meant. So I just did everything quickly and off to the next area. One more lesson is don't ever bring a brand new phone to the fieldwork or it will end up badly. Trust me.

motivational quotes "money brings you to desired places, while knowledge brings them to you"

I WILL COME BACK!!! JUST WAIT!!

2014-12-20T07:22:00.000-08:00

Nothing has been interesting recently, I mean my life lately is quite busy with stuffs that need to be completed. Had a little reunion with my undergraduate friends. Haven't seen them for like ages, since most of them went back right in the end of february. Although not all of them attended that urgent reunion, but it sure was fun and brought back some good memories, like the time when we performed for the acoustic competitions or just some casual performances. Didn't get the chance to take photos. But hope to see you all again in the future.

"Everything is related"

That quote I heard somewhere for over a decade ago has been playing in my mind from before I was born til recently. My brain will automatically functional when I sense something unusual or unique. Usually I end up making a theory, which has no basic at all. Just simply my thoughts and opinions. But somehow it could be apply in the real world. I can't remember who said it, but I believe that it has something to do with everything. Everything means everything, the whole universe. If one single thing is disturbed, it will affect the whole entire universe, even a single cell or bacteria.

Simple example I can think of is me. My present will somehow effect everybody's life, either good or bad (mostly bad), directly or indirectly. Directly means you've heard, saw, smelled, touched, bit, kicked, punched me. Indirectly means you have never known me at all, not even heard my name. If let say, I wasn't accepted as a student in a particular university, someone might have filled the place. This someone probably has applied to other university and probably he applied for other courses like biology or even medicine. Since this person has filled the space that was supposed to be mine(if I wasn't accepted), he would abandon what he had applied before and someone must have filled the place. This someone might have applied to other courses as well and this chain-liked thing continues. What I'm saying here is everyone has their own role. Bad or good will affect other's life. Where and what you are now might have pros and cons for other. We don't know. What you have achieved now might have crushed other's people dreams, vice versa.

So what can we do?

Do your best. Don't cheat or try to be a hero. Who knows that your failures might cause someone to discover the cure for ebola or even Aids. Our failures might save someone's life. Be positive. Just let it go and move on. There is no coincident, everything has been planned.

Somewhat it can also be applied to things we do. Simple example like the way we eat tells us about how we deal with matters. So I've been doing this unintentional research for almost 5 years. I've observed people who chose the food based on their own preferences, whether amount or what they wanted to eat. So based on how they can finish their food I've concluded that, people who could finish what they have chosen and taken, are normally people you can rely on, simple, trustworthy, they know their own capabilities and limits. Although sometime a bit pessimistic and kinda have their own preferences on almost everything (simply said not flexible). On the other hand, those who couldn't finish, are optimistic, easy going, ambitious, and are very flexible. They can almost do everything that is given to them well, but somehow and I don't know why, they tend to be a bit ego. I mean once they get what they need they don't really care about the others. They might help you but most of them just barely help. But those are just my observation nothing is right, everything is permitted.

What start will end. Everything started 2 years ago. It was my friend introduced me to you. At first I was not really interested. But my friend told me more about you. Until one point where I could not resist and curious about you. Although I hesitated to make a move, but in the end I took my chance to know you better. Then I realised that you are somewhat different. As time passed by, I know your pain and struggle, I know how do you feel about everything. I even searched several pages about you. But that what makes me want to know about you even more. Your steps and ways to solve your problems. You sure have taught me a lot.

Finally, I understand.

But sure time does not allowed me to learn more from you. About 6 months ago, you have shown that you are about to leave. The signs were clear. It just a matter of time before you will finally be gone. It sure a sad thing, but I kept my eyes on you. Since you could leave anytime soon. I patiently waited for you once a week. Sometimes even longer. At the same place and time. Just to see you. In the end, the inevitable has come. It sure was beautiful and sad at the same time. Knowing that I will not be seeing you again. No more your stories, pain, struggle and jokes. But I'm glad to know you.

Thank you for everything, you will be remembered and missed...

Naruto...

Yup, that's about it. The ending was perfect I think, unless there is this guy "shanaro" who is still mysterious for me. I was expecting that all characters are in one picture together. But the writer had other plan, which was perfect.

Recently my Fa*ebo*k account just got intruded by I don't know who. Btw it happened trice already, the first one was I think I forgot to log out at the library's computer, nothing was serious since this person just updated my status, but luckily I deleted it after getting more than 40+ likes and comments, Next day went to that very computer and logout. Second one didn't really remember where/why/how/when but on my FB wall there was someone posting about po*n. I don't know whether videos or pictures but someone wasap me in the middle of the night asked me that what I was posting was true or not. Since I was just about to sleep and my phone was 3 meters away from me and no one would ever contact me at that hour unless something urgent. So my message tone rang, I checked the message. I rushed opened my FB using my phone. But too slow. So grabbed my laptop, turned it on and I saw the post. I just deleted it and thanked the guy for telling me that. Third one, I just woke up, checked my tab, and got FB message from a friend. This person asked me why did I still online at that hour(1 am). So basically, that time my phone screen was blank coz I remembered it was already in low battery so I didn't use it. My tab was being charged and I remembered close all things before plugged it to the charger. Everyone was already sleeping before I did all of them, So I was the only one who still awake. Lastly, I did all of those at 11 p.m. and probably slept at 12 a.m. Then, who the heck was using my account? So, if you see me online around midnight, it might not be me.

I hope you can see this, but I know you wont.

Well I didn't plan everything perfectly, I know I made mistakes, I thought the second one was going to work, but it just the same as the first one, even faster. I didn't know how to handle matters perfectly nor keeping them safe. But everything was not solely my fault. I tried my best, but you've changed so much until one time where I couldn't bear you any longer. It's gonna be hard for me, like what I did to the first. But I've learned my lesson. I know that bearing with my attitude was not easy. Thanks for the tears and joys. Thanks for listening to my past, problems and stories.

Farewell..

Vony..

My dearest phone..

Yup, the day this post is posted was the last day of my second phone's service. 3 years she has been with me and now can rest in ~~a box~~ peace. Why did I name her vony? Coz that phone was SE Neo V. Neo is a guy name, therefore I need to start the name with V and has to be a girl's name (why girl?I'll tell in the next post). Since it is a phone, and I wanted to name it with the initial V. So, puffff, there I have Vony=phony. No complicated, mind blowing and super imagination thoughts for the name, it just appeared in my head and that's how I got the name. Ally (my first phone) and Vony (my second phone) have served their best, I hope I can see them in the future, as my daughters (high level imagination).

I'm gonna take literally one year break from my postgrad thingy and going back to my home country since I really need somekind of break for a while. I've lost several weights and probably gonna get those back during that break. So in the future don't get confused when you see someone looks just like me, but a bit fatter, it could be me.

Good bye my second home, see you in one year.

Funny sayings"People are like farts, either loud but nothing or silent but killing"

ADMONITION

2014-10-19T08:34:00.000-07:00

I just had one of the most shocking thing that actually had happened before. I mean somehow strange things have been occurring lately. I saw thing that I was not even sure whether it's true or not. So this thing happened a few weeks ago in my office (it's not actually an office, coz it just a room where I do all my work, but just let's say it's an office to make everything simple). So this one day all RA's were asked to do some cleaning of a former lecturer's room. Because he is retiring this year and the university wants to get rid of all his belongings. But, instead of asking cleaner or other staffs, they asked the RA. RA is not the same as staff, we don't really get any of the privilege nor even have to do any admin stuffs. We are required only to help our bosses to do their works, but need to be related to the research. Other than that, it is not our obligation to follow.

But since the university is the boss of our bosses, they can do anything to us. So what we did was removing papers, maps and thesis from his room which the whole things were literally filled every inches of the room space. Because when we opened the door, all we saw was piles of those and I wonder how did he get out of the room. After like I don't know how long and the room was half empty, we took a rest. We've found a mini fossil training excavator and brought it to our room. It's like a board made up of solid clay and inside the clay there was a fake dinosaur fossil. So we need to dig out the clay to find the bones and that thing came along with the tools. So we excavated the thing, and we need to be careful since the bones are representing the real bones even the hardness, so if we put so much power when digging, it could scratch or even break the bones.

After like 10 minutes, one of the staff was calling, and he needed people to carry some stuff into the van. I was unlucky to be chosen and there was a friend whom was picked as well. Then before we leave the room I saw one of my friend was sitting on his desk (my co-worker during kelantan trip). I wanted to asked him but since he was busy with what he was doing, I canceled my intention. So only the staff, my friend and I went. Then the staff asked me to lift one of the boxes and bring it downstairs to the van. Btw my office is at second floor. That staff has already stacked all boxes at the side of the staircase and he wanted us just to carry them to the van.

This is when shit happened

So I grabbed the box, put my hands in the right position, gathered all energy from the universe and make sure that I could lift it. So when I was about to lift that box, I saw my friend coming, running from downstairs. I was shocked, speechless and all those gathered energy just gone in the speed of light. That friend was my co-worker, the one that was supposed to be on his desk, infront of his computer, doing his work. So how the hell did he go downstairs? Who was that in the room?

Then I asked him several questions, and the point is he was already downstairs around 10 minutes. So now I have more people in the room, 4 human, 1 not sure. So it's just a matter of time before it shows itself again.

Recently just got back from a week fieldwork to Sarawak. Many things happened, but this time I didn't get the chance to see absurd stuffs like I did before in the previous trip. As expected I've got burnt again. Even my friend said "weh, you getting darker lately, what happened?" and I could only smile. Now I have billion tons of work, besides my supervisor wants to see the progress of my thesis at the end of this month. Didn't take any self or nature's pictures whatsoever, since I had only a week, but 3 and half days of effective time. Was not enough. Beside there was the time when rain came and I only able to start my work at noon. Another problem last time was the car stuck in the mud, and took two hours to get it out of the mud, with the help of lorry. The rest of the story is just my friend and I doing sedimentary logging, spent 4 hours straight under the hot sun. I was fully covered and protected from the heat and ray, but in the end I'm still burnt. I guess we can't beat nature.

People in this world are unique, each one of them has a specific characteristic that others don't have. Like someone can do 2 backflips within a single jump, someone can solve rubic cube within a minute or even seconds, or those who can read and memorize everything and remember it for the rest of their life and many more. Like myself, I have the ability of doing absolutely nothing for 15 minutes, nothing to be proud of but you get what I mean. I have a friend who does not let anyone to take picture of himself, neither alone or together. He's scared that someone might post those pictures online and something might take advantage of them, this guy has almost the same thought as I do. But I don't mind someone takes picture of me (if there is), since it just pictures. The worst case will be edited pictures of naked me on the internet.

The best thing about living your life is you have the chance to learn new things. You meet new people, with different thoughts that may sometime useful in the future. Because everything happens for reasons which give lessons. You can take or leave the lessons. So in the end, it's you who decide, nature can only guide you, but the decisions are all yours. I met this guy one day during fieldwork in Sarawak. I was doing the logging, and that time the sky was already as dark as night, and rain could come any minutes. So this guy was stopping by after seeing me sitting, looking, hammering, writing, measuring the rock in front of me. Standard question that all people ask when they see geologists looking at rocks is "looking for gold, are you?". I just smiled and told him that I'm studying this and that. So after answering questions and explaining things and now he knew that I wasn't looking for gold, he looked at the rock for a few second maybe to identify, I don't know. Then, I saw the cloud was darker from before, I thought that the rain could come any seconds, so I decided to end the fieldwork eventhough still plenty works to be done for that particular site. So I talked to this guy "Sir, I think the rain is about to come, better end this fieldwork", but he suddenly he said "Just do the work, it's not gonna rain, be positive, that's the only think you can do now" and then he left.

I don't know what to say, I mean you don't expect that kind of stuff came out from a stranger. Besides, how did he know that the rain was not gonna come soon? But in the end, I continued the fieldwork and after like 15 minutes, it stated raining. Because of that 15 minutes I got things that I would say I almost done with that site, since the rest was just taking pictures, and I did that on the next day.

So this man said, "be positive, that's the only thing you can do now" and it truly came into my mind after that. The power of being positive has seriously save me that day, not from danger, but from time that could actually be wasted. I know that we should always be positive about everything, either good or bad. Coz being positive may change how things react to us. For example you are scolded by your teachers, instead of getting angry or crumpling your face, try to smile. Coz that may change what they have in mind, like let say at first they plan to punish you. Since you show some smiley faces, they may cancel their intention for punishing you, but you'll be sent home and expelled since they thought that you are making fun of them.

Everybody has experienced of fighting, can be physical, mental and by words (arguing or debating). Among all the people I'm working with right now, I mean the RA's and students. We usually do that, but what we are arguing, are usually about opinion of general stuffs. But there is this one woman who likes to threat others after we argue, like punching, kicking tables, flipping chairs. Although it's not serious matter and something that we can laugh about, but when she loses the argument, she'll threaten us. everyone is laughing everytime she does that. So there was this one day when she lost a debate with me and suddenly she flipped my chair. Yes, flipped my chair and I was sitting on it. everyone was shocked, even myself. Then I said "relax girl, relax", everyone laughed. She thought I was going to do something about it since she moved a bit further after did that, but I didn't. Then she asked me "hey gals, have you ever punched someone? you look so soft"

After hearing that question, it triggered my manliness and brought back the old times and reasons why I don't punch people.

So I told everyone this story.

Back in primary school, I was not a good boy as I am today, I liked to fight people who challenged me. The standard reason was football and fight between groups. In one class itself there were more than 4 groups, and they were divided according to their hobbies, like sports or toys. It started with just talking but always ended up fighting, don't know why. I also fought my sister's classmate. She's 3 years older than me. The reason why I fought them, was because they always messed with my sister. You know as a brother you will have this urge feeling of protecting your siblings, especially sisters. So my sister's friend would run to me, told me that my sister is crying because of this guy. Without having so much thought, I searched for that person and normally punched him in the face. I usually ended up losing and crying, but not the baby crying. The manly tears, tears when you wanted to do something so much, but you couldn't since your bodies are beaten up so badly. How couldn't, I was fighting someone at least twice my own size and I was like 7 or 8 years old and my sister's friend were like 10 or 11. But those fight stopped when my sister entered highschool. Since then on, I fought my classmate or someone from other school, but same age.

Until this one day

So when I was in primary 5 during break time, two of my good friends were fighting over something. I don't what it was about, but I just heard that they were shouting at each other and all my friends were already circling and saying "fight, fight, fight" for boys. But girls said "enoough please,just forget it and be friends again"(I seriously don't know how to translate what the girls said, coz it has this Indonesian slang words, but it's something like that). I saw a few friends also tried to separate them both, but seemed to be useless because those guys were pretty angry and they just pushed whoever come in their way. So I ran towards them and I believed this time was my turned to calm them down, but somewhat I was wrong. I stood between them and my hands were holding both of them from punching each other. I told them to relax. That moment was pretty intense because they kept moving towards each other and I might get hit by one them. So after few seconds, the guy in my right hand side was cool down abit, I was relieved for a moment, but my hand was still holding him. Because I'm afraid that he might go on to this guy again. So after seeing him calmed, I turned my face to the guy on the left side.

But suddenly

A lightning fast of a crumpled hand(fist) hit right on my left cheek. I seriously didn't see that coming. In my head I was like "what the heck?why did u punch me instead?" It felt that somehow all veins in my cheek were dislocated, which trigger the true power that has been concealed inside of me and within a split second, I turned super sayian(someone might have seen my hair tuned yellow for a moment). Somehow all blood in my body just rushed into my right hand. I felt this urging desire to release all this confined power that has already accumulated at my fist. Without even looking at him, I directed my punch over his face and it hit on his left cheek(instinct). He flew for like 1 or 2 meters and fell on the ground. I stood still, waited for him to get up and ready for second round.

But, he stayed down on the ground. Not moving.

I waited for like 10 seconds but he was still laying down on the floor. Then I came closer and calling his name, but he didn't respond. I got closer to him, shook his body but nothing. This was the time when my sense got back and I turned normal straight away. Everyone was panicking. Then I shook again but nothing happened. Then I asked everyone to lift him to the back chair. Because the chair at the back of the class was like a long bench, so we laid him there. Everyone tried to wake him up by sprinkling water, little slaps to his face and calling his name. I stood still, faced him and wondered how did that even happen.

Everything was so fast. The time he punched me then I punched him back was probably less than 2 seconds. I looked at my hand, asking what kind of demonic power was that? I seriously thought I killed him. I've already thought what kind of life would I have if I did kill him. The prison that I'd go, how I'd be treated inside that, what my future would be. Everything.

But after I don't know how long, he started to move. That was one of the times when I felt so relieve. I was that close to be a murderer. Then I appologized to him immediately, but something unexpected happened.

Me: Hey, are you okay? I'm truly sorry for that.

Him: Huh? What happened? *rubbing his left cheeck

Me: What? you don't remember anything?

Him: Nope, What happened?

I heard everyone at the back said "don't tell him anything"

Me: Nothing, you stumbled and hit the table.

Him: oh,, okay..

After that everyone pretended nothing has ever happened. Everything went back to normal. We've never talked about it ever again. Thank god, he didn't remember anything about the fight and punch, otherwise it would be me and him having a second round. Hopefully he wont suddenly appear infront of me, when the elevator's door opens saying "You've been expected, pay back time". It'll be super weird. Seeing your old pal, standing infront of you, looking so tough and is prepared to beat your as* down. But probably this time, it'll be me who forget about the past. From that incident, I realize that I have the ability to make someone forget about the past. So for those who wants to forget something from the past, just let me know, I'll be happy to help. But the result is not guaranteed.

Funny sayings"Wise people will learn from other people's mistakes, good people will make mistakes for the others to learn"

THE MUSING

2014-08-28T08:00:00.001-07:00

It has been such a long time since my last post, the last time I logged-in was just clicking the word publish since I've got nothing to write no more.

The 5 days break to my home country was great, I could see things that I've been missing for two years, which is everything, especially foods. I stayed in my grandparent's house anyway coz closer from the airport. The first day was already awesome, I woke up around 5.30 a.m. and went out for a walk. The first thing I sensed was the morning breeze. It wasn't cold or anything, but the air was a very typical of Indonesian's air(not all places). How fresh the air was and the good people were. You don't really find any countries in the world which the people burn garbages early in the morning don't you? Well, here you will see it almost everyday and also it was the first time after two years, I saw chickens running around. I could only smile that time realizing that things didn't change except the people. Coz, there were new faces I saw during that morning stroll. I visited my relatives and the last time I remembered I was one of the tallest, but now is the opposite. Didn't get a chance to see ex-school mates due to the short visit and besides the day I got there I was sick since I just got back from fieldwork and seemed that my body could not too take much jet lag.

After back to my normal human life, tons of works are waiting. I need to proceed with data that I've been collected from the last fieldwork. Besides my supervisor wanted to see my progress two weeks after my come back from Sarawak. So the 5 days holiday I did not really spend it peacefully since my mind was dominated by works and lots of works but it was great anyway.

Just finished the fasting month, took a one week break and still processing the data as usual. Nothing much happened in the last two months, except that as a Research assistant I need to clock in and out at a given time. I mean last time we didn't have this rule, but because there were several people that never come to department or when needed, so the head of department decided to make this rule. But to be honest, this rule may sometimes be a problem for RA geology, coz our supervisor may suddenly ask us to go for one or two days fieldwork unexpectedly. I mean they might just send a message like 3 days or a week to inform us, meanwhile we need to make a leave report to be excused for the clock in and out at least two weeks and the leave report sometimes got delayed or wont be approved if the reason is not good enough.

Had a little reunion with my high-school friends. I realized that I am no longer young, handsome and cool(I was not either). Some of us have grown some mustaches and beards, same goes with me. There was this one friend, used to be one of my gang has already married, and brought his wife as well and soon he will become a father. Time flew just so fast even my little brother is now as tall my mom and probably soon will be taller than me.

I'm probably the only guy who's checking my own blog and read the whole posts since the beginning of time. It's weird to think of but I did this not because I want to, but because I was forced to, by my own curiosity of what happened in the past. Besides, it somehow has given me the ~~mood~~ will to live. So this one day I've got absolutely nothing to do, other than sleeping and eating, coz I was in my lazy day. Lazy day is the day where my body is in no condition to do anything, due to the lack of inspiration, motivation, passion and constipation. It somehow happens once in a while and sudden. No symptoms for this so it is inevitable. Those who have seen me in this condition will thought that I'm arrogant or something, but the truth is I am, but only that day. I mean it is not that I'm arrogant, I might look like it, but it just the appearance because I'm simply too lazy to do and to pay attention on something and the cure is just a very good nap. After that everything will be as good as always.

So one time during this lazy day, I just laid down on my bed, with my guitar, singing "unchained melody". But because I didn't remember the whole lyrics, I googled it. Then suddenly, I just had this idea to read my blog, but at first I didn't plan to read everything, just the last post. But somehow I clicked "older post" everytime I've finished each page and in the end, I ended up reading everything. So I read through every post, word by word, sentence by sentence and realized what kind of a person I was. I still could not believe myself I wrote all of them. I was like "what was going on in my mind, when I wrote those?" To be honest I feel stupid and shame reading my own writings since they lack in almost every aspect. But on the bright side, I could see almost every decision that I've made, steps that I've taken and things that I've lost and gained. It somehow recalls everything from the past and I'm glad I'm writing here, share stuffs that wont be read by anyone, except a few friends, maybe.

Nowadays, the news about palestine has brought sympathy over the world. I don't usually talk about this, I mean I'm at my limit where I should just spit everything out. It is somehow painful, to see things, hear things, but can't do anything about it. I know everyone has sent prayers, donation, boycott US products and any kind of help. But still, so far, there is no significant result, infact it is worst than before. My friend told me rather than boycotting all the products, it is most effective to just reduce the price of diamond. Why is that? He simply said that Israel is small country, they wont have enough space to store all the cash, so they store the money in the form of thing that is simple but expensive, which is diamond. it might effect those whose own diamond, but the value of thing does not depend on the price, but how useful it is instead, my opinion anyway. Let say I'm given two choices to choose one car, MPV and Ferrari. I know that I'm living with my family and have friends that probably will go somewhere for holidays. As we know that MPV have more seats than the Ferrari and less gas consumption. We do not need to worry about the MPV's spare parts and get scratches, since the price to fix them is considerably cheaper compare to Ferarri's. So in the end, I will go for the Ferrari. Coz I can sell it, and from that I can get MPV and probably can buy a house with the rest of the money.*think

Recently, I just finished my 8 days fieldwork to help my friend for his project. By the way, it was my RA work. We off from department around 8 a.m in the morning and reached the hotel at 11 p.m., because we had to stop at several outcrops. I haven't even fully recovered from the darkness that I've gotten 2 weeks in Sarawak and need to be burned again. But that's what I'm being paid for. I tried to help as much as I could in this fieldwork, despite little knowledge that I have since it's not the field I'm interested in.

Another great experience happened in the history of my fieldwork. Guess what? We spent 1 day on "perhentian island". Yup it was only one day, but that was actually a great reward after fieldwork for 6 days. For the first time I tried snorkeling for like 2 hours. Didn't take photo for that coz I was too excited after more than 10 months of no swimming. I was thrilled and scared when the boat guy told us too jump. I did not realise that the spot that we've stopped was the snorkeling site. It was not in the middle of the ocean but it was pretty deep and besides, my body and skills are not as good as they were. I was once skinny but everything has changed in the last one year. Therefore shit needs to be done and someone has to do it. So I just man-up and stood on the edge of the deck for a couple of seconds, looked at the vast of the sea, looked up and saw the bright shiny sun, looked at my friends faces standing behind me waiting for their turn to jump as as they were saying "just jump off you b*tch", thought about what my life has been, money that I've borrowed, people that I love and care. So I put on the goggle, took a deep breath, and in my head I was like "I can do this, yolo", then jumped into the sea.

That was the first time I saw the deep blue sea with my own eyes. It was just such an amazing view to see things I haven't discovered yet. Then after a few seconds, I realised that I was out breath. I swam upwards as fast as I could and this was when I know how different it is to swim in the pool and in the sea. In the pool you don't get what people say waves, so once your head is out of the water for air, you can simply breath in. But in the sea is different. You have waves that are keep coming and in order to breath in that kind of condition you need to be calmed and that time I was not calmed. Coz it was my first time, so I just kept paddling up as much as I could just to get my head out of the water. Then shit happened, I somehow hit my goggle and it tilted. So when the waves hit my face, the water went in and reaction occured between the water and my eyes, and I could not see a thing since then. I panicked but then I remembered what a wise man had said "keep calm and cool". So then, I tried to be as calmed as possible, remained still for like 20 seconds, and a flash back started to appear, somehow I know that the time was near for me. Then I remembered about my family and thesis.

Without hesitation and stay cool, I've got my head out of the water, took off my goggle, and swam all the way to where the boat was while trying to keep my head out of the water. The boat was probably 10 meters away, and it took probably 1 minute to get there. Last time I could swim 10 meters in probably 2-3 seconds, but there, I could not even get one meter in 3 seconds. So I was like a retard trying to paddle nothing. Luckily I made it. After that, I fixed the position of the goggle make sure everything was fine and yolo again to the water.

These are some photos from the field work and island, not nice pictures, but are the best I could find. I found them really interesting in many ways. Btw some pictures are from my friend's camera, coz both my phone and camera were already dead by the time ~~photo session started~~ we finished with the fieldwork, so credit for him.

This is probably one of the best photo I've ever taken with my phone. It's not that the view is good or anything, but somehow the photo pictures the exact view from what I've seen with my own eyes.

Same goes with this photo.

I don't know what I was doing here with my friend. I was laughing seeing this, seems like we were trying to do some childish stuff. I remembered we did some stupid things, but in other places.

Three geologists from different field of interest. I don't usually wear sunglasses, but when I do, I look like that. Btw I'm the chubby guy at the back T,T.

This photo was chosen not because it's good, but because it has less mature content compared to the other, except the naked guy at the back.

Just a panorama photo of a beach. Before it covered by human bodies.

Sunset? Nope, It was actually in the morning.

I Just realised that a few days back was the independence day of my country. Well, don't blame me for not saying anything, since I'm living in someone else's country, besides I was on my fieldwork and all I could think of was getting back home as white as possible, but failed by the time I went for snorkeling.

You don't meet wise people everyday, they are like all heroes, come at the right time, right place, right moment. Don't expect someone dumb to be dumb and someone smart to be smart. In the end, don't simply judge people. We all have pros and cons within ourselves and we have everyone to complete our own puzzle, which eventually is everyone's puzzle. I was once talking to my friends during the fieldwork regarding culture and stuffs. We were just wondering how did all cultures come from? So, after a very intense discussion that took probably the entire time for everyone to get into the car for the fieldwork(5 seconds), we came out with a very logic, agreeable, simple and probably the answer everyone has has been waiting for. The answer was easy. It came from us/ancestor. We created the culture, which originally from habit that were passed throughout a tribe, race or nation. Then another question arise. Why do some cultures bad and good? Like some african countries, they have the tradition to whip their bodies for a particular ceremony for example, or fight with each other for a woman. Well, I would say that it is perspective. We would say it's bad but for them it might be good. But good and bad are two different things. They are like water and oil, which will not mix. We can recognize them with our sense, mind and intellect. If we can differentiate them why would they keep doing it if it's bad? It comes from our mindset.

Originally and naturally, human was born with clear mind. Means that they don't know good and bad, but somehow they know what to do. by following their instinct. If you don't believe me, look at all the children under 5 years old. As time passes by, they get more knowledge and information from surrounding, and take those into their mind which eventually become their principle of life or mindset, which is expressed in the form of actions. Meaning, if what they have taken are good, they will become good, otherwise, it is the opposite. If they have reached the age of an adult, it's usually difficult to change, but still possible with certain events such us tragic life experience or advice from someone who can really understand and talk to them.

So, what kind of culture do we all have now? Well, it is us to decide the type of "habit" that we are going to inherit to our children. Each of us has different mindset, good or bad, both can be changed. But one thing have to be remembered, that what we carry today will be brought to our kids. So in the future, don't just blame your kids about everything that your kids do. Coz it's all are reflection of what we did in the past. Don't expect them to be obedient if you were not. Look at yourself now and see whether you want your kids to be the same as you or not.

Funny saying "Love is the strongest force, unless you are a jedi"

THOUSANDS OF WORDS (LITERALLY)

2014-06-15T09:11:00.000-07:00

I should have known it earlier........

You don't plan shit to happen in your life, coz it comes at the right and perfect time. So it happened the day I went to search for dinosaur fossils. I woke up earlier than normal that day, around 5.30 a.m and took shower immediately, otherwise I will sleep again. The night before I've already picked the right cloths and pants for this fieldwork. So after shower, I immediately put everything on. I took my breakfast and went off around 6.45 a.m. coz I needed to gather at department around 8 a.m. So as usual I took a train and from my station to the university station takes about 30 minutes.

I stood at the platform waiting for the train for a minute and it arrived. I was a bit shocked knowing that it was already that crowded even at that hour, so I entered the train with a little bit of pushing and goring. Then I realised something, this condition has brought back the memory from my highschool. Because that time, I always went around this hour but last time it was not as packed as today. I mean it usually started to get crowded at 7 a.m. So means that I did not get any seats and had to stand, but because I was near the door, I just leaned against it.

At the 4th station (if I'm not mistaken) a lot of people came in, but from the opposite door. So basically the train has either 2 or 4 coaches, and each coach has 6 doors, 3 doors on each side of the train. So the door will open depending on where the platform is at, either left or right. So People came in like flood, they just pushed everyone to the side to create more spaces, some use their elbows, some use their back side of the body and some use human's fragrance. I don't know why some do that. I mean, most of the people who do that are the tall people. So when they enter the train, they just simply put they hands up on the air, and release the aroma like nothing matter. For those who are as level as their armpit, getting to that train will be one of the worst experience you will ever had in your own entire life, other than failing kindergarten. Because I had one experience and at the end I went out from that train and waited for another at the next station.

So people just rushed into the train, but because I was at the opposite door, it did no really affect me, since I was already at the corner of corner. After the door was closed everyone started to position themselves in the most comfortable way and at the end I was ended up standing infront of a guy and two women. A guy and a woman were facing me and the other woman were facing the other way. So I was reading a book that time and after a few minutes, I realised that the man and woman were repeatedly glancing at me. Somehow I caught them in action, and just I smiled back at them. Then when they were about to got off from the train, they glanced at me again and looked down like they knew that I was looking at them so they pretended to look the other way. And again I smiled back.

I arrived at the university station and immediately ran to the bus stop, since I saw from the train that the bus was already taking passenger. I queued in the line and when I bought the ticket and walked in the bus corridor, people were looking at me the way the man and woman from the train did. So in my head I was like "what did I do yesterday?" and thought that it probably just my imagination that people are starting to get attracted to me coz I did nothing special last week. Then I arrived at the library bus stop and directly run to my department since I arrived at almost 8 a.m. I checked my supervisor's car and he was not there and saw my friend who are coming along with me waiting. So I put my bag beside her and went to the toilet coz I need to do some little business.

Reminder, what you are about to read contains mature and 18+++ story, you are advised to not to read it, loudly. readers take full responsibilities for any side effects caused by the story, such us cancer, blindness and being friendzoned might be experienced by the readers(writer). Batteries not included.

So I got into the toilet, positioned my self infront of the toilet bowl, put the zip down and pissed like normal(doggy style). Finished everything, put the zip up, washed my hand, looked at the mirror for a while to check my face, cloths, teeth, nose and pants. I saw my zip was still opened, I remembered zipping it up but why did it still open? So I put my washed and cleaned hand and looked for the zip's handler(you know the thing you pull to close/open your zip). So basically, if your zip is already closed, the handler will be at the top, right? and when it is opened, the handler will be at the bottom. But, in my case when I checked with my cleaned and washed hand, the zip was open, and the handler was already at the top. So what I did was I pulled it down and pulled it up. But, it was still opened. I repeated the same thing for like 5 to 6 times but still opened.

So I was like "what the heck is this??? Wait a minute.."

In 0,00000000000000000049999116 kiloseconds, all mysteries that have been playing in my mind, the reason why people were suddenly attracted to me, the reason why the man and woman in the train were repeatedly glancing and looking down were finally answered.

I did not know how far they have seen "thing". All I can say is they are all good people, what they were trying to do was to save humanity from blindness. But I was too arrogant and let my dirty mind to think what I should have not thought, and I should have known it earlier before going for that fieldwork, coz I ended up going with that zip opened.

Well, I'm done with my 15 days of fieldwork, everything did not really go well, since most of the outcrops that need to be logged are badly weathered, so the only alternative is I need to look for another outcrops outside the planned area and probably needs more time to finish.

But here are some absurd experiences that happened during those 15 days and some have brought a certain trauma. I don't even know why it happened to me, but I know there is a reason. Description that I'm about to write is based on fact from what I sensed.

The first and second day I stayed in a guest house kind of thing, because we needed to save money so we took the cheapest place. I didn't expect much from it, the room was 3X3 meters room and inside there were two single beds and one drawer. It wasn't good for staying in the room because too small, but enough just for rest. So around like 10 p.m. I finished shower and everything and ready for sleep. I laid down for like 30 minutes I guess, and when my eyes were finally reached their limit a couple went inside room beside mine. So this place which I stayed was like a building and divided into 3X3 rooms and between each room, there is only 3 cm thick of board. The worst thing was I can hear everything on the other side.

So after this couple went in the room, they had a little chat around like 5 minutes. I did not know what they were talking about since they talked in different dialect than the usual malay. Then after that, there was moment of silent for like a minute or two. Then a weird noise started and kissing sounds begun.

Then I was like "What the heck is that noise? no, no, no. It can't be happening" But yes it happened.

It lasted for like 10-15 minutes, with all the sound from that couple and bed. I tried to look for a hole in the wall but luck was not in my side.

The second day, still in the same hotel, I read some papers just to get me sleepy. It was a very quite and peaceful night, a perfect night to be surrounded by the loved ones not alone in a narrow room with one bed empty in double-single-bedded room. After like half an hour, I heard someone went inside the room, besides mine again. Then, for I don't know how long someone went inside the same room as the previous person went and after that, I heard "bduakkkkkk". Sounded like someone just did moonsault or something. Then after exactly 2 minutes, they played a video(because I could clearly hear that it wasn't not come from human and it was quite loud) and it turned out to be a blue video. How do I know?

Well, back in the high school, I have a friend that brought a very high-tech handphone, which could play video, and that time I haven't had my first phone. So one day this guy went to the toilet with his table-mate. After 10 minutes, they haven't come back and somehow I had the urge to pee. That time, we had this rule that only two people can go to the toilet at one time, so what I did was I waited until the teacher's not looking. Luckily, the teacher went outside to the office and I just run like crazy to the toilet. When I went inside, I saw these my friends were standing at the corner and watching something. I ignored them at first because I had more important thing to do. So after I done with my business and about to wash my hands, one of them called me showed me that video and it was a blue film. So simply said, I stayed and watched for like two minutes and then left, coz I pitied the girl who seemed to be suffered of what that man did to her.

So the video in that room beside mine, produced the same kind of noise as the noise from the video my friend showed me 8 years ago. I didn't know how long I heard that thing, because I felt a sleep while the sound was still going.

Many people in Sarawak love to park their cars like douchebag. The way they park their vehicles like they own that car park. I remembered one time when I was about to leave the hotel, there was this car parked like an idiot, I mean the driver. He purposely took two slots where there were a few other cars looking for parking slot. I wonder how did they get the driving license. They also like to pee at the side of the road like a boss. There were several times I saw like 5 cars stopped at the side of the road. I thought there was an accident or something and it turned out people peeing. In my head It feels like one of them was shouting "hey guys I found a good spot here, let's pee together" and everybody stopped and peed together. It seems like Africa, where toilets are everywhere.

I drove probably around 200 km at Sarawak without license, coz last time my friend was tired and there was no other choice since we needed to move on to the next location. The result of my lousy driving, I got one horn and one middle finger. Because last time I was really really really behind a truck carrying huge logs and I was behind it for like 5 minutes. So when I saw an opportunity, that there was no car on the opposite direction, I simply on my signal light and glimpsed at my side mirror just to make sure nothing was coming from behind. Then suddenly when I tried to cut the truck and exactly side by side with the truck, a laud horn just sounded behind me. I panicked and slowed down my car and tried to get closer to the truck's side, probably 20 cm to the truck's back tire and it was a white niss*n car cut and horned non-stop. I think he was cutting all the way back from I don't know how many cars, that's why I did not see it when I glimpsed at my side mirror. I mean I played CTR, Chocobo Racing, drivers 2, GTA 2 and 3, far cry 3, borderland 2, Battlefield 2 and many others cars game, so I know how to handle that situation in the most possible and suitable way and yes I survived that. After that, the niss*n passed my car, I followed him and then he slowed down, opened his window and showed his majestic middle finger. I was like "Really? Is that necessary?" I know that it was my fault, but we all survived, no one was injured and bird are still chirping. I guess I made a terrible mistake back then, well it's a lesson for me.

The final day of the fieldwork was the most memorable day in the history of my fieldwork. It is one of the most absurd things that have ever happened in my life and I should probably bring a high quality camera or video recorder next time(joking). So in the last day, I stayed in a hotel in a small town. This town is like the life support for local and native people. Because here I could see people coming from village by small trucks or vans just to get food supply and furniture. So early in the morning around 7 a.m., I had my breakfast in the restaurant just infront of the hotel. So while I was eating, I observed the surrounding, saw kids running, old people smoking and chatting, workers were preparing for I don't know what, stores were opening and dogs were strolling around. Then I noticed that there were several hotel's windows at the first floor were opened, because I was sitting and facing the hotel and could clearly see what was inside the room eventhough only top half of it.

Inside that room I saw 2 kids were playing, running around and looking out from the window. Then a woman suddenly appeared, wearing a cloth wrapped to her body, and looking out the window and talking to the kids. Everything seemed normal until the two men appeared behind her. One guy stood and the other one just laid on the bed. I don't know what they were talking but I saw them laughing. Suddenly the woman laughed, approached the guy who was laying on the bed and took off her cloth. Then another women appeared, wrapped in cloth and stood nearby the window. Without any sign or anything, that woman changed her cloth right nearby the window like no one can see her. I was like "What the heck?? Is it really happening?" Have you ever seen something that made you stunned and speechless? Well, that was the moment for me. I could not move myself, not even blink while seeing it. Billion of questions were in my head, asking for a logical answers for that behaviour. I mean there were kids, and a guy who were right there in that very room and those women simply did that? Really?

Then I remembered that there are several tribes in my country do the same as them. Some don't even wear anything. So the one that I saw was probably still have a little bit of their old behaviour or culture.

During those 15 days in Sarawak, I have only two pictures that I can't even describe in words, either it's too beautiful or complicated. BTW, these pictures were taken by my friend.

The first time I saw the outcrop above I was like "When is my master going to end? What in the world is this?". Coz based on my supervisor, normal outcrop takes about 3 days to complete. But this one is abnormal, albino, mutation of outcrop, so not sure how long.

The picture above was taken by the time I just finished the fieldwork in my friend's area. So by chance, we saw beach on the way to the hotel and luckily, we found the way to get there. I wanted to add some words in the picture but too lazy to edit. But somewhat I want to say. "Somehow, I know that I'm facing the direction of where you are now"

Well, after stranded for more than 2 years, I am finally able to go back to my home country on 16th june. Even for only a week, but that's good enough. We'll see what's gonna happen there.

Funny saying "What comes easy will go easy, except fat"

REALIZATION

2014-05-17T08:23:00.002-07:00

Recently, I was informed by my supervisor that he is going to look for dinosaur fossil, since there was a recent discovery in Malaysia by one of my lecturers from japan, and it was the first dinosaur fossils ever found in Malaysia eventhough just a tooth. So my co-worker and I are invited to accompany him, and hopefully we can find new fossils but the whole skeleton of dinosaur not just a tooth or claw.

Most of the international people I met in my life could not recognize my originality, nationality or even my race correctly at first. Recently, while I was jogging in the park, I saw a bunch of people doing some aerobic exercises. It looked so interesting so I joined that group. After like 10 minutes of exercise, a Chinese lady approached me. She was one of the organizing committee members and asked my name, age, phone and stuff for record. Then she asked me where I came from, so I replied Indonesia. Then she looked at me like I am a ghost or something. She did not believe that, and thought that I'm a Chinese. I mean I don't think there is even a bit of chinese's characteristic shown in my face, besides I'm dark which is the opposite of chinese, and it was not the first time I got such an impression and trust me there are more. I don't really understand why, I mean I thought it is obvious that I look like an Indonesian. But why do they still get it wrong? Do they really see me as hybrid of mixed from several different races or something? These are several incidents and conversation that I can recall and all happened in my university life.

1st year

I was walking back from English presentation class and out of nowhere a black guy appeared, I think he is from Nigeria because of his accent. Then a little conversation happened.

Nigerian: Excuse me, Do you know the way to ISC?
Me: yeah sure, just go straight, cross the road and bla bla bla.
Nigerian: oh ok, Thank you very much. Are you chinese?
Me: what? me? nope. I'm Indonesian.
Nigerian: Really? you look like chinese to me. anyway, thanks for the direction.

2nd year

There was an event for international students at my university and I attended because one of my friend was performing. I met a lot of new students both full-timed and exchanged. So there was this guy, from either Uzbekiztan or Kirgiztan(I don't remember exactly his origin and how to spell it) said hello to me. He introduced himself so did I. Then he was shocked knowing that I'm from Indonesia, because he thought that I'm a japanese. Inside I was like flying without wings, it is better than someone said that I'm genius or awesome. Well, to be honest my race is javanese, it's close to japanese, just replace the "v" with "p", so I guess that explains everything.

During the journey back to the university from my last second year fieldwork, we stopped at a stall selling sweet corn. So while I was eating and talking with friends, one of the lecturers joined and had conversation with us all. Then, there was one topic where we talked about how different we see rocks before and after studying geology. So during my turn to talk, I told something that revealed my origin to this lecturer. Everyone knew where I came from except this lecturer. Then he surprised after heard my story and he told me that he thought I came from nepal(really?), everybody laughed and I've never seen them again.

3rd and final year

One day around 8 p.m., I was starving like I haven't eaten for few days, so I sent text-message to my girl-friends(friends which are girls) and asked whether they already had dinner, because my room-mate has already gone with his gang and my gang had already moved out from the dorm. Then the girls said meet them in 10 minutes coz they need to get ready. So because I'm a guy, I did not need much time for that, just put my cloths on and ready for anything. I got out the room and went to a small hall. It was not actually a hall, just a place where there are roof and chairs just to hang out. So I took a seat, played a game in my phone and out of nowhere, beyond my imagination a chinese girl appeared in front of me. I didn't see her coming, it just that suddenly there were feet in front of me. So I raised my head because I was looking at the phone, and looked at her. She started talking whether in cantonese, hokkien or mandarin I don't know. So I replied "What?". Then she talked again in her language, so I told her that I don't speak chinese. She was shocked, looked like she disbelieved what I just said, so she said sorry and ran off.

My last semester was the toughest semester in the history of all semesters. Everyday after 5 p.m. I needed to go to the workstation to do interpretation on data that have been given to me and the result was 7500 km square map. Sometimes I went back to the dorm around 12 a.m. and the worst was 2 a.m. and it happened for 3 and a half months. So there was one day, when my eyes could not take it anymore, because I worked on computer, besides my works had lots of bright colour lines. So that day, all my classes finished until 3 p.m. I decided to go to take one day off and went to library to do some reading, comic reading. Then after approximately 2 hours I got bored and decided to go back. Then before I exited the library, a group of chinese (3 people) approached and one of them touched my shoulder, and a little conversation happened. I call them 1C, 2C and 3C.

Me: yes?
1C: bla bla bla bla bla *speaking in their language
Me: what? *confused face
2C: Bla bla bla bla bla *speaking in their language with serious tone
Me: Hah? * with my wth face
3C: Bla bla bla bla bla *speaking in their language with a bit angry tone
Me: What? I'm sorry I don't speak chinese. English please.
1C,2C,3C: oooooooo, I thought you chinese, you look like chinese. very sorry. *of course they did not say that together but that's what I heard.

The same day which I went for jog and accused as a chinese by a lady, she told me what she thought is a good way to lose some fat or body weight. She said drink alot of plain water. She said, before she did that she had severe migraine and she used to be fat(I don't know how fat). She thought that it was because she has never exercised, so she decided to do routine exercise, 3 times a week, each in 30 minutes. But she still had the migraine so she went to a certain programe where was taught some basic exercises and foods that are and are not to be consumed. So after talking to her for like 10 minutes, she concluded that drinking a lot of plain water helps to increase the loss of fat in the body during exercise. Because the more you drink, the more you sweat or excrete and those processes carry fat along with them. eventhough not so much, but better than drink less.

Finally after waited for almost 8.467.200 seconds, I'm now officially a postgraduate student plus a research assistant. Ofcourse there were troubles along the way to reach this level, including crossing the road, walked for over 1 km, went for 30 days fieldwork and gained some weight after that. Yup I've gained some weight. I knew this after went back from medical check-up on tuesday 6th. It seemed that those 30 days field work did not really do anything to my body while I was expecting to lose some weight. Well, s**t happens. At first I was not sure how and where did I get those fat from. I mean I did some little exercise each day after the fieldwork. But now, I think it was because I drank I lot of water ever since the lady told me that water is good to lose some weight. Because after she told me that, within that day itself, I probably drank 4 liters of water(no joking), coz I bought this 9.5 liters mineral water and finished it within 2 days. So basically if I count it correctly, 1 liter equals to 1 kg and I use 20%(I don't know how I got this number) as percentage of water retained by the body within a day since we are composed of mostly water. So based on nothing, I have invented two formulae. Therefore my actual body weight in the day of my medical check up was:

Actual body weight = Current weight - 20/100(amount of water consumed within a day X day elapsed since I talked to the lady before medical check up) *if you drink same amount of water daily.

or

Actual body weight = Current weight - 20/100(sum of water consumed) *if you drink different amount of water daily.

So if my calculation is right, I should be smiling now. I will call it the "non-sense equation". Limitation of these formulae are they can only be applied at maximum 5 days after water consumption to the day you weigh your weight and only applicable for water not food. But I wont dare to try with food since it is harder to be expelled from the body compared to water.

What is the most expensive thing a person can have?

"A MASK"

Why is that?

A Mask I mentioned here is not a mask which you wear during halloween or dance, but a mask which we use to impress people, to show them that we are as level or higher. Why is it the most expensive? Because you tend to use everything you got to get it, despite the price that may even make you suffer to get it, just for people's sake. For me it just does not make any sense. You suffer to impress people, which will only last for maybe 1 week at most and after that everything goes back to normal. I used to have this one friend, who bought RM 200 Z**A plain-thin-shirt, plus two buttons. While I can probably get the same shirt with different brand for RM 15-30. So with RM 200 I can get at least 6 to 7 plain shirts with maybe a bit low in quality but I would say it is better than buying a RM 200 shirt. Buying it, is one thing, but taking care of it, is another thing. I mean we expect expensive stuff are more durable or harder to break or destroyed compared to cheap ones. But here, we are the one who need to take care of it, unless you can swim in money than it's different story.

What I'm trying to say here is spend the money wisely. People are mature enough to differentiate "needs" or "wants". If you have problems fulfilling your needs then don't think about getting what you want, coz it will just make the condition worst. You may do something stupid like steal or borrow from someone just for the thing that does not even gonna improve or bring advantages to you. You don't need expensive stuff to get attention, the best way is I think to be different than the others, but in a good way. I have a friend travelling around the world not because he is rich, but because he's different than others. yes he's talented, but everyone is talented, but in different way. Make the most of your talent, don't just sitting in front of computer like me. Well, at least I'm learning to ~~type~~write. yes, grammar mistakes everywhere, but who cares?(except my high school's english teacher) as long as my points are delivered, then it's good enough. You don't know what you are capable of until you do, not try. Because try is half-hearted. Well, it is all my opinion anyway, just ignore it.

So I have a week more left before off to sarawak for the real thing. Hopefully, I can find good outcrops and sufficient for my paper, otherwise I will have to go again next year, since I'm planning to go finish all my fieldwork this year.

Funny sayings "Everyone is born as creators, but most are creating problems"

THE CYCLE

2014-04-28T08:13:00.001-07:00

This year will be the dark age in the history of my life. First of all, people relate dark age with tragic events that have brought sorrow through out the world, events that are not to be remembered, times when there are no lights or even times where crucial events are deleted from history. Well, the dark age here has a very straight forward meaning I can say.

DARK AGE here means the time when I'm completely physically dark. But why only this year? I wish It is only this year. Because I want to settle all field works before the new year, so I'll be going for maybe around 15 days field work on May, August, October and probably December if I don't have enough data. So during those 15 days on each of those months, I'll be dating with rocks and try to get to know them better. Not just that, I have several other field works between them, probably a week or two, depending on how much data my supervisor needs. So yeah, this year is going to be LEGEND........wait for it(I need to finish my food)....DARY. LEGENDARY!!!

Recently I just had a little conversation with friends from the past. The last time I saw them was after the primary school's exams. It was good to get in touch with them again after all these years, but there is one question that truly bothers me. First of all, it is not that I hate them when they ask me this question, but I think they should at least heard about it. Not completely clueless, since most of them are already working they should know about it and besides, it is an old thing, it is not something new. It bothers me when they ask

"What is geology"

Because after they asked that, they wanted a proper explanation, so I gave them as simple as brief as possible. But, they wanted more, so then I just gave them the wikipedia answers, since that's gonna be the best explanation and hope they understand. If they don't, the whole conversation will be me telling what geology is. To make everything clear, Geology is not the same as Geography. But there is a good thing behind that, I now have something to write here since I have no clue at all after the Sarawak's fieldwork.

So it has come to this

WHAT IS GEOLOGY??

Simply said, it is the study physical and substance of earth or to be more specific it is the study of rocks and what's inside them. This study will give you a story of how a rock is formed and what are the processes associated with it. within a rock there are minerals, minerals are like cells in human, animals and plants. The combination of minerals create a rock. They're formed at specific condition. so rock is defined by its mineral composition. Three main types of rocks are igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks. Igneous rocks come from the crystallization of magma both inside and outside the earth surface. Sedimentary rocks are formed from the eroded or weathered (physically or chemically) igneous rocks, animals and plant remnants, are deposited at certain environment and then lithified. Metamorphic rocks are formed from sedimentary rocks that are buried deep enough for the grains to recrystallize due to heat and pressure. I don't want to go further coz it will take forever once I go into one topic and yeah that's what I think geology is in general.

We as geologists do not scare of anything, we are designed to overcome almost everything and can survive in the worst condition imaginable. Thus, that make one of the toughest people in the world other than polices, athletes, wrestlers, soldiers, martial art masters and Chuck Norris. Earth is our home and we are free to explore them, unless mining sites or highways, we need to get permission to stop there. True geologist must not afraid of height, because sometimes we need to reach out a certain height due to the present of outcrops. When we see an outcrop let say about 15 meters height, and the outcrop has inclination of 45-70 degrees, we can reach that effortless. Somehow we have spider-man DNA in our bodies, which enables us to climb more than average human being. If you are walking with geologists in a fieldwork and they find an interesting outcrop, they will run towards it, if not at least they will fast-walked. If it is high from the ground with inclined surface as I've mentioned before, they will get there before you know it. You blink for 2 seconds and they're already up there, but since we are also human beings, getting down is sometimes a little bit problems.

Since everything is about rocks, we have some tools that every geologist should bring to deal with rocks in the field others than pens, pencils, erasers and books or papers. There are also tools for the lab's works, but I wont mention it here since I don't really know some of their names and besides certain tools are only used for certain branches of geology.

This is the famous geology hammer. This hammer is not sold in any general hardware stores. Because until today I still haven't found any which means that I still do not have my own hammer. We need to order online to get it and this hammer is quite expensive. Like in a game, it is a must have tool. Because this hammer is stronger than normal hammer. The handle and the part-where-you-use-to-hit are one component made from steel, otherwise it will break easily when you are dealing with rocks. Because last time during my last field work, we were required to take some rock samples for the lab's work. So we saw one good sample laying freely like waiting for us to beat it. So my friend used a sledge hammer(not sure about the spelling) to break that rock and it was granite(igneous). After hitting for 2 minutes the hammer broke, so we take another sledge hammer from the van and the same thing happened. So we only had one more sledge hammer left. My friend did the hitting for like 1 minute. Then he seemed to be pretty exhausted and finally with all his strength, with a single blow, he hit the rock so hard and finally, it broke. I mean the hammer broke, so the rock won the battle and we didn't get the sample. Then the professor from utrech used a geology hammer, three hits on other granite in the same area and GG. The hammer won. Not sure it was the professor's luck or my friend didn't really hit at the right spot perfectly. *true story

This is the geology hand-lens. It is used to see mineral composition in the rocks as well as to check grain size in sedimentary rocks if you can't figure it out by touching. The way to use it is place the lens as close as possible to your eye and place the rocks around 5 mm from the lens.

This one is the geology compass. Other than to show you which is north and south this can also be used to take measurements of the rock's orientation, like strike and dip of a bed rock, displacement of rocks by measuring striation on the fault plane or direction of palaeo-current in sedimentary rocks and there are many others. There is a little mirror placed inside the compass. I don't know if there are any others but based on my experience the mirror can be used to locate your exact position in a map during fieldwork and since some of us are women, it can be used for a quick make up just in case they see someone attractive.

This is HCL (hydrochloric acid) but not so concentrated. Why do geologists need acid? Well, rocks are formed from different types of material, like what I have mentioned before rocks can also be formed from remnants of dead animals (bones or hardparts) physically or chemically. Mostly sea creatures that have alot of hard parts, like shells and fish's teeth. So the accumulation can form a rock which is called carbonate rock. This carbonate rock will react with acid and it can only be formed at certain environment. So two rocks might look a like but the composition might not be the same, which mean that the place where they were formed was different. So the acid gives other information about the rock. Besides that If your eyes are red due to irritation caused by dust or whatever, you can put a few drops to make it clear. I mean white clear and you will probably blind after that. *not recommended and don't ever try.

Water rationing has been happening in the place I live due to the severe drought season that has been going on since February. Because of this, forest-fire were everywhere due to high intensity of the sun. During my last fieldwork when I was about to identify the rock, suddenly, bushes just burnt in front of my eyes. I've never seen something like that in my whole life and I believe this drought was the worst so far. Fortunately, the condition is getting better since the last three weeks but still water rationing has not been stopped. There was one time when I was p**ping, I did not know that, that day was the day that the water in my block was cut, so when I was about to clean my self, I took the hose (the one beside the closet), turned the water tap and nothing came out. So I panicked, then screamed, calling for help(my brother). Luckily my parents have been saving some water and I asked my brother to transfer some water from my parents's bathroom to the everybody's bathroom by bucket. That day was the day I didn't take shower for the whole day and thank God it was Sunday.

Farewell is hard, it does not matter how long you have been together with someone, coz once you see them going away somehow a part of you is just gone. I had this farewell lunch with students from Utrech University, the ones I worked with for probably two weeks, these guys are awesome. We shared knowledge, experiences, stories, jokes and even some personal stuffs, it was just simply awesome. It is sad that they need to leave but that's life. So before leaving, we got a chance to take pictures together and hope we meet again.

By the way, I'm not the one who's taking the picture, those guys at the back are students from Utrect and I'm the one who's pooping there.

Life is like an airport. People come and eventually will go, some may stay a bit longer than the others and some may just leave immediately, including myself. Nothing is forever. That's probably why I only have good friends not a best friend, because they just come and go. So my best friend will be my wife(which is not here yet), coz she'll stay the longest. Some people bring good lessons, some bring nothing and some just bring or create problems. So now it comes back to you, which one are you? Are you pearls or shells in the beach or just the sand? It sounds harsh but that's just how life works. I have a friend who got mad when one of his friend left and hanged out with a new guy. Well here, I don't really know whose fault is this. Many factors can cause such a thing and we can't really blame someone for this. We tend to blame the other person. But we can't just simply do that, it will be totally bias, since we have not even asked the person on the other side. It could be that it is actually us that don't really understand how the system works. So everyone needs to learn how to accept. It is hard, but possible.

Funny sayings"Truth can be painful and lies can be beautiful, but sleep is always wonderful"

THE FORGOTTEN

2014-04-13T10:07:00.001-07:00

This story is supposed to be posted on the previous post. But because there are already so much stuff there, so I write it here instead. In March 27th, I had one of the most weird things that have happened to my life. That day, I just moved to another part of my fieldwork location. It was a very tiring day because I needed to go to the place where was not included in the plan. So I got to the hotel pretty late. My french friend and I had a quick dinner with another companion of this project for this area and went to the room around 9.30 p.m. I was so exhausted but could not sleep immediately. I went online to update the previous post and studied a little about my master thingy just to get me sleepy. But those didn't work. So I just laid on the bed, listened to songs and realised that it was already 12.30 a.m. of the next day. I plugged off my earphones and covered my body with bed linen and I don't for how long, I fell asleep.

Then I realised, I was standing infront of a girl around my age, somewhere inside a shopping complex. I didn't know who that girl was. Then she asked me to choose one of several foods at the food court. Then I just randomly picked and she went to the cashier, probably ordered what I picked. Inside my head I was like "well, I think, I'm dating this girl. but who is she?". I tried to remember any girls that I've met in my life, but I just could not remember this one. I kept looking at her and didn't get any clue who that girl was. She then walked towards me and said.

"So what is it you wanted to tell me?"

Beyond of my thought I replied

"I like you, be my GF"

Seriously, I didn't know what I was talking about, seemed like my body moved by itself. I couldn't control my movements, even my mouth spoke by itself. I wonder what was happening. Then she smiled, giggled and said.

"Are you kidding? we are just friends, not more than that. You're like a brother to me" *FRIENDZONED & BROTHERZONED

Then I replied

"Okay, we are just friend then"

I stood there, looked at her and after a few seconds somehow I moved away from her. It wasn't because I'm sad but my body moved by itself and then suddenly, poof!! I woke up from my sleep. I didn't realise what just happened until I checked my phone and looked at the time. I wasn't sure about the time but my assumption it was in the morning. Then I thought that it was just a dream. I remembered that I needed to go to the University coz I have started my RA. I took a shower, breakfast and left immediately. Once I got to the university and I was about to open the lab's door, a girl shouted my name. I looked around searching for the source of the sound but couldn't find it. She shouted again and realised that it was coming from the canteen nearby. I don't remember that there was a canteen there, so I approached her and sat opposite of her. She offered me the food and said

"So how does it taste? do you like it?"

I replied

"yup, absolutely. it's nice" *I don't remember what I was eating.

She said

"Good. So, we've been dating for the past 6 months, what do you think about me? Do you love me?"

I replied

"Ofcourse I love you. What are you talking about"

She smiled and seemed to be excited by what I just said. Then she asked me whether she could leave or not, because she had classes. I nodded and smiled back and then she left. After that, I went to the lab, finished all the things that I need to do that day and went back home. Before I went for bed, I called her and talked for maybe half an hour on the phone. Suddenly, my mother came to my room and asked me to sleep coz it was already late night and I need to go to the university again on the next day. So I said good bye to her and went to sleep.

Okay, there are some points that I want to make. First of all, somehow, it is the same girl from my dream. Looks like I'm dating her now. Secondly, I have been dating with this girl for 6 months, and don't remember when we started it. Third, I started to have a memory about the girl and eventhough it seems that I've seen her somewhere, I still couldn't recognize her. Fourth, I couldn't control my movement. Lastly, how and why am I at home while I'm supposed to be in the hotel, in the middle of my fieldwork?

Then, I heard a very loud noise, the sound was very familiar, it was a song from avenged sevenfold. I hear this song everyday and finally realised it was coming from my phone. It was my alarm. I checked the time, it was 5.30 a.m. and dismissed the alarm. I laid on my bed, looked at the ceiling, thought about what just happened and tried to recall everything that I can remember. I gathered every information from my memory. It's like a scene in the movies where all pieces of information such us pictures or conversation are moving around and try to fit in a particular position. Once all parts of memories are set, a "click" sound pop in my head. Everything was clear and I remembered the whole story. I got up from the bed, looked around to make sure everything was normal and still in the hotel. Then said to myself

"DID I JUST HAVE A DREAM IN A DREAM? HOW IS THAT EVEN HAPPENED?"

I could not believe myself such a thing is possible. I immediately wrote down everything that I can remember. I was still shocked and having a lot of thoughts about this dream and remembered that it was the same as in the movie inception. Most probably and I'm pretty sure, it just happened to me and luckily, I wasn't trapped in the limbo. But there is still one question remained about the dream and plays in my mind even until today. The question that can only be answered by myself and probably can change the future of me. The question that will remain as a mystery and needs a sophisticated machine and method to solve it. The question that is even harder than Einstein's riddle. The question that I really want to know the answer even more than answers in my exam sheets.

WHO WAS THE GIRL IN MY DREAM?? *dramatic high string violin

In March 29th my friends and I almost got into a car accident. It was the last day of my fieldwork before my second break. The rain was just over and we were on the way to the hotel after a full day dealing with rocks. Everything was good, I mean there was no sign of bad omen or anything, the wind was blowing nicely and gently, the sun set was beautiful, the weather was perfect after walking, running, crawling, climbing, hammering, measuring, writing, talking, sweating, drinking and discussing under the hot sun for the whole day. The car was moving around 60 km/hour and the condition of the road was wet and pretty packed. I mean the distance between cars was probably 5 meters away. It was really dangerous moving in that kind of speed, but we were exhausted and wanted to get back to the hotel as soon as possible.

There were about 12 cars moving in the same speed, because there was a big truck and it caused cars behind it to move with same speed. Suddenly, for no reason, the truck stopped. It was a sudden stop where all drivers were not prepared for this. So the whole stack of 12 cars just stopped immediately. Our car almost hit the car infront of us, but fortunately, the driver's response was beyond speed of light, so he moved the car to the side and provided our car with enough space stop. It was so terrifying, I looked around to see the condition. When I looked forward, everything seemed fine, no crash or whatsoever. But when I check behind, 3 cars crashed. Those cars were BMW, MPV and sedan. After like one minute, the truck move to the side of the road, letting all cars behind it to pass and the three crashed cars moved to the side as well, probably discussing about who's gonna pay for all the wrecked parts.

People change through out their life, can be physically, mentally and behaviour or attitude. These changes are influenced by a lot of things from family, friends, school, environment and internet connection. Well, I have been through all these changes but the recent one is physical change. I just got back from my 26 days of fieldwork for a week break and yes, I changed/turned into an evolved creature. Even my family couldn't believe what I've turned into in the last 26 days. I arrived at the university around 4 p.m. and my family was waiting and ready to pick me up. I got off the car, picked my luggage from the bonnet, said good bye to my french friend and entered my car. Inside the car there were my parents and my sister and the first thing I realised was they all looked at me with the awe-looked. The "look" that showed amazed, shocked and sympathy. Then, with feeling abit confuse I said

"What?"

They replied

My mom "you've turned solid black, like construction workers. muahahahahahahahahahahah!"

My dad just smiled

My sister "Bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, Not construction workers, but more like criminals"

Okay, the construction worker was not so bad, but why criminals? Do I really look that bad?? That time my hair was messy and I've grown some mustache but those do not mean I look like a criminal, right? But I can't blame the sun for what has been happening to my physical form. Because it was me who did not really cover all the ~~sensitive~~ exposed parts. I should have dressed like a ninja, left only my eyes and hand's palms exposed. The first one week, I truly cared about getting sun tanned. I mean, I did a lot of covering and did not really go for a long time under the hot sun. But I missed alot of discussion, because all the european people wanted to get their skin tanned, so they discussed everything under the hot sun. According to them, brown skin is exotic.

I don't know why they have such a thought, but what I think is the whiter your skin, the better looking you will be. Because we don't really know what does brown colour skin means, it could be their skin tone, but, it could also be dirt. Beside if you do have white skin, people will think(what I think) that you are clean, eventhough you do not take shower. Because I have this friend in high school, this fellow is from east Asia. He looked so tidy and clean. So one day, just after the school started, this fellow and his chair-mate were talking in their language. I did not know what they were talking about. Then, the teacher came into the class, everyone did the greetings and sit back. This fellow were still talking and the teacher asked them to be silent. Everyone laughed because he was scolded. Then, his chair-mate called me, because my seat was right next to him. A little conversation happened

MCM=my-chair-mate
CM=chair-mate
TF=this fellow

CM: "hey Galih, ***** did not take shower, he woke up late, hahahahaha.
Me: What? Really? hahahaahah
TF: *saying something in his language and punched CH. "tssss, don't tell anyone"
MCM: "too late, we all heard that.hahahaahaha"

Then he gave this excuse

TF: "In my country, sometimes we don't take shower because the weather is not hot. In the winter we sometime don't take shower for 3 or more days. Because it was so cold and we don't sweat at all.

We all have never met each other again since then.

This fellow did not look like he has not taken shower, he looked fresh, even fresher than some of us because he was white. I just don't get the meaning of what european thought is "éxotic". Well, it's opinion anyway.

So in the second week, Because of what the european said, I was so motivated and in the field I was like "f**k this sun, I'm a geologist, I'm going brown-er(black) now, let me be the most exotic geologist here". I took off every covers except my hat, shirt and pants. After 26 days, I came back for the break and once I looked at the mirror. I realised I made the biggest mistake of my life.

I purposely took pictures of me before and after the fieldwork. I can clearly see the differences and yes, I look like a criminal now. So to avoid from getting caught by the police when I'm traveling alone, I decided to get a hair cut before off to Sarawak to make myself more to like normal a citizen. Due to the limited money that I had, I went to the barber shop which was located at the traditional market. Normally it will cost me 15 Malaysian Ringgit, but here is only 7 Malaysian Ringgit plus with head massage. So when I got there, I saw two barber shops. To save time, I somehow chose the one on left because the one on the right was a lot of people inside.

I got inside, sat on the chair, the barber put blanket on me to keep me clean from my own hair and asked what kind of style I wanted my hair to be. I looked at the example pictures of movie stars and I saw Brad Pitt. So decided to go on that hoping that I will look a bit like him and the barber said "no problem". After 10 minutes of cutting and probably 60 percent of my hair has been cut off, out of the silent, the barber said

"Uhmmm. I think I can not cut your hair the same way as the one in the picture, because your hair is to soft"

I did not said anything, totally speechless. So I replied with a smile

"Do what you have to do"

I cried inside. He should have told me before he cut my hair, I mean he should have known the type of my hair before even did his first cut. But I have learned lessons here, that left is bad, don't expect much for 7 Malaysian Ringgit hair cut even you get head massage, ask the barber twice or trice before having a hair cut.

So here are some pictures of my transformation and I also posted the same brad pitt picture as the one in barber which I found it in the internet. I looked like a retard here. so yeah..

The one on the right is me after finished the first day of fieldwork. I should have taken before the fieldwork because both my hands are already tanned. The picture in the middle is me after 26 days of fieldwork. The one that everybody (my family) thought looks like a criminal. The next picture is after I returned from Sarawak. I'm supposed to end up like Brad Pitt after that hair cut, but you know s**t happens.

About a week ago, my country just had legislative elections. At first I thought it was an election for presidency, so when I was about to choose, I checked all the names. When I looked at the form, there was something strange, why there were so many names in each party? Because normally each party only appoints one candidate. Then when I read the "title" on the top of the form, I realised that it was not for presidency. So here, I did not know a single person from the names that were listed in the form. I have no clue which one should I pick, but because I'm a muslim, I decided to choose someone from Islamic parties.

Then suddenly, I saw a name that I thought I have seen this name before. Too bad there was no photo. But somehow I just had the feeling that this person is someone I know, so I "poked" (that's the way to choose) on the person's name. I went online after that and checked whether that name is someone I know. After several minutes of searching, the result was positive and yes it is that person. So this person is nominated for one of the parties. I don't feel bad of what I've chosen, because I know the person and hopefully this person can do the job well in the future.

But there are people who didn't really care about this, including my friends. Let say from 10 probably only 3-4 did the election, the rest just ignored it. There are a lot of reasons, but mostly what they said are these

"I choose or not, it wont change anything to the country" "I don't know any of the candidates, so better don't pick"

I totally disagree with their opinions. Because I think it is a very important matter. This election will decide the future of your country internally or externally. We probably live outside the country and have better live here, but what about our brothers and sisters in our own country who do not live as lucky as we are. I mean I know the condition of my country here, where the poor gets poorer and the rich gets richer everyday. This is because the lack of management skills and probably "ego" is playing among the rulers. I don't want to blame anyone, because it is all our own fault. Previously, we did the same during the election, as a result we get this kind of people ruling and controlling the country. Because rules can be changed according to what the ruler's "desires". If the rulers are good, everyone is happy but it is the other way around, then we have to deal with it. So, if you do not want to do it for yourself, do it for others. Remember the needy. This is the least we can do for them. Because the future is in our hands.

P.S The trick to pick a great leader is to choose the one who does not "talk much" *real life experiences

funny sayings "If you can't achieve your goals by running try walking, if you still can't by walking try crawling, if you still can't by crawling, just ask someone to do it"

ABSURD LIFE

2014-03-28T07:12:00.001-07:00

2 days before the returning for my 2 days break, I stayed in Tune hotel for one night before moving south in the next day. This hotel was the best hotel during all field works that I have been through. The facility of the hotel was like 5 stars hotel in 2 stars hotel, so everything was smaller in size. Like the bed, bathroom, even the room itself was smaller, but everything was perfect. There were a lot security cameras in each corridor for safety. I mean, I have never been to a 2 stars hotel with a lot of cameras. In previous hotels, I could only find at most were only 9, but this hotel has hundreds. So the security was very good here.

My supervisor booked a room with 2 single beds for me and I stayed with my co-worker. After we get to the room I rested for a while, took a shower and off for dinner. That day was the day when I got the food-poisoned thing. So after the dinner my co-worker and I went to a market to get some drinks. I bought a fresh milk cos I remembered what my mother said if I get food poisoned, I need to drink fresh milk. Then after that we went back to the hotel.

We reached the hotel around 10.30 p.m. and I didn't sleep immediately eventhough I was not feeling very well and feeling dizzy the whole day. I opened my laptop to go online for half an hour then updated the previous post while my co-worker was having a phone call with his GF. Then around 1 a.m. I went for bed.

This is where the interesting part.

The night was so peaceful and quite, the sky was dark covered with millions of pearls made from stars, the room temperature was warm and comfy. That night was so perfect to rest my body until a very loud 3000000 dB knock hit my door. I was still dreaming that time(not sure what dream) and I was not sure about the sound I heard. But time after time, the sound got louder and felt like a real sound. So then I finally woke up and realized that it was actually coming from the human world. I sat on my bed for maybe 2 minutes, trying to gather my soul and remembering who am I, where and why am I here. Suddenly, I heard a male voice said "assalamualaikum"(it is the Islamic way to greet people). Then I realised that it was coming from my door, so I got off the bed, my hand tried to reach the wall because it was so dark, tried to find the switch for the lamp but couldn't find it, so walked towards the door with guidance from the wall. I reached the door's knob, turned it clockwise, pulled the door in and a very bright light from heaven just stroke my eyes.

It was so bright that I turned into chinese for a moment. With these narrow eyelids I tried to observe the condition infront of me. My eyes turned into like iron man's eyes where I could locate any target and know its gender. Then after all the information is gathered, it concluded that there were 6 people standing infront of my door. 4 men 2 women. Then I was like "what is this? Am I famous now?"

Then a man around 160 cm tall stand infront of me and said

"Assalamualaikum, we have been called here, and received a report, that you brought a woman into your room"

I replied

"waalaikumsalam, yes" I wasn't really paying attention coz I just woke up.

Then he said

"yes? So this is true? you brought a women into this room?"

I tried to call back what I said and realised I just said something stupid and could actually brought me into trouble. Suddenly, as a normal person with limited amount of brain capacity and power, my brain stopped working, somehow I couldn't think of anything. After 5 seconds, my brain went back to normal and to calm my self down, with a quick flashback, I tried to remember everything since I got to this hotel. I remembered nothing about bringing a woman into my room, so then I replied

"what? me? no way!"

Then this man saw a movement in one of the beds, pointed his finger and he immediately said with enthusiasm.

"Then who's that sleeping on the bed?"

Then I was like "what? no, no, no, this isn't happening. There is now way I could have done that. I didn't even remember doing it. forgive me God" I was truly shocked and speechless, cos I didn't remember bringing any women into my room. But, would it be that I "unconsciously" called a prosti**** to come? because there was not any women in the group during this fieldwork. But, there is no way I would do that cos I didn't have the ~~money~~ guts to do it. Besides my pants and shirt were still on. I followed the direction of his finger and it was pointing at my co-worker's bed. Then I started thinking. What if, it was my co-worker who brought the girl in. But he already has a GF, so it is impossible. Then my co-worker woke up, didn't know what was happening so he just showed his face up to us, maybe wanting to know what was going on. The man saw my friend's face, looked at him carefully, probably identifying his gender just to make sure that nothing was suspicious. He nodded and said to me

"ohh. okay. But are you sure you did not bring any women into the room?

I just said "nope" and shake my head. He looked convinced, said sorry and then left. Without having much thought I closed the door and went back to bed and slept like a cow til the sun came arise.

Being in fieldwork for 2 weeks straight is not really good for human being even for geologist. We do the same thing everyday with no break. Isolated from the real world and need to deal with rocks everyday are just too much. We start the day at 8 a.m. and go back when there is no sun. We go back, have dinner, sleep and repeat the same thing on the next day. My friend even forgot about the day he was in a few days back. The whether is not so friendly. The sun is happily looking and sending heat as well as UV light to us. I have applied sun block with the maximum 110 SPF and formulated for sport. But it didn't really work. I think they should make a special sun block only for geologist, probably with 1000 SPF. If European people go for 3 weeks field work, they come back european. Because their skin colour don't really change. But if we Asian go for 3 weeks field work, we come back as new species. No body will know where we come from. The skin colour will totally change and don't really match with any human race in this world.

But here are some funny facts(not all but mostly) about geologist. As far as I'm accompanying my friend during this fieldwork, I've realised that there are several differences between a normal person (not geologist) and a true geologist. This my friend is a real and true geologist, he sees a rock, he knows what the rock is and tells the rock's story for one day. He is an expert in his field. So these are some lists based on my observation and research studies of what happened during the last 18 days.

1. Questions when come to a foreign country

Normal people: What is the most interesting place here? What is the traditional food here?

True geologist: How old is the oldest rock in the country? what is the parent rock here?

2. Things they bring when travel

Normal people: Cloths, caps/hats, glasses, watches, money, pens, notebook, maps.

True geologist: Double what normal people bring (except watches), geological compass, hammer, hand lens.

3. Things they say when see an outcrop (exposed rocks) during travel (in a van)

Normal people: woah, very big rocks out there, better don't get too close, they may fall off (van drives away)

True geologist: Let me out of this van!! Let me out!! Let me out!! (van drives away)

4.Checking out the map

Normal people: Wow this place looks interesting, looks like there are lots of shops. We can buy souvenirs there.

True geologist: Wow this looks like a mine here. We can collect samples there.

5. See an outcrop in a restricted area

Normal people: We need to stay away from here. They probably plan some mining here with some explosions. It could be dangerous.

True geologist: Quick think fast, we need to get inside. No one is looking, get a sample quickly.

6. Discussion before sleep

Normal people: Today I've been to this place, it was good and bla bla bla. Very interesting and tiring day, what a day, love it.

True geologist: I saw some good outcrops along the way here, we should check them out tomorrow. 8 am sharp we leave.

Lesson of life can be acquired anywhere such us from family, friends or even from someone you just met. It does not really matter who tells you about it, how old the person is or where they come from. As long as they teach you to be a better person, then it's fine. All you need to do is only listen, open your heart and think. Don't let your ego controls you. I met this person few weeks back during this fieldwork and just got a very good lesson from him.

It was around 3 p.m. this guy and I were just going to look for another outcrop for his research purposes by car. Then when we about to make a turn in a junction, a car just suddenly cut our way and went on like nothing happen. We almost hit on another car because of this, but luckily my friend has a very quick response and did what he had to do. He then started saying something in his own language and I was just sitting in my seat, completely stunned after what just happened.

Once the condition was normal again he told me that people nowadays should not behave and do things like that. They have been thought in school, know good and bad, but why does this kind of attitude still around? It is not because they are ignorant but it's just because they are not well educated. Not many people are well educated eventhough they have a lot of knowledge. So knowledgeable does not mean well educated. Then I started thinking that what he was saying is actually true. People know that they have to throw their thrash into the thrash can, but instead they throw their thrash everywhere. As the result flood everywhere. People know smoking is bad, but they're still doing it(sorry smokers). This guy is an atheist, where he does not believe in God or things like that, but he has the sense of awareness(not sure what I'm saying) even more than some of the religious or educated people I know. Well I'm not sure his true attitude, but from the way he treats people and drives a car, I can say he is a "good person".

Funny sayings "There are many ways to achieve your dreams, one of them is sleep"

FOREVER A STUDENT

2014-03-13T09:39:00.000-07:00

What an experience having a fieldwork with one of the world famous geologist with expertise in structure and metamorphism. First day of my field work was okay. It was nice and suck at the same time surrounded by geniuses from Utrech University. During the fieldwork I used my 1000% of my knowledge that I have learned in the past four years to interpret all types of geological aspects in every outcrop we visited. Well, from what I have interpreted and those geniuses have interpreted, I can clearly see that the knowledge that we have was actually so much different. I could only act like a fish in a tank, opened my mouth but nothing came out. Those people are used to fieldwork and all kind of geology practical but different from me. During the fieldwork they could apply their knowledge probably up to 90% whereas I could only at maximum 70%. When I asked them why, they said that they are used to it because every year they have 10 weeks of field work and need to make reports. So total of the whole fieldwork from their undergraduate study is 30 weeks (3 years) excluding the final year project. But me during my undergraduate, the total field work was only 4 weeks. It's like kindergarten against university level. So much different. They look so much confident on each interpretation they made.

But so far, this fieldwork has truly improved my knowledge to a whole new level. From beginner to amateur geologist. I've improved my confident level and know how to differentiate structural geology aspects. Last time when I see a rock I would say

"Okay, this is a rock, it is very hard, there are cracks all over it. It has shiny things, probably diamond" Noob mode

Now it will be

"Okay, the bedding of the rock is striking northeast and dipping west 010/28, it is probably quartz mica schist, the shiny thing is mica and the mafic mineral is well foliated, probably due to deformation. There are several faults and show striation and dipping northwest. The riedel shear indicates the movement of the fault and there are also sigmoidal clasts, most likely a synistral, top to southeast" Amateur mode

During the 4th day of my fieldwork. I received a very pleasant news regarding the fieldwork. There was a change of plan. The fieldwork that is supposedly going for 40 days, has been reduced to probably 33 days. This is because I need to accompany a french guy to travel the whole peninsular Malaysia for more or less 2 weeks. I'll be like a tour guide for this guy. FYI this fellow is 2 meters tall while I am only 1.68 meters. It will look awful for me. Because people will see him as being accompanied by some sort of a short ugly creature. Besides, during this fieldwork, my skin tone has turned from "normal" to "you can't see me". It gets darker as the day passes. I'm already as black as I can be. This is probably the blackest skin tone that I have ever experienced so far as a geologist. I probably have reached 100% of my demonic true form.

These two European people are the people I'm going to work with in the next 20 days. The guy in dark green t-shirt is the 2 meters french guy and the one in squared-shirt is from Netherland (1.94m) which will be working with my co-worker in brown t-shirt. Both of us will go separate ways on the 15th and probably will meet up again on the 21th. I don't usually upload my picture, when I do, I look like ****.

So I will have a break for 2 days from 16th-17th and after that the journey is begun. The other 5 days have not been confirmed yet, but most probably will happen on the first week of April before I'm finally off to Sarawak. After this field work is over, I have probably a month before the next field work again to Sarawak for probably one week. In the mean time I will try to get ~~married~~ driving license, since I need to use a car to travel from one place to another for my master's fieldwork. I can drive but I don't have a license, I hope I can get one within a month.

I just had one the most terrible experience in the history of geological fieldwork. This had happened to me once in my second year and never thought would be repeated today (13th march). Yup, I've been food-poisoned. It was truly awful. I stayed in the van for the whole day because of this. My stomach was twitching(not sure about the word) so bad I could not even turn my body. But luckily because of the excellent medical treatment(drinking 100 plus)I have survived this and can carry on my life. But now my body is very weak because I've been going back and forth to the toilet for 8 times, I've lost so much liquid and can't even walk properly. The photo was taken after I had this thingy. My co-worker and the french guy also got the same thing, but theirs were not as bad as mine.

A few days back I chatted with an old friend, which I thought I was never gonna see or even talk again. I didn't even know how this fellow got my number, suddenly just said "hey" in wasapp. Nothing was serious about the talk. Just a normal conversation with some reminiscence about the past and it was awesome. This fellow is in the final year and then asked me what I'm doing now. So I said that I'm going to further my study. Then this fellow started compliment me saying that I'm smart and I can do anything, my future is bright, my life is perfect and all that kind of things, unlike herself. Well, I just said that I'm lucky and I was serious about this, but this fellow kept denying what I said so I just replied with "hahaha"(that was the best thing I could do to stop her). I seriously do not know how to handle compliment. The best thing I can do is only smile. Last time there was a moment after I performed in one occasion, I got off the stage and out from the hall, suddenly there was a chinese girl appeared infront of me said (I remember this clearly)

"Wow, you were very good up there(1). You are very handsome, you know?(2)"

After that she smiled and stood still infront of me. The first statement I could still handle. But the moment I heard the second one, I just stood, thinking back of what I just heard and looked at the girl like I was retarded. I have never expected such a thing to happen. Then there was quite a moment of silent and it was kinda awkward. She seemed to be waiting for my reply. I did not know what to do so I just smiled back and moved away from her to my friends(true story). Not sure what will be my reaction if it happens now. I'll probably start laughing and pinching my self to death, hoping that I'm just dreaming. This happened when I was in my third year of my University and still handsome, not like now. I'm not saying I do not appreciate them, but if they really see me and know the actual me, I do not deserve such compliment.

I can say that my life is not perfect and I'm not smart. Compare to my friends, I probably have the lowest mark and that's why I consider myself lucky that I can stand until today. I'm not good in scoring for high marks, as long as I have done my best that's enough, the world will somehow repay me in some kind of ways. I see people including my friends are afraid to get low marks, so what they did was copied from someone who has gotten high marks or even cheating. They do not really care they understand or not as long as they get high marks it is fine for them. Well I'm scared to get low marks, but if I have to choose, I truy prefer to get low marks but do it my self than the other way around. At least I know about the mistake I've made and try to improve next time.

I have failed so many times but I just keep going and do my best, even until today. I don't really consider my failures as points of where I should stop doing. It is the failure that can actually teach me the most important thing. It really drives me crazy everytime I fail on things that I have worked so hard. But then I tell myself that everything does not always go according to the plan so need to be patient and move forward. From 100 of my plans, there are probably less than 10 that truly came true. The rest just failed or simply haven't shown up any results. Simply do your best in everything and let the world decides the best for you. I have never thought I could travel now and meet great people, because my plan of traveling is supposed to be after I get a job, get a wife and settle my life. But now I'm already traveling, although not so far and not for traveling purposes, But still I am able to travel and see things I have never seen before and get paid eventhough not so much, but the experience that matters. Be flexible, don't stick in only one thing. Don't try to be someone, coz it wont always work. I might be not as lucky as those people who have traveled the world, participated in big events or have become superstars. But everything that has happened to me is actually more than enough, knowing that there are a lot of people who's having more problems and difficulties in life.

I've been taught to be fair in life, don't only focus on what you are doing, look around and see what can you do for others. Don't focus only on your friends, but focus more on your family. Coz it is actually the perfect turning back place for every problem you have. So no one has a perfect life but you can still perfect the life you have now. Don't forget to say Alhamdulillah.

Funny saying "Your dreams are like dandelion, beautiful, but gone as the wind blows them away"

IT HAS BEGUN

2014-03-04T08:12:00.000-08:00

Life has never been easy for all human kind. If it is easy that means you are doing it wrong same like maths, you must have had sacrificed something that should not be sacrificed such us family, friends and other people's life that are not supposed to be sacrificed/bothered. Because the only thing that needs to be sacrificed is everything in you (including time and energy). Help from family or friends do really make things easier but still your part needs to be the hardest.

I've got things settled for my RA recently and I'm officially employed. So a couple of days back I talked to my RA supervisor. I asked about things that I shall do for my first day of being employed here. But then he said that I should ask my Postgraduate/master supervisor. FYI, my master supervisor and RA supervisor are different person. But normally they should be the same person. I mean People usually do master under supervision of either Dr. or Professor and employed as RA under the same person as the master supervisor. But my case is I'm doing master and RA under 2 different persons. Technically, it will be a very difficult task for me since I need to handle two things at the same time. But according to what my RA supervisor said, I should follow what my master supervisor commands me to do.

My mind exploded after I heard what my RA supervisor said. I made him to explain twice for me just to get everything clear coz I thought he could probably said something that he thought was right, and yes he was right, nothing was tricky and I have normal hearing. It was just my imagination that thought my RA supervisor said something confusing. So for me it's like being employed by one company but I need to work for another company. I asked my master supervisor a week ago he said that we'll be going for field work on the first week of April and in the mean time we just need to study the previous studies regarding the area. So here I assume that I don't have to do anything(work).

But a few days back I've been contacted by the HRD saying that there was problem regarding my visa. The visa I'm using now prohibits me from being employed by any kind of employments. That means I need to cancel my old visa and change it to the employment visa. But for it to happen, it will take around one and a half months and in the mean time I wont receive my salary and depend solely on my savings. Moreover I have a field work to Sarawak on the first week of April. So with all these limited time, money, friends, energy and internet connection to get done with everything, it is so perfect for me to become famous. You know I will probably just get on an aeroplane and jump off and on the next day you'll find me in newspaper, but life must go on as what Celine Dion said "my ~~heart~~ life will go on and on".

I have thought of several solutions with several alternatives, and each one has pros and cons. So now it is only a matter of time for me to decide which one is the best.

Today I got probably one of the most horrifying news regarding my RA that I have ever received in this year. Ofcourse I just started the RA a few weeks ago. So once I got to my department my co-worker told me that we will have fieldwork for 40 days from 5th of March to 15 or April.

"40 DAYS OF FIELDWORK"

The moment I received this news I was like

"NO!NO!NO! This isn't true? What is this? is this a joke? seriously? I must be dreaming"

Then I asked him again and he said positive 100% yes. I don't know I should be happy or sad. I love field work but 40 days, it is like I don't know how to put it in words. I mean I just started my RA a month ago and then suddenly "poof" 40 days field work. This is madness. Besides I haven't even received my salary yet. So I need to use my own money then. How am I going to survive after the fieldwork? How am I going to live and carry on my own life? What about my family and children?(nope I don't have them yet).

Moreover my friend told me that I should read about micro-structural geology. Because last time he got brutally questioned by the lecturer and he could not answer properly. This is why my RA is going to be a double-edged sword for me. My master is sedimentology and RA now is structural geology. The last time I touched my structural geology notes was when the time I was still a nuisance student around 2 years back. Plus this field work has professor, Dr. and several master students from Utrech university. I guess I'll be mentally abused by them in the next 40 days. I don't even know why/how did I write on this blog now where I am supposed to study.

I'll be busy in the next 40 days but the writing must go on.

Funny sayings "Many species are in danger and getting extinct, including 'human being'"

THE BEGINNING IS NEAR

2014-02-19T08:17:00.001-08:00

It has been one whole of a great week. I have started my RA thingy eventhough I just helped my friends since I'm not officially RA yet, But I've got the offer letter already and just need to get a few things done before I'm officially employed.

Another one of the best memory for this week happened on the weekend and it because I played "paintball" for the first time. For those who doesn't know what paintball is, it is a game where you used a modified air gun (not like nerf)and it shoots paint bullets inside a plastic-liked cover. It was absolutely painful when you get hit by the bullets. I have got hit several times and they left marks. The most painful was when it hit my thighs. It was like being stung by bee, but didn't feel any burn after that and it still hurts until now.

The place where I played the game was not like the normal paintball field. Normally, people play paintball in the open field arena where it is the size of probably half to three-quarter of football field and there are giant air bags as shield or place to hide and take cover. But the arena I played was kinda natural arena, it's like garden but more to like used garden like in the movie "Rambo" or like one of the Chuck Norris's movies where he fought in Vietnam if I'm not mistaken. Here you have banana trees, piles of planks and tires as cover instead and it looked completely like a real battlefield for me. The arena was not so big probably about one-third of football field but it sucked all my energy running inside it. Moreover, I thought the gun was light since I've seen someone playing paintball in TV could run and aim so easily, but I didn't really know that the gun was actually that heavy (probably around 2-3 kg). I mean the gun itself was not heavy but it was the air tank that made it like carrying a laptop in a war. Besides, I wore a mask and it was hard to breathe while I was running and under pressure. The jacket also disturbed my movement since it was quite stiff, so it limited my movement.

The first picture is the normal paintball arena, the bottom one is the arena where I played. The guy inside the picture is not me. But he is one of the MVP player.

The game was great, my friends and I played four-by-four on each side and played 5 games with a break between games or someone has no more bullets or needed to add more air into the tank. Each game has 2 rounds, meaning you have to collect two points by winning 2 rounds. Each game has it's own mission and the whole games took like 2 hours. My team was kinda expert eventhough we are just starters and the other team has an experienced player, so it was kinda hard to decide which team was going to prevail.

The picture above was taken before we play the game. The aftermath picture can't be shown due to the maturity content and disturbing images such us broken bones, blood, lots of blood and wounded people. I look a bit stuffed there, but that is not actually like what it seems to be (second from the right). Eventhough I've gained some weight (8 kg) during the hiatus from 65 to 73 kg, My body is not really that big because it is the jacket that make it look like I'm fat. Besides I do have chubby face, even when my weight was 60 kg (excuses but true).

The atmosphere of the arena was pretty intense even before the marshal started the game. I felt nervous since I've never hold a gun after I completed my primary school. I mean I was once a guy who was one of the fearsome kids when it comes to this shooting games. It was not because of my skill but it was because of the gun that I used was somehow had a great shooting power. It could reach up to 50-80 meters. They used to call me "The Sniper", my best shot was 30m head shot(because the gun was heavy, hard to hold). So back in the day (primary 2 or 3), around my neighborhood, my friends and I used to play this shooting game using the air gun(not paintball gun) with a plastic bullets or we called it pellets(not sure the spelling is correct or not). We played it like almost everyday after the school has ended. So we gathered in front of my house and decided the teams. It was like playing hide and seek where one team is hiding and the other team is seeking. But this time we used air gun and need to finish the game by shooting the other team and see which of the team members stand the last. But after a few years later those guns were banned, but then my friends created something more extreme. They used candy/sweets cover bag and tied with rubber bands on both ends. It's like sling shots but we used our two fingers instead of tree branches. And you know what, we used stones as bullets. yes, stones. Probably half centimeter in diameter. Those stones would absolutely leave some marks if you get shot. And after the end of the game, we all always looked like we just had measles or chicken pox, I'm not sure which one is more suitable for such a mark but it's either one of them.

Back to the story

So before the game was started each team needed to go to their bases and then the marshal asked us to get in position. The moment the siren was on, my heart beat faster, my breathing rate increased and I directly run behind one of the covers and I said.

"Dayum, What am I doing here? I've retired from this and this is not my stuff anymore. I wanna go home. safe me god!!!"

It was seriously a terrifying situation I can say, but still better than being chased by a dog. I saw my team members were running towards the enemy base, they took several shots and took cover behind tires and trees. Seeing them made me like I was a complete coward, I wanted to help them but too scared to get shot, so I need to man-up and think that it is for the future of my team, I wont let them down. Then, I took a deep breathe, gained some courage and a few seconds later, I stood up, looked around for any target and once I saw someone I just started shooting. I shot whoever I thought was my enemy. Then, I hit one target and immediately took cover and then the marshal said GG (meaning the game is finished). It wasn't so bad ,my team won the first round and nobody in my team got shot. I was pretty impressed by my team's performance, they did well except for me. Honestly, it felt like a minute in that game with all hiding and shooting, but it was actually took 5-7 minutes to finish that round (not sure which one took me longer, hiding or shooting). My energy was depleted as the game ended. I literally showered in my own sweat.

According to the first game's result, we all can see which team was going to be the winner. Yes, it was the other team who won the overall games. My team only won the first game and lost the rest of the games (I think we were lucky that time). I didn't really know why, I mean I have totally man-up on the rest of the games. But you know, who cares about the results. The most important thing is we all had fun and we all did.

Becareful of what you're about to read, it is all just come from my assumption, nothing is real.

There was a rumor saying that the inventor of flappy bird is dead in suicide. But before that I've heard that he would delete his masterpiece for good. But the day I heard the news and the day he said that he's going to remove his game is the same. So it's kinda like one of the Frankenstein movies where Frankenstein created a monster by combining human parts from several corpses and after a few weeks the guy died besides the monster (I don't remember the name of the movie). The monster killed several people and created chaos around the town, same goes with flappy bird but it didn't kill people (Im not sure). At the end of the movie the monster run from the town and stayed under the iced cave carrying his dead creator. So here, I assume that the creator of flappy birds has the game in his phone(coz he was the creator) so the story is kinda repeated in some kind of different ways.

BUT, before he died, he had brought down his legacy to the world, because It seems like there are games following the same format as "Flappy Bird" one of them is called "IRON PANTS". This game is more crazy than Flappy birds. The inventors did really put so much effort to make the game ten times harder and ten times larger in size than flappy bird. I believe that he is one of the apprentices of the flappy bird's inventor. He has the blue print of flappy bird typed of game. I played the game for ten minutes, the best score I got was only 4. The game is pure evil. You can't even blink when you're playing the game. Because once you blink, it's GG. You really need to play this game in a remote, isolated and quiet place, where there is no disruption.

I don't know why but somehow It is easy to get new friends as well as lost some friends at the same time nowadays.

HOW??

Easy. Like and comment on your friend's status or photos and you will become best friend forever or don't do anything on your friend's photos or status and you will become enemies or at least your relationship is loosened. About the past 5 years of my observation, I see that people love to communicate via apps or any chat services(text messages mostly) on their gadgets. They tell all their stories by just simply texting without knowing that the person on the other side is paying attention or just simply replying according to the situation(well, I did some when I'm busy). It's good to strengthen the relationship, but sometimes it becomes a bit weird. Because last time, I was chatting with one of my friends via "watsup". We chatted for quite a while (around 2 hours), we laughed and shared opinion, even there was a little debate I can say.

Here is the funny part.

A couple of days later, when I had my lunch, this person just sat beside me and we started talking about stuffs. After a while he suddenly talked about the thing we chatted a few days ago and somehow I talked back the way I did it a few days back. We did exactly the same as in the chat(all discussion, opinion, even debate), but this time didn't take a long time. Then after the conversation was over, I started thinking of why did I repeat the same thing. So I just simply forget it coz it probably just a coincidence (true story). But the thing is it happens almost everytime. So I was like, why did I talk to someone when we both know how this is going and how it is gonna end. I mean, it is just simply a waste of time. If you want to make sure a certain point then it's okay but here I did exactly the same as when I had the conversation via message/texting (Have we all experienced this?or It is just me). So I don't really know whether I'm a retard or just simply don't use my mind. Because there are a lot of other things that we can talk about instead of repeating the same stuff.

The worst is I think people prefer to chat/communicate via apps even when they are in some reunions with friends. So during that reunion all we do is just "texting with friends" or "congregation texting". I mean last time, during my stone age, when we were gathering for some occasions we only talked among us. We completely forgot and ignored anything and only interested in what was there. So each of us focused on someone who was talking or telling stories. Sometimes things I can say get better when we started to debate on something which was not actually matter. But it was somehow and somewhat just simply beautiful(you know the intensity of the situation) and somehow we wanted more. But now all these apps in gadgets have disrupted this harmony. I'm not saying gadget is bad. But it is the timing of using it sometimes just don't really come in the right time and place. I mean I am honestly annoyed when I'm talking to someone and suddenly that person gets a message and start replying all the way during the conversation, with a smile while replying. If it is from parents or something truly important than I can tolerate that. But if it just a regular "hi", I believe the person on the other side can wait for the reply. If the stories is not interesting then at least listen, don't just simply put your mind away and start chatting/texting to the person who is not even there. I don't want all of your time but respect is what I expect. DON'T YOU??

I realised that I have received some comments on my previous posts saying that I should have put pictures in my blog. I didn't know someone read my blog and I am grateful for that (crying with tears of happiness) . Well, this time I did but maybe did not really do it well cos I'm too ~~lazy~~ tired to edit and since the new system of blogging now is different than 2 years ago, so need to learn more all about the positioning and stuffs. BTW thx for the constructive comments.

Funny sayings "Everything is happened for a reason, but sometimes the reason is because you are retarded"

NEW THINGS

2014-02-08T06:04:00.000-08:00

Well, well, well it's been a while since the last post. Recently, I've been practicing ad*be after effect, it is a software for editing images and movies and can also add effects. Im doing it for fun coz I have nothing to do (still waiting for RA and master thingy) and I love editing and put some effects in pictures or movies with something cool, like adding lightning or energy ball or maybe teleportation and duplication of things in a movie. I know it is kinda childish, but I just like doing it. Im not a pro yet in this field and if there are levels from beginner to expert maybe I am in the level of baby, where I couldn't really remember all steps to create one effect eventhough I just created it a second ago. I think my short-termed memory is kinda bad. coz I'm pretty expert to forget things I just saw, heard, read or did.

Sometimes it gets rude when comes to meet new people. You know when others introduce their names, I can easily forget names in a blink of an eye and to cover that, I pretend I did not hear the first time they mentioned it. But it is different when it comes to something important. I mean like somehow and somewhat my brain can decide (this is true) whether a particular thing is important in the future or not, like names, phone numbers or car's plates. If it is important I can easily remember in a split second and without even trying to remember it. I can just simply say it or look at it and can somehow absorb and keep it in my mind, but if the other way around, I will forget at the moment I get it. The worst is sometimes my brain decides to forget stuffs during exams.

Nowadays, people have been posting something in 9ga* or even f*cebook about a game. A game that is believed to be created by the devil himself. A game that has caused chaos around the world, with many casualties and people have gone missing due to this game. I was shocked having heard about the effect of the game. Because of this game, some said that they don't want to live in this world anymore, some said that the game is a cursed and some said that if you can complete the game (which is impossible) you can achieve anything in this world and will be given a reward as the toughest, the most patient and the most anything a gamer or normal person can ever achieve.

So after hearing all this, as a noob gamer, I really wanted to see how hard can this game be. So I downloaded it. The first time I saw the size of this game I was shocked, speechless and stunned. How could you not feel this, when you realise that the game which has created such a chaos is only less than 1MB size. I was like "ok, I can do this, it's probably like any other games". So I played it for like 15 minutes, aiming to score at least 100 but these are what happened.

0-3 mins trial: "Ok, relax, this is the first time, need to get used to controlling and timing, I can do this"

3-6 mins trial: "Damn, I almost got 5. Next time will be better"

6-9mins trial: "Yes, finally I got 7, a bit more playing will get me to higher score"

9-11mins trial: "Oh thank you God, I made to 13. what a game"

11-14mins trial: "why,why,why!!! why can't I get more than 10 now. AARRRGGHHH!!"

14-15mins trial: "Screw this game. Why did I download it in the first place"

last trial: "Ok that's it. GG"

That's summarized everything that had happened. I punched the wall 5 times and kicked the wall 6 times and threw my phone on my bed after playing this. Thank God no casualties. I still have the game in my phone just in case I want to play it again and test my perseverance. Oh ya by the way, the name of the game is "FLAPPY BIRD". It is downloadable in android or I-phone I think. enjoy the game and may the force be with you.

ps. Play safe and play the game in a place where there are no hard parts. Try to cover every inch of the place you play the game at with soft materials like cloths or styrofoam. Stay in that room every time you play the game and make sure no one's around to avoid more casualties. Don't play the game outside or you will lose or break your gadgets.

A few days back I visited several other blogs, including those in my friend list and I have realised that there are several different things about my blog than other people's blogs. These differences really caught my attention so much. Most of them, no, all of them have pictures in their blogs and also they posted about their achievements. Well I did the same, but the kind I posted them are different, mines are not really formal I can say and have no pictures with 100 percent words (I mean the new posts). For those who posted about information regarding stuffs I don't really mind and I understand why, since they want to make everything clear.

Ofcourse their blogs look amazing, I envy them all. But do they know that when they post a picture of themselves, and they delete it for some reasons, it is still in the internet? I mean the picture is not totally gone?

How do I know that?

Well, someone told me(this guy is expert in computer stuffs), when you enter a website and if you realise in the beginning of the address there is a word "https". This someone told me if the word "https" is slashed or when the letter "s" is missing (http) means that the website is not safe. from what this someone said, it might contain viruses and stuffs related to it, or the website contains or offers something that may allow them/anyone to use all information (including words, sentences, even pictures) the users put into it. The best part is they can use any information and manipulate/exploit them to whatever they like. If one day we find our pictures spread out in the internet doing things we did not do, or our pictures have been edited into something weird, we as users can't sue them, since it is stated in the terms and conditions, and we just checked/ticked the "agree" thingy since we were too lazy to read (same goes to me).

To make sure go check on goo*le and type your name. You will see your blog pictures are there and probably mixed with bunch of other pictures that have the same name or similar title or anything related to your name or email address. Now delete one of the pictures that you have posted in blog and try to check again in goo*le. It probably goes the same way with f*cebook

I just do not want this to happen. I mean like it's not that I am ~~fat and ugly~~ being insecure, but precaution is better than cure. In this case is before someone does something bad. If words maybe less matter since they are opinions. Ambiguity in sentences can be clarified by asking that particular person about what the sentences are actually meant. But pictures, this is serious in modern day. There are millions of people who can easily edit whatever pictures using several different softwares. Some of them are really good, coz the result looks real. I just do not want when one day someone told me that there is, nope, are weird pictures of me(probably naked) all over the internet. Can you imagine how many people could have been blinded after seeing them. The last time I showed my picture (dressed) to my friends, they were all showed a disgust-faced (you know your face when seeing something ugly or disgusting). That one I was dressed, what if naked? probably worst than cutting onions. Those pictures will probably melt your eyes.

Here I posted a link and is from my high school friend. check this out if you're muslim or probably interested in Islam. All are good videos here teach us to become a better muslim or better person at least. it is in malay not english. http://cocombee.com/

Funny sayings "no one is born to be a loser, but not in this world, deal with it"

REASONS OF ALL REASONS

2014-01-20T10:03:00.002-08:00

Well here is me again. welcome to my new blog with new stories and experience being shared here.

As you all readers can see, I have changed my blog name from "drugstore" to "A.L.I.E.N"

People must wonder why I changed it. Before I tell you the reason behind this, you all must also have been wondering why my previous blog name is "drugstore". Why is that the word drug there?? and whats up with the store, It's not like Im selling or giving information on drugs or anything. Why didnt I give something fancy, like "diary" or "stories" or maybe "Galiologist"(this one kinda cool). Well as what people said everything has its own reason, so do I. I don't know whether I have told you this in my previous posts but here is the true reason.

So it is all started 5 years ago. In one beautiful morning I was bored and remembered that someone asked me to create a blog. So I just made one. But then the problem came a rise. What should I name my blog. FYI I am the type of a person who is absolutely talent-less in giving a name or anything random. Coz everything that I do must have at least a reason, can be stupid or good. But there has to be a reason. So then questions came into my head.

"What do I do with the blog?"
"What should I write here?"
"What will people say about me later on?"

I did a pretty long and serious thinking about this (around 20 seconds) and I said in my head

"Okay, this blog is going to be all things that happen in my life good and bad. People have their own stories so here is mine"

Suddenly, out of nowhere the word "drug" just popped out in my head and thought that it would be good for my blog name. Then another questions arose.

"what if people ask me about the meaning behind my blog name. what reason shall I give them."

Then here was where my brain started to work. So basically what my brain did tell me was since the blog is going to be filled with all things that will happen to me, it is going to be my new space to spit out everything in my head which which makes me feel relieve and I think has the same meaning as medicine or cure. But since my life can be good or bad so the word drug is better than medicine since drug also can either be good or bad. But after I got the reason I have another problem, that it is to short. So I just simply put "store" at the end of it. The word "store" here is not like "shop" but more to like "put". So yeah I guess that is it.

Ok now lets off to the reason why I did change my blog name.

This time the idea came to me around 3 days ago.

One night when I was about to sleep, as a daily routine I always think about many things that are happening in our world. I have been doing it since I can't remember when and as far as I realize one day is different than another and is normally random. But this one night was somehow I thought about human. As far as I know that we are here in this earth for a reason. Naturally for good reasons but surroundings, ego and lack of education somehow make us go the opposite way. We are here to manage the earth into a place where everyone can live comfortably and peacefully. There are cause and effect rules which we have to follow, so knowledge is required in order to discover new thing including reducing the bad effect and increasing the good effect. That is the job for human, and goes for me too. So we need to discover more about the place we live in now and there are places where human have not reached there yet. The point is we will eventually get to the place, where it is strange to us and the place and environment itself also feels the same way with the presence of us. By the time we get there, we can either destroy it or take care of it and try to learn from it.

From my point of view, the way I see human is like traveler, we like to go to places where we have never seen before and get advantages from it and advantage can be anything. So from that I got an idea to change my blog name since I have started to write again. At first I wanted to put something like "traveler" or "wanderer" but those names are too general and I wanted something that really can express our nature and habit as human being. We have the capability to destroy or build. Then again my brain started to function and the word "alien" just popped out. Somehow I think again it really suits us well since like we all have seen in movies aliens come to earth mostly to destroy us and only some that take care and learn from us. So I guess from there I got the idea. Im not saying that my blog will be filled with full scientific discovery, but instead by anything that have been discovered by me. The dots between each letter just for decoration and to make it looks longer.

I recently just had a reunion with my old friends from my high school. Why did I say old is because I did not really see them for like 4 years even though we are living in the same city due my uni schedule did not really give me free time to see them and sometimes it is the opposite, when I have the time they don't. I feel grateful for that, since I did not realise that I still have lots of friends out there that I have completely lost contact with and we could still talk like usual when we met yesterday. Just simply wonderful.

There is a saying that "your mind is like a parachute, it works best when it is opened".

That is true but there was one night where I have a thought about this saying. I am not sure that it is just me being close or simple minded or probably other have ever had this thought as well. It is sure that if you have open minded you can see things or problems from different points of view and get a way to solve them. I am not sure whether it has anything to do with our intelligent. As we know a parachute does have strings that are attached to the bag so when it is opened the strings give it stability to support us to control air as we fall. But, we also know that mind is abstract and has no support. The only thing that can support our mind is our beliefs or rules that we trust and it acts as strings or support which represent the string of parachute. If we have this support (beliefs or rules), can we say that we are being closed or simple minded? Because if mind really works like parachute, means that it needs support, coz when parachute is too opened(you know parachutes have like dome shaped when opened so absent in strings it loses the dome shaped), instead of saving us from falling it will only kill us abit longer than having no parachute. So I guess mind works the same way as it needs supports. But now the question is how open can our mind be.

Well I am a little bit confused about this mind thingy. Here is a short story.

A few weeks back there was a campaign where people are giving free contraception thingy (you know what I mean) during the AIDS day. They said they did this to prevent the virus from spreading out. I had a little conversation with several friends. I asked them about this campaign and whether the way to prevent it is suitable or not. The results are some agree, some disagree(including me), some just dont care about this.

Here are reasons what people said

Those who agree "It's good because it provides safe intimacy/adultery", "Some people can not afford for marriage yet so giving free *thingy will atleast solve the lust with their partner", "some people are addicted to it and simply cannot stop so it is a good programme"

Those who disagree "it's just simply supporting free adultery", "It wont stop the virus from spreading out but will only slow down, not very effective", "This campaign might be interpreted differently by children if they are not properly educated by parents"

But from my point of view this just means they support people to do free intimacy or adultery. Well for me rather than giving free of those *things which will only reduce the possibility, it is better to educate our society properly. I know it is not easy and there are some people addicted to it but it does not mean that they cannot stop. There are ways to solve this problem such us marriage. I believe there are therapies for people who are addicted to it. Just like those who are addicted to drugs.

Funny sayings "everyone has a purpose and role in life, perhaps yours is watching yo*tube"

GUESS WHO'S BACK!!!!!!!!

2014-01-09T07:17:00.003-08:00

Yup here I am, filling this blank blog again. After sooooo long being absent from this cyber world.

You all must be wondering about my return. I give you a hint. Have you all watched batman returns? I guess you have. The reason is the same.

exactly, you are absolutely correct, I have nothing to do nowadays, actually I have, preparing my master proposal and waiting for the research assistant approval letter. I waited for like forever since December til today actually. Btw happy new year to all.

Just want to continue telling the world what/how/why my life is.

From the last post, if im not mistaken it was before the start of the 4th semester. Well things went pretty well actually in my 4th semester, like my grades, social life, finance. I started my fieldwork training on the 4th and 5th semester. What I learnt from that was actually much more useful and easier to understand than study the whole 3 previous semester. I mean like things get pretty easy when you have it in your hand rather than in your imagination. All terms that I have forgotten from my previous lecturers have suddenly come back and since I saw/felt/tasted what the terms are actually meant, I understood them even more. feels like the life after you just free the burden in the toilet. its like you have been given a second chance to live. Suddenly you feel the word "YOLO" does not even exist anymore. superb. I have also touched/hold/smelled/rubbed 15 kg of pure gold.

I repeat 15 KG OF PURE GOLD!!!!!!!

Can you imagine that, this nuisance boy like me could touch that kind of expensive material. If you dont believe me look at my previous FB PP. You can see there is a very happy, cute, handsome guy holding 15kg bar of gold. When I was holding that gold bar, I felt like the richest guy in that room, even for a couple of seconds.*what a wonderful feeling.

As some of people in this world know that music is part of my life. Again my team was trusted to present for my college and took part in one of the most prestige event in the uni. That time we got third place. well Im proud actually since we only practice for 2 weeks. Besides that time my team had different members than the previous one. I believed we didnt really strongly bonded that time, so the music we produced didnt really come from our heart.

My final year was not very good, disappointing actually since my grade dropped on the first semester of my final year. I did not really know why. I studied the same way as the previous semester and believed I did the exam well. even I have less credits, supposedly I could grade-up but things went the opposite way. My FYP did not really brought so much problems since I got and settled everything according to the plan. But why/how/what made my grade went down. I was shocked when the time I received my report card. I could not believe my self what I saw that day and things get worst when some friends suggested me korean movies.

Every night I watched one korean movie and cried every time the movie ended. Most of them have bad endings, I dont really know why must one of the couple dies, its like the korean producer does not really like to see the audience smile. Why dont they put the one that dies is someone that is not really in the movie story, like maybe the person who's just passing by, or maybe the maid, or the security guard, atleast not the main lovers. Coz, Its just too sad seeing it ends like that. You know sometimes I wonder, that probably, the movie is based on the producers life story. maybe, who knows. Back on my uni life. So to overcome that I reduced the time I go online, even I cut my social life abit and stop several routine activities in my second semester. I turned out better and I get fatter(is that even a word), but still the result was below my target but I tried my best. I failed to grad as A's student.

Well FYI I just graduated from my undergrad 3 months ago, I felt absolutely nothing during the day of what people called "convocation". I didn't really get it why everybody was so happy that day (ofcourse there were other guys who looked worst than me, i mean their face expressions, must be the nerd type), I mean like everyone who enters university will eventually graduate right, Im not saying that Im not grateful, but it just you know, the real life starts after that and it is worst than the uni life.

I changed the template or layout. The old one kinda lame.

Friend said "Success is moving on from failure" * kinda true.

Funny sayings "Don't be deeply sad of one failure, you still have plenty ahead"

The Last Post

2011-06-16T05:33:00.000-07:00

Gak terasa ternyata liburan yang gw sangka bakal ngebosenin(secara dirumah doank dan sedikit jalan2) ternyata justru malah seru dan penuh dengan pelajaran yang bisa mengubah diri gw yang super kuper ini menjadi kuper aja..yup i suck in socializing and to be socialized with people though they're my friends.grrr

Pelajaran yang paling berharga gw dapet pas kebetulan denger ceramahnya Aa gym yang dengan gak sengaja suaranya kedengeran ditipi pas lagi gonta ganti cenel. jadi inti dari ceramahnya itu..

"hidup sederhana dan kalo beli barang taruh pada tempatnya"

Gw takjub pas dengerin ceramahnya aagym pas dia bilang kalo beli barang taruh pada tempatnya, secara ya emang kalo beli barang harus ditaruh ditempatnya. Tapi yang dimaksud taruh pada tempatnya disini tuh contohnya kalo beli sepatu yang tempatnya di kaki, dan hanya dikaki, bukan di hati. Tapi orang2 sekarang(kadang2 gw juga) kalo beli barang (contohnya sepatu) tarohnya di 2 tempat,yaitu di kaki dan hati. Kalo udah begini biasanya bakal nyiksa diri sendiri.

Kenapa????

karena kalo pas kita pake dan temen2 yang laen sepatunya lebih butut kita berasa tinggi hati, kalo ada yang pake lebih bagus, kita jadi iri hati, kalo kecolongan ato rusak kita jadi sakit hati. Coba kalo gak usah ditaroh dihati pasti gak bakal kerepotan untuk ngurusin hal2 yang bikin hati terusik. Bukan berarti jadi gak peduli sama barang kita sendiri(rada aneh bahasanya), tapi jangan sampe barang2 kita menjadi penghambat ato masalah kepada diri kita sendiri.

Gw pun termasuk orang yang sayang sama barang gw sendiri,maksudya sayang bukan berarti sama kayak sayang ke ortu ato pacar, tapi maksudnya gw tuh jaga barang2 yang gw minta baek2. Emang beberapa barang gw ada yang kecolongan ato rusak, tapi ya itu emang udah nasip tuh barang, dan rezeki buat tukang yang buat barang tersebut.

ini sebagai pengingat aja sebenernya bwt diri gw yang sering lupa akan keindahan hidup sederhana dan bersahaja ini.

HOT NEWS

Tanpa disangka ternyata ortu gw telah berencana bwt balik ke indo selama 7 hari bwt jalan2 sekaligus mengurus urusanya disana, dan nyokap gw mengajak gw untuk menjadi bodyguardnya dan dengan bangga gw setujui permintaan beliau. gw udah nyiapin bejibun rencana yang mudah2an bisa terlaksana.

Its been a while since then...

Itulah kata2 yang tengah bermain dalam kepala manusia ini. Sebenrnya gw juga kgk ngrti artinya apaan.hehehe.(-,-)

Btw lebaran gw yang sekaran bakal insyaAllah gw rayain di negegara tercinta. Terakhir gw lebaran di indo kira2 tahun 2004..kalo diitung2 kira2 udah satu abad gw gak lebaran di indo.

Have you ever experienced a "twice a year chat"????

Kalo gw bilang gw sedang mengalami peristiwa kyk gitu. dimana chat bersama "seseorang" hanya terjadi 2 kali dalam satu tahun dan hanya terjadi pada awal dan akhir tahun, dan jeleknya awal tahun ini udah, brarti gw harus nunggu sampe akhir tahun baru bisa chat lagi. gw cm bs bilang it sucks. secara cuma bs menyejukan hati sebentar tapi harus tersiksa sekian lama. Kadang terpikir buat apa menanti sesuatu yang lama sedangkan yang setiap saat aja ada. Tapi gw adalah manusia biasa yang juga memiliki nafsu dunia.(galau detected)

Btw this is the last post of my blog, i realize that most of da things i posted are actually private stuffs, i prefer to keep them for my self coz thats who i am.hehehhe

So this is the good bye then...

have a nice life

Love you always :D

current life and real angle

2011-05-24T08:31:00.000-07:00

Alhamdulillahirrabbilalamin, akhirnya exam terselesaikan, walaupun the last paper was a nightmare. I was confident enough about the paper, I’ve studied hard and didn’t go online for a few days but then it was a horrible, nightmare, disaster paper. All I can do is now hoping for the best result…

It has been a week since the holiday started, and my birthday had passed a few days ago. I think it was the best birthday for me so far, though I didn’t get any present, but being surrounded by my family and friends who love me was probably enough, and also my friends set up a little surprise for me. Honestly, it was the first time I blew candles on my birthday’s cake.

A few days ago, my friends which are fajri, widya, khoti, ellvhis, rhara and parents, an unknown uncle from nowhere and I went for a small trip to Melaka. We had a lot of fun during the trip, we took photographs and visited some historical places. We also got on boat and travelled along Melaka river. We also rode on a tower that had given a great view of Melaka.

The next day most of my friends were leaving KL, and my life depends on those who stay, I’m hoping that the holiday is going to be fun and a lot of surprises.

This is an info that I got from a magazine a few days ago. The real angle in our lives is actually a person who wakes us up in the morning, who yells at us when we do something wrong and more importantly the one that has given us birth.

Yes, it’s our mother.

Gw sadar bahwa ternyata ibu gw adalah malaikat yg sebenarnya buat gw. Walaupun gw
sering kena marah karna hal sepele ato kadang2 kesel kalo ibu gw terlalu mengatur hidup gw. Tapi setelah gw pikir, semua itu untuk kebaikan gw, walaupun emang kadang2 ada aja permintaannya yang aneh2, tapi sebenarnya niatnya baik. Itu kenapa orang yang harus kita sayang setelah Rasulullah SAW adalah ibu kita.

Seorang ibu sanggup berbuat apa aja untuk kebaikan anaknya, termasuk ngorbanin dirinya sendiri. Gw juga baru tau ternyata salah satu fitrahnya seorang ibu adalah membela anaknya, walaupun anaknya dalam posisi yang salah. Pantesan aja kalo anak kecil kepentok pasti yang disalahin tembok ato mejanya, padahal yang salah kan anaknya yang jalanya nyeleweng.

Yang di atas itu contoh kecil aja kalo dipikir2 banyak sebenernya. Hal yang mungkin paling bikin seorang ibu gembira dan sekaligus sedih adalah ketika anaknya mendapat beasiswa keluar negri. Mungkin ketika mendengar berita tersebut seorang ibu akan terlihat senang padahal kemungkinan besar bagi seorang ibu itu adalah sayatan di hati, karna sebenarnya yang di inginkan seorang ibu hanya keberadaan anaknya dekat dengannya. Tapi seorang ibu juga tidak tega melihat anaknya sedih karna kehilangan suatu peluang yang sangat diingini sang anak. Karena itu seorang ibu akan mendukung anaknya walaupun menyakiti hatinya sendiri.

Temen gw pernah bilang kalo hal yang paling menyayat hati seorang ibu terutama ibu muslim adalah ketika melihat anaknya meninggal dan ketika menikah ato pas ijab kabul untuk perempuan. Setelah gw pikir bener juga, karna pas ijab Kabul terlaksana, berarti si anak perempuan adalah tanggung jawab sang suami, dan mau gak mau juga si perempuan harus nurut dan ikut suaminya. Jadi si ibu harus ridha sama keputusan suami si anak, dan itu kenapa seorang ibu sangat memilih calon suami untuk anak perempuannya, karena yang seorang ibu cari adalah yang terbaik yang paling tidak bisa menjaga anaknya, waloupun sang ibu tau calon suami anaknya belum tentu bisa menjaga sebaik dirinya.

Ini Cuma renungan gw ditengah malem yang gak bisa tidur dan juga gak tau mau ngapain, kerena kebetulan keinget dan kepikiran sesuatu tentang ibu gw sendiri. Dari pada lupa mending gw tulis di blog sendiri

Love and take care of your mother before it’s too late, and spend your time with your family as long as possible.

Stories and moments

2011-05-04T06:35:00.000-07:00

Akhirnya blog gw tercinta ini bisa di update lagi, setelah selama ini vacuum karena banyak kegiatan dan proses pembelajaran gw yang gak karuan, ditambah minggu ujian yang sukses membuat kepala, otak, badan, dan pikiran gw berantakan.

Tanpa gw sadari ternyata blog gw ada yang baca juga dan ada pula yang sampe ngefans berat sama blog gw, sampe2 ada cewek yang minta tanda tangan gw, dengan bangga dan percaya diri gw kasih tanda tangan gw yang kononnya bisa membuat orang jatuh hati. Pas abis gw tanda tanganin kertas yang dia kasih, dia bilang makasih dan gw senyum aja, tapi begitu gw sadar, ternyata gw berada di bank, dan yang barusan gw tanda tanganin adalah receipt bayaran semesteran gw. Jadi kesimpulannya gw gak terkenal.TT

Baru2 ini gw dapet kabar yang menurut gw kabar paling buruk yang pernah gw terima, lebih buruk dari kabar kalo gw gak lulus TK. Jadi kejadiannya terjadi pada hari jumat tanggal 27 april. Gak ada tanda2 apa dipagi harinya, tapi pas udah siangan dikit, perasaan gw mulai gak enak, jadi berasa gak nyaman dan ditambah beragam perasaan gak enak lainnya jadi satu dicampur madu dan es.-,-

Pokoke gak enak lah perasaan gw. Tapi gw cuma berpikir positif aja, tapi ternyata pikiran positif gw berubah jadi negative accident. Pas abis solat jumat kakak gw sms kalo adek gw kecelakaan. Mood gw yang pada saat itu sedang gugup karna ada exam pas abis solat jumat langsung berubah 180 derajat, yang ada malah gw gak mikirin exam sama sekali. Dikepala gw cuma ada gambaran adek gw dalam kondisi bergeletak dijalan dikerumpunin orang2 dan gw gak sanggup mikirin yang nggak2 takut beneran kejadian.

Jadi pas abis exam gw langsung cabut ke RS dimana adek gw di rawat. Begitu gw masuk ward dan ngliat kondisi adek gw, mata gw langsung merah, nyokap gw crita kalo tulang kakinya patah. Pada saat itu pula gw udah gak bisa menahan tangis dan gw langsung nyari toilet karna malu nangis depan ortu.heheh

(cerita dalam toilet ditiadakan karena mengandungi unsur kedewasaan)

Pas gw balik lagi yang bisa gw lakukan cuma melihat pasrah kondisi adek gw yang tidak berdaya dengan kaki yang dibungkus benda gak jelas.(gw gak tw namanya apa). Tapi Alhamdulillahirrabbilallamin insyaAllah bisa sembuh dalam waktu 3 bulan.
AMIN AMIN AMIN

Itulah kabar terburuk yang gw pernah terima sejauh ini.

Setelah gw menjadi mahasiswa, banyak benda yang sebelumnya dulu gw gak ngerti sekarang menjadi ngerti. Bukan menyangkut pelajaran tapi tentang kehidupan, contohnya dalam membeli barang. Gw dulu orangnya suka pilih2 kalo milih barang, maksudnya pilih2 adalah milih barang branded yang tentunya menguras uang. Kalo uang gw sih gpp, lah ini uang ortu. Dulu gw berpikir kalo laptop gw harus mac, handphone harus I phone dan sepatu harus converse. Tapi setelah menjadi mahasiswa gw berasa menjadi lebih dewasa. Hal ini ditandai dengan perubahan suara gw jadi agak ngebass dan kumis sudah mulai tumbuh dengan liar.

Kedewasaan gw pun mengubah cara berpikir gw, jadi sekarang gw memilih barang berdasarkan dari kegunaannya. Jadi sekarang gw berpikir kalo laptop adalah 7-years old laptop inherited from my dad and sis, handphone gw adalah ally(nama handphone kesayangan gw) dan sepatu gw tetep converse karena gw masih muda dan pengen tampil muda.hehehe

Gw adalah orang yang senang dengan musik, hampir setiap jenis musik gw dengerin, tapi gw paling demen denger music classic, karena seneng aja gitu. Tapi aliran musik gw sebenarnya metal atau lebih dikenal sebagai mellow total. Entah kenapa and somehow gw seneng dengerin musik2 yang mellow2, bukan karna gw alay ato ababil(-,-), tapi entah kenapa gw emang suka lagu2 mellow. Ini bermula dari gw kecil imut kayak ucil yang maen tuyul & mbak yul sampe sekarang gede ganteng kayak yang maen dipilm harry potter.heheheh

Gw sekarang lagi demen nonton tv series called how i met your mother. Gw seneng banget sama tv series ini karna banyak adegan dan percakapan yang ~~bokep~~ lucu dan menarik. My favorite character is Barney Stinson. Karena ni orang lawakannya mantep plus multi talented.

someone asked me"do u love me?"
I said"of course i do love you"
then she smiled..

That's it for now...let's get back to the book...

basa-basi

2011-03-28T08:37:00.000-07:00

This is the problem of being me, who couldn't look for suitable title for my own blog. I was once small, then grew up and became a teenager.
Things start from small, then grow into big.
Same as feeling which starts from nothing then grows, and will continue growing or the other way around.
Nothing remains the same, unless if time stops.
Your commitment is thing that show your way.
Make a commitment and stay with it.

Those are sentences which I got while watching movies. Those sentences have opened my eyes to see things better.hehehehehe

begitulah kelabilan gw yg masih ol pada tengah malem, dan gak ngerti mau ngapain selain menulis kata2 inspirasi yg nyangkut dikepala dan biar gak lupa gw tulis di blog. biar anak2 dan cucu bisa ngeliat.hehehe

Hidup gw sekarang byasa aja. gak banyak kegiatan yg gw ikutin secara udah mau exam dan mencoba untuk fokus pada kerjaan yang didepan mata. Pelajaran2 sudah gw pelajari dengan baik dan berharap mendapat nilai yg maksimal. Gw punya quotation baru. ini adalah quotation yg gw dapet pas baru bangun dari ketiduran pas lagi belajar.

"let me get my own C than our A"

mksdya adalah tentang pertanggung jawaban sebagai pelajar. dimana kita harus ada commitment untuk membuat assignment, tugas ato ulangan yang sifatnya individual dengan kemampuan sendiri. Banyak pelajar sekarang cenderung memikirkan nilai ketimbang kepahaman. Gak salah juga sebenernya secara emang nilai yang dipake buat ngelamar kerja.

But did you know that sometimes there are people who got high marks but dun get employed by any company? but the people who got lower marks instead.

This is related to the phrase "what goes around comes around", which is you will actually be rewarded as what you have worked for. Believe in your own ability is the best thing, coz it is you that have to survive in this world.

Soal si dia gw bener2 gak mw mikir lagi. ntah somehow ilang aja dari kepala. emg kyknya nothing inside here, It just a feeling of "missing" not "love"(muntah beranak), mending berharap dengan yg ddepan mata.huehuehueheuheu

Exam tinggal kurang lebih satu bulan lagi dan rencana mau ngambil semester pendek buat nyusul temen2 yang berada didepan sana secara gw telat satu semester. berharap dapet result yang lebih baik. AMIN AMIN AMIN...