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 

Blooming Flowers

Taken at Taman Lumbini, Berastagi, North Sumatera (14 Desember 2014)

Accomplished Semester

halowww ..
long time no writing in this blog.

Bukannya gak inget sama blog ini, cuma aja jari-jari udah capek deluan untuk ngetikin laporan + tugas dan gak ada tenaga lagi buat ngetik di blog ini. so many lessons i got from this semester, so so so so many ! cuma ya gitu deh, gak bisa dishare di sini.

serius, semster 5 semester gila tugas+kegiatan+event !
kalau boleh jujur semster ini banyakan ngeluhnya daripada syukurnya. banyakan ngerengutnya daripada senyumnya, banyakan nangisnya daripada ketawanya.
ngeluh karena pelayanan yang super duper nguras tenaga+otak, ngerengut karena banyak hal yang gak sesuai dengan keinginan, nangis karena tugas yang gak ada habisnya walau udah dikerjain. kalau di runutin semua, jelas jelas gak ada baiknya hati di semster lima ini. Bukan cuma itu, banyak juga yang terabaikan dan tercueki. semacam dunia cuma ada aku+tugas+laporan+PMK. Apapun ceritanya, semester lima udah hampir lewat. tinggal nunggu hasil akhir dari akademik, dan awal dari hari-hari baru yang udah seharusnya lebih baik dari semster ini. superb akhirnya semster ini lewat. Teringat kata seorang temen, 'Kita bisa lewati setiap hal itu karena ada Tuhan yang dengar doa orang-orang yang selalu mendoakanmu', dan yang pasti 'orang-orang' itu adalah bapak+mama, bebob, Fullhouse, dan teman pelayanan.

Kalau sekarang sih, mari lihat kedepan !
siapkan planning baru untuk di hari besok.