A Different Start (6-end): Really, Goodbye?

The holiday has over. Oh, no, it's still holiday, but tomorrow I'll be going to school not for training again, but for studying regularly.

The holiday's good, really. I got sooo many new experiences. Oh, I haven't told you this: I spend my last week of holiday by attending olympiad training, having a meeting and doing homework. Seems boring, doesn't it? Trust me, it was not boring at all. I'm so glad that I was given those opportunities as I could explore myself even more from it.

From the preparation, other than the lesson, I got many new friends. They are really fun! The same thing goes for the meeting. Homeworks? Well, the teamwork ones are the one I love the most. Even though they're hard and sometimes complicated to do, I learnt a lot from it. I was also able to meet my friends often because of it... oh, really, I miss my friends so much.

Goodbye, holiday. For me, as an acceleration student, it'll be counting days for another final exam. I hope I and my friends will all be ready to it, so that we can do well there and satisfy ourselves. Bismillaah!

Thank you, anyway, for reading my blog posts. See you in my next ones!

P. S.: The picture above was the view of the sky on my house after a quite heavy rain. At first, I couldn't believe what I saw. There were two rainbows! But like Kartini wrote to her friend, after the dark, light is born, right?

P. P. S.: I'll insert photos to other posts soon!

end of the series

A Different Start (5): Come On, Sing!

My father, other than being an ITB lecturer, works as a businessman. A company he currently runs is Commtech. He told me that the company holds a lot of trainings. I came to one of them, its opening. I was asked by my father to be a cameraman (mmm, is there a word like "camerawoman"?).

The company held a gathering on 5th until 6th of January, but as my sisters and mom have to go back to their school and hospital already, we only joined the gathering in the night of the 5th.

The company rented a villa in Lembang, Bandung. It is near Kampung Gajah, the other company members (and families) did go there in the morning. The villa was nice... especially because the view was very beautiful and the sky was really clear that I could see a full moon brightened the night.

We had a dinner. The food was really good; most of them grilled. In the middle of it, we had a karaoke competition. My family had to try first... my father then asked my sister Farah and my mom (and me, actually, but I was just too shy :)) to pick a song and sing. But then my mom's microphone wasn't able to be turned on, so Farah sang alone. It was great, the others were impressed. The karaoke program gave her the score 85.

The others then got their chance to sing. My father then asked Farah to sing again, but in the middle, Farah got confused as she remembered the song so little. It was then when people started to convinced my father, "Come on, Mr. Ian, sing!". At first he didn't want to sing, saying "I can't!" to my mother. But not long after it... a voice came out from the speaker. He sang! We laughed a lot, and we had fun. Surprisingly, his score is 84. He laughed so much, as he, with his voice's quality, was only beaten by one by his child. "Wah, the program must be broken!"

At last, Farah won the third place. The others then went to sleep. We slept after trying to play billiard (my father taught us, but I just couldn't do it, hehe).

On the 6th in the morning, we went back to our home. It was still dawn, about 5 or 5.30, but my family had to prepare to go to school/work. I myself had to go too, there was a Biology olympiad preparation in my school.

end of part five

A Different Start (3): Another Books (and stores)!

I am getting addicted with Brady's Chemistry, but at Pasar Senen I only bought the first volume out of two... so I and my father had another hunt, this time in Palasari, Bandung. This time, my sisters accompanied us.

Before we went to Palasari, we went to ITB (I think I've written that my father is an ITB lecturer in my biography). We'd just got ready to go when it started to rain, so we waited by visiting ITB's very own library.

The library is reaaaallyyyy big and full of books. I love it so much! It has four floors, if I'm not mistaken, but we didn't go to the 4th floor because the rain had over. We really enjoy being there, my father took me to see the TPB books. I don't know what TPB stands for, but at the first semester, every ITB student has to join it. The materials are similar to the ones studied in high school, but they are slightly deepened. The books used are so many; each of lesson has three of four reference books. For example, in Physics, ITB uses Giancoli, Halliday... and another one, but unfortunately I forgot who's the writer :) most of the books are the translated ones, but some are the originals, the English version. I like the original ones so much; the language used is easier to be understood, each book isn't divided into some parts and the pages are made from the same kind of paper used in magazines. When I read it, I felt like I was reading something fun.

The books in the library vary in ages. I and my youngest sister Kiki competed to hunt for the oldest book in the library. My father got worried because of it, hahaha. One time, we were inspecting an old book when a really big sneeze was heard. I and Kiki was really shocked that my other sister, Farah, laughed so much. She said, "So both of you thought that was book ghost's sneeze?" and the three of us laughed a lot, without caring that we were in library (the laugh wasn't too noisy, of course).

It was fun, really. We then went to Palasari after praying first in LAPI ITB, about two minutes from the campus.

Palasari is waaay more organized than Pasar Senen, I and my sisters felt really comfortable in there. We bought some comics. After visiting ITB's library, I realized that I wanted the Brady's English version more so we didn't search for the second volume, instead, we searched for the English one. The book is expensive, though, so we didn't buy it.

My holiday is really full of books, isn't it? :))

A Different Start (2): Happy New Year!

Time flies away so fast... it still feels that yesterday was the New Year. Anyway, here's my story about what I did in it.

In the New Year's Eve, my grandpa's youngest brother had his 60th birthday. His family held a birthday party in Sheraton Hotel, Dago, Bandung. I and my sister was really excited as we rarely go out to celebrate New Year; sometimes we don't even wake up on the 12 o'clock. We didn't plan to stay there until the New Year, though.

The party was really nice. There were lots of lecturers (my grandpa is a planology lecturer). My family members were the youngest guests, I guess. We all had fun.

Unfortunately, my grandpa's youngest child was unable to come. My grandpa has two children; both living in the USA. The oldest is Aunt Yoda Patta. She is really beautiful and smart; she is a PhD from Massachussets Institute of Technology in Material Engineering. She has a/some patent(s), you can search in the Internet if you'd like to know about them. The party was the first time I and my sisters met her, she spends most of her life abroad. She was accompanied by her husband, Uncle Angel, an American that also got his engineer title from MIT.

That day, my grandpa, grandma, and Aunt Yoda convinced me to study abroad. My father agreed with them, but my mother didn't. She's really worried about me, I understand. :)

It was when we'd like to go home when my grandpa asked us not to, and to wait until the midnight. The clock showed 11 o'clock, so we decided to wait. The Sheraton was then full of music; there was a female DJ (I love her remixes). We were also given New Year trumpets. Some attractions were also shown; fire dance and beer mixing (but there wasn't any beer in the bottle, I hope you understand what I meant by this). What's interesting is that the lecturers danced along the music with all their strength. My grandpa and grandma even asked our family to join them, saying "You're still young, don't be too serious."

When it was only ten seconds to the New Year, the MCs asked us to count down with them (and a video showed with a projector). "Ten...nine..eight...seven...six...five...four...three...two...one! Happy new year everyone!" Fireworks started to be launched, the trumpets were blown and people were so happy. My grandpa, grandma and aunt hugged each other and my family, too.

Shortly after that, we asked to go home. Thank you, grandpa, grandma, aunt and uncle!

end of part two

A Different Start (1): Books, Anyone?

There are lots of difference between this year-end break and the ones before. I got new experiences every day, each of them is a nice one. I'm planning to divide the story into some posts, and this is the first. So... enjoy!

It all started when I visited my grandpa that celebrates Christmas every year. Almost all of my relatives live in Jakarta, so I went to that metropolitan city (it is actually a province, though, but I like calling it "city" better). Not like the past years, there wasn't any family gathering in my aunt's house, where my grandpa lives. Usually his brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews and their children come to visit as he is the oldest in his family.

Because of that, we went to Mall Kelapa Gading.

But that's not the story I'd like to tell you.

The next day, I, my father and my cousin went to Pasar Senen. It's a traditional market located in Jakarta Pusat (Central Jakarta). No, no, I didn't go there to buy some food or stuff, but Senen is famous for its cheap but still complete bookshops. I and my father had been planning to go there since the year's Idul Fitri, so I was really excited when he asked me to prepare. "We're going to Senen." It was just three of us; my mom accompanied my sisters and my other cousin (and nephew, if I'm not mistaken), they really wanted to swim.

It was really awesome, either the stores, the books... or the trip. Yeap, I went there not by car, but by a public transportation: bus! Okay, okay, you may think I'm over-reacting but... really, I've never been in a bus before as I usually go anywhere with car, or sometimes angkot (angkutan kota, it's like a car that is modified into a public transportation). I've been in Transjakarta, though, it's Jakarta's busway.

The bus' name is Kopaja P-20. Kopaja stands for Koperasi Angkutan Jakarta or if translated, Jakarta Transportation Cooperation (you can search what "Cooperation" here means, hehe). We got into it in Pondok Indah, Jakarta Selatan (West Jakarta), my cousin lives there with my aunt and grandpa I mentioned before. It was full, so we had to stand up for at least half the trip. (Good to be a girl, though, when there's an empty seat, I was offered to sit first)

I love what I saw there. I go to Jakarta often, but it is usually Jakarta Selatan. So... I looked at the buildings of other part of Jakarta curiously.

Central Jakarta is a crowded city. Traffic always occurs there, even when West Jakarta is not (this rarely happens, but in Christmas it did! The city was really empty that I guess I could even play football at its roads). It was an approximately-one-hour trip.

We were like explorers that time. My father relied on his memories of the city, but the last time he came there was... about twenty years ago. Many parts of the city has changed, for example there was a way to directly walk from the bus station to Pasar Senen, but now there isn't. The bookstores was also evicted, their place was actually in Kwitang, beside Toko Gunung Agung near the Pasar.

At last (after got lost for many times, hahaha), we found the place; the highest floor of Pasar Senen. It was really full of books and I was so happy, really, really, happy. The sellers directly call me like "mbak, sini mbak, cari apa" ("mbak, come here mbak, what (book) are you looking for?"). I was confused on how to reject their offerings, so I just said "later, okay, I'm still looking (at all this stuff)".

What I wanted was actually some Chemistry and Physics college books; Raymond Chang's and Giancoli's, respectively. I and my father also searched for a high school exercise book that was used in late 1960s, made by a Dutch pastor that lived in Indonesia, Peperzak. But I just wanted to feel how it was to arrive there, the place I've wanted to visit since a long time ago.

At last... I bought four books; three Physics books written by Halliday et al. and a Chemistry book made by Brady and his colleagues (yeah it was so unfortunate that the sellers didn't know Peperzak's book). Three of the four are really thick, each of them contains almost a thousand pages. The other book is quite thin, but it is the hand-written solution for the problems in the other book,

The great thing about the bookstores in Pasar Senen is that we can bargain so that they sell their books cheaply; I bought the four for only Rp 175.000! The sellers are very friendly too, my father even joked with them.

These are what I bought from Pasar Senen.

My cousin also bought some old novels, the ones published by Balai Pustaka (1920s).

When we got back to the station, we found out that... there are also bookstores there. My father, out of curiosity, asked for Peperzak's book. A seller went inside right after hearing the request, asking us to wait. After waiting for some time... the seller went back with the book in his hand! I was so excited. The price was originally... mmm, I forgot, about Rp 75.000 up, but my father successfully bargained it that we only had to pay for Rp 25.000.

We then directly searched for the P-20 bus. It was already 4 p.m. We arrived at Pondok Indah at 5 and waited for some time in Poins Square (my father bought Doraemon's Stand By Me DVD here for my sisters) before my cousin's driver picked us up.

P. S.: When we arrived home, my grandpa told us that "I and Peperzak were friends, we sometimes argue with each other." The world is really small, isn't it?

end of part one

Leaving 2014: A Quick Flashback

Okay, my class was asked to write about interesting things happening in our year-end break from school. I would like to permit that what I will be writing here isn't exactly one of those; it'll be about how I spend most of my holiday time, but I promise that the next posts will be about them.

Another year has just ended. What do people usually do on year-ends? I guess the answer is thinking about what they, what we just did the whole year; our choices, our mistakes and faults... our ups and downs. We learnt a lot from them, to then plan our next year so that we won't do wrong things again, or choose incorrectly anymore... we are planning to be better than before.

Some of us make a new resolution every year, while the rest even list many. No, no one makes none, even the unluckiest ones get another hope every new year. Either a hope to get their fate changed, or to live with it and turn it into something good.

I ended the year by thinking, like I've told you, what have I done all the year? Did I make so much mistake? Did I accomplish much? The answers to the last two questions is yes and no, respectively.

I must say, I failed at accomplishing my last new year resolutions. I've got plenty of them, but I think I achieved none. I won't tell what they are, but the reason why I didn't succeed is perhaps... I didn't work hard to get them. I relied on my luck, hoping that it could bring me what I'd like to have... and yes, it almost did bring me to them, but as Ariana Grande's song is titled, almost is never enough.

I can't say the year was bad, though. It was good, though not as good as the year before. But I learnt a lot of things from 2014; it made me realize that hard work is probably not everything, but it is a key to success. I also learnt that, sometimes what we never dreamed for could be the best for us.

You see, 2014 was a really lucky year for me. I finished fourth in a competition held for high school student while I was still in junior high, making me a representative for the regional competition held about two months after. I also got good rank in it, my friends said, but I didn't make it to the national round. Why I say lucky is because I guessed a lot during the competition; on more than a half of the questions. I only reviewed the materials in D-1. Unbelievable, right? I never thought my scores and ranks would be that good. But I also regret things because of it; if I studied harder and more seriously, maybe I would make it to the national round.

I was also good at school; well, despite the relative definition of 'good', I was really satisfied with it. But a thing I know is, I also haven't done my best there. I didn't study hard, I was too careless about it.

So here it is. Welcome, 2015! I've got a lot of "achievements" I need to keep this year, but not like last year, I won't depend on my "luckiness". Not anymore.

...But perhaps you hate a thing and it is good for you; and perhaps you love a thing and it is bad for you. And Allah Knows, while you know not.

Q. S. Al-Baqarah 2:216

...Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves...

Q. S. Ar-Ra'd 13:11

In the name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful. Bismillaahirrahmaanirrahiim.