Project 365

All I can say now is: BUSY! HECTIC! And I LOVE IT!

Tomorrow is THE DAY! Wish us luck!!!!

The Angklung Charity Concert will be held in a matter of THREE days! I’m nervous yet excited. I have been BUSY preparing the details of the concert, like arranging the programs, writing ‘job descriptions’ for the stage manager, writing a script for the emcee, and reviewing the booklet. Phew! I like it though. I always like to be in charge with event planning (hell yeah, I was an event organizer before!!! hahaha). The fact that this is a charity concert makes me want to be more dedicated and involved! 🙂 We have only one more practice to go before the real concert. I hope we’ll do fine! Wish us luck!!!

I also got a surprising message today. I was offered to join the committee of PPI/e (Perhimpunan Pelajar Indonesia di Eindhoven or Indonesian Student Association in Eindhoven). I accepted it! Hehehe. Hopefully it’s going to be exciting! Busy life is waiting for me. Bring it on!

I met up with Jessie today at Usine (AGAIN for the third time in a week, can you imagine?!?!). I hadn’t seen her for AGES. She was busy and I was busy as well. It’s always hard to find a day when both of us were free! So finally we could have a hot chocolate today! I demanded for the meet up because she’s going to Indonesia this Thursday 🙁 (yes, during my concert!) and she won’t be back until January next year. I’m so sad. I’m going to miss her SOOO MUCH!!!! She’s the closest friend I have right now. I’ll be so lonely :-S

And no, I don’t need a boyfriend just because I’m lonely!!! 🙂

A CouchSurfer from New York, Johanna, contacted me a few days ago to meet up for a coffee. So I told her to meet at Usine (again!).

It was a really AWESOME afternoon! We got along really well, which surprised me. She’s one year younger than me but she already had a beautiful baby! Oh it made me envy!

She’s really different than most Americans that I met. She’s more open-minded and more open to experiencing other cultures. I asked a lot of things about American culture and I discovered that there were many things I didn’t know! Well, I had a great time talking to her and playing with her baby girl, Bella. Bella was such an active baby! I felt we got along really well too!!! Hehhehe.

I invited her to the Angklung Charity Concert this Thursday and it seemed like she’s more likely to come. Oh I was excited! We were planning to meet up again — this time I promised her that I would be teaching her how to cook Indonesian food! 🙂

After meeting with my professor to report about my progress, I went to the centrum to have some fresh air with my friend Elva. We went for window shopping and by the end of the day, we sat at my favorite café, Usine. We talked for hours! I really enjoyed it. A great way to end my day! Alhamdulillah.

I went to a friend’s thesis presentation today and was invited to a dinner afterwards. It was really nice. Catching up with many people I haven’t seen for ages AND promoting the concert! Hahaha. What can I say? I have a marketing blood, I guess.

It’s nice to "go away" from the Indonesian community for awhile. It’s refreshing. I just need a balance, that’s all.

My eczema kinda misses me and it’s been back! My whole body, from head to toe, has been sooooooo itchy!!! I felt like throwing myself into a pool of extremely hot water! The itchiness is beyond my imagination! I can’t even describe it. It’s just.so.itchy!!! My whole body turns red too. If I scratch my skin, reddish bumps begin to appear. My eyes are kinda swollen too! It’s just unbelievable!

I’ve been having this ever since I was in Australia. But it got worst when I came to the Netherlands. It happened at the end of fall or during winter (basically during cold weather).  I went to the doctor but she only gave me a freakin CREAM! Can you imagine that?! Every visits were the same. The only difference was that, I was given a different brand of cream every single time.

It’s annoying. And the most annoying part is the fact that I can’t sleep. I scratch my whole body day and night. That’s what makes me mad. I need my normal sleeping time back. I’m planning to go to the doctor coz I can’t seem to take this anymore. If she’s going to prescribe me another cream, I’d force her to give me a SLEEPING PILL!!!!! LOL.

But yeah, I’ve been having this for YEARS already, so I’m used to it (only the sleeping part is not). I make fun of it too! Today, Jessie told me to send her a picture of me with my reddish face and bumps. Hahaha. We laughed so hard! Damn, I haven’t laughed so hard for quite some time 😛 . The best part was that I was making fun of myself 😛

Anyway…. Alhamdulillah, I got my laptop running again with Windows 7 Ultimate. Yay! Thanks to my friend, Andi, who helped me with changing the hard disk. If it ever happened again, I know what I should do 😉

It’s been a month already when my laptop showed a strange behavior. First, it refused to start Windows Vista. I was still in Jeddah and I didn’t bring the recovery CD with me. So I reinstalled it with Windows 7 (it was a genuine one, but the key had been used by my brother, which made it not genuine hehehe — but I tweaked it around). At that time I notice that my laptop made a strange hard disk noise, as if something was stuck in there. It kept making the same noise for weeks, and when it did, my laptop turned so slow for few seconds to 5 minutes. It was annoying.

I told my friend, Angga, about it and he told me to make a back up of my data immediately. Because this was a physical damage. The hard disk would die anytime soon.

He was indeed true! Last week, my laptop refused to start its lovely Windows 7. I tried to reinstall it again with my Windows Vista, but it stopped in the middle of the installation. I had made a backup of my data, but I didn’t make a backup of my pictures and mp3s, because I planned to copy them into a DVD disc instead! I screwed up, but I let it go. Pasrah was the only choice available, I guess.

My laptop was dead by the time when I needed it the most, which was during exam time! So I was really panic (although, in the end, I decided to postpone my exam until next January). But then I needed it for a lot of things, assignments, work, etc. I needed it ASAP! The truth was, I didn’t have any money. The only money I had was the leftover of my salary in Jeddah, which was meant for my Middle East trip. I didn’t have many choices, I had to purchase another one while waiting for my laptop to be fixed. My trip would be cancelled. Great, right? 🙁

But then I was talking with Angga yesterday, and he told me that he and my friend Andi could help me recover the data AND replace the hard disk with the new one! OH MY GOD! How could I not remember that there existed MANY genius guys in this world that looooooved to mess around with the inside of the computer?!?! Hahahaha. So instead of paying hundreds of Euros for the replacement of the hard disk, I only paid few Euros to buy a new hard disk and its case (to recover my data) on eBay! How awesome!!! The best part was that Angga borrowed me his notebook until my laptop could finally work! Life was indeed great hahaha.

Alhamdulillah. Now I’m eagerly waiting for the delivery of my brand new hard disk 🙂 Insya Allah everything will be soon working AND I can blog again with my own laptop!!! And hopefully the trip will still be realized 🙂

Today was officially the moving out day. With the help of my friends, Agni and Jessie, I managed to bring all of my stuff to the new place, so that I could sleep there tonight. We started transporting the stuff (and junks :P) at 7pm, all the way until around 12am. It was such a hectic and messy day. And it was raining too! For the whole freakin day! How awesome, right?! We couldn’t assemble the bed right away though, so I had to sleep on the floor between all my junks and stuff. My first night in my new room!

I also got to cycle to my new place at around 9pm, curious to know how it felt like to pass the neighborhood at night (and passing the red light district, of course lol). There were a lot of cars and people near the district. All of the sudden, a lot of things ran into my mind about these people (you know what I mean hahahaha). I also pass a coffee shop (which is the place to sell cannabis) around the corner of the street and there was a security guy standing outside. Apart from the uneasy feeling of being around the neighborhood, everything else was actually fine. I hoped it would always be like that. I would be passing this street almost everyday, so I had to get used to it, somehow.

Nevertheless, I managed to sneak in to mbak Dina’s place to practice angklung with the others in the afternoon before the whole moving out took place. It was really fun. I was excited about our ‘first’ official concert! We had agreed upon the name of the event itself: Angklung Concert: Bamboo in Harmony. Love the name! Eight more practice to go before the concert!

Moving out is my least favorite activity. Ever. Be it across continents, countries, cities, or suburbs. There’s nothing fun about it. You pack your stuff in boxes or plastic bags. Move them to a destination. Unpack and reorganize them again. It’s just annoying! Not to mention the cleaning! 😮

I’ve only lived here for 2 years, but this is the third time that I move out to a new place. Yep, I do that every year and in those years I thought I would never move out again! Kapok!!! But, look at me — unable to settle. Seriously, I really hope this would be my last time to move. It’s tiring.

The good thing about moving out? I get to sort out the things I don’t need anymore. It amazes me how much JUNKS I keep in my room, under my bed. From lecture notes, files, unread letters, to financial statements. It also amazes me how much stuff I have! It keeps on accumulating  every single year! When I go back home every year, I bring those things I don’t need, but at the same time I come back with MORE things! LOL. What’s the point, right?

Hmm, at least, by sorting those things out, I’m able to gather a big box of papers and a bag of plastic materials, ready to be recycled! Great :).

Adjusting to a new place is also not easy. Especially when you live with many other people in one house. I haven’t met the three new housemates yet, so I don’t actually know what to expect. But most of them are working, so it’s good that I’m gonna have the whole house by myself during the day! Hehehe.

I really hope my new place will be homey. I hope I’ll like it. That’s the most important thing. A busy day is awaiting me!

My new room is unfurnished. So I have to buy most of the furniture, like a bed, desk, chair, and wardrobe. I bought the second-hand desk and chair for a cheap price today and it’d be delivered next week (yay!). I’ll get the wardrobe and bed from Jessie. So I thought I didn’t need to buy anything else… (coz I worried about getting it transported!).

But then I realized, where was the FRIDGE!?! There was no fridge in the kitchen!!!! Arrrrgh.

That was one of the most important things! How could I not realize that?! So, yeah I was a bit panic. I only had a week! Fridge was not an easy thing to get.

I quickly checked Marktplaats.nl. I found the one I liked and affordable, but I needed to bid it! Damn! I went over the student mailing list, but no one sold a small fridge. So I sent an ads to the mailing list, WANTED: SMALL FRIDGE. I also put it as my status on Yahoo Messenger and Facebook. I even asked my friends if they knew somebody selling a fridge. See how desperate I was?!?!

Just after a minute I put my status on Facebook, a friend commented it and said that she had a fridge and I could just take it. OMG! This was too easy!!! Hahaha! I couldn’t believe it when she said it! So I could just have it for free!! Yippy!!!! I was so happy… Now, no need to be panic 😉

Alhamdulillah… Thank you for saving me ya Allah…