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.

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.

Volunteer Volunteer

Well, just thought of posting something super random and short to kill time after studying...also to keep you guys posted.
Things have gone quite differently since I became a graphic designer of my college's student volunteer. Even though it's considered a minor officer position, still I'm very proud to become an officer of a club. It drives me to be more active to contribute to college society.

It's quite awkward in the beginning for us - new officers - to run the club meetings and organize the events. We have to thank our predecessors for giving us guidelines how to be dedicated officers.

With the new term coming up, more new members also came to join the club. I made friends with the newbies. The events are even promising and apparently draw a lot of members' interests to participate.

One of the most fun event so far after the election was Mountainview Ala Carte festival held in, well, Mountainview.
It's basically a festival specializing in selling and trading wine and its glasses. So what we - volunteers - do are basically serving people in exchanging the coupons with wine and soda glasses.

As for others, they're given a duty to collect trash, but don't get me wrong. The duty doesn't all suck, but it's actually fun. I actually did contribute a bit in this trash collecting and it actually doesn't demand much more time and hardwork compared to the coupon tradings.

Astha and I were having fun during break.


Visiting Timothy, Cindy, and Michael's stall.


Cindy can't look any sweeter!


Eileena, Bella, Lynn, and Baron still pose with a smile despite the sweltering hot day!


Bumping into Al and Dennis while I was on duty


Keep those spirits up, Channon, Fuzuki, and Zoey!

After approx. 4 hours of exhausting shift, we finished up at 3pm. We were kinda split up at that moment and planned to meet up somewhere so that we could have late lunch together. Since there are bunch of restaurants to pick in the area, we were having a hard time to choose. While making up our minds, we decided to take some more pictures for memories.





Radiating peace!!!



And lastly, we did a group picture before leaving to the chosen restaurant!

We ended up having late lunch in a nearby Italian fusion in the Castro street's restaurant rows. I had myself a bolognaise which turned out not to be exactly what I imagined it to be (spaghetti), but more like ravioli. But still, it was sooo delicious!
We called it a day and it was time for us to part. I shared a ride with Baron, Channon, Lynn, and Zoey. I was dropped at home. I took a quick break before leaving again for a karaoke session with my other friends.

What a long day, and guess what, I'm beginning to tell stories off the topic of the original purpose of the post. Well, point is, it was a fun volunteering activity! Looking forward to joining fall's activities!

Proud to be Indonesian! -part 2

Before I thought of leaving the museum, just outside the galleries entrances, which is the main hall of the museum, I spotted a white stage where three people were sitting before a low-table. They were seemingly demonstrating or creating something with all materials on the low table.

The main hall itself was decorated with janur – some sort of a huge leaf decoration usually used in Indonesia for weddings and special occasions. I approached them. They consisted of two middle-aged men and a woman in the middle. For a while, I observed what they were working on, and apparently they were working on some sort of traditional artwork. I brought myself to talk.

Me: “Excuse me, (are you) Indonesians?”
Man 1: “Yes, are you also Indonesian?”
Me: “Yes, yes, apa kabar?”

And thus began my conversation. I hoped I didn't disturb their artwork progress. The woman and the other men seemed to be enthusiastic when they discovered that I was Indonesian. Good thing I bumped into them.

I spent about a couple of minutes engaging in a warm conversation with them. We basically shared basic topics ranging from “Where are you from in Indonesia?”, “Where do you live in the US?”, “What's the purpose of museum visit?”, etc. The female artist plastered a smile on her face and joined in the conversation.

Apparently they were native Balinese artists. Such an encounter was surely rare since when else would you bump into traditional native Indonesian people who wear traditional clothes and spoke with thick Balinese accent?

Dude, I feel like I'm at home at the moment
I felt so...overwhelmed when I met these guys.

Fuck the fact that I felt like an American earlier.

I noticed that the first man I talked to left for a bit before returning. Then I told them I would basically hang around for a bit in the exhibition hall. As I wandered off, I happened to pass the gallery doors again. By the time I passed it, the door was suddenly opened, revealing the same security I met earlier.

Security: “You want to come in?”
Me: “I don't have the exhibition ticket.”
Security: “That's alright. Just come in.”
Me: “Ooookay, thank you.”

I walked pass him and enter the first exhibition gallery, much to my surprise. It was pretty weird though. He wouldn't allow me to enter in the first place but when I passed the door again (without any intention to visit the Bali exhibition since I gave it up), he let me in.

There were some assumptions lingering in my mind:

1. The Indonesian man who left probably went to the security guy and told him to let me in
2. The security guy probably saw me talking to these Indonesian artists and went like “Holy shit, this girl is Indonesian. I felt so guilty for not letting in to the exhibition of her own country.”

The exhibition itself was not really packed with people. But at least there were some visitors taking their own tour inside. All the exhibits of course, seemed familiar to me. But the whole exhibition was set up in such a different way than the ones I saw back in Indonesian museums.

Somehow the exhibits here were well-kept, neat, and were provided with clean info panels. It was much on the contrary to Indonesian museums, where exhibits were mostly dusty, dirty, and even the museum atmosphere itself felt so stuffy.

I felt a bit crept out when I found myself in a quiet zone where there were no visitors, but the place was filled with traditional masks as exhibits. Well, you get the idea.

At the end of the exhibition tour, I bumped into a small theatre room, quite packed with people, which was playing a documentary video about Ngaben – Balinese cremation ritual. Pride went over me as I didn't feel the need of reading the subtitles as I could understand what those people were saying in the video.

After the video was done, I exited the theatre, which led me to the main hall again. This time, I noticed that the stage was surrounded by quite a few people. As a courtesy, I was intending to bid farewell to the Balinese artists because I was about to leave the museum. Apparently we chatted again despite the fact that the Balinese artists' demonstration was being watched by the visitors. It was as if the artists themselves didn't really care and kept talking to me. After all, the visitors didn't interact with the artists.

The dialogue was conducted in Bahasa.

Man 2: “What do you think of the exhibition?”
Me: “It was impressive, really. I really want to go here again but next time, with my friends.”
Man 2: “Do come again next time with your friends. Spread the word. We'll stick around here till September (don't remember the date)”
Me: “Okay, I'll be sure to pay you a visit sir.”
Man: “If you come on Sunday, you'll get a free entrance ticket to the museum, which is even better.”
Me: “Sure things, sir.”

At that moment, I'm pretty sure the viewers were observing the conversation that went on between me and the artists. I even spotted that one of the viewers was actually the participant of the field trip I just joined, aka my classmate. She was like looking at me in confusion. If only the history professor was there to witness my conversation. I wondered if I could get an extra credit point for making a conversation with these native Indonesian people.

Alas, it was hard for me to part with the artists and step out of the building. It came to my realization that Indonesian people possessed great tolerance and intention to connect with fellow Indonesians outside the mother country.

That is why, no matter there's a bunch of Indonesian people in my campus, at least we know each other. We don't have to be really close but at least we know who's who. Like my case, I felt great to be able to connect with these native Indonesian people. We were part of each other and that was what drove us to create those connections within.

Credit to: Gustavo Thomas Theatre.

I headed to the exit just when I met another field trip participant. She clearly wasn't my classmate. She came from a different section of history class. Apparently we were both heading to the same direction which was the Muni and Bart station. We walked together to the station and made friends. But at the station, we had to part since she had to take a Bart to the north and I had to take Muni back to Caltrain station.

I arrived at Caltrain station a bit earlier than expected. The upcoming train wouldn't show up until an hour (2 pm). I spent some time shopping around in Safeway and bought some snacks.

The train arrived in Sunnyvale Caltrain station at 3. I took a bus straight to my campus to catch up with my friends. It was Friday and practicing badminton every Friday at 3.30 pm became my routine. We had a good dinner after the practice later in the evening.

What a way to end such an exhausting yet impressive day!

<< Part 1

Proud to be Indonesian! -part 1

June 10, 2011 marked one of the most memorable events occurring this year for me. That day was supposedly going to be an exciting history field trip day to Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, with a couple of my friends.

Apparently, it didn't really start off well since my friends (who planned to go with me) gradually cancelled their trip plans just the night before the D-day due, leaving me on my own. At that time I was like “Fuck!” I was thinking to drop the field trip as well since I thought it was impossible for me to take off to SF by myself. But on a second thought, it would surely risk my grade. Even more, the day of the field trip was the day where I had to turn in my take-home exam. So it would surely cost a lot if I happened to be absent.

In the mean time, I came up with plan B: going to Asian Art Museum by myself. I quickly searched for the public transportations to take, the direction, and not to mention prepared the cash. If the plan worked (and it had to), it would be my very first solo (backpacking?) trip to a not-so-nearby city.

I took off early in the morning, counting myself on my phone's GPS. After all, GPS was all that I needed to avoid getting lost. I nearly lost my hope since the second bus that would take me to Sunnyvale Caltrain station hadn't come for almost half an hour, meanwhile the history professor wanted all students to be in the museum lobby by 10. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to make it in time. But just as my hope was about to leave, the bus came to my sight, much to my gratitude.

Going to San Francisco wasn't really as frantic as heading to the museum from SF Caltrain station (after a train ride which lasted approx. 1 hour). After all, I'd been to SF by public transport before, so at least I knew how to get there. Apparently, there was only one transport needed to go to Asian Art museum, which is by Muni (some sort of a monorail/subway). It wasn't really hard to go to Asian Art museum, as I only needed to get off in Civic Center station and walked less than a mile to my ultimate destination.

Despite being by myself at that moment, being inside Muni along with fellow Americans really gave me a strong impression as if I was one of them. It was a weird feeling, to leave my identity as an Indonesian for a while and allow myself to merge with them.

Took some pictures before entering the museum. The neighborhood that surrounded the museum offered a good deal of landscapes.

Guess what I found before entering the museum building.

Can't wait to see the Bali exhibition, but first, of course I needed to attend the field trip.

It was 10.30 am when I got there, which means, I was 30 minutes late. I quickly went to the admission and received my group tour badge. The admission guy didn't seem to know where the group was currently is.

Another problem: I needed to find the party on my own. Thus began my search of the group. I started from the third floor (the beginning of the whole exhibition) since I thought they have just started tour not so long ago. They should be around the beginning of the museum exhibition. The silence of the museum pretty helped me to find the group. Apparently I hadn't missed a lot so I was able to keep up with the tour.

The field trip itself quite left me with an ordinary impression. After all, it was a normal field trip, the kind of field trip you would usually involve in. Basically, with the history professor as the guide, my fellow classmates and I explored exhibition ranging from Chinese art, Korean art, to lastly Japanese art. It was impressive, still, but not till the end of the whole field trip.

The field trip ended with viewing Japanese exhibition gallery, which was located at the second floor (the main museum exhibition was located in the second and third floor. The first one is basically for special exhibition).

Anyway, after descending through an escalator and bidding my professor goodbye as well as my classmates, I thought for a second while looking at my watch. It was still 12pm. I had a club meeting in an hour and a half, but I thought if I took off back to Cupertino, I wouldn't be able to make it on time. So I decided to skip today's meeting (in fact, I already informed an officer and emailed him the presentation slides in case I wouldn't be able to make it to the meeting that day).

For a moment, I thought of visiting Bali exhibition wouldn't be troublesome. Instead of heading straight to exit, I stole some moment to go to Bali exhibition gallery. The gallery consisted of two galleries, when I was about to open one of the gallery's glass door, I spotted a security was standing at the entrance door side.

Security: “Do you have the ticket?”
Me: *dumbfounded and showed him the ticket I have*
Security: “Unfortunately you can't use this ticket. The privilege doesn't include this exhibition. You need to go to the admission and buy a ticket for this special exhibition.”
Me: “Alright. Thanks.”

So, I was thinking it would cost more for me if I spent more money. Well, I could always return to this place someday before September (when the exhibition would come to its end).

To be continued...

Part 2 >>

I miss fall quarter.

ohhitherebitchieess.
Finallyyyy, a post with quality after so long. Yeah, nothing much happened to me these days. I've been feeling so-so and more to bored especially these days. Not having mood swing to be exact. I dunno, maybe because Aunt Irma is approaching? Possible.

Just a few days ago, on the 9th, most of international students at my college struggled to get their seats in their preferred class. Yeah, it's registration day y'all!!

Yes, today I registered for my spring quarter classes. Wew, winter quarter has been a hectic and crazy quarter so far, compared to Fall Quarter. I only (yes only) had 14 credits (the minimum credits to achieve is 12) on Fall. This quarter I have 18, then Spring I'm going to have 20. I'm soo going to drop one of them, or at least I wanted to.

Oh my God speaking of Fall Quarter, I miss it so darn much. It touches me everytime I see this:

and I can definitely list down the reasons why:

E N G L I S H W R I T I N G C L A S S

1. Despite having a class that ended at 10pm (yeah, in the evening), I made many friends in English writing class. I miss them, really.
   
   
2. Aside of the bunch of homework the professor gave, she was also a very nice lady and made an evening class not as stressful as I thought it'd be.
   
   
3. I miss having a bite of snacks my friends had provided in the break time.
   
   
4. I miss reading Call of the Wild by Jack London no matter I got really stressed reading it since I was not into animal literature.
   
   
5. I miss having quizzes no matter I sometimes didn't do really well it them.
   
   
6. I freaking miss watching a movie nearing the end of the quarter. Call of the Wild FTW!!!
   
   
7. I miss my friend's "I spy on my panties" jokes while he actually meant to say "I spy on my patients."
   
   
8. I miss getting a ride from my Vietnamese friend back home.
   
   
9. I miss doing NINE FREAKING HOMEWORK that was to be turned in in every meeting. Duh. Like seriously.
   
   
10. I miss the book "Write Stuff" even though I know there's nothing much we learn there.
    
    
11. I miss that bonus question in every quiz that tested my knowledge about America
    
    
    

A L G E B R A C L A S S

1. I don't honestly miss the professor. He's one of a sarcastic, not-so-friendly, scary guy with dry jokes that I believe everyone would hate. Even he gets a low rating as a professor. The way he speaks and gestures reminds me of that typical army commander and that antagonist on James Cameron's Avatar. Well, maybe he was enlisted in the army before, don't know how he could end up in my campus lol. But now, after enrolling in Stats presently, I started to miss my Algebra professor's teaching method.
   
   But frankly speaking, he's nice, it's just that he's not that expressive when it comes to well...expressions. His kindness is somehow implied, instead of visibly seen. He lectured slowly and everytime he finished introducing a new Math topic, he always gave the students several problems to solve using the method and formula he just introduced.
   
   Then he'd try to remember each students' names and called them out with his deep, eerie voice that sent chill (as if he summoned you to step on to the execution podium) to make sure if they could solve the problems.
   
   My friend and I kind of talked about him in the middle of stressing over stats homework we hardly understood and how the stats professor didn't conduct 2 way communication.
   
   Our stats professor is like a total opposite of my Algebra professor in terms of personality: he's nice, friendly, jokes a lot, talks about random stuff, brings cookies to class for a sample example, very expressive, smiles a lot unlike my Algebra professor. But when my stats professor lectures in the speed of light, he's like talking to the white board and those series of slide-shows all by himself. My friend came up with the conclusion that "Our stats teacher doesn't care if we understand or not, he keeps giving us 'chocolates, branded bags, car' without giving us 'love'." So yeah, I don't really understand everytime he lectures.
   
   But being taught by my stats professor felt like I was given a hundreds of boxes of chocolate, a Mercedes Benz car, a pile of branded bags by my parents, but they didn't give me love. It's the same as my stats professor. He gave the students handout to study, which sadly the handouts feature a problem and the answer, without giving the solution. Math is all about solution. You can't achieve answers without going through the solution. The stats professor also gave out practice exams, but then that's it. He didn't review anything before the exam.
   
   Guess my friend and I are a bit biased on our Algebra professor in the previous quarter. Maybe it's just that I have my own preference on math teacher. Maybe I'm stupid at math particularly at stats (which is ironic since stats is supposed to be my favorite Math subject. I achieved the highest score in stats back in high school. I was even more ecstatic on taking stats rather than Algebra). But my friend that also shared the same feeling with me towards the stats teacher, was hella smart. I can tell. Smarter, much smarter than me.
   
   It's undeniable that I really suck at Math and I need a teacher to kindly and patiently guide me going through the problem using a solution. Maybe for some people in my stats class, the professor is the best because they have strong and fast perception towards math. They are fast learners. While after the lecture, there's always this big question mark on my brain. I always need to self-teach myself and my friend, finding the answers by ourselves through our studies and research since the professor doesn't help much.
   
   Dude, I mean that's what a Math professor's supposed to do: conducting a practice for students to make sure they understand the topic! Math is not just about talking, lecturing, introducing the formula, doing the examples without giving the students the chance to do them, then just letting the students leave after class, leaving a big question mark in their brains.
   
   Like one time, my Algebra professor went over to my desk to hand me a Math exam and said "Carissa, good job." (see how he remembered my name, and not just my name but everyone's names in the class? I'm not kidding. Again, he called out my name which has the same tone as saying "Carissa, any last words?" Very much contradictory) with his signature yet scary frown on his face. The stats teacher seems to bother to remember students' names I guess.
   
   To conclude everything, my Algebra professor what an ideal math professor should be.
   My friend and I couldn't help but think why our stats professor got a much higher rating than our Algebra professor.
   
   I guess I could compare my Algebra professor to Kikujiro, the character from the movie of the same name. In the movie, Kikujiro is a bitter person, unfriendly, and rude, but deep down he's a very nice person and cares to the kid that he helps out.
   
   My friend and I really hoped that our Algebra professor taught Stats in the first place. That way we'd definitely take his class instead of our current Stats professor's.
   
   Screw Stats
   Praise Algebra
   
   
2. Moving on, phiew, finally. I got 100 for the first time in my Math history for over 14 years. Finally. Finally. Finally. FINALLYYY!!
   
   
3. I miss asking questions even though the Algebra might think of me as a dumb person for not knowing what an "Every Other Odd" number is.
   
   
4. I miss selecting problems from the textbook as homework problems. What an un-stressful way to do homework, especially when you don't have to turn it in.
   
   
5. I miss having quizzes every meeting. It really helped me boosting my score and develop my Algebraic skills
   
   
6. I miss feeling NOT SLEEPY in math class. That's a very phenomenal yet scarce experience since I always yawn if exposed to numbers and math formulas.
   
   
7. I miss feeling challenged to my classmates. I miss the feeling that I know I should beat my other classmates in terms of Algebra, since I have a bit Algebraic background back in high school so yeah, that really helped a lot.
   

G R A P H I C D E S I G N C L A S S

1. Err...I have no specific impression about this class at all. The students are just silent. They are like captivated by their own computers without giving attention to other classmates, like the employees in Ministry of Truth in the novel 1984 by George Orwell. So basically my Indonesian friend and I are like the loudest in the classroom and probably the only ones that talk in the class.
   
   The picture below might explain everything.
   
   
   
   
   
   And yeah, we do take pictures in the classroom even though we know the professor was there. Aymee even took a picture of the professor candidly lol.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Overall my grades in Graphic Design class are just fine.
   
   
3. The professor doesn't leave me much impression, except the fact that he reminds me of a Santa Claus.
   
   
4. The only thing that I love about this class is how the professor doesn't give us much projects. Only four projects in a quarter! And you can actually finish that project in a day if you want to. Well, or so I thought, because I'm talking about a short, simple project that a non-Adobe Photoshop-er can even finish within a day. So after you finish a day/meeting working on your project, you'll spend like four meetings ahead doing nothing but editing or making some new samples of your current project until a new project was introduced.
   
   
5. I also miss going home half an hour after the class started, because after a short lecture by the professor, people literally just leave the class and prefers to do the projects at home.

H I P H O P C L A S S

1. I miss my friends. They're mostly outgoing people. At first I was a bit afraid of them since they were kind of those street boys you see on TV, you know, wearing baggy jeans, messy look, piercings all over their body (not really though). But then they turned out to be really nice and didn't even bother help each other out when it comes to difficult choreography
   
   
2. I miss especially the second choreography piece, using the song "Make Me" by Janet Jackson. Personally for me, the dance movement strongly resembles that of jazz movement. Apparently everyone else in the class seems to like the second piece so much. In fact at one time, everyone in the class was simply addicted to the dance that they were excited to dance it over and over again. Even when the instructor (not the professor) called it a day, we were all like "Again! Again!"
   
   
3. I miss especially the finals. So awesome seeing everyone making up their choreography piece for the finals. One of my friends dared to perform belly dancing instead of normal hip hop which gained applause from everyone.
   
   
4. I extremely don't miss my professor. That's out of the question. It's obvious that he picked favorites. Period
   

All in all, there's a reason on top of all my reasons that I classified by classes.I kind of feel fall quarter was like a temporary stay for me. Because before I even got to go to the US, my mom had booked me the ticket to return on December 10 (speaking of that, I haven't finished the Homecoming story). So it felt more like homestay or summer class where I was supposedly scheduled to go home by the end of the quarter.

Also, maybe because it was my first quarter, I still felt fresh and so ready for college life. I was still hella excited to embrace it. That's why for me, everything in Fall Quarter was like a new, exciting experience, like meeting new friends, curious what kind of friends I would get, where they came from you know.

Now can I just scream out loud?
I FREAKING MISS FALL QUARTER!!

I miss lacking of depression that I felt. It felt truly relaxing and enjoyable. Well, at some points I did feel a bit stressed especially on English (when it comes to dealing with 9 freaking homework to be turned in in every meeting). But other than that, everything's fine.

Yeah, Fall Quarter felt so short. You know what those people say: time flies when we enjoy ourselves.

Nice weekend guys.

ISV+ISO

This winter quarter, I determined to get my butt off to work and make myself active. I intended to avenge my laziness last quarter with something quite extreme to do this quarter, which is to get myself involved in a club activity.

So, I didn't really know how I ended up in International Student Volunteer. Nobody promoted me this club before, nor telling me what it was like to be in it. But all my curiosity was answered as soon as I got involved in the first meeting. Much to my surprise, there were like around six or seven Indonesian students listed as the members and staff of the club! You'll feel the convenient vibe being in this club due to the welcoming, warm, and friendly members.
Especially the club reminds me a lot with English Club back in high school days.

The first volunteer activity kicked off the day after the first meeting's day. We basically visited this community center in San Jose, doing soup kitchen, from cutting the potatoes, cracking eggs, to making sandwiches. Definitely fun that we even forgot how time flew so fast!

A week after the first volunteer activity, the club held a potluck, where members were recommended to bring food, fingerpick snacks, and drinks to the venue for lunch. I decided to bring with me tortilla chips and cookies. What was even more exciting, we played some games after the quick lunch.







Too bad I couldn't stay for so long in the potluck as two of my Indonesian friends and I were going to attend another event that Saturday afternoon. But it was yet another fun event held by Indonesian Student Organization. Compared to ISV which I previously attended, the ISO event was much shorter, but I had a great time reconciling with my Indonesian friends. We took pictures as you can see them below.

The festive ended soon as people started heading home and even some headed somewhere else. I was quite exhausted that day that I requested to be taken home. However, it's been a nice day, what a way to spend weekend.

Anyway, seems I drifted out of topic, from once talking about my current club activity, to some other event that's totally unrelated. Well, it's weekend. I've been spending much of my time gathering more inspiration on what to post more in this blog. Certainly there are bunch that I want to post but it's just that I'm looking for some free time to do that.

Have a nice weekend guys!

Pink Attacks!

Thermal camera effect = EPIC

Notice anything new?
The whole thing turns back to pink, doesn't it? What a blast!

1. I decided to change everything back to my all time favorite color, pink. I used to have a pink layout combined with dark color scheme, but then I decided to change everything to light layout, for the sake of readers' sight.
   
   
2. Also, notice the change on the banner on top of the page? Yeah, I finally got to make a new one, and hopefully, it looks fit enough with the entire pink colored layout. That's the result of downloading Photoshop CS5 Extended version trial edition! Yeah, it's trial and it's limited only for 30 days of usage, but I guess that's enough for me to save more money for Master Collection and at least release my longing to Photoshopping in my personal computer.
   
   
3. The Cbox has been bombarded by visitors who misuses it for spamming. So I decided to delete the old one and make a new one. I was thinking to just remove the spams, but there're like bunch of them so it takes a hella time to do that. The new Cbox that I made came up with fresher look and hopefully, the color scheme that matches the layout.
   
   
4. Sometimes it makes me wonder where my readers or drop-by-ers come from. Then it came to my mind that installing Live Feedjit would be a good idea. If you don't know what I'm talking about, see the widget on the right side bar, and see if your current city is listed there.
   

Yeah, so basically that's it. I'm still fond of the basic layout including the "center-text" and "side-bar" thingy.

Anyway, short yet quick news regarding college life.
This is the classes I'm definitely going to take for winter quarter.



Wondering why I scratched the 'definitely' word?

Because there's a chance for me to drop it in case I change my mind.
Hopefully, they're all fixed though. I don't want to deal with the whole tuition fee refund stuff. It takes time. Such a pain in the butt.

There are lots of class to take. Credits to obtain, even the credits taken for next quarter is more than credits I'm taking right now.
Next quarter is going to be busier than ever.

がんばってください！^^

welcome autumn...

Autumn (or preferably called Fall by Americans) is officially here, but I haven't felt a bit of the weather change here.

It still feels pretty much like summer, all the windy stuff and not so chilly air (except in the evening). I just tuned my self at the weather forecast on TV and when the weather man said "It's the last day of summer." I just put my trust in him.

Anyway, not so much to tell these days. Well actually there are quite many to tell, especially regarding my activities prior to the beginning of college days. I did go to this mischievous kind of place called Mystery Spot, but I'm going to tell you that later.

Speaking of fall, I have something important to tell you dear readers:

SCHOOL COLLEGE OFFICIALLY STARTED THIS WEEK

You know what that means. All the assignments have been waiting to be finished, and they have piled up since the first day of college. I know as days go on, the pile will only but grow thicker and thicker until I have no idea where else to put them.
Even I just finished doing my math homework halfway. It is halfway but at least I'm satisfied how I could set a target of finishing a bunch of homework but not doing it in a whole, but in parts. So part 1 of my overall 60something problems is done!

Here's my timetable schedule if you want to take a look
Also, I'm doing this to test my mac's screencapping ability

It looks very small I know, but at least you get that I have three classes. I'm not going to put ONLY since they're not ONLY three classes. You may say "Well, it's a good thing for you to have only three classes cos I have more than them."

The thing is, yes, I have - what you said with 'only' - three classes but in return, I have homeworks twice the amount of the classes I'm currently enrolled in.

One thing you should keep in mind that college ain't like school, especially when you go to the one not in your country. All the system and schooling system are completely different in Indonesia, especially when students here are given the liberty to choose their own classes not depending on levels or grades. So it's possible (not possible, but it DOES happen to me for real) if a freshman like me can get into the same class with sophomores, as in people who are much smarter than me.

Don't let me blabber all night long here. It sucks when I do -__-.
Okay it's already late at night here and I gotta go to sleep. Catch y'all later :D

holly molly

I'm skype-ing with my mom right now. She has no idea that actually I'm doing that while blogging at the same time.
It's officially the second week of my holiday period and started to get busy with school stuff (ugh, here we go again). Yesterday's labor day was so-so. I went to campus to pay for the tuition without realizing that labor day was actually (here) considered a holiday. Stupid me -___-

But yesterday, I'm glad I could finish up all college matters, from tuition payment, appointment with the counselor, to books purchasing.

Of all total three books that I needed to purchase, here's the one I got for today since the other two weren't available.

INTERMEDIATE ALGEBRA, PPL!

From the first time I got the book in my hand (geez, it was darn heavy), I wondered if maybe I took the wrong book. It was more like a dictionary instead of the everyday-math-book! Wow, I guess I've to let go of high school life. College life IS pretty much more different.
Even worse, I can't stand the extremely unreasonable price (veeeerrry pricey!! You would think that that's the most expensive book you've ever heard)
Definitely the most expensive book I've ever purchased as well, and the fact that actually I spent that much money to buy the book of my most disliked subject. Ew.

In the mean time, I'm becoming quite an avid fan of selca (self-taken pictures). Thanks to Photo Booth application though.

Here are some other few shots. Out of many effects the application offers, apparently only four of them succeeded to attract me.

Plenty of things to do for the next days. There might be some plans with my friends. We're planning to attend some activities and events, and as for leisure activities, maybe we'll just hang out to the closest shopping center, kill time by watching movies at the theatres, going to nearby theme park, or go to places like San Jose or San Francisco (again).

I'm still hoping I could go to Los Angeles in this short distance. I long for big cities, tall buildings, bunch of cars lining up (the one that you call traffic jam. Oh shiz, why am I saying bad stuff like this?)

[ORIENTATION] all those aches finally paid off!

It's lame. I'm currently experimenting with my webcam.
Just figured out that it had this quirky yet unique feature almost like frames on purikura machines

Today's orientation day, plus my first day of college!!

It was exciting!
The most fun part is, I got to meet a lot of new international students coming from various countries. I felt a bit nervous and awkward before though, knowing I will be speaking English a lot, and not to fellow Indonesians like usual, but to foreigners.

Yeah, it really challenges the heck out of me that I needed to collect all my guts.

Elda and I arrived at the campus earlier than the time the orientation started and the campus grounds were still very quiet.
Then there were these two girls running towards us, but then one of the girls stopped midway and apologized to us. Apparently, she thought that either me or Elda was her friend who planned to meet her at that place. But Elda and I ended up having a short talk with them and turned out that they came from Korea and Vietnam. Too bad we didn't get to ask their names.

The orientation went well though. It started with a welcome greeting and some presentations regarding to bank accounts.
I got to sit with fellow Indonesians who apparently came from different provinces (Surabaya, Makassar, and a few more from Jakarta). Well I guess since it's the first day, everyone feels more comfortable sitting with those who have the same nationality (speaking of same languages that we speak, ahem).

Oh and one more thing...
There are bunch of Indonesian students.

They're really nice though, and you know that there's this certain feeling - I can't decide if it's a proud feeling or what - but it's when you feel estatics to be an Indonesian and that you get to meet other Indonesians.
It would be no surprise though, since the agent told me already that this campus would possess a heap of Indonesian students, well, unless you're stranded somewhere in an isolated place in this world and happen to meet one.
Then it'd be another story.

Second largest group would be from Hong Kong and China. I quickly made friends with two Chinese girls sitting right in front of my seats. You can tell how exciting it really is to finally be able to make friends with international students. As I said, I did feel a bit awkward at first though. But it's like two cultures collide! You know it's the kind of feeling you can hardly describe by words, and you can tell how I'm bad at describing feelings so... yeah I'm lame at that, forgive me.

The next activity of the whole first day orientation was campus tour. The campus grounds are a really wide place with many buildings, so much different from my school building or any school buildings in Jakarta. Gah. Well, it's a college campus anyway. ^^
Later on we had this really huge chicken and corn salad and I met this girl from Hong Kong. We had lunch together with the other Indonesian students.

Placement tests are next.
English as a Second Language test is easy, and so is Algebra. Actually Algebra placement test is directed to those who don't plan to take any of science majors, so yeah it's actually pretty easy and the fact that the questions ARE ACTUALLY ALMOST THE SAME AS NATIONAL EXAMS made me feel quite confident doing it.
Those who are going to take science majors are required to take Calculus placement test.
Good thing I didn't take this test. I didn't even know what Calculus is like. I mean, Algebra sounds more common to my ears.

Oh have I told you that the day before I went to campus and visited the International Student Office?
There I met a student who volunteered in the office and today I met her again. I thought she'd forget me but then after spotting her at lunch, she happened to greet me.
What a surprise that people here seemed to memorize other people's faces. It's a good thing though.

Approaching the end of the whole activities, I happened to talk with a Vietnamnese student who turned out to have finished her Master Degree and transferred to this college. Even more, when I was about to walk out of the college with my two Chinese friends, I was picked up by my parents and I told my mom that they came from China. My mom sort of had this unlimited gut and happened to chat with them in Chinese.

I felt so embarrassed that my Chinese ain't as good as my mom's. -_____-

Right from campus, me, Elda, and our parents headed for an Indonesian restaurant located at Sunnyvale called Bayleaf, pretty close to our hotel. I had myself a Batavia Beef Stew (Soto Betawi) for dinner.
It felt good to finally munch on this familiar dish!!

All in all, today's a great day and no pressure yet since it's only the first day of college, which is orientation. Tomorrow's a day off since it'd be another group's orientation day, exactly the same with today's activity only with different group.
Gotta take care of the wifi network installation tomorrow at the apartment :)

--------
P.S: After I arrived at the hotel, I got a bit heartburn and worse, I didn't bring any heartburn medicines from Indonesia. I don't know why but maybe I had dinner a little too early so that's why.
But that heartburn and hand aches (due to writing a very looong essay that everyone happened to say "Oh your writings are so neat but they're so small." and "You should be a font maker!" on the placement test) finally paid off since today's a very exciting day...

Have a nice day guys :)

overheated

Yeaaahhh
Finally a quality post is up!! Along with pictures of my life here in the USA so far.

These pictures are taken from my phone though. I haven't uploaded the ones from my camera. Even I haven't taken much pictures from my camera these days.

The picture you see above is quite a mess, eh?
That's because I've just finished studying mathematics for the day after tomorrow's orientation/placement test. Still I have no idea what the orientation would be, but this nice counselor told me and Elda that one of its orientation activities would be placement or assessment test.
Whatever you call it.

It feels good though, to review everything from the beginning of my thick math exercise book (it was a compilation of my math exercise book starting from my high school freshman year up until the 12th grade).

I felt like going back to the phase where I felt so stressed prior to National Examination, but this placement test won't take much of the depression. It's a PLACEMENT test after all. No failing or winning.
Just finding which class you'd be good at.
Still, hardwork is required to achieve the best position

But aahh..my head!!! I've studied for three hours nonstop only with a burger, fries, and a cup of coffee!!! My head's on fire!!!

The blue picture you see above IS NOT A PHOTOSHOP TRICK. I didn't use paint bucket to make the canvas look totally blue as what you might assume.
While waiting for the bus at the bus stop, I got distracted by the beautiful cloudless sky (the sky in Jakarta always looks dull and cloudy). But the sky here is just so different, with hardly not a single cloud seen.

Ah, this one's not so important. It's just my daily food I buy at Panda Express, a fast food restaurant selling rice and stuff. The portion is sooo huge!! In Indonesia, I usually eat like one and a half scoop of rice, but here, you get like three scoops of rice.
Almost double the portion!
I'm still not getting used to not eating rice every single day. Oh my Indonesian trait. -___-

Even more surprising (or scary) I find myself finishing all the three scoops of rice along with their side dishes. Appetite's rising? Possible. But I need fat, and this place seems to be a good one for me to obtain more fat.

--------------------------
Forgot to say...
HAPPY FASTING FOR ALL MOSLEMS :)
Fight the temptations!

Apparently no Ramadhan vibe here at all. It's going to take a good deal of determination to beat the temptations in this place, IF I'm fasting.

numb

Hello yellow...
Yes, I'm already in the US, currently staying at a hotel in Sunnyvale prior to the beginning of the the college term. That's about a few miles from San Franscisco. So yeah, I just arrived here three days ago, still getting over my jetlag, settling down and everything.
Can't get the fact why, despite it's summer, the weather and everything is really cold in here. The sun is pretty nice though

Oh gosh, my vocab is decreasing rapidly. Forgive me for that, since I haven't written quite often. How lame....

Good thing that my friend from my high school, Elda, is also about to attend the college's fall quarter with me and we're also going to share our apartment together. Even more, we found this decent apartment just a few blocks from the campus, and it'll take like five minutes away from the campus by bus.
Pretty convenient eh?

Our parents are still with us these three weeks before they leave us to Jakarta. Meanwhile, orientation will be on August 16, which is next week. Me and Elda have taken a look around the campus grounds and even we had a talk to these nice counselor ladies about our orientation preparation.

However, the city where I'm going to live is going to be different from the city that I currently stay in right now.
It's pretty near though, and only like quite a few miles away from here by bus.
The city is very convenient so far, resided by mostly Asians (I even spotted some good Korean and Japanese restaurants around the area!! Yay!!) and surely much better from Jakarta, sorry to say.

I've actually taken loads of picture already, but I haven't got the time to post them, since me, Elda, and our parents are currently loading our stuff and furniture to our new apartment.
Right now, I'm still posting this at the hotel, so probably I'll have my real post right after moving in. Stay tune for that...

Seven days and counting

Seven days to go!!!
Arrgh can't believe I'll be leaving in a week!! I've started packing today and guess what, I just didn't feel like doing it. Even it came to my realization that I won't be spending Ramadhan days in Indonesia.

How sad to know that I won't be able to feel the whole vibe of Ramadhan, the fasting breaking occasions, the food...I'm so going to miss everything. but anyway, I just found out that the college does have a moslem community. Hopefully they'll make some sort of event to welcome the holy month

Gotta be excited, gotta be excited, gotta be excited

One thing I need to think right now aside of my departure is, none other than the concert coming up on the 5th.

Also, I need to finish Trip to Taiwan before leaving. This week is going to be a little tough and I'm talking about farewells. I have a solution to keep people not sad about my leaving. Here's what I tell them. "Shoo me!" Haha but in a good way of course, to motivate me so that this urge of my going abroad will somehow emerge.

Anyway...

HAPPY FRIENDSHIP DAY GIRLS/GUYS!!

We may go on separate ways, but promise never to lose touch

Save your energy :)

Phiew, I'm currently taking a break from writing about my trip to Taiwan as you can see.
It's been a quite busy week for me, since now I'm taking two weeks of part time job at EF shortly after finishing all levels. Working was quite a normal experience to me especially in the very first days, but then I changed my mind as soon as I made friends at workplace :)
I find that working is a fun, extraordinary new thing for me!!

I got to learn lots of stuff I haven't done before. Thanks to EF staff, especially from Cinere for the guidance. I'm a rookie, haven't experienced much on this stuff. :)

s

This week, the promotion at the previous EF branch I worked in was over, and now it's time for another EF branch to begin their promotion week. This EF is much closer to my house and I've started working there since Monday.

Um, oh in case you're wondering, yes, I'm leaving for the US next week. Apparently my mom didn't approve my choosing to be enrolled at Binus International majoring in Art and Design. Apparently she has planned all the way to send me to US even before my acceptance in Binus. So, yeah, bye Binus.

Sad?
Well, in one side yes, sure. Will you feel sad to leave your hometown for months or maybe a year? Frankly I don't want to feel that way, even though maybe I'll experience that phase, but hopefully not that severe until I have to cry rolling on the floor *soap opera much?* -___-. I'll try to be excited as I can as my friend told me in Facebook. "Are you excited?"
I'm about to reply to her that "Yes, I have to be excited somehow!"

Everyone who have to leave their hometown to pursue a career somewhere else must at least experience this phase.

Plus,
SMTown artists will be coming to LA on September 4!
There will be SNSD, Kangta, BOA, SHINee, f(x), and even... *clears throats*

SUPER JUNIOR.

I've reserved a ticket but looking forward to paying it as soon as I arrived in the USA. Even though LA is considered near to my college town, Cupertino (near San Francisco), but the transportation is still highly needed. I'm still looking for the flight schedule, the hotel, and more important...a friend to accompany me all the way from Cupertino to Staples Center, the concert venue.

I don't want to put my hopes too high though. I'm thankful already that someone has offered me tickets and I've reserved one. But for now, I just want to think about college and settling down. I need time to adapt and get used to American culture, people, and surroundings. :)

There's something else that bothers my mind right now.
No, not about the college, not even about the SMTown Concert. Well, it's another concert. My concert, and it's coming ahead in like...A WEEK!!

Anyway, it's funny somehow when I speak about two different concerts at the same time to my dad (SMTown and my violin concert), these topics get a bit mixed up.

Rhondo Alla Turca has been a hella song for me. Nice song. I can play it a bit on the piano, but violin? Well...it's as difficult as the piano version. Hard to tell.

Another trouble that bothers me and maybe this isn't that necessary:
All musicians participating in the concert WON'T BE PAID.
Otherwise, us - musicians - have to pay a certain amount of money (considerably pricey for me) to pay for the production items, stuff like electricity, stage, consumption, etc.

I'm not being money oriented or anything.
I'm talking about the talent the institute uses. We're not doing any charities, in fact us - musicians - are offered to promote the music school. We help the music school to gain success and attract more people to sign up, at least we need something in return. It's like, you see that branded products hire musicians, actresses, or singers to help them promote their stuff, and in return, those artists do get something or paid, in this situation.

So please, music school, if you care about us, you'll give us something to us as a gratitude sign rather than ask us to spend more and more money for you.
It doesn't have to be money. But at least, don't ask us to pay if it's for nothing to be given to us.