Debby@Home

“I asked God for strength that I might achieve; I was made weak that I might humbly learn to obey. I asked for help that I might do greater things; I was given infirmity that I might do better things. I asked for all things that I might enjoy life; I was given life that I might enjoy all things. I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hope for; almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered. I among all men am truly blessed”

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Location: Depok, West Java, Indonesia

I am an ordinary woman with extraordinary interest in everything

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

This is my way...

Akhir-akhir ini saya iseng menjadi observer beberapa hal yang menurut saya menarik. Korban observasi pertama saya adalah para mahasiswa saya, yang punya kewajiban membuat tulisan setelah sekian minggu dibombardir dengan informasi (kalau tidak boleh mengatakan pengetahuan). This is very interesting indeed...given the fact that I was a student myself and I already did what they are doing right now.

The difference is: I did it smarter and in a customer-focus manner. Ketika membuat tulisan (di program magister all you do is writing paper...paper...and paper...), saya sangat mempertimbangkan pembaca saya, i.e. dosen saya. Saya mencoba "membaca" keinginan mereka, dan gaya tulisan mereka. Unfortunately yang terakhir ini agak jarang saya temukan, karena dosen-dosen saya jarang menulis :-P Akhirnya saya recall saja kuliah-kuliah bersama mereka, dan membuat draft tulisan yang nantinya berulang kali dibaca dan direvisi.

Pada setiap tulisan, saya tidak pernah mencoba menulis melebar ke kiri dan ke kanan, tetapi selalu ingin menukik ke bawah (eh ke dalam maksudnya). Artinya, saya ingin mendalami sesuatu sampai saya paham betul sesuatu itu. Kalau perlu buka kamus, saya buka kamus untuk memahami asal kata dari istilah2 yang saya tulis.

Yang paling sering saya lakukan adalah merawak (browsing) internet demi mencari pengertian2 yang kontradiktif sehingga saya bisa menetapkan saya berpijak di mana, karena kata nenek saya: dimana bumi dipijak di situ langit dijunjung. Nggak ada hubungannya sebetulnya...

Seringkali satu tulisan saya hanya berisi satu pokok pikiran. Biarlah...yang penting saya jadi paham, karena bagi saya...menulis adalah dalam rangka membuat saya menjadi paham.

Kembali ke para mahasiswa, mengamati tulisan saya tidak hanya membuat saya overwhelmed, tetapi juga berdecak kagum. Mereka dapat menyajikan satu ensiklopedia di dalam satu tulisan 10 halaman! Kalau saya hanya sanggup membuat satu atau lebih tulisan dengan menggunakan satu grand theory saja (itu pun sudah cukup untuk membuat satu buku), maka mereka mampu membuat satu tulisan dengan 4 grand theories!!! luar biasa...hanya itu yang bisa saya katakan. Tapiiii....biasanya saya menilai tulisan sesuai dengan ekspektasi saya, yang saat ini menjadi customer dari tulisan2 tersebut :-P

Mengapa mereka sampai bisa sesadis itu menulis? Pengakuan mereka adalah telah terjadi information overloaded di kepala mereka, yang membuat mereka ingin membahas segala sesuatu dari perspektif yang berbeda-beda. Masih untung semua perspektif itu masih berada dalam satu paradigma: positivistik...lha kalau diperluas lagi ke paradigma lain...jadinya kayak membahas konsep Tuhan dari perspektif agama-agama...untuuuung yang ngajarin filsafat tidak sampai membuat mereka overloaded :-)

Satu hal lain yang berbeda sama sekali adalah fenomena orang mencari sekolah. Tadi saya iseng merawak ke situs universitas saya, ada calon pendaftar S2 yang bertanya kepada admin website tentang pendidikan S2 yang kegiatan kuliahnya di akhir pekan. Yang ditanya pertama kali adalah pendidikan yang diminatinya, tapi pertanyaan kedua yang paling menarik "kalau tidak ada S2 administrasi di akhir pekan, ada tidak S2 bidang lain yang kuliahnya akhir pekan?"

Kuliah S2 kok kayak mau rekreasi ya? Lha kalau dijawab "ada, di Fakultas Teknik" apa gak kayak bumi dan langit tuh...administrasi dengan teknik? Pertanyaan asal, jawabnya pun males-malesan, "coba cari di website-website fakultas yang ada di UI". Nah lho...mudah-mudahan ketemu jawabannya ya Pak di website fakultas.

Ada lagi lulusan jenius yang S1-nya lulus cum laude ingin melanjutkan ke S2 ngotot nanya beasiswa, admin yang sama jeniusnya memberikan halaman beasiswa yang tersedia di universitas tapi untuk mahasiswa S1. Mereka saling melemparkan email dengan sengit sampai akhirnya admin website yang sudah kelelahan (rasanya) menjawab "beasiswa tidak diberikan kepada calon mahasiswa"

Begitulah cara kami berpikir dan menyelesaikan masalah...

Saturday, December 05, 2009

Law of Attraction

Just now I experienced a strange phenomenon of "Law of Attraction" while doing something on the internet. I was busy searching for institutions and SMEs in Salatiga and Boyolali for my next week research expedition with Mbak Iwus, when the Metro TV program suddenly showed a profile of 3 villages in Central Java to become pilot projects for SMEs. One of the villages located in Salatiga! Oh my God...this is what I call 'nature helps'. The villagers need some distribution channels in big cities to sell their products. Done! We will go straightly to the village while in Salatiga. You have to see me watching the TV as if seeing a very interesting and phenomenal movie. I took notes, for God sake! Hehe...

The other city we have to visit is Boyolali. Too bad there is no Boyolali representative on the program. Well...I already browsed some of the villages in Boyolali from the internet before, there are lots of SMEs located in Boyolali so I won't worry too much. Besides, nature helps, right? (this is my procrastination side talking).

All in all, I believe in law of attraction theory, although it's not scientifically proven yet. Anecdotally there are some evidences, and our lives are built by anecdotes, right? Prove it to yourself but don't go too far. I have a friend who fell into mental illness just because he believed too much in the law. Happy Saturday night...

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

News from Yahoo.com: 1 in 3 laptops die in first three years

Really excited to read the news from Yahoo today, comparing laptop brands, which ones die easy and which ones die hard. The results are:

> 20.4 percent of failures are due to hardware malfunctions. 10.6 percent are due to drops, spills, or other accidental damage.

> Netbooks have a roughly 20 percent higher failure rate due to hardware malfunctions than standard laptops. The more you pay for your laptop, the less likely it is to fail in general (maybe because you're more careful with it?).

> The most reliable companies? A shocker: Toshiba and Asus, both with below a 16 percent failure rate due to hardware malfunction.

> The least reliable brands? Acer, Gateway, and HP. HP's hardware malfunction rate, the worst in SquareTrade's analysis, is a whopping 25.6 percent.

My first laptop was HP Compaq, granted to my brother's company almost 2 years ago after 4 years of usage on my side. It was a tough laptop, maybe because I took good care of it. My second laptop (still using it now at home) is Asus and the third one Toshiba netbook, I use both interchangeably since carrying heavy laptops is not considered wise now. Well, at least I chose the right brand according to the survey...my friends told me choosing product out of brands is useless nowadays. But you won't choose something that would become part of your life carelessly, right?

(source: www.yahoo.com)


Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Cicak....Selamat Hari Pahlawan

TV stations nowadays are very busy with its repetitive programs of disclosing the villain's behavior of corruption in our higher court of laws. "Anggodonesia" instead of Indonesia has been labeled to this country since Anggodo clearly and systematically brought this country into it's lowest level of morality toward clean government, and those in the higher position didn't do anything to this most wanted man on earth. Lizard versus crocodile is another problem related to Anggodo (it seems that everything is related to Anggodo now...what a man!).

Lizard that symbolizes KPK and the people at large is already sick and tired of the game played among the police officers, lawyers, judges, and the so-called experts in politics. This already becomes topic of the year on television, so popular that the earthquake happened in Nusatenggara was neglected by the television. KPK criminalization has taken huge part of people's mind, we do not know how serious the condition in affected area is. Speaking of justice, how just is this situation?

Selamat Hari Pahlawan, everyone...

Sunday, November 01, 2009

Turkiye Trip

Feels like I haven't written in years, and my brain becomes numb now. So this is a story haven't written anywhere yet...an interesting story between Turkiye and Netherlands. Yes, those are the countries I've been to last month (today is already November, right?).

The trip was started on October 9 to Istanbul. Arrived in Istanbul at 5 in the morning Oct 10 when everybody is still in their dreams, but somebody from the Tulip Guesthouse was already there waiting for us. He's a fine young man, with many secret not yet told. Fine then...we'd find out soon. The overnight flight from Jakarta was a tough one, since I couldn't sleep at all thanks to the passengers behind me. They're a couple just met in the air but sounded like they were a long lost lover!! Damn...what an unfortunate person I was...sitting nearby and unwillingly overheard their stupid conversation and giggling. The man is a German, and the woman in whore dress is Indonesian! The man said he never met such a woman while staying in Indonesia. No wonder!!! She's more bule than the most bule I met!

Back to Istanbul again before I lost my appetite to write. We were picked up by...I forgot his name, but he's a typical Turkish people....beautiful God's creature :-) Entering Sultanahmet neighborhood, I instantly fell in love with the place. That's a beautiful old city I've ever been. We got through the Blue Mosque, in fact, the Blue Mosque was in our neighborhood. I promise I'll visit the place after paying a 2 hours sleep in the guesthouse, But the owner said the place is already full now, our room will be ready after 11 am. Dammmnnnnn...I was very sleepy at that time!!! We had to wait at the balcony and that means I wouldn't get a proper sleep. One by one the guests woke up from their sleep and sat on the bench at the balcony. We had a little chat about which places to visit and so on and got in the hot shower. I really hoped that I would be in good condition that day.

After having a hot shower, we visit the Sultanahmet Square where Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque reside. My head started to pound, that's already a sign of 'go to sleep' from my body. Entering Hagia Sophia (and most places of interest in Istanbul) was very expensive, it's 20 Turkish Lira or Euro 10, or Rp 140.000,- The museum was almost likely as Goa church in India, with a heavy renovation underwent. So, we paid that much money only to find it being renovated. But the story behind the museum is very interesting. It was built as a church at Byzantine era (6 AD), and in Ottoman period (15 AD) it was changed to a mosque. The frescoes in the church was plastered. In 1953 it was transformed into museum, plasters and carpets were removed and voila....it's now a blend of christian and islamic cultures in one museum.

After Hagia Sophia, we were most likely not willing to spend another ten euro to other museum. So we took a walk to the downtown, and found this Adventure travel agency. Before I went on this one, I have to tell that we already booked a hotel in Ankara on our way to Cappadocia the next day. So...here we were....facing an old man with his sons running a family business in travel agency. I felt a little skeptic that day, so I took a silence attitude while Mbak Iwus went on bargaining on prices. The old man came from Cappadocia, so he strongly suggested that we have to go there. He's really good at advising if you know what I mean. But the price was quite to much for me (that's why I kept silent, not to mention my stronger headache kept me away from being any polite). My friend asked me to agree with the arrangement for Euro 375! That's already too much for me, plus the trip with balloon in Cappadocia for Euro 125! I agreed with the Euro 375 trip, but no way with the balloon. I told them I was scared of height, but I knew it's not really the case hehehe...So here we were...already arranged for the trip to Cappadocia and the night bus to Izmir.

We paid a visit to Grand Bazaar and took a kebap lunch on the way home. I lost my appetite, all I need is sleep. So my friend told me to go home first to sleep then go out at night again. Thanks mbak....so we went home at 5pm, our room was already prepared, and I fell a sleep abruptly. I woke up at night and it's already 1 am, confused at first. Heheehehe....I was being a sleeping beauty for 7 hours. My friend told me to go to sleep again because we would be picked up at 6 am to the airport.

At 6 am someone picked us up, he's not very nice maybe because he's tired of picking people up from 1 am. I said to him that it was his job so he doesn't have to be so grumpy, otherwise people wouldn't like him and he wouldn't get extra money. My friend was sooo angry with him, so I took the attitude of being an angel to him :-) See...I am very flexible.

We took a flight to Kayseri for 1 hour or so with our full luggages thanks to the grumpy driver. After that 2 hours driving from Kayseri airport to Goreme, that's the place in Cappadocia region where we lived. Weather in Cappadocia was more colder than Istanbul. We went directly to our site visit to fairy chimney, to see the odd landscape of Cappadocia. It was really a beautiful place. Our tour guide, Recep, was a married young man who admitted that he's single. A friend in our group who overhead him talked and knew who he really was (and who his wife was) asked him of where his wife is now. Oh, maaaaannnnn....he's lying to me! So he smiled at me saying that he's single out of home. Well, everyman is single out of his house :-)

We spent 2 days in Cappadocia, slept in a cave hotel. After the fairy chimney, we went to Goreme open air museum and pigeon valley. No wonder why the first Christians built their churches here, it's really a save hiding place. The second day was a tough day since we had to go to underground city (11 level under the ground) and the valley. But it is paid off by the late lunch we had...finally a proper lunch compare to the lunch the day before. I will miss everything I found in Turkey, almost everything....except the foods! They eat salad as main course with a mint yogurt! They eat spicy foods, but not as spicy as I thought before. In short, you will be confused of whether it is a European or Asian style of foods. They have different style, maybe because they sit in a silk road between Asia and Europe. Poor Turkish....but of course they like it!

After spending 2 days in Cappadocia region, we headed for Izmir at night Oct 12. Spending 12 hours on the bus, we finally got in Izmir at 8 am Oct 13 and find our hotel. It was a nice old hotel with an old elevator, and I surely will avoid going up and down by elevator. Spending the first day at a bazaar near our hotel, we started asking where the hell was Izmir University of Economics (Izmir Ekonomi Universitesi). It's very far from our hotel, we have to go by bus. On the first day of the conference we went by taxi and spent about 23 lira or euro 11.5 to get to the university. We would spend 3 days on the conference, but our Indian fellow tempted us to go on travel the second day. There were many historical places in Izmir, such as Pergamon and Ephesus. I chose Ephesus because the travel agent suggested that Ephesus was more greater and beautiful compare to the other site, and because Ephesus was cited in the Bible.

Indeed, Ephesus (or Efes in Turkish) was great. At the beginning we went to the house of Virgin Mary located at the top of the hill, where Virgin Mary was believed to spend her last days here. It was visioned by a nun from Germany if I'm not mistaken, who hadn't come to this place but could depict the place precisely. When writing my wish list in front of the shrine, I cried as i remember my late brother, and wrote to her to take care of my brother in heaven. Soooo emotional.....after that we got down to the ancient city Ephesus, a beautiful site contain many history of it's inhabitants. A parliamentary office, Celsus library, very big theater where they held many great show at the time, gladiator shows, and Cleopatra story with her lover Mark Anthony when they visited the theater from Alexandria, and even the brothel story behind the walls of the city, all is very interesting. I didn't regret I spent euro 65 for this trip, especially when I found another proper lunch afterwards. Hehehehe...

At the third day, they day when I had to present my paper before the audience in the university, we got more tanned than before and more happier though we missed day 2. After presenting my paper, a member of the committee approached me and thanked me for being there and the presentation was very interesting bla...bla...bla...and it was too bad I wasn't there at the 2nd day when there was a presentation about the women as change agent in Turkey. I said yeah too bad....but in my heart I didn't regret it at all since I have a valuable field trip the second day. After all, it's all in the proceeding, so I wouldn't worry to much :-)))

We took a night flight to Istanbul that night, to spend another 2 days there before flying to Amsterdam, and my friend's flying back to Indonesia. Oh damn, the same driver was waiting for us in the airport, with my name cited in his board. My friend's mood went down immediately, so I had to keep cool. Obviously he's more polite than before. We slept in Istanbul Comfort Hotel, a new hotel in the Sultanahmet neighborhood. The next day we visited the Topkapi Palace, and met with 2 new friends who would accompany us to our Bosphorus cruise at night, and the day ended up very sweeeetttt :-))))) I have to cut off the story because it's not for public consumption.

The next day, Oct 18, we had to say goodbye to Turkiye and its beautiful people and promise everyone that we are going to visit there again someday in the future. Ismail, the front desk manager of our hotel wished me to visit him in Antalya next summer, hehehe...well...Antalya and Pamukkale could be my number one and two list of places to visit in Turkey. Hopefully...
So from there, my adventure was continued to Netherlands.


Friday, September 25, 2009

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)

Thursday, September 17, 2009

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 :-)