FROZEN

Hey guys,
So overjoyed cos I'm done with finals!!! The last final gave me such a hard time: there was so much to do but so little time, regardless I decided not to procrastinate. I ended up going to the final presentation without taking a shower or washing my hair. However, it ended with a good note since the presentation was received positively by my instructor, guest critic, and my classmates. My classmates and I had a Korean Barbecue afterwards.
Anyway, I'm posting from Ann Arbor, Michigan! The weather is way more extreme than the weather in LA, obviously. It looks like this...

Give Thanks (Pt 2)

THANKSGIVING DAY
The next day, Jessica and I met up to see Frozen in the afternoon in AMC Santa Anita. Seeing it was Thanksgiving, we thought the cinema would at least have less people than the other days, but instead, it was PACKED with families and children.

Of course they were there to see one of the most awaited Disney flicks other than Monsters University. Even more, it's a Disney's fairytale movie that was said to be the best one since Beauty and the Beast. Come on, who's not down for it?

Give Thanks (Pt 1)

This might be the last post for me before I have to prepare for finals. It's week 13 y'all!!!! As I mentioned last time that I'm not going out of town for Thanksgiving. Some people do but I choose to stay in LA since some of my friends from the Bay Area came to visit.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

PRE-THANKSGIVING

The first dinner that started my Thanksgiving break started slightly roughly for me, not that bad but it shifted a bit out of the plan: on Wednesday late afternoon, I was still having a class. It was an individual critique day where students put their names on the list and took turns for the critique with the professor. Unlike last week, I got to the campus earlier than I thought and I managed to get the earliest critique time as possible (I was the fifth out of 15 students in total). So I finished and wrapped up quickly at 3.30 pm and decided to chill a bit with my friends, as well as making some corrections according to the crit I had.

Fascinated by Cruise Ships and Ocean Liners

Despite the fact that finals week is coming in two weeks, I decided not to do anything exhausting for Thanksgiving. I'm saving up for winter break trip. It would be highly impossible to do homework during the break while on vacation at the same time. So I decided to stay in LA and instead, welcome all my friends who will be coming to visit later.

Anyway, I might have something that I haven't shared to you readers. Don't worry, nothing bad. I've been into cruise ships and ocean liners these days. Yeah, that might sound a little strange for you. Obsessed on cruise ships? Who does that? I do.

The "Meh"-est Year: A pretty shitty reflection (Part 1)

Approaching the end of the year, I thought I should make a post dedicated to all the going-ons in 2013. 2013 has probably been the "meh"-est year out of all previous years I've had in US. I've been looking back and forth to the previous posts I wrote back in the 2010 up to 2012, and even before 2010, back before I went to study in the US. So I looked back at all the happy posts I did up to 2012, how I had so much fun, when YOLO was a main lifestyle - life's motto, more or less like Hakuna Matata.
Dang, I got to travel to so many places within those 2 years, got to try bunch of things, do bunch of stuff, went to 2 different yet most visited cities in US within a month of winter break, spent so much money on those trips, and all other good things. Before I led you guys to the next point, I went to community college for 2 years from 2010 and 2012. Yes, two freaking superb years of community college life. If you take a 2-year in community college and 2-year in a 4 year university education course, you'd definitely feel what I mean here.

A Bruin, A Trojan, An Orange Dot (Part 2)

Hey guys, as promised, here's the second part of my campus visit tour. About two weeks after my visit to UCLA, Bella, Kenneth, and I decided to visit Kenneth's campus, USC. I think I mentioned this before, but I've visited USC campus for so many times, but the campus vibe it has never keeps me from coming.
Before visiting the campus, the three of us met up in Little Tokyo, which is only a couple of minutes of drive from USC, to have late lunch. We dropped into this restaurant called Oomasa in Japanese Village Plaza.

"Every cloud has a silver lining"

I've been feeling so unenergized today. First, it's raining. I bothered to move my lazy butt off just to go to a lecture class, which is essentially a sleepy one too. A medium cup of hot vanilla latte didn't help. I dozed off at some points in class. Then I took a shuttle to South Campus for another class. Yes, I've been taking public transportations and occasionally carpooling with friends and my roommate since my car is being repaired right now.

However, that's not the point. I see the silver lining of not having a car. I took public transportations and I've been enjoying it ever since I sent my car to the body shop. It's true that the wait was a pain, but I felt I blended more with the city vibe by taking bus rides. I blended more with the people, with the community, something I've never felt before ever since I started to drive in LA.

A Bruin, A Trojan, An Orange Dot (Part 1)

This semester has been quite enjoyable for me, mostly because two of my close friends from De Anza College have just transferred to LA's two major universities this fall: UCLA and USC. Bella goes to UCLA and Kenneth goes to USC. Their presence in LA means more time for me to hang out to balance with my rigorous art student life.

They're obviously close friends, though ironically, their colleges are rivals to each other. Anyway, my friends were nice enough to offer me tours around their campuses. As someone who hails from a private college whose campus building only takes form of a black long box stretching over an arroyo on Pasadena hills, other campus visit experiences are always priceless.

The Toughest Day of the Week

Hey guys, I just wanted to share a quick story of how an ideal day should end. So the Packaging midterm was supposed to be due on Friday afternoon, complete with tight presentation and display boards to go along with the gazentas (that's what my professor refers to the items included in the packaging project). It's an individual project and everyone in the class had the freedom to choose what packaging or kit they wanted to make.
I decided I'd do something simple and relatable to Art Center community: making a finals week survival kit, mostly because I'm concerned by the fact that most Art Center students are often overwhelmed with their projects approaching the finals week that they neglect their hygiene and starve ourselves.

TWO AND ONE

Another post in less than 2 days! Ta-daaa... Okay, I swear this is going to be my last post about my birthday, and afterwards, we'll talk about other things. Well, to tell you the truth, other than my birthday, there isn't so much going on: just homework and hanging out with my friends.

Anyway, my birthday was a blast!! I thought it was going to be plain since my life in Art Center isn't as lavish as any other university life, nor my previous life in community college. I was still struggling with my homework on my birthday eve. I worked my butt off past midnight and it took me a while to realize that that day was my birthday. Anyway, here are a couple of highlights from the day I turned legal.

The perks of being a twenty-oner

Hey blog, I hope you're not dying yet, cos I'm giving you one breath of life in form of a post.

Oh God I feel so discouraged to write posts these days because I feel my English is getting worse. Excuse me for going to an art school where they don't often assign you essays to improve your writing skills.

Hey guys, I'm back, and proudly, as a twenty-one year old. Haha do you hear that? I'm a proud twenty-one year old!! I've been waiting all my life (no, actually I've been waiting for it since three years ago) to actually reach this age. On the other hand, I'm getting older though.

Indonesia for the Break!

How is everybody doing? I'm glad I finally got to write another post, and even better, from my own hometown!!! Sorry for the lack of post for the past month. I've been slain by projects, finals, and moving. Moving after finals was a pain, especially knowing that your other friends headed home to pass out on their beds after the last day of finals while you were on your way to Uhaul to pick up a moving truck.

Magic Happens - Pt 04

The night was getting colder. I started to shiver since I already got soaked from the previous ride, and my soaked shirts weren't dry yet, so Tiffany lent me her comfy, warm sweater. All of a sudden, our boat was halted by a boat ahead of us that also stopped. We thought we were just lining up to plunge down the first waterfall, because of course, only one boat at a time could plunge down the drop. The drop was just one boat away from us, but we waited and waited.
We all kept on saying how bad the boat's position was in front of us, because they were at the tip of the waterfall and the boat sort of tilted.
The gates didn't even open to allow the boat right next to us to plunge down. Then an announcement echoed, remarking that the ride was broken. I heard chorus of groans from my friends as well as people from other boats. The people in the boat before us started singing along to Backstreet Boys, which we followed.

Magic Happens - Pt 03

Before we got onto rides here in California Adventure, we stopped for a second to see a captivating street jazz show on Buena Vista Street. The group was called 5 Dime or something like that, and the singer truly had a jazzy voice that hypnotized all the visitors to stop by to spend some time seeing the show. She surprisingly has the charisma of Tiana from Princess and the Frog! Once in a while, she would invite one person to three children to come up and sing with her (at this moment, my friends and I just moved back a little bit so she wouldn't notice us).
The first guy was just normally dancing with her as she was playing her scarf with him. Then she pulled another one - a woman - to dance with the guy. It turns out the woman was the guy's wife. That was the sweetest thing ever.

Magic Happens - Pt 02

When we were done meeting Merida, the four of us hung out in Fantasyland.

We got on to Mad Tea Party, just for the heck of it. Well it was fun though! We managed to spin the cup as strong as we could only to find out that no matter how strong we spin it, the speed would remain the same.

Magic Happens - Pt 01

You might be familiar with the so-called “Dreams come true” term popularized by Disney has apparently proven itself on me. A week after Sherin, Tiffany, and I met, and after Vinny came to the States, Tiffany came up with the idea of going to Disneyland. Even better, she has a friend who works there and can give us discounted tickets. Then it was decided and confirmed that we would go there on June 29.

So June 29, 2013 was probably the most memorable date in my whole 3 years of living in US, well, at least for a fan of Disney like me. You know that I traveled for a week or so to Orlando to visit Walt Disney World roughly two years ago. Ironically, despite having lived in California for 3 years as a student, I have never visited Disneyland nor California Adventure. I did visit it twice though, first when I was seven and the latest one was back in 2009 when I had to make up an excuse to ditch school by saying I was sick.

They are on their way

Coming soon to your nearest internet connection

Happy 484th Birthday, Hometown

I'm listening to this unusually chill Indonesian jazz song on Friday night and I found out today, according to Indonesian time (June 22), is anniversary of the founding of Jakarta.

 


That's a coincidence right? Anyway, I think this song tries to depict Jakarta in a more romantic way (the way Paris is often associated as the city of romance) but it pays quite an inaccurate tribute to the city itself. Drinking champagne? That doesn't sound like what typical Jakarta people would do. Maybe only those Jakarta bourgeoisies people would do that. What about inhaling carbon monoxide from Metro Mini's exhaustion pipes, which is crucial but people don't give a shit about? And what about the facts that crossing pedestrians are barely visible to passing drivers? 

That sounds more like Jakarta.

So dear Mr. Jokowi, I have high hopes on you. You already make a good impression as a well-respected high figure with humble personality, so I hope that lives up to your duty as well as the governor of Jakarta :)

Unproductive Weekend

I had to say that last weekend is probably the most unproductive weekend of my entire Art Center history. I usually worked on my homework over the weekend, or at least on Sunday (Sunday is my homework day yay). But forget about last weekend. All I did was chilling, hanging out, eating, and sleeping - it might sound like something most of us do in spare time.

On Friday, after working on Materials homework, Irene, Han, and I had a dinner in Savoy Kitchen. It's a Chinese restaurant in Alhambra widely known for its Hainan Chicken Rice. It feels good to finally get a taste of it after a while not eating it. This particular good has always been one of my favorites back in Indonesia, and everytime I travel to Singapore, I always have this for almost every meal.

By the way, excuse the picture quality. I've been taking pictures using my crappy Blackberry camera feature.

Look Closely - Now You See Me Review [Spoiler Alert]

"First rule of magic: always be the smartest person in the room."

When people think of magic, people think of deception and lies. When people talk about deception, they will associate it with crime. That's the theme that the movie Now You See Me brings.

You are cordially invited...

...to the biggest most narcissistic event of the year

I'm just kidding

Well, yeah, this video essentially takes narcissism to the next level.

Yesterday, I was looking through a list of interesting flash websites to find one that's most fitting for my project. It wasn't until I found Museum of Me  out of all links, which is an interactive feature created by Intel in collaboration with Facebook. I actually figured out about this interactive app for quite a while. However, I just found myself mesmerized with it even more this time because these days because, art school life has affected me to appreciate exhibitions and museums. After seeing quite some art galleries and exhibitions, it's great to have one for my own that Intel has brought to life.

Scroll down for video.

Sizzlin'

I'm glad that the semester kicked off pretty well for me. I got to make new friends and managed my workload pretty well, even though at some points procrastination just had to come to play.

This semester, I surprisingly met a lot more Indonesian students at my school this semester. Some are even students who started at the same term as I did, but I never got a chance to meet them. Before the semester even started, I met two new Indonesian students while I was doing peer mentor - one guy and one girl. How I became acquainted with them was pretty awkward though, since whenever I spotted them around, I couldn't help but to strongly assume that they're Indonesians just from seeing their faces. This was proven true when they finally got to speak Bahasa with each other while I was nearby.

Indonesian students at my school are pretty much all over the place, but we never flop at one spot in the cafeteria and chat with a super loud voice from across the room (sounds like people that I know?). So you get to imagine what it's like to find one among the haystack of Art Center community, and you can finally let your tongue loose by speaking your native language :)

Two Ultimate Dumbness of the Week (Oh God, Why?)

Sometimes, at some points of our life, there are moments where you just want to hide your face and don't want to expose yourself to anyone. We just wanted to forget that ever happened. In my case, those kinds of moment happen to me in a week.

Yes, I made two silly mistakes in two consecutive days. Nothing really personal or serious though, so don't worry. Just pure dumbness hahaha.

SP 13: The Other Side of LA - Pt 2

Moving onto the second part!

After an exhausting day the day before, Elda and I woke up groggily quite early in the morning. Okay, 7.30 am. Half an hour later than planned, but we were so darn tired. We still had plenty of places to go to. Apparently, we spent quite some time talking in front of the bathroom door for a couple of minutes. In the end, we took off from my apartment at around 10. Before heading to our first destination of the day, Warner Bros Entertainment, we dropped by at McD to get our breakfast. I had an egg muffin and so did Elda. I also needed to go to an auto service to get my car briefly checked, since the day before, the Maintenance Required light just flashed. Actually it wasn't as critical as I thought, but I was just afraid my car would break down in the middle of freeway. After a quick check, the staff told me nothing was critical.

Okay, let's head straight to the first destination of the day, Warner Bros Entertainment! When you think of a studio tour, you might think of Universal Studios, but this time, it's different. Warner Bros might not have a fancy theme park full of special effects. But the tour would be longer and more detailed as we would get to walk through some props and sets!

Band saw and Laid

Hey guys,

Guess what, it's a long weekend! I won't have class on Monday, which is good. What makes it even better, the homework load is not as crazy as I thought. But I know I will regret for saying this in the latter.

This term, I'm taking the last required class for integrated studies, and that is Materials of Art and Design. Honestly, I'm not really fond in building and making things. Cutting, sawing, and carving are just not my thing, which explains why I never had any pottery class. However, the first two projects seemed to be a fun thing to do! The first project involves carving a name out of a 0.5 inch MDF wood using the band saw. Frankly though, I hate the earsplitting sound of the blade cutting through the material. That machine doesn't seem so friendly.

But I'm pretty fond of how it turns out!

SP 13: The Other Side of LA - Pt 1

This part of spring break happened on the brink of Summer term, exactly three last days of the break and a week after Universal Studios visit with Eunyoung

I might have mentioned this but Elda and I originally planned on going on Chicago, but then something happened and I wasn't able to go to Chicago anymore. In solution to that, Elda decided to come to LA to pay me a visit.

Elda would be coming on May 10, 2013 at noon. I was ready to pick her up after my spring break work, but then the managing director of Graphic Design department requested that I attend the departmental orientation to share some tips for the new students. And that happened at noon. I only came in the beginning before leaving to LAX to pick Elda up at around 12.30 pm.

For your information, that was actually the first legit day of me driving on freeways on my own. I don't usually have enough balls to take freeways and as an alternative for that, I always take local routes, which sometimes can be a solution to the jam in freeway, but it commonly takes more time than freeways. Or sometimes, I drive in freeways with a companion.

Oh nanny...

Good news is, I finished my type homework that's still due in a week!!
Bad news is, I will use band saw tomorrow or on Friday. Yes, band SAW :s

I'd like to dedicate this post to one special lady that has contributed a lot to most of my childhood to early teen life. Why? Because she just randomly popped out of nowhere in my nap's dream today, and that was the umpteenth time she appeared in any of my dream. Umpteenth. Yes.

SP 13: Back to the Studios - Pt 2

Previously: When Eunyoung agreed she'd like to go to Universal, this ride was the first thing that came to mind, especially the night before, Aymee told me how awesome the ride was (she went there on Christmas break). On the way to where the Transformers ride was, we bumped into the directory board where it says that the wait time for Transformerswould take up until an hour.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Screw it. I could barely sleep last night because of the high anticipation of Transformers.

The directory board never lies, and when I said it, I mean it, because the line really took almost an hour. The line went through endless rooms, before we finally came to a narrow basement where the loading station was. YEEAYY!!

OMG, I'm not kidding, the ride was FUDGING AWESOME!! It wasn't as short as I expected so the long wait really pays off. It was totally unexpected. I thought it would be like a normal motion simulator ride where the cart just stayed there and the technical arms did the job. But no, it was a dark ride, like the one you commonly see in Disneyland, unless there were no traditional animatronics, but instead, we were taken to rooms full of giant screens and each screen has its own narrative. And of course, everything was in 3D...no, 4D! Considering there were some special effects happening, stuff like warm heat, water effects, wind blowing sort of thing. But I was completely left speechless. I've never seen such technology in any theme park rides before. The idea was not as complicated, but combining the idea of 4D motion simulator and dark ride is just GENIUS.

Crying my eyeballs out

Tell me, when was the last time a movie made you cry like a four year-old? I'm talking about a short animated film, not a featured one. This short - Father and Daughter - created by Dutch filmmaker Michael Dudok de Wit, won an Oscar for Best Animated Short back in 2000. It tells about a father who leaves his daughter while he's taking off on a boat. The daughter constantly goes to the same spot each and everytime she grows up to see if her father comes back.

What makes you...

This is what often happens in regular working days.
I only have two hours of sleep to get my assignment for the next day done My classmates pull an all-nighter to do the same thing for the same class
I constantly doze off during the critique My classmates completely stay awake during the critique
Seriously guys, what's your secret? Two barrels of Monster (or Redbull)? #jealous

SP 13: Back to the Studios - pt 1

So I mentioned that I did some trips during my 3 week spring break, right? I did go to San Francisco, then Davis as well as Cupertino. The last and the latest trip actually didn't take miles away to go to. Yep, Universal Studios is just ten miles away and approximately 20 minutes of drive, and I went there over the weekend with my friend, Eunyoung.

For those of you who follow my blog, you might ask, why Universal again? Well, I explained the reasons in my previous post, so I hope that answers your curiosity. The distance and the affordable price are definitely the two main reasons why I never get tired of going here.

The plan to Universal Studios was considered to be quite sudden. It appeared literally out of nowhere. It all started when I just got back from Davis and as I have mentioned in my previous post, I was literally alone for four consecutive days. My roommates are going back to their hometowns, my close friends had their own personal plans...so that basically leaves me alone in Pasadena. So as a way to escape from “centuries” of boredom and loneliness, I tried to contact whoever in my major that's available to hang out. Turns out one of my closest friends in my major, Eunyoung, is available during the break. I first initiated that we go to Disneyland (my childish instinct just had to kick in, sorry) or Universal Studios.

British guys, why you so attractive?

Sorry, I just had to do these.

Andpop.com

Just Jared

Zimbio.com

Eddie Redmayne and Tom Hiddleston, two guys that I noticed way before but never knew they would look this attractive. Dang. Okay gotta get some sleep.

SO SPENT

Just wanted to share this to other Star Wars fans out there. Today's the biggest day of our most beloved franchise!!!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Today was probably the most exhausting day of the week, but it's really worth it because I spent almost 4 days of isolation after I got back from Davis.

Eric is Here!

Kids, what do we do two weeks before finals?

We...

This is probably one of the greatest guilty pleasure ever. Okay, this is the second greatest guilty pleasure after I lied to my high school faculty that I went to LA for a week to have an appointment with my future university.

The fact is, I went there for *duh* vacation.

Unified Diversity Soup

Surprised to see the new layout? Took me like 2 days to finish it off. But yay, I'm satisfied because I finally did something out of Illustrator and it turns out to be a vector art :D

Plus, slab serif is love!

Anyway, you remember that I mentioned about Julie and Julia movie yesterday, don't you? I became quite inspired by it and the fact that I finally resumed blogging is because of it. But it wasn't just it. Yesterday, I decided to restrain my craving of L&L's Loco Moco and cook instead. This time though, I was going to make a documentary out of it. This recipe is nothing new to me, but I thought I'd share it with you, especially if you happen to be busy college students who don't want to spend money for take-outs but you have left-over ingredients.

Mini Spring Break

Hey guys,

Guess what motivates me back to blogging. I just saw this movie Julie and Julia, in which one of the characters is a writer that frequently blogs about her cooking experience based on Julia Child's recipes. That was enough to get me back to writing in my blog.

The first week of break is over and I spent most of it traveling out of Socal. As I mentioned, I made two trips to Bay Area. The first trip includes a visit to San Francisco, and the second visit includes going to Davis, Sacramento, and even traveling back to South Bay (San Jose and Cupertino), which I considered very much as my second home. Now that it's already the second week and I've been spending my time at home, trying to do something active, like building a portfolio website. But then I realized I'm still a third term graphic design student and a professional portfolio website is still way not compatible to my designing skill as of now. So yeah, I'm going back to Behance.

When Sambal Becomes Sriracha

Have you ever felt like you started to lose articulation and fluency of your own mother language? If you have, then you feel what I'm feeling. I just wanted to share a bit about how my Bahasa has become ever since I moved to US two years ago. It's kind of embarrassing to say that my English might have improved but I gradually started to lose my fluency and articulation in my own native tongue. How embarrassing and even ironic was that, seeing that I was even enrolled in Language Division back in high school for two years. Being in Language Division should make you one of the people that is rich of Bahasa vocabularies, which sadly I started to lose now.

Mellow oldies

First off, I just wanted to say... HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAP! Yes, today's my dad's birthday. Too bad I couldn't call to send my greetings directly to him. I'm all so occupied with midterms and I assume he's been busy too. Just today I'm so bored listening to mainstream songs, and even often one or two songs were over-played on the radio they make me sick and I'm currently taking a break from Kpop since there's nothing really new from it. Later on, I bumped into this new chocolate commercial starring the gorgeous Audrey Hepburn (thanks to the insanely realistic CGI effect). The background music was captivating that I found out that it was Moon River, from Ms. Hepburn's acknowledged movie no other than Breakfast at Tiffany's (I gotta watch that movie).

Ideas are everywhere, literally..except...

These past few weeks, my roommate and I have been working profusely on our Design 2 midterm, which includes 6 different abstract compositions made into different formats of artwork (print, painting, installation, sculpture, 3D work). Basically, we need to convey the 4x4" mockups that I posted previously on this blog into a real artwork.

It's pretty hard to find ideas on what to do for these 6 compositions in color, like what materials to choose from and how you are going to execute them. The class professor suggested that the students should go out and do some activities to draw inspiration. For example, my roommate and I went to Orchard Supply Hardware to look for materials. The variety of materials the store has suddenly showered both of us with some ideas of materials and format to work on for this project.

...which ironically barely happened on my campus, or at least in my class, since everyone became stressed out due to the hard critic almost all of us got in type class.

Dots, lines, and tricks

I still don't have a chance to continue my North Sumatra story. Things have been quite hectic, particularly for one class. Yep, Design 2 has been energy and idea drenching for the past four weeks, where we all had to come up with 30 4"x4" abstract compositions. The requirements for each compositions vary, and so are the concepts.

Compositions: Symmetry, Asymmetry, Figure on Ground, Figure and Ground, Depth Gestallt, Pattern based on a decade (I chose 1920s), Unity by Diversity 

Color/Temperatures: Emphasis by Hue, Emphasis by Tint/Shades/Tones,
Emphasis by Saturation 

Concepts: Anomaly, Technology, Dynamic, Luxury (I screwed this one)

The Perks of Being in a Photography Class

So after collecting enough money (well, some of them are part of my parents' contribution), I finally got my first legit DSLR camera. I actually am a little hesitated to get it because my dad already got one but he kept it with him in Indonesia to fulfill his fondness in photography.

Since this term I'm taking photography class (and as mentioned by another photography professor that a graphic designer should be equipped with at least a good quality DSLR camera for photo references), I got one as well.

Horas North Sumatra (pt 2)

The next day after our arrival in North Sumatra would be energy spending, as we were all going on a full-day trip around Brastagi. I actually underestimated this town in the first place, but the visit proved me wrong. There was a lot to take a look in Brastagi. Anyway, our journey started with an early breakfast at the hotel, as usual. I had a plate of omelet and fried rice to kick off my day. My dad apparently already took off earlier in the morning for a stroll. The clear, unpolluted sky in the morning allowed him to take a snapshot of a nearby mountain which the hotel overlooked.

Once the breakfast was done, we set off on our first destination of the day. I was made curious with brief mentions from others that we were going to see some sort of a “golden temple”. A place like that in this pretty isolated hillside place almost sounds impossible. However, when the van started to enter a smaller road with rough surface, a glimpse of blinding gold color reflected by a tall object in the far distance caught my eye.

Horas North Sumatra! (pt 1)

Finally, North Sumatra trip post is up! At least only the first part of it. Last winter break, as you might have known, I went back to Indonesia to take care of some things. One of the events that took place during my almost-a-month holiday includes a trip to North Sumatra. I have to say I really anticipated for it, considering that I've never stepped a foot onto one of the most renowned major islands in Indonesia, Sumatra. Such a shame I've never been there.

On December 27, 2012, two days after Christmas (6 days after "the apocalypse"), I woke up early in the morning, around 6 am. I couldn't believe our flight was actually at 9 am and at that moment, I doubted if we'd make it on time for the flight. However, since it was going to be a domestic flight, so I assumed the check-in process and everything would take shorter time than the international one.

My family and I hitched on a cab to the airport, where we soon met with The Gunawan family and The Tanu family. So there were around 9 people in our trip:

The Ugliest Moment: A Flu+Homesick+Jetlag Story

I'm glad I'm halfway through completing my first Design 2 assignment. I know halfway is actually still a long way to go, but I just feel like writing something.

The semester started off quite roughly for me, and even you can say it's one of the worst times I've had in my almost three years of living in US. Over last week, I got back from Indonesia. Up to the part when I reached my apartment, greeted my roommate who was already back here from SF, and unpacked, was still okay. I had anticipated the jetlag and all, but the worse part came the next day.

After trying to sleep at 3 am after unpacking stuff from my gigantic green suitcase. By the way, I did wake up at 5 am in a still okay condition, but that was merely because of jetlag and it's a common issue. Like I said, I've anticipated that. I heard stories of my friends that were still wide awake at dawn after going back from Indonesia to the states, but in my case, I already slept beforehand and woke up at 5 am. Adjusting your body's circadian rhythm to the local time does take time. Right at that time when I initially woke up, I had the weirdest feeling one could ever feel at 5 am. I was hungry, and I could tell that by the funny, grumbling noises from my stomach.

MLK day

Long weekend is always everyone's favorite. It's simply the perfect time to loosen up a bit from your work aka procrastinating. I just finished Type 2 homework, but I think I need to put some more effort to  it since I did it a little too fast. Homework starts coming and I'm currently and slowly gathering my determination to work on them.

Anyway, tomorrow, we have a day off. It's Martin Luther King Day. I'm glad we finally have a day off despite the fact that it's going to be the only holiday of the semester, and that we just kicked off the semester last week... at least for my school. Probably other universities and schools will have more holidays later in the semester. I was surprised that the semester kicked off really well. Well, I was sick - completely bedridden for three days - last week when I just got here from Indonesia, but the week after was surprisingly amazing. I hung out two days consecutively.

Transit is boring

Yeah, especially when you're not feeling hungry and you just don't feel like doing anything. Taipei's airport wifi is super crappy! Anyway, I feel so lame for not posting a lot in Indonesia. I got super occupied in Indonesia (not really), but yeah I got plans and outings, and basically on my second week of break, I took off to Medan for about a week for New Year. If the time allows, I'd really love to write the story. I need a non-art life to keep the balance of my art life. Art is good, which is why I love doing it so much and choose it as a field of study! But too much art can be a bit boring. I felt super unproductive in everything else except the field that I'm currently pursuing, graphic design, on my previous semester (no music, no writing, no dancing... I dedicated most of my time for art, and other than that, my spent body just decided to chill by watching movies). So hopefully, my next semester's workload allows me to spend some time in writing, and hopefully, freelance writing. Yeah, I was actually recruited to become weekly blogger for a notable online graphic design website, but due to previous semester's workload, it didn't last long.

Souvenirs from Sumatra

Hey guess what!! First post from my trip back home to Indonesia!

Photography has always been my second passion in art after graphic design (Illustration too). I was suppose to develop my graphic design skills during this break, which I did, by designing an invitation for my cousin's wedding. However, whenever I'm exposed to my dad's DSLR camera, this little guy always keeps me busy with it.

I was lucky enough to go to North Sumatra for New Year's trip, and challenged my skill in photography. (These pictures are divided into series)