Stay together, friends.
Don’t scatter and sleep.
Our friendship is made of being awake.The waterwheel accepts water
and turns and gives it away,
weeping.
That way it stays in the garden,
whereas another roundness
rolls through a dry riverbed looking
for what it thinks it wants.Stay here, quivering with each moment
like a drop of mercury.
— Jalal ad-Din Rumi
Jessie is leaving today to Indonesia. I miss her already 🙁
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!
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.
Yay! I got three postcards today! Two postcards were from a friend of mine, Ikmal, who recently traveled to Bangkok, Thailand. To answer your question on one of the postcards: no, I’m not scared of the picture hahaha.
Another one was from Qonita who went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA for a conference. She couldn’t find a post office over there, so she gave it to me in person instead.
Thanks Ikmal & Qonita for the postcards! 🙂 I’m so happy! My postcard collections are growing! Yay!
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.
A lot of things happened today! I planned to go to IKEA by bike (around 40 minutes to 1 hour long) as I wanted to have a time for myself… just want to be alone so that I could reflect about the things that had been happening and I could refresh my mind! But minutes before I left the house, I checked the radar and I could see a HUGE cloud was coming. It was so huge that it could cover the whole Netherlands! Yes, it’s going to be raining again and most probably STORMS!
So I decided to bike to the nearest bus stop and take a bus from there to IKEA. On the way back, it was a disaster! I cycled with my umbrella and it went all over the place! The wind was so strong and caused my umbrella to break. It was SO bad. I was so wet. It was freezing too! The journey from the bus stop which usually took 5 minutes, turned to be 15 minutes. It was just unbelievable. The weather was crazy!
My day ended with a nice dinner with my former housemates, Mei and Paul at Usine. It was really nice. I had a really great time. We had a talk ranging from cultural issues (Mei is from Taiwan and Paul is a French with a British mother and a Vietnamese father), history, travel, wedding, to a life in general. Awesome evening, indeed!
Another heart is broken. Another victim arrives. While you hide inside your cage covered by all your lies, unable to be found.
Uncover your mask, that’s all I ask from you. How hard could that be?! But you choose to wear it. You sacrifice the friendship we had with the mask you cannot lose. Has it been a good protector to you? I wonder.
Just remember that, you can make the world beautiful just by refusing to lie about it*.
Choice is in your hand, my friend. I am not here to interfere.
And don’t ever blame me when I make my own choice. Time is up. Another ship is coming to pick me up. I have to give up on you. Completely.
After such a tiring day, I found myself looking through the pictures taken when I was in Brisbane, Australia. It was almost three years ago that I finally said farewell. Now I miss it again… I’ll come back, one day! 🙂
This is the apartment I shared with Jenn and Mayu, where we lived for 2 years. It was in this living/dining room that we constantly played poker and Big Two until late at night, watched a Korean drama series for two days non-stop, and had dinner with friends. A lot of memories here!
And of course… having a barbie (which is an Aussie slang for BBQ) at our apartment 🙂
Will and Jenn were posing, just before we watched Miss Saigon. It was the first time for the three of us to watch a musical theater! I love this picture! 😀 Awesome time, great musical 🙂
Exploring museums and having an afternoon walk on the banks of Brisbane River in South Bank with my housemates and Mayu’s mom. It was such a great weather!
This was taken at my farewell dinner in South Bank. I remember I had this farewell a week BEFORE exams, when I didn’t even know whether I would be graduating or not! Hahaha! I had no choice! Good thing that a lot of people showed up. It was one of the best nights!
One of the foods that I really miss? Definitely Nando’s! Well, true, it’s not an Aussie food, but I can’t find it in the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, or even in Indonesia!!! How sad! I have to go all the way to Singapore or Malaysia to eat this! Somebody needs to open a Nando’s branch in Jakarta!!! I’m sure we’ll love it! and… oh… they really should make an EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA HOT Peri-Peri sauce! Hehehe.
One of my favorite pictures. Singapore, Indonesia, India, Taiwan 🙂
Not to miss, the colorful trees (including the purple Jacaranda) around Brisbane during spring. It’s beauuuuuuutifuuuuul! 🙂
Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.
— Kevin Arnold
If you want others to think the best of you, you need to start by thinking the best of them
— Yasir Qadhi
Gotta erase those negative thinking resided in my mind! 🙂
Isn’t it cool and scary at the same time that it takes us not more than 6 human-to-human connections to be related with anyone in the world?
I knew about six degrees of separation when I first joined Friendster many years ago. The website allowed us to see the connections that we have with other people and it’s the only coolest thing about it, really. I encountered this term again by accident a few days ago.
Every time I met new people, there’s a great chance that we share common friends. Or their friends had some kind of connection with my friends. I’m talking about the Indonesians, of course.
The world is indeed so small. And it’s becoming smaller and smaller. Let’s keep on spreading our wings and encountering new friendships so that there’ll be less misunderstandings and prejudice between us; and create the world full of loving and peaceful people 🙂
