Since some of my friends already posted in their blogs about their first day back to school, or college, I’m also gonna tell you guys about my first day!!! So here goes :

5:40 –> I woke up. Even before my alarm was supposed to went off at 6:00!!! Guess I already had enough sleep then. But still lied under my blanket in my cool comfy ACed room. ^^

5:50 –> finally got out of bed and took shower.

6:10 –> went Festival Food with Oscar to buy some doughnuts for breakfast

6:30 –> grab a medium hot chocolate (Oscar got a mocca coffee) from the Caribou Coffee right next to FF and ate the doughnuts.

7:00 –> Arrived at school, hipervented about first day back to school. I kept saying "it’s first day back to school!! It’s first day back to school!!!" to everybody. LOL. If there are days I hate the most in a year, one of them will be back-to-school day. Believe it or not, the bookstore line has formed!!! At least 20 people back!!!! HAHA!! See? Told’ya to get your textbooks before classes start. ^^

7:45 –> Composition I class. Not so bad. The teacher is my Writers Bloc advisor, Mrs. Gaffney. So I already know her. LOL. After this class was done, I had 15 minutes to run off across the bridge to the other side of campus for O Chem class. Made it in 8 minutes. ^^

8:50 –> Organic Chemistry class. Dr. Latham teaches this class. It’s quite interesting. His teaching style is similar to Dr. K (modern physics), only his ppt slides goes faster. Don’t know why I still felt the urge to fall asleep. Maybe because he speaks kinda slowly and quietly? ^^

10:00 –> Done from chemistry, ran off to Tutoring center to set up my work schedule. I start this Thursday at 8:00!!!! Then talked a bit with Dr. Gu (physics 1081 & 1082). And then gave some pictures to Katie, my Student Ambassador director.

10:30 –> Ran off to Maplewood Mall to go to bank. (No, I wasn’t going shopping! ^^)

11:30 –> Back on campus and went to get some lunch at the cafetaria. They raised the food price!!!! Can you believe that? *)&#^(!%^&%^ I heard that some people already had the same reaction. But today’s food was not bad. Fried chicken steak with mashed potato (YUM!!!) and mixed veggie.

1:10 –> chem lab starts. We started with some introduction to the new O Chem lab (YAY!). And then watched a video on some techniques we’re going to use in the semester. Then we kinda tried to do "Melting Point" experiment, even though it’s supposed to be done in two weeks (next Monday is labor day so no class. YAY!).

4:30 –> out of lab!!!! Until now, just helping out with Pam, Bee, and Corey with Senate stuff.

All in all, the first day went well for me. I met with one student who was in my orientation group. He said that his first day went well too. No complaining there. LOL. But I didn’t get a chance to participate in Welcome Week event today coz it was held at 1:00, right when I had chem lab. T.T I didn’t get to stuff a doll. LOL

It was kinda cool though. After 3 months of summer, I already forgot how busy the campus can be. Poor Nhi got lost looking for her class so she missed two of her morning classes. At least they have people at every entrance helping everyone who got lost. Oh and I also got a scratch off card. Didn’t win iPod. Didn’t win anything T.T

But again, all in all, not a bad first day back to school.

How I wish I’m back home…. August 17 has come and gone and I didn’t get a chance to honor the Red and White…. Lucky I have a bunch of national songs. ^^

So I spent the whole last Sunday listening to Indonesia Raya, Garuda pancasila, Tanah Airku, Kami Pemudi Pemuda, and 17 Agustus Tahun ‘45. I even sang while taking shower!!! LOL

By the way, this article was published last week ^^ :

News Release                                                                                       Nancy Livingston

8/14/08                                                                                                                                                            Public Relations

For  Immediate Release

www.century.edu                                                                                                                                651-779-3222

                                                                                                                                                                        Fax 651-779-3470

                                                                                                                                                                        nancy.livingston@century.edu

                                                                                                                                                                        3300 Century Avenue North

                                                                                                                                                                        White Bear Lake, MN 55110

Century College Student Magazine Features Poetry, Stories and Art

William Handjaja, a pre-engineering student with a flair for poetry, said working as one of three editors of The Student Lounge, the Century College student magazine that features poetry, stories and art, proved to be a great creative outlet last semester, as well as a valuable team-building experience.

“The hardest part was going through the 100 submissions that we received and coming up with the ones we wanted to publish,” said Handjaja. “It was a long weeding-out process that took us two or three weeks.”

Handjaja said he and the other chief student editors, Aliana Lopez and Christopher Lundquist, were looking for a variety of material with a diversity of themes ranging from love and life to humor and pathos. “Our goal was to give students an opportunity to express themselves in literature,” said Handjaja. “I think we succeeded pretty well. It really turned out better than we expected. The design was beautiful.”

Students from the Writer’s Bloc student club worked with art students in the Creative Arts Alliance and also the Visual Communication Technologies program to produce the magazine. The student editors paired the graphic submissions with the appropriate poem or story. The project’s associate editors were Brandon Vessel and Chue Thao. The art editors were Alissa Thompson and Emilie Bjorgum, and layout and design contributors were Danielle Cote, Toni Nelson and Mary Ross. Faculty advisors were professors Susan Taylor, Kim Gaffney and John Kothera.

Starting fall semester, Prof. Gaffney will be the magazine’s faculty advisor. The magazine will be sold in the Century College Bookstore at a cost of $6.25.

“We were looking for written pieces and artwork that makes you think,” said Handjaja. “I really learned a lot about quality writing, and came to respect the poets, especially, for the ways they can get their point across in such an abbreviated way.”

Handjaja, a White Bear Lake resident who is originally from Jakarta, Indonesia, starts his second year at Century this fall. In addition to his work with the student magazine, he is also the Century College Student Senate’s director of information technology, and the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society’s director of communication. He eventually plans to transfer to the University of Minnesota./L

It was awesome!!!! The Chinese can do anything, man!!!! I was watching it yesterday night at my apartment with my 2 roommates who are Chinese. It’s kinda interesting to watch them sing the national anthem in front of the 12-hour-late broadcast that happened 12 hours before at a place halfway around the world.

Yes, it was truly the most amazing ceremony I’ve ever watched. They did everything perfectly. But that’s not all. At the section where there were moving blocks of printing, visualizing a wave and water ripple, I said "the computer programmer must be bald by now, programming the movement of those blocks."

To my surprise, after the blossoming of the flowers, people appeared from below. THEY DID IT FREAKIN’ MANUALLY WITH MANPOWER!!!! My roommate exclaimed "HAH! F*CKING COMPUTERS MAN!!! Our people can do anything!!!"

It is indeed very true. China, regardless of how grim their past is, they have a great history. The NBC presenter even said that the Chinese people can proudly say "oh, by the way, we created paper and printing." Yep. Some of the greatest invention in the world came from China.

Apart from paper (which I’m not too sure cause the egyptian also has papyrus they write on) and printing, they created gunpowder and fireworks, and also all-time-favorite childhood traditional game : flying kite. They have one of the seven wonders of the world : The Great Wall of China.

I envy them. I wish Indonesia could be as great. Or maybe it’s just that I don’t know enough of my home country? Lets imagine what the opening ceremony would be if Indonesia host the Olympic Games.

The art performances will include The Saman Dance, Angklung performance, and electric Sasando playing the Olympic theme song. Wayang puppets will be on stage, performed by hundreds  of Dalang.

The LCD screen encircling the stadium will also show ocean wave. Not ordinary ocean wave, but Tsunami wave to remember the 2004 and 2006 tsunami. Instead of performing Tai Chi, we will be performing Pencak Silat. The dove will instead be our dear national symbol of Garuda. 33 kids symbolizing 33 provinces, with their traditional clothes, will bear the flags.

The historical performances will show the Majapahit era when the whole Indonesian archipelago were united under one banner. It will also show how we are a rich country full of spices, which is the reason of our 350 years of colonialization of the Dutch.

The main symbol will be emerald stones to remind us to the term "Zamrud Khatulistiwa" we used to bear proudly. The athletes will be eating the delicious mpek-mpek, kerak telor, gado-gado, lemper, and Padang Satay outside the Gelora Bung Karno National Stadium. After the Games, they will visit the beautiful Kuta Beach in Bali.

And the most important of all, every one coming to watch/participate will be greeted with the warmest welcome ever to a clean green city of Jakarta without it’s traffic jam. Everyone will collectively agree to leave their vehicles at home to clear the streets. Rivers will be crystal clear and full of fishes instead of human excretes.

My roommate mentioned that the Beijing Olympic pening Ceremony can happen because the Chinese have discipline. I think that’s one aspect Indonesians have to improve at. Before dreaming of hosting the Olympic Games, we first have to omit corruption and "Rubber Clock" from our culture. No longer will 75% of our medals be from badminton, but also from various sport branches.

I dream of a time when we are no longer seen as the country that had the number one most corrupt president in the world, or the country that has the most Muslim population and hence people say is a terrorist base, but a country of more than 17000 island, 200 million people, hundreds of years of awesome history, hundreds of races and ethnicity united for the purpose of world peace through sport games.