Cerita Sita

I am so glad that I have finally pass both the IELTS and GRE test :) It was personally a struggle for me especially GRE because the materials are much more complicated than the IELTS. I also realized that age does matters. Now that I am older, I found myself trying to remembering verbs a lot more harder than I was in my 20s. But I guess practice makes perfect, or at least better. I literally practiced day and night using various type of means such as books, internet, e-book, newsletter and many more. I was absolutely nervous when I did mya test because if I failed I need to take another one and the deadline to start the new term is approaching really fast. I also cannot afford to pay for another one since the test fee is very expensive. I guess some tips that I can share from taking both GRE and IELTS  are: 1. Focus on your weakness but still do some practice on all materials. You will never know what you will be facing during the test so you have to be familiar with all th...

Tuesday, September 27, 2016 Shindig, hegemon, bearing, prevailing, enraptured, delicacy, funk, frenzy, curmudgeon, paraphernalia No wonder, Mr. Ted, our history teacher was called “the killer shark”. Just by a glance you can easily recognize him as a curmudgeon. Whenever he enters the class bearing his paraphernalia, the atmosphere suddenly turned into a frenzy instead of delicacy moment. This is very contrast to the moment where the school held a jazz shindig where the funk music session was on. At that time, Mr. Ted looked so relaxed and enraptured by the songs. Such a paradox with his hegemon attitude, unfortunately.  

Kasim, a mason who lives across the street and came all the way from India to the States told us an imponderable story on the reason why he moved here. He told us that in his country origin he was labelled as Pariah or someone that has been soundly rejected by the community. He has neither any control nor opportunity to elevate his social status. The majority of the people there become so picayune whenever they dealt with him on a job, no matter how much he endeavors the job and never have done any egregious thing. This has led Kasim to retract from his life there and decided to travel and settle in the US. Initially he felt a deep contrite but overtime he felt relieved which showed from his beatific smile when he told us the story. I would imagine if he had stayed in his original country and tried to solely change the system there, I would perceive that as a very hopeless effort or even if it does happen it would be some sort of a pyrrhic occasion.

If you were given an option to choose between bottled water and tap water? What would you choose? The discourse between the need versus the impact of using bottled water have been lingering among us for decades. Some people argued bottled water provides more guarantee in terms of safety for the human health, especially for a drinking water, high quality is a necessity. However, in the other hand, bottled water to some people is considered to be more harmful for the environment. Hence, threaten its sustainability.   Given the drawback, bottled water still provides many more benefit compared if using tap water. Those who are opposed to bottled water view bottled water as a source of environmental destruction. First, since bottled water are mainly created from plastic, it is definitely not environmental friendly. The waste would need a very long time to be recycled. During the process in developing bottled water, a high rate of pollution is emitted to the air...

Many things happened these past few months.   Initially I decided not to share too much stories online, but recently I realized my English skill including my writing skill is deteriorating. I realized it because now I need to take a GRE and TOEFL test to complete my university admission. University admission? Yes, it turned to be a suprise that I received a scholarship for a PhD degree abroad! It is exciting yet daunting. Especially because I still need to complete the admission by taking the GRE test. I once took the test and failed easily hahaha. It was so difficult! I now need to take another one. But the next one should be better of course. I hope by next month I could prepare a lot of materials as best as I could. Wish me luck!!

I think I have been pretty much under the shades these past few weeks. More than a month ago, I decided to uninstall one of my social media application. At that time I did that simply because I was trying to concentrate more in achieving one of my goals and by deleting one of the app I will be less distracted. The first few days was perhaps the hardest because I kept looking at my phone and paused because previously I used to automatically click the app to post something or to simply look at other people's activities and now it's gone. But then after the first week passed, and another, I kind of get used to not looking at the app and my daily life cycle gradually changed. My phone doesn't seem too attractive anymore :) I occasionally checked my phone just to visit Instagram. I love this app most because I feel that Instagram provides more options for people. If people follow you, you don't automatically follow them. Second, you can pick whatever or whoever you want ...

Minggu yang lalu anak saya yang pertama menerima hasil tes psikologi yang diadakan oleh TK tempat dia bersekolah. Karena kebetulan saya berhalangan untuk mengambil hasilnya, suami saya yang datang dan sekaligus bertemu dengan psikolognya. Tidak lama setelah pertemuan tersebut, suami saya bercerita bahwa anak kami mendapatkan hasil tes psikologi yang cukup baik bahkan bisa dibilang di atas rata-rata teman-teman sekelasnya. Spontan saya senang dan bangga mendengarnya. Tetapi tak lama saya pun berpikir. Apa jadinya jika anak saya berhasil terus? Apa jadinya jika ia selalu dipuji oleh kami, kakek nenek dan guru-gurunya? Apakah dia nanti akan melakukan sesuatu karena ingin dipuji? Karena ia ingin menjadi nomor satu dan terbaik? Saya takut anak saya menjadi stress dan tidak siap menerima kekalahan jika suatu saat dia tidak berhasil, entah karena suatu sebab. Mungkin tidak seperti orangtua saya yang lain, saya ingin anak saya menjadi anak yang biasa saja. Biasa saja dalam artian bukan tid...

I always have a soft spot for rain. Perhaps because I was born in this rainy city.  Raised here. Study here. Have worked here for quite some times. And live here. But for the rain per se... I always love it when it rains.  I feel like it showers the Earth with life. Rain makes the soil more damp. Damp is better than dry.  A long dry season will make the soil turns into cracks and I somehow can see how they are suffocating to get water. When eventually the water falls, it seems like they are cheering and applauding, jumping up and down. They feel alive. We all are. Including human being.  Because when it rains, realize it or not, there will be a pause of activities, even for a while.  People who ride motorcycles will stop at the side of the road, pulling out their raincoat or even trying to find a shelter and wait until the rain stops. They will chat with the people around them, sometimes share cigarettes as well. For those who drive cars, they will a...

I am currently reading A Simple Life. It is a collection of thoughtful stories written by the famous Indonesian female senior anchor, Desi Anwar. The stories are basically about life in the eyes of Desi with bits of Desi's personal life stories. She would tell stories about pets, friends, the art of listening, moving on, and many others elements of life that we, more than often, overlook or take for granted. Interestingly, her personal stories are not always about happy memories. I get the impression that her early childhood is not always sugar and spice. Having two busy parents, she was trained to be an independent girl. One story even said that there was a day when she was left alone at home where both of her parents and her sisters went traveled until she didn't know when. But what I like from these personal stories is how Desi could see it from the bright side, learned something from the event and then tells it in a positive vibe. As a bonus, given her advance English ski...

This week I feel deeply exhausted. This, the feeling, is not new. Ever since I started working at my current office, I feel that my mental has been constantly pushed to the highest bar. Sometimes I pass the bar and landed with relieve, but most of the time I failed and let my emotion conquer me. To be honest, first thing that has been the cause of my exhaustion is the endless trip to and fro my office. In total I can spend at least 5 hours on the road. When I arrive in my office I already feel tired and ended up sleeping or just watching talshows from YouTube. Second, I am mentally tired by all the drama in the office. I am tired for trying to be friendly with those who are not friendly to me but I need to be friendly to them because we will spend the rest of our career times together. I am tired for trying to smile and say hi first when the response was just an obligatory hi. Basically, I am tired to start first. People say you have to be patience. But sorry to say, I think my...

My husband is away for three days. I miss him already tonight.   

Sleep deprivation is the condition of not having enough sleep ; it can be either chronic or acute. A chronic sleep -restricted state can cause fatigue, daytime sleepiness, clumsiness and weight loss or weight gain Wikipedia

"The way to a more productive, more inspired, more joyful life is getting enough sleep." https://t.co/urZH3hFVIO — TED Talks (@TEDTalks) February 2, 2016

 Reading Fifty Shades of Grey (finally!) Feeling so bored at work Just watched The Big Short, very nice movie! Has a crush on cheese cake made by Chizukek Farewell dinner with my old colleague, he is going back home to Switzerland Had enough about drama Install new game, Jelly Crush Failed to finish reading the book, Amba Need to grab myself and start reading a book properly!

I learned today. You cannot avoid drama. You can take it as an exercise for us to be more patience and ignorance at the same time. If you cannot say anything good about other people you better say nothing at all. Because, as Taylor Swift said, words that you regret apart from those who left unsaid, are those that are intentionally to hurt people. Stay strong.

You don't follow passion. Passion follows you. ~ from Ted X

  I have never watched Star Wars before. Ever. And to be honest I don't feel like I need to know at all about this movie amid many people said as the most epic movie ever. People are obsessed with this movie and its characters and I really don't know why. Not until I watched Star Wars: The Force Awakens together with my friends in the office. That was my very first Star Wars movie. I had nothing to lose when my friends decided to watch this. I mean I just think I will just sit and watch the movie. I didn't do any preliminary research about Star Wars neither watched the previous movies. And it turned out that the movie is actually really interesting! You don't have to read the movie's background nor watched the previous sequels to understand it. Slowly I was able to grab the red threads. I just knew Star Wars have so many characters and each of the characters are unique with their own personalities and physical figure. I somehow can remember each one of the chara...

Reading this novel at last after postponed it for so many years and, as a confessed slow reader, I was happy to be able to read this less than a week :D Basically, it is a story about romance. A couple cancer survivors who met in a Cancer Supporting Group and from that instant knew they were meant for each other. I learned a lot of new vocabularies and a bit of English literature. The story line is not that difficult but the new words made me a bit slow to digest. Now I can't wait to watch the movie :) Picture source: http://youtubeonfire.pro/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/The-Fault-in-Our-Stars.jpg

Brave isn't supposed to be easy.

2016. I hope this year will be good. I hope this year will be good. :)