Thursday, March 31, 2011

Alone In The Crowd

Okay, so far I'm fine. During stay in Sorowako I always healthy, even my weight increased 5 kg. I'm also very excited to be here, having fun with my friends, meet many people with different backgrounds, which certainly gives priceless experiences for me.

I feel something different tonight. I don't know, I just feel like ... lonely. Although I always around with my friends at all times, especially at dinner when we all got together and shared our experience in the office that is almost always made us laughing loud. It felt very happy to be among them who really care and joy, from Cha ', my best partner-in-crime, until Madi, who became very care when I got something wrong with my eyes.

The reason is because when I was typing this blog my roommate talked with her boyfriend by phone. Well, this iss not the first time I heard her call her boy, I know every night they're always communicating, even when last weekend they talked until 4 am. But I never heard it directly because I always fall asleep before the 'date' has showed.

Then I heard them. Suddenly I felt alone. As long as I'm here my boyfriend never calls me even  for once. I also just called to wake him up on Wednesday because he has a morning class. SMS was just simply asking, "What are you doing?". I just feel as though there's no one who felt that I'm special, that every day longing to hear my voice, accompanied by a chat and listen my story.  
 
I don't know, but I feel I miss something. Whether missed by anyone, only this time I feel I need someone to share. Not for doing my weird activity like with my friends here, but for a more personal and serious conversation. Someone who can be a place where I pour all my heart's content while you are away here, even though only for tell how I spend my life today.

I need. Anyone, no matter he's my boyfriend or not. Someone who can fix my homesickness and loneliness.

I need, before I can no longer control my tears to fall down.

Hooray, I'm Back!

So here we go again people, how’re you?

Finally I can’t write again in this blog. Well, this is not about lazy or I can’t find any inspiration then write it down. This is about how difficult to find some connection to use internet.

I’m Sorowako now. Yepp, I passed the selection to become one of Coops Inco’s participants. Congratz to me! I’ve been here since 2 weeks ago (since my last post) and I’ll be here for about 4 months until the end of July. And I have so many stories to tell you all! I feel very excited to be here, through I’ve been here only 2 weeks but I’ve got many experiences, about the housemates, the office, the bosses, the environment, or even the market, everything! It makes my brain full of inspiration to writing, talking, writing again, and talking again. I can’t stop to tell everyone anything about Sorowako and One Vale Inco.

Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to find the connection of internet in here. It’s SUCKS! The problem is we use intranet in office and we couldn’t open any social network such as Facebook or Twitter. Oh yeah, I can still open my Tumblr or Blogspot, but it takes a long time to loading and uploading so I feel quite lazy to use it. It’s true that I bring my modem to here, but the money is empty so I can’t use the internet even in my home. Damn.

But luckily, my boyfie already gave me money for my modem so I could use the internet again, through the connection still takes a long time to loading but it still good to check my email, open my social network account, or even writing on my blog.

Finally, it makes my spirit and inspirations back to writing. I feel very exciting to share all my stories during I’m here. I hope I can find a leisure time to start write them all.

Enjoy Sorowako! ;D


my pic at my 1st day with inco helmet :)

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

You May Say I'm A Dreamer, But I'm Not The Only One



I’ve always been taught that my imagination could take me anywhere, and that my dreams were achievable if I believed they were. That’s how I’ve always lived my life. I’ve put myself out there, and I’ve gotten hurt. I’ve tried and I’ve failed. I’ve been told hundreds of times that I would never make it, because of my gender or my age or because I'm not a rich person. I’ve been labeled with thousands of words and put in a million different boxes. But I’ve realized something: no one can limit me, unless I let them.

Yeah, it's just like John Lennon's song, "You may say I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one". or Andrea Hirata in his novel, Sang Pemimpi, "Dream, because God will hug your dream". At last, it's free. There's nothing wrong to dream, right?

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Yay, Bootsie!

My auntie, Tante Noneng, came from the USA yesterday. She works at the White House as Indonesian embassy staff, sounds great, huh? She's come back here to attend our family wedding on Saturday. And guess what she brought to me? Shoes!

Well, I don't know what kind of this shoes. Ankle boots? Oxford? Or Sperrys? Whatever, obviously I really like these shoes. Maybe it's a little weird used in Indonesia, but that's not a problem. I'm a mulatto, remember?

Once again, thanks a lot Auntie!


yay, this is it. how do you think?

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Have You Thankful Today?

I watched Kick Andy this afternoon. This episode discusses about the successful young entrepreneurs in Indonesia. There're some businessmen who were invited to be guest star, almost all of them had achieve MURI record for their achievements in entrepreneurship.  

The interesting is one of the keynote speakers were named Elang Gumilang. He is a businessman in the property project and has a lot of projects in housing sector. But what impressed me isn't how successful his business, but how he's give charity from his business, selling a simple home to 'the lower-middle class' with a very low monthly installments. My favorite words are, "I'm not looking for big profits, but saw they have a house for shelter has given a very large inner happiness for me. I'm very grateful, at least through their pray I wouldn't be as successful as today. "  

Suddenly I realized, how much and many blessings from God that I've got until this day. Not just a treasure, but also longevity, health, my success in career and education, until my great experiences traveling to various places in the world. How we should be thankful for the grace that can make us live in this world, even to the oxygen that we breathe every second which was enough to make us realize for a chance to live in this world is a greatest gift that God gave us.  

God never asked for a massive celebration event for us to show how much our gratitude, but with the pray and share it with people who're less fortunate is quite enough to be done. Even just to say 'Alhamdulillah' that sometimes people forget to say was able to show how we appreciate all the grace of God for us in this world.  

Finally, for many times I'm really, very grateful to have been given the opportunity to live and the opportunity to appreciate what God has given in my life.  

So, have you said 'thanks God' today?
I really dislike it when people hold grudges, especially over the little things. Honestly, what’s the point? You’re just wasting precious time you could be spending with them, spending being happy. Holding a grudge doesn’t solve the problem and it definitely isn’t going to improve the situation!

Another Trinity

Well, Trinity yang saya maksud di sini bukan pasangannya Neo di trilogy The Martix. Trinity yang saya maksud adalah backpacker sekaligus pengarang buku Naked Traveler dan penulis blog The Naked Traveler

Then who’s another Trinity?

Yah, dia adalah mama saya. Memang sih, jam terbang traveling mama saya memang tidak sehebat Trinity yang sudah menjelajah sampai sekitar 42 negara. Track mama saya sendiri sudah sampai Asia Timur dan Tenggara, Eropa Barat, dan Amerika Serikat. Untuk Indonesia sendiri hanya tanah Irian yang belum mama saya datangi. Selebihnya sudah dia jelajahi sejak zaman kuliah.

Pikiran ini terlintas ketika tadi pagi saya berbincang dengan mama. Awalnya sih, hanya perbincangan sebatas rencana saya berangkat ke Sorowako untuk magang di Inco selama 4 bulan. Saya yang selama magang nanti akan digaji cukup besar berencana akan menggunakan uang itu untuk liburan tahun baru di Bali sekaligus reunion dengan teman-teman I-STEP saya akhir tahun nanti. Mama yang memang doyan dan berpengalaman dengan urusan traveling ‘disentil’ sedikit saja dengan kata ‘liburan’ langsung nyerocos panjang lebar.

Dan hasilnya seperti biasa, cerita mama selalu bikin iri bukan kepalang! Yang tambah bikin sirik, mama tadi cerita soal pengalamannya berlibur di Gili Trawangan, salah satu dari 3 The Gili’s yang ada di Nusa Tenggara, tempat yang bahkan oleh Trinity dalam bukunya di iya-kan sebagai salah satu lokasi liburan terbaik di Indonesia. Wahhhh, saya sampai menyuruh mama saya berhenti bercerita saking tidak mau kelewat cemburu dengan pengalamannya.

Bukannya berhenti, mama malah makin semangat cerita tentang pengalaman travelingnya waktu kuliah dulu. Mama yang dulunya kuliah di Bandung memang selalu traveling dengan teman-temannya saat liburan, alasannya gak bisa pulang ke Makassar karena tiket mahal, jadi yah bareng ama teman-teman kampusnya berkelanalah dia keliling Indonesia Barat, mulai dari naik motor keliling sampai nekat naik kapal laut keliling Sumatra yang pada masa itu lumayan ribet karena belum ada handphone dan internet.

Lantas kenapa mama saya bisa doyan traveling? Ternyata selain karena keluarga besar The Hamzah’s yang semua punya hobi jalan-jalan, faktor lain karena mama saya sempat diledekin sama teman kuliahnya, Tante Yensus. Tante Yensus yang orang Padang sempat traveling keliling Sumatra sama mama. Pas nyampe di Jambi, ada penduduk yang nanya ke mama, “Udah pernah ke Toraja, belum?”. Mama yang emang belum pernah ke sana kontan aja jawab belum. Woalah, yang ada penduduk itu dan Tante Yensus malah heran.”Kok bisa sih kamu belum pernah ke Toraja, padahal kita yang di Sumatra aja pengen banget ke sana. Malu donk, udah keliling Indonesia tapi belum ke Toraja”. Wah, kontan aja mama malu diledekin begitu, udah berkelana di tanah orang sementara tanah sendiri belum di jelajahi. Sejak itulah mama berniat traveling keliling Indonesia sampai ke pelosok lain. Jangan sampai pas mama liburan ke luar negeri malah di ledekin lagi sama penduduk luar karena gak punya pengalaman traveling di negeri sendiri.

Anyway, setidaknya pengalaman traveling mama sangat inspiratif dan memotivasi. Mama saya yang tampilan luarnya sangat sederhana dan tidak mewah sepintas memang seperti ibu-ibu pada umumnya. Tapi kalau ditanya soal pengalaman traveling, mama saya sangat kaya akan pengalaman. Yah, mama memang tidak pernah pusing dengan barang mewah dan kekayaan, semua gajinya habis untuk traveling ke tempat impian. Gaya hidup itu juga diturunkan kepada anaknya, terutama saya yang sudah kuliah tahun ke 3. Saya yang juga doyan traveling dan terbiasa jalan-jalan sejak kecil selalu diberi semangat, “Ayo Jey, jangan malas kuliah. Cepat selesai, biar bisa kerja, punya banyak uang trus traveling. Mama gak bakal minta uangmu, yang penting kamu juga bisa jalan-jalan seperti mama muda dulu”. Wahh, siapa yang gak semangat coba, dikasih semangat dan iming-iming seperti itu? Mau doonnkkkk…..

Yang jelas saya bangga dengan keluarga saya. Bagaimana orang tua saya membesarkan saya tidak dengan kemewahan dan barang mahal, tetapi dengan pengalaman traveling yang selalu mereka hadiahkan kepada saya. Adik saya yang masih kelas 5 SD malah sudah 3 kali trip keliling Jawa, dan  kali trip keliling Bali dan Lombok. Itu baru di Indonesia lho, kalau saya cerita pengalaman traveling mama atau papa saya yang pernah tinggal di luar negeri, wah itu malah bikin sirik lagi! Saya saja kalau mendengarnya sampai mencubit mereka saking ngebetnya pengen cepat-cepat punya uang sendiri dan traveling ke tempat impian saya.

Finally, tiba-tiba saya teringat. Saya sendiri belum pernah ke Toraja. Malah waktu saya ikut karantina lomba karya ilmiah nasional di Bogor 2009 lalu teman saya, mbak Lastri, peserta dari Jogja juga sempat menanyakan tentang Toraja, dan saya belum pernah ke sana. Wah malu deh, udah traveling sampai Sidney tapi Toraja yang cuma 310 km belum pernah saya kunjungi. Padahal Toraja adalah 1 dari 7 tempat dengan budaya terunik di Indonesia. Saya pun memutuskan, sepulang dari Sorowako nanti saya harus ke Toraja! Biar nanti kalau akhir tahun nanti saya reunian di Bali saya bisa cerita tentang Toraja ke Mbak Lastri! Mau ikutan?



 
foto liburan keluarga saya di Gili Trawangan dan Jogja

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Miracle March

have you make your own plan for this month?


Hey folks, happy March!

I know it's too late to say it, it's just that I rarely take the time to get online. Yeah, this week my condition is declining and I got sick. I had a fever, cough, flu, and the headache I relapsed again and until this week hadn't yet recovered. It's really disturbing me, especially this week I'm applying the test of Coops Inco for their big project this year. It's very hard to get focus and with the state of my head that it was going to explode. So I decide to get some 'holiday'by not teaching for this week so I can come home sooner and use more of my time for rest and sleep instead of thinking too hard.

Well, whatever will happen, I hope everything will be fine. Hopefully my condition will be better sooner, my head doesn't hurt anymore, and I can pass all the selection of Coops Inco. Well, I've do my best, let God do the rest for the result.

Oh please, March, give me your miracle!