Project 365

2007. I started my final year project with 6 other great teammates. I became involved in a student organization called AIESEC, became in love with it, dived myself into it, and devoted my time for it. It was such a busy year, but I found a way to divide my time between uni, AIESEC, and Saman Dance. I met a lot of new awesome people, but I had much less quality time with my closest friends. I was ignorant enough to realize that this was my final year! I wasn’t ready to be apart from my best housemates in the world, Jenny and Mayu. As expected, time flew by and suddenly I held my farewell dinner. I had planned on going back to Jakarta upon graduation. But suddenly, my mum changed the plan; she would rather having me back in Jeddah.

2011. I’ve started my thesis project. I’ve been involved in an Indonesian student organization, PPI/e, become in love with it, dived myself into it, and have been devoting my time for it. It’s been quite busy time for me: thesis, PPI/e, and angklung! I’ve been meeting a lot of new awesome people, but I’ve been having much less quality time with my closest friends. No more potluck dinner or hanging out in a café for hours — I wonder if it was me or them who have no time. As usual, I’m ignorant enough to realize that this could be my last year in the Netherlands. I’m not ready to face farewell and to give up my routine that I come to love and enjoy. I’ve been planning to go straight to Jakarta upon my graduation, but 2 days ago, my mom called and she told me to go to Jeddah first because she misses me hahaha… 😛 So it seems like Allah SWT still wants me to go back to visit the Baitullah, uh? Lucky me 😉

I feel like my life is in a circle and I’m almost approaching the finish line. After the finish line, I’ll start the lap again — from the beginning — fresh, confused, and excited. I’ll be in the stage where I’ll try to adapt again, find new friends, be longing to go back to the past, and then… at some point in time, I’ll be enjoying my life again and thinking nothing but about the present and future. If my life is a process, then this would be the so-called steady-state (geek mode: ON hahaha).

Oh dear life. Please be gentle on me.

I finally met up with a Brazilian CouchSurfer, Vivian. She contacted me two weeks ago but I had been busy the past two weeks so we only got to meet today. I was so glad I met her! She’s my age, friendly, open-minded, and thoughtful. We had a very nice conversation for 3 hours at Usine, my favorite café (of course!). We just talked, talked, talked like we knew each other for years! Hahaha. It was a great afternoon!

Well, I learnt quite a bit of things about Brazil from her:

• Not many Brazilian can speak English. If you can speak the language, you’re considered "educated" or "higher" than others.
• Brazilians are usually not so fond of Portugal due to long colonial history 😛 (I asked her if she’d live in Portugal since they speak the same language, and that was her answer hahaha).
• You’ve probably heard about Singlish (Singaporean English) or Manglish (Malay English), but have you heard of Portuñol? LOL! It’s Portuguese Spanish! I didn’t know that!
• The word gereja is from Portuguese! How come I didn’t know that?!
• The Portuguese in Indonesia were kicked out by the Dutch in 1570’s while the Dutch were kicked out by the Portuguese in Brazil! 😛 They both got their portion, eh?!
• Brazilian guys are hot and sexy but they’re not "created" to commit on their relationship. She said that it’s common for them to cheat on their girl or wife 😐 She was even very sure that all of the Brazilian guys (99%) at some point in time have cheated on their woman! That’s not good.

I can’t remember what else we talked about. There were too many things, but these were the main ones. We’re going to meet up for lunch next month probably… I’m going to cook an Indonesian food and she’ll cook a Brazilian food. Excited 🙂

I’m getting bored. Getting bored of spending my time with the same circle of friends again and again. It’s been a month (or probably more) that I unconsciously never move from this circle. I never even try to peek to another one. I’m kinda stuck here.

Don’t get me wrong, nothing wrong with them. This is just me. If you know me well, then you won’t be surprised. I need to be in a different environment. I need to talk to different people. I need to share with different individuals. I need to hear different stories. Something that stimulates me. That’s the reason why I like to have a different group of friends.

I guess, now is the right time to meet up with fellow CouchSurfers…

PPI Eindhoven is the champion for Eindhoven League 2011!!! Wohoooooo 🙂 So happy!!! It was indeed a tough tournament especially with PPI Arnhem and Rotterdam 🙂

On another note, I’m happy that the event has concluded. Although there were some glitches prior to the D-day, I have to say that it went so successfully for two days. The committee, especially those who were responsible during the matches (not me of course), did a great job!!! We were on time most of the time; very rare for an Indonesian event hahaha. WELL DONE!

Super busy with this event in which I’m involved in the committee for the whole weekend! I wasn’t supposed to be busy as my core job has finished, but in the end, I became involved in the information desk. I feel so tired, but I’m so happy that today’s event went successfully! 🙂 It’s time to sleep and gain more energy for tomorrow.

I’m slowly reading this book: Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds, Revised Edition. The author lists some of the challenges of being a third culture kid (TCK). One of them describes the challenge that I always face…

TCKs are often sadly ignorant of national, local, and even family history. How many rides to various relatives’ homes are filled with parents coaching TCKs about who is related to whom?

People know that I’m quite ignorant about Indonesia, but not many people know that I have a bad memory of my own relatives’ names and their relations to my parents! My mom’s family is soooooooo huge that no matter how many times my mom explains to me about how they relate to her, those information just can’t stay in my brain! Worst still, I barely remember their names. It’s so bad. Every time I meet them, my smile and basa-basi become my only weapon. Otherwise, I’m screwed! hahaha.

Few things make people, including TCKs, feel more left out than seeing everyone else laughing at something they can’t understand as funny.

Been there, done that. It’s the most frustrating thing to not being able to understand what people are talking about. Not only that, their hesitation to explain to me about their conversation makes it so much worst. I did end up crying once — in front of my friends, and they’re all heartless boys — because they always made me feel like I didn’t deserve to know what they talked about. Every time I asked them what they meant, they always said "oh, you don’t understand" or "how come you didn’t know?!" and so on… It’s okay if you wanna make fun of me, but do please explain! Some people just need a little bit of punch to understand this thing 😛

Ya Allah… I hope papa is in a much better place now… 🙁

I just got back from my road trip!

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Switzerland was breathtaking! The Alps and the lake were just so beautiful and refreshing. This was the country I had been longing to go since I was a kid and I was so glad I did it!

But New Zealand was still the best in terms of nature. Nothing can beat that beautiful country 🙂

Won’t be writing anything in this blog til my mood is back to normal…

Til next time!

Isn’t it funny that…

I keep on complaining about those who are so ignorant about the world’s current events and how they’re able to live in this world without thinking about others, while I keep my eyes and ears shut about what’s happening in Indonesia?

I criticize people who love to buy gadgets whenever the new one comes out because it is such a waste of money, while I spend so much money on traveling? (although I can give you a long list of arguments, benefits, etc about it hehe)

I get overly irritated when ANY of my guy friends commented on the physical aspect of any girls on the street (e.g. "look at that sexy woman"), yet I find it perfectly fine for my girl friends to admire handsome boys?

This is the world we live in. It is full of hypocrisy — whether you realize it or not.