#783 - Merry Christmas 2009!!!

Hi all

I just wanna say:

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2009

to all of you


who celebrate it

May His Mercy and Greatness bless us all with all the best things

#782 - Holiday...

ENGLISH

Well, today is my last day in Bandung this year. Tomorrow I am going back to my hometown, Yogyakarta for my year-end holiday. It's really exciting to go home with a relieved feeling. Well, not all of what I have to do post-thesis have been done yet, but at least the most important thing (my final presentation) and several things have been done. It is such a reliever!! haha... . Nothing much happened lately, it's just that I spent the last two days preparing anything I can for my graduation next February. By January, I must have subscribed myself to the graduation and by that I have to submit several requirements.

It is so exciting tho, now a set of holiday agendas are waiting for me. Next January I am going to BALI with my college friends for one week, haha. The trip will be before next semester starts, so it's still in this year-end holiday "set", LOL. Finally the time has come!! Time flies!! We have planned for this trip for years and now it's less than a month ahead!!

Anyway, these last two days, Bandung has kinda been a bit more crowded than usual. There were more severe traffic jam at some streets, dang. So lucky tomorrow I will leave this city and "miss" the damn traffic which always occurs in Bandung every time holiday comes, hehe :-)

::: an "iseng" picture I took when I was stuck in the traffic at Cipaganti St.

BAHASA INDONESIA

Yah, hari ini adalah hari terakhirku di Bandung tahun ini. Besok aku akan balik ke kota asalku, Yogyakarta, untuk liburan akhir tahun. Bener2 asik nih bisa pulang ke rumah dengan perasaan yang lega. Ya, bukannya semua dari apa yang harus aku lakukan pasca-sidang sudah terlaksana sih, hanya saja setidaknya yang penting banget (sidangku) dan beberapa hal sudah selesai dilakukan. Bener2 membuat tenang!! haha... . Nggak banyak sih yang terjadi akhir2 ini, hanya saja aku menghabiskan dua hari belakangan ini ya dengan mempersiapkan segalanya untuk wisudaku Februari nanti. Di bulan Januari, aku harus sudah mendaftarkan diri untuk wisuda nih dan untuk itu aku harus memasukkan beberapa persyaratan.

O iya, baru sadar nih kalo sekarang ini asik banget soalnya serangkaian agenda liburan sudah menantiku lho. Januari nanti aku akan pergi ke BALI bersama temen2 kampusku selama seminggu, haha. Perjalanannya akan dilaksanain sebelum semester depan mulai, makanya masih termasuk dalam rangkaian liburan akhir tahun, LOL. Akhirnya waktunya tiba juga!! Bener2 cepet deh!! Kami sudah merencanakannya lama lho bertahun2 dan akhirnya sekarang tinggal kurang dari sebulan sebelum terlaksana!!

Ngomong2, dua hari belakangan ini, Bandung jadi lebih ramai dari biasanya deh. Di beberapa jalan terjadi kemacetan yang lebih parah dari biasanya, sial. Untungnya besok aku akan meninggalkan kota ini dan melewatkan kemacetan gila yang terjadi di Bandung tiap kali liburan, hehe :-)

#781 - It's Done!!!

ENGLISH

YES, it's DONE!!! I am so relieved right now. Well, what is "it" anyway? Well, "it" refers to my final project and final presentation. This morning at 11 AM I my final presentation took place.

Well, let's start on how my few days have been because of preparing for my final presentation. I think the world was testing me, especially my patient and cold thinking.

During the weekend, after I had my last examination, I worked on one program for my final project. Well, there was a problem. Apparently, for some cases, my computers (yeah, it's plural, I used mine and my brother's computer to speed things up) worked a lot longer than I expected. Well, my decision to use two computers turned to be a smart one because it helped me to finish on time. One case took 6 hours to complete, the other took 14 hours to complete, and the other took 30 hours+ to complete. Imagine that!! Had I not used two computers, I wouldn't have finished on time!!

One day before the final presentation, there were also several problems related to my computer and therefore prohibited me from working on my final project smoothly, damn it.

Today, well, I think I was kinda nervous a bit and at some points, my nerve overshadowed the best of me a bit. I knew I could have done better on the presentation and answering the questions. Some questions were really basic, and because I wasn't prepared to answer those questions (which I honestly didn't expect to come up), I couldn't nail all of them, damn, haha. However, in the end, it all went relatively smoothly actually, and I thanked God for that :-) I got an A :-D

::: Me @ My Final Presentation

BAHASA INDONESIA

YEAH, akhirnya BERES!! Aku bisa berlega hati nih sekarang. Hmm, berlega karena apa? Yah, jelas saja karena skripsi dan sidang skripsiku. Pagi tadi, sidang skripsiku berlangsung pada jam 11 pagi.

Yah, mari kita mulai dengan topik tentang bagaimana aku melewatkan beberapa hari terakhir untuk mempersiapkan presentasi itu. Rasanya dunia ini kaya sedang mengetes aku, terutama kesabaran dan pikiran dinginku.

Selama wiken, setelah aku mengikuti ujian tertulis terakhirku, aku bekerja pada program untuk tugas akhir. Yah, ternyata ada masalah. Ternyata, untuk beberapa kasus, komputer-komputerku (iya, jamak lho, aku memakai komputerku dan komputer adikku, ini dengan pertimbangan untuk mempercepat proses saja) bekerja jauh lebih lama dari perkiraan. Yah, ternyata keputusanku untuk memakai dua komputer itu sangat tepat karena itu membantuku selesai tepat waktu. Satu kasus memakan waktu 6 jam untuk selesai, 1 kasus lain sampai 14 jam, bahkan 1 kasus lain sampe 30 jam lebih lho. Andai aja nih aku tidak memakai dua komputer, nggak akan selesai tepat waktu dah!!

Sehari sebelum sidang, ada beberapa masalah juga yang berhubungan sama komputer dan makanya itu menghambatku dari mengerjakan skripsi dengan mulus, sial.

Hari ini, hmm, aku agak gugup deh sedikit pada beberapa bagian. Kegugupanku itu menghalangiku untuk tampil yang terbaik. Aku tahu aku bisa tampil dengan lebih baik dalam presentasi maupun sesi tanya jawab. Beberapa pertanyaan malah sebenarnya sangat dasar, dan mungkin memang karena aku tidak siap menjawabnya (karena jujur aku ga nyangka pertanyaan itu yang akan muncul, saking dasarnya), jadi tidak bisa jawab dengan baik dan sempurna neh, sial, haha. Yah, tapi paling nggak pada akhirnya bisa dikatakan berjalan dengan lancar lah, dan aku sangat berterimakasih pada Tuhan karenanya :-) Aku dapat A :-D

#780 - Last UAS

ENGLISH

Well, last Thursday, I officially had my last written UAS (final examination) on my undergraduate study. Anyway I just realized one trivia of my undergraduate study. Apparently, the subject of my first written examination (midterm/UTS) in October 2006 and the last subject of my written examination (UAS) which was held this week, were all taught by the same lecturer! hahaha... :-)

Anyway, now I only have one more final examination before my graduation: my final presentation next Tuesday. Currently I am preparing anything I might need for it, haha, wish me luck. The program I made is now running and apparently the case I put in was pretty "hard" as it has now been 22 hours 35 minutes since I inputed the info in and it is still processing right now, wew. I hope the outcome is worth waited.

Arrggghhh, I can't wait next week where I will be home for year end holiday, hahaha... :-)

Anyway, let me not write only about my thesis, haha, let's back to one of my favorite topic: gastronomy. Last Thursday finally I had dinner at Avenue-A pizza. Well, it has been really a long time since the last time I had meal there. If I am not mistaken, the last time I had Avenue-A pizza as my meal was at 2006 or 2007, during my freshmen year at Unpar. Anyway, I ordered my favorite appetizer, a fried mozzarella. Hmm, writing about fried mozzarella, can anyone tell me how to make it? I assume it might not be that complicated to make one? Hmmm.... .

::: Fried Mozzarella

::: Don Michelle Pizza (Medium Size)

BAHASA INDONESIA

Hmm, Kamis kemarin, secara resmi aku menghadapi UAS (ujian akhir) tertulis-ku yang terakhir di masa pendidikan sarjanaku. Ngomong2, aku baru menyadari satu trivia nih tentang pendidikan sarjanaku. Jadi ternyata tuh ya, mata kuliah yang diujian-tertuliskan pertama kali (UTS) pada bulan Oktober 2006 dan mata kuliah yang diujikan terakhir minggu ini, diajar oleh dosen yang sama loh! hahaha... :-)

Ngomong2, sekarang masih ada satu ujian terakhir sih sebelum kelulusan, yaitu presentasi terakhirku hari Selasa besok. Sekarang aku sih sedang mempersiapkan semua yang kira2 akan aku butuhkan untuk itu. Program yang aku buat sekarang sedang bekerja nih dan ternyata kasus yang aku masukkan lumayan "berat" soalnya sudah 22 jam 35 menit nih sejak aku masukkan datanya dan sekarang masih sedang diproses, wew. Mudah2an hasilnya layak ditunggu.

Arrggghhh, aku bener2 pengen segera minggu depan dimana aku akan pulang untuk liburan, hahaha... :-)

Ngomong2, biarkanlah aku menulis sesuatu selain skripsi deh ya, haha, mari kembali ke salah satu topik favoritku: gastronomi. Jadi, Kamis kemarin, akhirnya aku makan lagi di Avenue-A pizza. Hmm, sudah lumayan lama juga sejak terakhir aku makan disana. Kalau nggak salah, terakhir aku makan disana sih tahun 2006 ato 2007 gitu, yang jelas di tahun pertama kuliahku di Unpar. Ngomong2, aku waktu kemarin itu memesan mozzarella goreng, salah satu makanan pembuka favoritku. Btw, ada yang tahu nggak sih cara membuatnya? Soalnya sepertinya nggak terlalu rumit ya untuk membuatnya? Hmmm... .

#779 - The Amazing Race 15

note : this entry will only be written in English :-)

Last week, the fifteenth season of The Amazing Race was concluded. In the end, after twelve legs, Meghan & Cheyne won the race. Well, this is not really surprising because they had been domination this season with four streak victories in the last four legs along with two other victories.

Apparently, some guesses I made this time were correct. I was correct in predicting Meghan & Cheyne to be the strongest team this season. I was also correct predicting Mika & Canaan would last long till the end. Well, they survived pretty long tho. Plus, three of the teams I liked at that time made it to the top three!! Wow!! That one factor makes this season to be one of the best :-)

::: Meghan & Cheyne

Overall, I think season 15 was one of the strongest seasons of all. The competition was pretty furious and the castings were really strong. The diversity of the contestants was really interesting. However, it doesn't mean this season is perfect. In fact, I feel there were several downsides made by the producer.

The first downside was the two new twists. I don't think both twists were interesting to watch nor effective. "Early Elimination" was a "stupid" twist in my opinion. It only brought early tension in the first 15 minutes but after that there was barely any effect left. It would not bring any spice further on the rest of the race. By doing that, in fact, they just rose their production cost by having to pay for all the accommodations (and cost) for that one "extra" team, while they only filmed exactly the same amount of episodes (and legs) as other previous seasons. The extra cost is okay if it brings more "profit" to the show itself, but I don't think there is any good side of it aside from the tense 15 first minutes of the race. After that, people would not even care about this early elimination or the eliminated team. The twist was also "bad" for the eliminated team, in this case Eric & Lisa. They finally beat all other thousands applicants to be on TAR, one of the greatest TV shows ever, but they didn't even leave the US and only survived the first 15 minutes of the leg. How suck is that? The second twist was the "Switchback". It was actually ONLY a roadblock but it had been done before in one previous season (season 6). Hello?? Okay, it was a tough roadblock, but so what??

The second downside, which makes the first one look even worse, is the elimination of YIELD/U-TURN. I personally think Yield and U-Turn are the best twists in TAR(A). It is so interesting to see how team decides to or not to yield/u-turn other team and how the yielded/u-turned team copes with that. It reflects their strategy and personality. This twist also stimulates (or triggers) further conflict(s) between teams, and conflict is money for a show, right? It makes the show much more interesting to watch. This mistake even makes the first one worse because it seems that the producer traded yield/u-turned for early elimination/switchback, which IMO are not great twists.

The third downside was the lame final task. The season finale was so cool and great up to the poker chips task. However, after that they had to meet Mr. Vegas, and after that, finish line. Well, for me, one great task TAR had on their several previous final legs was the "review" task, where team had to complete task which involved all the journey they had travelled. Eliminating this task, for me, was a bad decision :-(

The other downside, not a major one and it was out of the producer's hand to control, was the domination of Meghan & Cheyne. Well, don't get me wrong, they are my most favorite team this season, I like this team so much. However, watching a team dominates a season so much is kinda boring :-) This is like what happened at TARA 2 and TAR 13 where Mark & Rovilson and Nick & Starr dominated the seasons, respectively.

::: Meghan & Cheyne won season 15 of TAR.

Anyway, aside from those weaknesses I thinkl, I think season 15 had been a great season. This season was helped by the great castings of teams, that's really important to make people enjoy the show no matter what weaknesses appear. I personally still think this season was one of the best season ever even though had those weaknesses not appeared, it would have been even more perfect :-)

::: A great casting of season 15 which helped this season to overcome the weaknesses.

Finally, kudos to the producer!! Hopefully they will make an even better season 16 (I heard they have started filming season 16)!! Long live TAR!! :-) And yeah, congratulations to Meghan & Cheyne, the most competitive team this season and my most fave team!! Note : I also love the other two teams in the top three :-)

ps : all photos taken from the official website, link above

#778 - A New Week

ENGLISH

Another week has started, and now it's about seven days before my final presentation next week. This week I must face two final exams on Wednesday and Thursday, wew, but my mind now focuses on my final presentation next week because I still have several things to do to prepare for it. I have finished the program my supervisor gave me last week but I still need to check it. Well, I feel like I am such in a big amount of stress this week and I really hope I could deal with all this week's pressures and execute all things I need to!! hahaha :)

There's nothing much happened lately since, well, clearly I devoted most of my time to my final work (thesis) lately, hahaha. Well, there were also several assignments due last week and some problems kinda pissed me off, but I learn something from that :)

One thing which kinda frustrates me lately was my super BAD internet connection, it barely connects to the internet. Most of the time, when I try to connect, it fails. Just like right now, it's connected to the internet but because it's so damn slow, I can't access anything but google, wew, that's kinda useless right? Damn. Note: now I use my brother's laptop to surf the net :)

BAHASA INDONESIA

Minggu yang baru sudah dimulai, dan sekarang sudah tinggal tujuh hari lagi sebelum sidangku minggu depan nih. Minggu ini aku harus menghadapi dua ujian akhir, di hari Rabu dan Kamis, wew, tapi koq pikiranku terfokus banget ke sidang yah karena ada beberapa hal yang harus aku persiapkan untuk itu. Aku sudah menyelesaikan program yang minggu lalu dikasi pembimbingku itu sih dan aku masih harus mengeceknya. Hmm, kayanya aku akan berada dalam stress yang besar nih minggu ini, mudah2an aku bisa melaluinya dengan baik dan bisa mengerjakan semua yang harus aku selesaikan minggu ini dengan baik!! hahaha :)

Nggak banyak yang terjadi akhir-akhir ini karena, hmm, ya karena memang akhir-akhir ini kebanyakan waktu aku curahkan pada skripsi, hahaha. Yah, memang ada beberapa tugas lain yang harus selesai minggu lalu dan beberapa masalah membuat aku agak sebal, cuma aku belajar banyak darinya :)

Satu hal yang membuat aku jengkel banget adalah koneksi internetku yang JELEK banget, hampir nggak connect lho. Kebanyakan waktu, ketika aku mencoba connect, eh nggak nyambung. Kaya sekarang ini nih, nyambung sih ke internet cuma karena saking lambatnya, nggak bisa akses apa-apa kecuali google aja, wew, nggak berguna kan? Sial. Catatan: sekarang aku pake laptop adikku untuk internetan :)

#777 - It's December!!

ENGLISH

Wow, how time flies!! Now we are already in the last month of 2009, December. Well, the month that we are in now is December really excites me. It means that within two weeks, most of my "burdens" will be all relieved. I have got confirmation to have my final presentation of my thesis on December 15th, 2009, in less than two weeks from now!! :) Sure after that I still need to work on my thesis, probably revising the paper, but the pressure will be off and I still can enjoy my holiday.

Well, I was kinda in a stress mode last Monday. I got an "extra" task to work on my thesis. Well, actually the task is really interesting and I am more than happy to do that because I like the material: making a program. However, the problem was that at that time I still had two assignments from other classes to be completed by the end of this week. Beside that, I still need to create my final presentation slide, right? Those assignments aren't all the things I have to execute in these two weeks. So, at that time I felt that I had so many things to do and finish within two weeks, and none of them was easy.

Then, after taking a bit break and clear my mind, I knew how to solve the problem. I just need to organize my schedule to execute all the tasks. I have done one big assignment from a class yesterday and I will execute the other task next Saturday. Now I can focus on the "extra" task of my thesis and I still have next week to create my final presentation slide. I will also need to check and mark two assignments from one class I teach this weekend because next week the final score must have been done to meet the deadline. Plus, next week will also be the first of final examination week, and I will have two exams next week. Therefore, actually the scheduling is still a little bit tight. However, I know that if I follow my planning properly I will surely be able to execute all my assignments well. :)

Haha, wish me luck!! :-)

BAHASA INDONESIA

Wow, waktu cepat amat yah!! Tiba2 nih kita sudah berada di bulan terakhir di tahun 2009, Desember. Ini berarti bahwa dua minggu lagi, semua "beban"-ku akan terselesaikan. Aku sudah dapat konfirmasi untuk sidang skripsi tanggal 15 Desember 2009, kurang dari dua minggu dari sekarang!! :) Tentu saja setelah itu akan masih ada kerjaan sih yang berhubungan sama skripsi, misalnya merevisi tulisan skripsinya, tapi setidaknya bebannya kan akan bebas dan aku bisa menikmati liburan kan.

Hmm, Senin kemarin aku berada dalam mode stress nih. Aku mendapat tugas "ekstra" pada skripsiku. Yah, sebenernya tugasnya menarik banget tuh dan aku sangat senang untuk mengerjakannya soalnya aku suka materinya: bikin program. Cuma masalahnya, waktu itu aku masih ada dua tugas besar dari kuliah lain yang harus sudah jadi minggu ini. Di samping itu, aku juga harus segera membuat slide presentasi untuk sidangku kan? Tugas-tugas itu bukan semua hal yang harus aku kerjakan dua minggu ini lho. Makanya waktu itu aku merasa koq ada buanyak sekali yang harus aku kerjakan dalam tempo dua minggu ya, dan tidak ada yang mudah.

Trus, habis istirahat sebentar dan menenangkan pikiran, aku tahu bagaimana memecahkan masalah itu. Solusinya sederhana, aku hanya perlu mengatur jadwalku untuk menyelesaikan semua tugas. Satu tugas besar dari satu kelas sudah beres kemarin dan tugas lain akan dikerjakan hari Sabtu nanti. Sekarang aku bisa fokus pada tugas "ekstra" skripsiku dan aku masih punya minggu depan untuk menyelesaikan slide presentasi sidangku. Aku juga harus mengoreksi dan ngasi nilai dua tugas dari satu kelas yang aku ajar semester ini nih wiken ini soalnya nilai akhirnya mesti sudah jadi minggu depan untuk memenuhi deadline-nya. Plus, minggu depan itu adalah minggu pertama dari minggu ujian akhir, dan aku akan ada dua ujian akhir minggu depan. Makannya walau begitu, jadwalnya masih cukup padat juga. Namun, aku percaya sih kalau aku mengikuti pengaturan jadwalku dengan baik, pasti semua bisa diselesaikan dengan baik. :)

Haha, doakan aku ya!! :-)