Project 365

It’s time to let go those people who are not worth-keeping and to keep those who are worth-fighting for! 🙂

I have spent the last 6 years straight of Eid ul-Fitr without my family. And I don’t want to spend yet another Eid “alone” anymore! So today, insya Allah I’ll be flying to Saudi Arabia to join my mom, dad, sis, and bro for the Eid celebration!

I’ll arrive in Jeddah early Friday morning and I really hope I could perform Eid prayer over there! Or, worst case scenario I’ll be praying at the airport hahaha. Then hopefully I’ll meet some of my friends and former teachers at the residence of the consul-general of Indonesia. My family and I will also be visiting friends’ houses, so it’s going to be exciting! I can’t wait to eat the foods hahaha.

In the Netherlands, some people will celebrate the Eid on Friday. And some, including the Turkish people celebrate it today :).

So I want to wish you all, Eid Mubarak. I hope we have improved our faith and may Allah SWT accept our fasts and prayers, Ameen. Kullu 3am wa antum be7air! 🙂 Have a great celebration!

Today was my last day in Eindhoven before leaving for Jeddah. And it was my last ifthar at the Turkish mosque as the Turkish people were going to celebrate Eid the next day. So since some of my friends would go back to Indonesia and I wouldn’t be seeing them again until they would return next month, I proposed to have a small gathering at Usine, a cozy cafe in the centrum (city center), right after the ifthar.

I was quite happy that it turned out many of my friends who came to the mosque joined the gathering at the cafe! And out of nowhere, Jessie gave me a birthday card and a gift!!! I WAS SO SURPRISED! OMG! An early birthday surprise! I never expected anything! And I didn’t suspect anything was going to happen that day! I mean, come on, I was just expecting a simple gathering, everyone enjoying themselves catching up with others… But it turned out that there were some hidden agenda behind it! Hahahaha! Jessie covered it up so well and got everyone write something on the card itself! Good joooob!

And what did I get?? A Versace perfume with the body lotion!!! I smelled this perfume when I was at a perfume shop with Jessie and I immediately really loved it! And she bought this for meeee… oh how sweet of herrrr. I was so touched, moved, and overwhelmed today! Thank you everyone, especially Jessie and Agni who planned the whole thing! 🙂

   

So yeah, since everyone knew that my birthday was coming up soon, they expected me to pay for the drinks. LOL. Sorry guys, I wished I knew I’d have been prepared! Hahaha.

In addition to the surprise, I had a great time that evening! Had a good laugh and catch up. Thank you again for coming! I really appreciate it. See you next month! 🙂

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.

• Called IND (the Dutch immigration office) and they told me that I could just go to Den Bosch to pick up my new residence permit. Yay! I was already stressing out that I couldn’t get my permit on time because of the stupid invitation letter that I never got :(. I’m leaving to Jeddah in 10 days and I need the permit ASAP, otherwise I have to pay 40 Euro for the exit and re-entry visa. So when they told me that I just needed my old permit and a passport to pick up the new one, I was relieved! 🙂
• I did a web development job for a new NGO company few months ago. The project has finished but it hasn’t been formally closed. My ‘boss’ called me today and we agreed to have a finalized meeting in Delft on Wednesday. Can’t wait to receive my full pay!
• Contacted a colleague at Philips and asked if he’s still interested to hire me for a thesis project and he told me to come over this week! Alhamdulillah! I couldn’t be more grateful. If I can do this project, it will be better — I’ll get paid (it’s not much, but it’s better than nothing at all!) and I’ll expand my network and contacts which will hopefully make it easier for me to find a job later when I graduate. I hope. I really hope. Ya Allah please open up the opportunity for me.

🙂

Found this group on Facebook and I thought I put up some points that I really like and that apply to me here 😀 (And I edited some)

So… You know you’ve been in the Netherlands for too long when…

• Walking from your faculty to the cafeteria has become unimaginable. You take your bike, even if it’s for 50meters
• Eating 7 slides of bread for lunch doesn’t scare you anymore
• You think 15°C is warm
• You don’t remember what a mountain looks like
• You still don’t know how to speak Dutch. But your English has improved. You don’t even bother to ask "do you speak English?", you just speak English right away
• You always check the weather before leaving home
• You have 4 seasons in one day
• You know that kapsalon is not a typical Turkish dish, but a hairdresser
• You can ride your bike in the rain, wind and even snow
• You “wash” the dishes with a detergent without rinsing them
• You go to the market and you only buy the stuffs that fit in you bike
• You have mastered the art of riding a bike and drinking coffee/smoking/eating lunch at the same time
• You understand why they don’t serve coffee at a coffeeshop.

When love and respect have evaporated, what more do I have left for you, really?

One evening with Jessie resulted in this “nice” conclusion:

He is an a**h***. He is not worth it for you. And you deserve someone much better than him.

… and some disagreements and arguments, of course :D. Such a nice evening! Hihihi. A slap in the face is all I need now 🙂

I met a fellow blogger, Rahmah, who was one of the winners of the 2010 blog competition organized by Nuffic Neso Indonesia. She got an opportunity to attend a summer course at the Universiteit Utrecht for two weeks. So cool, isn’t it?

I realized that it was the first time for me to meet her after having to visit and comment on each other’s blogs for YEARS! 🙂