should I call it 'berkah ramadhan'?

satu kata : adventurous.
itulah kenapa gw suka nyoba hal-hal baru. dunia ini luas banget, dan masihbanyak hal yang belum gw explore.

nah, pas libur ramadhan kemaren bener2 di puncak bosan. udah selese ujian remed, belum mulai semester baru, udah pensiun KMTK, nothing to do. and I hate it when I get nothing to do. hidup gw terbuang percuma di depan komputer.

bermula dari iseng, gw nemu pengumuman di blog HCY (hijabers community yogyakarta) ada pemilihan model hunt gitu buat mini fashion show acara Ramadhan Fun. berhubung gw ga ada kerjaan juga, jadi iseng2 berhadiah boleh doong.
beberapa hari setelahnya, ada pengumuman di blog HCY, singkat ceritagw masuk di antara 20 orang itu. sebelum acara hari H, beberapa kali kita latihan koreografi jalan di rumus HCY. disanalah gw ketemu kak Cindy, pendiri Sanggar Kesenian Atjeh UGM (semacam UKM independen). kita ngobrol2, trus berhubung gw tertarik sama hal baru yang belum pernah gw pelajari, jadi gw memutuskan buat gabung. toh lagian pas liburan kemarin gw banyak waktu kosong. somehow, I have big passion to learn something new.

20 Agustus 2011. hari H Ramadhan fun, so much fun! gw dapet pengalaman baru : 'jalan'.
waktu itu, gw dapet label UNA by Utie Nareswari. produknya beraneka ragam, dominan warna-warna kontras. keren banget deh! make up and hijab do by Utie Nareswari too. she's so talented.
dari acara itu, gw dapet banyak teman baru. ada mba rika (desainer muda anggota APPMI asosiasi pengusaha perancang mode indonesia), ada kak cindy, anggita, shatila, amel, joice, husna dll banyak bangeet! menyenangkan banget deh pokoknya dapet temen2 baru :)

ternyata, itu semua ga cuma berhenti disitu.
beberapa minggu setelah acara Ramadhan Fun, ada kabar bahwa model hunt itu dapet golden ticket buat masuk 50 besar semifinalis 'pemilihan putri muslimah HCY'. jiwa adventurous gw tertantang dong. dan waktu itu gw mikir, wah pasti bakal jadi lifetime experience nih! mana pernah gw ikut gituan. akhirnya, gw ambil tuh golden ticket.

seleksi 20 besar finalis
dari 50 besar semifinalis, diambil 20 besar finalis. tahap seleksinya berupa wawancara dan unjuk bakat. gw emang ga banyak ngarep buat lolos ke 20 besar. toh niat awal cuma iseng cari pengalaman hehe
dan jujur pas wawancara, I didn't give my best. waktu itu baru pulang kuliah atau apa gitu. ga maksimal rasanya.

pengumuman 20 besar finalis
capek. banget.
persiapan gladi resik gladi kotor dimulai 3 hari sebelumnya. dan disaat yang sama, harus latihan tari Rampoe buat "Indonesia 100%' di hari yang sama pas fashow pengumuman 20 besar.
singkat cerita, ternyata nama gw masuk dalam list 15 besar! kaget bangetlah. gw mikir gini dari kemaren2 itu, oh yaudahlah maksimalin aja, gapapa skalian diabisin tenaganya, kan ntar abis ini ga bakal ngrasain yang kaya gini lagi.
eh ternyataaaa, alhamdulillah masuk finalis :)

diklat finalis
alhamdulillah dapet pengetahuan baru dan pengalaman baru dalam hidup. diklat ini berlangsung 2 hari. hari pertama diisi materi manner tentang wanita mandiri. hari kedua nih seru! materinya tentang fashion design sama photography. selama 2 hari diklat ini, merupakan masa penjurian dan pnilaian. jadi masing-masing finalis dinilai keaktifannya buat dipilih 5 besar nanti.
new knowledge!

penobatan
tanggal 9-11 dsember bener2 super hectic!
fitting baju, pengajian, fashow, tampil tari Rampoe. semua jadi satu. dan ditambah pas tgl 10 itu, gw ada kewajiban di one day course SPE dan itu yg gw pilih jadi prioritas utama gw.
bayangin aja, selama seminggu itu berangkat pagi, kuliah, aktifitas ini itu, laihan rampoe, pulang jam 10. hebat banget deh pokoknyaa!

oya, pas hari grand launching ini, gw bawain label Nadeschja by Soraya Indah.
gw gaamasuk 5 besar dan ga jadi putri favorit by voting email. makasih banyak ya teman-teman yang udah kirim email. ada sekitar 2000 email yang masuk bwt gw. maaf ga menang hehe
yang menang putri favorit tuh kak Anggi senior gw pas di IC. dan pemenang putri muslimahnya Anggita.
dan lagi-lagi, alhamdulillahi robbil 'alamin, gw dapet kategori best dress hehe :D

then, afterall I've got and I've been through, should I call it 'berkah ramadhan'?

2012

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
happy new year everyone!

I've never been this excited to face the new year. and I have to admit it, that last night was the best new year's eve party I've ever had. (foto menyusul kalo sempat haha)



speaking of celebrating new year, tiga tahun baru sebelumnya bener2 ga berkesan. well, berkesan sih. tapi buruk. oke, skip.

tapi serius loh, gw ngrasa bener2 excited buat taun ini. mungkin karena gw ngelewatin 2011 kemarin dengan naik dan turun, jadi bener2 berkesan dan berwarna. mungkin juga karena #thingtodobefore20 yang gw bikin, jadi gw lebih menghargai moment2 yang gw lewatin.

resolusi 2012 gw : lebih berwarna dari 2011 di segala sisi.

we live once, why do you waste your time doing nothing?

2011

seperti tahun-tahun sebelumnya, tahun 2011 dibuka dengan musim hujan dan ditutup dengan musim hujan. tapi ditengah-tengahnya, diisi dengan musim panas yang membahagiakan.

Januari.
bulan ini bukan bulan yang bagus buat gue. kebanyakan mendung dan hujan. bulan januari itu masa-masa UAS semester 3.
wait, di tengah2 kehectic-an UAS, kakak sepupu gw (mba anis) nikahan. well, it was the best thing in that month.

gue dan ceciwi cantik penerima tamu (ica rina fikung almas)

kundil (adik gue) dan rara

Februari.
bulan ini juga ga bertambah baik. semakin hujan. liburan semester 3 gue sebagian besar gw pake ngurus EBL (Engineering Basketball League) sama dengerin the script. if you get what I mean.
nafas aja susah di bulan ini.

Maret.
this month I turned 19 yeay!
tapi sungguhan deh. ulangtaun ke-19 gw bener2 ga berasa ulangtaunnya. EBL dimulai tgl 11 Maret. which means selama seminggu sebelum ultah gw hectic buat EBL. di sela2 waktu buat jadi panitia, gw juga harus latihan sampe malem buat jadi pemain.

tanggal 18 Maret.
gw harus ke kridosono buat jaga jam 10. eh sebelumnya sempet2nya si puspa sama anak dkw lainnya sok2an ngerjain gw. biasa, sok sok marah2in gw gitu si puspa tapi dia kan gabisa bohong jadi ketauan haha

dikasih kue sama anak2 DKW (thomas, angel, puspa, lia, tito dll dkk)

sorenya, pas gw jadi panitia EBL di krido, ternyata si iconk, ica, sama vio (temennya iconk) sempet2in dateng ke kridosono! bawain bunga sama kue sama kado uuuw :3 padahal gw kira ultah gw bakal suram gitu. kuenya akhirnya dibagi2 buat panitia EBL juga.

malemnya, pas abis abis tanding basket putri lawan siapa entah lupa, si ica dateng lagi! uw unyu sekaliii kali ini sama yara. bawa cake kecil unyu gitu.

ica, rara (masih pake outfit basket dan super kucel), yara

thank you, girls! I loooove you :)

berhubung ini merupakan tahun terakhir sebelum gw berkepala 2, bulan maret gw bikin #thingstodobefore20. isinya? ada deeeeh :D
pokoknya hal-hal yang biasa dilakukan remaja belasan tahun pada umumnya hihi

April.
udah mulai masuk musim panas. di bulan gw banyak hal yang gw lakuin buat menyenangkan hati. being happiness seeker is not a crime ;)
1. ulangtaun chatar-arin
gw bikin kertas ucapan buat mereka trus ditandatangan anak2 seangkatan.

2. ulangtaun hana
gw sama waliya, nitia, chatar (lupa siapa lagi) bikin wishes bottle di dunkin! isinya kertas warna warni gituu. challenge accepted!

3. pantai!
bulan april abis UTS semester 4, ke pantai sama bocah2. kita ke 3 pantai kalo salah, indrayanti drini kukup. super sekali.

anyway, proyek ulangtaun ini emang salahsatu dari #thingstodobefore20. make memories! hihi

Mei.
bulan ini masa2 hectic fellowship. tapi disaat yang sama waktu itu gw sakit infeksi mata sampe demam gitu.

my mom turned 48!

Juni.
bulan ini hectic UAS smt 4. bulan juni gw main ketemuan sama cekepi (cut farah) yang seharusnya di fx, tapi dia salah tempat malah di EX. emang tuh bocah lucunya maksimal! ga pernah bener deh kalo main sama cekep. akhirnya kita ke magnum cafe di GI. oya hari sebelumnya main sama nitong, sibon, hilfi, dini.

Juli.
liburan semester 4, ujian remed.

Agustus.
nah. bulan agustus ini bulan paling spesial di tahun 2011. bisa dibilang bulan agustus ini bener2 membawa perubahan dalam hidup gw. bisa dibilang berkah ramadhan :)
gw selalu suka bulan ramadhan. mungkin juga karena gw lahir di bulan ramadhan haha
alhamdulillah target spiritual gw di bulan ramadhan kemarin tercapai.
lengkap nya ntar gw bikin post sendiri deh. kalo sempat ;)

oya, dibulan ini gw ke bandung! ada cara buka bersama sama bocah2 Civeramoz gitu. sumpah kangeeen bangeeet! sayangnya yang dari regioanl jogja cuma gw doang, yang lain pada sibuk gitu. pas buber kita ngundang anak2 panti asuhan buat ikut buber gitu. unyu sekali! abis buber lanjut tarawih trus BBQ-an dan ngobrol2 gosip sana sini. dan akhirnya gw ketemu dafira sama lara nikhot! terakhir ketemu pas wisuda IC gitu.
besoknya, gw sama dingdong okky hanif hilfi nonton fast and furious 5 di ciwalk. seru bangetlah film nya!

September.
lebaran, mulai semester 5, nothing's special.
eh wait! MAKRAB 2009!

speaking of 2009, gw beruntung jadi bagian dari 2009. warna warni banget orang2nya. seriously. kalo lagi jaman2nya UAS, kita belajar bareng2 di KPFT sampe ber-50. dan pas ada event angkatan rame2 juga. beda deh pokoknya dibanding angkatan lain (narsis haha)

Oktober.
1. oki haryo ulangtaun!! hahaha
berhubung ini seorang Oki Haryo, maka surprisenya ga boleh biasa2 aja dong. maka dari itu, gw chatar dan warren didukung oleh Tami merencanakan sesuatu yang mega dahsyat unforgettable buat oki. ummm kita kasih banci! hehe
oke, mungkin emang keterlaluan, beberapa hari setelahnya juga kita masih ngrasa bersalah sama oki. tapi ini demi moment berkesan, jadi tetap berlanjut.
waktu itu, gw sama warren yang nyari banci deket2 McD. serem banget gila! singkat cerita kita dapet 3 banci skaligus buat nyanyiin happy birthday buat oki.
skenario lebih lengkap bakal gw post sendiri (kalo sempat) :)

2. ibu gw diopname di sardjito semingguan gara2 infeksi virus. trombosit drop banget sampe masa2 kritis 20.000
15 oktober 2011
waktu itu bener2 ngrasa up and down banget. soalnya gw lagi di amplas sama yara, main abis uts kalo salah. trus tiba2 ditelfon kundil katanya ibu gw mau masuk rumah sakit malem itu juga. langsung ngebut pulang lah gw, trus nganterin ke rumah sakit. hari itu bener2 gw ngrasain common quote "hidup itu kaya roda berputar"

November.
well, ini juga bulan berkesan buat gw.
di bulan ini gw ada pengumuman 20 besar putri muslimah HCY sama oprec new board SPE.

Desember.
hectic, berkesan, capek, senang.
1. diklat finalis 20 besar putri muslimah HCY
2. one day course SPE : mastering the keys to be qualified engineer in petroleum company.
3. grand launching HCY, penobatan brand ambassador HCY.
4. interview scholarship
5. Quiz akhir taun (manajemen, perpindahan panas, operasi perpindahan massa dan panas)
6. Okky ke jogja
7. pakde gw meninggal di kamar sebelah kamar gw. di depan mata gw.

okay, time for new year's eve party!
be ready for 2012!! :)

dear God

dear God,
whoever he is, please protect him for me.
fulfill his days with lots of happiness and shower us with more of happiness when he's with me someday.

The Genius Steve Jobs

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

flat.
I don't even know what I'm feeling.
all mixed up feeling inside.
nobody knows but me.

it was just so unbelievable.