Project 365

Finally, I had a chance to watch a performance at Muziek Gebouw Frits Philips! I was browsing the website the other day when I found a free orchestra concert. I quickly booked the ticket. I was planning to book only 4 tickets, but I found out later that I actually booked 8 tickets! So I invited my friends to come along.

It was really nice! I loved it. I was so happy to hear Infernal Dance by Igor Stravinsky LIVE! 🙂 It was refreshing to be here… especially after many hours looking at the computer. Oh how I love my life.

I’m looking forward to yet another free orchestra concert on 2 January!!!

It was snowing SO.HEAVILY. today. ALL DAY. It was the worst I had ever experienced. The country never had this much of snow for one whole day. Today was clearly the exception.

It just happened that today I had so many things to do which required me to go out of the house. I used to live in the center for two straight years, so everything was close by. But it was different this year. I could really feel the hardship of fighting the snow, trying to get from A to B. I almost fell from my bike for many times. It was so hard to keep it balance. It was quite scary. The roads were soooo slippery. Going by car was as much dangerous as going by bike. A friend even told me she hit another car as she couldn’t brake her car.

And you may wonder by now, why didn’t I take a bus?

EXACTLY.

Yes, I didn’t plan to go out of the house today. But I had to go to my friend’s place for a while. The streets were very slippery! I almost fell from my bike a couple of times. It was truly a challenge to cycle on the snowy roads. Let’s be more careful, yes?

I woke up with this view 🙂 . It was snowing heavily yesterday and I had trouble cycling as the streets were quite slippery. It will even be more slippery today. Cycling can be very dangerous. Well, I’m planning to stay at home today anyway.

Some pictures! 🙂

Performing 8 songs using angklung, after only 1 month of practice!

Me, in red kebaya costume :D. The dress code for women was kebaya and for men was batik, of course! (except this guy on my left hand side…)

The audiences learned how to play angklung too….

… taught by our lovely conductor, teh Ida (teh or teteh in Sundanese means "sister"). The audiences could instantly play Edelweiss! How awesome!

Not to mention, we had special guests from UK and Germany who came specially for this concert!!! They played kacapi suling and rampak kendang.

Finally, a group picture after the concert! These were the people who directly involved in making the concert happened, including the performers, two lovely emcees, stage manager, and photographers :).

Me and Jessie 😉

I’m still waiting for more pictures and a video of the whole concert to be uploaded. Stay tuned!!

* Photos courtesy of mbak Inne. Thank you, mbak!

This was us, the angklung team, performing at the Angklung Charity Concert at our campus, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven. The concert was a SUCCESS! We all had a wonderful time! 🙂

Alhamdulillah, up until today, we have received a total of 916.52 euro and the amount is expected to increase as people can still donate through electronic transfer until 3 December! I’m so relieved!!!

Thank you all for coming and for supporting the event :). And thanks to the lovely one and only conductor, teh Ida, and to those who worked hard to make this event a success (including teh Desi!). Great job everyone!!!

P.S. this is the video (final version) I made for the purpose of fundraising, which was shown at the concert:

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

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

I had such a long day today! I went for angklung practice in the morning, followed by an ‘election day’ organized by the Indonesian Student Association in Eindhoven (PPI/e) to choose a new president.

The election ran a little bit messy in the beginning. Nobody was interested to nominate him/herself to be the President. As a result, there were no candidates at all. So, it ended up with a direct nomination. But each candidate refused to take the tough job. Everyone was frustrated and there was even a talk that the PPI/e would be freeze as no new leader was chosen.

A good friend of mine, Arya, who was the President of PPI/e at that time, was even more frustrated and worried. He had worked so hard to bring the name of PPI/e to the surface and to make the organization a platform for Indonesian students in Eindhoven to gather. If the PPI/e would be inactive, his effort would be so useless. So he delivered an unexpected and spontaneous ‘speech’ that really stabbed the hearts of everyone in the room. I was so touched. It was a really great one! If I had the guts and time to be the President, I would have nominated myself. But sadly, I didn’t. After he delivered the speech, two candidates stepped in and we finally chose the leader :). Congrats Al!

It was such a long event. But it ended with a great dinner and entertaining video! I enjoyed it.

The view from my room was foggy!

Update: It’s actually foggy for the whole day and evening!!!

Finally, decorating is almost done. I still want to fill one wall with all the postcards I got, but I’m still not sure how to do it — without damaging the wall and the postcard itself. I also bought an IKEA lamp so that I can read some pages of a book before sleep each night, but the lamp didn’t work 🙁 . I was so disappointed!

Oh well… I can feel myself at home now. Sunday is spent here in my room, enjoying myself with a cup of hot chocolate, a book, James Blunt’s music, and some candles that light up the room. It feels so good and fulfilling. I don’t feel like going anywhere. Alhamdulillah for everything.