Dear 2021

I can say it is too late already to greet 2021. Hell yeah, this is February 2021. It should be in the early 2021 I wrote this "Dear 2021".

But, let me just do it. 

Dear 2021,

There were so many things happened in 2020.

Pandemic started and is still happening till now.

I made a very big decision to leave my job in Taiwan (accidently it was happened just like that).

Joined some job tests until the final step and almost signed the contract (one of it is Indofood, like holy cow I rejected it).

Did a government test and waited so long for an uncertainty.

and finally, I am here in Jembrana, Bali.

I passed the government test for the lecture position. It is nonsense because I didn't even realize that I was placed in Bali until my brother, Tommy, told me.

I felt happy and sad in the same time. Happy for I did it. Sad for I stayed far from my family and Anggi.

Before I came and started working, I had so many things that I wanted to do like researches and so on.

After one month, I realized it is gonna be hard for me to do research because there are no space for that. I mean no equipment, no tools, not even an analytical scale that I can use to do research.

Even at the first coming, it was stated that I have to do things out of my main job as a lecture.

I feel like "what?!" 

But then, I realize that the main purpose I wanna be a lecture is to help students get a better life and to teach them with all knowledge and experience that I have.

Here I am, I am placed in the boarding school with most of the students are from the low class. Their fathers are fishermen or workers in other's fish boat.

I was told that their intelligence is not in average. I have to work very hard to teach them even for a simple thing. But let me see it, how it is gonna be because I am actually clueless with that statement.

For real, is that what I want before? To teach unlucky people, to help them, to increase their life-grade. 

Doing research, a good research, it is my ambition or I can say its orientation is myself, not others. 

Then, I learn to stop complaining.

I don't get a chance yet to teach the students. No students here because of pandemic. Sooner, I will face it, to teach them and to focus on how to increase their value to be accepted in public.

But still, there is a question inner me asking if I will live here or not. Will I forever be here? or what ?

No answer or maybe it is too early to answer. 

Let time help me to find the answer. 

Pray should be the priority. For God the only one who knows about the future.

Anyway, I have so many new friends here. I hope I could build a good relationship and I don't become a shitty person.

Even though one month has passed. I wanna say "Dear 2021, please be nice".

The Most Valuable Thing God Has Given Me

Before I was thinking like crazy what I was doing. This world is in pandemic, the situation is not okay yet to decide for leaving. When everybody wants to find a safety place to stay during pandemic, when everybody wishes for a good financial life to live, I decided to take all in the opposite.

Do I feel stressed? Yes I do.
Do I feel like a dumb-ass? Definitely, I do.
Do I overthink like what the hell it is gonna be? I DO! ~even until this time when I write this caption.

But every time I am with them. I feel happy. I enjoy and feel relax (but sometimes feel worry of my life tho).
I do the same thing all the time, like every day. I tell you it is so boring yet happy.

Maybe I am like a kid. When she gets a beautiful gift for whatever she does, she will be always with that gift. She is afraid of losing it. What an un-mature life it is. That should not be me in this age. Unfortunately, that is me.

I hope when the time is there, when I read this again someday. I regret nothing.

At least, let me enjoy this pandemic period with my favorite people. Trying to cook some new recipe. Finishing project that is still running. Overall, I am so grateful for God present them into my life 😍

My very first job

I just graduated from NTOU as a master student of food science. 

Fortunately, I got a chance to be a Research Assistant in Fisheries Research Institute, Council of Agriculture, Taiwan (FYI, that is one of official government offices in Taiwan.). I can say I was lucky to just directly work after my graduation. I was very happy, and that was out of expectation because they received someone who was not good at Chinese (as I know before, they asked for someone who can work in laboratory and speak Chinese and of course that person was not me!). 

Thanks to my advisor who took part to help me get this job.

So, I grabbed this opportunity and I took one month holiday to go back Indonesia and come back Taiwan to have an interview.

I was pretty under pressure to prepare my interview because they wanted me to introduce myself in Chinese. Honestly, I was not confident to do it as my Chinese was so miserable (even UNTIL NOW).

The only way to have a good speech in Chinese less than 2 months was to memorize it! HAHA

and I got my friends to help me translate my power point in Chinese, teach me what to say to open the speech and pronounce sentence in Chinese. Even though, I could say I was nervous during the interview and I forgot some parts in my presentation. and, I answered the questions in English and violaaaaa, it was okay for them as they did not asked me to answer in Chinese too (thank God).

It has been 3 months for me working there. So far, everything is good and yaps, doing experiments,  doing research, making presentation, reading journal, writing reports and papers are things that I do. Hey, what do you expect to do when you work as a research assistant?!

Talking about the environment, the place is nice. My boss is super good, all of coworkers are nice, they help me a lot and try to understand me. They speak Chinese-English to me as they know my Chinese is poor (Forgive me !). I enjoy the time to laugh and work together with them.

I thank God for this opportunity. 

Hopefully, I can give my best and good impressions during working here, as I decide that I won't take this job for long (For some reasons, I wanna go back to Indonesia and get a permanent job, and of course to build my career, to chase my dreams).



Below are some pictures of scenery I enjoy along my way back home from office.

 The place I work

view from the bridge

colorful building, every day people come to take picture here

M.Sc !

It's been 5 months since I was officially graduated from National Taiwan Ocean University (NTOU), Taiwan. I did my study as a Food science master student for 2 years, started from February 2017.

M.Sc

Honestly, I did not expect that I would come to this school for doing master. I also wondered why I finally joined this school, even finished my study and got my M.Sc degree. I think that is God's plan.

Back to the end of 2016, I submitted my master application into three universities. They were Wageningen university in Netherlands,  National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) and National Taiwan Ocean University (NTOU) in Taiwan. All those universities accepted me and gave me scholarship, except Wageningen university. At that time, I planned to register myself for LPDP scholarship so I could go for Wageningen as I received the letter of acceptance (LOA) in Food technology department. Unfortunately, LPDP would open the registration 6 months after. It means that I had to delay one semester of study. Besides, there was a possibility I would not get the scholarship. On the other hand, I could start studying in NCKU or NTOU right away with a full ride.

It was not easy at all to finally make a decision to choose NTOU. I considered many things like hundreeeedddd things as I am a thinker xoxo. That situation was similar to the moment when I had to decide for my bachelor study. I had no idea why I went to UNSRI, but in the end I knew the reason. Something that I might not get if I was in another university, a transformation from darkness to lightness.

I could understand that everything happens for a reason like many people said.
But I believe that everything happens according to God's plan.

So far, I feel blessed here. I have good friends, a good community in church, excellent advisor and teachers, friendly lab-mates, and super pretty scenery around school as it is near to ocean.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him and he will make your paths straight.

with food science students

with Indonesian students from spring batch

special

Playing with Manggaurong kids (2)

I still wanna talk about Myanmar.

It is a long story, I have told you, right?! haha

This post will share you our mission activities with Manggaurong kids. We spent 6 days for teaching and playing with them.

Day 1.

We just arrived there in the morning with a heavy rain. They prepared us a special bed room which was a library before. So, all lady members stayed there during this activity, except Aunty Ping and Sofania, they were in another room since this library a.k.a bed room was not that large to keep all ladies inside. All boys, they stayed outside which was on the opposite of this area. All things were so good and calm. I could listen to mooo, miaw, chick chick, kukuruyuk, guk guk, wek wek sounds daily (you can try to guess what animals they are).

So, let me show you some pictures where we stayed.

Zhong Hui and the building where some kids slept and we stayed inside the white-pink color room

The library a.k.a the new bed room

The church, we had our prayer meeting with local people every night 

Inside the church with some kids played there

Our breakfast, lunch and dinner area but also other activity area

Outside of church area, boys stayed here

Day 2-4.

We started our activities. It was Saturday. Actually, we were kinda afraid of raining day for we could not do our outside activities. As you know, it was raining all day on the the first day we came to Myanmar. Thank God, that day was not raining, It was bright with drizzle for a moment in the morning but we still could do our morning exercise with kids.

Doing morning exercise to shake body before class

Children were divided into several grades. My friends and I were in charge of teaching grade 5 to 6. We taught them about simple conversation in English, geography, basic biology, personal hygiene and an English song. It was so tired at the first day. I could feel that they were shy so I had to be so active to make them be a little overt. We started with small introduction and asked them a common question "what they wanna be".

Trying to build a conversation with my student (Pardon my silly face. Anw, I love his smile)

Teaching them simple English (I don't know why I could not close my mouth)

Learning basic conversation in English 

All these boys were my students

I will also show you some pictures from other classes.

All the pictures make me feel that I miss the moment I spent with them.

Day 5.

We mixed all the students into several groups because we were going to have competitions. They were so energetic and active. Even though I felt exhausted but I could say that it was super fun to play with them. We were laughing, yelling to encourage our teammate and singing together. 

At night, it was time to say goodbye to everyone. That was a sad night.

Saying goodbye

Stickers on our faces. Things that we gave them, they shared it with us.

My student gave me a folding paper flower

Love letter from my students

Day 6.

We packed our things because we had to leave the village after lunch. As I remembered, all students had to go to school so we could not spend our morning before going back to the city with them. But, during the class break, students came to visit us and to say goodbye one more time. They came from their school and brought us biscuits. Actually, those biscuits were given to them and they shared it with us. As I have told you, they always shared things that they have to us. They showed us what the LOVE is. Love is sharing, right?

They cried and said why we had to go back. This question was not simple to answer because they knew what it felt to be separated with someone they felt comfortable with. Many of them do not have parents anymore. They live alone. Even some of them have to take care of their little brothers and sisters in their very young age. I still could not imagine that. 

There was a day they sang for us. Even though I do not understand the language. I enjoy it every　time I listen to it.

I am blessed to have this experience, to enjoy time with them and to learn love from them.

I hope they are good in whatever they do.

Miss them <3

Photo credits : Zhong Hui

Mission trip to MYANMAR (1)

I was so excited to visit Myanmar since that was my first time to visit that country. Especially, it was a very special trip because I went there for serving kids. So, let's call this as a mission trip.

I was chosen as one of volunteers for NTOU Bilingual church. Thank God for this chance. I could say that this trip might be a short escaping from a hectic and stressful study life. Hopefully, I could write some of my story for being a graduate student (*next time).

first time using our squad t-shirts on the day before our mission trip

(Above-left: Tonis - Fenny - EN - Tsai Sing - Yu Ting - Annie - CY)

(Below-left: Zhong Hui - Jing Yi- Boyu - Prof. TK - David - Nodali - Banana keke)

(other members- not in pictures: Suna - Sofania - Aunty Ping)

This could be a long long long story, so I decide to divide in many posts (still don't decide yet how many it will be hahaha ..)

In this post, I will tell you the story about how we, the mission team, could reach a small village called Manggaurong, Myanmar. Anyway, I am not that sure that I write the correct name of that village.

From Taoyuan airport, Taiwan, we took a direct flight to Yangon airport, Myanmar. It was early in the morning so I felt a bit sleepy. It took about 4 hours flying from Taoyuan to Yangon with the different time of Taiwan is 1 hour 30 minutes earlier than of Myanmar. 

 

ready to go Yangon airport, Myanmar

My first impression about Myanmar was oh cool, many guys used Sarung for their daily working activities. It was in the airport that many men used sarung walking around. That was interesting because in my country, Indonesia, men will not use sarung for working, except they are going to Shalat (praying for Muslim people) or they are having their leisure time. And yeah, Indonesian men will not use sarung in the airport except ... hemm .. I do not have an idea, you can mention.

Myanmar men used Sarung for daily working

Myanmar ladies (and men) used special powder on their faces. Lately, I know that the powder is from special wood named Thanakha. They mix with water and spread on their face during the day to protect their face skin from sunburn. You can google for further information. 

Myanmar and Indonesian Ladies (kak Suna)

Trip to : Keelung Mountain

It was Saturday, July 7th 2018. 

Our destination was Keelung mountain since Goh (my friend) really wanted to go there.

We went there just by using some information from internet and asking local people when we touched the place. FYI, several times we did this and we never got lost so far.

So, We took 788 bus from Keelung downtown to get off in Jiufen after.

Then, we asked local people how to get to the place and finally started our tracking.

Flat track for I know It could be the warming up before tracking

After a while, we found the first shelter that we could take a rest for a moment with a good view. In this height, we can even see a good view with low cloud and small buildings. As I can see clearly, some small buildings are tombs.

Some details about Keelung mountain

First shelter with benches and good view

Small buildings on the left side of the hill are tombs, crowded buildings on the right side is Jiufen city

To reach the peak of Keelung mountain, we need to use stairs, that I can tell there are thousands of them. So, I suggest you to do some stretching or do exercise before. It has been 2 days ago but I still feel pain in my leg. There are 5 spots that we can take a breath and lie our body down for a moment because It was terribly tired with the sun shone brightly right over our heads.

Sunarti (girl) and Goh (boy) came up the stairs

I thought It was more than one hour we climbed, we finally found the peak. At that time, I felt that I was almost out of breath. I do agree with a quote saying "Climb mountains not so the world can see you but so you can see the world" and yeah, I could see everything clearly and widely from the peak. I could even see my school from here where it was about one hour to get Jiufen from Keelung city.

Keelung mountain view. Ps: sorry for my bad phone camera 

Photo credit to Wirawat buranarom a.k.a Goh 

Cloudy view because it was about to rain

The mountain area with a green velvet spreading

Thanks again to Wirawat buranarom a.k.a Goh for this photo