My Letter of Gratitude

Jakarta, 30 September 2012

Dear family members, lecturers and friends,

29 September 2012 became another historical day of my life. A mixture of feelings took over my mind upon graduating; I felt happy and excited, and at the same time, touched. These 4 years of university have been very enjoyable indeed.

In this short letter, I'd like to convey my thanks to all individuals involved in my university life. I give my special thanks to my father, who's taught me to maintain my strength, discipline and composure in facing all kinds of situations in life; and my mother who's encouraged me to be competitive so that I can always strive forward and fight to achieve what I want in life. Thank you, little brother, for bringing joy to my childhood and giving me support. To my dear grandparents, uncles, aunties, cousins, nieces and nephews; I'm blessed to have you as my family.

To the lecturers of the Life Sciences' faculty and the language department, thank you for your guidance and patience, without which I wouldn't have been able to make it through the 4 years of my study. There were both good and bad times, but they have now become a set of valuable life lessons and cherishable moments. To my fellow friends, seniors and juniors from various departments, thanks for filling each of my university days with thrills and excitement. It was worthwhile waking up to look forward to a new day and new experiences in university. To the former members of the SGU English Club, all the former and current members of the SGU Choir, thanks for bringing even more color to my university life. I extend my deepest gratitude to the current SGU Choir for enchanting me with your wonderful voices during the graduation ceremony. To my colleagues in Germany, whose presences are irreplaceable during my internship, I thank you all. The last but not the least, I thank all personnel engaged in making the ceremony a great success. I'm glad to have met all of you.

Now, it's time to leave behind those memorable university days and move on in life. May God bless us all in our endeavors.


Best wishes,

Yamin / Winnie / Laura

Positivity

Finally! After the 3 whole months of working on the research for my Bachelor's thesis, I submitted the hard & soft copies to the Examination Office earlier today. It has been a long, tough journey, and I still can't believe that I've made it to the submission. Now that I look back, I'm glad and content that I've accomplished the tasks that I once thought were going to be difficult and would yield unfavorable results.

I remember the first time I experienced a premonition about the culturing of bacteria in a liquid media, when I had to take samples at a 12-hourly interval for 5 days in order to construct the growth curve. The best time to start the incubation would be, according to my plan, at 8 am. Therefore, it wouldn't be too early in the morning, nor would it be too late in the evening.

However, when I was waiting for the next sampling turn at 8 pm, negative thoughts started invading my mind. I was worried that the results would not be good, which would waste the whole week I had spent working on them and cost me another week to repeat the procedure until I got the perfect growth curve showing the lag, logarithmic (or exponential), stationary and death phases of the microbe.

Suddenly, I realized that I had had too little confidence in myself and the things I worked on. What I should be thinking was, "I can do it. The result will be good. Be strong, focus and give it my best shot. Don't make myself weak. When the time comes, I will overcome everything."

Those 5 phrases proved to be much more effective in helping me finish my jobs, compared to being overly anxious about the future outcome or regretting the mistakes and failures of the past. Thanks to positivity, I was able to finish writing my thesis, print it out and submit it to the Examination Office. Support from family and friends are not to be forgotten as well. I'm grateful for having them by my side.

The final step will be the thesis defense session in July. Well, it's natural to expect the task to be difficult. But hey, worrying won't help. The one and only way to overcome it, is to face it with self-confidence.

From Sushi to Taekwondo

Does the title sound weird? To me, it sure does...

From what I know, sushi originates from Japan and Taekwondo from Korea. They come from two different cultures, but somehow my dream last night seemed to be connecting them. Well, that's how dreams are: unrelated things uniting in one strange episode.

Yesterday afternoon, I had a wonderful sushi buffet lunch with my university pals. The food was good and the ambience of the restaurant was quite nice for an afternoon gathering. Since we decided on having the All You Can Eat menu, we ordered lots of weird sushi names that haven't been heard of anywhere else. We talked about memorable trivial things that happened during the earlier days of university, enjoyed good laugh over silly matters of the past and took pictures together. What a nice gathering that was.

So now we move on to Taekwondo.

What I can remember from my dream is that I was a newbie enrolled in a Taekwondo school along with the same friends that had had sushi with me in the afternoon. What's even funnier  is that the school was located in the Emporium Pluit Mall in North Jakarta. That's so strange...As a resident of Puri Indah in West Jakarta, only on special occasions do I go all the way to North Jakarta for mere weekend entertainment. Not only that, I don't think there's even a Taekwondo school in EPM despite being only an occasional visitor.

The teacher was a heavily-built female with fair skin. Plus, she was a strict one with black belt. I remember clearly that she was warning us not to run off and hang out with friends in EPM and that we better be serious in the training. Suddenly, without even showing us the basics, she instructed us to do a one-on-one training, where each of us had to practise with a partner. How on earth were we supposed to do that?

The story suddenly shifted. As if we succeeded in escaping from the training, we were then strolling together along the shops in EPM.

That's where the dream terminated. When I woke up this morning, I wondered if the dream was caused by the distant memory of my childhood. I recalled that I once wanted to join the Taekwondo extracurricular activity when I was in primary school grade 1, and I found it so hilarious that I started rolling on the bed and chuckling by myself. Oh my, I think I'd watched too much episodes of Power Rangers and Ultraman when I was small.

When one suddenly became an eyewitness

Life really has so much to offer. We may get indirectly involved in unexpected incidents, in which what or whom we saw and thought to be unimportant, turned out to be a very crucial moment that could serve justice.

It all happened earlier today after having lunch with friends at the Marine & Fisheries research center in Slipi Petamburan. I was on my way to meet my friend Tyas in the library, when I remembered about my permission request letter which I need to submit to the lecturers to inform them about the reason for my absence in Wednesday's lectures. So I decided to get my permission request letter in my bag to be entrusted to her.

Bringing along my wallet and cell phone, I made my way to the Biotechnology Laboratory where my backpack was, and pushed open the door.

At that very moment, a man dressed in dark blue uniform came out from a space between a table and a bookshelf near the door of my entrance. The table was the spot where I put my backpack along with my friends'. They were friends I made when I started my research there and they were just upstairs washing the plates and spoons they had used for eating. I remembered clearly that the 3 of them went to the kitchen to do their washing and I was the only one going back to the laboratory.

There was no one in the laboratory that time, only that man in the dark blue clothing. As he walked towards the door through which I'd made my entrance, he greeted me, said nothing else, then left through the door. That moment was too short, that I could not even recall how his face exactly looked. After getting my permission request letter, I proceeded to the library to meet up with Tyas.

Upon returning to the laboratory half an hour later, Ms. Dewi, the head of the Biotechnology Laboratory, hastily called out to me and asked if my wallet had gone missing from my backpack. The me who still had no idea of what had happened, puzzledly showed her the wallet I had been bringing along with me. Then she asked me whether I had seen anyone suspicious wandering in the laboratory.

Oh man...I had a really bad feeling back then. Before I asked about what had happened, well, I tried describing the man I saw. She asked about his face, his posture, his hairstyle....but my mind just could not recall them. I must admit that I'm really, really bad in remembering people's faces and names, especially those that I don't see very often. It turned out that someone had stolen one of the student researcher's wallet. What??? So that man I saw could have been the thief!! No one was in the lab when I bumped into him! But I could not say that for sure, of course. I regret it so much about not taking good notice of his facial features, which might have been useful in identifying the thief.

I have to see more into details next time. Lesson learned!

The Fate of Being Small in This Big World

Having a smaller figure compared to an average 21-year-old, I came across both advantages and disadvantages in life. Here are some examples of the cases and outcomes, when....

....I met & was introduced to a German during my internship last year : I was thought to be a 15-year-old.

....my Transjakarta bus was full of passengers, but I went in anyway : The bus attendant didn't mind & I fit in just fine.

....the bus was so full of passengers & I wanted to get off at the next stop : I had to squeeze my way through to the door so that the bus attendant would notice me & keep the door open.

....a friend noticed a spring horse toy in a playground & I was with him/her : I was told that the horse would suit me, so I should get on.

....I met a neighbor on my walk back home after finishing the day's work for my Bachelor's thesis: He/she asked whether I was on my way home from SCHOOL (implying to junior/senior high school).

....I was attending a wedding reception organized by my parents' friend & my younger brother, who's now taller than me, was coincidentally standing beside me : at least 1 acquaintance of ours would mistake him as my boyfriend.

All of it must have happened for a reason, that humans tend to judge a book by its cover. Fortunately, there are still some positive sides to being a small person. If there wasn't any, then life might have been difficult for someone like me.

In the past, I used to hate it so much when people pointed out negative things about my size. Some questions I'd like to ask them: "Have you ever thought of how you'd feel if you were the one in my position?" "Would you like it when people were so blind of your other aspects except height?"

However, I'm grateful that I slowly learned to acknowledge my fate & ignore useless comments that weren't to my liking. After all, it's entirely up to me whether or not to keep the comments in mind. I live the way I want to, I'm content with my size & I accept people for who they are when they accept me unconditionally. My best of friends are those whom I feel the happiest being together with, as they are pleased to have me as a part of their social lives regardless of my flaws. Being small is never a bother when I'm together with these people.

The Mind, Our Time Machine to the Past

For the past 2 weeks, I've been working on my research at the Marine & Fisheries Research & Product Development Center in Slipi, Central Jakarta. Upon alighting from the bus, a short walk is required in order to reach the place. Coincidentally, the research center is located nearby the building Graha Indramas, an office building I'm quite familiar with. Whenever my eyes caught sight of it, my mind would rewind to the past as I made my way through the bustling street.

A few years ago, our family of 4 used to have our dimsum buffet in Rose Garden, a Chinese restaurant located on the 3rd floor of Graha Indramas. Our love for dimsum + the affordable all-you-can-eat price were enough to keep us coming back for another round of dimsum on Saturdays. The food were of high quality & the ambience was nice. Plus, the waiters & waitresses were very friendly. I do hope that the restaurant has been maintaining the good service throughout the years. How I miss having its Ha Kau, roasted duck, Siew Mai and many more.

Then I would remember how life was much easier for me back then, who was still attending junior high school. All I needed to do were to finish my homework & study for exams. At school, life was fun although I remember having to struggle a bit to stay on top. 2nd year of junior high school was the 1st time I learned about the feeling of being in love with someone. I woke up every weekdays & looked forward to school very much, thanks to that particular guy I was interested in. Personally, I felt that we were very close friends. We talked about many things at school and even phoned each other in the evening to continue the chit-chat. The phone call would last for at least 1 hour until one of us eventually remembered having something important to attend to, which brought an end to the call. I'm not sure whether my feelings were obviously shown on my face whenever I talked to him, but a friend did tell me that she knew about my feelings for that guy.

Sadly, I lost contact with the guy as we parted ways in high school. Whenever I was reminded of the embarrassing feeling I experienced as friends told me that my feelings were clearly shown on my face, I would become irritated with that character of mine. I hated the fact that despite others saying that I showed my feelings very clearly & easily, those feelings weren't able to convey my message to the guy. I slowly developed an invisible mask, made especially for feelings related to romance. To be honest, that mask is still on & so I don't usually show delight when I meet someone I had been setting my eyes on, although it's the happiest moment of the day. As a result, some people might have seen me as someone unsociable and proud. That past experience seemed to be telling me that I shouldn't hope too much. I wish I could get rid of the fear of showing my true feelings.

However, to keep myself going, I motivate myself with the phrase "the precious present". I learned it from listening to an audio seminar by Dr. Ken Blanchard, played from a cassette tape by my Dad on our way to & from my campus and his office. Those 3 words had a serious impact that changes my way of thinking about how my life was better in the past compared to the present & how I want to fast-forward my life to the future while skipping the bad episodes of life. I found that it's best to enjoy life as it is; it's pitiful to be wishing to return to the past & it's illogical to wish for a better life in the future without us enjoying our life while trying our best in the present. As our very own time machine, our mind can take us back to the past & relive both good & bad memories. Too bad it doesn't have the option of time travelling to the future, but that's why the present is here to enable us to shape it.

My Views about Happiness

During these past few years, I’ve been wondering what happiness exactly means to me and where I have to look for it. There are a few thoughts I came up with, for example:

• I’ll be happy when I’m finally done with my research
•  I’ll be happy when I’ve graduated
• I’ll be happy when I get a job
• I’ll be happy when I finally find someone special to me
• I’ll be happy when I get married
• I’ll be happy when I become rich

and many other things starting with “I’ll be happy when/if _____________”.

Then suddenly, I realized that I was being foolish. I’ve defined my happiness with things that happen in the future and I didn’t even consider about things in the present. What about the current me? Am I living an unhappy life?

So instead of thinking about what WILL make me happy, I chose to list some of the current, small things that delight me:

• Waking up to a new day with no headache
• My family being in good health
• Family members to talk to
• Friends to joke around with
• Getting back in touch with old friends + meeting & keeping in touch with current ones
• Getting to know new people with pleasant characters
• A home to return to
• Electricity to power my home
• Internet connection to access web pages
• My hobbies
• My own issues/business to work on
• My laptop & handset functioning well
• Good food to enjoy
• Travelling
• Enough money to spend
• Seeing well-behaved kids & pets

In other words, I’ve actually been blessed with so many small things that bring me joy. To me, being happy is a matter of accepting my current condition, no matter how good or bad it is. It’s up to my mind to regard something I do as enjoyable or mind-exhausting, so why don’t I try to enjoy doing something that I didn’t enjoy before?

I’m currently working on my bachelor’s thesis and sometimes things just won’t go the way I want them to. It seems like before one problem is solved, another one comes in and I have to divide my brain to concentrate on so many things at a time. But well…I kind of enjoy being busy working on this project. Hopefully, I’ll be able to continuously motivate myself until the end of the project.