2011 Highlights (3)

This third, last part of my last year's highlights is--I would say--the best part of 2011. Thousand words may not be able to explain what had happened, what did I feel, what were the moments.

This last part--you all probably have guessed--is my college life. A definitely new life. Why?

All my life for like 17 years I had lived in the same environment, with the same friends. Changes from elementary to junior high or from junior high to senior high made no significant adjustment to my days. However, my hometown is a small city where I had the same circle of friends along those years. And when in college...

I moved to another city, even different island :D. I entered a college where I knew no one. Not a single person. On the first day, I stood between the crowds and everyone seemed to already have friends. I'm not a social butterfly, I don't do first approach to people. Sometimes I consider myself awkward in socializing. I tried several times to greet and ask people their names but I couldn't do it.

Anyway, I survive...

I survive and I have had the best times in my life since then.

The first months were the hardest. I knew no one, I had no vehicle, and I was not familiar with the town and the surroundings. FYI, I am quite stupid in remembering places, I even asked my mother to draw a simple map of getting to and around my campus. But thank God I used to be alone and I always get used to be alone. When I hadn't had any close friends, I somehow managed to survive by myself. And when I've had many good friends like now, things couldn't get any better.

College life, for me, means freedom. A good, nice, and fresh freedom indeed. It is not too overstating if I say this is the first time in my life that I feel really alive. My parents--my father, actually--are a kind of a overprotective parents. They simply didn't allow me to hang out often. You, who read this, must think that it's so pathetic, but the fact is, I didn't go out at Saturday night. Luckily, yes, luckily, I grow into a normal kid. I may be a little nerd or geek but yes, I'm normal.

Now you may think that I misuse the freedom that I have now. Well I'm confident enough to tell you that I don't. I'm still Daddy's good girl, with a few adjustments. Now I feel like I have more spaces to develop myself. I have no fear of choosing. The fear is the choice itself and how I handle it, not the fear of not being allowed by my father or that kind of stuffs.

The most meaningful part of these first few months of college life is my Student Activity Club, which is Integrated Communication Club (ICC). Basically, this club is the same with my previous club in high school, Ganesco (Ganesha English Community). The club is originally a platform for students to develop their communication skill, mostly facilitating the members in joining English and communication competitions.

You, who have known me for quite a long time, must know that in high school my best friends, Yustina and Yaya, are also my debating teammates. We joined debating competitions together, shared thoughts and dreams, and then we formed a very solid team, both in terms of norms and cohesiveness. Because like I said, I didn't hang out often, my circle of friends came from the activity that I participated in. And seems like it also applies to my college life.

The milestone was iMotion or Indonesia Marketing Competition held by FEUI. Simply, it is a marketing debate competition. Actually, before I entered college I had decided to quit debating because it is so tiring, time-consuming, and I just want to try new field, new things. But iMotion was an exception. It is not an English debate, the language is Bahasa, and I take Marketing as my college major, so I thought iMotion would help me to gain a wider understanding.

Shortly, I was one of nine students who were chosen to represent ICC in 2011 iMotion. I was so glad and happy that I finally marked my first achievement in college. I still remembered how I sent a BBM message to my Ganesco senior, Radith, about my feeling. And he congratulated me by saying "Your first time since college, eh?"

But achievement is not the point. The point is... iMotion was a milestone for me to have friends, best friends in my early college life. The cohesiveness was situational. We had to practice almost every night, and of course, we became closer and closer each day. Don't mind the competition, my team didn't even break into the next round. But most of my iMotion mates are still my closest friends until now. And ICC has opened a gate to this whole new exciting life.

Then again, there was this ICC Makrab (Malam Keakraban). We, ICC members with 5 cars, went together to Puncak on Friday Night, stayed at villa, then came back to BSD on Sunday morning. We had fun going to Cibodas waterfall, BBQ-ing, and performing talent shows. I brought my handycam and I shot many memorable moments. But seeing it through even the best lens would never be the same with experiencing it live.

Finally, until now, I become more and more attached to my ICC friends. Well, not my ICC friends, but those I know from ICC, because the circle of friends are getting wider and more dynamic. And this good, nice, and fresh freedom helps me to enjoy it more.

And to conclude these long three parts of my 2011 highlights, I just want to say that I am so happy and grateful with my 2011 life and I guess 2012 would even be much better :)

2011 ICC Makrab

iMotion practice dinner :)

2011 Highlights (2)

In this second part of my 2011 highlights, I would like to share a part of my life after those last high school semester hectic days. And that part was: holiday. It wasn't just an ordinary holiday, it was a loooong holiday. I had graduated since April so I had like more than 4 months holiday.

Usually people spend long holiday for some vacation. Planning a getaway, going with family and friends. Well I didn't. But I did many things I hadn't tried before. And this list is some of them :

1. Regional Youth Leader Conference 2011

Twitter has changed many people's life. So does mine. Around the end of June 2011, I was watching my Twitter timeline and I found that @twitalkID had a Twitter quiz. The price was free ticket to a Binus International event, Regional Youth Leader Conference. I had no idea what event it was, but I participated in the quiz and I won hahaha. Actually I ran into panic because that was a university students' event and I was still in my "high school graduate" status.

After I won the ticket, the committee contacted me to have my personal information. Some college students who also won the tickets contacted me on Twitter and we got to know each other. I also asked my friend in Binus about the event and he said that it was like "some sort of business seminar". Shortly, I decided to go and I never regret it at all.

At the event, I got many new knowledges and insights about business in creative industry from the speakers, especially Nina Moran who is the owner of leading fashion magazine in Indonesia, GoGirl! magazine. Turns out, Nina Moran is also one of part-time lecturer in my campus. Another interesting sessions were the Project Management and Social Entrepreneurship session from British Council. And the session that really got me caught up is the Leo Burnett session. FYI, Leo Burnett is an international ad agency that has created advertisings for well-known brands all over the world. Since I was a marketing-student-to-be, to watch a presentation of big ad agency was a very valuable experience.

I met many friends from other universities and I still keep my contact with several of them until now. I also met college students from Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. It was so interesting to hear about Indonesia from their points of view, how they were so enthusiastic to learn Bahasa, and how they asked us about Indonesia's food and stuffs. Moreover, Alanda Kariza was also one of the committee. Alanda Kariza is a young social activist who is also a writer. She is one of my inspiration and I was so glad that I could finally met her. 

On the last night of the event, all the participants and committees went to Soho Citos for Gala Dinner and Cultural Night. We had sooo much fun and I knew at that time that I was so lucky.

Pigar Mahdar (Project Manager) shaking hands with "Jack" from Thailand, President of RYLC Community 2011

Finally, I would say thank you to the man who found Twitter :)

2. Internet Marketing

I have been long interested in Internet marketing, search engine optimization, and stuffs. So, in that long holiday, I decided to make use of my time learning something new. I took an online course from Asian Brain Internet Marketing Center, the one that was found by Anne Ahira. Since I had much spare time, I dedicated my days to learn the modules and training videos. I bought a domain and paid for hosting service for the first time. The domain's name is http://www.teenager-s.com. The site is about teenagers and its related issues. This is the printed screen I took from the homepage:

For you who have no idea about what Internet marketing is, it is a technique used to market products through Internet, while Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a way to increase your page rank in search engine (like how to make your site shows up on the first page of Google search of certain keyword). The simple explanation is like this: you choose an idea (what the site is about), you create the site with related contents, you "optimize" it so the site has a high rank, and then people would put their ads in your site: you get paid for it. Or you could also put the link of a product in your site, and for every "click" or for every sales that originate from your link, you get some commission, something like that.

I only took the courses for 3 months, and the site hasn't even generated any revenue because since I got into college I don't have time to manage it. However, I am very proud of myself for having created a simple site. I am also the one who wrote most of the articles by myself by combining various sources and adding my own point of view. I know that someday I'm going to learn more about Internet marketing, especially because I would have Digital Marketing as one of my college courses later.

3. Good News From Indonesia

I always love writing, fiction or non-fiction. And I always want to have a chance to write. That's why I decided to apply as GNFI contributor last year. FYI, GNFI is Good News From Indonesia, a media which vision is to spread good news about our country. The motto is "Restoring Optimism, Rebuilding Confidence". GNFI is born from a situation that Indonesia medias nowadays are more focused in spreading the negative news about Indonesia, so GNFI is there to be a solution. GNFI is known via twitter account @GNFI and from its site goodnewsfromindonesia.com

What I like about GNFI is that it opens opportunities for all people that want to contribute. My first weeks as a GNFI contributor are filled with reposting articles that I compiled from another news site like Jakarta Globe. I also found some interesting articles and I rewrote it to be posted in the site. When I'm really in a huge spirit to write, I would interview Indonesian people that have achievement. You can click here to read some of my articles.

My first GNFI gathering was in mid-Ramadhan. GNFI contributors from Jakarta and Bandung gathered in Plaza Semanggi Rice-Bowl. The new and old contributors got to know each other and we talked about the future of GNFI.

Now, I don't really write many articles because college tasks are so demanding. But I always try to help when I find good news. Last year, one of my junior at SMAN 1 Pontianak won a Biology olympic at Brazil. I spread the news through GNFI and once GNFI tweeted about it, almost all my high school friends who are on Twitter retweeted it and they were so proud with my school's achievement. I am so happy that I could always contribute in rebuilding confidence and restoring optimism among Indonesians. However, I am a proud part of GNFI.

2011 Highlights (1)

Here I am sitting alone in my room on the first day of the new year. People have celebrations all over the world. What about me? I don't have one. I never feel I have an obligation to celebrate moment like this. Besides, my family is a quite religious one who doesn't really agree with such new year celebrations. What's important for me is the evaluation of what has happened and what would I do next.

I guess the very first thing that we have to do, like many people do in new year's eve, is to remember again what we have passed and how those experiences contribute to our life. In this post, I would like to share some of the 2011 highlights (highlights of my life, of course). My sole purpose to write this is to live life with no regrets, so I could be grateful to anything I've experienced.

My first months of 2011 are probably one of the most hectic phase in my life. I was a third grade senior high school student who had to study hard for exam while facing difficult choices for college. Well, I don't really have much things to tell about the final national exam (UAN). Yet, I do really have many things to tell about the "choosing college" stuffs.

Almost every high school students in Indonesia must dream to be able to enter prominent public universities in this country: UI, ITB, UGM, and other univ., mainly around Java. So did my friends and I. For the last 3 years, I was drawn into confusion determining what major I should take. But finally I decided to follow my father's suggestion which is to pursue economics/business study. It is quite a choice for me because I took Natural Science as my concentration in high school and if I want to study economics/business, I had to answer Social Science questions in the public universities' test. I felt like the Social Science students in my school laughed at me because I wasted 3 years learning things that has no relevance with my choice of future study. But that was my choice and I had no regret of it.

My choices for college were the well-known Economics major in University of Indonesia (UI) or the Bandung Institute of Technology Business and Management School (SBM ITB). They were tough choices, of course. At the beginning, I was very enthusiastic to pursue my goals: buying books, joining additional courses, etc. Moreover, I did it together with my best friend Yustina, an ambitious one. She dreams to be an architect or urban planner so she wanted to go to SAPPK ITB.

Like I said, that was the beginning. As the time flows, I felt like the hard works didn't worth the result. I don't know why but I'm getting more interested in private universities, especially Prasetiya Mulya Business School which is the place where I'm pursuing my Marketing degree right now. I read the curriculum, student forums, and I came to a conclusion that, for business major, each university offers different approaches. So the solution is to choose which one I do prefer or which one I am more suitable with, because none of them is the better.

My parents, especially my mother who is a graduate from ITB, of course disagreed when I told her I prefer going to private univ. I had completely losed my passion, so I didn't study as passionately as I used to be. During the time, I joined some of other universities' test, like President University where I got 400 million rupiahs full scholarship for Management major. My father told me to accept the scholarship but I rejected it, unfortunately. Some of my friends probably thought that I was really ungrateful. But honestly, I thought that, for Management major, there's a better choice of college.

My mother, beside wanting me to go to ITB, also wanted me to go abroad for study. She registered me to Singapore Insitute of Management for Diploma of Economics. I was really happy knowing that I had a chance to study abroad in Singapore. I collected my transcript, had a via-Skype interview for the admission, and I was accepted. But strangely, I never felt that it was the right choice for me. I tried to find logical reasons why studying in Singapore was right, but I can't. My father also didn't really agree with my mother's choice. So once again, I turned it down.

Now, as you, reader of this post, may have already predicted, I didn't make it to neither UI nor ITB. I tried SNMPTN Undangan and SNMPTN Tertulis, but luck wasn't on my side. When I told my parents that I didn't pass the SNMPTN, my mother said with quite disappointed voice,

"Finally you get what you want."

I knew that I've disappointed my parents, that I have thrown away the dreams that I've built together with my best friends, but I also knew and believe until now that God has another way for me. So now I am pursuing my Marketing degree in Prasetiya Mulya Business School which I believe is the best business school, at least for me. I also get a scholarship here, although not as much as the ones from President Univ. I joined series of test: math, english, psychology, group discussion, interview, and finally I made it here.

My story about getting into colleges is probably not as interesting as the story of others. I am not a big achiever who succeed in getting into public university with such determination and hard work. My parents are not that proud when being asked, "Anaknya kuliah dimana?". But I just knew I've made the right choice and every disappointments that my parents feel right now are the price for my success later.