2010's Reflection

I must be very blessed this year. Apart from getting older, there is really nothing to complain.

- My family is in healthy condition the whole year, even my 92 years old grandma.

- My family moves to new home in September, and eventhough I dont live in Indonesia currently, feel really really happy for them.

- Got projects in Bonn, that allow me to spend leasure time with Bernd and Shen. This is really God's blessing, first I got a project at Deutsche Post, then Bernd started his job at Detecon, then Shen moves from the little town, called Euskirchen, to Bonn. Later on, Anu, Janina, even Henning moves to Bonn. Not to count how many other NITers living in Cologne, like Paolita, Weiwei, etc. Wow!

- Moved four times in a year, record breaking! First from munich to a hotel room for a month, second to a garden apartment in bonn west for three months, the two months in a pretty apartment in bonn altstadt, then to the same-house-but-different-apartment with shen, which is just next street to the third one. Busy year indeed, moving stuffs in a radius of 3 km hehehe....

- Got Wii as a very late xmas present at the beginning of the year, and since then, we turned to be gamers, play what ever kind of board or card games all the time in weekends :D

- Great funny holiday in Barcelona with Shen and Bernd in april. Wished could stay longer there, due to the volcano eruption in Iceland - fortunately our flight was not cancelled :D

- Had a quite serious mid-life crisis, thinking what should happen and what should I do after reaching the third decade. Wishes, hope, opportunities.. less chances.. hmm..

- Got proposed on a romantic holiday in Portugal on September 30th - what a sweet gift and it was a wish come true! Turning 30 was not that scary at all. Thank you, baby!

- Two weeks holiday in Indonesia, for Tina's birthday. It's always nice to be back home and celebrate an event with the relatives. Special thank to Tante May Kiem n Thia for helping with the surprise.

- Some weekend car-trips with Shen n Bernd to Kiel (Dennis' summer camp), Switzerland (Gabi and Arturo), Munich via nürnberg (feat.Dennis, Fei). So many food trips to Düsseldorf, esp.the one to Naniwa to meet Wen n Julius. Fun time and good food, just great life!

Finally the three musketeers closed the year by having dinner at Ichiban noodle bar, playing monopoly and Wii Dance2 Revolution while drinking delicious Portwine, and at 12 PM watching fireworks at the brink of Rhine river. La vita e bella!!! Thank you my dear ones :)

In memoriam: Ingo and Suksma's mom

Thesis.. proposition.. house chores

Yesterday nite at 2 AM I finally finish the final version - 1 of the thesis. Yeah!!!!
My supervisor still needs to have a glimpse on it, and then, after correcting it again, the final version will be ready, and I can print it out.
Time is flying so quick, and in the last 4 weeks, I have been working so hard on the thesis and the experiment related to it. The title of my thesis is: Support Vector Regression Analysis for Price Prediction in a Car Leasing Application.

Last week I took 3 days to prepare an online survey, analyze it and wrote the first proposition. Propositions are the requirement from my MBA study at Northern Institute of Technology Management. I should write two propositions, so here they are in two lines:
Proposition 1: Inter University Cooperation: Exploring Potential of Business Applied Informatics in TUHH IMT Program
Proposition 2: Knowledge Management Applications Audit

Altough today was not so efficient in terms of pages to write, I managed to make one phone interview with my ex-colleague, Ryan, about knowledge management in Siemens, the second topic for my second proposition.
Then I bought boxes, for the preparation of moving out from my current appartment to an unknown place, since I don't have a future room yet. Afterwards, packing the suitcase for going back to Indonesia on March 17. One day after the thesis and propositions presentation. Hopefully everything will work according to the schedule, and I dont get sick.

I really look forward to my holiday to relax and enjoy my family again after one year away :)
But before I have to work hard, finalize the thesis and propositions until March 9, print and then submit them to the examination office, create the presentation slides for both, do the test presentation on March 12 at Uni Hamburg, before presenting the final one in Hamburg University of Technology on March 16. Phew....

Well, now I am going to bed first... zzzz....zzz...zz...z.........

Get to know yourself better

Today I took a small quiz to know myself better hihihi...
Here are the questions:
***
1 Imagine that you are walking along a path. What do you see around you? please answer
Forest, so much forest that you can hardly see the sky.
A yellow corn field against a brilliant blue sky.
Softly sloping green hills, with a view of mountains in the distance.
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2 What do you see near your feet? please answer
A mirror
A ring
A bottle
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3 Will you pick it up? please answer
Yes
No
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4 You walk along and find water. In what form is the water? please answer
A lake
A waterfall
A river
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5 You see a key in the water and you pick it up. What does it look like? please answer
An ordinary house key
A beautiful antique key
A small silver locker key
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6 Next you stumble across a house. What type of house is it? please answer
A spacious Hollywood mansion
A hut with a garden full of flowers
A beautiful old stone castle
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7 What do you do next? please answer
Look into the window
Walk right on inside and explore
Walk away. You're not that interested.
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8 Suddenly, something jumps out at you. What is it? please answer
A bear
A wizard
A spider
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9 Because you are so scared you run until you see a wall blocking the path in front of you. There is a door, but it's locked, so you look through the key hole. What do you see? please answer
A beautiful house with a vast garden.
A pond in the middle of a desert.
A beach with waves crashing onto the sand.
***

And here is the result for me:

***
Your view on yourself:
You are down-to-earth and people like you because you are so straightforward. You are an efficient problem solver because you will listen to both sides of an argument before making a decision that usually appeals to both parties.

The type of girlfriend/boyfriend you are looking for:
You are not looking merely for a girl/boyfriend - you are looking for your life partner. Perhaps you should be more open-minded about who you spend time with. The person you are looking for might hide their charm under their exterior.

Your readiness to commit to a relationship:
You are ready to commit as soon as you meet the right person. And you believe you will pretty much know as soon as you might that person.

The seriousness of your love:
You are very serious about relationships and aren't interested in wasting time with people you don't really like. If you meet the right person, you will fall deeply and beautifully in love.

Your views on education
Education is very important in life. You want to study hard and learn as much as you can.

The right job for you:
You have plenty of dream jobs but have little chance of doing any of them if you don't focus on something in particular. You need to choose something and go for it to be happy and achieve success.

How do you view success:
You are afraid of failure and scared to have a go at the career you would like to have in case you don't succeed. Don't give up when you haven't yet even started! Be courageous.

What are you most afraid of:
You are concerned about your image and the way others see you. This means that you try very hard to be accepted by other people. It's time for you to believe in who you are, not what you wear.

Who is your true self:
You are mature, reasonable, honest and give good advice. People ask for your comments on all sorts of different issues. Sometimes you might find yourself in a dilemma when trapped with a problem, which your heart rather than your head needs to solve.
***

I wonder how the nine questions could reveal something like that? I don't totally agree with the analysis, because e.g. "You are concerned about your image and the way others see you" - this is a general characteristic of many people who take such a quiz, isn't it? :)

Snowman and Snowball Fight

Sunday noon 2 PM, after lunch. There is still some piles of snow in the garden and we have got a lot of childhood spirit in us. So let the fight begin!!!



Then Bernd started to roll a snowball, and at the end everybody started to roll as well. Out of those balls we made a 1.90m snowman, a huge one - but cute :) It was the very first time in my life to build a snow man. It was totally exciting.

Snow and Saman

Ok, maybe there is no direct connection between Snow and Saman, except that both start with 'S', but they connected for me. First, today was snowing, in midst of November, could you imagine?! It is actually seldom to have snow in Hamburg, and I was so happy to see the white calm environment, that was created by this beautiful light element. My day started perfectly, woke up with the snow, then the long brunch with my landlord, together with Shen, Gabita and Arturo of course. I tried new slices and liver-paste-with-apple this time.

Another highlight of the day was the cultural performance by KMKI (Indonesian Catholic Students Community) members for celebrating the 50 years jubilaeum of Franziskus-Kolleg. We sang some happy songs:
1. Yamko Rambe Yamko - a song from papua, east part of Indonesia, this one suppose to be a song for someone who goes to battle, but we sing it as if it was a happy one.
2. Ayo Mama - about a teenager and her mama of course
3. Potong Bebek Angsa - about the goose and the duck
4. Mana di Mana - about the lamb hihihi...
5. Butet - a song from Batak people, this one is also about fighting

We also danced Tari Saman, this is a traditional one from Aceh. The one thousand hands dance, some say, because it needs concentration and coordination to do it. I like it, and this was the first time for me to perform it. Joined the practice for three sessions, so two small mistakes were forgiven. I was so glad as we finished, and it was quite well, the audience liked it to - at least I got this impression, because the clapping was quite cheerful :)

Of course apart from us, there were also other musical pieces from some Koreans and Germans, presentations about different countries from multicultural students. At the end the day was closed with the snow. So the connection for Saman and Snow is that both were making my day perfect :)

PS. It was not only fun stuff today, I also learned a bit at Uni Hamburg in the course of SAP in Logistic, where I got to know the Material Management module a bit. Life has to be balance, no? Work and Fun!

Congratulation...

My little sister got her Master degree in PR today. I am so proud of her!
Cool, the little girl is cleverer now :)

Toastmaster

I begin to start a new thing every month now. On October I moved to a house with my best friend Shen - indeed, it is a house, not an appartment. This month's highlight is joining Toastmaster. It is a club to practice public speaking, where one could give a speech and be evaluated professionally by other member(s).

Although I have not had a chance to give the first speech aka. ice breaker speech, I got a good impression about the club. Some speeches are motivating and inspiring, e.g. today by Alex. He told a vivid tale from Afghanistan called:

The Lion and The Pond

There was a lion, living in a jungle. He was thirsty and would like to drink the water from the still pond. But as he peeked over the pond, he saw another lion, a big and strong one. So due to surprise, he went back and cancelled his intention. But then he decided to come back to the pond because of his thirst and he thought if he roared and showed the opponent his teeth, he could scare him and chase him away. But of course the other lion also did the same. At the end he got really thirsty and decided what ever happen, he will just drink from the pond, maybe the other lion would let him in peace. As he dodged his head into the water, there was nothing but the fresh water.

Moral of the story:
1. Often the enemy lays WITHIN oneself, in the fear, laziness, etc.
2. Often the problem that you see is an ILLUSION, there is no problem if you manage to see it from different perspective. Or if there is any, it will go away as soon as you take ACTION.