Stupid Thoughts about My Life

snowing

2009-03-03T06:43:00.000-08:00

It's snowing today, just as the weather forcast had predicted. so freezing cold here.

my laptop oh my laptop

2008-11-26T06:20:00.000-08:00

Three months ago, several vertical colored lines appeared on my laptop monitor. Each days more lines appeared and my ex-team-leader told me to get it repaired. So 1 month ago I sent my laptop to the service center. Ten days later my R60 was sent back to me. In the paper that the service center sent to me, it was written that they replaced the monitor panel.

However, after I used it for a couple days, 2 thick lines (about 6 centimeters each) appeared on the monitor and I can only see one third of the screen. I was so upset that time. Because not only that it takes time to repair it, but also because I have to borrow another laptop, transfer my working files, install lots of software, set up for printer on the borrowed laptop etc. My laptop is the only computer that I have for my work btw.

I sent my laptop again to the service center and write complaint in the repair service form to them. One week later my laptop was on my desk in a box. In the paper attached to it, it was written that they replaced the monitor panel again and it was discovered that the previous panel that they replaced before was a defect panel. At least the service center staff wrote an apology, but still, because of that, I wasted a lot of times just to send them for repair twice and transfer my working files and all. Also, after they repaired it, I don't know why but I have to give the 'R' key a hard press every time I want to type 'R'. So inconvenient.

The only good thing aside from getting my monitor repaired is that my laptop (the monitor, the keyboard) is so clean. I never cleaned them before btw :P

need more time

2008-04-10T08:27:00.000-07:00

I already missed 5 tips of BBC German Steps. The plan is to study 2 tips every week, but... this week I was so busy with my work, I stayed in the office till 10 PM or even 11 PM. Last week I was too busy watching Desperate Housewives. Have to get a grip on the plan.

Thinking about working hours

2008-03-20T11:23:00.000-07:00

The title written above probably sounds so serious, but it is not really what I want to emphasize in this posting. I just want to say that working hours is what I concern about everyday. Especially because of the labour clamming system that my company have. I just kept thinking about how unsuitable the system is for our department. In contrast with the fact that the system just doesn't really suits our jobs, it is one of the reason why I am motivated to do my jobs.

yesterday was my training graduation ceremony. The ceremony was nice. I met people that I wanted to talk to. I have friends that I can rely on. It was just a good time to be away from the office. However, I didn't feel like I was on the mood to socialize with people. Talking seemed to be so tiring for me. What was in my mind is my working hours, I had to work 5 more hours to recover the time to attend the ceremony and I am taking a day off the next day, so I had to recover that working hours too. So, after the ceremony, instead of joining the drinking party, I went back to the office. When I arrived at the office, some of my seniors was surprised to see me there, and they told me that I didn't have to come to the office, because it's the graduation ceremony day. I know well that I don't really have to go to the office that day, it just that I wanted to be in the office. Not just about working hours, I want to do my unfinished works. I want to work. Even today, I worked (while I was watching "Desperate Housewives" with my sister) at home. And I felt kind of happy. This is what I want to do. So is this what people called a workaholic?

my plan on june

2008-03-17T08:38:00.000-07:00

I'm planning to have a vacation in Jakarta on June 26 for a week. It's not fixed yet but hopefully there is no problem with this plan.

feels like home

2008-03-10T09:12:00.000-07:00

even though now I live far away from my home town, at my current apartment, it feels just like home. This is all thanks to my big sister. Well, at first I didn't really agree to live with my sister in my apartment, because my apartment is just so small, only one room with a kitchen and a bathroom. But now I think that without my sister, I would feel so lonely.

OOT, today in the nomikai (drinking party) with my colleagues, there was a nice surprise. One of my colleague will get married next month. Everyone was just so surprised. Who would ever thought that he, who acts kind of childish (in a cute way) and† never mentioned about having a girlfriend, will be the first one who will get married. Congrats Miyomiyo!

RSI

2008-03-05T06:29:00.000-08:00

Repetitive Strain Injury. I think I have RSI. Yesterday, after I overworked my right hand (repetitively did copy and paste kind of thing for 4 hours), I felt pain on my right arm. Even now I can still feel the pain.

wanna learn new languages

2008-02-06T06:29:00.000-08:00

I feel so bored, either in the office or at home. Reading manga used to be a fun activity for me. But now I feel so bored, need to do new things. I opened bbc.co.uk page, read the news and then I remembered that there is "languages corner" in bbc. I browsed through the languages page, found this link "German in 12 weeks". Hmm.. learning German in 3 months.. sounds like a good idea. So I've decided to learn German!
There is also Mandarin Chinese section in the language page.. may be I should learn this too. hmm.. hope I won't slack off.

enter key

2007-12-20T04:57:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been logging on z/OS system and get used to the keyboard. In z/OS, CTRL key (of a normal keyboard that we use everyday) is used as the ENTER key. The F7 is SCROLL UP key and F8 is SCROLL DOWN key. Because I've getting used to this kind of keys, when I want to enter a url in my browser sometimes I pressed the CTRL key. And when it happened, I didn't realize that I pressed the wrong key, so I waited for a minute and wondered why the browser didn't work.

Oh my oh my... getting use to something can make things different.

learn to appreciate

2007-10-31T08:36:00.000-07:00

appreciate any good result, any good outcome
even though if it is just a small thing... something that seems to be easy to be done,
but if it is achieved with every effort, with a good purpose...
I should appreciate it...

by doing this..
I wouldn't be easy to get bored,
wouldn't be easy to feel tired or distracted

<3 luv

will have donuts party next week

2007-06-27T07:07:00.000-07:00

donuts: (budget 30k+2k), estimated number of donuts : 300

クーキ・ドーナツ：
シナモン 94 20 1880
ココナツ 105 10 1050
バタークランチ 105 15 1050
シュガークルーラー 94 10 940
ダブルチョコクリスピー 126 10 1260
メープルチョコクリスピー 126 10 1260

オルードファッション：
チョコファッション 126 10 1260
ハニーオールドファッション 126 10 1260
オールドファッション抹茶 126 15 1890

チョコ・ドーナツ：
チョコレート 105 10 1050
ココナツチョコレート 115 10 1150
ゴールデンチョコレート 115 10 1150
ダブルチョコレート 115 10 1150

イースト・ドーナツ：
ハニーディップ 94 20 1880
シュガーレイズド 94 20 1880
チョコリング 105 20 2100
ストロベリーリング 105 20 2100
アーモンドリング 105 20 2100
エンゼルクリーム 115 20 2300
カスタードクリーム 115 15 2300
チョコカスタード 115 15 2300

Total 33310

many things to do

2007-06-19T06:27:00.000-07:00

and so I'm gonna write my to do list here:

read
+inside the machine
+nikkei computer magazine
+JCL
+thinking in C++

e-learning
+cryptography
+z/OS

now I understand

2007-06-06T04:51:00.000-07:00

why 6 or 7 years ago, my classmate asked me to make a distro that can boot & run specific applications just by using one CD (without any hard drive). The idea was similar to Knoppix!

Let 'em be puzzled

2007-06-06T04:22:00.000-07:00

Now I kind of understand why sometimes I don't catch what the japs are talking about. One of the reason is because of the difference of our knowledge / education background. For example, today's study group, the topic about a book entitled "The World is Flat", and the word "insourcing" as one of the world flattener was discussed. An example of insourcing is the UPS company. They don't know at all about UPS, the world largest package delivery company. Because of that they don't know the nuance of the story written in the book. So may be this is what happened to me too.

it's not really a bad day

2007-05-17T07:15:00.000-07:00

I forgot about my meeting with my new manager & my previous manager this morning. Fortunately, my previous manager's secretary is kind enough to come to my desk and told me about the meeting. Also, the room for the meeting was still occupied (my previous manager also joined that meeting) so in the end, we still had to wait until that meeting was over.

Also, I almost forgot about the new employee's meeting this afternoon. I was 10 minutes late and actually I was the moderator of the meeting ^^;;

And the worst thing is, I forgot where I put my keys (my apartment key, my drawer keys, my small lock key). I remember that I saw the keys after I finish my meeting with my managers, but then I don't remember what I did to the key after that... darn..
What happened to me.. I did lots of mistake today. Luckily, my advisor is a very understanding guy. He accompanied me to go to the security center & ask if there is anyone found any keys, but there is no lost&found report. Then my advisor kindly called my apartment agency about the spare key, and printed out the way to go to a place where I can get my room's spare key. Such a very nice guy... I'm so lucky to have him as my advisor... and his English is very clear and he sounds so fluent..

Got to be more careful next time...

never gonna ride northwest airline anymore

2007-03-06T01:17:00.000-08:00

I am so pissed with northwest airline. Especially the northwest in Shanghai. They are so disciminative against nations.. just because I'm a citizen of a country that the majority of people is muslim, why do they treated me so differently. First of all, at the check-in counter, my baggage hadn't even been scanned, but they already ordered me to open it and let them take the things out one by one, checking each things I have in my bag. I asked them why did they do that, they said that it is usual to have some people being checked like that. Then I look around me and I saw the other girl who was being treated like me is another foreigner which has the same case with me too, while the other passengers could check in without being asked to open it. Secondly, when I boarded the plane, I was taken to other side while other passengers passed the corridor just like that. I was fully scanned, I had to take off my shoes, stretched my hands. It was so uncomfortable. At least they put a piece of partition so people couldn't see us, but it felt like I was treated like a criminal. Of course they wouldn't find anything suspicious, I didn't bring bad things with me. I am so pissed not only that they didn't treated me well, they didn't even apologize for the uncomfortable things they had done.

the reason

2007-02-27T08:13:00.000-08:00

After talking to one of my friends, now I understand why I chose to go to work instead of continue my study. The main reason is because I do like programming. The other reason is something that I found out just now, that I'm not proud of my research, that I feel that I only follow someone else idea, it's not my real idea. That's why I don't feel any fullfillment, or any satisfaction, because it's not my own idea. And also, actually I don't really agree about the method that I used now (this method is proposed by other person). I think the method is not really effective, there is something missing in the method. But I don't think I can argue about this with the other person because this method is something that is proposed by my prof. Urgh.. should change my characteristic.. I'm so not into arguing, that's why I need to be braver, to have the courage to question the method.

sooo lazy...

2007-02-26T07:33:00.000-08:00

still have to prepare power point slides, and write documentation of my subVIs... but I feel so lazy..
I want my vacation... I've submitted the revised version of my grad thesis, so why the heck do I have to go to the lab to teach my research successor. and why the heck do I have to continue working on my subVIs?? I envy my classmates, after submitting the grad thesis, they can have their vacation, they can relax, or at least one of my classmate can move out to nagoya (coz she will work in nagoya on April). I know that documentation is really important, but the other students don't have to write a documentation for their source codes. sooo lazyyy...

to do list

2007-02-20T06:23:00.000-08:00

for tomorrow:
+ go to grads school office (before 10 AM)
+ wait for Kuroneko Delivery (airplane ticket)
+ eat sushi with Ishikura-sensei & his wife (lunch)
+ prepare material for teaching indonesian (the last day of my part-time job)
+ write a short paragraph about ... (I forget) and send it to the representative of the new employee
+ write documentation of subVIs

is not as smooth as I thought

2007-02-09T07:03:00.000-08:00

again... something came up, and I can't think wisely anymore. bah... my sis told me that my situation is that I'm in a turning point.. facing two separate road and i don't know what is in the end of each road... everything so blurry

snowboard

2007-02-04T21:41:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, I went to Urasa (Niigata perfecture) for snowboarding. My sister invited me to stay in her dormitory and join IUJ Ski Day. It was my second time playing snowboard, but I fell so many times... and I feel pain on almost every part of my body (especially neck, shoulders, hands and legs). I had free lesson (snowboard lesson). The instructors taught us how to fall safely, and the importance of streching before snowboarding. Then they taught us how to slide using only one foot tied on the board, how to stop and how to turn. Then we take the ski lift to go to the top. Once we were on top, the instructors taught us how to slide zigzag and how to slide backward and how to turn right. It was a good lesson.

My sister's room in her dorm is really nice. I like the bed, so comfortable :D it's been so long I didn't sleep on a bed (usually I sleep on a futon, which is just like a mattress put on the floor). I hope next week I can go there again and celebrate chinese new year with my sister & her friends.

three things to do

2007-01-31T00:37:00.000-08:00

first is to find students who want to do part time job in my prof's symposium in Shang Hai. [ I have asked the students and all five of them will do the part time job.]
second is to think about my future, which one I want to do, to be a software developer or to be a researcher. If I continue my study, there will be a bright future, that I can become an expert in ASSR measurement system. This system is to assess human hearing level, and probably it is a new study in Indonesia, so if I return to Indonesia, I can become a prof. Gotta find a reason why I chose not to be a researcher.
third is to find a succeccor, students who are interested in my research.

That's what my prof told me today in his office.

need a successor

2007-01-29T06:21:00.000-08:00

When my prof told me that I need to find a "koukeisha", even though that was the first time I heard the word "koukeisha" but I knew it right a way that it means a successor, i.e. someone who will continue my research. I plan to work in a company and not to continue my study in the univ. On the other hand, my co-reseacher is a busy woman, working as a professor in another university and she doesn't have time to develop the block diagrams and/or tools. She does have a lot of idea and plans to develop a compact measurement system for ASSR including the sound stimulator. So.. till now my job is to create the block diagrams, turning her idea into reality. The reason why I don't want to continue my research is because it is not my own idea, so I don't really feel like it is my real work and I'm not sure about the future of this research. In the past few years in Japan, there are no researcher working on this kind of research, and the measurement system used in hopitals recently are imported from Canada.

So after I talked to my prof about my plan, he asked me what kind of a person that is fit to be the successor. I didn't really know how to answer that question. First of all, the research is something that is quite new, and the expert in this kind of field is not many. My co-researcher is someone that is dependable, she can explain a lot of things. But the problem is, she doesn't really know about LabVIew, the software that we use. And I remember that 6 months ago we were stuck in a stage where we don't know how to read the ASSR waveforms, the BRW file. This BRW file is the output file from the measurement system (that have already been commercialized and sold to many hospitals) developed in Toronto University. That time, we didn't know the data format in the BRW file. Without the ASSR waveforms, we wouldn't be able to start our research! Eventually I tried to read it as a binary file and after fixing couple bugs in my block diagram, finally we are able to read the BRW file. So... now I realize that the successor should be someone that is creative, and can work without technical guide. Up until now I thought my works is not something big, but now at least I understand the reason why my co-researcher appreciated my works.

A Visit to YSL

2007-01-26T03:32:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I visited YSL (Yamato Software Laboratory) at Kanagawa Perfecture. Actually it is a tour inside the Yamato Laboratory for students who are accepted to work in YSL. I applied for software developer job on December last year and received acceptance letter in early January. It was kind of late actually, because usually Japanese students would already have applied on March or April. Because of that, other accepted students already visited the YSL and I was the only who haven't joined the tour. Although I was the only student who joined yesterday tour, the visit was fun and the people in YSL were friendly.

YSL is in 4th and 5th floor. First, I met Kouda-san, the HR staff. She took me to a meeting room then gave a brief explanation about the tour. Then Okamura-san (uhmm.. I don't really remember her name) came. She is a very nice woman, and her presentation was easy to understand. I met the chief of YSL, Iwano-san in his room. We chatted about Indonesia (the location, language, etc), about Japanese youngster nowadays who lack interest in software developing. I was so nervous that I didn't ask him anything. Should have ask something because it was a rare chance to be able to talk to the chief of YSL. After meeting with Iwano-san, we went back to the meeting room and I was introduced to Akamatsu-san, my advisor, and Matsunaga-san. We had a long talk about the working enviroment, clothing code in the office, the training, lots of thing. Akamatsu-san and Matsunga-san nicely answered my question.

The last session was the tour, we went to the cafetaria. It is in the 2nd and 3rd floor. The cafetaria is so big. In the 1st floor, there are japanese room, with tatami, the short table and the sliding door. I was impressed. Wow.. japanese room, and the TRL (Tokyo Research Laboratory, other division located in the next building) also have a refreshing room with tatami. Then we went to TRL and I could see cubicles with high walls (compared to the cubicles in YSL) blocking our eyes from seeing anything inside. The reason for the high wall is to help the workers concentrate in their work. We went back to YSL ground and went to Tivoli office room. I could see PCs, servers, printers, etc. The network inside this room is not connected to the outside, because the PCs are for testing and running experiments. It was really hot inside the room, maybe because of the large number of the PCs in the room. Next we went to Akamatsu-san's cubicle. We had a nice chat there and then the tour was over.

it's 3.45 AM here

2007-01-17T10:44:00.000-08:00

and I'm still doing my research.. the experiments. Need to do 7 more experiments. Found little bugs here and there, but because the bugs don't affect the experiment results so I won't fix the bugs today.

Beside having to finish writing my graduation thesis and 2-pages summary (the deadline is Monday next week), I have to write an essay in japanese (400 kanji) about my career plan in Nihon IBM and which kind of industry that I am interested in. The deadline for the essay is on Jan 31. Because it has to be written in Japanese, I should finish writing it before Jan 23, so I can ask my Japanese sensei to check it on our appointment day (We only meet twice a month). Also, I have to submit 4-pages full paper and register for the International Workshop on Nonlinear Circuits and Signal Processing 2007. The workshop will be held in Shanghai on March 3-6, 2007. oh.. busy busy days.

oh no.. found a weird result in my experiment :-O
gotta check the block diagram again...

sooo slow...

2007-01-13T06:22:00.000-08:00

am using virtual PC to run labview on my Mac (iBook G4)... and coz I didn't upgrade the RAM, sooo the application running on the virtual PC is sooo slow... arghhh...
no wonder I hate working on my research... I borrowed my friend's laptop couple weeks ago.. DynaBook.. However I only installed LabView version 7 and the subVI files I have saved in my Mac are all saved in LabView version 8, so now I have to save the files again for the old version.

second chance, second choice and second thought

2006-12-25T07:07:00.000-08:00

am watching batman beyond episode 44 "out of the past"... Taylia talked to Bruce that no one has earned the second chance more than Bruce. Then I thought... do I have a second chance or second choice... I believe that I have choices, lot of choices for my life but is it ok if I choose another choice. Do I deserve a second chance? Is it OK if I have a second thought.... hmm...

ever thought about second life?

2006-12-09T19:02:00.000-08:00

I think the title of my posting is too exagerating.. hehe. No no, I don't really mean to have a real second life, but to have an imaginary life in the digital world. It's in this website secondlife.com. I know the existence of this website after I read in BBC news about digital planet and about what teens are up to online. I made a user account in the website, tried to costumize my character, and learned about how to do things by attending the orientation. However, because it takes time to get used to this new world and I don't really have time because of my graduation thesis and all other things, I don't plan to continue accessing this second life for a while.

Another website that is quite interesting is a life chat bot called jabberwacky. If you are bored, may be you can check it out. The conversation by the robot is quite human-like.. though you can still find strange reply.

san francisco

2006-11-25T07:39:00.000-08:00

Yesterday night, I've just come back to Chiba after visiting San Francisco for 6 days (5 nights).. So tired, the flight took about 9 hours from Narita to San Francisco International Airport.

At first, I worried about the security check in US, I thought it would be sooo strict that it would be so troublesome. However, when I entered the immigration section at San Francisco Int'l Airport, my bag was just passed through a metal detector, just like the usual way in Narita Airport. The officer in the immigration section was asking me about my visiting purpose and how long I will stay in US. That's all and I'm glad about that. But then I realized that the airport security check in US is really strict when I took the flight back to Narita. Not only that I had to take out my laptop from the bag, they also checked all the things inside my bag, and I even had to take off my shoes (I hoped the officer didn't think that my shoes smell bad coz I haven't cleaned it ever since I bought it 2 years ago :p )

The view in San Francisco was great. I could see seals at the bay near Pier 39. Oh right, the roads are up and down, lots of hills and really steep.. that's why sightseeing by feet was really tiring. On the first day in SF, I reached the hostel safely. I didn't get lost on my way from the nearest train station to usa hostel :D But then after I checked in and took a walk around the hostel, I was lost. I walked for about 5 to 7 blocks away from the hostel.. It was all because I read the street name incorrectly. (Usually in Jakarta, the name of the street written on the mouth of the street. However in US, the plank written name of the street is parallel to the street. It was so confusing at first.)

On the second day, I joined a bus tour. We went to twin peaks and golden gate bridge, but the fog was so thick that we couldn't take a good picture of pacific ocean from the twin peaks and the golden gate bridge. Oh right, the bus also went through Castro, a gay area.. There are colourful flags showing that it is the gay area.. though the tour guide said that it doesn't mean only gays live there. And there is also a city hall for the gay wedding ceremony :D

On the third day, it was the first day of the conference that I attended. The conference was called the IASTED conference on Computational Intelligence. My presentation was on the last day of the conference. I think I played & did sight seeing a lot more than learning something from the conference :P :P I didn't even attend half of the sessions held in the conference. In the afternoon at 4 PM I went shopping and ate dinner with my sister & her friend, Karin in a vegetarian restaurant called Green Restaurant.

On the forth day, me, my sis & Karin went to China town and we ate lunch at a vegetarian restaurant at the China town. [Click here for picture of me & my sis near the Colt Tower.] And then I went to the Mark Hopkins Hotel where the conference was held. We had a dinner banquet at night. The food was good, but it was a little bit boring. The conference manager didn't open the banquet officially. I mean, we just started taking the food and returned to our seats and ate the food. After we almost finished the dessert, eventually the conference manager stepped up on the stage on gave a speech and gave rewards to the keynotes presentators. The dinner banquet even ended faster that what is planned on the schedule. It ended at 10 PM though it was written 11 PM on the schedule (started at 7.30 PM). Also, I didn't like the idea of having the dinner banquet on the second day of the conference. We still had one more day but we already had the dinner banquet. And just like what I thought, not so many people came to the session on the third day.

On the fifth day, I presentated my paper and I am soo happy that my sis came to watch and gave me support for the presentation. Then we had dinner at another vegetarian restaurant, the Millenium restaurant. The restaurant looks so high class and well, the prices were expensive too. The waiter even asked as if we had a reservation. Of course we didn't, so we had to wait for about 7 minutes and seated on the bar table. But coz of that, we could see a cute bartender :D My sis even took a picture of him. I hope my sis will put the pic on her blog as soon as she returned to Nashville. And the food was sooo delicious. We chose 1 dish from the main menu and 1 salad. But I forgot the name of the dishes.. too long :P

On the sixth day, I had my last pancakes in the hostel. Then me & my sis took the BART train to SF Int'l Airport. We hugged and I parted with my sis on the gate to the security check. I will be missing my sis.. but well I will meet her again in another 2 months soo.. it's not a problem. The flight from SF to Narita took about 11 hours.. I still feel a little pain on my back coz of sitting too long in the plane. Now I am still resting and enjoying my weekends.

hehe.. just found website about indonesian slang

2006-06-08T12:05:00.000-07:00

Once a week I teach Indonesian in Funabashi international language school.. the payment is not much, but this is for my experience and I can also learn Japanese through teaching Indonesian, coz I have to explain it in Japanese ^^;
I've been teaching for 2 months now, and searching articles in Indonesian, or explanation about Indonesian grammar in google is my habit since then. I found this website just now.. urmmm...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_slang_language
It's about Indonesian slang language... hehe.. it's funny.. coz I haven't heard most of them.. it's so nostaligic :P

refreshed ^^

2006-02-06T03:07:00.000-08:00

I've talked to Prof. Josh and I got a lot of advices and encouragement. thanks to him, now I have motivation to continue my research^^ He is really a great professor, he told me what he had been through in his univ life and it was even harder than mine, i.e. his work was stolen and published by his professor that time.. but he could manage to even create a better paper, he wrote for 8 journals in 1 year.. omg, I don't really think I can do that.. but I'll try my best to be like him.. really really thanks to him, I feel refreshed^^

~human lives to think, be brave to express what we want, show gratitude even to the one who hurts us, kuyokuyo shinaide, even though if today is a bad day, tomorrow we will be happy.

gyaaa... I found website for downloading yaoi manga ;D

2006-01-30T04:18:00.000-08:00

Yaoi Streamers it has forum for requesting any yayoi manga they have in the list.. we can d/l it through www.streamload.com. you must have an account at ezboard.com to post a request and a streamload account

Nakama ::Boy's Love Scanlation:: you can d/l manga through irc, yesterday I downloaded 5 chapters of yayoi manga and forgot to study :P

probably I'm a lucky person

2006-01-26T03:34:00.000-08:00

today, I just found out one thing that made my smile return to its place, my face :D
The thing is that even if I have problem and all depressing things in my life, but probably I'm a lucky person. How could that be possible? well.. coz everytime I have problem, I have distraction, the things that made me not gonna kill myself :P. Like now, eventhough I have problem in my lab, but, everytime I go home and log in my computer and then open utopia website, or read utopia's irc, they entertain me, give my smile back.. coz I know life is not that boring.
Or like 3 years ago, when I found out that I had to be operated because of tumor, I had my friends around me who gave me strength, and also sake :D

As a *lucky guy* :P I would like to quote that problem is something that will always be in life but there's always something else that will cheer us up.

bah, am I paranoid?

2006-01-23T08:58:00.000-08:00

yesterday morning, I ignored a knock on my door intentionally (didn't open or even checked who was knocking my door), just because I was afraid if it was the newspaper salesman :S
am I paranoid after all?
Then I found out that it was the postman with my package (books) from amazon.com.... I had to call the post office to get my books redelivered.

anywayz, gotta finish my homeworks..
-currently sipping my hot ginger tea... ouch, I burnt my tounge ^^;

oblivious to throw away my garbage & to peek on the door peephole

2006-01-11T05:58:00.000-08:00

again, I forgot to throw away my garbage. Since I moved to my new apartment (btw we can only stay in the dorm for 1 year), there are two things that make me feel uneasy. The first thing is about garbage collection in my area. In the area around my apartment, we can waste burnable garbage on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday; unburnable garbage only on the second Monday of the month; recycleable garbage (pet bottles, cans and bins) on Sunday. In the dorm, even though we were told to waste our garbage on specific days, the rule is not so strict, we could still waste recycleable garbage everyday. Today, I've just found my neighbor's garbage returned, attached right on her mail box. So I thought, hey, how did they know that it's my neighbor's garbage (we throw our garbage not in front of our building, but in the garbage collection area, 2 buildings away from our building). Then, I looked closer to a ripped paper attached on top of the trash bag.. it was a paper ripped from an envelope with an address written on it. omg... I should be careful about this -.-
oh well.. anyway, my neighbor is for the blame, she put pet bottle in the same trash bag with burnable garbage.

The second thing that make me feel insecure here is because my room is in the first floor.. and unlike the dorm where there are gates and door with password for the entrance, here.. anybody can knock on my door. Today, someone knocked on my door at 10 pm.. I wonder who was it, I thought it was my friend.. but then when I opened the door, I faced with a completely unknown guy.. and later on, I found out that he is a newspaper salesman.. grrr... He kept talking and talking until I promised him that *may be* I will subscribe the newspaper for three months... It was so damn cold near the door (it's 2 degree-celcius here at night), I didn't wear my jacket and my feet were without socks.. and I just wanted to send him away. grrr.. next time I'll peek on the door peephole.

skype!!

2006-01-08T04:30:00.000-08:00

Now that I have skype installed in my computer, I can call my sister's computer for free :D well, it's not really for free, I still have to pay for my internet access (So-net ADSL), but the pricing is firm-fixed per month, so it doesn't matter how many hours I want to spend. In addition, video calling is also provided in skype. My friend recommended skype for video calling because the quality is better than yahoo messenger. In fact, skype is one of the tools for him to date with his girlfriend everyday (till now probably more than 200 dates using skype), so I better believe his words :D

There was only one problem.. I've just received a call from unknown guy, I didn't pick up the call. So now, I've set my privacy option not to allow calls from unknown guy :)

PS: to artha, if you read my blog, send me your skype account, i'll add you to my list ;)

arrghhh... Problem Never Ends

2005-12-27T07:58:00.000-08:00

i've written 3 paragraphs but my firefox crashed and I had to restart my firefox and rewrite this blog T____T

In short, just when I thought that I've escaped from my problem in my lab by changing my research topic, my associate professor restrained me by telling me that I couldn't change my research topic until after midterm presentation. What the ...., isn't it better to change it as soon as possible?

I could only think of one reason why my associate professor forbid me changing my research topic, that is I'm the only one who showed a good progress in my group (me, a 4th year undergraduate student, and another 1st year master student who don't know anything about programming and image processing) .

If I think about what I've done for this research, it is such a waste to leave this topic. But, if I think how much distressed I've felt all this time because of this research, i.e. the feeling of being used:
-I'm the one who do the programming & got a result, other person who presentated it and got the advantage;
-My source code has been copied by the other 2 persons in the group;
-I've been accepted for a 30 minutes oral presentation in an international conference in Portugal, but I was forbid to presentate it by my associate prof, because the company that provided us the pictures for our research data wants to get a patent. What the h*ll, who's doing the research anyway? And I don't recall accepting any facility for the research, I'm using my own laptop and this laptop is from the company where I worked for 6 month in my hometown by the way! Also, the associate prof told me I can't presentate it until the company get the patent. When it will be? Wouldn't I have to presentate it for the midterm presentation. I think this is just an excuse after all..;
I think I have to move on... change my topic, go away from the group. But... now, I'm not sure what to do. This means I have to work on 2 topics to survive... hhh....

I'm Worried About My Family

2005-12-24T06:09:00.000-08:00

I thought I will never feel this kind of thing. Not because I don't care about them, I care, but I always thought that no bad things will ever happen to my family. I have that confidence... I did have that confidence, 'till I chatted with my little sister through yahoo messenger just 15 minutes ago, and I heard that she will stay for one day in her friend's house in the other region, 1 hour away from my hometown. Which means, she & mom (my mom will accompany my little sister, because she is still 9 this year) have to take train to go there.

Talking about train, reminded me of many crimes that happened inside local train in my hometown.... really it was terrible, a student killed when he was confronting with a sadistic thief. The thief forcefully pushed him out of the train (most of the economy-class trains have widely opened doors). I prayed for the innocent student, hoping that he will not feel any pain more than what he already experienced. I condemn the sadistic thief. hhh....

That's why I felt uneasy, worried, and I couldn't continue my study in this state of feeling... so then I returned to my usual habit, I was praying for my little sister & my mom safety, and also all my family, friends's safety, and kept repeating a sentence: "I hope all kind of living things in this world will be happy"... this sentence & the praying always give peace in my mind.. aaah... now it's time to back to study ^^

Addicted to Utopia

2005-12-20T19:26:00.000-08:00

OH NO, I've just realized that I'm addicted to utopia (http://games.swirve.com/utopia/). Yesterday, I logged in to the game for 6 hours, and today I spent 4 hours just to check info about my province (*actually it's my friends' province*) . How did I start playing utopia? I promised my friend to maintain her province during her vacation to her hometown for 1 month. Then... after being tought many things from her & her boyfriend how to play the game, I was getting more and more interested in it. I think about:
+I have to cast spells 8 hours later to protect my (*my friend's*) province
+How many more acres can I get for my (*my friend's*) province?
+Is there anything happenning to my (*my friend's*) province, I'm really worried because the kingdom is involved in war.
Arrgghhh... I'm aware that I shouldn't be addicted to it... but really.. I couldn't throw away my thought about logging in the page everytime I have a chance.

Influenced by Cakes Offer

2005-12-19T02:08:00.000-08:00

darn, how could I agree to type my friend's homework by the offer of cakes as the reward. I know that I like cakes so much, especially the one with milk cream, or mustard, or sweet matcha (green tea), all sweet things. nyummy nyummy... just imagining that makes me drooling. Well, I'll get my reward tomorrow, 5 cakes for typing 5 pages :D It takes 4 hours to finish it, but.... I think I won't do it anymore. It was really boring. Specially because I had to type the equation (using Microsoft equation) in the MSWord. Can't wait for the cakes :P

The thought about "I am lonely"

2005-12-18T03:52:00.000-08:00

Five minutes ago, some stupid thoughts just came out to my mind. The thing is that I thought that I'm lonely in this world. Thinking about this almost made my tears bursted out from my eyes. Really, how come did I think that I'm lonely. I still have friends, even my sister now is also in the same country. (Currently I'm studying aboard, not in my hometown. And, 3 months ago, my sister came to this country to take MBA.) So, why the hell did I think that I'm lonely.

Then I observed all the facts that made me think that I'm lonely. They are:
1. Although my sister is in the same country with me, but she stays far from my place. It take 1 hour by shinkansen, plus 45 minutes by bus to her dormitory.
2. I'm not sure if I call my friends, they can come right away to my place. One of my friend is an employee now, she has to wake up early tomorrow to get to her office. And it's already 9 p.m. right now. My best friend from my undergraduate university is having a vacation in her hometown for 1 month. My best friend in my lab has a serious problem right now, that I don't want to make her more depress because of me.My friends from my hometown are younger than me that I'm not sure they can give me advice for my problems, and the others already have family to take care of, so that I think I can't disturb them at this hour.

This facts brought me to a conclusion that I'm lonely in the sense of actual distance that I felt. But if I think more deeply, actually this lonely feeling only something came up from my stupid thoughts. I remember a sentence that my sister told me when I was in a depressing situation, where things just not working as the way it is. She said that I'm not alone. No matter how hard my problem I have here, I still have my family (in my hometown), i. e. my mom, my dad, my sisters and my brother. And also my friends. I mean, although we are separated by distance in space, we still have strong connection in our hearts. After I was told about this, I feel so lucky that I have my sister in this country, so at least I can call her for hours (don't have to think about the phone bill, compare to if I call her in my hometown) and tell her all my problem directly, and get good advice too. Glad to have you here, sis :)