Project 365

Commitment. What a scary word coming from a person you have never even met.

Oh God, please help me.

October 7th, 2011. 14:00 CET.

Finally, here I am. Flying across the sky. Feeling so grateful. Actually, grateful is an understatement. But I don’t even know what else to describe it. My heart is still racing, although it shows a sign of slowing down. My mind is occupied with many questions. Why was I so reckless?? Why didn’t I keep track of time? Why did I do it? Why? Why?

This was not the first time happening to me. I almost missed my flight when I forgot to bring my Saudi paper exit visa and I had to go back home to take it because of that. I almost missed my flight when there was a demonstration in KL (but then was told that the flight was delayed… sigh). I actually missed my flight to Brisbane when I was in Singapore because I was too busy browsing on the internet. I got a “panic attack” last year when I realized that I hadn’t printed my boarding pass few hours before my departure and all printers at the university failed to work.

For me, the experience that I have to go through less than 24 hours before departure is always frightening — including the one that I had recently.

Well, here’s the thing. A day before my departure, I checked all the travel documents that I needed. I had everything ready and printed. I put all of them in my shoulder bag. I even double checked everything to make sure that I was not dreaming. Long story short, I discovered that I had to bring my old passport with me as it had a stamp that was important. Where was my old passport? It’s still in the Indonesian embassy in Den Haag. This was at 3pm.

My passport was renewed on February this year and I forgot to take my old passport with me because I thought I didn’t need it. I was indeed wrong. So I called the embassy and asked them to kindly find my old passport. I was literally begging to them to search it for me. Although I was not pleased with how disorganized those past applications were kept, I was really grateful that they tried to find my passport between piles and piles of other old passports. They called me 2 hours after their working time was supposed to finish to let me know that they were still searching.

The next day was the day I departed. My flight was scheduled to depart at 12.40 but I still had the time to go to Den Haag in the morning. I took the 7.30 AM train to Den Haag. While waiting for the embassy to call me, I went to JoHo to apply for an ISIC card (yay! I got it now!). Finally, at 10.15 AM the embassy told me that they found my passport. I quickly rushed to the embassy to take it. I’m telling you, time is money. But alhamdulillah, I got the passport.

The main story did not end there. I began running into trouble when I took a bus to go back to the central station. My OV-chipkaart ran out of credits and I didn’t have any cash with me (I hardly bring cash). The bus didn’t have a refil machine so I had to get out of the bus on the next stop as the driver looked grumpy. I found an ATM nearby and quickly took some cash. Time was now 10:55 AM.

When I finally reached the central station, it was already around 11:10. I knew I was in a big trouble. But I was even more convinced that I would miss my flight when I found out that the next train to Schiphol was at 11.30!!! And I actually had to check in before 11.40!!! I was soooo screwed. I was panic. I prayed and prayed during my 30 minutes jouney to the airport that the flight would be delayed or there would be some kind of a miracle!

I thought about all of the what if situations that I could think of. If they didn’t allow me to check my bag in, I’d store it in a locker. If they didn’t allow me to board the plane, I would sleep in the airport to wait for the next flight. But before these situations would happen, I would make sure that my begging and desperate-looking skills were being used.

I arrived at the check-in counter at around 12.10pm. No one was there except one woman. Oh, thank God! At least I didn’t need to search all over the airport for the airline’s employee. She was of course surprised upon knowing that I wanted to check in. She called her boss and at the same time printing the boarding pass and the luggage tag. I was a bit relieved at that time, although I was not 100% sure that I would be able to fly on that day.

Few minutes later, she gave me the boarding pass and added, “We cannot guarantee anything that you are able to fly.” Oh gosh, here we go again. She told me to run to the gate, because someone had to talk to me. So I ran and ran. I didn’t have much energy to be honest. I used up all my energy by the time I was in Den Haag.

Thankfully, I reached the gate 15 minutes before it was closed. A man approached me, checked my details and necessary documents, while telling me, “Mam, you know the procedure! You should check in 1 hour before departure, NOT 30 minutes!!!” I told him that I was so sorry and it was indeed my fault. Any stories that I could tell him would be viewed as excuses so I didn’t tell him anything other than that. Few minutes later, I boarded the plane.

So here I am, thinking. Was that a miracle? Was that a result of me praying to Him, Allah SWT? I strongly believe it was. Prayer or Doa is a powerful thing. Don’t ever lose hope of Him. That’s the lesson I learned today.

Where am I going? Well, I will keep it as a mystery for now ;). I shall be back soon.

I have no mood to write anything these days. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I decided to post some pictures that I took for the past one month ;).

Leaves have started to fall in Eindhoven, after few weeks of sunny and warm weather. Usually, we’d take our gloves out by the month of October. But the weather has been very warm lately. Does that mean winter would be worst and colder than last year? 😐

I was invited to a Korean lunch at a friend’s house. I forgot what this dish was called but I always loved it! This was the second time I ate it.

Baby Nolan and baby Mentari are two of my favorite kids 🙂 I’ve watched them grow ever since they were born and it’s always impressive and exciting to see them growing and doing their things for the first time :).

 

Last weekend, Jessie and I went to the McDonald’s near Best. This particular McD got a Rock & Roll theme. There was a huge statue of Michael Jackson on its parking lot. I saw lots of pictures, flowers, and messages from his fans near the statue. We were checking out these memorabilia, when we saw a teenage boy crying with his family trying to console him. That was my first time to actually see with my own eyes someone crying because of the death of a celebrity. How stupid does that sound?! Isn’t it ironic that people don’t believe in God but they believe in these fake looking celebrities that they have no relations to and have no idea whether these celebrities are honestly a good person or not…! A strange world we live in…

This picture is not actually mine, but this one was taken at the Welcoming Party organized by PPI/e (Indonesian Student Association). I had a great time there, meeting new Indonesian students. I gave a short presentation about Dutch culture. It was OK, I think I should have done it much better than that. I prepared it in less than 8 hours before the event itself haha. But it was a relief to know that people found it useful.

I’m so proud to be part of the family :). It’s been a great and an inspiring journey from the beginning. It started off as an ambitious dream with only 18 members and it has grown rapidly with a total of more than 40 members! Impressive!

Today was a celebration of our achievements (and apparently it coincided with the birthday of our director :)). It was also the day when the committee presented their visions and future plans on where this group would be headed. They even planned on recording in a studio!!! How awesome is that?! There were too many plans that they’ve laid out and it’s sad to say that I would not be here next year…

Not to mention: the foods were not to be missed, of course! After all, an Indonesian gathering without the foods were never complete!

Happy 1st birthday, Angklung Eindhoven!

I was happy enough to stay still
inside the pearl inside the shell,

But the hurricane of experience
lashed me out of hiding
and made me a wave moving into shore,

Saying loudly the ocean’s secret
as I went, and then spent there,
I slept like fog against the cliff, another stillness.

There is a moon inside every human being.
Learn to be companions with it.

I see my beauty in you…
A mirror that cannot close its eyes…
A moth caught in flame’s allure.

— Rumi

My mom used to tell me how she used to play in sawah (rice fields) when she was a little kid and she always told me how during those times there were no such things as dolls or Barbie’s. Whenever I see small children playing with their parents’ phone or iPad, I smile. I see the same thing as what my mom saw. Oh how the world has dramatically changed! People of my generation didn’t have those gadgets or even computers to play with. We didn’t have internet or mobile phones. But still, we were happy. Probably even happier than today :P. This post is just to reminisce about the good old days before the social media- and gadget-era 🙂

How did I spend my free time?

Teddy Bear

My most favorite toy was definitely my teddy bear! He’s the only one I used to sleep with — I actually couldn’t sleep without him! LOL. I used to bring him everywhere I went. My parents told me I lost my teddy bear during 1990 Hajj. I fell ill because of it! (!!!) We still lived in Mekkah at that time and my dad had to go all the way to Jeddah to find a similar version of it. You couldn’t find any dolls in Mekkah at that time. He found a similar one and this was the one I still remember til this very day. I started to abandon my teddy bear as soon as my little brother, Aiman, was born. Not sure why! I think my mom threw away my teddy bear during the time we moved to a different house.

Barbie’s

Like any girls, I loved playing with Barbie. I didn’t have the original Barbie though. We couldn’t afford the original one, which was quite expensive, because I would buy more than one Barbie dolls. But still, I was happy enough to have those Barbie-looking dolls. My mom used to make some clothes for these dolls. I would play with them for hours! My childhood friend, Anne, would come to play with me (or I would come to her house to play with her original Barbie’s… hehehe).

Some parents refuse to buy Barbie for their children, because they’re afraid that their children will attempt to emulate her. As far as I remember, I didn’t have a slight attempt to imitate her. It never occurred to me that I would ever see her as a role model. I just loved playing with her. That’s all. Perhaps this was because I was not influenced by the image portrayed on TV. The only thing I watched on TV was Tom & Jerry and other animal or hero cartoons (which got nothing to do with beauty or anything like that). I rarely watched Disney princess-like movies (I watched them at my friend’s house. We didn’t have them at ours). I got a feeling that my parents discouraged having these Disney cartoons in our house. Looking back, I think it was one of the best decisions that my parents ever made.

I have to say, Saudi government also did a great job of selecting which cartoons were worth to be watched by children!!! (Note that we didn’t have satellite TV back then. So the only thing we watched was the two Saudi channels)

Camping

I used to build a big tent out of sheets of blankets inside my room (which was also my sister’s room too). I tied them by the door, on the chairs, desk, and on any strong objects I could find. My whole room was covered with these blankets — or tents — and I would pretend as if I was camping in a forest. I would bring my teddy bear, Barbie’s, and other dolls inside these tents. Sometimes my sister (who used to follow whatever I did) joined me. I loved playing the camping game! 😀 After the game, I had to tidy my room up and fold those blankets again, otherwise I would get into trouble 😛

Crystal Maze

The Crystal Maze was a popular British game show aired on Saudi Channel 2. It was one of my favorite TV shows at that time! It was very fun to watch each team playing various games in different settings (or so-called zones). The final challenge of the game was entering the Crystal Dome,  as shown in this picture:

The teams had to enter this big Crystal Dome to collect as many “gold tokens”. The tokens were made of foil and were blown around from the fan below the dome — and the team had to catch these tokens and collect a minimum number of tokens in order to win. Here’s the video if you want to have a look on how it actually works:

Inspired by this game, I recreated the “Crystal Dome”. Well, I didn’t create the Dome itself, of course. But I liked the idea of blowing the tokens and catching them as many as I could. So, when my friends came over, we used to play this game. We cut out papers to make them as big as a paper money. Then one of us would take turn of climbing on top of my wardrobe (which was quite high). The person who was on the top had to “blow” or throw these papers down. We also put a big fan so that they were blown. The rest of us had to collect them. The one who could collect the most was of course the winner! Hahahaha. Creative enough? 🙂

Riding a Bike

I used to ride my bike around the neighborhood where we used to live. I used to do that almost every afternoon after school. This was the time when I also played with other Arab neighbors. The thing I remember about them was that they always wanted to decide everything. They wanted to control everything. Other children had to follow their lead. It annoyed the hell out of me haha. Anyway, I stopped riding my bike right after a religious police screamed at me for not wearing an abaya. I think I was around 13-15 years old. Riding a bike with an abaya on is too troublesome. So I decided not to play outside the house anymore.

Cooking

I had a cooking/kitchen set (as shown in the picture above) and I also loved playing with it. I wonder why cooking is not my favorite activities these days :P. Well, eating is!

Swimming

Every weekend, my family and I used to go to Obhur (which is part of the Red Sea) to swim. Some of my childhood friends joined us too. We would stay there until the afternoon and had lunch together afterwards. When I got a little older, my dad became so busy that we didn’t have time to do it every weekend. So we would do it every year instead. We would rent a cottage for a night and stayed there. When I was in Junior High School, I used to also go to a women-only sport club nearby to swim with some friends. I did that every weekend and I loved it! I remember swimming was the only sport I enjoyed doing. Ever since I put on hijab, I became too lazy to swim despite the fact that I had a swimming pool in my apartment in Brisbane.

Correspondence

By the time I reached the age of 13, I no longer played the same game I used to play when I was much younger. So I tried to find something else to make myself entertained. I began doing a correspondence. The idea came from one of teen magazines (I think it was Anita magazine). I sent my profile to them and they published it on the correspondence section. I began receiving letters from people in Indonesia.

After some time, one of the penpals introduced me to a “worldwide” correspondence. The idea was that, she sent me a so-called penpal book. This small book was filled with names and addresses of people who had received it. The last person who got the book (who could fill it on the last page) had to return it back to the book’s owner. Those who filled the book were also allowed to send letters to some people in that book to make some friends. It was just a great idea :).

I had hundreds of penpals around the world by the time I was in Junior High School. It was really fun and it was really great to practice and improve my English. Every month I got at least 100 letters to be replied. I remember the person who worked at the post office looked always pissed off every time I went there. Because he knew I would cheat. I would put a 50 halalah (cents) stamp on each envelope, instead of a 100 halalah (or 1 Saudi Riyal). That’s one of the ways to reduce the expenses my dad had to endure for my correspondence activities. Sometimes I would ask some penpals to return my stamps, so that I could wash and reuse them again.

I stopped corresponding by the time I went to High School in Indonesia. I didn’t have much time to write anymore (as we had a 9am-to-10pm activity every day). I remember I still received some letters (delivered to my Saudi address) when I was in Australia!

Computer

My first exposure with a computer was when my dad first bought a PC with a DOS in it. I think it was around 1993. There were some games in it, but I didn’t remember playing them (or maybe I didn’t like them). I remember there was a Qur’an software which I used it to play some short Surahs. I memorized Surah Abasa from this software.

We got an Internet when I was in Junior High School (around 1997). I think I was one of the first few people in class who had an access to the Internet at that time. The first thing I did when I had an Internet access was to create a Yahoo! email (which I still use until today) and check out Leonardo DiCaprio’s and Mariah Carey’s websites!! LOL. I was a huge fan of them. I used to have their posters all over my room.

But Internet at that time was not too huge. I couldn’t do much with it anyway (slow dial-up connection, anyone?). All I could do was chatting or browsing. But it definitely didn’t take more than an hour. After few years of knowing the Internet, I had the opportunity to create my own personal website using Geocities. Creating a website has become my favorite thing ever since! I’ve been learning everything from scratch. From building it using Geocities’ web builder, Microsoft FrontPage editor, to manually writing HTML and CSS codes. From a static website to a dynamic one. Everything was self-taught!

Video Games

I didn’t have video games during my childhood. My parents never allowed my sister and I to have one (but somehow this rule was relaxed with my brother…). The only way I could play video games was in my friend Anne’s house. I used to play Nintendo’s Mario Bros and Sega’s Sonic. That only happened few times a month. Hehehe.

Oh the good old days!!! 🙂

I’m feeling a little melancholy… not sure how to describe it 😐 A mixture of everything, really.

I found this new song by Anggun. I love the French version more than the Indonesian one. The French lyric kinda fits more to my mood.

Des larmes de sel
Voyage au long cou
L’amour et la mer
L’écume de nos jours
Nos années lumières
Partis en pousières
Des allée-retours
Autour de la terre

Je partirai
Revisiter
Je partirai
Ne rien Garder
Que le meilleur
De nos 2 coeurs
Je partirai

Toucher le soleil
Quitter la forturne
Gomber et plus renaitre
Descendre
De la lune
Amour éphémère
Eternel retour
De nom des légère
Avant des beaux jours

Je partirai
Que nos secrets
Je partirai
Nouveau de près
Je partirai

One day, my mom gave her usual and repetitive mother-to-daughter advice over the phone…

Mom: You know, you are 24. It is about time that you should start taking the whole marriage thing SERIOUSLY…. and….

Me: Mom, I’m 26.

(Oops! It was a total mistake to say this!)

Mom: What?! Are you 26 already?

Me: Hmm. Yes?! 😐

(I could feel the tension now LOL. Why did I say that?!?! Argh)

Mom: Oh, dear Lia… You’re having too much fun in this world […]

Me: Mom, if I found that person I’m compatible with now, I would marry him today if you want!

(I love messing around with her. Arguments don’t work anymore. Might as well tell her some stupid jokes hahaha — it works so far)

But… oh… sometimes I feel like such a burden to my family.

Oh, what an awesome (and tiring) day! The annual cultural event that we had all been waiting for finally took place! The highlight of the event was of course: Angklung Eindhoven! 🙂

Before the start of the event, we had the chance to do a last-minute practice at the parking lot of the St Petrus Church located across the event’s venue. We couldn’t practice at the venue because the organizing committee was busy doing check sound. It was on Saturday afternoon. Many people passed by from the market nearby and of course, they watched us practicing :). We told them to come to the event and some of them said they wanted to come. Last minute promotion, I guess? 😉

 

At the start of the event, I was busy welcoming some people from Eindhoven University of Technology (my university!) and Gemeente Eindhoven (Eindhoven city council). They were very warm and friendly! They even told me to do whatever the things I supposed to be doing. Too bad the Alderman couldn’t come (he was supposed to come, but due to the changing of event’s time, he couldn’t attend). I had the opportunity to welcome the people from the embassy on another occasion and I hate to say that they’re very very formal. Some of them were not friendly and they even distanced themselves from us just because we’re ordinary citizens (that’s what I felt). Talking to the Dutch “important personalities” were much more relaxed!

The angklungers performed twice at Made in Indonesia, with different songs. We played Medley Maluku (Nona Manis — Ayo Mama — Rasa Sayange) and Bungong Jeumpa for our first performance. For the second one, we played six songs: Yue Liang (a Chinese song), Yamko Rambe Yamko, Burung Kakatua, Si Patokaan, Tulpen Uit Amsterdam (a Dutch song), and finally Medley Indonesia (Tanah Airku — Indonesia Pusaka).

 

The climax of our performance was of course the last part! The newlyweds, mas Dody and teh Ida (teh Ida is also one of our conductors and founders of Angklung Eindhoven), sang Tanah Airku and Indonesia Pusaka accompanied by angklung. Their voice was amaaahhhhzing. I was told that some people even cried when they heard them singing and they stood applauding us when the song finished. I didn’t pay attention to anything like that hahaha. I was just glad that we could play it nicely. The two songs are Indonesian national and patriotic songs. The first song is about our love for the country even though we live abroad. I think this one touched people the most 🙂 I can’t wait to see the videos 🙂 Meanwhile, here’s the lyric of the song Tanah Airku:

Tanah airku tidak kulupakan
Kan terkenang selama hidupku
Biarpun saya pergi jauh
Tidak kan hilang dari kalbu
Tanahku yang kucintai
Engkau kuhargai

Walaupun banyak negri kujalani
Yang masyur permai dikata orang
Tetapi kampung dan rumahku
Di sanalah kurasa senang
Tanahku tak kulupakan
Engkau kubanggakan

 

Coming soon: the videos 🙂

I promised myself to completely take a break from all organization and angklung activities, but I CAN’T HELP IT!!! This event is our last big annual event before the end of our organizational term — before the new president is chosen. Of course I wouldn’t want to miss this chance! I want it to be a successful event tooo! 🙂 Can’t wait for Saturday!