By Harianto Herdiman

Monday, June 13, 2011

Still Here, Not The Same

So many things going on last month. Life was good up until now. All thanks to God, family, and friends.
By the way, congratulations for all those who graduates on Spring 2011.

Well, I was just thinking about all the sh*t(s) that happened in the past and life was not fair for me because of those unfortunate events, considering all good effort that I had made. Cliche example: when I study hard to he hardest, but the outcome was like the professor accused me as a party animal. Oh well, I did my best (in my standard), so I have no regret. And oh yeah, good things happened as well up until now. I have my fit day which is on Tuesday! Tuesday is my hit the gym time. Crap, I just realize that I have to check my summer class schedule to make sure I have a slot for my fit day.

jump to another random thought...

Have you ever been jealous because of somebody take some kind of reward, or place that you carve for and you had your effort to obtain it? In my case, yes! Sorry guys, but I'm short of example to make that statement reflective.
But here is the revelation:
Who says life suppose to be fair? Because I think life is not suppose to be fair. Sometimes bad things happen and that's not fair, and good things happen and that's not fair as well. You just have to see the "not fair" factor in different lens. It might be fair for you, but it just might be not fair for other people.

Here is my all time favorite quote: "You will never taste sweet to the fullest if you never taste bitterness" (I kind of forget who told me this)
Judging the old me, he did very well, but I choose to process myself to be a better person, and you should too!
Yeah, things happen for a reason. I ask for strength and He gives me difficulties to overcome.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

No return ticket to Indo This Year, Happy Mother's Day!

Yep, no return ticket to home this year :(
The only reason I want to go back is because of my mom, dad, and lil sis.
I choose to stay in the USA this year instead of going back to Indonesia. Hopefully, it's not a stupid decision although I know my mom misses me very much and vice versa. I can sense it every single time she calls me on the phone. She always asks me once in every call if I return to Indo, or not this year. Sorry mom, I choose to stay this year. I feel very guilty though, but I stay with my decision. How I grateful to have a non-demanding mom about what to do. I kind of forget since when she stopped to give me instructions about what to do. My mom's voice had been recorded since I was young. The voice which woke me up every morning even though we both know that it was holiday(s), just because she wants me not to wake up after 8 AM. She argues that I must wake up early everyday because that's what I will face in the future as a husband who works for his family. Well, I think she already realized that his little boy already became a man at this time, so she gives me liberty and responsibility to bear. I must admit that I was a super naughty boy in my early puberty age. Kind of made my parents worry about my future.
Anyways, happy mother's day mom :)
Don't worry about your boy, for he can take care of himself.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Define

Music: A set of tone that can bring you into certain mood
Apparel: Things that cover parts of your body, sometimes make you look better.
Diamond: Women's best friend, men's necessary expense that withdrawn their savings.
Ring: 1) Symbol of marriage. 2) Unity. 3) Never ending. 4) Fancy circle
Apple: 1) A commonly red/green round crisp eaten fruit. 2) Designed in California, made in China.
Android: 1) Robot. 2) Apple competitor. (see Apple #2)
Blackberry: Not even a family member of plant kingdom.
Twitter: your limit is 140 characters.
Facebook: Social network.
Family: A union where you don't have anything to cover and you care the most.
Water: The most essential element in order to sustain life.
Heaven: A glorious and joyous place that exists. (Good individual goes here)
Hell: co-exists with heaven, but has contradict sensation. (Bad individual goes here)
Accident: Shit happens.
Democracy: Arch enemy of communism.
Competition: Survival of the fittest.
Iron Man: Fictional character with super duper ultra mega mighty armor suit.
Fat: Lipid. You don't want have it too much in your body.
Study: Activities which educational institution force you to do. Usually associated with reading, writing, calculating fictional problems. 20-21 century mankind's worst enemy.
Learning: Process of life enrichment.
Organic: More green money out from your pocket.
Alcohol: kill germs!
Drunk: psychological situation when you can hardly (can't) control your physical body.
Miracle: An unexpectedly extremely good event that could happen if you believe.
Money: A good servant, bad master.
Tears: Drops of water from your eyes. Could be a manifestation of tremendous feeling whether its good, or bad.
Truth: Fact that could be good/bad. depends on the situation.
Love: 1)Can't put it into words, projected in actions. 2)Some people mistakenly consider it as lust.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Experience Indonesia


Mark your calendar guys, on may 7th 2011.
If you have nothing to do in Saturday noon, come to our cultural day. 12PM-3PM at The Ohio Union cartoon room 1&2. Columbus,OH. This is a free public event! You can bring everybody to this event. How cool is that?

Powered By Eevent
http://eevent.com/indo/experience-indonesia

P.S. We have free goodies giveaway. Everybody loves free stuff!!!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

What to Do In Columbus?

So here is the long awaited post. Feliciano Rahadrjo asked me to write an entry about what to do in Columbus because we want to promote Columbus to our fellow in other states. He also suggest me to put my smiley face while I take pictures of the place. Sadly, I could not do that because school has been so busy lately.
Nevertheless, here you go.

1. The Ohio State University.
Well, I am proud to be a buckeye just because this is my university, but seriously you gotta be here because this is one of the best university in the nation. Definitely, you gotta found the 2nd largest university in the USA. What we have here? a grand football stadium where Michigan(s) suck their candies, award winning sports center, Fisher college of business!Jack Nicklaus museum (everybody knows Jack Nicklaus right?) The Oval esp. in Spring and sunny day where life seems so bright because everybody wandering around literally with no shit on. Agricultural Garden where flowers bloom in spring and many more.







2. German Village
A small German community where the people are descendants from German family in Columbus. I always feel some kind of soothing aura when I just take a walk in the village.
They have a terrific sausage restaurant (don't know how to spell that, the Schdimth?) Bookloft bookstore, very nice pistachio, and Thurman burger which appeared in the food channel network and man vs food show.




3. Easton Shopping center
yeah, you name it, we got it; Burberry, Victoria Secret, Bose, Apple, Coach, Forever 21, GAP, Lacoste, New York &Co. Starbucks, Abercrombie, and many more.




3.5 Another famous shopping sites are Ohio is Jeffersonville outlet (http://www.primeoutlets-jeffersonville.com/) & Polaris mall (http://www.polarisfashionplace.com/). If you want to shop a lot, I recommend go to Jefferson outlet. It takes about 2 hours driving from Columbus, but they have a lot of branded store with low sales tax! Or should I say basically sales tax in Ohio is comparatively small? (6.25%)

You know what? You should go to Cincinati once you go to Jeffersonville. You will have a terrific scenery at night from the top of mt.Adams. You can also travel across 3 states in cincinati (Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio)



4. Columbus Zoo and Aquarium
#1 Zoo in the USA with a relatively low entrance fee. $14 for adults, $9 for age 2-9.
I paid for around $40 for San Diego zoo back in California by the way, and I was shocked when they have $9 zoo which offers you better in almost every aspects, but not in the winter :)

5. COSI
If you like science, this is the right place! They have cool stuff which even appropriate for my age. I am 21 by the way, which makes me feel smarter and resourceful than kids/old people.





6. Last But not least, Night Club(s)!!!
If you like beer, dance, liquor, and vibrant night life, I can take you there, but that was just if only. Prerequisite: legal state ID.


So, there are some of tourist attractions in Columbus, OH. Of course, you will meet various people in Columbus. hot girls, warm people, not so many Asians, obese, *ichigan haters, and so on and so forth. You're welcome to visit Columbus!

Friday, April 8, 2011

Creativity

In my college years, I took a class which discuss about creative person and what traits that every successful person has in common.
One of the common traits is playfulness!
This word is wake up call for us, who self label ourselves to be a mature, and knowledgeable. The thing is, if we self label ourselves with those kind of prodigy, we are totally losing to nursery kids.
Nursery kids are playful! They don't mind to do new activities, open to suggestion, teachable, and dare to fail. In other words, Playful.
I think, something's wrong with our education system and social interaction; eliminating the level of playfulness which we used to have. School forces students to hold a pencil, do their math, follow the formula, listen to boring lecture, and read what other people told them to read. Such a sad illustration to our education worldwide. I've been studying in two sides of this world. East and west and from my observation, those activities are very typical; what students can expect in school. On the contrary, what I expect from education as a student is freedom to choose what he want to learn. In university level, one can choose his specialization. I choose my specialization and I have no regret with my bad grades because I "play" with them. I do mistake, but I learn from them and seek for possibilities.
Some people still aim for high grades in school to fulfill society expectation and forget how to play with their mistakes. Clearly, our society is losing the big picture, to create innovation.
In my opinion, false expectation is the pitfall which eliminate playfulness.

Without playfulness, we close possibility.
Take Thomas Alva E for example, if he had not been playful with every combination of the materials he used in order to create light bulb, we might have to change our light bulb every week.

At the very end of this short thought, I just want to say that there is nothing wrong to be playful. Mistakes and moments of emberasement happen, but as they increase, the length of the path decrease.

The moment of revelation usually come not in a serious/deep thinking. Creative and out of the box solution often come when we "play" I often amaze myself because I have a brilliant ideas when I take my late night shower. They just jump in when I'm toying with water.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Lomba Mewarnai

Cerita ini gw ambil dari blog lama gw, karena orang orang yg baca pada bilang ini cerita paling menarik yg pernah dy orang baca. Here we go:

Kelas 5 SD gw pernah ikut lomba mewarnai selama 2 kali. Jaman SD itu gw adalah anak yang demen makan snack. Nah, kebetulan ada lomba mewarnai yang sponsornya adalah snack biscuit tongkat yang bias dicocol sama cokelat/stroberi. Kalo dimakan “nyam nyam” banget….Nah, jadi gw minta bokap gw buat daftarin gw ke tuh lomba. Alhasil, gw ikut deh lomba mewarnai yang waktu itu diselenggarakan di atrium Mega Mal (alm.)
Itu adalah pengalaman pertama gw ikut lomba mewarnai. Nah, emang keliatan kan gw ga punya bakat buat menggambar/mewarnai. Gw mah cukup jadi penikmat barang2 seni ajah. Hasilnya yah bisa ditebak, gw kalah. Tapi emang namanya anak kecil yah masih ajah ngarep menang. Soalnya kalo menang hadiahnya stock snack yang kalo dimakan pasti “nyam nyam” dan bias bertahan buat 1 minggu. Besoknya, giliran sekolah adek gw yang ikut (ade gw sama gw itu SD-nya beda dulu gw SD di Kristen Yusuf Jembatan 2.) Gw masih penasaran juga kenapa gw ga bisa dapetin tuh senek. Akhirnya gw minta ke bokap gw lagi buat daftarin gw untuk yg ke 2 kalinya scr berturut turut (buang buang duit yah..hasilnya dah bisa ketebak.) Mungkin bokap gw mikir ada bagusnya juga kalo gw nemenin adek gw selama ade gw lomba.
Nah, bukan lomba 2 kali itu yang jadi masalah. Jadi, tiap lomba, ada semacam parade dari si mascot senek yang bentuknya kucing garong. 1 hari tuh bisa 3 kali dengan lagu, gerakan, dan dialog yang sama. Maksudnya sih buat entertain anak2 yang bosen nunggu hasil lomba. Tapi kenapa lagu, gerakan, dan dialognya itu sama semua??? Salah loe orang (panitia penyelenggara) telah menanam memory yg aneh dalam otak anak anak SD seperti gw yang emang kebosenan nunggu hasil lomba. Dan lebih parahnya lagi, gw liet tuh parade 6 kali berturut turut selama 2 hari. Soalnya nowhere to go selain nunggu hasil lomba yang udah jelas hasilnya buat gw.

Kira2 begini cerita bodoh yg masih gw inget: Suatu hari yang cerah, si kucing garong pergi ke rumah cewenya dengan membawa senek yang bunyinya enak. Di tengah jalan, seneknya dirampok sama kucing garong yg laen (laper kali tuh kucing.) Sampe di rumah cewenya tuh kucing garong yg kecolongan lapor ke cewenya dan minta bantuan temen2 dia buat nyari siapa pelakunya. 5 Menit kemudian pelakunya ketangkep. Dan kata si maling dia menyesal udah nyolong. (gw ngarep penghakiman missal kek yg ada di tv tv biar ada entertainment beneran) Yah, hasilnya happily ever after. Si maling diampuni dan sebagai ucapan terima kasih, semua actor/actress di panggung termasuk si maling dikasih senek enak satu orang satu. Sambil joget joget kek pelem India dengan theme song yg aneh. Udah deh tamat. Kebayang ga sih ada kenangan advertisement yg menurut gw ga ada nilai edukasi sama sekali di otak gw. (kalo ada orang dari producer snack dari Australia yg baca & nyadar, anggep ajah ini sebagai kritik dari gw)

Intinya, kalo mao bikin advertisement tuh yg ada nilai education buat society kan bagus.
Gw prihatin dgn keadaan advertisement sekarang soalnya.

Flash back 4 tahun lalu, di Indo jaman pemilu 4 tahun lalu banyak kan iklan partai politik? Sepupu gw yg masih TK ajah yang diinget “moncong putih” (which is lame)
Dan emang yg diinget cuman moncong putih!!!

Kadang tujuan advertisement yang kayak gini Cuma buat membodohi masyarakat yang emang masih polos & ga tau apa2 buat jadi object pembodohan kek anak yg pendidikannya equivalent dengan TK. Apa iya, Masyarakat Indo itu dianggap sebagai anak TK yang gampang banget dibodohi sama iklan yang ga berkualitas yang tujuannya cumin buat cuci otak yang liet?

Harusnya bukan UU Pornografi yang diurusin (gw abis nonton channel “kelinci” tadi sore sama temen2 gw ^^) tapi beneran, gw ga melihat ada hal yg signifikan buat ngurusin UU pornografi yg sekarang udah terlanjur jadi. Coba tuh urusin “para pembela rakyat” yang bisanya bikin jalanan macet. Kan masih banyak kerjaan.


-Kadang peraturan emang dibuat untuk dilanggar-