It's been a while since my last update. So, There were a lot of events passing around in my life recently.

First of all, thank you for some of you giving me a BIG birthday surprise (terharu...). You know, it's my first time talking on my phone for more than 45 minutes. That's fantastic. Saya terharu atas perhatian kalian-kalian. I still have one promise to you all. NO no, not the ticket, nor the Baywatch-looking boys. Heheh.. I'll upload picture taken at that time. Once again, thx for: dikey, dwl, maya, josef, wira, ijul -ups jullian, iang, achi, eno, anti, diah, prita, icha, dipo, hendy, bimo, tiwi, nasri + syifa, boli, novan, jeab, eka si suara ho*ok, umm... siapa lagi yah? (ngingat2x)

Some of you told me to pay attention on my weight. Heheh, I'm not going to be Biggest Loser contestant by the way. For sure, I look slimmer. I lost around 9 kilos. Yep.. I'm not pregnant anymore. I walk for nearly one hour every single day. Sometimes had to speed up to catch Bus or Train. And, since I am student, my big lunch is only on special occasion such as training or faculty meeting. Heheh.. maklum mahasiswa. Usually, I only eat vegetables and small portion of meat (tuna, rendang, empal, soto, devon) with rice. Talking about food, I found funny thing that people here call our fried rice as "nasi goreng". Even, at some restaurants they serve "balinese nasi goreng". However, the taste is not the same with our nasi goreng. It tastes like risoto (hmm... I think it's Mexican cuisine). Risoto is made from rice. But, the rice is not steamed before it is cooked. On the other hand, our nasi goreng uses steamed rice. Rasanya? spt makan krupuk, krutuk krutuk krutuk.

The weather is getting colder. Lucky us as Indonesians. We only have two seasons, and it's very humid. In here, it's very dry. I have digestion problem with this condition. When the humidity drops and I don't have enough drink, then in the morning I will get constipation. such a very uncomfortable condition. If I drink too much, I will be very frequent go to toilet which is very cold. Likewise in last summer. I couldn't sleep well because I was sweating on the bed (even worse, I was sweating in my dream -_-).

How about campus life? Okay, I should tell it again that I don't have any formal courses here. It's like TA for more than a year. If you don't pay attention to the schedule, suddenly you'll shout "shit tomorrow is the DUE". My supervisory team is very great. I'm very lucky to have them. Although, they give me a lot of reading assignment (and the queue is getting longer), I am starting to feel the benefit. Living in research environment is not the same as living as an employee. You are only expected to work on working day, and off at public holiday. But, it's only expectation. Me and my colleagues often go to the office even on public holiday or sunny. Go out at 8 and go home at 11 in the nite. I usually off on Saturday, to look after my shirts, rooms, food and my social life. Yep, maintaining social life is a must. I won't feel lonely if I have friend. I joined choir group at Cathedral, and also I joined a group of people from ICF (Indonesian Catholic Fellowship). You know, I feel very good when I'm sing as loud as possible. I was quite surprised when knowing that people in the group are very professional. Some of them are musician. Even the trainer is a Doctor in Music. Yes, PhD of music. When practicing, I feel like as if I learned to be a true singer. No wonder if they are using block notation instead of numeric for the music. Okay, back to my campus life. If you want to know more detail about my life,there is a cartoon strip related to this thing. It's really accurate you know. hahah, I think, I'll put some strips on my website.

Is it bad to have such life? I don't want to defend myself, but, I'll try to explain as objective as possible. Firstly, of course, you have to self passionate and organized. It's easy to lose time in this environment (e.g. I am bloggin rite now whilst I have to prepare something for tomorrow meeting). Sometime it's very stressful and painful. The feeling is the same when you are doing SIT (Jatisian should know this term). You don't have exact working time = more freedom. You can go all around the world for attending a conference or just to be a trainer without spending any cent from your pocket (hopefully, I can see Eiffel or London Bridge, or Time square in my candidature period). You are paid (of course you have to pay if you don't have any scholarship). Although your salary is very little compared with Oz standard, hey, you are paid for the sake of your thinking. Nevertheless, you have to be very productive, in term of producing paper or journal. Because there is no mark in this degree, the only mark is from your paper or journal quality. Yep, the hell part is when you are behind the schedule or you don't know what you should do. Idea is the most precious thing in this environment. I heard some horror stories saying that someone's idea was stolen by other colleague, then that person couldn't continue his candidature since he didn't have any idea left to be proposed. Politics is still involved in such environment. I have to live to these shortcomings in order to survive. I'll tell it later, it's 12 o'clock, I haven't done anything. Boy.. such a procrastination.