An amazing song sang by Ada Band and Gita Gutawa. This used to be my favorite song ever.
But listening to this song again drowns me into the ocean of sadness. I wish I can just skip September. Or I wish I can just be in a comma, so that when I wake up, October welcomes me with a smile. I don’t know what to expect. What I know is that… reality is cruel and I’m not ready to face it. I’ll never be ready.
🙂
I wasn’t planning to do anything today as I only had few hours of sleep. I was still very tired. I just wanted to stay at home. But then at around 12pm a good friend of mine, Arya asked me if I would be interested to join in for cycling. His cousin was in town for a visit and he wanted to show her around. Since today was my last day of vacation before going back to school, I decided to join them for a city tour 🙂
We first went to the lake near our campus. It’s quite a big lake and it’s a really nice place to do picnic. If it was sunny, we would have done that!
Then we went to Evoluon, the UFO-like conference center which was originally built by Philips to house a science museum. Evoluon is one of the icons of Eindhoven. It isn’t a pretty building if you look at it in closer distance, though.
From Evoluon, we cycled towards the south of Eindhoven to the Genneper Parken (Genneper Parks). Nothing much here, except few museums and a water windmill.
In total, we cycled for around 15 kilometers! I could feel my back needed a massage afterwards :P. But it was quite fun. The weather was really gloomy with occasional rain. If it was sunny, it’d be much better! I reached home at around 6pm and dropped dead to sleep right away. I wanted to go to the Turkish mosque for ifthar but I overslept until 9pm! Haha. I was too tired. Great day!
It’s just… I feel better somehow not to see your updates
That’s all I could say to you when you asked me for the reason. And I didn’t see the necessity for you to know how I’m doing either :).
Be it like that. Let’s just go our own separate way.
Just some of the pictures of today’s highlights:
This is me and Jessie at an electronic shop, Mediamarkt, amazed by this Samsung’s 3D TV!
And we found the most expensive headphone I’ve ever seen in my life! Yes, the price tag was 399 Euro (which was about US $500 or Rp. 4.6 million)! What’s the special thing about this headphone? It could “reduce” the external noise. For example, if you’re in the airplane, which usually requires you to turn up the volume of your player because of the noise coming from the airplane. But, using this headphone, you’ll most probably no need to do that. Amazing, but useless, somehow. I’d rather spend that amount for a tiny Sony laptop, which was 30 Euro cheaper than the headphone!
Then I went to the graduation ceremony of my friend Reyhan. There were 19 graduands who were given their degrees, but only one person was a female. Awesome! 🙂
After having ifthar at the Turkish mosque, I sat in a cafe with a CouchSurfer from San Diego, the States whom I currently hosted. I had a nice conversation with her. Great evening, indeed!
Phew, what a day.
I just finished watching a very interesting TED presentation by William Li about a new way to treat cancer and other diseases. He introduced a new term which I hadn’t heard about: angiogenesis, which is the process involved in the development of new blood vessels. As we all know, blood vessels are one of the most essential parts of circulatory system that transport blood throughout the body. There’re about 19 billion of these blood vessels exist in our body. The amount of blood vessels that are present at any given time are controlled and regulated by our body. These vessels can either grow to form new blood vessels or can be pruned back to remove excess blood vessels to baseline using simulators and/or inhibitors of angiogenesis.
However, everything does not always run smoothly. Defects in the system do exist; i.e. when the body can’t prune back extra blood vessels or can’t prune grow enough new ones in the right place at the right time. In these situations, angiogenesis is out of balance, which results in a myriad of diseases. For example, insufficient angiogenesis (not enough blood vessels) can lead to wounds that don’t heal, heart attacks, and nerve damage; while excessive angiogenesis (too many blood vessels) can lead to cancer, blindness, obesity, and Alzheimer’s disease. The interesting thing is that: there are more than 70 major diseases that actually share abnormal angiogenesis as their common denominator. And the new way to tackle these diseases is by controlling angiogenesis!
Let’s take a closer look at cancer. Well, everyone of us has microscopic cancers in our body. These cancers are small, microscopic nests of cells that can only grow to one half a cubic millimeter in size (which is as small as the tip of a ballpoint pen). They can’t get any larger due to lack of blood supply (no oxygen & nutrients). So they’re not dangerous at all, until they get a blood supply. As Li said, “the body’s ability to balance angiogenesis, when it’s working properly, prevents blood vessels from feeding cancers.” That means, we can prevent cancers (and other diseases) by blocking angiogenesis and preventing blood vessels from reaching cancer cells, right?!
In fact, there’s a so-called antiangiogenic therapy/drug which aims at cutting off the blood supply to cancers. It seems quite promising! I seriously have never heard of it before. It seemed to me that chemotherapy was the only way to fight treat cancers. But of course, anti-angiogenesis drugs do have side-effects, some of them are quite serious. In fact, the risks of using these drugs might actually outweigh the benefits. I haven’t done quite an extensive research on this but I found that these drugs may result in tumor recurrence at many sites in the body. Scary, but I think more research needs to be done about this.
Now, the question continues: what could we add to our diet that’s naturally antiangiogenic, that could boost the body’s defense system and beat back those blood vessels that are feeding cancers? So here are the list of some foods that we can eat:
🙂
Look what I got today!!! A book sent by a friend of mine, Mulia who now lives in the UK. I promised her to send the “mim” chocolate letter and she sent me this one! I was so happy when I received it — though I was a bit concern that I got more unread books nowadays. Gotta read them soon!
From another different part of the world, Mayu sent me a message on Facebook. Geez, I didn’t realize we haven’t been in contact for over 2 months already! She’s a close friend of mine who used to be my roommate in Brisbane for almost 3 years! We usually have this regular Skype session, updating on each other’s life. That’s the only way to keep us bonded. One thing that struck me was the closing sentence of her message, which read: “Anything new in your life? Don’t be a stranger!”
I won’t, Mayu. I won’t. I promise I’ll contact you soon. I miss you!
On this day, you read something that moved you and made you realise there were no more fears to fear. No tears to cry. No head to hang in shame. That every time you thought you’d offended someone, it was all just in your head and really, they love you with all their heart and nothing will ever change that. That everyone and everything lives on inside you. That that doesn’t make any of it any less real.
That soft touches will change you and stay with you longer than hard ones.
That being alone means you’re free. That old lovers miss you and new lovers want you and the one you’re with is the one you’re meant to be with. That the tingles running down your arms are angel feathers and they whisper in your ear, constantly, if you choose to hear them. That everything you want to happen, will happen, if you decide you want it enough. That every time you think a sad thought, you can think a happy one instead.
That you control that completely.
That the people who make you laugh are more beautiful than beautiful people. That you laugh more than you cry. That crying is good for you. That the people you hate wish you would stop and you do too.
That your friends are reflections of the best parts of you. That you are more than the sum total of the things you know and how you react to them. That dancing is sometimes more important than listening to the music.
That the most embarrassing, awkward moments of your life are only remembered by you and no one else. That no one judges you when you walk into a room and all they really want to know, is if you’re judging them. That what you make and what you do with your time is more important than you’ll ever fathom and should be treated as such. That the difference between a job and art is passion. That neither defines who you are. That talking to strangers is how you make friends.
That bad days end but a smile can go around the world. That life contradicts itself, constantly. That that’s why it’s worth living.
That the difference between pain and love is time. That love is only as real as you want it to be. That if you feel good, you look good but it doesn’t always work the other way around.
That the sun will rise each day and it’s up to you each day if you match it. That nothing matters up until this point. That what you decide now, in this moment, will change the future. Forever. That rain is beautiful.
And so are you.
* A beautiful piece by Iain Thomas @ I Wrote This For You.
And though the waves might bring you down and though the currents might pull you under, the sky is always still right above you. And your friends will show you the way.
— Iain Thomas @ I Wrote This For You
Yes, my friends will show me the way. They already did. I just can’t stop being thankful for their lovely presence :). For their ‘commitment’ on this friendship. For everything they have done to me. Though they always feel that they did nothing; trust me, it’s something significant to me.
And there’s him. Despite of our past, he’s somehow always there, appearing in front of my door every single time with his lovely smile, expecting nothing than a delightful moment together. We understood that it couldn’t go any further, for we sail to different directions. But we are in the same ship. And we’re going to cherish every memories of our friendship.
And that’s how a real grown-up is supposed to act. Don’t you agree? 🙂
* Got a lovely present and I’m happy! Thanks!
Happy to find this calendar made by my dear friend, Tina 🙂 Miss you, girl!