Credo's Walk Of Life

Maling di apartemen

2009-09-17T20:17:00.001+07:00

Apartemenku di Delft ada di jalan yg namanya Roland Holstlaan. Seringnya sih disebut Roland aja.
Waktu tahun pertama tinggal di Delft, aku tinggal di gedung ini. Tahun kedua, pindah ke gedung lain. Untuk Agustus-Oktober 2009 ini, aku kembali ke Roland.

Tapi entah kenapa tiba2 jadi banyak kemalingan di gedung ini. Poster2 yg ngingatin soal kemalingan udah banyak di tempel di dalam gedung, termasuk ngingatin ngunci kamar kalau keluar (bs sih ga usah di kunci, dab jadi ga bs dibuka dr luar. Tp dgn obeng ato sejenisnya, bisa dibuka dgn agak maksa. Aku jg bisa, hahaha :D), ngunci jendela, nutup pintu ke bike shed, pintu masuk ke koridor dan ke dalam apartemen. Selain itu jg ga membiarkan org lain yg mencurigakan utk ikut masuk ke dalam gedung (perlu kunci kamar masing2 utk masuk ke dalam gedung).
Tp ya gmn nentuin mencurigakan apa ngganya.. feeling masing2 itu mah..

Pas ketemu caretaker di lantai dasar 2 minggu lalu, dia ngasi selebaran pengumuman yg ada nomor telp polisinya. Dia bilang dalam 4 tahun ini, ini pertama kalinya ada kemalingan lagi.
Hari ini udah ada poster baru yg bilang yg kemalingan udah 6 kamar.

Semoga cepat bereslah urusan maling2 ini. Jadi was-was ninggalin kamar

Getdropbox & Thesis Document

2009-09-15T03:28:00.001+07:00

I wrote this following questions from some friends at Plurk about why I do not use googledoc instead.

Since I worked on my thesis last March, I has at least 2 workstations. My notebook at home, my notebook in the office ( I do in-company thesis), and computers in my faculty.

I've tried to only use my office notebook, but after some times, carrying the notebook back and forth on twice a day 1,5 hour indirect train travel became too annoying.

I have a special folder for my thesis work, including subfolders that organize my literature collection based on how I get them and whether I have printed them or not. It's common for me to add new articles or move some articles to printed-folders.

For that reason, I back up my files by simply copying my thesis folder to my flashdisk and copying it again to my home notebook. However at some point, my pathetically-small-capacity flashdisk (256Mb) can't handle my files anymore :p

I tried to send files to my own email address. But this really is not the best solution, because I can't have my perfectly organized thesis folder on hand.

That's how I started using Dropbox from Getdropbox.com. It gives me 2Gb online space.
I installed it on my home notebook. Then I moved my thesis folders to the Dropbox folder. When I installed the same application on my work notebook and link it to my own account, it automatically made an exact copy of my Dropbox folder at home.

Everytime I made changes to my thesis at work, i.e.: document update, document relocation, etc, the application automatically synchronize the change online and when I get home, the same synchronization is also performed in my home notebook.

That's how Dropbox helps with my thesis work :D
Btw, I need more Dropbox space. If you register through my referral link, you and I (it's fair right? hehe) will get additional 250Mb space, haha.. So, if you wanna give it a try, register through this link :D

There are similar concepts that might be as useful, such as online desktop (I forget the application name).

Never Gonna Steal My Joy

2009-05-10T14:53:00.003+07:00

I love this video.
The song is from Mandisa, "Never Gonna Steal My Joy" and the dancer is Walking Palm.
This video can always brighten my day everytime I see it :)

Tenor Eitje

2009-04-25T18:34:00.003+07:00

De Tenoren van Krashna Musika heb ..err.. er.. No, I can't continue in Dutch :p

Yaa, The Tenors of Krashna Musika decided to have a brunch together this Saturday morning (like the Sopranos, Altos, and Bass also do with their own respective groups).

Yoben as the Papa Tenoren (coordinator) who arranged the date and everything, unfortunately couldn't make it because his sister gave birth to two girls just recently.

However from 9 invited Tenors, only 3 could make it. So, ya it's just Alex, Tom, and me (with two of Alex's housemates) enjoying the warm sun, cool breeze, and church bell's chime on the balcony. The brunch consisted of fried egg, bacon, toasts, jams, butter, hagelslaag, sausage, coffee, tea, and fruit salad. Oh, and I brought 2 packs of dadar jagung with me.

Great moment to relax once in a while.. and the weather's nice too :)

Masalah dengan Sepeda

2009-04-08T18:03:00.003+07:00

Sepedaku udah bocor ban 4 kali dalam 3 minggu ini. Karena bosan nambal ban melulu, rencananya pengen beli sepeda (second) baru aja, karena tanpa sepeda hidup ini menderita (halaaah :D)

Tapi kemudian dapat tawaran dari Ucup untuk minjem sepedanya aja (ohh, baik hati sekali). Jadi kemaren sore dia datang bawain sepedanya. Walau mestinya aku yg jemput, tapi dia bilang ga papa karena dia mo skalian mampir ke tempat Baqir. Datanglah dia sekitar jam 8 lewat (eh, terasa masih sore krn masih terang, hahaa).

Sesaat setelah dia pergi, aku mo belanja ke Aldi. Baru beberapa meter, kok ada bunyi2 aneh ya.. Dan puncaknya ada bunyi letusan. Hhhh.. ternyata ban belakangnya meletus. Tauk deh kenapa.. Pas ada banyak orang di dekat taman itu, tapi cuek aja balik badan ke arah rumah, hehe.. Eh, tapi ada Nelson & Michelle juga yg tiba2 menyapa (mereka mau ke Mina, ngejual lumpia. Cicip testernya dikit, enak :D)

Intinya, batal deh pake sepeda pinjeman. Nelpon Ucup utk ngasi tau, dan memutuskan untuk jalan kaki aja belanjanya.. Ke Aldi, "Ehh udah tutup." Baru sadar liat jam udah jam 9 kurang dikit. Hmm, keknya C1000 & AH tutupnya jam 10 malam deh. Jalan kaki lagi ke C1000, "Looh tutup juga. Semoga AH masih buka." Dengan optimisme yang tersisa, lanjut jalan ke AH, dan tadaaa... petugas2nya lagi beres2 di dalam.

Akhirnya pulang dengan sia-sia.. dan jalan kaki...

Integration Moment III

2009-01-29T21:22:00.002+07:00

In my Master program in TU Delft, Management of Technology, there's a special course called Integration Moment (read more about it in my previous post). This semester is my 3rd Integration Moment starting from 12 -30 January 2009. It was said in the kick-off meeting that 3 best papers would be selected and given prize. Interesting :)

The task was to write thesis proposal. We had been informed about this beforehand and advised to have our thesis topic ready before the start of the IM3. However, being a person who liked to keep his options open, this was particularly hard for me :)

Nevertheless, I decided on a topic related to my specialization in Innovation System just on the first day of IM3. It was a project in IBM. That's what I want, a thesis in company so that it would be more practical (at least that's what I thought).

However, the topic itself was still very broad, I only had little contact with my supervisor (he was not involved in the IM3 course) and I didn't even get a reply from IBM yet, about whether I'm gonna be accepted as one of the intern. This really gave me a hard time to write the thesis proposal. You know, the uncertainty.. I just didn't want to redo making the thesis proposal later. Hey, that's the purpose of this IM3 :D

The deadline for submission the final proposal was last Tuesday at 4pm. On Sunday, mine was still really bad, only a scrape on one A4 and some wild thoughts. Fortunately I got a meeting with one of the mentor on Monday and he gave me valuable input and some literatures to read. Long story short, after a 3 weeks IM3 period, I submitted my work just in time. I just realized I sent it 3.55 pm according to the big clock on the computer room's wall but 4.01pm according to the computer's clock. OMG.

Today we had a closing session of IM3 with free drinks in Wijnhaven, a very nice cafe by the way. Three students had been selected (before the deadline) to present their works because the commitee found them interesting and that they had shown good progress. Indeed, Doudou's, Robin's, and Reinoud's topics were interesting. I especially liked Robin's, about the impact of incubators to start-up companies.

Then the teachers announced the 3 best papers. And wow..! One of the prize went for me!
I honestly didn't expect that. I mean, I liked my paper, it's concise and well-reflect what I had in mind about the research at that moment. But it's not my best, I should've put more effort, that's what I felt.

Of course I didn't refuse the prize, come on :D I went home with a flower bouquet and 2 bookshop vouchers, very happy :)

NB: One interesting coincidence.. The other two prize-winners were Monica and Robin (this is a guy, as this name is unisex). The funny thing was, we were the only MOT students joining an elective course called Network Management & Innovation a couple of months ago and formed a group for the assignment. Apparently in this IM3 course, we were once more reunited, hehe :D

Arianna dancing to Beyonce's "Single Ladies"

2009-01-29T08:54:00.002+07:00

Too cuteee!!
Despite some inappropriate body gesture for kids (LOL), Arianna did a great job, looking at how detail she could perform the dance movements :D

Beasiswa Depkominfo 2009

2009-01-27T03:55:00.002+07:00

Berhubung sekarang kuliah dengan beasiswa Depkominfo, sekarang ikut berbagi informasi bagi yang membutuhkan :D

PROGRAM BEASISWA S2 & S3 LUAR NEGERI DEPKOMINFO TAHUN 2009

Departemen Komunikasi dan Informatika pada Tahun 2009 kembali membuka kesempatan dan menyediakan beasiswa pendidikan S2 dan S3 di luar negeri bagi PNS di lingkungan lembaga pemerintah, karyawan/karyawati di lembaga pendidikandan industri teknologi informasi dan komunikasi (TIK), serta masyarakat umum.

Persyaratan :

1. Lulusan sarjana S1 untuk pendidikan S2 dan lulusan Sarjana S2

untuk pendidikan S3.

2. Memiliki IPK minimal 2,75 (dari skala 4)

3. Memiliki nilai Institutional TOEFL (ITP) minimal 550 atau IELTS minimal 6.5

4. Memiliki nilai Tes Potensi Akademik (TPA) minimal 550

5. Mendapat rekomendasi dari pejabat yang berwenang

6. Diutamakan :

a. Memiliki pengalaman kerja minimal 2 tahun

b. Berusia maksimal 35 tahun untuk pendidikan S2 dan 40 tahun untuk

pendidikan S3.

c. Belum memiliki gelar dan tidak sedang menerima beasiswa lain dan/atau sedang mengikuti program pendidikan S2 (bagi pelamar program S2) atau S3 (bagi pelamar program S3)

7. Pendaftaran dan penyerahan berkas lamaran beasiswa paling lambat tanggal

18 Februari 2009.

Informasi & formulir selengkapnya: Beasiswa Depkominfo 2009

Mandala Promo Fare

2009-01-24T22:03:00.003+07:00

TERBANG UNTUK BER 2 SEMUA RUTE RP. 33.000 FARE---

Periode Booking : 23-26 JANUARI 2009
Periode Terbang : 1 MARET- 31 MEI 2009

Syarat & Ketentuan Promo:

* Promo ini hanya berlaku selama periode promo diatas (tanggal 23 s/d 26 Jan 09) untuk periode perjalanan diatas ( 1Mar - 31May 2009 ).
* Beberapa tanggal dalam periode terbang diatas tidak diikutsertakan dalam promo ini.
* Tempat duduk terbatas. Berlaku untuk semua rute.
* Tiket promo tidak dapat ditransfer ke penerbangan lainnya dan tidak dapat diuangkan.
* Tarif dasar berbeda untuk masing-masing durasi penerbangan ke seluruh rute penerbangan.

JAKARTA-SEMARANG OR VV
JAKARTA-PANGKALPINANG OR VV

Mulai 199.000 ( Nett ) sudah termasuk tax dan fuel surcharge

Promotion Details:
Periode Promo : 19 - 31 January, 2009
Travel period : 19 - 31 January, 2009

Syarat & Ketentuan Promo:

* Tarif mulai Rp. 210,000 untuk Route JKT- SRG pp Tarif mulai Rp.199,000 untuk rute JKT-PGK pp adalah tarif untuk satu kali perjalanan, satu orang, SUDAH termasuk fuel surcharge, biaya lainnya dan pajak
* Promo ini hanya berlaku selama periode promo diatas (tanggal 19 - 20 Januari 2009) untuk periode perjalanan diatas (tanggal 19 - 31 Januari 2009)
* Tiket promo tidak dapat ditransfer ke penerbangan lainnya dan tidak dapat diuangkan.

Untuk Info lebih lanjut hubungi:
TRAVELE TOUR
Jl. Sarimanah I No. 35 Sarijadi - Bandung
Telp / Fax : 022 2015101
Mobile : 022 76203200
Email : traveletour@gmail.com atau email/YM: teti_888@yahoo.com

This Year Birthday

2009-01-23T02:05:00.001+07:00

Two days ago was my birthday.
Since I'm not in Pekanbaru, there's no birthday dinner at home or out with my family to our favourite Chinese restaurant (berlebihan sih klo bilang restoran, rumah makan biasa kok tp whiiiy enak kali)

And since I'm not in Bandung, there's no midnight surprise (yea, right) visit with fancy cakes from my friends. Or anything like this.

I'm in different country now. With different circle of friends. I don't think anybody will do the surprise visit (with this cold weather? neaahh). Also because of the living condition. Some students live in a housing building with automatic security that prevent them to have access to people's floor without the owner's consent. So, people tend to have a planned party. That's what I had last year. Cooking and having dinner with a small group of friends, but days after the real birthday because of exams, haha.

No, I'm not being bitter or something :D It's just different and still enjoyable.

This year, my birthday was on Wednesday. That's Krashna Musika's regular rehearsal day. So I came to the Cultural Center, bringing a bag of chocolate with cream filling (don't know the name), marshmallow, Engelse drops, Salted Cashew, and Choco pindas (kacang salut coklat). I did that because that's what my Dutch friends do when they had their birthday :D Then during the break, they sang the Dutch Birthday song.. (ya, "Panjang umurnya.. panjang umurnya.. blabla berbahasa Belanda) completed with the "Hip hip Huraa" thing (Imagine around 50 singers sang together :D)

Of course receiving messages through friendster, facebook, multiply, plurk, sms, call, and whatever else definitely brightened up my day too. I really loved that.

Today, in church choir practice, I received a chain of birthday songs sang in Indonesian, Dutch, Portuguese, Rwanda, and Italian. That was wonderful, I should've recorded that, haha.

Comic Strip - Mpuz's New Room

2009-01-18T01:07:00.003+07:00

Comic strip based on the comic characters defined by HabsQ and true experience of both real-life characters
Please welcome.. The Daily Life of Mpuz the Cat & Cred the Bear!! (and we're waiting for the real art by HabsQ )

This is the sketch by habsQ (aku taro sini ya Bib! haha, blom diiyain udah majang :D)

I think it's a lot cuter than the strip. Well.. I'm not that chubby, but it's okay for now.. hahahaha

Google Translate in Picasa

2008-12-30T23:22:00.006+07:00

I commented on a photo in Picasa of my friends, attending our friends' wedding. I wrote in Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian Language; and it's not just 'Bahasa' as many people, even fellow Indonesians, think it is )

After submitting, my comment appeared with another sentence underneath.. It was a rough translation of my comment into English, haha..

After checking their "what's new", this was what I got:

Automatic comment translations

If your photo is getting kudos from around the globe, we'll automatically translate comments in foreign languages to your default language.

Wow, then Google must have had a checking mechanism if the comment is in the user's default language, if not then decide what language it is, and finally translate it to the default language.

I tried to submit a comment in English just to check, and yea, there was no such translation appeared.

Although not perfect, it's a cool way to facilitate non-Indonesian speaking visitors :D I really like it.

update:
Surprisingly, through images we shared in Plurk, my friend and I saw different translations for an exact same sentence she wrote.

What she saw:
What I saw:
Hahaha, this is getting more interesting..

Another Word Verification

2008-12-28T20:29:00.005+07:00

Bwuahaaha.. ngakak guling2 (ga segitunya sih :p) pas mo comment di blognya teman. Mengingat postingan yg ini tentang word verification, hal yang sama terjadi lagi.

Yahh, semakin mendekati kaaan? :D Keep it coming Blogger! It's getting closer, hehehe :D

(Penting yaaaa...)

NB: Oh iya, dulu jg terjadinya pas mau comment di blog yg sama.. hmm..

Perkedel Jagung

2008-12-28T01:45:00.006+07:00

I'm intrigued to make Perkedel Jagung (Jagung = corn, and I don't know the proper English for "Perkedel") yesterday after tasting some of Ocha's at her home in Den Haag. I recalled being fond of Perkedel Jagung sold at Kantin GKU Barat (in my former university), with their golden-ish colour and crispy yet soft texture (krauk krauk, LOL).

I didn't really know the recipe and although it's easy to find on the internet, I was just too lazy to follow such recipe.

So I just used my feeling, hahaha. I took all-purpose flour, mixed it with an egg, a can of sweet corn, and half-pack of roerbakmix (mixed diced vegetables), some water, a bit of salt, a bit of sugar, a bit of chicken powder, and tadaaaa:

They tasted good, although what I had in mind was somewhat more crispier (eh, what's the correct term again? maksudnya sih renyah, garing). I reckoned the egg made them puffier (lebih empuk2 gitu. Enak sih, tp jadi kayak bala2/bakwan).

So, I tried one more time, after coming back from Christmas Celebration in Wassenaar this afternoon. This time, I didn't use egg, but I added some portion of cornstarch (tepung maizena) to the all-purpose flour. The rest of the ingredients were the same (oh, I added garlic and white pepper a bit). Here goes the result (after some of them were eaten, hahaha):

They were indeed crispier. I still have some doubt whether they will stay crispy after some time tho. If they're not, I will consider removing the mixed vegetable from the ingredients next time like how it's supposed to be in the first place (hey, they're Perkedel Jagung you know), hehehe

Let's Take A Shower

2008-12-23T23:35:00.002+07:00

As I now live together with two other friends, I have to share kitchen, dining room, toilet, and bathroom. Our bathroom looks like a simple room with stone as the floor and some tiling on the wall. A blue curtain separates the shower area with the sink & mirror area.

I won't complain about my bathroom, it's good enough for me But this cold winter days really make me want to enjoy a soothing warm bath, with steam showers probably

These shower enclosures look very elegant. I like the so called Chic Glass Shower Enclosure With Sliding Door (pretty long name, huh. They should have made a shorter name. But it helps describing the product anyway). I'm not sure I like Acrylic Base Glass Shower Enclosure. It looks cool, but probably too small for me. If they have it bigger, I'd like it

See this shower kits. Whiiii, I'd definitely enjoy the combination of rain shower with foot massager The massager is in the form of water massage jets. I love being around water (I am an Aquarian anyway, if that matters, hahaha). Well, I have to wait until I have my own house to have this luxurious items. It's no use remodelling my temporary student housing, hahaha.

Crayon Physics Deluxe

2008-12-23T13:00:00.001+07:00

This surely is a cool game.. I'd like to try it :D The name's Crayon Physics Deluxe.

Crayon Physics Deluxe from Petri Purho on Vimeo.

Ohh, for those with limited internet speed for viewing the video, this is the explanation of the game taken from the original website:

Crayon Physics Deluxe is a 2D physics puzzle game, in which you get to experience what it would be like if your drawings would be magically transformed into real physical objects. Solve puzzles with your artistic vision and creative use of physics.

But should I get the pen? Humm, I guess I could use my mouse..

Elliot Yamin's new song + Christmas Album

2008-12-22T21:35:00.000+07:00

They (people on the internet) said that new (unfinished) song of Elliot has been leaked.. The title is "Be Apart"

Here goes the song:

I kinda like it already :D
While at it, I want to share Elliott Yamin's Christmas album (2008) to accompany our Christmas, hehehe: Elliott Yamin - My Kind Of Holiday

Merry Christmas everybody!! :)

The Twilight Zone Tragedy

2008-12-05T06:17:00.003+07:00

I want to share a story about the tragedy happened in the movie set of "Twilight Zone", where the main actor was decapitated (so scary ) by Helicopter's rotor blades.

Two child actors also died in the set, resulting major reform in US child labor laws and safety regulations on movie sets.

May them rest in peace. Here goes the story of ten pages.

No More Night

2008-11-28T18:21:00.003+07:00

I want to share a video I found long ago in YouTube. It's a video of David Phelps singing "No More Night".

I have sung the song in choir format in Sunday Services and a concert with my church choir in GII Dago. I really love the song for the message, the beauty of the music, and the feeling it gave when I sing it. It helps a lot in difficult times.

Now I love the song even more with the beauty of David Phelps' voice. It's wonderful!

So here goes:

Lyrics to No More Night :
Words & music by Walt Harrah

The timeless theme, Earth and Heaven will pass away.
It’s not a dream, God will make all things new that day.
Gone is the curse from which I stumbled and fell.
Evil is banished to eternal hell.

No more night. No more pain.
No more tears. Never crying again.
And praises to the great "I AM."
We will live in the light of the risen Lamb.

See all around, now the nations bow down to sing.
The only sound is the praises to Christ, our King.
Slowly the names from the book are read.
I know the King, so there’s no need to dread.

No more night. No more pain.
No more tears. Never crying again.
And praises to the great "I AM."
We will live in the light of the risen Lamb.

See over there, there’s a mansion, oh, that’s prepared just for me,
Where I will live with my savior eternally.

No more night. No more pain.
No more tears. Never crying again.
And praises to the great "I AM."
We will live in the light of the risen Lamb.

All praises to the great "I AM."
We’re gonna live in the light of the risen Lamb.

Web Hosting

2008-11-28T05:16:00.002+07:00

I need to create a website for a small business of my friends’. Alas, I know very little about webhosting, domain, data transfer, design, and all other stuffs related to it. I have tried to look for local (by local I mean Indonesia although I live in Netherlands at the moment) webhosting services but got confused with the many offers. You know, having too many options is as confusing as having too limited options.

I heard about a website that provide web hosting articles and I think it will be quite useful. Some of the articles available are about choosing a dedicated host, domain parking, overview of many type of control panels, et cetera. There is also categories of articles, such as about one of the most well known control panel: Cpanel.

So, let’s take a look at this website to learn about web hosting :)

Google's New Feature

2008-11-22T22:26:00.003+07:00

I just noticed this new feature in Google search. I don't know if it's been there for quite sometimes, but since I use Google a lot, I don't think I miss it at the first go. Its name is SearchWiki.

Quote from Google:

Customize your search results with your rankings, deletions, and notes — plus, see how other people using Google have tailored their searches.

Please remember that your SearchWiki notes will be visible to other users, identified with your Google Account nickname.

For every search, each links is now given three new buttons, namely Promote, Remove, and Comment. At first, I assumed Promote would be used if you find a link useful and wanted other people to know it too, Remove for the exactly opposite reason, and Comment if you wanted to leave comment (d'oh) about the links.

When I tried clicking on Remove, the link is removed from the list. If you want to restore it, you can find it at the bottom of the page.

When I clicked on Promote, it brought the link to the first rank and subsequently another button appear in place of the cross Remove button. The tooltip still mentioned Remove, but if you clicked on it, it would just return the link to its previous normal rank.

This is a new way of Google to let user customize their search results. This is probably because the Information Retrieval technology used by Google (and every other search engines) will always produce non-perfect recall, precision, and ranking system. Hence, I think providing this kind of feature will help in mitigating the imperfectness of those measures.

The other good thing is the customization is shared among users so that users can also benefit from input from others. For example: I can see what other user think about a link in search result, and can feel more confidence in that link (as being recommended).

Notes: You can only see the new features if you log in to Google account

Updates:
Here's a video from Google's official blog about how to use SearchWiki:

ShopWiki - Shopping Search Engine

2008-11-21T10:02:00.004+07:00

What do you do nowadays if you want to buy something?
Probably you'll do some searching in the internet by using web search engines. If you're lucky, you'll find an online store that sell the product you want with a price that you're happy with. However, if you stumble upon many online stores offering the product at different prices (it could be very different), you might not feel so lucky any longer. That kinda thing brings confusion.

Now let's see this website. It claims itself to be a shopping search engine that make use of web-crawling technology in combination with consumer-written Wiki. Web crawling technology is the same technology use by major search engines such as Google, Yahoo!Search, etc. Thus it can crawls a huge number of online stores. This brings benefit as users can compare prices of a product from several stores simultaneously. For example is specialized bicycles.. or Apollo bicycle.

ShopWiki present the search result as a list of products related to the keywords. The good thing is for each entry, a pic of the product is presented, along with the name and description. The lowest price of the product is given from the many stores that sell it. If you want to know more data of the different prices, you could point your cursor to one of the entry and a bubble with pop with a list of lowest prices from several shops. Here's a snapshot of the search result:

I think this shopping search engines is very helpful and user friendly :)

India Translation Service

2008-11-21T03:42:00.001+07:00

I came across an India translation website and I was reminded about the need of proper language use in building relationship.

I have written about a request from my sister for translation of some Indonesian words to India language for her work/assignment as visual communication designer. I only needed a simple translation tool for that.

What if you need to translate not several words, but paragraphs? whole documents?
That's the time you need a translation service.
If you have a business and you want to reach a market that do not understand your language, what will you do? Say, you speak English, you produce Batik, and you want to sell it to India. Well, English is commonly used in India, but I believe there are many other people that do not know English. Moreover, isn't it nicer to build a relationship with your prospective customers by using their own language?

Like villagers in many countries, that have diverse traditional languages and might not understand English that well, certain areas in India face the same thing. Hindi is a language spoken in India as well as Urdu is. Punjabi is a language used in the area of Punjab (well, at least now we know how the famous Raam Punjabi got his name :D).

Back to the topic, that's the reason IAFL (I can't find what it stands for from the website) provide a translation and interpretation service, They claim that it's best to give the work to professional because poor Urdu translation, for instance, will lead to decrease of credibility. A very sound argument, I would say. In fact, there are many things to be concerned about translation. It's not only making the native speakers understand, but it should also use the style of the original and be culturally appropriate.

Talking about the business model, it is not wise for a company to have many language experts in house. A more feasible (and effective) way is by using a service from a company like IAFL.

I think for a global-minded business people, a translator/interpreter is necessary in terms of reaching people in their respective comfort zone, namely their language. That will help them to be able to relate more to whatever it is that you want them to know.

Push-up

2008-11-21T02:30:00.000+07:00

I found this post very nice and I'd like to share it. I found it through the post in Pandu's blog (this is like share it forward, hehehe)

Thought: What will we do with the grace our God has given us? *I myself need to do some reflection on that* :)

Travelling and Accomodation

2008-11-17T21:15:00.001+07:00

Since my last travel to Spain and Italy last summer, I haven’t done any travelling. I would love too, but my courses’ assignments and other works are very time consuming. PPI Delft actually planned a travelling activity “PPI Delft goes to Berlin” but since only very few people responded to the registration, it was cancelled.

Hmm, Mai is still in Zurich for her exchange program. I would like to visit her (and force her to be my guide off course, hahaha). I should do that before January though, otherwise she’ll already be back in Delft.

Talking about travelling, I’m sure that new students (Vel? Ron? Niss? Mel? hehehe) might want to do that, probably as cheap as possible :D Accommodation contributes to the expense greatly, but the cheapest alternative is not necessarily the one you’re satisfied with. Let me share some useful information on that.

Couchsurfing.com might be your first alternative to find accommodation. Mai is the one introducing the website to me when we planned our trip to Leuven and Brussels last year. She contacted some members who offer a couch or a room to sleep in the cities we’re interested in. We got the rooms but we needed to bring our own sleeping bags (there were four of us). The rooms were free of charge (that’s the beauty of the couchsurfing concept) but we, as nice people (yes, we are :D), prepared dinner for our hosts. It was an interesting experience. It might not be easy to get room though. Mai needed to contact many people before getting the offers (probably also because she’s been well reviewed by other members from her previous couchsurfing).

Last January, when I travelled to Prague with some classmates, we found accommodation through hostelworld.com. The prices of the hostels were cheap (probably because it’s Prague). The first hostel we booked was okay, but crappy in its service. We checked out on the second day and found another hostel that was slightly more expensive, but superb in its service. You can read the rest of the story in my previous post.

If you prefer hotel to hostels, you can try finding good rates through hotelscombined.com. My Dutch friend once told me he used this website to find accommodation for his travel to Indonesia. He went there with his family. It can help comparing hotels in one go. That’s helpful, I would say. I tried to search for hotels in Bandung, and it shows me an impressive list of hotels to choose from :D Perfect for planning a honeymoon, hehehe.

So, if you’re on a tight budget and want to experience something new, you could try couchsurfing.com (but you should be careful in choosing the prospective hosts). If you’re looking for student accommodation, try hostelworld.com (not necessarily the cheapest and you have to make sure it’s comfortable enough). If you’re looking for a good hotel and need to compare for the best value for your money, try hotelscombined.com. These could spare you the trouble of searching the accommodation manually.

Medical Alarm

2008-11-17T11:17:00.001+07:00

Hey, this is interesting. I stumbled upon a website selling customer care service and products related to safety. They sell some kind of Medical Alarm Systems, one for inside the house and one for the outside. I am always interested in stuff related to medical (thanks to my parents who work as nurses and sorry for them that none of their children pursue a career as a doctor. Well, they don't complain though :D)

The interesting feature of the inside-the-house system (they call it Tele-Assist) is Fall Detector. Imagine when your grandmother is at home, alone, and you know that she’s not in her fittest state as she’s ever been before but you couldn’t be around. The product has a panic button, which alert the family, doctor, or emergency help when pressed. But if somehow the wearer cannot even press the panic button, the fall detector will alert the company’s operator, who will act accordingly once (s)he has assessed the situation. It is wonderful how new technology (like the detector) can help people.

For outside, they use Mobile GPS in the form of a watch. They claim that the device will connect you to help no matter where you are in the world. It will send your GPS location to a trained professional in case of emergency. I think this is very useful. I can imagine how hard it is to create such complex connection of medical alarm system with other actors in the environment, such as the doctors, emergency ambulance, et cetera. It is difficult especially in developing countries, for instance my home country. I don’t know how they could do it if a customer actually travels to Indonesia and goes to some rural areas.

Nevertheless, such technology implemented in this medical alarm system is admirable and could really help. I only hope that the infrastructure in Indonesia could get better to actually make use of such technology in a large scale.

Oh ya, I found their video in YouTube, here goes:

Word Verification

2008-10-27T15:07:00.003+07:00

Waktu mau mengirim comment untuk postingan terakhir di blog teman ini, word verification yang muncul seperti ini:

Hahaha, dikit lagi dapet de nama 'Credo'..

My Plurk

2008-10-27T00:29:00.002+07:00

I really love the theme of my Plurk page :)
It feels so serene. And that's important because I spend (or waste, depending on how you see it :p) a lot of time looking at it.

I don't know if it's just me, but I think this Plurk thing is a smart product. I reflected it to the (weird urging) feeling of commenting on my friends' Yahoo!Messenger status. My friends' did that a lot too (commenting on others' online status, that is). So, instead of commenting on a real-time status, Plurk creator(s) made it possible for people to comment on a continuum of statuses posted in Plurk. Which make it very attractive (at least for people who'd like to share small things in their life).

I'm kinda annoyed by Plurk too, I guess.. Because it's so easy to post something and get comments on that. However, that makes me even lazier than before to write blog post. Well, they call Plurking as micro-blogging though. They do it for a reason, right?

Twitter is another micro-blogging service. But representation of the posts somehow makes it hard to follow all the posts of your friends because they are pushed on top of each other. I would just say, it's not helping the user.

It's a different case with Plurk. It positions your friends' posts so that you could see them clearly. You can choose to see only your own posts, your responded posts, or even your comment on others' posts. Plurk keeps track of them for you. If your friends trashes you with too many posts, you could simply choose not to follow their Plurk temporarily but stay friends. Ahh, almost forget to mention: we could adorn our post with pics (mostly emoticons. Ahh, and they look great :D) and shares video and links.

With all this, will this micro-blogging change our blogging-behaviour? I think it starts having an effect on me.

Wikipedia Needs Help

2008-10-26T19:40:00.002+07:00

I have seen the advertisement (if I could call it that) of Wikipedia indicating it needs some donation to keep going. Like this, "Wikipedia is sustained by people like you. Please donate today."

What I just realized is that they (I refer to those guys behind the curtain off course) provide several alternatives to deliver the message. Like:

Help us provide free content to the world by donating today!
You can support Wikipedia by making a tax-deductible donation.
Help us improve Wikipedia by supporting it financially.
Your continued donations keep Wikipedia running!

Every time you load a Wikipedia page, the sentence is generated (randomly shown, I would say). I think it's neat having this kind of thing. It's not something new, but it's just... nice.
The position of the message is also nice. On the top left with readable small font. The italic style makes it stand out without irritating the eager eye looking for valuable information.

Click the 'donate' links on those messages and you will see a video of Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia explaining the purpose of the free encyclopedia and the needs for donation. (Hey, Indonesia is in the video :D)

Imagine a world
in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.
— J. Wales, Founder of Wikipedia

I hope I help them delivering the message by making this post :D

Proteksi CD/DVD

2008-10-09T12:34:00.003+07:00

Hwahahaha..
Justru dr anak2 IT yang jawabannya malah ga jelas..
Maaf ya Pop..

Free products

2008-09-16T22:52:00.004+07:00

There's an offering of studentenbox in front of the aula this morning. As students, all we need to do is register in their website www.studentenbox.nl and bring the print out of the confirmation letter and student card to the aula.

The box contains various kind of snacks, soepbasis, toothpaste, shaver, and.. (I chuckled) condoms... Exactly what students need, huh?

Volley Ball

2008-09-06T17:00:00.000+07:00

Huff, I'm tired today..
Playing volley ball for almost 3 hours from around 10 to 12 am in the sport center. It's actually an International Student Program which give a month free access to the sport center to introduce it to new students (I'm not new though :p). I have had a sport card since last year but I don't want to join the Dutch volley ball club because I will looked ridiculously short compared to those Dutch guys.

But it feels good after the play with some new friends. Let me see: Tiago & Rui from Portugal, Victoria from Norway, and Laura from Spain (Hahaha, I feel the need to note them down so that I won't forget). We plan to meet again next saturday and invite more friends since many of them do not know about the program yet. And heey.. it's free.. So no reason actually for not coming :D

Apart from Volley Ball, there are also schedule for basket ball, tennis, badminton, body shape(for woman), and so on.. Would like to join the badminton and tennis too next week.

Krashna Musika Proms Concert

2008-09-03T17:21:00.006+07:00

Krashna Musika orchestra and choir will have another concert this September. It will be in Delft Market Square and it's FREE!! :D

It's the 40th anniversary of Krashna Musika.

We will perform:

Prokofiev - Romeo & Julia suite;
Guus Westdorp - The Hymne of Delft (on world premiere!).

Glinka - Ouverture from Ruslan and Ludmilla;
Borodin - Danses Polovtsiennes from Prince Igor;
Bizet - Les Voici from Carmen;
Verdi - Va pensiero from Nabucco;
Verdi - La donna e mobile from Rigoletto;
Gounod - Deposons les armes, gloire immortelle de nos aieux from Faust;
Wagner - Treulich geführt from Lohengrin;
Puccini - Nessun dorma from Turandot.

Before the evening concert, there will be another concert in the afternoon for Children. It will be the Romeo and Juliet, by the orchestra, and there will be a narration for Children by Petra Pijnaker (penulis musiknya gitu klo ga salah ingat).

My favourite choir piece from the program are Danses Polovtsiennes (Prince Igor) and Les Voici (Carmen). Les Voici is so lively and extravagant! While Danses Polovtsiennes is grand and mystical :D

So, for those of you who can reach Delft, please do come! :)

One video of Danses Polovtsiennes that I can find in YouTube:

PS: I haven't written anything about the Concert Tour several months ago.. I hope I can write it soon.

The Three Fishers

2008-08-23T04:03:00.007+07:00

It rains a lot in Delft, but rarely thundery. But that's what happen tonight. While listening to the drops of rains and enjoying the thunder (surprise surprise), I suddenly remembered one of the songs PSM-ITB sang for the 1st KPS Unpar and for other occasions after that: The Three Fishers.

I tried to look up for its video clip in YouTube and Google but none were like the one I searched for. Instead, I ended up with some interesting facts.

The song was based on a poem by Charles Kingsley and first published in 1851. John Hullah was the first to compose a song based on the poem although I'm not sure his melody was the same as the one I know, comparing to some solo versions and music score that I found. Derek B Scott, a Professor of Critical Musicology from University of Leeds, sang it the first time.

The music score in PDF and midi file by John Hullah can be found here: http://www.ibiblio.org/mutopia/cgibin/piece-info.cgi?id=429.

Here goes the poem:

The Three Fishers

1 Three fishers went sailing away to the west,

2 Away to the west as the sun went down;

3 Each thought on the woman who loved him the best,

4 And the children stood watching them out of the town;

5 For men must work, and women must weep,

6 And there's little to earn, and many to keep,

7 Though the harbour bar be moaning.

8 Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower,

9 And they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down;
10 They looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower,

11 And the night-rack came rolling up ragged and brown.

12 But men must work, and women must weep,

13 Though storms be sudden, and waters deep,

14 And the harbour bar be moaning.

15 Three corpses lay out on the shining sands

16 In the morning gleam as the tide went down,

17 And the women are weeping and wringing their hands

18 For those who will never come home to the town;

19 For men must work, and women must weep,

20 And the sooner it's over, the sooner to sleep;

21 And good-bye to the bar and its moaning.

(taken from Representative Poetry Online)

The poem/lyric told the story clearly. The arrangement of the music (it's an a cappella composition) added up to the holistic image of the scene.

At least I got the image of the town nearby a sea in my mind when singing the song. At bay, some women worrily looking at their husbands as they were preparing their sailing equipments, while the children stood still in silence beside their mothers. The sky didn't look friendly, the clouds were hovering and the wind blew strongly. The sun started to set and darkness was creeping on the surface of the roaring sea. As the men started sailing, some children ran to a steep hill that raised high from the sea, to get the last glance of their fathers on the horizon.

I can go on and on with this image, I'm afraid I might write too long.

Line 8-11 were sung by Soprano and Alto describing the situation and possible feeling of the women. The duet was melodiously and beautifully aching. Then came male voices in line 12-14 as cantus, like breaking into a new scene (I imagine the sudden change of scenes like in a movie, from a secluded lighthouse tower to an open, rough sea; with cracking thunder and lightning; and the men struggling in their boat). I remembered the males started with forte, and gradually lowering down the dynamics (not decrescendo, but on some starting points).

Line 15-18, again the females sang the main melody, but this time accompanied by the males singing only some words of each line. The emphasis on each syllable rhythmically by the Tenors and Basses created a sense of splashes of waves on the shore where the corpses laid.

The song is so beautiful.. sooo emotional.. Line 20 "And the sooner it's over, the sooner to sleep;", sang in piano/pianissimo, suits the feeling the best.. Since the sorrow is so strong, it feels like it's the only way to shrug off the burden.

Fuhh, I should try my best to dig through my recording collections to find the song.

Another interesting fact is that the poem has a rhyme structure of ababccd. I just noticed it and I think it's beautiful.

I found The Project Gutenberg Ebook of Journeys Through Booklands that contain Kingsley's poem and an illustration. Haaa, I'm so glad the illustration suits my former imagination:

(taken from Gutenberg.org)

Bi-directional Override

2008-08-02T05:33:00.006+07:00

Stumbled upon an html tag with an attribute that will write text backwards (if your browser support it).. I know it's not gonna be used a lot though :D

The tag is <bdo> and the atttribute is 'rtl'=right to left.

If your browser supports bi-directional override (bdo), this code :

<bdo dir="rtl">
Let's try this bi-directional override tag
</bdo>

will be written from the right to the left (rtl) as:

Let's try this bi-directional override tag

Well ya.. If it's not written from right to left, you know what your problem is :D

Braxton Hicks

2008-08-02T05:02:00.007+07:00

The first time I saw the term was on Layli,'s YM status, "I think it's Braxton-Hicks"..

I went like, "Whoaa.. Does Toni Braxton have a duet with Taylor Hicks?"

Apparently not, after a hit to Google and eventually Wikipedia.

Braxton Hicks contractions, also known as false labour or practice contractions. Braxton Hicks are sporadic uterine contractions that actually start at about 6 weeks, although one will not feel them that early. Most women start feeling them during the second or third trimester of pregnancy. Braxton Hicks are named after the English doctor who first described them, John Braxton Hicks.

Ahahaha, does anybody know this before? :D

Whaku Bhim, Papuan Choir: Gospel Night

2008-07-30T23:38:00.001+07:00

Got an email from Ocha this morning, informing there would be a choir performance in Indonesian Embassy's Auditorium at 7pm tonight.

The choir is Whaku Bhim, a choir from Papua, the eastern-most province in Indonesia. It is reported that they got a gold and a silver medal from the World Choir Games 2008 in Graz, Austria. Haaa, then this is a must-see performance for me :D

Paduan suara Whaku Bhim dari Papua akan ditampilkan secara khusus bersama beberapa kelompok paduan suara lainnya dari China, Australia, Amerika Serikat, Eropa dan Afrika Selatan dalam acara "We Are The World, Die Grosse Sommer-Nacht der Chore", International choir competition World Choir Games.

After contacting Rahmadi, Rizky, Mieke, and Reini, we agreed to go there by Reini's car at 6pm. As expected (at least by us Indonesians, not by those Dutch ladies) the small concert started late. Although the choir had arrived at 6.30 from Nijmegen (another concert there), the Indonesian ambassador didn't arrive from an appointment in Morocco's embassy until almost 8.

The choir consisted of church members and universities' students from Jayapura and its surroundings, conducted by Aris Sudibyo.

I didn't know the first song they sang, but I could notice that they're good. The second song was Indonesian version of "The Majesty and Glory of Your Name" by Tom Fettke (is it "Betapa Mulia NamaMu Tuhan"?). Now here I got a lot more excited and think that they sang it beautifully (perhaps also because I really love this song :D).

Other songs were "Sanctus"and I-forgot-the-other-one. The Tenors were kinda flat & stiff. The soloists (or descants, I forgot) were weak. At this point I was kinda having a skepticism. I mean, they're good, okay.. but what I heard were not the quality of WCG's gold medal choir.

Then came "Bukakan Pintu KasihMu" by Ronald Pohan and "Toki Gong (Sambil Menari Halleluya)" by Christian Tamaela. Ahh, "Bukakan Pintu KasihMu" are so typically Ronald Pohan. With all those complicated and close-harmony chords. I love his works. Impressively, the choir sang Toki Gong very well (except one noticeable false/drop at the release of one verse) and the clap-part was perfect. Very tidy. Now I could see that they've actually practising very hard. "Bukakan Pintu KasihMu" was nicely sung, with a lot better vocal compared to previous songs. The last 'Amen' part was great. "All Things Bright and Beautiful" was sung okay.. I think it was put as last song to neutralized the effect of Ronald Pohan's song, khekhekhee.

Second session was started after a break with bakso, hahaha :D
A medley song (I forgot what they were) and another Ronald Pohan's song "Tinggal Sertaku", which was composed before the death of his father E.L. Pohan. Then the session was mostly filled with Negro Spiritual songs such as "I Want To Thank You Lord", "Everytime I Feel The Spirit"(You introduced this to me B'Josh :D), "Soon Ah Will Be Done", ended with "Elijah Rock". I really liked Moses Hogan's work :D

I would say they sang Negro Spiritual really good. The ringing of the voice and the vibrato fit really well, apart from their physical appearance (well, the conductor said so :D). I think they related more with those songs and sang them more relax-ly (if this word exist :p). The dynamic flowed rather smoothly, although with less control to go piano/pianissimo. The soloists in this second session were much better. The power of the choir were great, although there's a tendency to be screamy (udah kecapekan kali ya).

***

Whaku Bhim was also appointed to perform in World Symposium on Choral Music in Copenhagen, Denmark. Later in a chat with the conductor, I acknowledged that the conductor was a former conductor of Universitas Kristen Petra choir (a very good choir in Surabaya). He was encouraged by Aida Swenson Simanjuntak, one of the judges/committee of WCG (Oh, Tante Aida existnya dirimu, hehehe) to form and train Whaku Bhim. So in 6 months, forming and training a choir like this was a very good achievement I think.

Eventually I knew they got silver medal in Mixed Chamber Choir and gold medal in Open Folklore. So, the gold medal was from Open Folklore.. I gotta see their next concert at 6 August 2008 at the same place, performing Papuan folksongs and dance. Tomorrow, they will be touring to Germany for another (some more) concert(s).

In the end, I really enjoyed the small concert. It's so endearing to see other Indonesian choir participating in World Choir Games.. Congratulations!!
And I really miss my choir now :)

Kembar Hitam-Putih

2008-07-29T05:09:00.006+07:00

Untungnya sih bukan kayak zebra :D

Tapi bayi yang satu kulit putih, bayi yang satu lagi kulit hitam. Si kembar ini lahir dari pasangan ibu dari Ghana dan ayah dari Jerman. Yang berkulit putih diberi nama Ryan dan yang kulit hitam bernama Leo. Katanya kelahiran seperti ini terjadi dengan probabilitas 1 dalam sejuta (siapa juga yg ngitung2 ini..).

And the twins are already revealing opposing personalities.
Light-skinned Ryan is described as a "spirited" baby, while Leo is laid back.

Berita lebih detail bisa dibaca di sini dan sini, lengkap dengan videonya.

Praying Dog

2008-07-28T05:20:00.004+07:00

I found out about this dog from detik but since the article was written as lame as usual, I search for other source: this and this.

The dog's name is Conan (1,5 year old) (named after Arthur Conan Doyle), a long haired Chihuahua .

He learned the position by imitating his master in a Zen Buddhist temple in Japan.

"I think he saw me doing it all the time and got the idea to do it, too," Yoshikuni said.

He is just too cute to ignore, hehehe :D

Sheep Dash!

2008-07-26T17:04:00.004+07:00

Got a link for a BBC's reaction test game from Wuri: Sheep Dash!
It is said in the automobile driving manual that the average driver's reaction time is 0.75 seconds.

As warned in her email, the game is indeed addicting :D
I have tried it around 10 times and the best (and average) result I got is Bobbing Bobcat.

Let me know if you can get Rocketing Rabbit or Turbo-charged Cheetah! :D And tell me how you do that, hehehe.

Take Copter / Baling-baling Bambu

2008-07-23T00:19:00.008+07:00

Lagi-lagi karena nonton channel national geographic..

Seorang Jepang bernama Gennai Yanagisawa, 75 tahun telah mengembangkan mesin terbang personal berdasarkan konsep mesin terbang Leonardo Da Vinci. Mesin terbang ini hanya memiliki satu tempat duduk untuk penggunaan pribadi dan memiliki 2 baling-baling yang terpasang pada sumbu vertikal. Mesin itu dinamakan GEN H-4.

Yanagisawa's inspiration: da Vinci's 1493 ornithopter

Pada helikopter biasa, ada sebuah baling-baling besar pada sumbu vertikal badan helikopter dan ada sebuah baling-baling kecil di bagian ekor untuk memungkinkan helikopter menjaga kestabilan dan terbang maju.

Fungsi ini diimplementasikan pada GEN H-4 dengan dua baling-baling sejajar pada sumbu vertikal yang berputar saling berlawanan arah, sehingga bentuknya lebih compact.

Satu hal yang masih menjadi masalah adalah pengaruh angin kencang pada GEN H-4. Mesin ini belum memiliki toleransi tinggi terhadap kecepatan angin.

Harga mesin ini masih mahal sekali. Berita mengenai demonstrasi mesin ini di Italy, tepatnya di Vinci tempat asal Leonardo si pengembang konsep awal, bisa dibaca di sini.

Dalam tayangan videonya, Gennai menyampaikan kalau sejak kecil dia memimpikan bisa terbang di angkasa. Itu yang mendorong dia untuk mengembangkan mesin ini. The power of dream is truly amazing.

Mengagumkan ya.. Jepang semakin mendekati pewujudnyataan Take Copter alias Baling-baling bambunya Doraemon :D

Cane Toad

2008-07-22T10:04:00.016+07:00

Di salah satu ~~TOEFL test yang pernah aku ikuti beberapa tahun lalu~~ IELTS test practice yang aku ikuti tahun lalu, ada materi reading test tentang Cane Toad. Disebutkan kalau Cane Toad didatangkan dari Hawai dan digunakan sebagai usaha alami/biologis untuk membasmi hama Cane Beetle yang menyerang tanaman tebu di Australia.

Rasanya ini ide yang bagus kan?

Tapi sayang kenyataannya ga begitu. Setelah didatangkan, si makhluk kecil ~~menjijikkan~~ tidak-terlalu-menarik ini malah ga mengkonsumsi si Cane Beetle. Seingatku karena beetle-nya makan daun di tempat tinggi dan larvanya makan akar dalam tanah sehingga Cane Toad-nya ga bisa memakan mereka. Ujung-ujungnya, karena begitu giat berkembang biak, si Toad ini bertambah banyak dan malah menjadi hama di Australia.

Lah, terus kenapa tiba-tiba ngomongin makhluk tak menarik ini?
Hehe, tadi pas nonton national geographic di TV (tumben banget kan), si Cane Toad ini dibahas. Pembahasannya mengenai mereka sebagai hama dan penanggulangannya.

Bertambah banyaknya Cane Toad menjadi masalah di Australia. Selain mendiami banyak lahan dan bersaing untuk resource alami dengan banyak makhluk setempat, si Toad yang ternyata beracun itu membahayakan biodiversitas (terjemahan sotoy dari Biodiversity.. eh, rasanya di perasaan biologi dulu ada padanannya: Keanekaragaman Hayati). Dilaporkan kalau populasi ular, burung, dan sejumlah reptilia menurun drastis. Ini terjadi karena mereka mati segera setelah ~~sok jago~~ memakan Cane Toad.

The spread of Cane Toads in Australia from 1940 to 1980 in 5-year intervals
(taken from Wikipedia)

Sekarang ini mereka sudah tersebar luas di seluruh Australia.

Cara penanggulangan agak nyeleneh yang pernah dipakai adalah dengan menjadikan Cane Toad sebagai bagian dari 'olah raga'Cara penanggulangan agak nyeleneh yang pernah dipakai adalah dengan menjadikan Cane Toad sebagai bagian dari 'olah raga'. Cane Toad diperlakukan seperti bola dalam permainan golf dan cricket. Metode ini ditentang oleh kelompok pemerhati (peri ke)binatang(an).

Akhirnya peneliti berusaha mencari cara untuk mengatasi Cane Toad. Salah satu yang menarik adalah fakta bahwa mereka bereaksi terhadap sinar ultraviolet. UV light yang juga biasa dipakai di dance floor itu menarik perhatian serangga-serangga makanan si Toad dan akhirnya membawa Cane Toad masuk kotak perangkap. Kotak-kotak perangkap itu disebar di alam bebas dan berhasil menangkap banyak Cane Toad sampai berplastik-plastik besar yang kemudian dibekukan untuk membunuh mereka.

Terus, Cane Toad yang berhasil ditangkap sampai berplastik-plastik itu diapain? Apa dikirim ke club-club golf dan cricket?

Ternyata tidak. Sebagian besar diproses menjadi pupuk dan sisanya dijadikan souvenir, seperti dompet koin. Emangnya ada yang mau ya?

Energy Drink

2008-07-22T04:30:00.006+07:00

Drinking energy drink at night is certainly not a good idea.. At least now that's what I think.

I had dinner with Mai, Doudou, Dirk, and Harold around 8 pm at my place (and I was glad they finished all my cookings till the last piece, especially those two girls competing over the Rendang). After washing the dishes around 11 pm, I drank the still-half-full energy drink. I thought, it's leftover from the afternoon and just finished it and threw the can away.. Nothing's wrong with it.

I was wrong..

It's 4.20 in the morning and I haven't slept yet. Not that I didn't try to. I have turned off the light, said my prayer, curled up on my bed since around 2, and.. nothing happened. I mean, I still couldn't sleep. Oh man..!

Oh, and I got a jogging appointment with Puspa at 8 in the morning.. Arrgh.. Need to sleep!

Follow Up: The jogging thing still happened although 1 hour later than planned. Not bad :D

Rest In Peace Alrin

2008-07-20T01:59:00.002+07:00

Aku terima sms dari Eldi minggu lalu.

"Gua dapat kabar dari Sari. Alrin meninggal karena Malaria 5 hari yang lalu"

Ga kusangka. Alrin yang aku ga terlalu kenal dekat. Cuma beberapa kali pernah ketemu dan kerja bareng. Terakhir kali waktu Konser Terima Kasih PSM-ITB setelah World Choir Games 2006 di Xiamen, China. Alrin mengiringi kami TLV Male menyanyikan beberapa lagu dengan permainan pianonya (link ke posting yang lalu).

Eldi bilang, dia kaget banget karena baru berencana untuk merekrut Alrin untuk proyek berikutnya dengan TLV.

Sebelum itu aku udah kenal Alrin dari beberapa proyek tapi jarang ketemu setelahnya. Hanya saling menyapa dan ngobrol sebentar kalau ketemu di jalanan ITB. Menurutku dia tipe pendiam yang ga ngomong banyak kalau ga perlu. Tipe orang yang teduh tapi tetap menyenangkan untuk diajak ngobrol. Dari obrolan kami, dia ga pernah belajar piano secara khusus, tapi belajar sendiri karena senang aja. Untuk main piano di Bandung, dia memanfaatkan piano di Aula Barat ITB yang nganggur siang hari. Bagiku, dia bermain bagus dan aku mengagumi dia karena kecintaannya terhadap piano itu.

Aku heran, kenapa meninggal karena Malaria? Bukannya dia di Bandung? Bukannya obat Malaria udah ada sejak lama? Ya, mungkin ini cuma pikiran-pikiran egoisku yang mencoba complain dengan apa yang terjadi.

Belakangan dari Sari aku dapat info kalau Alrin kena Malaria saat berdinas di Sulawesi, sebagai anak Geologi bertugas ke pelosok-pelosok daerah. Sari juga ga terlalu yakin, tapi nampaknya penanganan terhadap sakitnya Alrin terlambat dilakukan, sampai akhirnya dia meninggal 9 Juli lalu.

Ya, I don't know Alrin that much.. But I admire him. And I write this to show that his life has indeed touch mine and I believe also many others'.

Rest in peace, my friend.. For God loves you more than we do...

New Room

2008-07-07T06:33:00.000+07:00

Yep, I've just moved from my old room at Roland Holstlaan to this new one at Poptahof Noord. 4th of July was the day I signed my new contract with DUWO, the housing agency.

My new room is a unit on the 2nd floor with 3 bedrooms, a toilet, a bathroom, a dining room, and a kitchen. I share it with Jarot & Handy... (well, they share it with me since they got the unit first and offered me to stay with them :D)

My room is the biggest (and the most expensive) of the three, but still 40 euro cheaper than my old room. It's also bigger.

So far, I'm satisfied with my new room, although I just realized that Netherlands also has mosquitos :( Come to think of it, maybe I didn't realized it before because I lived in the 13th floor at Roland Holstlaan and the mosquitos were too lazy and couldn't afford to fly that high, hahaa :D Plus my new room has plants under its window which makes it nice to see but tend to become the home of those darn mosquitos. Ah well, everything comes in balance :D

So, say hi to my new room! :D

Von Smith

2008-07-01T15:37:00.002+07:00

I know Dreamgirls hype was over..
But I stumbled upon this video and I thought his vocal technique was awesome! The fact that he can sing so high was amazing, although personally his type of voice is not my favorite. Yupe, some of you might have known him: Von Smith (birth name: Vaughn Lee Smith).
His other songs can be found in his myspace.

The End of Integration Moment II

2008-06-27T15:05:00.003+07:00

Haaah.. At last, the Integration Moment II has finished.. So relieved..

Integration Moment(IM) is a "special" course in MOT (my master program--Management of Technology) which takes place at the end of every semester. It consists of a big (i mean BIG) collaborative assignment which covers all courses in that particular semester. In addition to the complexity of the assignment, collaboration problem with group members might occur (and it did in my case).

The assignment for Integration Moment I in the 1st semester was the issue of eBay buying Skype. In this 2nd semester, the assignment was making a proposal to fulfill the tender from 3 Technical Universities for a novel joint graduate school in Netherlands with the innovation of new learning. The students were divided in 2 arenas, in which we were divided again in 4 companies. I was in Blackboard, the ICT company. The other 3 companies were Deloitte (consultant for new learning and project management), Reed Elsevier (publisher and knowledge management expert), and Bouwfonds (building expert). Each company consisted of 5 students.

We had to work as a consortium of 4 companies to win the tender (around 20 people), as well as protecting our own company's interests and goals within the consortium. So the IM2 was full of meetings and negotiations. The 2.5 weeks was cramped with scheduled meetings with the consortium and the consultants(the lecturers), not to mention every consultancy documents and consortium & company papers that we had to submit. Very tiring but in the end felt like the most productive period in semester 2.

And that's the motive of this post, to celebrate the end of the IM2 on Thursday 26 June 2008, hehehe :D After the final presentation to the 3TU board, our consortium went out to a park and had a relaxing BBQ time under the warm sun, while our rival, the consortium in arena 2 was having their final presentation, haha :D

Rose's Birthday Party

2008-06-22T14:56:00.004+07:00

Rose celebrated her birthday last Friday, although her Birthday was actually on June 10. As usual, MOT-ers gathers every time there's a chance for it, especially after such a hard week with all meetings and assignments from the Integration Moment 2.

At first I thought the party would be at 8 pm, lucky I was told by Doudou that it's at 10pm.. Gosh.. so late.. Anyway, Doudou, Mai, and I went to Balpol after having dinner at Doudou's room with Dirk (hmm, bruschetta, tortellini, and tiramisu).

I planned to go home at 12 so at least I have spent 2 hours at the party (as Harold always exaggeratively accuses me of not socializing with MOT-ers because I missed some of the parties). Plan remained as plan since I stayed there hanging out with my classmates until 4am, hehehe.. This was exactly why I told Harold that I couldn't come to a party for only 15 minutes to say hi (as he demanded) because I wouldn't be able to leave that easily. And by the way, this silly guy himself wasn't present, grrhh..

Rose got an orange hat with pinky adornment that could hold two bottles of beer on its side from MOT-ers. Plastic pipes that could be inserted to the bottles and reached her mouth like a head-microphone allowed her to drink beers while freely dancing.. Hahaha, a great gift, I would say.

It was a great night to have fun with my classmates, since we're all so close since the MOT's Introduction Week. I didn't know what I've drunk.. It's all mixed up, cognac, beers, coke, jack daniels, I had no idea.. I just realized that I wasn't the usual me when I thought that smoking might not be a bad idea (Ooops, hold on a second there, dude). Hahaa, at least I could still control myself.. Mai was totally wasted, blabbering and singing (too) happily. In the end, Alex forced her to go home with Doudou and me (well, at first she said she wanted to continue to Jorge's party in Marcushof).

On our way out of Balpol, she started crying when Doudou playfully hit her forehead with her finger. Oh man.. It took sometimes before she stopped. We started walking home since I wasn't sure she could ride her bike. But she said she could..(not convincing though, because she couldn't even walk straight)

Doudou and I spent our time watching her biking and giving direction ("Left Mai! to the left!", "Watch out that pillar!", "Don't sleeep!"). Well, she still ended up on one plant-fence though :D I couldn't help bursting laughter, hehehe.... (bad kitty bad, as Rizky would say)

We managed to get her inside her room and went home ourselves. Pfiuuh.. what a night (and early morning).

My Daemon

2008-06-22T13:56:00.004+07:00

I haven't watched The Golden Compass yet, but I was attracted to take the Daemon test after seeing Arzee's post this Sunday morning.

So here goes the result: Fox Daemon named Ariel

Hmm, okay.. but I'd like to take the test once more.. Here's the result: Lion Daemon named Lysandra

Quite fun :)

Initiative

2008-06-19T19:39:00.002+07:00

Self note:

Remember to require certain level of initiative from your group member next time!

Grrrhh..!

Good bye Laurie..

2008-05-31T01:51:00.002+07:00

First time I met her is in my TBI course 5 years ago..
She's my teacher in Manchester class.
A very cheerful and friendly one.
Not even once I found the class boring..

We, her students, gathered at her house several times for fun.
We even met her parents once when they visited her in Bandung..
Lovely parents I would say.

After we were no longer TBI students since we've finished the class,
We were still in touch with her.
I remember the gathering at Ciwalk's Starbucks..

She's still young..
Well.. she always says she's 21
Even after another year's gone by...

Her parents are gonna come to Bandung again soon..
To only have the last glance at her..
I really can't stand imagining how they feel...

Thank you for your life, Laurie..

Good bye and have your rest..
We love you...

(RIP Wednesday 28.05.2008 at 06.20 WIB)

Kuliah & Ujian

2008-05-29T11:32:00.002+07:00

Hari ini..

Bolos kuliah Decision Making karena masih (berusaha) belajar untuk ujian R&D and Knowledge Management jam 2 nanti.

Gyaaaaa....

update: And now it's raining. Great........... (1,5 hours to go..)
PS: What am I doing actually? blogging at this time? insane........ hahahahahha (laughing in distress )

Kebakaran

2008-05-13T20:42:00.001+07:00

Pas lagi ada kelas pagi, tiba2 ada kabar kalau Gedung Fakultas Arsitektur (Bouwkunde) TU Delft, kebakaran sekitar jam 9.30.

(foto diambil dari http://www.rtvwest.nl/nieuwsitem/17863)

Kasian banget mahasiswa2 dan dosen2 gedung itu. Kebayang kalau ada yang lagi ngerjain thesis dan bahan2nya disimpan di gedung itu (entah maket, ato dokumen hard copy, ato apalah) terpaksa kehilangan hasil kerjaannya selama ini. Tadi temanku bilang dia liat beberapa orang yang nangis di lokasi kebakaran itu. Sedihnya.. Untungnya, 200-300 orang yang ada di dalam gedung berhasil dievakuasi dan ga ada korban sampai sejauh ini.

Kebakaran katanya bermula dari lantai 5 6. Penyebabnya (menurut info yang beredar) adalah korsleting.. eh, apa ya istilah sebenernya. Di bahasa Inggris mungkin short circuit. Pas diterjemahin ke bahasa Belanda, hasilnya kortsluiten. Bener itu deh keknya, hehe.

Korsletingnya karena ada bocor di saluran air dan kebetulan air yang bocor sampe ke mesin minuman yang kebetulan juga rusak. Berkobarlah sang api..

Tadi ketemu Daniel, yang tinggal di Balthasar Van Der Polweg (Balpol) di seberang gedung Bouwkunde, di Aula. Katanya anak2 yang tinggal di Balpol diminta mendaftarkan diri ke Aula karena untuk sementara mereka akan di evakuasi. Kemungkinan untuk menghindari kemungkinan kebakaran lanjutan karena sampe sekarang si Bouwkunde masih terbakar. Juga untuk menghindari gangguan asap kebakaran sama kemungkinan keracunan asbes (gedung Bouwkunde itu gedung tua yang mungkin masih make asbes, demikian menurut info Pak Boss Anggara yang flash disk dan hard disk eksternalnya masih tertinggal di dalam gedung itu.. Tabah ya..)

Ini video kebakaran Bouwkunde yang diambil dari situs www.dumpert.nl:

Sampai semalam ini, si gedung Bouwkunde itu masih terlihat berasap tebal dari jendela kamarku di lantai 13.

Update dari email ke seluruh mahasiswa:

The fire brigade is continuously taking measurements. It has been confirmed that no dangerous concentrations of harmful particles have been found. The limited amount of asbestos present in the building has not shown up in the measurements.

Students and staff members of the Faculty of Architecture are invited to attend a meeting on Wednesday 14 May at 9.00am in the Aula Congress Centre. During the meeting a further explanation will be given concerning today's fire and the options for emergency accommodation will be discussed.

From Wednesday onwards an information desk will be open from 09.00 to 17.00 in the Aula entrance hall (ITU-desk) where students and staff members can obtain information. There will be specialists available who can help to answer questions and solve issues arising from the fire.

Keributan Hari Ini

2008-05-05T20:10:00.000+07:00

Lagi enak-enak tidur sore, nungguin Andrew yang mau minjam kartu cuci, dan karena bosan baca diktat, tiba-tiba ada bunyi: tik tik tik.. (bunyi hujan di atas genting, boong deng)

Dari 'tik tik tik', makin deras jadi 'tik tik tik tik tik tik' (mode guru: frekuensi tik semakin tinggi atau periode antara tik yang satu ke tik berikutnya menjadi lebih pendek) *ga pentiiiing*

Lah, ini kenapa kok bisa ujan di dalam kamar.. Air netes dari sisi gorden ke atas heater. Apa si orang gila di kamar lantai atas itu berulah lagi..? (cat: dia sering bikin kegaduhan tengah malam spt lagi bertukang)

Ngecek keluar kamar, hmm iya.. Yang lantai depan kamarnya basah cuma aku. Naik ke lantai 14, udah terdengar sumpah serapahnya si penghuni kamar 603 itu. Hm, keknya dia korban juga karena dia nampak lagi ngering2in lantai juga. Naik lagi ke lantai 15, ada cewek yang keknya mo pindah dan lagi bersih-bersih. Ternyata dia yang bikin basah, karena berusaha mbersihin kamar (daripada di denda DUWO) tapi nyiramin air ga tanggung2 untuk ngepel.

Udah ada orang yang lagi ngomong ke dia, ya sudahlah.. Lagian kasian udah dimaki-maki dari bawah (HEY YOU MO**ER F**KER!! YOU B*TCH!! GET LOST!! F*CK OFF!! ) dengan suara membahana sama si penghuni 603 itu. Kasian bener.. (Tapi si 603 emang suka memaki-maki.. Yah, 2 hari sekali lah..)

Balik ke kamar, mulai masang mode Cinderella ngepel.. Dan si kampreto 603 itu masih aja bersumpah serapah dan mbanting2 martil dan entah benda apa lagi.. Hobi yang aneh..

Tiba2 ada orang yang berdiri di depan kamarku mengamati air2 itu. Kubukain pintu, ternyata dia penghuni kamar 2 lantai dibawahku. Si aer udah sampe ke sana juga..

Nasib anak kost..
Jadi pengen punya mop kayak gini:

My Avatar

2008-05-03T02:45:00.002+07:00

Ngikut2 Habib.. This is my avatar:

Tapi emang bener, karena komponennya kecil-kecil, bikin sakit mata pas milih2. Kalau bikin avatar juga, kasi tau hasilnya ya..

Keukenhof

2008-05-03T00:52:00.010+07:00

Tanggal 26 April yang lalu, dari TU Delft ada rombongan 250 orang international student yang berangkat ke Keukenhof. Soalnya ada tiket gratis dari International Office, hehehe :D

Deskripsi Keukenhof berdasarkan websitenya sbb(malas ngetik lagi):

Welcome to Keukenhof! Nowhere else in the world are the flowers and colours of the spring as glorious as at Keukenhof. Here you can find endless inspiration while you relax in the beautiful surroundings of the park. Keukenhof offers you the opportunity to see millions of bulbs in flower, fantastic flower shows and the largest sculpture park in the Netherlands and is the most photographed place in the world. Enjoy the spring!
Come to Keukenhof above all dont forget to bring your camera!

Nah, gitu ceunah.. Dan Keukenhof ini juga cuma buka beberapa minggu doang pas saatnya bunga2 bermekaran.

Dan di situ betul-betul penuh dengan bunga-bunga yang lagi mekar (ya klo ngga, berarti kena diboongin :p). Manusia-manusia yang mengunjunginya juga banyak banget, numpuk di pintu masuk. Untungnya makin ke dalam, makin lega. Keukenhofnya luas banget.

Untuk orang-orang yang ga segitu ingin taunya dengan detail bunga, sebaiknya ga usah maksain untuk ngeliat seluruh areanya klo ga punya banyak waktu. Soalnya di beberapa bagian isinya bunga2 yang sama, hanya bentuk kebunnya bervariasi (Mesti diliat dr langit, ada yang bentuk naga segala). Lebih baik bersantai di salah satu area, sambil piknik sama teman-teman misalnya. Daerah sisi danau lebih baik. Tapi ada juga area yang ada hewan-hewannya (keledai, babi, makhluk kayak ayam, kelinci, dll), maze, wigmam Indian, rumah kaca, windmill, dll.

Sayang waktu kunjungan dr TU Delft-nya terlalu singkat. Jam 1an-4 sore. Ga jadi liat parade bunga (yang katanya bakal ada hari itu).

Si makhluk gendut, lucu, dan enak, huehuehuehe..

Voices from Animated Movies

2008-05-02T19:33:00.002+07:00

These several days were holidays due to the queen's birthday (sering2 ya Ratu..), so I got the chance of watching several movies I've wanted to watch. Well, they're not new, I know (yaa maaph)..

I'm not going to talk about the story, but the voices of the characters that attracted my attention.

The first one is Charlotte's Web. The first time I heard Charlotte's voice, I found it very pleasant and soothing, yet familiar.. The voice was so motherly. At that moment, I didn't really try to recall the voice from my memory (not that I have much of them, heheh). After the film finished, I finally saw that Julia Robert was the one behind the character. Ahh ya ya, pantesan kayak kenal suaranya.

The second one is Horton Hears A Who! Although Jojo of the Whoville did not talk much (The moments he talked can be counted actually), he sang at the end of the film (Can't fight this feeling). The singing voice caught me, I really like it. Later on, I found out that it's Jesse McCartney's voice. As I search in YouTube to hear the voice again, I found out many people like the voice as well.

The third one is Shark Tale. I have bought the DVD when I was still in Bandung but never watched it. I really like the voice of Angie (Renée Zellweger) when she was mad at Oscar (Will Smith):

Angie: Sometimes, I wanna take your big, dumb, dummy head, and just... nyhhhh!
[makes pounding motions]

Another voice I like is of Frankie (Michael Imperioli), the shark, when he's dying:

Frankie: [dying] Lenny, is that you?
Lenny: I'm here, Frankie.
Frankie: Come closer.
Lenny: What is it, Frankie?
Frankie: I feel so cold.
Lenny: That's just because we're cold-blooded.
[Frankie slaps Lenny]
Lenny: Ow!
Frankie: Moron.
[dies]

The 'Moron' was hillarious, haha.

The voices behind the characters really helped in making the character memorable, I think.

Which American Idol Are You?

2008-05-02T07:01:00.003+07:00

I stumbled upon some quizes on www.buddyTV.com about which male or female American Idol Singer you are..
Here goes the result:

Which Male American Idol Singer Are You?

My comment: What with the weight??! *ngelirik perut* siyalan..:D

Which Female American Idol Singer Are You?

My comment: Hahahaa.. Wohooo, Mindy Doo!

Sepedaku Rewel

2008-04-06T15:33:00.001+07:00

Sepedaku udah beberapa kali ngambek. Pertama, persneling/transmisi gigi nya rusak. Karena emang rumit, ya tak biarin aja. Wong tanah belanda datar2 aja kok :D Terus, rem depan putus. Karena rem belakang masih ada (dan karena malas), aku biarin aja.

Kemudian mur dinamo lampunya (yang nahan supaya dinamo itu bisa di set nempel ban ato ngga) rusak. Karena perlu lampu di malam hari (kalo ga, didenda polisi,hee) jadi segera diperbaiki dengan meminjam tang dari Habib. Untuk beberapa waktu, sepedaku ga rewel.

Apa mau dikata, berikutnya rem belakang putus juga. Terpaksa ke kampus jalan kaki de, daripada terjun ke kanal karena ga ada rem :p Usaha nyari service sepeda, search di internet dan tanya teman. Akhirnya diputuskan mengunjungi Koos Cloosterman, yang buka usaha reparasi dan penjualan sepeda bekas. Ternyata mahal (klo ga salah 20-30 euro untuk perbaikan rem dan transmisi). Klo pake jasa Salama (orang Turki yang jual sepeda bekas), 10 euro untuk rem dan 7 euro untuk transmisi. Jadilah coba janjian sama Salama. Ternyata di malam janjian dia ga datang (ujan deras sih, tapi ditelpon dan di-sms jg ga jawab). Senasib dgn Dwi yang juga janjian dgn dia di hari yg sama siang harinya, untuk ganti ban sepeda. Sampe sama2 pasang status YM, "Salama, kau dimana?" saking desperate-nya, hehehe.

Karena butuh banget, kuputuskan beli kawat/kabel rem tangan aja di toko dekat Roland (toko perlengkapan sepeda dan dart -- hmm,kombinasi yang aneh). Harganya 3 (ato 3,5) euro untuk si kabel, karet pelindung, dan onderdil2 kecil lainnya. Aku yang selama di rumah di Pekanbaru ga pernah nyentuh tukang-menukang dan reparasi lainnya, sekarang harus ngerjain itu, hehehe. Tapi sukses juga kok ;) (cat: cuma rem depan yg diperbaiki krn mudah, hehehe). Dulu Bapakku sering ngajakin perbaiki mobil, motor, dan reparasi2 lainnya, tapi aku ga pernah berminat. Paling2 cuma sesekali aku ikut bantuin. Abangku jauh lebih terampil untuk hal2 itu dibanding aku :D

Sialnya, si dinamo lampu bermasalah lagi. Sekarang ga bisa diperbaiki cuma dengan mengetatkan murnya. Jadi aku pergi ke open market di The Hoven Passage yang buka tiap Selasa untuk beli mur baru sekalian lampu sepeda yang pake batere untuk cadangan. Ternyata mur baru tetap ga bisa nahan dinamo itu. Kuputuskan beli satu mur lagi untuk menggandakan daya jepit (halaah). Pas mo bayar, ternyata si Bapak penjual bilang, ambil aja murnya ga usah bayar. Waaa, baiknya. Emang sih cuma 5 sen, tapi tetap aja menyentuh hati (hyuuk). Orang Belanda ga pelit kok (walo mungkin disanggah orang banyak, khekhekhe. Kasus khusus kali ya).

Walo udah beli 2 mur itu, tetap aja pemalas ngerjainnya. Masih pake lampu batere, khekheke. Segera deh dicoba daya jepit 2 mur itu (alias "Bib, pinjem tang dong.." :p hehehe)

Social Friday Event (Bingo)

2008-03-28T23:08:00.000+07:00

Almost every Friday, TU Delft arrange Social Friday Event with various themes, either in the sport center or the cultural center. We already had Journey to Africa, Sweet Valentine Party, Chinese New Year Dumpling party, Karaoke Night, Casino Night, Winter Wonderland, Movie Night, Sinterklaas, Indian Navratri, and so on.

I usually come together with other Indonesian students. But this night, I didn't really want to go. Apart from it was just raining (mana ujhyan, ga ada ojhyek, bechyek bechyek.. ), I still got 2 assignments for a course, due next Monday.

However, Rizky insistently persuaded me to come (using ridiculous persuasion a.k.a rayuan gombal yg bikin ngakak.. kakakakk ). Ohh, nasyib.. Lemah terhadap org2 yg kekeuh.

This night theme was Bingo Night. To make the game more interesting, the committee had provided 5 Bingo sets, 1 mp3 player, and 1 iPod nano for 7 rounds of game. So there I was.. In the sport center with Rizky, Tungky, and Guo Yan (Charles), wondering how I could win such a luck game (since I don't consider myself a lucky guy).

And there I was (again), receiving the first round prize, hahahaha.. A set of Bingo game. First one to win. I'm a lucky guy, now I think I am Although, not as lucky as Amin who won the last round, getting the iPod khekhekhe.

Apparently, I have to thank Rizky for forcing me to come. Apart from winning one of the prize, I really had fun Sometimes it's not bad to give in to instinct rather than rationality (but now I really have to work hard, maybe overnight , hehehe.. ).

(Ahh, when I walked down the corridor to my room, there was a guy smoking marijuana.. Ugh, hate the smell)

Assignmentku selesai!!

2008-03-27T10:25:00.002+07:00

Assignmentku nampak udah selesai.. Aku baca pelan2.. "Eh, tapi tadi tugasku kan belom selesai? Apa ini mimpi.." Berusaha mengingat2 isi dokumen itu untuk dituliskan di dokumenku (ngarep2 gitu)..

Yaaah, pas betul2 terbangun, ternyata emang lupa.. (dan si assignment sialan itu emang masih belum kelar)

--Ugghh... Mimpi yang betul2 keterlaluan.. memberi harapan palsu--

Miss Saigon

2008-03-24T21:41:00.001+07:00

I never watched Miss Saigon before.. But I have the soundtracks thanks to this guy's collection
I have only heard Sun and Moon repeatedly since I had them. That's the only song I know from a concert.. (Hmm, konsernya sapa ya? Yang ada K'Kia)

But today, while working on my module 4 of Technology and Strategy assignments, I listened to those tracks again. I just realized how moved I was by them. I was easily attracted to "The Heat Is On In Saigon", "I Still Believe", "This Is The Hour", "The Revelation" (As far as I can remember). "Please", "The Fall of Saigon", "Room 317", and "The Confrontation" sounded emotional.

I couldn't stop grinning on "What A Waste"

"Hey boy, you want to try my girls, try my girls, haa!"
"Come on guys, check my girls, haa"
"You like what you see, haa, yaa.."

Hahaha, so naughty..

I gotta see the movie soon to check whether my impression on those songs were correct with the scenes.

Lea Salonga's voice is surely beautiful. I once watched her audition for Miss Saigon, singing "Sun and Moon". She had a very good range but I was automatically impressed on her low note(see bold text) when she sang "We have been blessed you and I.." (I checked the video every now and then just to hear that note)

The panel were obviously looked impressed after the audition

Paskah

2008-03-23T16:47:00.000+07:00

Hahaha..
Hari ini lucu
Paskahnya bersalju

*yeap, pas lagi kebaktian tiba2 turun salju.. Pas Natal malah ngga*
Ntar ada lagu baru: I'm dreaming of a white Easter.. khekhekhe..

Stripgenerator.com

2008-03-21T11:02:00.000+07:00

Ehehe.. ngikutin Habib bikin comic strip..
Dibuat berdasarkan percakapan malam ini.. Heee :D
(Klik gambarnya biar lebih jelas..)

Ps: Lucu jg stripgenerator.com ini :D

Chest X-Ray

2008-03-19T13:18:00.001+07:00

A: Ehh, mo kemana? Kok dandanannya keren banget?
B: Kan mo foto bo
A: Emangnya foto apa?
B: X-Ray
A: ??!!

Heahaha, jadul bgt ga sih ini joke-nya.. :p

Beberapa hari lalu ada surat dr TU Delft yang nyuruh mahasiswa2 internasional yang (dicurigai :p) penyakitan untuk ikut Chest X-Ray lagi. 6 bulan lalu sih udah, tapi emang disuruhnya rutin. Ketat banget ya..

Udah nempel suratnya di board di kamar, udah ngingetin teman dr Thailand untuk ga lupa bawa passport jg tgl 19 Maret.

Pagi ini dengan santainya, ngangkut cucian kayak mbok2 ke tepi sungai.. eh, ke lantai bawah :D Lewatlah si Alex, bocah Ethiopia.

"Andy, aren't you going to take the Chest X-Ray?"
"Eh, mangnya tanggal brapa skrg? Arrgh.. tanggal 19!!" *panik*

Untung cuciannya udah kelar dan ketemu Alex sekitar 45 menit sblom jadwal check-nya abis. Ngangkut cucian ke kamar, dan brangkat ke kampus. 10 menit perjalanan ke kampus naik sepeda, checknya beberapa detik di GGD van dekat Aula, pulang lagi 10 menit. Untung rumah dekat,hehehe..

Layanannya cepat, ga tau kenapa anak2 internasionalnya ga banyak yg nongol. Kata si ibu petugas, dr 200 yg ditunggu yg muncul baru 50an. Daripada harus ke Den Haag untuk ikut check susulan, mendingan ikut jadwal di kampus, hehehe :D

Roti keringku

2008-03-18T08:21:00.000+07:00

Karena malas masak nasi, aku lebih sering mengandalkan roti dan mie (eitts, bukan mie instant ya) untuk bertahan hidup..

Dulu biasanya beli roti tawar untuk bikin sandwich dengan berbagai variasi isi: telor dadar, tuna salad, egg salad, rundvlees salade (apa ya terjemahannya, salad sapi? eh, salad daging sapi), lembaran keju, botterhamworst, Schouderham, ato Kipfillet. Tentunya dengan ditemani mayonaise dan sambal ABC extra pedas, hehehe.

Atau kalau lagi pengen yang manis, pake selai apel (jarang2 sih), dan Vruchtenhagel (khasnya Belanda jg, ceunah mahh).

Masalahnyaaa... Roti tawar yang kubeli klo dibiarkan kena udara kamar sebentar aja, udah langsung kering dan jadi keras. Makanya akhirnya aku beralih ke Witte Bollen ato Puntjes (yg bentuknya kayak roti buat hamburger atau hotdog) yang lebih empuk dan awet empuk..(aiiyahh)

Tapi kemaren abis makan roti itu, aku lupa nutup plastik bungkusnya.. Pas ngeh, udah keras de rotinya.. Karena kesal, kutaburin gula aja.. Setelah ditinggal lebih lama, akhirnya jadi kayak bagelen kering, heahahahaha Kering dan renyah..

Boleh juga ni dibuat dengan sengaja.. Tapi lain kali dicoba pake olesan margarin ato selai jg kali ya.. Ga perlu oven, cukup dgn mengandalkan udara Belanda.

PS: Jangan2 bagelen kering di bandung (dan luar bandung) itu adanya karena orang Belanda yg main2 (baca: menjajah) ke Indonesia ya?

New Language in Friendster

2008-03-15T20:26:00.002+07:00

I don't know since when Friendster has had an Indonesian language as one of its language settings.

I just noticed it and decided to give it a try. The translation is okay in general, but I couldn't help laughing seeing my status: a translation of 'single' (see image)

Well, if I'm asked what a better translation for 'single', I really have no idea.. I think that one is already the closest, but still, I can't stop grinning...
Come to think of it, it really is a funny word (at least that's what I think when I tried to pronounce it)

Other translations:
In a relationship : Ada hubungan khusus
Domestic partnership: Pasangan dari Dalam Negeri
Already your friend: Telah menjadi teman anda
You have 25 friends in common: Anda memiliki 25 teman sehobi *terjemahan yang aneh. Kok 'sehobi'*

(I'm not gonna list them all)

Any Indonesians, can you come up with other translation to 'single'? Jangan bilang 'singgel'

Tips: Jangan memasak saat lapar

2008-03-05T11:21:00.001+07:00

Iya.. Jangan masak waktu (sangat)lapar..

Mie China-ku malam ini kurang matang (agak keras) dan daging cincangnya agak gosong.. Ya iya sih, masak untuk makan malamnya udah jam 22.30 sepulang dari latian Krashna Musika, huehehe..

NB: Yahh, mungkin tipsnya ga berlaku buat orang lain, hehee. Untuk yang pernah masak pas lagi (sangat)lapar juga, gimana hasilnya? :D

American Idol 7: The First Four Elimination

2008-02-23T17:27:00.000+07:00

It's kinda obvious that Amy Davis and Joanne Borgella did not perform good enough. They both went home.

As for the guys, Garret & Colton went home. Sorry for you Colton.

Ramiele.. Please don't cry that much.. It's umm.. weird (not as weird as seeing Sundance Head crying a lot last season though). Same thing goes for those blonde girls which I can't still distinguish from each other yet.

American Idol 7: Top 12 Girls

2008-02-21T07:56:00.003+07:00

The girls' having better night compared to the guys.. Although the show let us know that some of them were having influenza. I know the feeling of having to go on stage while you yourself do not find your voice as fine as usual. Not the greatest feeling in the world.

Kristy: Just okay.. Nice voice, but the song's boring.

Joanne: Uh oh.. Flat. Get rid of those weird backing vocals.

Alaina: At first I thought it would be boring. But when the tempo changed, it's more fun. Good vocal. The surprising effect of the song really helped :)

Amanda: Cool start with the scatting, though had pitch problem on the low notes. Strong performance. I like how she handled Simon. She has nice personality.

Amy Davis: Omaigaaa.. Apaan itu. Mengayun2 a la Monita(pas Monitanya lagi ga bagus ya :D). Too many pitch problems.

Brooke : I don't get it. At first she sounded okay, later on ga jelas de..

Alexandrea: She's really cool. Pretty good performance. I like her deep voice, tp nada atasnya agak2 bermasalah. Apa dia salah satu yg flu..? Some parts of her singing reminded me of Cleopatra. I agree with Paula that Alexandrea thought about her performance.

Kady: When she started singing, it's impressive and it's obvious that she could actually sing.. Problem with low notes.. The performance was not really good, but the voice sounded good..

Asia'h: Good vocal.. Good performance.. kinda liven up the show tonight. I want her to get rid of her voice crack though (I don't really know how to call that).

Ramiele: Strong vocal.. She created suitable atmosphere for the song. Love her lips :p

Syesha: Great vocal range.. Her glorious ending was similar to Stephanie Edward's

Carly: Kok agak2 ga masuk ya sama musiknya.. Kliatan ga nyaman. Kinda good vocal. Hmm, ceunah flu jg (ama Bronchitis). Randy berleb deh muji2nya. I agree with Simon, I don't get it.

My favourites are: Ramiele, Syesha, Asia'h, Amanda, Alaina
My okays are: Alexandrea, Kady
My hmms are: Carly, Kristy, Brooke
My hehhs are: Joanne, Amy Davis

Before the start of the top 12 girls show, I liked Ramiele, Syesha, Asia'h, Amanda, Kady and Alexandrea. Hehehe, they did fulfill my expectation to some extent :) (Still waiting for great performance)

Overall, I think they're still somewhat uncomfortable in bringin their performance. Ahh, how I miss the ladies from previous season: Stephanie, Jordin, Melinda, and LaKisha. I miss Haley too :D Let's wait and see.

American Idol 7: Top 12 Guys

2008-02-21T01:01:00.003+07:00

Humm, I'm not satisfied by the guys' performances..
Well, I could say I like three of the performances: David Archuleta, Michael John, and Jason Castro. Those performances are enjoyable.
As for David Hernandez and David Cook, they are alright for me. They did okay, kinda like it.

Though I like David Archuleta's performance the most, he surely got vocal problem at some point near the last part. Ahh, and he sort of doubting in hitting the big note for his last word, hahaha.. Very funny. But his voice is really interesting. I don't like the too-much-attention given to him this early.

My list is as follows:
1. David Archuleta
2. Michael John
3. Jason Castro
4. David Hernandez
5. David Cook

For the rest of them, err...
Chikezie, horrible at the start, going okay afterwards and somewhat good at the end. I like his voice.

Robbie Carrico, humm, pretty good. Tapi biaso ajolah.. :D

Colton berry has an interesting voice, but his performance is mediocre.

Danny Noriega.. I don't know. I don't like this guy. But his voice is good. I got a problem with his rythm in the top 12 guys performance. Kinda out of sync with the music for me.

For me, I think Garret and Luke Menard should go home. Or maybe Jason Yeager.

Ah ya, David Cook and Michael John's technique in singing rock is kinda the same as Chris Daughtry's(which I like). It's not like other Rock singers I know. Am I right to say that their timbres are kinda similar too? Ah, well..

Prague: The Hostels

2008-02-17T01:00:00.003+07:00

Now that we have arrived in Prague (hey, surprisingly the immigration in Prague did not check the travelling documents too strictly. Good for me) we need a place to stay.

We have booked Hostel Centrum II for three days via the internet. The price per day per person was just 7 euro. That's cheap. At first it looked quite okay for the price.. The room's somewhat clean. We had to use shared bathroom but since no one else staying in the same area of our storey, that's fine. It's also very close to Wenceslas Square, only 5 minutes walking..

Later on we found out that this hostel was crappy. We had to pay using local currency (Czech Crown or Koruna) for the room while it was never stated so before. We had to pay 2 euro(right, in euro contrary to the room payment previously) for the breakfast while it was stated in the website that it was free. There was no free internet because it broke down, they said. The receptionist was unfriendly and unhelpful. The bedroom and the toilet was as hot as hell (we knew it's cold outside but couldn't it be just warm inside, not extremely the opposite of outside).

My advice is never stay in that hostel! Though it's cheap, it's not worth your precious holiday time.

After 3 days living in hell, err.. Hostel Centrum II, I and Harold decided to move out. Mai and Bart had left for Delft at the same day for office work and Economics re-exam. Our decision was strongly because the receptionist increased the price of the room to 300 Korunas per person per night (around 12 euro) since we didn't booked it via the internet (what the..).

After walking around a bit around the Old Town Square, Harold and I found Residence Bene. At first we're attracted by the announcement on the glass wall saying room was available starting from 9 euro. Unfortunately their building that had that kinda room was outta town. The receptionist offered to give us the rate of 11 euro per night per person instead of the normal rate of 12 euro. We agreed. It turned out that it's the best decision we made in Prague.

The receptionists were all friendly and very helpful. They received payment in Euro. We could buy metro/bus/train ticket at the reception desk. The location was perfect, it was in the Old Town itself, only 10 minutes walking to get to the Astronomical Clock, 5 minutes to Palladium, 10 minutes to Wenceslas Square. The bedroom was very clean, big, and nice. There's one big bed and one small bed, a cupboard, a fridge, and a TV. The temperature was perfect. The bathroom was a private one, and it's large with bathtub. There were real free-breakfast (and the food's great, far beyond basic paid-breakfast in Hostel Centrum II and real free-internet. Have I mentioned they provided porn channel? hehehe..

Overall, Residence Bene is my recommendation for other travellers.. :D

Residence Bene (http://www.goldencity.cz/)
Praha 1 - Staré Mesto, Dlouhá 48/721 - 110 00 Prague
Email: bene@goldencity.cz

PS: I need to sleep now. I'll write some more later.. :D

Prague: The Problems

2008-02-16T23:40:00.000+07:00

No no.. Not the one with me getting too tired after the concert as I feared before.
Also not the one with Harold getting drunk the night before and woke up the next morning, hastily grabbed all things he could find and stuffed it in his bag. Lucky he didn't forget his passport and could come on time to the Delft Central Station.

The problem is MY STATUS!!
*Sayup2 terdengar: "Heyy, There's nothing wrong about being single"*

Err, that's not the case actually,khekhekhe..

The scene:

*Credo at the airport, confidently approaching the immigration counter, giving his passport and verblijfsdocument to the lady behind the glass*
*The lady opened up the passport, checking my identity and the visa. Found out that the visa was already expired. Switched to the verblijf, looked confused and alarmed*

The Lady: "Mr.Sibuea.." *fixing her eyes to my verblijf again*
Credo: "Ya.." *started wondering*
The Lady: "You are ILLEGAL."
Credo: "Excuse me..?" *shockingly screaming inside: WHAATT?!!*
The Lady: "Based on what I see here in your residence permit, you are illegal." *showing me my verblijf with the text: geldig tot 31-08-07*
Credo: "Wait, but that's not possible. I just came last August. I got the verblijf last September. It can't be expired last August." *checking the bloody verblijf in disbelief.*

Shoot, I should've recognized that long ago. I have checked it once I received it but I thought everything was fine (the text's printed in Dutch btw). How am I supposed to suspect that the they've printed it wrongly. I thought they printed 31-08-07 as the date of application (now come to think of it, I was too naive not to suspect it as an expiration date, d'oh. Moron!)

The Lady: "Well, it is indeed strange. Because the expiration date is before the issued date of this verblijf. You need to go with my colleague to another room for them to do a check."

*Credo exited the scene and followed an officer to other room. Mai accompanied me. Duh, masa harus ga jadi berangkat gara2 ini..*

That officer checked on the system in his room while I was waiting with Mai in other room. We spent time eating some of our butter cakes btw, khekhekhe.. That guy came, oh no.. He asked some questions such as when I came to Netherlands, what my intention of coming, if I worked or not, my address, etc. Finally he said, "There is indeed a misprint in your verblijf. You just have to fixed it as soon as you return from Czech Republic."

Dank je wel then Mr. Officer :) I was happy I could still continue the trip.

Actually, there's a problem again at the gate before entering the plane. The lady officer wouldn't let me get into the plane before she got confirmation from her supervisor about my verblijf problem. But that's allright, I got reason already.

(Soundtrack:"I'm flying.. I'm flying.. I'm flying.." *fade out* --Happy Face by Destiny's Child)
(Photo: the sky of Prague. )

Prague: The Beginning

2008-02-16T22:39:00.000+07:00

This should have been an entry in my blog since late January or early February, but I was kinda shocked with the new quarter of my study. It started on 4 Febuary, but there's a course which required me to do assignment 0 (zero), a preparation assignment before the start of the course. Kinda consuming my time (It added up to my lazyness to write I guess, I gotta admit it :p).

So.. I went to Prague on 26-31 January with some of my classmates: Mai(Thailand), Harold(Ecuador), Doudou(China), Dirk(Belgium). The same bunch as the ones who I went to Belgium with (Eh, come to think of it, I haven't post anything about the Belgium trip yet :p It was last year, Omaigaaa...). Bart (Dutch. Mai's boyfriend) came along as well.

Doudou came up with the idea, since we have spent so much time working together as a group in many courses of the last quarter (Let me think: Human Resource Management, Financial Planning & Report, High Tech Marketing, and Design of Technological System, pheww that's a lot).

Ohh, I have blabbered out of topic too much again. I should really be aware of that *sigh*

Where were we? Owh, we have booked room in Prague for three days, because we were not sure yet where to go on the last 2 days. We were thinking about going to Cesky Krumlov and Kutna Hora, as they are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, but might also just stayed in Prague instead.

I really had to be prepared for the trip in advance, since the flight was early morning after my Integration Moment Assessment and 2nd-day concert with Krashna Musika.

Begadang Jangan Begadang

2008-02-14T18:30:00.000+07:00

Begadang.. Yang katanya menguras energi (apalagi klo ngeliat efeknya pada si blengkeng Nessa) sama sekali ga memungkinkan untuk bikin kurus.

Apalagi dengan ngemil senantiasa kayak sekarang *hiks*, xixixixi..

[Today I] Sunny Day

2008-02-09T14:53:00.000+07:00

Another series of 'Today I' posts.

Today I shopped in Tanger vleescentrum for the first time. I also went to Xotus to buy some coconut milk for my 'rendang' tomorrow and a pack of Indomie Goreng (yumm!). Got home and put all things in the fridge.

I got downstairs again to do my laundry, only wearing a T-shirt, Bali shorts, and sandals. I decided to go to Albert Heijn in front of my student housing to grab some vegetables. As expected, people's eyes are on me. They were all wearing at least 3 layers of clothes Some elders observed me using the corner of their eyes. A guy clearly checking me from head to toe as we passed by. A girl even looked twice, I guess not believing what she saw. I couldn't help chuckling, khikhikhi.. I met Endang, who lived in the same building with me, and she finally stated what people's thought in words Well, the weather was nice and sunny, it still is as I write this, and the supermarket is just a few meters away.

I will go to the Sport Centrum tonight for a Dumplings Party organized by TU Delft and Chinese Student Association (in celebration of Chinese New Year. Gong Xi Fat Choi!). We'll have a dumplings workshop, dinner, fireworks, and a movie. Can't wait.

O Lady, Leave That Silken Thread

2008-02-07T20:00:00.000+07:00

Beberapa hari ini mulai terliat tunas2 yang baru tumbuh dari tanah.. Rata2 dengan cepat udah ada kuncup bunga segala.. Waaa, Spring is coming ya..

Sambil nontonin tunas2 itu pas naik sepeda mo ke kampus (blom sempat moto ni), tiba2 teringat lagu O Lady, Leave That Silken Thread (SSATBB) dari Gustav Holst. Di PSM-ITB, aku nyanyi lagu itu pas konser 2002, dengan didirigenin Elson.

Salah satu lagu dari Four Part-songs-nya Holst yang mewakili musim semi. 3 lagu lainnya: Soft & Gently (SSA), The Autumn Is Old (SATB), dan Winter and The Bird(SATB).

Ahh, jadi pengen nyanyi lagu itu :) *tapi udah lupa bo.. cm ingat depannya*

PS: Aku pengen dengar compositionnya Holst yang The Planet Suite de.. Kayaknya keren banget! :D Tapi blom sempat cari-cari..

The Planets Suite Op. 32 (1916)

Mars, the Bringer of War
Venus, the Bringer of Peace
Mercury, the Winged Messenger
Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity (main theme:"I Vow to Thee, My Country")
Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age
Uranus, the Magician
Neptune, the Mystic

The One With The Concerts

2008-02-02T17:39:00.001+07:00

The first concert of Krashna Musika was in Maria van Jessekerk, Delft; and the second concert was in Dr. Anton Philipzaal, Den Haag. Guys were asked to wear black suit, white shirt, and a black bowtie or a gray Krashna bowtie. Fortunately I brought my black suits with me from Indonesia. Yoben lent me his extra Krashna bowtie.

The warm up started a bit late from the actual plan of 17.45. After warm up, we had dinner. We had to bring it or buy it from surrounding shops, haha. It's different from our concerts in Indonesia.

In Indonesia, we are used to have committee to prepare the dinners so that everybody will surely have his/her dinner before the concert and keep them in the concert venue. It's hard to gather a bunch of people on time in Indonesia. Well, people can argue that it depends on the person. But as committee for the concert, someone would like to keep them in the same place. It's also done that way in the hope that singers can focus on their performance better (well, hoping is not a sin :D).

Here, I find people should be more responsible for him/herself due to too few people in the committee to take care of that. Ga ada manja2an deh.. Bagus juga, soalnya emang menyebalkan klo harus ngurusin orang2 sok ngartis, hahaha.

This characteristic also happened for choir's blocking. Singers position was not arranged. I had to find a good place for myself (i.e. I could see the conductor without being blocked by a tall Soprano or Tenor before me :p). Well, this was understandable for such a big choir. We had approximately 150 musicians in the concert (one of the committee told me this), with 100 people as singers I think. However for a smaller choir, I prefer the conductor to arrange the position for better sound. Pssst.. Di hari kedua konser, aku sengaja kabur dari posisiku di kanan panggung (pas Gladi Resik) ke posisi tengah (pas konsernya) karena tenor2 di sampingku sering kali lip-sync doang(ato diam aja).. Alhasil suaraku terlalu menonjol sendirian di lokasi itu. Untuk hari pertama, lokasiku sih oke.

For the whole concert itself, I'm quite satisfied. The first session was the orchestra performance. They did well. Although the choir could see the percussion section dropped one of the instrument that made unexpected noise, hahaha.

We performed with the orchestra on the second session. Some friends said the sound was impressive (thanks to the Church interior design and the number of the performers, I think :D). I'm not happy with the last part of Movement 3. The polyphony sounded messy. Actually most of the song couldn't be said tidy being heard from singers position, but it's insignificant for the audience. The dynamic range was not very wide, but it's still alright. The Baritone Soloist was great and I really really loved the voice of the Soprano Soloist :D

We got several minutes of standing ovation at the end of both concerts. I have checked with my Dutch friends whether it's a formal thing to do after a concert in Netherlands :D Well, they said it's not. So, I hope the audience was actually satisfied with our performances :)

PS: I spent 1,5 hours learning how to tie a bowtie from Youtube and some other websites one night before the concert, hehehe.

First Concert With Krashna Musika

2008-01-24T16:27:00.000+07:00

Haaa, the Brahm's Ein Deutsches Requiem that we have rehearsed since September 2007 will be presented for the first time to public tonight.

My music score, checked. My suits, checked. My Vocal cord, still there, checked :D I just need to fill my stomach now, hehe. I cook Chicken Rendang for today. Hmm, I wonder if it will be okay for my throat. But whatever, I need a decent food after this 2 weeks full of Integration Moment assignments.

Tomorrow will be the last day of Integration Moment, which is the day of assessment by doing a business game/simulation. The whole knowledge from all courses that we learned from this semester will be tested there (well, if we did learn them). I hope I can still read some of the materials after the concert tonight.

And right after the assessment tomorrow, I will be rushing again to the concert venue, which is in Den Haag. 15 minutes by train from Delft and some more time (I don't know yet) to the exact building. I hope I can make it. Otherwise I will miss the warm-up, which I badly need for singing the Brahm's Requiem.

Wish me luck for tonight!

Snowing again

2008-01-03T17:27:00.000+07:00

After the white days, no more snowing in Delft. No white Christmas. Surprisingly, the winter days are bright and sunny.

This afternoon I went to the bank & supermarket, wearing only sandals for my footwear. What I didn't expect was the wind blowed snow here and there.

I didn't mind the cold, it's a nearby supermarket & bank. I chuckled seeing a bank officer stared at my sandals when I entered the bank.

Well, welcome back ice & snow!

Gelukkig NieuwJaar!

2008-01-01T02:02:00.000+07:00

Well, it's 1 January 2008.

Happy New Year for us all!

At first I wondered if I should spend my New Year in Amsterdam, because people said the scene would be great and I still got a free entrance to one of the museum there. But then I decided to stay in Delft.

Besides, Stephan invited MoT students to spent new year eve at his home. So there I went with Doudou, Dirk, and Amin.

It's great tonight!

Well, I don't usually go out on new year eve in Indonesia. Just spend the night with a little gathering and prayer with my family (in Pekanbaru) and friends (in Bandung).

So, tonight at Stephan's home with the olliebollen, the snacks, the drinks, and the chat worked really well for me. We also played and watched fireworks at the front street. There were a lot of great fireworks and explosions that we could see because Stephan's house was located behind the train station where there was a wide space around.

It was foggy when I rode my bike to Stephan's house. Then the fireworks produced a lot of smoke and that resulted a thick layer of smog when I rode my bike home, I hardly could see a thing.

Well, good bye 2007 and welcome 2008. Wishing for a more wonderful and more peaceful world in 2008. Happy New Year, everybody!!

The Avatar Quiz

2007-12-21T21:25:00.000+07:00

Hahahaha.. I knew it.. Before taking the test, I've thought I would be associated with Katara.
Moreover, I'm an Aquarian. Long live Waterbenders!!

The other results turns out to be what I think myself resembles, in the correct order.

Still White Day

2007-12-21T09:23:00.000+07:00

Haaa.. Yesterday I wasn't able to tell more about the white day. I had class early morning and after class I had to go to Amsterdam for a visit to ABN Amro Business Incubator. I came home at 9.30 last night.

During the day, when I was in class, Mads (Denmark guy) pointed towards the window and said,"Look, it's snowing outside."

Indeed. Soon after class, I rode my bike to the train station and joyfully enjoy the snow, hehehe.. (norak kali pun). The trees and grass were covered in ice while the wind blew the snow away and towards me. Oh God, thank You for such beauty

This morning I open my door again in the hope of another white day (last night in Amsterdam, the icy trees were not so icy anymore because of the somewhat heaten up wheater). And These are the views in front of my 13th-floor-room.

White day

2007-12-20T14:42:00.000+07:00

I open my door today for going to the faculty...
And I see white everywhere...!!!

The world is covered in ice!!!

Well, I have to go to class now, I'm posting from the faculty.

Oh, I'm so excited..!!!!! :D

Regine Velasquez's Butterfly

2007-12-19T04:08:00.000+07:00

In a brief talk with a friend when I was in Bandung (I forget who and when exactly), I said that I didn't think anyone else can sing Mariah Carey's Butterfly. I mean, someone can sing it, but won't leave a the kind of impression Mariah did.

Well, I change my mind after listening to Regine Velasquez's version of the song

I've been listening to Regine for quite a long time.. Her song "Shine" is truly the best song of her for me.

Link to Regine's performance of Butterfly here

Artis Papan Bawah

2007-12-19T03:42:00.000+07:00

Bwahahaha....

Baru sekali ini aku baca tulisan yang jelas-jelas menyatakan klo artis yg dibahas adalah "artis papan bawah"

Cat: artikel diambil dari detikhot

Bike's Saddle & Late Autumn

2007-12-19T03:18:00.000+07:00

I arrived at the library at 10am with my bike to meet Harold for doing High Tech Marketing assignment.. It's already dark when I was leaving the building at 6pm and trying to find my bike among the other bikes.

"Well, I never thought I have a sparkly saddle. It looks good by the way..", I wonder. (Kek apa ya bilangnya.. Kek ngeliat kaca yg ada butiran2 bercahaya di dalamnya.)

I run my finger on the saddle's surface and can see a trail appearing.

"Ahh, it's ice!", I rubbed all the saddle's surface, revealing its true self, hehehe..

The winter's coming! I do hope that there will be snow so that I won't just face the cold weather and the rain. Indeed they say the winter's gonna be colder than last year.

Sunday Morning

2007-12-16T20:30:00.000+07:00

Wake up early morning for studying Financial Planning & Report
Open up my window's curtain and see the sky's brightened up
Early birds are soaring on the other end of the sky
Accompanied by Hayley Westenra's soaring voice from her album Celtic Treasure
With a cup of hot chocolate (Okay, I admit. It's two cups already )
Perfect day!!

Carmen Rasmusen - Nothin' Like The Summer

2007-12-15T12:22:00.000+07:00

Oh my God.. She's so beautiful..!

Babysitting

2007-12-09T18:05:00.001+07:00

Last night was my first time babysitting.. Well, not that I do regular babysitting. My friend, Tantri, got the job but unfortunately she was ill yesterday and could not babysit. I just replaced her temporarily.

Basically, I would not say that what I did last night was babysitting. In fact both kids, Daniel (around 4 y/o) and Jingga (around 2 y/o) have been sleeping when I arrived at 20.15. So, I was mostly like 'satpam' () while their mother was away working as a nurse. I was indeed stayed awake doing my Human Resource Management report until 5am the next morning.

In the morning, I woke up in the living room and realized there's someone at the door staring at me. It was Daniel and he wanted to go to the toilet and I could tell he was somewhat surprised to see me instead of Tantri ("Who the hell is this guy?!!", he probably think ).

And I was right.. After doing his business in the toilet, he followed me sitting on the living room's couch and he questioned me, "Hoe heet jij?"
Gyaahh.. I knew only very little Dutch
"Ik been Andy", I replied,"Mama sebentar lagi pulang."

Lucky I was told that he understood Indonesian Language Unlucky, he started blabbering in Dutch and I had no idea what he's talking about. (Mental note: Learn Dutch Language a.s.a.p.!!)

Lucky (or unlucky), Jingga cried in her room. So, I left Daniel and headed toward her room. Seeing me coming closer to her bed, she cried even louder and "berguling-guling menyembunyikan wajah di bantal dan selimut"

I hurried myself out of her room. She stopped crying for a while, only to start again the next several seconds. So I took Daniel to her room. He lovingly (aww, so sweet) hugged his sister and tried to lift her out of her box bed. Not convinced that he had the strength (ya iyalah), I helped him getting his sister out. She stopped crying and calmly followed her brother who took her by the hand to the living room.

It took quite some times to convince her that I was a nice guy, hahaha. You know, by trying to be funny and showing her that her brother was not afraid of me.

The rest of the babysitting moment was I was continuosly beaten by Daniel because he was somehow convinced that he was Spiderman with all those shooting-web-through-his-hand gestures while I also had to listen to Jingga's story about all things from her little bag.

I love those kids.. Both are very nice (considering I can still control Daniel's energetic superpower) and funny (I couldn't believe Jingga was able to converse with her dad using the phone, in a very cute way) and smart (once their mother was home, she told Daniel that I couldn't speak Dutch and only speak English and Indonesian. To which Daniel replied in Dutch,"Why can't Om Andy speak Dutch? Dad can speak Indonesian.."). FYI, their father is Dutch and their mother is Indonesian.

Tantri is still ill, so I'll babysit again tonight..

Sinterklaas at Krashna Musika

2007-12-06T05:52:00.000+07:00

We had a visitor at Krashna Musika Choir rehearsal..
Sinterklaas... Yaayy!

Earlier at the rehearsal break, we went downstairs and made a paper shoe for ourselves. Coloring and cutting the paper, I felt like I was 5 years old again, haha. See the picture, that's my paper shoe.. We left our paper shoe near the Christmas Tree downstairs.

At the end of the rehearsal, two Zwarte Piets appeared and threw us with cookies (It's not suitable to call them cookies I think. Because it's soft. Or was it kruidnoten? But it's different with kruidnoten that I know). Well, it's edible anyway.

The choir sang some Sinterklaas songs (I don't know the song). Then Sinterklaas sat on a chair and called some people. They sat on Sinterklaas' lap one by one (Gilles, the conductor got the first turn ) and listened to what Sinterklaas read from a book, haha (I don't know what he's talking about, it's in Dutch. Apparently it's something funny ).

Before going home, we visited our shoes near the Christmas Tree and found them already filled with chocolates and candies, yipee

Today's a fun day

Lift Canceling Mechanism

2007-12-04T21:59:00.000+07:00

I really think Lift Manufacturers should incorporate a canceling mechanism to their products. Or maybe they have, but Roland Holstlaan's lifts don't have that kind of feature.

You know, sometimes people press a wrong floor button unintentionally (Have seen it before), or some people simply do it for fun (their fun, not other's). I think it's handy to be able to press the floor button again to cancel the previous request.

It shouldn't be that hard to implement.. (IMHO)
(Of course with some prerequisites and criteria *programmer minded pisan*)

Today I

2007-12-04T21:41:00.000+07:00

I think I will follow the concept of an application in Facebook that simply displays the activities of a user in short description. That will be a good excuse for one liner

Let's start today..

Today I decided to study in the faculty, instead of in my own room, for tomorrow's Human Resource Management exam.

I am really glad I did that because I met Mai there and studied together. Very productive! (plus we got free hot chocolate ).

I should do it more often I think .

Church Bell

2007-12-03T00:48:00.000+07:00

The bells from the nearby church chimes in the morning and at dawn every Sunday.
I really love listening to them The sound somehow give me a serene feeling.

Being Happy

2007-11-30T06:23:00.000+07:00

I was reminded again today, that by just being happy, we can make other people around us happy..

Emotional, Intelligence, Physical

2007-11-21T00:00:00.001+07:00

I take this so called visual personality test at Facebook.. I have to choose one picture from a set of pics to describe a topic. The result is quite correct I think :) Here goes the result..

Your Visual Personality

About Me

Emotional
Friends and family are the most important people in your life. You're good about keeping track of birthdays, people appreciate that you care about them.

Intellectual
You have a naturally curious mind. If there's something new that you want to learn, you're not afraid to ask questions or investigate on your own.

Physical
If the weather is nice, you like walking around your neighborhood. Going to the farmer's market or park is how you prefer to get in physical activity.

Dinner with Krashnees

2007-11-20T01:00:00.000+07:00

Sejak gabung sama Krashna Musika Choir, aku cuma kenal sama beberapa anak2 baru juga, plus sejumlah tenor2 yang duduk di sekitarku, (yang bantuin nerjemahin apa yg diomongin conductor. Pake bahasa Belanda sih..), plus sejumlah kecil anggota lama dari golongan suara lain.

Jadinya aku kepikiran untuk kumpul-kumpul sama beberapa teman Krashna Musika (namely Krashnees), makan bareng ato sejenisnya. Eh, tau-tau Nicolas (Bass, French) mengundang untuk dinner di roomnya di Spacebox, bareng beberapa teman Krashnees. Kok pas banget, hehehe..

Jadi tadi jam 7 malem kami kumpul di kamarnya. Nicolas lagi masak dibantu Roser (Alto, Spain). Masak sesuatu bernama Fi-something (I don't know it), seperti pastel berukuran setengah piring, isinya bayam dan potongan salmon.

Sambil nungguin matang, Rizky (Bass, Indonesia) dan Aleksander (Baritone, Serbia. Iya gitu tulisan namanya :D) main piano sambil membahas tentang partitur musik klasik (ada electric piano di kamar Nicolas). Ling Juan (Soprano, China) dan aku (Tenor, Indonesia. Aiyaah, ga penting :p) cuma dengerin aja sambil ngomentarin dikit-dikit.. Hahaha, dasar pengetahuan minim.

Sambil makan, obrolannya makin melebar ga jelas.. Mulai dari piano, musik klasik, ukuran pulau di Indonesia, gempa dan tsunami, Beijing/Peking, karakter tulisan China, kaitannya dengan Jepang, Taiwan, gerakan separatisme di Spanyol, Politik, pronounciation Spanish & Catalan, dll. Dessert-nya Chocolate fondue(potongan buah dicelup ramuan coklat cair + cream + cengkeh).

Agak2 ngaco emang, tapi overall sangat menyenangkan. At least kita ga cuma ketemu di latian choir. Looking forward to our next gathering.. At badminton games in the sport center, maybe :D

I Can't Make You Love Me

2007-11-14T01:41:00.000+07:00

I stumbled upon a video in YouTube of someone doing an audition for Idol somewhere (Haha, I didn't pay attention).. But the melody caught me.. I wonder where I had ever heard the song. Consult Google as usual for the title "I Can't Make You Love Me" (I did remember the title).

It was written by Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin and first recorded by Bonnie Raitt. Taken from Wikipedia:

The idea for the song came to Reid when upon reading an article about a man arrested for getting drunk and shooting at his girlfriend's car. The judge asked him if he had learned anything, to which he replied, "I learned, Your Honor, that you can't make a woman love you if she don't."

And then at the end of the article, "Ah ya.. How could I forget my lovely Haley Scarnato.." It's the song for her American Idol audition. I'm quite surprised that her singing actually is hanging in my memory.. That means she's good despite some of her bad performances, ahahaha..

I Can't Make You Love Me

Turn down the lights, turn down the bed
Turn down these voices inside my head
Lay down with me, tell me no lies
Just hold me close, don't patronize
Don't patronize me

'Cause I can't make you love me If you don't
You can't make your heart feel something it won't
Here in the dark in these final hours
I will lay down my heart, and I'll feel the power
But you won't, no you won't
And I can't make you love me
If you don't

I'll close my eyes and then I won't see
The love you do not feel, when you're holding me
Morning will come, and I'll do what's right
Just give me till then, to give up this fight
And I will give up this fight

And I can't make you love me if you don't
You can't make your heart feel something it won't
And here in the dark in these final hours
I will lay down my heart and I'll feel the power
But you won't, no, you won't
And I can't make you love me
If you don't

Ain't no use in you trying
It's no good for me baby without love
All my tears, all these years, everything I believed in
Baby
Oh yeah
Someone's gonna love me

Wisnu Idol lagi

2007-11-14T00:47:00.000+07:00

Eh, ini Wisnunya bukan Wisnu yang Indonesian Idol, tapi Wisnu Witono Adhi yang #5 Norwegian Idol. Pernah disebut juga di post sebelumnya.

Nemu video clip-nya di YouTube.. Keren juga suaranya.. Judulnya Love Like That. Lagunya yang lain judulnya Every Part of Me.. Aku lebih suka yang ini. Good luck deh Wisnu!

Notes: Di previewku, videonya nampak loading ga brenti2, tapi sbenernya tinggal klik tombol play-nya.. Hmm, knapa gitu ya..

Cappuccino

2007-11-13T05:21:00.001+07:00

My newly bought Ernesto Cappuccino with Hazelnut flavour smells and tastes funny.. (blaahh..)