Netherlands

Hello everybody! well, so much things happened since the last post. In short, here is the summary:

Jakarta, 15th August 2007
My departure to Eindhoven. This will be...
the first time I go outside of my country.
the first time I live alone without any controls from my parents or family.
the first time I have to depend my cooking skills to make either breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
the first time I will have a very tight limited budget (all of ém in euro dude!).
the first time I have to use English daily.. even just to make friends with other.
the first time I won't be able to see people I loved and care in a matter of year(s).

interesting? you bet! It's just like a second phase of my life.

The departure wasn't so good. I planned to go with Samuel, my senior at Informatics Engineering, ITB. We make an appointment to meet each other at 13.00 to check-in. Since he arrived so early, he decided to queue and finishes first, and then helping me later on. Unfortunately, the queue took so much time so that even after 13.00 he still didn't make it. Therefore, I was left outside and cannot get in, because he still had my ticket. As the situation get intensed, he finally finished the check-in and gave me the ticket. In the end, things went smooth and we're able to depart on time. Later on, Samuel told me that he had already made an on-line reservation. Thank God.

Sorry for the inconvenience mas Samuel, but finally we got along very well, didn't we? ;)

HongKong, 15th August 2007
Cathay Pacific was the name of the flight company which we (Me and mas Samuel) use for the flight. We made a transit in HongKong. To my surprise, it was a very big airport! Inside the airport building, there were also train station, ferry station, and bus station. It almost looked like a mall. It had restaurants and many shops. Cool! One of the best airport, I suppose.

In this airport, we took a rest for about 4 hours before continuing our journey.

Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 16th August 2007
We made it to Schiphol, an airport in Amsterdam. This is it!

I was so lucky that I had Netherlands language course before (Thanks a lot Mrs. Mira! ). A lot of phrases were written in Netherlands rather than English. Although I only knew a bit Netherlands, it had made me easier to guess the meaning of sentences. With this ability, I wasn't afraid to go everywhere in Netherlands.

We were picked up by mas Samuel's family. There were so kind. They bought us a pair of train ticket to to Eindhoven and even bought us drinks. I drank fresh orange juice... and I mean... fresh orange juice. It was a bit sour, fresh from the garden.

During the journey to Eindhoven, we crossed many green farms. We saw big and healthy cows. Now we knew why the Netherlands become the biggest nation to export milk and cheese. And one other thing, Netherlands is very clean.


NEXT POST... will be about EINDHOVEN.. center of industry in Netherlands... Sorry I have to cut it into several parts guys, but the lab is closing in a moment, and I have quite a long story here...

P.S : I will add this blog with photos... just after I got my laptop :(( so just wait for the photos!

Modify design..

Horray! new design! well... I just modify the templates from Gecko, though.. no time to design my own.. (not quite interesting for me :p ) so I just change a bit here... and there... and so please welcome, the new interface!!! (TADA!!!)

I can say that today is my independence day ever since I got my final project presentation. No jobs to do, except the facts that I have to prepare for the departure to TUe. I taught my sister how to use my computers (installing, partitioning, and stuffs..). Afterwards, I had a meeting with ATN Team (Mas Bambang, sorry I had to leave the job for now... Hope to cooperate with you again in the future). While waiting for the course, here I am writing my blogs..

Oh no, I forget something... I should've gone to the dentist! Hoho... time to go guys! Bye!

Coming Back with My Way

Many things had happened after the last blog. Sorry folks, for not updating... kinda put this blog into the later priority, actually... :p I promise I'll put it higher from now on, though :p

In this occassion, i would like to say thanks to all of my best friends (and of course, my friends), for coming to my farewell event last week.. 29th July, 11 AM - 15 PM. It was memorable... I'll remember all of your advices, and hopefully won't let anyone of you dissapointed. I'll upload the photos later in flickr and show some of it in this blog. So, don't go anywhere... ;)

I also plan to rebuild this blog to a better one... probably some more pictures, calendars, shoutbox, well... anything :p I'll try to finish it before my departure to Eindhoven.

To all people who don't know, I got a scholarship to continue my Master study at TU Eindhoven (TU/e). The scholarship was given by TU/e. In 15th of August, I'll depart to Eindhoven with Cathay Pacific Airlines, together with my senior in ITB, Samuel Louvan. We'll take a stop for a while in Kuala Lumpur before going to Schippol Airport, Amsterdam. I don't know how exactly we will go to Eindhoven, still waiting for the news from TU/e (We use Meet and Greet Service provided by TU/e).

Some of unordinary things happened these few days...

1. I finished my task as a researcher assistant in POSS-ITB (Center for Empowerment of Open Source Software - ITB). My final activity is to conduct a OSS training for ITB employee. The training went well, although there's so many training modules that had to be passed because of not enough time...

2. The TPDA Software was implemented very well, thanks a lot to my dear friend Ronny Hendrawan.. He's such a great guy... The software performance is highly boosted with his analysis (and also his code implementation)... Yet I still don't know how he did it without thorough understanding of TPDA Algorithm...

3. Me, Ghozy (a.k.a Ghozalfan Farabi, S.T. SI-2002 ITB), and Adit (a.k.a Aditya Wirawan, KL-2002 ITB) got the runner up for our paper in the TNI-KL competition... (by the way, it's already a long time since we made it :p ). Well, hard work payed off, eh? :p

4. Me and Udan (Muhammad Yusuf Hamdan, S.T. IF-2002 ITB) made a paper and made it into ICEEI 2007 (International Conference in Electrical Engineering and Informatics 2007 ) held by STEI-ITB.. Our paper is presented in a poster exhibition, equals to other international papers... hoho... but I'm still curious why did our paper didn't appear on the proceedings??? (Although we found it in the Table Of Contents..)


Well, probably I'll add some of the details later... but now, I would like to share a beautiful lyrics from Frank Sinatra in his song, My Way... I hope I can speak these lyrics with my heart in the future...


My Way
a music by Frank Sinatra

And now, the end is near,
And so I face the final curtain.
My friends, I'll say it clear;
I'll state my case of which I'm certain.

I've lived a life that's full -
I've travelled each and every highway.
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way.

Regrets? I've had a few,
But then again, too few to mention.
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption.

I planned each charted course -
Each careful step along the byway,
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way.

Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew,
When I bit off more than I could chew,
But through it all, when there was doubt,
I ate it up and spit it out.
I faced it all and I stood tall
And did it my way.

I've loved, I've laughed and cried,
I've had my fill - my share of losing.
But now, as tears subside,
I find it all so amusing.

To think I did all that,
And may I say, not in a shy way -
Oh no. Oh no, not me.
I did it my way.

For what is a man? What has he got?
If not himself - Then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way.

Yes, it was my way.

C ya in the next blog!