Arya Adriansyah : The Journey

Moving to new site...

2010-11-14T13:07:00.002+02:00

After various considerations, I decided to move this blog to http://blog.adriansyah.info/ . You can still read all of the previous post on the new site. Enjoy!

Moment of happiness

2009-09-10T20:50:00.007+03:00

Elders said that there are three big events in your life that bring you and your family joy and happiness: graduation, marriage, and birth. From all three events, only the first one brings you happiness without possible pain.

In marriage, you may get stressed by the pressure to provide a "perfect" marriage. You have to accommodate both your family and your partner's family wishes. Friction may happen when the families have different arguments or different point of views. The same friction may also happen when you have your own child. Don't get surprised if in the end, the name of your child is decided by both your family and your partner's family rather than yourself as the child's parent. In the eastern culture, at least in Indonesia, the name of a child is a kind of family legacy and is believed to determine his/her character and fortune. Hence, both families often "suggest" you name for your child... which means that if you totally do not accept it, there always a chance that your parents or parents in law may feel uncomfortable. Wisdom is needed to accommodate both families' wishes.

However, graduation is very different. Everyone is happy during graduation. Nobody has any reason to complain. This makes graduation as a perfect moment to gather with your family, friends, and people close to you.

This noon, I had my graduation ceremony. It was nice. I wore my one and only suit that my father gave me before I arrived in the Netherlands. I tried to be the best as I can be. I ironed my clothes, used my perfume, shaved my beard, just to make this day perfect.

The ceremony went very well. The main event was held in the "blauwe zaal" (the blue hall). First, the dean representative gave a speech. Then, personal speech were given to each graduate candidates by their supervisors (dr. Natalia represented both Prof. Wil van der Aalst and Boudewijn as my supervisors, because they were not able to come due to an obligation to attend a conference in Ulm). The ceremony ended with a reception in a room just beside the blauwe zaal. Some friends came to share the happiness: Andi Rusiawan, Mas Lesky, Ceu Qonita, Phacoel, and Eva. Later during reception, Agni came too.

Apart of my sister, Elva, and my best friends, if there is something else that I really wanted for my graduation, it is the presence of my Mom and Dad. Mom, Dad, thank you for all of your support. Without both of you, I wouldn't be here, choosing the path that I'm on. This following picture of me is dedicated to both of you. Hope you notice one of your favorite suite in this picture, Dad. And Mom, hope you can see that I am smiling in the picture in the way that you like me to. :)

P.S: Special thanks to Ceu Qonita and Andi Rusiawan, as both of you helped me to document one of the most important events in my life.

Posting blogspot posts to FB notes

2009-09-08T16:12:00.001+03:00

As mentioned by the title of this post, I'm just trying whether this tutorial really works... hmm...

1 day, 3 friends, 4 cities, and 8 Bossche bols

2009-09-08T14:19:00.015+03:00

Last Saturday, I went to several cities throughout the Netherlands for souvenirs hunting (as I'm coming home this Saturday, guys!!!). To my surprise, although the main purpose of the travel was to hunt some souvenirs, some good friends were willing to accompany: Amalia, Reyhan, and Mbak Nelly. With their presence, hunting souvenirs event changed into a lovely weekend vacation!

The first place that we visited was 's-Hertogenbosch, the capital city of the province of North Brabant (Noord Brabant). FYI, this city is commonly called Den Bosch by the Dutch people. Several days before our journey, mbak Nelly went to a shop in the city that sells various souvenirs in a relatively cheap price, even cheaper than the shops in the small city of Volendam. Therefore, motivated by my hillarious economic instinct, I decided to hunt as many souvenirs as possible in the shop. Unfortunately, when we arrived, it was closed until the middle of september without any specific reason. But hey, it wasn't so bad after all. See the picture below?

It is a picture of a Bossche bol. Bossche bols are kind of "Soes" cakes (in Indonesian) that are covered with chocolate. Thanks to Reyhan, we're able to find a store that sells the finest Bossche bols, Jan de Groot banketbakkerij. So, rather than buying souvenirs, each of us bought two Bossche bols... However, the most of us were fasting. So, although the bols looked very delicious... we had to wait until it is dawn before we can taste them... Let me tell you, they looked marvelously yummy!

Next stop: Utrecht. In this fourth most populated city in the Netherlands, we have only one thing in mind.. coming to the book festival. We were lost at the first place, as we went out from the wrong side of the central station. After we asked a guy with yellow uniform (which then answered our question in Dutch [^^]' ), we were able to find the place where the festival was held. The place was very big! I had a very good time, exploring books as I usually did during my childhood. Most books were sold at a relatively low price, so I bought two books: one is about how cool things works (yeah.. just say I'm a geek :p ) and the other is about pirates. The latter is also the first souvenir that I bought at the day. I'm anxious about how my cousins will react when I give them the book. Using the guide and the paper materials in the book, you can create a model of a pirate's ship! I'll be happy to have it for myself if I'm a kid (well.. I still feel like one, actually).

Then, we went to the student city, Delft. Our agenda was clear: Souvenirs, walking around, and meet some friends. Alhamdulillah, we managed to do all of the things. We (well, actually just me) bought some pretty souvenirs at the shops around the centrum. We walked around the Oude Kerk and the Nieuwe Kerk, and we met our friends, the "tampan" guy and his two side-kicks :p. And guess what, on the centrum, there was a half-aged lady who brings pig as her pet! Just as if the pig is a dog, she tied the pig and walked him around. Gee... I would like to take a picture together with the pig, but my reluctance to be touched by any parts of the pig prevented me to do so... It's just so.... eeewwwwwwwhhhh!!!

Last stop of the day was the Hague, where we walked around Binnenhoff and joined an ifthar in the only Indonesian Mosque in the Netherlands: Al Hikmah. All of us have already been on the city, so there's no new things to be seen. However, when we came to the ifthar, we had such a good time! The foods were authentic, so authentic that it really felt like home. Many people were coming as well, regardless of their nationality. I ate various foods, such as fish meatballs, "balado" meat, yellow-spiced fish, kolak, bala-bala, and many others. I really miss my mom's cooking. Hope that in a short time, I'll be able to taste some of these foods again in Indonesia.

After ifthar, we traveled back home. We were exhausted, but excited as well. In the train heading back to Eindhoven, we finally ate our Bossche bols.. They were simply... DELICIOUS. So delicious that mbak Nelly's book also "ate" some bols :P Thanks Amalia, thanks Reyhan, thanks mbak Nelly, for such a nice experience. Looking forward to travel with all of you again! :)

clockwise: Me, Reyhan, mbak Nelly, and Amalia

Using TU/e server to search and download journals/papers

2009-08-24T08:49:00.006+03:00

For all of you TU/e students who wants to search journals or papers from home using google and download them using TU/e's account, there is another alternative rather than using the TU/e's VPN. We can ask Janus server, provided by the TU/e bibliotheek, to download the journals and papers and forward them back to us. How to do that?

What you need is no other than your own account in TU/e (s******) and password. Then, perform these steps:

Go to "https://login.janus.libr.tue.nl".
Log in using your account and password. For instance, username : s012345, password : hardrocksupercool
After you logged in, go to "http://www.google.com.janus.libr.tue.nl/" by typing it in your address bar. Notice the addition of ".janus.libr.tue.nl" behind the real URL of Google search engine. By having the text as addition to the original URL, we ask Janus server to download the corresponding pages for us.
Then, search your papers and download them in the provided window.

Easy, isn't it? Now, you can work remotely safe and sound from your home!

Yes! I did my final thesis presentation!

2009-08-22T11:09:00.016+03:00

Just two days ago (20 August 2009), I did my master thesis defense. And alhamdulillah, I got 9 for the thesis, which allows me to graduate with honor (cum laude). HUGE thanks to my supervisors Prof. Wil van der Aalst and Boudewijn van Dongen (daily tutor). I learn a lot of things in an enjoyable manner, which is something that I've never had before. Looking forward to work with both of you again in the next couple of months. Also thanks for Huub van de Wetering as one of the members of the examination commitee.

Thank you very much for all of my friends who came all the way to the presentation room (Seidelzaal, HG 5.95): Eko Setio (he's not even TU/e student! :p ), Joos Buijs (next van der Aalst? :D ), Grant (officially unemployed, Grant?), Diana (also M.Sc now :D ), Olimpia and Gioia (they came all the way from Italy for the presentation), Bung Adi Purwono, Agni, Ari Manik (thx for come by during your visit from Braunschweig ;) ), Jimmy, Amalia, Jian, Thijs, Babe Wayan, Erik, Carmen, JC, and other people that I haven't known (hope I'll know you all in the future!).

Thank you for the people who have helped me to prepare the presentation: Jimmy (I made major changes to the slide according to your suggestion, and it works!), Amalia (yess.. I remove several slides, Mal :D ), Samuel (thx for the advice with the pointing stick!), Diana, Andi Rusiawan, and Juan Diego. Without you all, I would be very nervous and shaky during the presentation :) Thx!

And of course... Mom and Dad, both of you mean a lot. Thank you for the never ending prayer. Sister Astrid, who often make your old brother smile with your ridiculuous acts :p Elva, for your great support along the way. Close friends: Merli, Chitra, and Rendy. Thx for accompanying me during the harsh time.. (and I believe you all know when). I couldn't make it without all of you. And of course, everyone that I can't mention one by one... Thanks a lot!!!

And look what I got after the presentation... tadaa! a special pen, only for special purpose :D thx a lot, Olimpia. You're such a great friend :) As you said, friends forever!

So, the cliche question would be, what's next?

Considering current world crisis, Indonesian economy, opportunities, and of course, my goal in life, I set my path to be an expert in process mining. Based on talks with Prof. Wil and few friends whose job are related to business process (I believe you know who you are! :P ), analysis to business process is commonly performed by mapping/comparing current business process to existing standards/best practices. While in my opinion, with current approach, quantified analysis is already possible and arguably yields better results. Moreover, I already see possible extensions of current approaches. I believe in the next 4 years, I can contribute something real to my own country, Indonesia, with my business-process-related knowledge. Wish me success everyone!

p.s. : Marhaban ya Ramadhan... everyone, please forgive all of my mistakes. Let's perform our best according to Allah's direction in this Ramadhan with a pure heart, so that we'll be free from sins in the end of this holy month.

TeX editor to write your thesis

2009-08-15T12:37:00.029+03:00

After a long hang out session with my best buddy, Lenovo T60p, (without much sleep and proscrastinations, of course :D) finally I finish the writing assignment and have spare time to do MY things... yeah!

(yet, still hanging out with my T60p)

(Geeks? only God knows :P )

Speak for the truth, I'm too tired to playaround somewhere. Sleeping for approximately 3 hours a day hasn't really be my habit. However, I'm glad that now it's all over. Only one more tiny step to end yet this another phase in life.

Writing thesis reports requires tremendous patience and concentration. You need to be consistent throughout your writings. Do not introduce new terms or use new style of writings throughout the documents. Be precise and be aware of your grammars, as unsuitable sentences may cause misleading interpretations. Make sure that you cite proper publications. Etc...

Fortunately, I found several tools that could help me along the way. First, and arguably the most important part, is the correct text editor. Most people, including me, use popular text editor such as Microsoft word or Open Office (I know somebody who used it :p ) to write documents. So to say, these are the most convenient text editor to produce documents. What else are more convenient than WYSIWYG text editors? But for documents with math formulas and formal definitions with a lot of citations, I have to say that these text editors are a level behind TeX editors. Why?

TeX editors doesn't bother you with layout, except in the early phase of your document creation.
TeX editors creates all of your citation index perfectly.
TeX editors can merge several text documents to a single output file. Means that you can write each chapter of your thesis in one document, make it easily managed.
TeX editors are (as far as I know) open source. Free with quality, I would say.

The only drawback, creating documents using TeX editors is like creating computer programs (which of course, is a grose for many people). First, you write your text. Then, you compile it to PDF (or PostScript format), and you'll get your document! The most horrible thing is... you write documents with syntaxes. Yes... Syntaxes!! To make your text style bold, you have to write it between curly brackets (e.g. to make a text "cool" looks bold in your output, you need to type it \bold{cool} ). And... you can't see your document unless you often compile it (except using one TeX editor which I forgot! :( ) .

In my university, most people use WinEdt as their TeX editor. You can also use other TeX editors. But first, you need have a TeX compiler installed in your computer. For my thesis, I used MiKTeX 2.7. Next, install your favorite TeX editor. You can use a "real" text editors such as WinEdt and Crimson Editor, but I prefer to use LyX. It is an intermediate between the "real" text editors and WYSIWYG text editors such as Microsoft Word. You don't have to understand TeX syntaxes, just type your text as if you are working in WYSIWYG text editors. However, you can still insert "raw" TeX syntaxes in between your document. You'll be an expert in TeX in any moment :) If you already have your favorite TeX editor installed before you install TeX compiler, you just have to attach the compiler to your TeX editor.

It's easier to work based on a template in LyX. For my thesis, I use this template. Thanks to my good 'ol friend, Chitra, who helped me find the basis of this template (she also found it somewhere in the Internet). I modified it a little bit based on my need. Open the "thesis.lyx" with your LyX editor to start to use it. Hope it can help you guys, in case you need it for your thesis/final project report.

Well, time to prepare some slides. Wish me the best everyone!

p.s:

in TeX document, it is better to use graphics with ".eps" format. Based on my personal experience and my tutor's advice, to obtain this format from a graph that we created, the best practice would be creating the graph using Microsoft Visio, select the part of the graph to be inserted, and save as ".wmf" document. Then, using this tool, convert the document to ".eps" format. Sad to say, but IMHO, Visio is still the number one for the usability vs functionality. I hope someday there'll be open source version of Visio :D

Picture is taken from here.

2 years!!!

2009-08-05T01:43:00.009+03:00

Wow, time flies!

It has almost been 2 years since I set my foot here, in the Netherlands. I just had my thesis review today, and as usual... a lot of comments were addressed to my thesis report. Seems that I'll always struggle with any kind of writing stuffs :p (reminiscing of my bachelor final report)

So what I'm doing now... proscrastinating???

Just say.. that I'm practicing my English writing :D

I just realize, that I used to exercise my writing skills by blogging. So, why don't I give it a try once more.. because due to my selection of future career and the way that Allah guides me... I have to write a lot of things in the future anyway (Still can't believe how I have changed in this past two years).

Let's start from the small things.. such as.. uhm.. let's see... lately, due to my hobby (I prefer to say it this way) of sitting on my chair for hours, working on my thesis.. I rarely go to the sportcentrum. So, have I become fatter? Let's see.. I try to compare a portrait of myself two years ago to a portrait of myself now... and...

can you guess which one is the current me? :D Seems not much different, don't you think?

Well, enough of such narcissism.. But for sure.. I'll write something useful later this week in this blog. Promise. Tot ziens!

Trip Around Netherlands...

2009-02-27T21:20:00.002+02:00

Clue :

Grotere kaart weergeven

2009

2008-12-31T19:33:00.007+02:00

It's already a new year in my country, Indonesia... It's only 3 hours and 25 more minutes more before new year in this city of light, Eindhoven...

So, what so special about 2009?

This is it... the time for contribution.. the beginning of a new journey.. to the sky

SPMB part 2

2008-09-30T14:00:00.003+03:00

Hi Guys!

As I'm currently taking Information Retrieval course (which is combined with Adaptive System course), I have to take a so-so-looked-like-an-SPMB midterm exam... After a year.. I have to deal with "that" kind of online questions again. Hopefully, I will not get the same experience.

Btw, Happy Ied everyone! :)

(Man... exam in Ied??? [^^]' )

Me and my "Super Bike"

2008-09-05T17:57:00.004+03:00

Today was supposed to be another ordinary day at the Netherlands... the summer temperature was 17 C, similar with the coldest day on my hometown Bandung (Parijs van Java). Weather? Rainy.. from the time I went to friday prayer (at about 13.00) up till the time I write this blog, the rain intensity was increasing gradually. "Yeah.. typical Dutch", my Chinese friend always said.

The surprise came later, when I decided to go to university. Just in front of university gate, I pushed my lovely bike's pedal hard towards the main road of the univ (yeah, I like speed!) when I realized....

Both of my bike's pedal was heading front!

Gee... what again????

Let me tell you, I bought this bike before my holiday to Indonesia. It was a new one, not like my previous bike which I bought second hand. And it was shiny, guys! the main intention for buying this buy was not to show off, but rather because I had enough problems from the previous bike which had its back tire flat twice in two weeks (and it means 10 euro x 2, ladies and gentlemen.. poor me). Rather than changing the tire, how about buying a new bike (with new tires, of course) with only 69 euro? It was the cheapest I can find in the market, and I'd get two brand new tires! (Goodbye, mr. inner tire seller!).

However, that's seems to be just in my dream.. Later, after I bought the bike, I found out that the bike is quite heavy... and... it's noisy! The nuts and bolts need to be tightened properly.. and as a poor guy, I didn't have any tools to work on it :( Even after I fixed it with my friend's tools (not once, but twice!), it still sounded awkward... The first time I ride it to go home, I had to walk because the seat was unattached in the middle of the journey! (later I realized that this one happened due to my lack of bike knowledge :D )

However, things were getting better as I brought several tools from Indonesia. My bike knowledge has increased, and I have my tools with me. Yup! finally, about 3 days ago, the noisy sound was gone! And the bike was just... superrrrbbb....!!!

But now... again... hiks... what can I say... the bolt which holds one of the bike's pedal in its place is broken, and it's very hard to repair it. As it's raining heavily now, I hope a bike technician on the station can repair my bike tomorrow...

Life starts again!

2008-09-01T18:04:00.004+03:00

Yoooohooooooooooo! Time to start again this semester... new courses, new assignments, new activities, new spirit, towards greatness in the future :)

So, what's interesting these days?

Two weeks ago, I had a meeting with the head of a group where I intend to have a master thesis on. We discussed about my future master project and also opportunity for assistantship. Basically, he told me that I join the correct group. However, the detail of the project should be discussed later at December, as I plan to start the project somewhere in January. For the assistantship, I shall get the opportunity if I can perform well in a preliminary task that he gave me, and I'm still doing it! Finally, I'm a developer again! See the log of the development in this blog.
I had a picnic!!! Well, I mean... picnics!! (plural). First picnic is going to friends' camp, t'wolfsven camping area, Mierlo, with other Indonesian students. The camp is a temporary residence of Juragan Islah and Reyhan, our new friends from Indonesia. The picnic was fun! We went from university to the camping area by bike, and we spent most of the time there eating and drinking... We walked around this beautiful park inside the area and rode a small boat with pedals. Funny thing happened when the boat I ride with Lesky, Juragan Islah, and Yogi couldn't depart from the jetty. I had to do some "stunt", and luckily, managed to survive the stunt without being drowned :D.
Second picnic is the trip to Wallibi World! An amusement park which is famous for its roller-coasters and crazy attraction. The park has a very big roller-coaster (hypercoaster, actually.. see this) named Goliath. That coaster is the craziest roller-coaster I've ever tried.. It's cooooooollll.... Oh yeah, in addition, it's also the first time that I got fed up of trying thrilling attraction after I tried Tomahawk.. The attraction is just crazy dude... makes you want to vomit... weks... (see what I mean in the picture on this article :( )

So, after all that happened... Here I am... READY for new challenge... ;)

In the end, since today is also the first day of Ramadhan.. I would ask for your forgiveness for all of my faults... intentionally or not... past and the future... For people who also celebrate the holy month, let's get a successfull Ramadhan!

Cheers!

disillusion

2008-08-24T20:52:00.007+03:00

Fiuh... long time since I wrote my last post. What happened?

Simply.. I took a holiday... a whole month (or even more) out of academic business (and everything outside of entertainment business, actually). I even went back to Indonesia :D

As the first post after holiday.. I would like to start with a lyric of a song which will always remind me of those days.. a month of happiness in Indonesia... This song is an OST of a very good anime (Man, I wish the story would end happier! :( This kind of ending makes my mood down for several days). Well.. enjoy! I'll write more in a couple of days ;)

Disillution

My cry cannot reach the shadows I dreamt of on that day
No matter how I depict myself tomorrow, I am drenched in wishes that cannot disappear

Catch the fallen scattered fragments with those hands
Hold my swaying heart, and leap towards the night

Because even if I am depending on someone, there is nothing else that I wish for
“My true self is right here”, don’t close your eyes

Spread things which look like junk into the wind, things such as that nostalgic smile
“No matter how much I pray for myself tomorrow”, those answers going towards the distance will still fade

Before I completely decay
And become a frozen body and a flake of my feelings, lets leap past the night

Because even if I am depending on someone, there is nothing else that I wish for
“My true self is right here”, don’t close your eyes

To live for the sake of someone, wouldn’t it be nice if we let this moment count for everything?
Lets gently throw our fake selves away, and just be who we are

My Playlist

2008-06-23T18:20:00.002+03:00

So bored....

Changing mood

2008-05-12T13:51:00.003+03:00

Sometimes, long holidays can make you as lazy as you'll ever be. Well, now, here I am.. in the laziest mood I've ever been, trying to changing it for the sake of my own future.

Well, if it's unavoidable, better to enjoy it, don't you think?

Meanwhile, a bit of theme song won't hurt... enjoy...

Why we need to learn those stuffs...

2008-04-21T22:35:00.006+03:00

Several days ago, I was talking to Mas Sam (don't concatenate the words and read it as an Indonesian word.. it's Samuel Louvan that we're talking about). In short, I was wondering, if we're going to be a Master in IT, why we should learn 'unnecessary' knowledge? There are Process Algebra and Requirement Analysis, Design, and Verification (RADV). Both courses deal with algebraic notation and fuzzy mathematical stuffs.. and there is not even single bit of programming in it! The same goes with many other courses... There are more theories rather than practical stuffs...

If this is the case, how can I cope with the newest technology in the market? If I'm going to be an employee, how can I know the best web framework to be used later in my company? How can I manage an IT department if I don't keep up-to-date to the latest technology?

In addition, how can these kind of knowledge be taught in this well-developed country if it's useless???? (At least, that's my first impression...)

Well, after thinking for a while... I just realized... That these knowledge are the basics of the things I considered to be cool... name it! Internet, web frameworks, real-time applications...

How can you know that a certain web framework is better than the other? By reading in weekly IT articles of how good is their performances? By taking a look at their vendors specification? By trying them yourself and concluding that their performance is good based on your prototype?

Well... you need to model them.. see how is the dependency between one module to another... See how they handle requests and concurrencies... see their coupling level...

How do you know that one protocol is better than the other? By certain 'hypothesis'???

I remember two years ago when I was starting to learn web services.. It's so cool, that I think I can do almost anything with it! However, when Pak Riza asked me in my final project presentation, whether web service is suitable to send real-time messages, I answered no because of the size of additional data which need to be transferred and the use of HTTP (which is not dedicated for real-time applications). But if he asked me to explain, how a dedicated protocol for real-time application should be designed and verified... I don't not know....

Because...
I never really analyze any Information Technology...
Just try them, if it's work well and fast enough in a small scale, it's good...
If it's written on a famous journal, then it must be true...
If a famous author, or professor, says that a certain technology is good, then it must be good...

See? The point is... I am always a consumer, who copies information from others... without being able to prove that the claims are indeed correct...

And this is exactly the reason why we need to learn those fuzzy mathematic stuffs....

We need to analyze the behavior of a certain system... and mathematic provides a way to model them unambiguously...

We need to prove that some technology is better than the other.... and mathematic provides an unambiguous proof...

We need to prove that our innovation is the best... and mathematic provides the way to show it to the world...

I believe that mathematic is a key to innovation in Information Technology...

No wonder... in this university, they teach so much mathematical things....

cause this is where innovation starts...

P.S. : Make innovation guys.. don't be trapped in only practical things!

Rockin!!

2008-02-13T22:04:00.005+02:00

I promise myself, this semester is going to be rock!!!!

Born to be Wild
Get your motor runnin'
Head out on the highway
Lookin' for adventure
And whatever comes our way

Yeah Darlin' go make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space

I like smoke and lightning
Heavy metal thunder
Racin' with the wind
And the feelin' that I'm under

Yeah Darlin' go make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space

Like a true nature's child
We were born, born to be wild
We can climb so high
I never gonna die

Born to be wild
Born to be wild

Best friend..

2008-01-26T01:20:00.001+02:00

Several days ago, my best friend wrote something about best friend (hehe.. recursive..). For some reasons, it tickles me a bit... well, I just realize that it is really hard to find your best friend... someone to talk to, someone who cares, someone that you just feel comfort to be with...

Can we be somebody's best friend by treat? No.. definitely can't...

Can we be somebody's best friend by being kind? No.. you can't... it will be artificial...

Can we be somebody's best friend by having dramatic experience? No.. you can't... it just not it..

In fact, that's just a mystery... You may feel better to be with someone who you just know, rather than the person you mostly spend your time with..

When you have best friends, you just know it...you may know the times when they lied... the time when they kept things for themselves... the time they avoided your S.O.S... and all bad things that they did throughout the years.. But apart of all, somehow you'll know, they are your best friends...

And I'm so lucky that I have mine...

So, I would like to dedicated this song to my best friends all over the world... both present and future... hope our friendship last forever :)

You Were There

Time passes, the world changes
But I'm still the same ole' kid
And your jokes still bring me laughter
As if you still were here
And it hurts
When I smile
'Cause my heart still remembers
When you were around

'Cause you were there
When no one was
Just when I thought nobody cared
You showed me love
'Cause you were my friend
You always told me
And I am still here
Because you were there

So precious, small treasures
A time when truth was innocent
True friendship, was all we were after
A place where kids could still be kids
And it hurts
But I'm glad
'Cause at least I was blessed
To have you as my friend

You're my best friend
There are no accidents
God has a plan for everyone
And he brought you in my life
To show me what a good friendship was

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Circle of Life

2008-01-22T14:14:00.001+02:00

These days, I'm just not in the mood to learn.. Maybe I had too much earlier.. or because some knowledge are just too slippery to stuck into my tiny brain.. so I search on some movies and songs from YouTube and find out this video... the one that I really liked in my childhood

"From the day we arrive on the planet
And blinking, step into the sun
There's more to be seen than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done
Some say eat or be eaten
Some say live and let live
But all are agreed as they join the stampede
You should never take more than you give

In the Circle of Life
It's the wheel of fortune
It's the leap of faith
It's the band of hope
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle, the Circle of Life

Some of us fall by the wayside
And some of us soar to the stars
And some of us sail through our troubles
And some have to live with the scars

There's far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found
But the sun rolling high
Through the sapphire sky
Keeps the great and small on the endless round

It's the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life

On the path unwinding
In the Circle, the Circle of Life."

Seems after a while.. I will get my spirit back.. Go Arya, Go!

Blogged with Flock

Using Flock

2008-01-17T20:26:00.002+02:00

Hi Dude! Im trying Flock right now.. it's cool for a social web browser thing!

Blogged with Flock

23

2007-12-15T02:59:00.001+02:00

Birthday is not just a moment to memorizing that you born in the same date several years ago. It is not about having a birthday celebration, treating your friends, and going home with several prizes. Those things are not even close.

I believe that some people will also agree with me that birthday is a moment where you introspect yourself.. see in your heart, and try to compare your life goal with your current performance... want to know what I see?

Allah gives me so much things to be thanked for... especially a wonderful family, future partner in life, great close friends (although I often treat them unfair.. sorry for all..), opportunity to help people, health, and... well.. I'll probably spent the rest of my life to describe all of them...

Thank you Allah, I hope I won't let you down (again), as I often do by making mistakes... things that you told me not to...

It's 23... it means that in another 2 years.. if everything goes well.. my real life will start. My journey to be one of the leader in the world will soon begin..

In my special day.. I would like to thank all of you...

Mom, Dad, Lil' Sister... thank you very much for your love and supports.. I miss you all... Don't worry, I'll try my best to make you all proud here...

Dear fairy in the Wonderland, thank you very much for your support and attention.. Let's fulfill our dream together, shall we? :)

My best friends.. Rendy, Chitra, Angga D, thx for the moral boosts! Keep in contact guys!

Dear friends.. T'I, Roncay, Narn, Vicky, Tita, Renny, Pitbull, Donny, Wiwit...

Dear friends@TUE : Grant, Agni, Arik, Jimmy, Diana, Samuel, Pak Wayan, Renaldi, Mehmet, Priyan, Goran, Eva, Sun...

Dear cousin, Ella, thx for the greetings! boi is niet slecht!! :p

Thank you very much all, you make this day a special day for me! Hope I can return it to you all, somehow...

So.. let's see... 2 more years to prepare everything.. what should I do now... hmm..
how bout sleeping? It's 2.39 AM in the morning!
Well, maybe that's a good idea... indeed...

Knowledge Sharing.. 1st semester

2007-12-13T10:30:00.001+02:00

Before I came to TUe, I thought things are going to be ordinary. I mean, the workload should be almost the same as I had in Bandung Institute of Technology. However, my assumption is proved to be totally wrong. Although I don't have any other thing to do than study, there is still not enough time to absorb all of the materials which taught here. But rather than complaining, I should be glad that I got many different new lessons here. It means that I can improve much.

In this post, I would like to share several lesson which I learned in the university. Who knows that you might be interested in one of these topics...

Requirement Analysis, Design, and Verification. In this subject, we learn about MCRL2, a program which can generate state space from process calculus and analyze it (it's actually much more complex). State space generation is useful to check a safety property of parallel processes. For instance, if you want to create an automated system which runs by several independent robots in parallel, you need to model the process in order to ensure that those robots will not collide each other in the process. This is hard to do manually, but the tools (MCRL2) can do it for you.
Generic Language Technology. It's about creating parsers to process any kind of languages using Meta-Environment. This tools enables us to check syntax of a language and transform it into another language. For instance, it can help you to read Java codes, detect mistakes, and transform the code into other type of language if there is no error in syntax checking.
English.. it's might sound easy... but I found it a bit difficult as I only have 5 for my intial mark :P However, it is much improved now, don't worry...
Software Architecting. This is one of my favorite. From the name, you might have guessed about the lesson learned here. Several type of software architecture is learned. Not only that, even the mechanism to evaluate them, using several type of matrixes and methodology. Most part of the course seems theoritic to me, but the lecturer once showed a tool which can measure the performance of an architecture for UML diagram. It's cool, dude..
Metamodelling and Interoperability. Assume that a manager create an EPC diagram to describe a workflow in the company (EPC is used in SAP). Now, how can you check whether this workflow can handle all scenarios in the reality without any deadlock? In this lesson, I learn how to transform a diagram into another type of diagram. The advantage of this, is that some diagrams are easier to be checked formally, such as Petri Net. There is a tool to automate this transformation and checking, called Prom. The tool was explained in one of the lecture, and it was much more interesting than this subject :( . Prom is developed as a Process Mining tool.. given a set of process log, you can create a workflow diagram. Prom enable you to do that, and transform the output diagram into another type of diagram so that it can be checked in a formal method. It's cool!
Web Information System. Ever heard about Web 2.0, Semantic Web, and Web Engineering?? In short, these are the lesson learned. In Web Engineering methodology, navigation model is separated from database/class modeling. This is useful if we want to exploit the power of hypermedia in web application. Web 2.0 is about the trend in current web application:Rich Internet Application, Mash-up, Folksonomy, and Harnessing Collective Intelligence. Semantic Web relates all of the information in the web using semantic annotation, using RDF and RDF queries seems as the key to integrate all of them.
Adaptive system. For instance, we want to create a system which can adapt to user behavior. We can use several techniques, including Data Mining to provide such behavior. As an assignment (which I'm going to start in any moment from now..), we are told to create adaptive application using AHA! framework.

Well, those are my lessons... time to go back to assignments...

Celebrities..

2007-11-30T08:30:00.001+02:00

Hi again! Refers to the previous post, I was curious about this "celebrity" thing.. so I try the program with a different photo.. and this is what comes up..

OMG... Keanu Reeves...

and once again, another Backstreet Boys member... is this a sign from Allah for me to form a Netherland boyband???

Stress day!!! hahahaha!!!

2007-11-30T00:16:00.002+02:00

one of my best friend told me to post this... so i just post it :p

anyhow, do you ever watch a crazy Mario Bros game???? check this out (full of f*ck!!!) or this one (man, guess I'm stressed...)

Web 2.0 addicted...

2007-10-20T18:56:00.001+03:00

Hi there...

I just got an assignment to explore Web 2.0 Applications... and guess what... this is probably one of the best assignments I got here... check this out :

Guess what kind of music genre do I like? :)

First Exam @ TU/e!

2007-10-01T17:53:00.001+03:00

Assignments and an exam. Those two have haunted me since last weeks. Sooner or later, there would be time for deadlines and time to "rock"... and it the stage performance was today, 13.30-15.30.

(hehe.. can you understand the metaphor? :p )

About 3.5 hours ago, I sat at IPO 0.98 for the first exam in TU/e. To add the experience, it was also the first online test I ever had. Students had to access a Moodle website (it's open source dude!) and do their test online. We were free to use open materials related to the test.. or ask 'uncle Google' about the test problems.. The only prohibition that counts is no chatting with friends. I thought it was going to be easy.. but guess...

It seemed much more like SPMB again...

It was multiple choice with penalties... for the half set of the problems, there were only one answer available, but for other half, several choices were available. If we can't choose precisely, we are wrong. To make it more tense, for every choices we have to add our degree of belief for the answer. The more we sure about our answer, not only more points we can get... but more penalties if we're unlucky.... The system can provides feedback immediately after we submit the answer... There is only one answering attempt available.. and the problem set are given sequentially without our control to go back and forth. Wow...

So, I was working my first question... I'm not sure.. but I have to be sure.. (this is the downside of being a confident person).. so, I set my degree of belief into High. Let's see the feedback..

-- Grade for this answer: -2

"Dough!!!"

There were four options, and I choose only one item. It should be 2. :( ... Next question...

-- Grade for this answer: 3

"This is what I'm talking about... Next..."

-- Grade for this answer: 0

"Fiuh... that was hard... Gee... am I gonna get 0 for this exam?????!!!"

It was hard guys... VERY.... it won't be this hard if there's no penalty, or at least there is tollerance for not selecting options that should also be marked.. WOW...

Final result : 4 3 (out of 10) [i change it into 3 after a friend told me that one answer is corrected]

Wow.. that was harsh.. I hope I can perform better next time... Just for check, I asked my friends about their result..

"Me? well... I get 2.."

"I get 2!"

"I get 20 points as a raw score" (mine is most probably 13)

"I get 3... I wasn't learning much.."

Hehehe... at least.. I'm not alone :p

But hey, that's a bad result dude... I should perform better next time!

Yes, this is a memorable start :) Not quite to my expectation, but I think my grandson and granddaughter will be proud to see their grandpa coming back from the dead..

Bismillaahirrahmaanirrahiim....

Ramadhan@Eindhoven

2007-09-14T23:20:00.001+03:00

Ramadhan has come!!!

I remember the time when I was a kid. Ramadhan is not more than a month of suffering... a month without lunch, snacks, meatball in the daytime. A month with assignment to write down dai's discourse (which I often changed with articles :p ).. a month of waking up early... wow...

I just miss those times. A time to gather with family... had dinner together... prayed together, facing 4W1...

Few things are missing, but still.. it's the holy Ramadhan! I'm just so grateful that 4W1 still give me another year to meet this holy month.. and although some people were worry that I have to fasting so early in Eindhoven, I'm very glad, in fact. Ramadhan makes me remember 4W1 better.. remember my responsibilities... something that I really need in this land of temptation..

Yet sometimes, things were not going as well as it planned....

September 12th evening and 13th morning, 2007
Yea! tomorrow would be the first day of Ramadhan! sahur time!

I planned to sleep early.. just after Isya. But later on, I remembered that I haven't ask for forgiveness to my family in Indonesia. It is a tradition in my family to ask forgiveness to the elder family member, and of course, to parents. Therefore, I waited until 23.00 (Eindhoven time) to call them. It was nice to hear Mom, Dad, and lil' Sis' voice (How I miss them!). Later on, I was surprised knowing that I was browsing materials from the Internet... the last time I saw the clock, it was 1.00...

Suddenly... In the middle of the dark..

KRIIIING!!!!!! it was the alarm from my PDA for sahur...

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz................

KRIIIING!!!!!! it was the 1st misscall....

First misscall.... Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz................

KRIIIING!!!!!! it was the 2nd misscall....

Second misscall.... still time for the last misscall.... Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz................

KRIIIING!!!!!! it was the 3rd misscall....

OOOKKK!!! Here I woke up!!!
I rejected the phone, just to make sure that the one who called know...
that I was awake.. and ready... and a lil' bit dizzy... and I slept again...

Just 5 minutes.... Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz................

(Gee... this is what's happen when your mom is not home)

I missed the sahur... and later on I read a SMS from my best friend to wake me up... which (of course) didn't work as it meant to be... and the day was full of starving stuffs...

September 13th evening, 2007
Tomorrow will be better than today! I said in my heart... I would sahur in time!

Late at night, my friend at TUe asked me whether I read an article of tomorrow lecture. Well, it kinda moved me to read the materials... when later I saw the clock... was it 24.00??

And this time, there was only one KRIIIING!!!!!! in 06.45... (Imsak in Eindhoven is on 5.15)

I checked my alarm... It was set to ring at 06.15... (Gee...)

Cool....

In short, sahur time still becomes a problem for me. Hope I can make it tomorrow morning... Let c... ;)

Photos from Netherlands...

2007-09-09T20:26:00.001+03:00

Hi guys!

Yeah! Finally I get my Laptop. It was on this beautiful Friday when I finally get my laptop. Horray! But thanks to assignments and a little bit laziness of mine (always... I must get rid of it soon), I just able to upload photos from my digital camera this morning here. Better late than not at all, don't you think? ;)

Next step is to integrate the photos to this blog. It should be fun... if there are not any assignments waiting in front of me.

English went crazy dude... just 1 class (and they said that it's going to be easy), and in a sudden I have to read 30 pages of English book and work on each exercises, added by writing composition assignment for about 700 words, and also preparation for next class. Great. Added with reading 1 chapter assignment from another course, this is so perfect for an evening work..

Well, no pain no gain, eh?

These are times when I would like to hear Bryan McKnight singing "Win", an original sound track from "Men Of Honor". The spirit of the song is just burning!

Btw, have you seen the movies? I would really like to... but I couldn't find it in the torrents yesterday :(

Anyhow, bismillahirrahmanirrahiim... let's start studying now.. c u guys!

Master Intro in TU Eindhoven

2007-09-01T09:51:00.002+03:00

Sorry for the delay, dudes! kinda lazy lately... Well, I shouldn't, though :p

This is my second week in Eindhoven, first week of study, and I already got several assignments. Fortunately, some of them come from the subject that I plan to drop. Hehehe...

So, just now, I was taking a break from reading articles and e-books for one assignment. "A little entertainment won't hurt", I thought. So, I open YouTube (the bandwidth is marvelous around here, dude), and the first video keyword that popped out of my mind was "spice girl mama".

Don't misinterpret the word guys... cause what I wanted to find is a video clip from the Spice Girls when they sung the song "Mama" (see the video here).

Well, I think I was begin to miss my Mom... :(
my dad...
my sis...
my .... (well, you know who!)
my best friends...
(the more I think of it, more names comes up... so I would just stop here...)

And what's the matter with it? Does it make any difference?
Well, it does.. it reminds me that I'm here to make history... and to make a history, you can't be lazy, dude!

So, here I am, writing back the stories about Eindhoven... hehe... cause I want to make sure that the history is well-documented, just like softwares which I will develop later on (geez... cut it off , dreamer!!!).

Monday, 20th August, 2007
First day of Master Intro!! The day begun with a welcome speech from several key person in TU/e. First of all, of course, the rector, Prof. dr. ir. C.J. van Duijn. Then? head of STU, dr.K.S. Ali. Next? well, I think I won't write the details here.. cause I would rather to tell you guys that on the day, I...

1. met Indonesian friends...
YEAH!! Finally! and all of them are male! First Indonesian person that I met in TUe (other than Mas Samuel, of course) was Mas Lesky. Later on, I met Renaldi, Agni, Grant, Pak Wayan, Jimmy, and Ari (since she's the only Indonesian girl around, I rather consider him as a guy :p guys' rule, dude!).

2. knew that Dutch people are very (i mean... VERY... ) individualist
Even for European standard (especially eastern Europe), Dutch people are considered very individualist. So, there was this guy, Ward, and he told us that his bike was stolen in a crowded public place two years ago. And how can this happened? The theft broke two bricks of roadway that keep the bike on its place. Some people must have seen it, but since they individualists and have their own things to be taken care about, they just let it happened.

3. realized that I can't eat freely
In the evening, all of international master students were invited for dinner. The menus? pork, pork, and beef... well, seems that I have to be careful to choose foods here...

Tuesday, 21st August, 2007
This is the day where I had English test, oral and written. During the oral test, things was just perfect... until the end of the test when the tester actually gave feedback of my test result :

"I think you still don't have enough vocabulary for a master students.."

This is where Homer Simpson will say... "DOUGH!!!"

But that's great! I just love challenges... :p

Later on the day, there was a faculty program. I was so lucky that Computer Science and Engineering Faculty take all of its students to go for cycling tour (with 4-tired bike) and having dinner! It was great! Due to one and another things, I had to go last on the tour. Unlike another students, I got a bike which only fits for two people. My partner was a Dutch guy named Eric, and we went crazy. Rather than cycling easily to enjoy the view of farming and harvesting land, we raced.. and even passed the people who actually suppose to know the route! :p

Wednesday, 22nd August, 2007
The agenda for the day was TB test, scholarship contract, workshop about Dutch, closed by last event with student sport federation. The last agenda was surely fun, dude! The committee divided all of the students into several groups, and we had several sport matches inside the sport center. My team consist of several talented players, such as me (hooho...), Manik, Alvaro, Wei, Haipin, She, Ari, and Zhang Ning. We played football twice and dutchball (also twice). our record? 3 win and 1 draw. Not bad, eh?

Luckily, dutch people couldn't join the games. Cause if they did, things will probably be different. Inside the sport center, I was peeking at dutch people who are members of volley and table tennis clubs. They were very tall, and they played outstanding :D

Thursday, 23th August, 2007
There was not much to say about the day, except that the bad fact that I didn't get my notebook on time :( The officer told me that I didn't order for the notebook in the first place, although I was sure that I did. As a solution, the officer made a new order for my notebook, which means that I could only get my notebook in the next two or three weeks.. :(

Friday, 24th August, 2007
This was the last day of Master Intro. Master students were asked to watch a video about Netherlands history. To my surprise, there was a scene of topless dutch lady in the beach! (hoho.. ) well, this is a free country dude! I hope I can keep my faith, not to fall with all sort of freedom given here, till the very last superdupermillisecond I leave this place. Amin.

Hehe.. so, that was my Master Intro in TU Eindhoven! I missed so many details, though. Sorry.. (I really hope I can get my laptop soon... so I can upload photos and write things as soon as possible) I'll write down several details in the future. Time to go back to my study now... wish me luck guys!

Netherlands

2007-08-24T22:39:00.001+03:00

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..

2007-08-07T12:47:00.001+03:00

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

2007-08-06T10:46:00.001+03:00

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!

Eating Wisely...

2007-03-28T21:13:00.001+03:00

This afternoon.. eh, well.. yesterday afternoon, my best friend Rendy asked me, Rikza, and Alf to have lunch together for his birthday party. We should gathered at 14.00 at Bandung Super Mall, the biggest mall in the city (at least for now), but thanks to 'telat berangkat' and 'Angkot ngetem mantep banget' problems, I arrived at 15.00.

Fortunately, everybody can understand... seems their passion of having free lunch as fast as possible is so enormous that it beats the passion of beating their cool friend who comes late for almost 1 hour :D

So, here we are, eating buffet at Sapo Oriental resto. It's Chinese restaurant, and they had all-you-can-eat program so we can order as much as we like. The cool part is, the all-you-can-eat menus is not so much different than the normal menu. We decide to use it as wise as possible.. hehe...

Rendy told us a secret.. never eat noodles, vegetables, and things that would quickly make your stomach full. He also said that meats is the best menu to order. So, we decided to go that way. Carnivore rules!!

In short, during our short visit there, we ordered all of sapo menus (except shrimp roll which already sold out and sapo broccoli.. because it has vegetables in it), two of four kind of soups, and so many foods which have meat as their main ingredients.

We ate for 1,5 hours before we had enough (except Rikza.. I guess..). I'm sure the waiter were relieved just a step after we went out. We ordered so many foods which are normally priced Rp30.000,00 each with only Rp230.000,00 for all foods and for each person.

In the end, I just wonderin... Are we the one who were too clever to use the opportunity? Or it was another miscalculation program from the restaurant's manager? :p

I just hope there will be no pictures of us in the restaurant.. saying that these guys are dangerous.. bancrupt-maker.. :p

Hungry ATM Machine...

2007-03-27T08:28:00.001+03:00

Last Friday, I tried to retrieve some money from the campus ATM. These past days, there had been many expenses. Posting scholarship make the most of them. I had no phone credits (Still using my pre-paid :p ), a printer ink to be filled in, and had only twenty thousand Rupiah in my pocket for weekend. Hopefully, this ATM could save my life.

So, I entered my ATM card as usual.. entered the PIN number.. and the screen displayed "You didn't take your ATM card in the time range we provided. We will keep your card in the ATM".

Great... Just when I need it...

I phoned the bank and told them to block my card. Since I had a practicum test to be prepared, I should wait until Monday to go to the Bank and get my card back. As for my weekend? hehe... I was fortunate enough to have a credit from my parents... :p

So, Monday afternoon I went to the bank. At first, the customer service told me to wait about two or three days until I can get my card. But since I was insisting with an excuse that I would go travelled by the next day, she tried to fasten the procedure. And guess what, after she called here and there, the card was already inside the cupboard behind her ^^'

Shortly, I got my card. After I got it, I asked the customer service whether the campus ATM had already fixed. Convincingly, she stated that for ATM machines, the bank never let them down for days. It was a relief, because I want to return the money I borrowed from my parents as soon as possible. Credit is credit dude... no matter who did you get the credit from.

Afternoon in the same day I got my card back, I returned to the campus ATM...

I entered my ATM card as usual.. entered the PIN number.. and the screen displayed "You didn't take your ATM card in the time range we provided. We will keep your card in the ATM".

The ATM machine must be hungry...

AAAARrrrggh!!!

2007-03-22T09:21:00.001+02:00

that's my scream in the middle of the afternoon...

Feeling hungry but unable to eat, I decided to look on my e-mail. Whoa! there's a comment from my friends on the blog. So, I look go to this URL (Yup! Exactly the same as the one you read now!). The comments was funny... But in a sudden, I'm just thinking to change this blog's title. So, I go to my edit page...

FYI, ladies... (oh yeah, and gentleman.. too..) I often goes online from my campus. Since the Internet connection cached to Japanese server, everytime I go to my blog's URL, the site is displayed in Japanese Hiragana or Katakana (Whoa!)

It's my first time to edit my blog's setting from the campus (using 'Japanese' interface, of course). And later, the button which I thought to be 'Save' button... is a button for 'Delete Your Blog' instead...

And that's how the screaming comes... :D

But well... at least now I can open up a new page... fresh from my past.. from my final project... towards a new Journey...