Blessing in Disguise (continued)

Today is my deadline for the article revision, and I haven't done anything about it yet. Well, they only wanted me to revise the non essential things in my writing, but I'd like my writing to be perfect since this is a second chance, right? And since it will be published worldwide, I cannot embarrass my university by writing a mediocre article (though I don't know very well about a perfect article hehehe). So here I am, trying to make my writing more powerful.

Errrrrrr....I don't know what to write, though I have been thinking about it very much since I was given the chance to revise it for more than two weeks! I know I have to write something about the need for leadership in a poor community in Indonesia, it's all in my head but never comes to my fingers :-P

Instead, I feel the urge to recall my "blessing in disguise" experience while hoping my numb brain to be a little smart so that I could finish the revision today.

Starting with the day when my friend and I planned to go to Turkey embassy to apply for the visa. That very morning I realized I haven't prepared documents for visa application. So I rushed to the office at 8.30 am and asked my secretary to write a letter for the embassy. Well, I already had one actually, but I didn't know where I kept it so I asked her to write another letter. My friend kept calling me and it's already 9 am. The office was open only until 11 am for visa application, and my friend had already been there.

I rushed to Kuningan from Pasar Minggu, damn....total traffic jam! In short, I arrived in the embassy at 11 am. Hehehe...My friend (well...without her I won't have my blessings I guess...thanks Mbak) told her husband to issue the ticket in a travel agent office (the deadline for issuing the ticket is 12 pm that day). So we kind of dividing jobs so that all the businesses are done in time. I haven't changed my IDR into USD yet, so she lent me the money. It was soooo kind of her.

At the embassy, we got to queue up, and we got number 34 and 35. The queuing was only number 10...it was really like a nightmare...Finishing the application form, it's still number 11, the queuing was going very slowly. I killed my time by reading some tour guides available, when suddenly a guy dropped us a number 14 queue and murmured "you need this". Stoned a while, then we happily hopped into the queuing, well it's still no.12 but I don't mind waiting behind 2 other people. We collected our documents into one doc only. The business was ended smoothly by 12 pm. Well, there was some trade-in business there, I helped the lady from the embassy for her community charity and she helped me with my visa (obviously I need one more help from her the day after).

On the way home to office, my friend told me that her husband already bought the ticket and on his way home he was called by the lady from the travel agency and told him that there was a mistake about the price. I didn't really understand why they could issue that ticket in the first place. She told him that she didn't saw the tax incurred and blah blah blah...so we had to add the tax (USD25 each). It's really really really annoying...I called the lady and said I'd like to cancel it immediately. My friend agreed with me, and we called the other travel agency. The deadline for issuing the ticket was tomorrow at 12pm, so I told my friend that we were going to issue the ticket tomorrow.

In the afternoon, suddenly a professor from Nijmegen e-mailed me about his going to invite me to visit his university on my way to Turkey. This had me think of the serendipity phenomenon happened in my life. Did the cancelled ticket has something to do with the invitation, or was it about my dream to come to Europe so the nature really helped me this time? Or the professor really listened to my dream that I really really wanted to come to Europe months ago when he visited us in Jakarta? Or like a friend of mine who is so lucky this year, I also am so lucky? Whatever the reason was, it's surely a very sweet serendipity happened in my life. So that night I called my friend that I changed my plan, and will tell her my plan tomorrow morning.

She again helped me finding budget airlines to extend my trip to Netherlands. The lady from the Turkey embassy helped me extend my visa in Turkey for another week so that I could transit in Istanbul on my way from Amsterdam to Jakarta (thank you...). And that very day...I had a ticket of Jakarta - Istanbul - Amsterdam - Istanbul - Jakarta, but had to pay another USD400ish. Well....it's very worth it I guess. And what's left? Of cooozzz.....the visa for entering Europe!! Helloooo...Turkey is not a member of EU!!! (...to be continued)

Blesing in Disguise (again)

Now it's a story of my blessings in disguise. Just so you know, I am a real procrastinator, and I can't help it. And this is a story of a procrastinator, with a big disclaimer DON'T DO THIS TO YOURSELF.

As my research abstract for a congress was accepted, the committee asked a full article of it. Together with the standard for article writing, they sent a letter to the accepted abstract writers to write the full article to be submitted in August 31, 2009 at the latest. When did they ask the people to submit the full article? In June. Well...that was a very long period to write one article. And so it was...I forgot about it until four days before the deadline (thanks to my mobile agenda).

Four days prior to the deadline, I realized that I haven't written anything yet. I got anxious for minutes....then my adrenaline went up. Suddenly I used my spare time wisely, and felt soooo content. Until oneday...a day before we went to Bandung to have fun. I knew all too well that I wouldn't have time to think about the article while having fun, so I pushed myself hard to write the night before Bandung, and stopped when I felt that it's already met the committee's standard. Hehehe...now you know the quality of my work :-P

To make the long story short, my article was accepted to be published in a book together with other selected works. Wow...it's easy to write, really...given my ability in English that is as bad as my Batak language. Hehehe...

To be continued....gotta go to bed now. Exhausted being an evil and angel today :-)

Cicak!!!

Masih ingat lagu "Cicak-cicak di dinding..."? Akhir-akhir ini aku selalu teringat lagu ini setiap kali melihat cicak di rumahku. Hanya saja kali ini syairnya ganti jadi "cicak-cicak di lantai...diam-diam merayap". Betapa menggelikan...(dalam arti yang sebenarnya).

Komunitas cicak di rumahku punya kebiasaan merayap di lantai instead of dinding, entah kenapa. Berkali-kali kakiku menyentuh badan mereka yang dingin, dan mereka pun seperti tidak takut padaku. Mungkin karena tak pernah sekalipun aku membunuh mereka, meskipun ingin tapi tak pernah terlaksana (gak tega euy, binatang paling gede yang berani kubunuh cuma lalat, and sometimes ular dalam mimpi karena kalau lagi mimpi ketemu ular, aku bisa memerintahkan diriku menjadi wonder woman...hehehe pengkhayal sejati).

Berkali-kali aku beradu pandang dengan cicak. Ya Allah...kok ya beradu pandang sama cicak bisa berkali-kali gitu lho...bukannya sama cowok. Sialan betul tuh cicak. Matanya yang besar dan menonjol itu sedang mencari apa aku pun tak tahu. Ada semut di dekatnya dicuekin. Mungkin memang betul dia sedang waspada memandangku yang memelototinya dengan galak supaya dia cepat-cepat lari ke bawah kulkas (tempat pelarian favoritnya kalau sudah ketakutan melihat mata galakku).

Sebetulnya aku mau saja berteman dengan mereka, seperti berteman dengan ikan-ikan di kolam, atau dengan Mi'i si kucing besar nan galak tapi manjanya minta ampun. Tapi mereka adalah binatang berdarah dingin yang memiliki tampang tak ramah. Mengingatkanku pada Billy the Kid (halah...) atau mafioso Italia yang tak kenal ampun pada korbannya.

Ya sudahlah...cicak tetaplah cicak...biarlah mereka di sana asalkan tidak mengganggu aku. Aku tak mencintainya tapi juga tak membencinya. Mamaku bilang dia penting ada untuk melahap nyamuk supaya kita tak terkena penyakit-penyakit yang dibawa nyamuk. Aku hanya berharap, semoga cicak-cicak di rumahku cukup pintar untuk melaksanakan tugas mulianya itu, karena nyamuk di rumahku cukup banyak kali yeeee...

Catatanku kok ya gak penting amat ya?