The Ws and Hs

First of all, I want to say Happy Easter to everyone!! May we rejoice in the rising of Jesus from the death!!!

Well, i’ve been awesomely busy since my last post. Almost a month…

So, today was the election of Minnesota PERMIAS (Persatuan Mahasiswa Indonesia di AS/ Indonesian Student Organization). I was a candidate, and I was eliminated on the first round. I guess I am not ready. The fact is, I haven’t been here at the University for long, only been a semester. So I will wait and I will keep improving.

And also, the Saman Dance team performed again at Asian-American Student Union Spring Conference Banquet. It was a very successful performance, in my opinion. The audiences loved us. =D

Here’s the video:
Saman Dance (Dance of 1000 hands) by PERMIAS Minnesota 2009

Note: have to sign in to facebook to view this video. Sorry… Haven’t figured out how to otherwise…

It’s been a loooooong Lent and Easter period. I’ve achieved some things this year and glad of that. Let us pray so we may never stray from His teachings and may he protect us from temptations.

Tonight, I was again reminded that God always knows what’s best for us.

We might get blinded sometimes. By what we want, by what we think is good for us. But God never leave us. He will redirect us to the right path, the right thought, the right choice.

And when we are ready to kneel down and pray to Him, He will give us answers immediately.

It happened tonight to me.

Thank You, God. I pray to You, thank You.

And so it has come. And so I’ve arrived here….

20 years of heart beats after….

I’m halfway around the world away from my birth place.

I will not be a teen-age anymore in a short time. Or, in fact, I already am not if counted by my birthplace’s timezone.

20 years is a long journey. I’ve discovered many new places. I’ve met lots of unique people. I’ve hated some, but loved most. I’ve accomplished some goals, and failed a handful. And I’ve survived the ups and downs.

But 20 years is less than a blink of an eye for the universe. Merely a quarter of my grandmother’s life.

But I thank God for these 20 years. Thank Him for who and what I am now. Thank God for the 20 years of breath, 20 years of love, 20 years of journey of life.

And most importantly, thank Him for giving me companions: my family, my friends, my teachers, my rivals, my enemies, my coworkers, my classmates, and everyone else who I know and don’t know. For without even one of them, I might not even be here.

Thank you, God, for this 20 years of Weepings and Happiness.

This past couple days, I’ve been thinking a lot. And most of my thoughts are the “what if” thoughts, and mostly concerning my academic life.

Looking back to two years ago, I keep thinking to myself, “What if I had not chosen to come here to University of Minnesota?”

At that time, I applied to four places: Nanyang Technological University (NTU, Singapore), Cornell University (NY, USA), University of Virginia (VA, USA), and, of course, University of Minnesota (MN, USA)

At that time, all signs seemed to point to Minnesota. I was not accepted at Cornell. I suspected because I hadn’t taken SAT2. I was accepted to University of Virginia, but Virginia Tech shooting happened, which threw Virginia out of the list even though it is a different school. I was also not accepted at NTU and I refused to be reconsidered for some complicated reasons.

Now look what happened at NTU: NTU sees second suspected suicide case in one week. I feel like it’s only a matter of time before something happened at Cornell. I hope not, because sometimes, I still hope that I could have gone there.

Indeed, I was diverted for three semesters from University of Minnesota to Century College. But the trip to Minnesota was so smooth. Flying with stand by tickets with my mum, we got comfortable seatings for all of our planes we planned to take. My transition had been very smooth too. I excel in my classes and I became very involved.

Although, one thing DID happen in Minnesota right after I got here. Remember when the 35W bridge collapsed? Yeah, it was a major ‘disaster’. The support beams of the bridge are still lying on the Mississippi River bank, visible every time I have to go across the river.

Back to the main point. What if I had chosen a different path? Would I be the same as now? As happy as now? As content as now? As active as now? I wouldn’t say that there’s no hardships of living here. But for now, I will again say that I am content.

Light up a candle
from across the ocean

Light up a candle
to a place in memory

Light up a candle
for a compatriot

Light up a candle
for a rival

Light up a candle
for a neighbour

Light up a candle
for a brother

Light up a candle
for a friend

And light up a candle
for ourselves
so that this tragedy
will not happen again

Light up a candle
to brighten our paths

For David Hartanto Widjaja, and everyone else whose goals and dreams carry them far away from home. May the candles prevent anybody from having to walk in the dark again.

See here for details: David Hartanto Widjaja

I was just signing out from facebook when I remembered to try to finish a poem I was working on. Then suddenly, a burst of inspiration came to me. Below is the result. Although it is only a fragment and not even a short story, I hope you guys will enjoy it. My short stories usually come up from fragments like this so I hope this will someday become a short story.

Winter (fragment 1)

…..

Her face looked rock-hard. Her gaze diverted away from me. And in the dim lighting, her anger looked strengthened. I dropped down to my knees and went on:

“I want to hold your hand

and wrap my other around your body

while we spin around under the snow flakes falling.

I wish we can dance along with the wind

and amongst the dead trees

and we will sing our love songs

like there have never been”

But her expression didn’t change. I grew desperate. I reached for her hand. Her muscle tensed under my fingers, but she had not pulled it back yet.

I pushed on, ”Please, love me tonight. Love me tonight so my thoughts can reach for you. And we can be together in the land of dreams forev…”

“Only in dreams?” she suddenly said with an even angrier tone, pulling her hand away. She stood up from the chair she had been sitting on. Her figure loomed over me, making my heart cower.

“I don’t want your dreams, Tom! I want life! And all you have brought me is your useless effort to decorate your failure! Do not try to make me love winter. It killed me!” she said.

…..

So I was riding a bus to visit my grandparents yesterday. It was a little before 4 PM and I was the only one in the bus. We stopped at a bus stop where the bus is scheduled to wait for around 10 minutes. I moved to the front of the bus because the next stop will be where I have to get down.

Suddenly, the bus driver - Mary was her name - asked me “So where did you come from?”

“Indonesia,” I answered. And after that, as happened to me many times before, she started asking questions about Indonesia. Some of them are about the Muslim extremist groups in Indonesia, about the family structure in Indonesia, about relationship between Muslim and Catholics, about America’s financial problems, and, because I mentioned that I am a Chinese descendant, some issues concerning China’s ‘One Child Policy’ and its problems.

Right now, I have made a conclusion that America is a curious country. Yes, they are one of (if not the most) the powerful countries in the world. But its people know so little beyond their national boundary. That is why they are very curious, in a good way, towards foreigners.

However, sometimes, they are too proud. When talking aboud China, I get the feeling that she still thinks that China is still worse than America, that China will face a lot of trouble in the future, etc etc.

She’s not to be blamed. It’s what every person would have done. If anybody called Indonesia as a bad country, I would’ve sprung up myself and defend my country’s honor. It is all about personal opinion. And when you love your country and think highly of it and support it however far you travel from it, that’s when a country can survive.

But I still think that the world could have been better if there are more occasions like this; when two people can get together accidentally and exchange opinions about the world to better their understanding of what is out there.

Either way, it was worth the frozen toes and an hour bus ride.

“The Red Queen” is a new concept introduced to me in my BIOL 1001 biology class. Basically, this concept says that:

… it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. If you want to get to somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast…

This concept was taken from Alice in Wonderland: Through The Looking Glass. In the story, Alice was running hard with the Red Queen and she can’t get nowhere because her surroundings look the same even though she had run very fast.

This concept, in my opinion, is very true. To advance in life, you have to work hard, work smart, and try to beat the others. And even if you’ve worked as hard as you can, you’re still not going anywhere becuase the others are also doing the same to keep themselves in the race called life.

Whoever slacks off will be thrown off track and success is often hard to reach again.

Sad, yes. But it is true. Here at the U, I can’t just slack off. I have to study very hard. And even then, there’s still a lot of peers out there trying to beat me. Trying to beat my scores. Trying harder to get better jobs upon graduation.

It is the battle of wit. And it is a fierce one. There will only be temporary winner. But there certainly will be losers. And I cenrtainly do not want to fall into the latter group.

I’ve been spending 4 to 5 hours a day, doing Deformable Body example problems. It’s all for the test tomorrow. I am so tired…. I feel confident now, though. Or is it just that I am sick of doing exercise problems?

The crazy week is coming. After tomorrow, there are Material Science test on Monday and biology on Thursday. The Thursday after that is Math.

On the other side, homeworks keep pouring in. I’m just very tired… I’m hanging on 5 hours of sleep per day. I already missed 1 or 2 lunches to study for Deform.

AARRRGGGHH!!!!

I just wanna go to sleep…

Long time that I haven’t been posting… I’ve been very busy at school. Classes are getting harder and each day is more hectic than the previous one.

But, hey! I just had an awesome experience! But first, I want to say that I have not been eating junk foods excesively all the time I’m at the U. I only eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a fruit for desert everyday, aside from one chocolate biscuit a week.

So I was doing a little grocery shopping at Super Target. I happened to walk into the Snacks aisle, where dwell the potato chips and chocolates and candies and peanuts. And I saw it!!! My favorite Reese’s peanut butter chocolate!!!!! So I extended my hand to it (just to touch it, not buy, honestly!!). My hand erupted in pain as the strongest charge of electrostatic I’ve felt this winter shot from my fingers to the Reese’s shelve.

Ok, I was exaggerating… I did not become Emperor Palpatine with my mumba jumba electric blast. But, wow! It was as though something inside me refused to even touch the Reese’s bag out of fear that I might buy it. LOL I was very amused!

For those that don’t understand where the electrostatic came from, it builds up naturally. Winter in Minnesota is very dry. As your cotton clothes rub with polyester inside of your winter coat, it builds up electrostatic and grounded through whatever you touch. And that’s how.

Anyways, I got a 8/10 for my first deform quiz. A little disappointed, but that’s pretty much what everybody get. I also got 84/100 for my 1st material science homework. Could’ve been better. I was careless….

So now, I vow to bring up my grades even more!!! Target: 4.0 this semester!!! LOL

Math quiz tomorrow. Have to study!

….