When blessings are abundant, beware, trials will follow.

I learned this from Yudi, my beloved husband, back then in the early months of our marriage. The lesson is that you have to be prepared all the times and keep yourself positive when bitterness of life strikes.

Being in US, receiving scholarship, experiencing fascinating style of life, makes me feel that God has granted so many blessings. Before I left, Yudi warned me, beware, trials and hindrance are coming. Be ready. Be prepared. Be positive.

And indeed, the trials, the hindrance, the stone blocks have come in my way, making me feel that the world is not fair, that some of our decisions were mistaken. I feel so helpless, so vunerable. This last month has been very difficult, very depressing. Not only problems of my health, my assignments, my family, my son. Hmmm, this is the trial that we've expected. Nothing should be surprising, really.

God granted me the blessing, God granted me the hindrance. Only God makes me positive and go forward and endure the trials.

Veishea celebration ends with riot? stupidity of people with alcoholism...

Last weekend I went to Veishea, an annual festival of various events and activities. That day was so fun for me. On Friday evening, I hung out with Tyas, checking out Welch Avenue where we were watching slam dunk contest, battle of the bands, and eating some foods sold in the food stalls along Welch. The street was blocked for the festival. Saturday morning, I went to see the parade in front of Beardshear Hall. The floats were awesome with big balloon and big happy celebration atmosphere. I also went to Great Hall to the International Food Fair, checking out mango milkshake of India, noodles of the Phillipines and of course Indonesian gourmet. After that, I was heading the martial arts demonstrations with some Indonesians. Andres, one of our friends, performed Tae Kwon Do, but I missed that. However, I managed to see the rest of the demo and I was impressed. After that I went to see the latin dance. Cha (a Turkey friend from IFF program) and Gustavo (one of fulbrighters) took part in the dance performance.




pics by Iowa State Daily


In the evening, Alan Hertz invited me to go to Boheme Bistro for latin dance. We met at Welch Ave and waited for some more friends to join us. The band was blue grass band, not my type of music, but I had to wait for Alan to say 'let's go'. At 11 PM, we left for Boheme on foot. Little did I know that if I stayed until midnight, I would have been stuck in the riot.

Riot? Yes, riot. In Ames, where I thought that such violence would never happen, a riot took place. And the reason for the riot was really silly, stupid and out of my rationality, unlike in Indonesia, where riots happened because of political or economic reasons. It was because a bunch of underage drinkers felt bad after the police disbanded their party. So stupid!



pics by Iowa State Daily

This is my first Veishea, and probably will the last one. Too bad, as the event has been in Ames since 1922. Too bad....

Final of Cyclone Idol

OK, don't have time to write but after the preliminary process and a final performance I got....

Honorable mention

(translated as: A citation to one who has performed well in a competition but has not been awarded a prize)


Not bad, considering I was the only Asian competing....


Cyclone Idol finalists after the announcement of the winners. Pic by Talitha Fox.


me and my "fans" after the competition. Pic by Fira.

A little digging into my personality...

OK, I admit I've been in deep dark tunnel for the last two weeks or so and I'm getting better. Most of all the praise for me getting better is because of my friends. People with so many facets have touched me with their kind-hearted ears to listen to my whinning and complaints. So, here for my friends: Cheers!

Being in a dark tunnel, something I learned about my personality: I'm panicky. Not shame on that, even Yudi had long time ago pointed it out to me. When I'm panic, I would run many horrible scenarios of my future life in a second. And it gets me more panic. Bad habit!

Another bad habit when I'm in depression mode: I lose my appetite and I vomit. Physically disturbed. Bad habit!

Another digging into my personality, Moises (my fulbright fellow in my dept) pointed out the other day that I like starting everything from scratch when I am dissatisfied with my work. Bad habit? I'm not so sure about this. He recalled one time, two days before the due date of my professional website submission, I completely rebuilt my website, just because I wanted to include a page in Flash. And just two days ago, when everyone was busy finishing the last statistical calculation of Language Testing assignment, I was busy re-creating my excel worksheet because I found a glitch in it. Probably a sign of perfectionist passion?

PS: as I knew for a long long time ago, my left ear is a defect. But the good news is my right ear is perfect, as perfect as a bat's ear. How about that? Thanks to Brett, the audiologist at McFarland Clinic, who ran the hearing test yesterday.

Loss of hearing...

I realized that I have a problem with my left ear hearing many years ago. At that time, I was not paying any attention, coz I have my right ear alright. But after band practice last Saturday, I realized that the right one is problematic as well, I couldn't hear things properly as if something is blocking my ear, and I got scared, so scared that I can't really think.

I wanted to go straightly to ENT specialists, but when I called the Mary Greeley Hospital, they said that I need to see my "regular doctor" first. Darn it! I want to know now! Right now! I can't think, I can't live, I'm too panic, I'm too terrified.

Too bad I couldn't get an appointment to Thielen Student Health Center today. The doctors were fully booked. I've got an appointment for tomorrow morning. I hope it's not too late.

I'm scared, I'm just scared. God help me. I'm too scared, and I've got no one to turn to.

I'm feeling awfully sad today... because of one reason or another...

Oh, well, life goes on, with or without something...

I'm struggling and surviving...

Life sucks... when you don't know what you're gonna do..

I'm behind...many assignments just left undone or I haven't started anything. I'm busy with the fun side of my life and my academic life is getting deteriorating.

It's not that I'm not doing a thing. I did my papers, I did my projects, I just didn't read enough to produce a good piece of writing. My reading is basically limited to Umberto Eco's The Foucault's Pendulum, and a bit of internet surfing reading. I wrote my papers, my assignments, but I'm more into writing long one page testimonial at friendster for my friends. I'm productive, but to the wrong direction.

On the successful part, I got an internship job at the Catherine McAuley Center in Cedar Rapids for this summer (May 10-July 9). I'm working as ESL intern, tutoring immigrants, improving ESL programs and doing some volunteer work in Cedar Rapids. Yesterday, I visited the Center, thinking that it was still in interview stage. It turned out that I was accepted already. Kristine Rosene, the education coordinator of the Center, introduced me with the staff of CMC and showed me around the Center. She also explained the job description and worked out the schedule. Chris Rozendaal was really kind giving me a ride to Cedar Rapids, although I knew that he was really busy with his work. The trip was about 5 hours back and forth and it was good to have a person whom I could enjoy the conversation. The city of Cedar Rapids is of course bigger than Ames, have the feeling of a big city but there are spots at the city which I saw to have a small town atmosphere. I'm looking forward to stay there and work at the Center.

What makes this day particularly suck is because my human subject research proposal needs to be resubmitted. Gosh, I have only two weeks to have that proposal to be accepted. I don't know. I don't care. I still have to do the study for my 526 class. I haven't even thought about it. This really makes me panicky. Under normal circumstances, I am easily panic, especially when it comes to classworks. Oh well... I just know that I need a push to start working. I need something. Or someone? :)

I'm constantly in a bad mood today. I just feel that I need to swear to someone. Anybody?