I'm home...

I'm no longer in the United States, so I move to this new blog:

http://nenyish.wordpress.com

See you around and thanks for hanging around with me here...

Nebraska trip

On July 1 - 3, I had the opportunity to travel to Nebraska to visit Omaha and Lincoln. Fun trip. Tons of pics. Tired feet. Enuff saying...

As Abi puts it, it's time to visit the corn fields :P

Jari

Itu jari mau dikemanakan?
Ke arah matahari
merasakan mata angin
mendamba langit.

Hidup ini adalah jari.

Ritual Tertunda

sejak kapan menit
jadi terlupa
dan merahnya senja
terlalu tanpa bahasa?

Galibnya ritual
yang tak sekejap
tertunda karena
tak ada hati
di sana.

I hate this class...
I hate this summer class...
I hate this Foundations in Instructional Technology class...

Aaaarrrrrrrggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Perjuangan belum selesai, Jendral!

Yup, perjalanan masih panjang.

Daftar "cucian" yg hrs gw selesaikan:

• Revisi thesis
• Tugas2 kelas Foundations in Instructional Technology
• Ngurus pindahan ke tempat the Hertz
• Get rid of unwanted stuffs
• Ngepak barang2
• Disconnect telpon
• Matiin bank
• Bayar utang2
• dll...

Whew, alamat gak bisa ngapa2in nih..

Thesis: Accomplished

Quick post *because I'm too happy*

Title:
Variations in Interactional Modifications in Synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) Between Different Tasks Among Indonesian Non-Native Speakers (NNSs) of English

Writer:
Neny Isharyanti

Program:
Master

Major:
Teaching English as a Second Language/Applied Linguistics

Specializations:
Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL)
English for Specific Purposes (ESP)

Final Oral Exam:
Monday, June 20, 2005, 3-4.15 PM, 412 Ross Hall

Exam Grade:
PASS

*whew!*

Defense

If you happen to read this on Monday 3-5 PM Central Time (GMT -6) , I'm having my final oral exam on my thesis.

Please pray for me so that I can pass it safely.

Enough saying and thanks *I'm too nervous now*

Komentar maya

+ gobloq utk ini

Segala kata mungkin tak punya nada
Segala nada mungkin tak punya gaung
-- itu pikirmu, rasamu

Di dunia maya ini
inspirasi mungkin datang
di kelokan berikutnya

Saya menemukan
kata
nada
gaung
di sini.

Salam,
Neny
* don't give up writing!

Cerita malam ini

Malam sunyi ini
lagunya adalah merindui
jaraknya adalah benci.

-- baru aku sadari
begitu jauhnya aku telah pergi
dan begitu inginnya aku akan kembali.

Rumah tak mau pergi

Matahari pagi ini
seperti rumah
tapi tak serupa.

Di sini ada
warna warni
alami
musim yang
dinanti
sejak salju
menjadi
benci.

Aku rindu rumah
seperti di sini.
Menghitung jam
jadi seperti nyeri.
Tempat ini adalah
mimpi yg menuju akhir.
Jarum berhenti:
aku tak mau pergi.

+ Buat para "penggemar" puisiku: Inggita Notosusanto & Charly Silaban *yg katanya pengin baca puisiku lebih banyak*...makasih!

WTF!

Jadi filosofis
apa arti semua
tulisanku ini.

Sekiranya
penghidupanku
jadi lebih nyaman
kiranya tulisan
ini jadi kuncinya.

Entah mengapa
aku merasa tersia
ketika berjuta karakter
kuketik dan kupikir
tergencet waktu
jadi muaranya:

Jadi filosofis
apa arti semua
tulisanku ini.

Serangga-Bikini-Kulit-Lelaki

Datangnya serangga
adalah pertanda
musim panas
tiba
tanpa tertunda.

maka jiwa-jiwa
tersiksa
dalam
sweater dan syal
terbebaskan
menjelma
bikini dan celana komprang.

Kulit coklat
jadi rebutan
matahari
jadi jagoan.

Panas dingin
lirik lelaki
saya
memaki.

Maafkan saya...

Saya baik-baik saja. Sungguh. Dan saya tidak pindah blog atau pindah lokasi. Serius.

Tapi kalau blog saya miskin posting akhir-akhir ini, mohon dimaafkan. Saya sedang mengalami apa yang namanya sibuk tapi males. Sibuk, karena tugas-tugas kuliah yang walaupun cuma satu mata kuliah tapi tugasnya bikin puyeng. Sibuk karena saya tengah mengambil data untuk thesis saya. Tapi males, karena tampaknya saya sudah kehabisan energi dan spirit untuk menggeluti dunia akademik sebagai mahasiswa. Males, karena sebentar lagi *alias 4 bulan lagi* saya akan pulang ke Indonesia dan bertemu dengan orang-orang tercinta. Di otak yang terpikir cuma segala rencana yang akan saya lakukan jika bertemu dengan mereka.

Manifestasinya? Saya bisa tuh ngejogrok lima enam jam di perpustakaan kampus, tapi hasil kerja nggak sampai 15%. Dan saya bisa sekali menunda pekerjaan jika senja sudah menjemput matahari. Satu lagi, saya sedang hobi main game di Neopets dan sudah sampai tahap ke kecanduan berat, sampai-sampai setiap ketemu komputer di mana pun pinginnya akses ke Neopets! (Hiks, jadi kebayang, kalau di Indonesia nggak mungkin bisa dapat koneksi Internet yg wus, wus, wus...) .

Makanya, maafkan saya kalau blog ini seperti hidup segan mati tak hendak, alias jarang ada postingan. Saya sedang berusaha memotivasi diri saya supaya tidak males dan segera bisa menyelesaikan kewajiban saya pada negara *caila....* untuk menuntaskan studi saya di negara Paman Sam

I'm blessed in the midst of trial...

In the middle of my trial with my thesis, God still grants me the blessing. I'm honored to be given the title of the third winner of 2005 Cyclone Idol [Iowa State Daily article here]


Full concentration!

Thank you, Christine Goeltom, for your beautiful play with the piano. You made my song for the final complete. Thank you all friends who showed up and supported me during the whole process of Cyclone Idol. Thank you some friends who gave me hugs, cheers, applauses, flowers and chocolate to celebrate my performance tonight. I'm "Saving All My Love for You" (this is the song that I sang for the final).

I'm thankful. Pray that God will help me during this ordeal of my thesis.

Acknowledgements

A list of thank-yous....

• God -- for all the opportunities, blessings, trials, temptations which make me able to experience many facets of life and to grow better as a person.
• my family -- for trusting me, supporting me and criticizing me in all the decisions and actions that I make, for loving me no matter what, for being there and listening to my rants.
• my friends -- for giving me assistance when I need it the most, for sharing my joy and pain, for assurance that I can do it, no matter how hard the obstacles are.

With that, I rest the endeavors of my life in Your Great Divine Hands...

Pumping my ego...

If you google my name today, here are some things that I have done in the past months:

Translation Project for Tsunami in Aceh here (IndonesiaHelp.org)
IFF in Beaver Creek during Spring Break here (the Des Moines Register)
Indonesian Night 2005 MC and performances here and here (Iowa State Daily).
TESOL conference in San Antonio, TX here (CALL Club) and pics.
Blogshares: The fantasy stock market for weblogs here.

Not really important, huh? But big enough to pump my ego *wink*

Pray for me...

In the midst of this chaos of my thesis process, I ask you to pray for me....

Pray so that I can find subjects...
Pray so that I can collect my data soon...
Pray so that I can have a clear mind in writing...
Pray so that I can meet all the deadlines...
Pray so that I can finish my study on time...

But more importantly, please pray so that I will be healthy and sane in doing all of this...

Lesson Learned

I went to San Antonio, Texas, for a week, attending TESOL conference.


Anne, Monica, Dr. Chapelle, Mehmet, Reiko and me
after our presentation in TESOL

Going back from San Antonio, I started to perceive my friends differently. It turned out that I took for granted the ability of human beings to act both positively and negatively. Probably because I was never put to a situation which required me to be constantly with other people for 24 hours, I had never seen the dark side of my personalities. When I was put in a condition which hampered me to be nice all the time, I eventually learned that at some points, I had to show the real me, which means that I did not only show my positive characteristics (nice, smiling all the time, generous, understanding, etc.), but also my negative traits (egoististical, lazy, careless, etc.).

When people are tired, after a long day of conference sessions, they might be more sensitive and easily angry. When people are crappy, looking for a privacy time, there may be a tendency of treating other people badly. I, of course, being tired of walking from session to session for a whole day and being in a need of quality time with myself, became sensitive, bad-tempered, and crappy. I don't like being treated badly, but I have to realize that as human beings, it is impossible to be "angels" all the time, particularly after a long tiring day without a time to be alone, just with yourself.

My experience in San Antonio, traveling with my three closest friends, has taught me to understand more the nature of human beings of being an "angel" at one time, and an "evil" at the other time. Quite a number of times when I was with them, I wanted to yell at them to shut up and to leave me alone. I had the urge to debate any decisions that they made for going to certain places or doing certain activities, either because I did not want to go to those places or to do those activities. I also learned that my friends who were angelic most of the times in the past or in San Antonio (understanding, attentive, willing to help and listen), sometimes they too showed the teeth of their evilish smile (being difficult to deal with, giving others a hard time, yelling).

What can I do? Patience, patience, patience. Do to others as you do unto yourself.

A hard task to do, but I'm learning and trying and applying....


At the background is the "trolley" of San Antonio
more pics are here. Enjoy!

Skiing: learning to fall (and be OK with it!)

So, finally, two days before the ski resort is closed for the Spring to come, I went skiing. It's not that I'm that enthusiastic about sports. Or that I'm crazy about snow. It's just that I face the grim fact that I might not be able to touch or smell or experience snow again after August. Since my motto is "experience everything at least once", skiing is definitely one of the activities that I want to experience while I'm in the US (those include, in the past: going to American football game; thanksgiving; watching ballets, theaters, and classical music recitals; going to farm).

I was lucky because the place where I visited to go skiing, the Mount Kato Ski Resort, in Mankato, Minnesota, was still open until Saturday. My initial plan was to go to the Seven Oaks Ski Resort, in Boone, Iowa, which is located only about 10 miles from Ames. Alas, when I decided to go, I found out that they were already closed for the season. Gina Hertz, who had been very kind to be willing to drive me and accompany me skiing, suggested to go to Mankato instead, which is located near the border of Iowa and Minnesota. Off we go, almost three hours drive, to Mankato, Minnesota.

The map: Ames, IA-Mankato, MN

Gina Hertz, my patient skiing teacher and a talented skier!

me and Gina in the car, ready to go skiing!

After we paid the fee for entrance, lift pass (the lift to get us to the top of the hill), and ski equipment rental at the gate, we went to the rental shop to get a pair of skis and boots. No poles? Yup, no poles for beginners. Poles are used for speeding your skis, and since beginners are not supposed to speed until they master the flow of the skis, then no poles for me!

The entrance tag to the ski resort. We had to hang this tag on our jacket so that the workers could see it when we're skiing and they knew that we didn't sneak into the resort without paying ;)

They assigned the right skis for me based on my weight (don't ask!) & my level of skill (probably idiot level ;)

If you think skiing is fun, think twice! First, the boots were very rigid and hard. My feet were like being put in a plaster cast (no kidding!). The boots were especially made with hooks at the bottom to make sure that the skis are securely fastened to the boots. And it's not easy to get on the skis in the slippery ice and to put them on tight. Otherwise, you may fall easily! Of course, due to the rigidness and the shape of the skis, it was very hard for me to walk to the lift station with those equipments. If you could see me, I was walking like an ugly duckling :P My thighs were so much in pain after the we're done skiing. It took me three days to recover from the soreness of my thighs. Secondly, the snow was very slippery! I needed to know how and where I should put my skis in order to avoid being slipped and falling on snow. And, the law of gravitation does exist, fellas! Everything, and that includes me and my skis, will fall to the lower part of the slopes (not to the top part of the hill, got it? *wink*) And of course, the skis were designed to make the skier able to ski on the ice (duh!) so once they hit the slope on the right angle (which is facing toward the foot or the top of the hill), they will carry you fast and furious down the slope! (I hope I made myself clear) Gina taught me that the secret of not slipping the ice and not going downhill unprepared was to position the skis *and of course the body on top of them* across the hill, not facing the top/foot of the hill. If you place your skis along the hill, you will surely fall.

The painful boots Getting on the skis is tricky! You need to know the tricks and Sir Isaac Newton :)

The other lesson was how to control and stop the skis. It was damn hard! To control the skis to turn left, the secret is to move the body weight to the right foot. To stop the skis, the skis need to be in triangular-like position, so the tip of the skis almost meet. Also, it is very important to stand with the back straight, and bend both legs. The standard position of skiing is like squatting but only half way.

Enough? Nooooo....I have to be ready to fall, not for once nor twice, but for at least a dozen times! And of course, falling sucks! In my first attempt, I fell seven times: once when I got off the lift, and six other times along the hill (which means once every two meters). Second time was better, three times only! Still, the lift was my enemy. I fell off everytime I got off. But I learned how to shift my balance from left to right to make a zigzag along the hill. Third time is a charm. No fall at all! The results of the fall? Quite obvious: the back of my ski pants was completely wet and my butt was killing me! Is that all? No! The most important aspect of falling is that I lose my dignity as an adult who was a complete idiot in learning to ski! The kids around me (yes, kids, under 16) were considered a pro and I could see what's in their mind seeing this goofy adult falling heaps of times on ice! Of course, I would fall and stumble. That was my first time. I think the reason of why I fell so many times on my first attempt is because I underestimated the skill required to ski. Once I changed my set of mind and be serious about it, I didn't fall as many as the first time.

This is the ski pants that I borrowed from Gina. Do you notice that my butt is wet from falling too often?

And, once I overcame all the obstacles, I was feeling estatic! Skiing is fun! It's like flying! Spread your wings and feel the wind on your face while you're skiing downhill...

Uh oh, wait a minute...just when I got comfortable zigzagging along the hill, changing from easy terrain to more difficult one, it got scarier... First attempt to the blue terrain (more difficult terrain) was flawless. I did it flying color. Second attempt: bad! I fell hard and stuck in the middle of the terrain. The foot of the hill was half way down, and I felt soooooo scared! Gina assured me to go down in the skis, but I preferred on foot. No question asked, but I knew Gina was thinking that I was a chicken! And I return to the bunny slopes....

Ready to hit the more difficult slope *looking optimistic, but watch your steps man! See the next picture!*

The fall! And the foot of the hill seemed so faarrrrrr faaarrrrrr awaaaayyyyy I want my mommy! :P

Three hours had passed. The weather was terribly wonderful. Not too hot so that the snow would not melt. Not too cold so that I didn't have to put my heavy jacket. After a dozen more skiing downhill, I was ready to go home.


In front of the ski slopes:
the two left ones are the green/bunny slopes (easy ones),
the right one is the blue one (more difficult one)

Wonderful, unforgettable experience. Thanks God for letting me experience this. Thanks Gina for driving me up to Minnesota and teaching me how to ski.

Enough said.

A day in Gregory's Coffee House

This is how a typical day of Neny in Gregory's Coffee House of Ames...


Going to Gregory's during the day...

Then arrive in Gregory's... 

Ready to work! 

with my laptop, my cellphone, and a mug of hot coffee 

Now, I'm set to work.. 

But, the cinnamon cappucino coffee with whipped cream and 3 packs of raw sugar is inviting...hmm, what to do?

Start working or coffee first? *tough choice* 

Oh well, let's start working, have coffee, and take pictures at the same time! 

A few hours later...going home from Gregory's

Iowa Corn Song?

*Narcistic Mode ON*


Last night, I had a very rare and pleasant opportunities to sing in front of the dignitaries of Iowa politics and business in The Second Annual Hoover-Wallace Dinner at Des Moines Marriott Downtown Hotel (coverage in Des Moines Register here and here, RadioIowa here). The Dinner was organized by The World Food Prize, Rotary Clubs of Iowa and the Greater Des Moines Partnership, to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Life-Saving work of Iowa SHARES in Southeast Asia. The event was also for raising funds for the Borlaug-Ruan International Internship Program for Iowa highschoolers.

The dinner was very delicious. The invitees were A-list politicians and big companies in Iowa (to name a few: former US Vice President Walter Mondale, Former Iowa Governor Robert Ray, US Senator Tom Harkin, US Senator Chuck Grassley, Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack). And the price of the seat was crazy: minimum $100 per seat or $ 1,000 per table if you want to dine! Even Tom Hertz, who came as my guest that evening, said that although he may be able to pay, he will never get the invitation! It is one of the biggest fund-raising event in Iowa and it's very hard to get invited.

Now, how a girl from Indonesia, with mediocre singing quality, and virtually unknown to the prominent figures of Iowa, got invited to sing in such a huge event? Call it luck! :P The reason of why I could sing in that event is because of word of mouth. Kevin Geik, one of the organizing staff, happened to hear me singing quite a while ago in Ames Boys and Girls Scout event to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr birthday, and he suggested my name to be the performer of that evening. How I got invited to sing in that small event of the Scout? It was because Judy Dolphin, the director of YWCA Ames where I volunteered in IFF program, suggested my name. So, it was one thing leads to another.

I was only singing the Iowa Corn Song for less than 5 minutes, but the opportunity to sing in such a prestigious event and to shake hand with some famous politicians is priceless....

We're from Ioway, Ioway State of all the land Joy on every hand We're from Ioway, Ioway That's where the tall corn grows... Words by George Hamilton and Ray W. Lockard Original music by Edward Riley