.:▐ All the things ...

Ohh campus life, I am back

2011-01-02T23:44:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow, the third day of 2011 will be my first day to school.. (again)
Well, should be more than enough to have a 3 week break. I know, it is a week earlier than the semester schedule as I am taking a block week course on Professional Practise for Geoscientists mainly given by APEGGA member. The course outline is quite interesting.. at least to me.

Ohh.. I really wanna write me here.. but I have nothing really important or let say interesting in my mind..
It has been long not posting any thing here though so many things happened in last 2010 which is just left a couple day ago.. my energy been wasted (sorry kids, been spent) to kids... to house errands..
sometimes itès like never ending work, there is always something to be done..

OK, promise I will write even just a single word, at the worst situation with blank idea to write..

bye blog..

Lucky cookie idea

2010-01-09T09:35:00.000-07:00

Opening fortune cookies is fun part using Facebook. I have become a fan of it since last year..
At the beginning, no day without opening and publishing it on my profile wall. My friends gave some comments on it, encouraging each other. Then, after a while it no longer gave fun as the message are mostly repetitive, unreasonable and I got bored.

But I just did open it.. well it inspires me to get idea to write in this blog, especially if I wanna participate in Napoblomo and hopeless with no idea to write. Well, not not signed up yet though.. possibly next month. Thsi month I will see how productive I can write.

White holiday

2009-12-23T12:30:00.001-07:00

This week, he will be home on Wed evening. Not many activities in the plant he said, I'd better work from home. I don't think he can work from home with 2 kids bugging him around all the times, espesially Rafee.
Weather wise, this weekend, we'll have sunny day, lucky, with white ground enough to make people who celebrate X'mas in classic mode excited than with dry brown grown. Warm enough for people staying outside waiting for electronic shop doors opened in the early morning on crazy boxing day sale. I am still sane, never willing to do that.

We have two gathering invitation, one dinner from Rashed's friend and one luncheon from my Indonesian girlfriend. Last year we got none.

2009 almost ends. Welcome 2010, I am so excited about it, many plans to arrange.. Rafee will start his playschool, I need to extend my PR card, register him to preschool, preparing for vacation to Indonesia, get back to my study. And so on...

Happy Mother's Day

2009-12-21T22:50:00.000-07:00

In Indonesia, Dec 22 is Hari Ibu, or Mother's Day. Most people back home will remember their mother. I am here just a new mother of one infant girl and a toddler boy, still trying to be a good mother which is not easy to me especially being here, nowhere land. I still adore, admire my mother in every second, every day. My thought is never far from her, though we are seperated miles away.
Ibu I love you always...

Ouchie shots

2009-12-19T15:11:00.000-07:00

She turns 4 months 4 days ago and today she had 4 shots to get immunised.
She is still adorable and hope she'll will always be.
I can't keep even a minute away from her admiring her white pearly skin, so smooth .. Ohh she is a really blessing for us. I remember when I was still single, had a chance to hold someone's baby girl with unspoiled smooth like silk skin, typical baby skin.. daydream I wish to have my own baby like this.. and it came true...

Holding her in public health nurse's room, half naked just with her diaper on, she was happy, excited, giggle without knowing that shortly 4 needles will be poked on her chubby thigh. Then in seconds, the nurse gave me sign to be ready to hold her tighter.. then big cry out loud... "I know baby it hurts"
4 spots gave insignificant bleeding but I asked for bandage to cover it.. "It's okay I will peel them carefully without hurting her. I thought it's better to put the bandage on. She was still crying, sobbing. even in next 10 minutes. In her first vaccine, when she was 2 months old, she cried only short time, as I was able to soothe her by breastfeeding. But this time, she could not calm down, she even refused breast. Then I decided to take her home while she was still crying. Luckily, she felt asleep in the car. She is just too tired crying.

TGIT

2009-12-17T10:33:00.004-07:00

Yes, I love it's Thursday, even more than Friday... been enough tackled errands alone for 4 days 4 nights as he goes to work up north in the field. He's always back on Thursday night. I know, I let him work there. I said OK I can handle them, shouldn't be difficult. He is paid 20% more money there, even they give $245 cloth allowance per year, great saving for our next summer vacation.

This week, I have been busy browsing preschool for Rafee. Time flies so fast. Almost beginning of the 2010. He will start in September,10. I know, still long way to go but I don't wanna miss registration season. Like what happened last year.. he supposed to start preschool last year. But due to ignorant mommy he didn't, end up indulging himself at home, no learning at all. Well, it's o good at least he knows alphabet and number now. He talks too much tough.. I guess he's got more than 200 vocab now..
Back to the business, So far I have got narrowed down the school list with 2 options either near campus or home. Near campus, I found some good preschools. Near house well, it's so so, should be fine for preparing him to wait for K school.
I have figured out typical schedule of my courses so I can choose class schedule for him. So well done..

Bloggin' again

2009-12-16T09:38:00.002-07:00

When I look at my webblog... appear to be outdated, first how it looks, profile picture ohh only with my son, I have my little girl now.. then last post not too bad about 4 months ago when my little one was born.. I think I may need to reconstruct the template, looks too crowdy too many things wanna be displayed, like those quotes, birthday meter ... but thinking about redesign the template, when I will have time, it's uncertain, when I can have time. Hmm, my be just leave it like that. As long as I have some ideas to keep posting is good enough.. sometimes I have mumblings, grumblings about all the happenings in my daily life not enough to be put in facebook status, better write it here..

Your birth day - August 15

2009-08-15T07:57:00.000-06:00

It was just an ordinary Saturday. Mommy had terrible high blood pressure on Friday night. Tummy was quite tight. No idea what happened with you, baby. Did you give sign to mommy that you wanted to come earlier.

Mommy just took it easy. And that morning mommy as usual wrote status on FB, “wanna make rempeyek, peanut crackers even thought of cooking Indonesian beef curry”. Then nurse Wanda came to give NST and check BP. NST was good, you kicked a lot as usual. But BP numbers even were always high, constantly.

Nurse Wanda was not happy. Later on after she talked to doctors at PLC unit asked mommy to go to the unit to see Doctors to get prescription for BP. She even ensured that I won’t have earlier delivery.

Then after lunch daddy took mommy to hospital for assessment. Again another NST and they found >100 diastolic number. It was continuously high. Dr. Wagner who was on duty also check your position with USG station at the hospital, yes you are still breeching baby. They made blood work too, which is OK.

Dr. Wagner talked with mommy, she thought it’s time to deliver you as BP concerns. She suggested to deliver you with C-section. Though, it is also possible to reposition you to head down and then try to induce you for normal delivery. But negative side, it will take time and make you distressed with high BP and tired as she said normally premature baby will not be able to do labor. Mommy just can’t imagine how busy and tired you are inside when mommy trying to push you. It’s gonna be another torturing for you. No mommy won’t let you be that, you have been exhausted with my BP.

So mommy accept the decision. When mommy listened to Dr. Wagner’s explanation, it was so sensible, easy to understand. So mommy decided just to let you free.

Then 7.30pm, everything was ready for the surgery. Daddy came at 7pm. Your brother was OK at home. Things happened so fast in that room. Quickly after injected with epidural anesthetic, half part of mommy’s body become numb.

At 8pm, you were out of mommy ‘s tummy. Mommy saw your face, cute, hairy with red lips and huge nose like daddy’s.

Surgery took only 40 minutes. It was so fast.

Around 10pm mommy drop by to your unit 35BNICU. You were taken under heater but no hose for breathing. Just IV to stabilize your sugar blood level. Mommy was surprised with your progress.. You are doing really good at the beginning.

Time to write again!

2009-04-29T10:24:00.008-06:00

Yes, i t's been tooo looooooong I am not writing, why?

Kind of lazy to be honest, other than also busy for more than a year. But now no more excuse to be busy, not a single course I take, not a work, just stay home with regular home work.

SO it's time to spend time to write, about what?

SOmtime got no idea what to write... but whenever I visit this blog it's just too pity to keep it out of date. OK now I will try to keep it updated...

campus mania

2008-09-12T11:00:00.000-06:00

Hey people..

I am back, yes I am still alive of course. For all you don’t know I am back to campus now. And here I am waiting for my lab schedule another 2 hours.. siting here on public cubicle at the corner of one campus building browsing around, bored enough listening to so called interactive MatLab on net. Yes this programming language of nowhere land spoken by spooky alien possibly - is gonna be first hurdle that I need to cope with. Next one is math, calculus and linear algebra would be challenging too. Recalling those stuffs which I liked at the most back to 18 years ago, it’s kind of pain in butt. But I have got to do it otherwise I will fail. Better I spend more time to review all to refresh to get them back in my head… I will let them dance happily inside my brain till they cool down inside my memory ready to serve back all my motoric sensors (aka in exams etc).

So.. enough about that. First week almost passed. Got “excitement” assignment starter to spend at the weekend. But surprisingly, I got a young, funny, and of course cute TA (teaching assistant) from my geology lab who always want to greet me in bahasa Indonesia. Nice isn’t it ? First Canadian in this Land of Rockies that I met who can speak my language not even my hubby who always sleep beside me. Ironic..

Other more I wanna write here, but my time is up.. I need to cross more thing in my list to do here before I head to

Post Canada day trip

2008-07-08T00:54:00.004-06:00

Up to 1750 km driven, wandered around mountain playground of our neigboring province, the so-called Land of Kootenay Rockies a.k.a Valley of a Thousand peaks in SW of British Columbia. More than 400 litre of gasoline was consumed by our SUV to drive along more less a 150 km winding narrow road cruising the 100 km long Kootenay Lake. Almost 31 towns were passed and 20 places located in some of the towns were visited from lakes, water fall, hot springs, Japannese gardens, campground, orchards and various historical sites from local museums, the biggest surviving sternwheeler, abandoned 'ghost mining town', to Japanesse Canadian internment site.

About 7 days, 6 nights were spent and nomadically stayed in 4 different towns for the sake of experiencing different things from our routine daily life. From budget motel in the middle of quite downtown of Cranbrook, feel-like-home hostel as I can cook in full kitchenette (Ainsworth), neighbored by hot spring pool and pure natural hot springs cave, a quite cabin with valley view of an agricultural town of Creston to an affordable cozy family country inn in Fernie, nestled in the Elk Valley, famed as a destination town of all year round outdoor sport lovers of water rafter, skiers, snowboarder and mountain bikers. And…as always posted in every tourist spots, wherever you go on this our lovely planet, only footprints left but we are welcomed to take as much as experience or memories from those places. Enjoyed the warmest lake in Invermere, barbeque lunch in the wonderful campground surrounded by a lake in New Denver, cozily soaked in silica rich hot spring pool and cave in Ainsworth, cruised the longest free ferry ride in the world (Balfour – Kootenay Bay) in breeze and crispy wind blowing along the lake, had a stroll at the ferry harbour in one misty morning waiting for ferry arrival, watching geese, seagulls and ducks by the lakeshore, took a stroll down the 100 foot high Marysville waterfalls, just located in backyards of some resident in Kimberley, took train ride to the historic Sullivan base metal underground mine in Kimberley, made Rafee's day even so memorable, then stunned by the sights, sounds, smells of all happenings in the last century that have been recreated on the world's oldest surviving passenger sternwheeler of SS Moyie historical site in Kaslo, and lastly a meaningful visit at the Nikkei Memorial Internment Centre in New Denver, appreciated how the Japanese Canadians who were stripped of their civil rights, impacted by Pearl Harbour booming in 1942, forced to relocate from their coastal BC homes to camps or lived in shacks of mountainous regions in BC, and other provinces. All of those, what we got …. unforgottable moments ....

--- some more detail of our travelogue and photologues will be posted as soon as time available to write and upload ----

Winter wonder land in Spring

2008-04-17T17:26:00.000-06:00

Winter wonderland is back.

It’s been 3 days snow falling, will keep going on till Tue.

Mother nature seems to make all regions here experience even winter troublesome. Eastern had couple of severe snow storms in January February. While Western had spring like weather in Winter. Now she takes revenge giving us more than enough snow to whiten all about to green gound, just in two days. This time, Eastern and western totally 180degree difference. Whereas, we just had lovely sunny warm 25deg C weekend last week. I even planned to box in all my winter gear/clothes exchanging with summer stuffs since last week.

I just can’t wait to see green blanket in our neighbourhood what we have now nothing but white.

I just can’t wait to see my tulips start blossoming. I saw their brown buds came out already last week. They may think, heeeyy what’s going on here how come the white still covering me. Isn’t enough I you it for more than 4 month since Fall.

I can’t wait to put shorts or no sleeve shirt on Rafee. I can’t wait to have barbecue lunch at weekends. I can’t wait for our summer vacation to visit orchards, vineyard and Kelowna in BC this July.

Can you wait for womderful moments in your favourite season?

DIY PROJECT

2007-11-25T19:04:00.000-07:00

Last night, my hubby came upstairs from our basement to join threesome bed at almost 11pm. He looked totally exhausted, but with a big grin. "YES!! $3000 in our hand and finally my job is done." And I gave him my best-ever-smile with big hug too though his cloth is extremely full of wood saw dust. And he said "But pls, give me back massage".

Before The D-day It's was in early summer this year when our walkout basement started being developed. After additional mortgage was approved in August, a design plan for converting one big room basement into 2 bedrooms, 1 washroom, and an open kitchen with living room was made, we hired a builder to have want it done except for the floor. One of hubby's friend referred one for the job. They are skilled immigrants (just like us), running a family home renovation business here. Surely, meaning their workmanship cost is lower than local "white" builder. No formalities, friendly, negotiable, flexible for any change in plan. However, we got to tolerate their working time which affect the completion date as they also work for other job at the same time. Well, we got no problem with that as we are not in a hurry, anyway.

Money-money SO it's all about money saving project for our basement. We use the expert for things we can't do, in term of work needing specific skills, heavy lifting stuff, and special tools. Such as framing, wiring, taping, etc. Compared to our home country, workmanship for home renovation here is extremely costly. Well, great thing being here, with do-it yourself project if YOU WANT, you can make your own deck, your own patio, or garden, or develop your own basement or renovate your own washroom or whatever is not difficult. What you need is enough patience to learn and do new thing, ample of time allocated, persistence to complete the work notably related to heavy duty work. Those will save you money.

My hubby has limitation in time as he can got FT job and also his physical condition due to back surgery. We admit and realize, big period. But, then we thought nothing wrong to have experience to do one part of the project completion. SO, let's try installing the flooring for our basement. Why not, while we can attend free class, free support on how to install tile, drywall, laminated floor. THE HOME DEPOT gives us solution, as they also say : YOU CAN DO IT, we can help. We don't need to buy their products to attend the free class. It's up to us.
Several classes he attended to gain practical procedures to install the stuffs and not to mention, also to boost confidence that you can do it. Luckily, it happened, the instructor had to delay one class for an hour and he nicely gave the 10% discount. he delayed one class for 1 hour. Of course, more loony saving to purchase all the things needed such as tiles, laminated wood, safety gears, grouts, tool kits and even table saw for cutting the tiles/laminate wood, he bought. We in fact can rent it from the shop, or we can have them cut at the shop but we decided to buy it and again $$ saving. We will need it anyway for next garage shelving project. We spent a lot of time to survey the stock availability and price of the tiles and laminate. My hubby is "non-negotiable" perfectionist for the sake of similarity to our main house. It's almost for everything, like kitchen cupboard and colour of the appliances.

Finally at The End the Errands Tiles have been installed around mid October. It's only in

entrance and kitchen area. We out carpet for inner stairs connecting to the main floor. We had the carpet installed from local store. Other area is all laminated. He started putting some part of the laminate at the end of October. First we got help from our close friend to start up. Then, his confidence and skills improved in several days. I would say after watching and giving some help when I'm free, it's not a rocket scientist work, it's pretty easy and easy to follow. It's basically more practice you will get better output. We had a break at the first two weeks in November as his brother and family from Bangladesh came over and stayed with us for a week. We got to entertain them.

Finally, until last night, we're glad and satisfied with hard work we've done as all flooring work is done. This weekend the builder is coming to finish up putting the casings to the walls, windows and other final work. We just need to do put the foot path at sideway so that our tenant of this basement unit can get access to their entrance from the back. Ideally we wanna rent it especially for new landed immigrant not sure when. But it can also be for our relatives/friends who wanna take holiday here. Oh by the way, one Indonesian friend who plan to migrate in next summer already ask for that, OMG. No, we're not ready there yet!!

GEOPROBE

2007-11-24T17:28:00.000-07:00

It’s the name I gave when I called the Revenue Canada to register it for getting GST number. The name just came up, as it’s so close to my mind. Most possibly, that’s always the name I put whenever I need to sign up in professional sites acquiring company name. It was just fictious. I never thought of having own company but my husband does.

The 2 contract jobs I got at the end of this year in fact took me to the idea of making a small consultant company. Initially, one of my hubby’s friend suggested us to get a GST number submitted to the employer if hired as contractor so that we can claim some expense for more return in tax reporting every April. He said just easily call Revenue Canada with quick option, a GST number will be instantly created. I did call the toll free number, in a minute I got the GST number. Then, they asked me to voluntarily register my business too. OK I thought why not, it won’t hurt me. It’s free anyway.

Less than a week, I got confirmation letter from the Revenue. Very surprising, as normally if you deal with Govt, their response is always super slow. My hubby said, not this matter as they will get money from me. Aha! No wonder.

What I need to do, report my income from Geoprobe from next June. They give me extra time, supposed to be April. So from now on, I have to file all receipts of the expenses made for the Geoprobe. I did buy a new laptop, scanner, and other office stuffs which in fact I used for the work. I am hoping to get some return when I report them next year.

Rush-hour-free job

2007-11-13T17:30:00.000-07:00

Last week, the negotiation completed. Finally, they are on my side. I am taken, Yay!! They agreed to involve me in their project with my favored condition, working at home sweet office base, honestly never thought of it.

Today I met the project geologist whom I mostly work with, at uncommon place for a first meeting. At a library of govt. geological survey. Surprisingly, the gentleman looks so young - to my sight. Aside from it, I wanna comment here, he is too cute to be a geologist o(~_~)o

So, what about the work? Nothing new, things that I have done it before. It’s all about data management for their prospective geothermal areas. All I need to do, spend time in the library to dig out the papers, articles, journals. Extracting data, information, do a bit analysis, put it in the accessible database, produce data presentation in digital format and also make reports with some "wise sentences" for fields development. The latter is serious part.

The coming hectic days of the work (without hassles of rush hours) are real full of excitement as I feel being a student again. Spending time in library brings me back to old days as a student. The things I love to do it again.

Hey talking about being a student, no kidding I am a UoC student wannabe. Hopefully next year provided the admission board still wanna take me. We’ll see.

FUn and safe Halloween

2007-10-28T10:05:00.001-06:00

Here are common Halloween Safety tips, recommending parents to review the scenario of the trick or treating fun night.

Wear an appropriate costume, if possible fire resistant, must be bright coloured, apply reflective tape to make visible.
Wear mask with large hole in eyes part for better vision. In fact face paint or make up is better.
To walk safely, always carry and use flashlight
Asks for adult companion to trick or treat, or walk in group with older kids.
Better hang around in your neighbourhood, plan which houses to visit and let someone at home know about the route.
Start early, get home early
Visit houses whose lights on. Stay at the door, never try to go inside unless asked.
the most important one for parents: always check treats before kids eat them.
Don't eat unwrapped candy, fresh fruit or homemade treats unless you are absolutely certain of where it came from and your parents say it is OK

Finalization

2007-10-28T10:02:00.000-06:00

I've been in no-posting mode for almost 2 months. Got no desire at all to share all ideas, happenings here to my sis and gals. I held them off, though once ideas came across and thought of writing it here.

Anyway, I try finally to sum up :

- OTG, I got a job at an oilsands business company. I should say FINALLY after about 6 months trying to find the realistic one and had to decline one unrealistic job offer last month. Implies that I don't need to sacrifice my family unity, that job can be done in flextime and decent work hour. SO relieved, though it won't start till Jan'08. Hoping that they take me earlier especially this time when winter drilling started.

- So, in that case finding a dayhome is urgent for Rafee. Today, I ended my dayhome search at one family dayhome whose a great playroom colorful wall decoration, a lot of toys and also got play area at the backyard to enjoy the sunny day. The most important one, the provider is very friendly and competent as a caregiver. She's meet all my requirements. Frankly, I am so weary of the search. In 3 weeks, more than 10 dayhomes I called to make appointment to visit. To check, to see how are the kids. Are they happy? Is the provider confident in giving the care, the loves. What they do? What they eat. I asked almost everything. I am so glad today, I finalized it.
- On the other hand, I still dream on continuing my geothermal profession here, in the city boomed by oilsands. Last month, I was networked with one geothermal company in Vancouver whose projects are mostly located in Nevada. They called to chat to know more what I have done in geothermal industry. They wanted me to join in Vancouver which unfortunately made me think twice as I can't sacrifice my family to move there just for the sake of my career ambition. Negotiation is still on the way for the possibility to work as a freelance geologist, based in my own home office with limited travel as needed. Neat. Hoping it happens.

- When you google me, you may find I've signed up a number of imaginative social networking i.e. Twitter , facebook, and LinkedIn. The latter is more job related. The former I found it so cool, microblogging provider for instant messaging to answer such questions of what ru doin'? what ru up to? what've u been up to? But the Facebook is SUPERCOOL! It got number of extraordinary applications using some imaginative spooky icons, attractive and more specific actions that can be directed to anybody in your network. In one day, enough made me a virtual
network junkie. Huh..

- I 've bought some healthy treats welcoming kids wearing spooky costumes who will knock our door next Wed. I found a local phone/internet operator here support the Halloween providing Pumpkin patrol in some communities for a safer Halloween. They will ensure little ghosts and spooky faces are safe and happy. I have a plan to accompany my 5yr old niece who's visiting us around the Halloween, holding Rafee with a Bear costume, begging for sweet treats from neighbors. Gonna be their first exciting fun experience.

Little bookworm

2007-09-11T11:00:00.000-06:00

Today, we have a wonderful day, at almost near summer end. The sky is clear blue - I think I never see this such clear blue sky here before. The sky is not even tinted with any single of thin, wispy layer of cirrus cloud. That really amazed me when I took a walk to library at our neighborhood this morning. I need to pick up a book that I asked for a hold. It was so nice and warm.

My little one, Rafee starts enjoying library visit since he started walking. I let him walk himself, passing the automatic door and dropping the books to return by the small window close to the entrance. That becomes things he likes to do on the library visit. He goes through the door and normally he will go through to the children book section which is located at far back of the library area. He can remember the way. He likes to drop by playing the computer. I bet almost kids will be interested in playing with a colorful keyboard and tiny transparent mouse, though just for clicking them.

What he likes to get from the library? Flip board books, any books with images of train, cars, fish, animal and numbers. He is also big fan of Thomas and Bob. Hm.. pretty standard I guess for small boy at his age. I am so blessed that he likes books so much, it’s actually what I aimed at.

I introduced books when he was around 3-4 months. I know, at the beginning I felt a bit awkward, introducing books to babies?? Reading him, showing him page by page while he wonders what’s all about, Mommy. In fact, for them books are educational toys as they can play and learn. It stimulates their visions, their hearing and also introducing to different textures. I kept doing that with the hope of he will love to books. I believe the habit will develop later on when he’s big enough to flip the book and enjoy it.

Now, I feel so glad, I am benefited from it. He is never far from books. Always wanna have reading session during his playtime. Never get bored ask me or his daddy to read his books, over and over again. Sometimes I notice if nobody around him, he flips the pages and rattles as if he reads it. Oh.. so funny to hear his sounds.

Hope he will not get bored, or maybe there will be a time he will not be interested in anymore. I don’t know. But I think most of kids like to have someone read books, right.

So, start introducing books to your little ones since their babyhood.

Pinning the Caplang

2007-05-27T22:34:00.000-06:00

No need to wrinkle your eyebrow. It means pulling back stick-out ears (caplang) as what Rafee has. Its medical term is Otoplasty. This is a new issue on him. Well, I just wanna share this and if you wish you can post some comments.
So, last week, I took him to a nearby clinic, just for walk-in visit as it was urgent thing to check his ears. It's a been a week, I notice he kept rubbing his right ear and that night he was so fussy when he slept. I was worried that he may get ear infection. So the doctor checked him. This is my first time to see this doctor. He looks like an experienced doctor. He said that I need not to worry. Rafee is OK. I asked why he keeps rubbing his ear. He answered, possibly he is teething as some babies like to rub ears when teething. OK, I didn't know as he normally bites my nipple when teething. No wonder I didn't know. Then, we had the conversation -

Doc = By the way, your son got stick out ears. You are aware of it, aren't you?
Me = Yes, you have a concern on it, doc?
Doc = Well, I just wanna let you know that if you wanna pin his ears, it's covered by the govt.
Me = What?? pinning?? what's wrong with them?
Doc = well it's a minor surgery to pull back the ears, will not harm the hearing ability. You don't want you son being teased right when he is at school. Children are cruel in there. They love to tease on weird thing on other kids.

In seconds, I was totally shocked hearing what he said. Immediately, I realized too, what he said may be right too. Then I bombed him with questions. Like, is this case common here, how they fix it, when the best time to fix it, what happened if it's not fixed, what the psychological concerns, is it common case here and so on.

I went home with question marks on my head. It's a dilemma. I wanna keep it as is, it's God's a gift. On the other hand I don't want my son get sad because his friends tease him. Overall, it may affect to his personality, his health and also motivation to go to school, and other problems that may come up. If I ignore doctor's advise I may regret later on when the kids really tease him. In the meantime, I try to get second opinions for Rafee's ear. I guess, the best thing is to do as early as possible, so the surgery will not hurt him too much. So what do

you say??

Breastfeed toddler

2007-05-16T09:46:00.000-06:00

Thank God, It's been a month - finally- he takes cow milk with sippy cup. It took almost 2 months to make him drink the milk with the cup. I notice he even enjoys drinking from it. He always listens to me whenever I said to him “Rafee drink your milk, please!” He voluntarily follow what I said. I learnt the hint, just put the cup around his playing area so he can easily grab the cup whenever he feels like it. Well, what they said is right most breastfed babies are a lot easier to switch to cup-fed. It's proven!!
However, he still can be away from mommy’s breast!! Maybe he thinks mommy's breasts are too good to be left alone :). And so far, he takes breast milk only 2 - 3 times during the day. But, he can’t sleep without sucking my breasts!! Honestly, I can’t do much for the latter. I have no complaints so far, though I know it may not be a good idea for his teeth. In fact most of the time, I enjoy looking at how his face changes when he looks at my breast, asking for nursing. He is extremely happy. During nursing, It’s like there is an electric connection between, they call it parental attachment.

On the other hand, I realize that I am a lucky mom among other moms who desperately want to breastfeed their babies while their breasts do not really cooperate to produce milk for their babies. Yesss, while my breasts are still productive to provide milk for my boy until now, why I need to wean him from it especially when I have no complaints to do so.

After I read a lot of reading, surfing on breastfeeding issues, I realize now, it's a stupid idea if I disconnect that attachment I have made through my breast. I understand that by giving him my milk which contain incredible healthy nutrients, also brain boosting fat (DHA), I not only feed him to grow as a healthy boy, but actually I also feed his brain to grow to boost his intelligence. Breastfeed toddler also provides security and comfort for them. By continuing to breastfeed my boy until he is ready to wean, it helps ensure that his dependency needs are being met, thus providing my boy with optimal emotional growth.

I summarize here what they say about breastfeeding toddler :

Parents, and many experts, have noticed that the children whose emotional and dependence needs have met fully during early childhood, tend to be the children who are the most independent and emotionally secure when they are older. Child-led weaning helps build trust between parent and child, allowing the child to develop independence at her own pace.
Continuing to breastfeed can enhance the relationship between mother and child. Because your nursing toddlers needs are being met, she will feel better about herself and thus tend to accept discipline more easily.
Nursing eases frustration and smooths over many of the tough transitions that a make up a toddlers life. You may find that your nursing toddler rarely has temper tantrums or, if he does, that they are easily "tamed". This particular benefit depends on the other aspects of your parenting style as well as your toddlers individual temperament.
Breastfeeding also provides calm, quiet moments that are restorative and de-stressing for both you and your toddler. It can be a wonderful way to maintain your connection to your toddler if you must work.

Soo.. yeah.. both of us are enjoying breastfeeding, I am not in too big of a rush to give it up. Even when I start my job, I still can nurse him when I get home.

Mana Janji ku..

2007-04-27T08:02:00.001-06:00

Untuk Bunda Nasser yang kujanjikan resep pempek gepeng (^_^) ini lho cerita dibalik kesibukanku ampe janji ku padamu belum terlaksana..
Sorry banget deh belum sempet ngeblog lagi, sebab lagi ada yg super urgent utk diurusin. Bisa ditebak sendiri deh.. siapa lagi kalo bukan sang Raja Kecil. Dia lagi susah makan en doi nih agak picky eater so aku harus muter otak tuk jadi super kreatif mom untuk memberikan menghasilkan makanan yang bakal dia suka. Plus juga mesti sabar feeding him, karena saat ini dia lagi aktif-aktifnya deh. Naik turun tangga, waduh... makin trampil deh. Paling lucu kalo mo turun tangga dia sudah ambil ancang2 dengan posisi pantat duluan kira2 setengah meter di mulut tangga. Mundur-mundur sampe ahirnya dia merasakan ada bangian yg turun mulai deh dia taruh kakinya di anak tangga tersebut. So, gimana dia nggak kurus, setiap selesai makan, langsung cruising kemana dia mau.

Dua minggu yang lalu, aku bawa Rafi ke dokternya untuk one year checkup. Yang kudapatkan berat dia agak turun, beratnya nggak sampai 3X birth weight. Normalnya kan umur 1 tahun berat harus 3x berat waktu lahir. Ya udah, aku dikasih wejangan deh untuk nambahin beratnya dia.. Anehnya nih dokter bilang aku harus coba stop breastfeeding.. karena menurut dia Rafi nih get mostly satisfaction from nipple makanya dia nggak terlalu tertarik makan. Hm.. dalam hatiku it's not easy man!! terutama aku paling nggak tega liat anak nangis demi ASI. Kalo ASI, sejak 2 bulan yang lalu disaat dia mulai aktif crawling, ASI nya memang sudah agak kurang, karena setiap dia tertarik ke ASI aku selalu alihkan ke sippy cupnya. Ya kucoba memberinya homo milk dengan sippy cup daripada dengan botol. Karena umumnya breastfed baby is a lot easier to be switched into sippy cup than bottle, betul .. karena nipple confusion.

Cuma ada satu hint dari dokter yang kupikir agak unbelieveble .. dia bilang put him in the playpen (crib) to play, biarkan dia menangis, ditambah lagi dia pake ngancem "your roof will not fall just because he cries".. waks! Nah petunjuk yang satu ini aku agak pusing juga ya.. habis gimana Rafi paling nggak suka di krengkeng di playpen, jelas dia jadi ngga bisa cruising ke tempat2 yag di sukai. Akhirnya, ya nggak kulakukan petunjuk nya dia ini, walau make sense juga sih biar anak nggak habis energinya..

Apa hasilnya setelah , pelan2 akhirnya dia jadi suka fruit yogurt walau awalnya dia nggak suka sama sekali (karena asam ya). Dia paling suka nasi putih dan mie goreng. Nah ini dia aku harus campur makan bergizi lainnya di antara makanan2 favoritnya itu. Untungnya dia masih mau makan rice krispies cereal dan toast tiap pagi. Awalnya dia suka olesan tipis butter ditoastnya, lama2 dia suka juga peanut butter. Mudah2an nanti dia mau fruit jam deh, ya dia nih agak2 nggak suka yg asam-asam. Ya mesti sabar deh ya 'Bu!

Ini tugas dokter untuk menaikkan berat badannya memang berat, karena aku disuruh follow up dalam 3 minggu.. makanya aku agak2 stress juga mikirin gimana supaya ada gaining gitu lho.. plus juga akhirnya ya biar dia doyan makan juga. Ya Ibu mana coba yang mau anaknya kurus gitu lho.. Kesimpulannya, sudah seminggu ini aku sibuk memikirkan solusi buat Rafi. Kilk sana sini di google search, mencari trik-trik jitu, feeding the picky eater dan common problems in feeding the toddler. Mudah2an ada hasilnya. Oh iya, disaat panik, aku sampe kepikiran adekku desti di Jakarta. Biasa deh.. minta tolong dia untuk mengirimkan Scott emulsion dan obat sejenisnya utk menambah nafsu makan. Ya namanya juga usaha, ya nggak. Kalo misalnya Rafi tinggal di Jakarta ama neneknya, dia mungkin dah dicekok-in kali ya.. kayak aku dulu waktu kecil.. hi2.

So, Bunda Nasser mohon maaf ya, insya Allah besok aku kirimkan resepnya plus trik2 masakan2 lainnya deh.. tunggu deh postingan berikutnya.

Ini pempek-ku

2007-04-11T13:28:00.000-06:00

Maksudnya sama sekali bukan mo nyaingin pempek palembang yang terkenal itu lho. Bukan juga mo nyombong karena buatnya di Calgary he2.. Nggak koq. Saya cuma mo bagi-bagi cerita aja, sebab makanan langka ini akhirnya berhasil juga kubuat. Coba lihat foto disebelah ini mirip pempek palembang 'kan? en pempek yang kubuat ini dalamnya pake telor lho. Terus kuahnya juga kubuat rasanya hampir mirip kuah pempek palembang cuma lupa nyampurin ebi. Ya penting setelah 3 tahun nggak ketemu pempek akhirnya bisa juga menikmati pempek buatan sendiri. Padahal selama di Jakarta dulu mana pernah ada niat bikin sendiri.

So, bagaimana saya sampe girang bukan kepalang?? Ceritanya berawal saat seminggu yang lalu saya bermimpi makan pempek, terus akhirnya jadi pengen pempek. Ya kalo disini mana ada yg jual, ya nggak. Mau nggak mau ya harus buat coba sendiri. Tetapi sayang niat yang begitu mulia, pertama kali seumur hidup, menghasilkan pempek yang GAGAL!! Wuah rasanya mo maki-maki deh (tapi ke siapa). Akhirnya cuma bisa sakit hati sendiri. Parahnya, karena terlalu semangatnya dengan niat itu, saat itu lumayan banyak adonan yang kubuat. Kurang lebih sepanci ukuran sedang isinya pempek gagal berbentuk bulat gepeng. Pempek gagal itu sengaja kubuat gepeng biar gampang gorengnya (biar irit minyak). Kenapa sampai gagal, intinya kurang persiapan yg matang. Pertama karena terlalu banyak air yg kucampur disaat memblender ikan mackarel (katanya = tenggiri). Setelah itu baru kuingat harusnya ikan ditimbang dulu ikan sebelum diblender ya maksudnya biar bisa ngira2 berapa sagu yg mesti dicampur tho!! Hua..hua maklum aja deh masih amatiran nih masak di dapur. Walhasil supaya campuran bisa dibentuk ya mau nggak mau sagu nya jadi bahan utama dibanding ikannya. Jadinya, bukan pempek tapi seperti siomay sagu yg kayak di SD-SD itu lho. Untung ada selai kacang yg kusulap jadi sambal kacang untuk siomay itu lho dengan ditambahkan bubuk bawang putih, sedikit gula, dan cabe ulek en kecap ke selai kacang itu .. wah jadi juga deh makan siomay. Padahal maunya makan pempek. Tapi boleh juga deh rasanya, ya bener kayak siomay sagu SD.

OK, yang penting dah nyoba buat pempek yang akhirnay berhasil, dan rencana berikutnya mo buat siomay Bandung thea. Tapi aku dah punya rencana ini bakalan siomay rebus, bukan siomay kukus he2.. karena aku nggak punya kukusan. He2.. lagi melenceng dari resep.. dasar tukang masak amatir.

Incredible April

2007-04-11T13:25:00.000-06:00

It's just ten days of April. We had a long Easter Holiday weekend, from Friday to Monday, with nasty weather. Only got one sunny tolerable day. Remaining, just dull days with rain and everlasting snow. For kids, they had new Easter experience, searching for fancy eggs on snowy grass.

I personally keep expecting whenever snow falling, that's gonna be last snow day. One day last week, I was on the busy to downtown, I overheard teens sitting next to me. They sounded full of complaints. I was giggling and a bit surprise too as they are Canadian born so they should be okay coping with "funny" weather. Of course not like me coming from other part of the world.

Enough complaining about weather!! we am as a passenger of this so-called the wonderful earth, we need to be ready to live in no matter happens in climate whether is gonna change or whether becoming warmer, or cooler we got to deal with it. Anyway, what we got now is consequence of what we have done in this world.. you can name it what is all about, mostly become hot political agenda for all those guys who sit in the government of all countries around the world.

Talking about government, April is taxing month. Great, we completed the tax report. This year we spent a bit of money to ask tax expert for calculating the tax refund as this year just a bit more complicated with presence of Rafee, and other things. What the expert found .. we will get less tax refund!! My husband was surprised, then he raised many whys to the expert. In fact we can't really claimed expense on Dependant.. but he gave some legal tricks if we wanna get some more refund tax.. we need to run home business. The point is we will pay less tax on our business income as we spend some of the income for paying the electricity, phone bills or can insurance (in case we need vehicle to run the business). Basically everything that used to run the business, though in fact we use it as well for daily life. It's very tricky, but many people here apply it otherwise you will feel so so bad after you money is gone being sucked by the govt. Services what we got here sometimes still is far below of most people expect here. Like, we still need to pay ticket for public transport, we still need to pay if you wanna go to university (not like in most European countries). The govt still misuse the money for political program like sending troops to Afghanistan. Anyway, part of the legal trick, my husband is planning to run small consultancy at home for project management, quality management as part of his expertise etc. Let's see...

Part from that tricky tax, I think this week I am ready to sow vegetable seeds I brought from Jakarta . It's been long I don't do gardening since I moved here. We just can't wait to harvest vegetables from own garden for the dinner..

Lagi..lagi tentang weather...

2007-03-13T11:16:00.000-06:00

Kupikir benar adanya, orang bilang nga ada habis-habisnya deh kalo bicara tentang cuaca, apalagi tinggal di negara 4 musim, seperti di sini. Sepertinya, checking the weather before you go outside is a must do.

Eh, kenapa juga ya aku koq ngotot sih.. iya gimana nggak weekend kemarin kami termasuk si kecil Rafee lho girang banget menyambut musim semi yang sepertinya datang lebih awal. Ya karena dia bisa keluar rumah, jelas di bosan sekali dirumah selama winter. Wah dia girang bukan kepalang saat kuajak main ayunan untuk pertama kalinya di taman dekat rumah. Terlebih suamiku, lega karena dia ngak perlu bersihin driveway dan footpath di depan rumah kami kalo saat salju turun. Itu wajib dilakukan, kalo nggak kena denda.

Hari Sabtunya aja kita sudah harus merubah jam dirumah satu jam lebih awal, yang berarti musim semi dah akan mulai. Hari Minggunya, cerah, matahari bersinar, Rafee sempat dibawa keluar main-main di beranda rumah, menikmati siraman matahari. Seusai makan siang, kenapa nggak ya kami pikir keluar rumah mengunjungi Elbow fall, yang tak terlalu jauh dari Calgary cuma 45 menit driving. Antrian mobil memadati jalan-jalan menuju keluar kota, ya tentu aja orang-orang tidak mau kehilangan kesempatan untuk keluar rumah menuju taman-taman menikamti cerahnya cuaca bersama keluarga. Wuah.. puas sekali mata ini memandang sekitar kita tanpa ada warna putih yang menutupinya..

Tapi, sayang keceriaan kami cuma berakhir hingga Senin sore, karena Mr.White masih ingin mengunjungi kami disini. Waduh, malam itu salju tak henti-hentinya turun hingga saat ini pun. Kira-kira hampir 10cm tumpukan salju di beranda rumah. Haha. suamiku, saat dia sebelum berangkat ke kantor ya mau nggak mau harus shovel the snow.

Kira-kira jam 8 pagi tadi, dia menelponku dari kantor, dia bercerita dia hampir terpeleset saat turun dari bis karena black ice (es transparan di atas aspal). Dia sekalian mengingatkan aku kalo aku ada rencana keluar rumah dengan mengendarai mobil, bisa slip.

Mudah-mudahan keadaan ini cuma sementara, katanya sih akhir pekan ini bakal bagus cuacanya.. tapi aku sih ngak terlalu berharap banyak, unpredictably change!! Or maybe Mr Whte wanna give a bit more snow for us before he really leaves us.. (^~^)

Never ending disaster

2007-03-10T17:37:00.000-07:00

Ya Tuhanku, ujian apalagi yang kau timpakan ke bangsaku…

Renungan dari Resonansi Republika

Sebuah Cermin Bernama Bencana
Oleh : Zaim Uchrowi

Mahasuci Allah, pemilik seluruh alam semesta dan segenap jiwa! Kita dipersaksikan-Nya pada Indonesia yang belum pernah ada di masa-masa sebelumnya. Di Sidoarjo, Jawa Timur, lumpur terus saja menyembur, banjir merendam Jakarta, angin beliung merobohkan rumah-rumah (termasuk yang baru dibangun setelah gempa) di Yogya, longsor mengubur desa-desa di Manggarai, Flores, lalu rata pula Sumatra Barat oleh gempa. Entah seberapa besar kehidupan yang terempas oleh semua itu.

Kita dipersaksikan-Nya pula pada bencana kemanusiaan lainnya. Polio dan malnutrisi pada balita masih saja menjadi cerita. Demam berdarah terus aktif merenggut jiwa. Flu burung bukan saja belum teratasi, tapi juga membuat kita menjadi ajang bulan-bulanan dunia. Belum lagi permainan sindikasi kesehatan global yang membuat cairan infus pun menjadi barang langka dan mahal.

Kehidupan rakyat juga kian kembang kempis. Para nelayan harus menambatkan perahu-perahunya. Jumlah tangkapan ikan, harga solar, maupun cuaca tak bersahabat dengan mereka. Begitu pula nasib para petani. Banyak sawah tergenang air. Musim tanam harus ditunda. Pengusaha kecil menengah juga menjerit. Menurut mereka, tak pernah keadaan sesulit sekarang. Di tingkat bawah, ekonomi tersendat. Harga beras juga terus menanjak. Kebutuhan pokok itu telah menjadi barang yang tak lagi terbeli oleh sebagian rakyat.

Belum lagi petaka yang menusuk jantung perasaan kita. KM Senopati tenggelam dan hilang bersama ratusan penumpangnya. Lima atau enam kapal lain yang lebih kecil mengalami nasib yang sama. Ada pula kapal feri yang terbakar, hingga dengan tragedi KM Levina I. Kereta api yang terguling dari relnya telah menjadi cerita biasa. Pesawat Adam Air yang hilang cuma dapat ditemukan serpihannya di Selat Makassar. Lalu Garuda, harus pula terbakar bersama sebagian penumpangnya, di depan mata semua orang di Bandaran Adi Sucipto, Yogyakarta.

Apa yang harus diperbuat atas semua keadaan itu? Kita hanya dapat menggelengkan kepala. Begitu banyak persoalan yang harus dipecahkan dalam waktu yang sama. Begitu banyak pula hambatan buat mengatasinya. Lalu dari mana kita harus memulainya?

Kapan pun berkehendak, Allah Yang Mahakuasa selalu mampu menghadirkan petaka. Tapi, sepanjang urusannya adalah urusan dunia, sangat jarang Sang Pemilik Alam Semesta mengesampingkan hukum-hukum-Nya. Sunnatullah-Nya. Setiap petaka selalu dapat dikaitkan dengan takdir. Tapi, takdir juga hampir selalu menjadi cermin yang baik: Manusia atau bangsa macam apa sebenarnya kita?

Satu atau dua bencana mungkin memang ujian dari Tuhan. Namun rangkaian bencana adalah petunjuk nyata bahwa kita bukan bangsa baik. Setidaknya tidak berperilaku baik bagi diri sendiri, bagi lingkungan sekitar, apalagi bagi Tuhan. Betapa sering diri kita bermalas-malasan, memilih jalan pintas, bahkan menengadahkan tangan. Kita malas untuk terus belajar. Apalagi harus berkarya secara nyata. Sangat jarang kita berusaha keras mendisiplinkan diri agar dapat menjadi pribadi lebih baik.

Implikasi dari kualitas diri itu terasa dari kualitas kerja kita. Sebagian besar kita bekerja asal-asalan. Sekadar menuntaskan kewajiban, lalu dapat bayaran. Mutu tak cukup menjadi perhatian. Acap kali kita bahkan lebih buruk dari itu. Kita lebih sibuk untuk kepentingan sendiri meskipun hidup dari dana publik. Posisi dan wewenang tak kita gunakan benar-benar untuk membantu masyarakat atau membangun lingkungan.

Kekuasaan lebih untuk memperkukuh posisi sendiri. Agar lebih berkuasa, lebih kaya, juga lebih punya nama. Dengan perilaku begitu, bagaimana mungkin lingkungan dapat lebih terkelola, dan persoalan rakyat lebih terbantu teratasi? Tanpa terasa, kita lebih mengeksploitasi ketimbang membantu masyarakat dan mengelola lingkungan.

Kita tidak cukup merasa bersalah atas ketidakbertanggungjawaban demikian. Bahkan, di hadapan Tuhan. Sangka kita atribut keagamaan kita cukup untuk menutup ketidakbertanggungjawaban itu. Tuhan kita ajak bernegosiasi agar membenarkan setiap langkah kita sendiri. Sebuah arogansi yang perlahan namun pasti mematikan jiwa kemanusiaan kita sendiri. Maka, tidakkah kita pantas menerima semua musibah ini?

Tidakkah kita mau becermin dari rentetan bencana, untuk berubah dan bangkit menjadi manusia dan bangsa baru. Yakni, manusia dan bangsa yang lebih rendah hati, terus belajar, bekerja keras, menjauhi korupsi, serta bertanggung jawab atas setiap tugas kita.

Little climber

2007-03-06T16:40:00.000-07:00

Ini dia gaya si pemanjat kecil yang lagi seneng-senengnya naikin tangga di rumah. Dulu saat dia masih 10 bulan, aku tunjukin gimana caranya manjat.. eh sekarang dia dah mahir, ya tapi tetep aja deh aku tetep waspada kalo dia dah lari ke ujung anak tangga tuk manjat.. aku buru2 deh berdiri di belakangnya. Kadang kalo dia mo break sebentar, dengan santai dia duduk di anak tangga, tanpa sadar kalo itu anak tangga nga cukup ruang tuk menopang pantatnya, ya jelas bisa jatuh tho.. he2.. tole2, kamu ini koq makin keliatan ya polahnya..

Warm Weekend!!

2007-03-02T13:36:00.000-07:00

It's been a week, the weather here is so cold and dull, enough to make me bored staying at home. Oh yeah, who wants to wander outside with -20°C in chilly wind. Almost everyday snow falls. It's too much for March. Normally we have less snow.

In fact, being in Calgary, I should be blessed as we have quite mild winter compared to the one in the Eastern region. They have impact of the late winter snow. They have complexity of snow with storm. It's not only snowfall, but also rain, freezing rain, and worse thing also with strong chilly wind. Imagine, it must be tough for the commuters who have to drive to office as they have to cope with the unpleasant road conditions. Also for them who need to wait for public transit at uncovered bus shelter. HOOO..., that chilly wind is quite strong to penetrate your bones though you have put on layers of clothes. I have experienced that. In one dark cloudy morning, I sat on the cold bench inside the bus shelter, I still felt cold. Great, my bus came late.

Winter this year is really unusual. The eastern region got late winter. They had brown Christmas, they never have that. It is always white. British Columbia had even worse than usual condition. They had snow and storm which made a big mess in their Stanley Park. They claimed this park to be one of the great parks of the world! Environmentalists state this as impact of the global warming, so the climate changes. I think it's not only in Canada but happens globally, include what happened in my beloved home country. Ugh..weather has been always unpredictable, everywhere.

OK, enough about Mr. Weather... it's now about Mr Chinook , who will gladly visit us tonight here in Calgary to cheer up our weekend. It's gonna be sunny, with 11°C .. convenient enough to walk on snow under the sun. Thanks Mr Chinook, please come again.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

Belated 2007 resolutions..

2007-02-03T10:53:00.000-07:00

Hi People!
I know it's too late, 2007 is already on. But, better than nothing! Let me just sum them up:

revise and update my resume - Gee! I need to find other job, definetely I won't come back to my previous employer.
switch Rafee to be cup-fed or bottle-fed - this one is so so challenging ! as he is a real mommy-breast big fan, so hubby!! I need your help seriously, it's not easy to dis-attach him from the breasts.
finish up my certificate program, 2 more papers left. Possibly will be around June.
spend a bit of my time to do personal care in daily - oh yeah, I admit it's been while I don't take care of my skin properly especially here, where the air is so dry. I am fortunate, my skin face has problem without giving them daily treatment. So cheap .. on the other hand, I know some people spend a lot of money on their face.
be more discipline for daily prayer ( Forgive me GOD)
Make scrapbooks - try to file up all the momentary photos. I started doing this activity after I watched TV program at KSPS on scrapbooking. It in fact neutralize my boredom as I am so excited to put them in cool lay-out. Well, I found it not easy at the beginning. Great, I got some guideline books from library..
Be serious when cooking - what I mean here follow what recipes say. Oh yeah, people understand right sometimes we do some shortcut, simplification, modification. It's fine with risking them won't have proper taste. That's what I did before. What can I do, in the middle of my cooking, my baby wakes oh.. I have to pick him up.. then everything becomes disorder.. afterwards, mostly I cook without recipes, just follow my guts, my experiements which are super duper fast and easy!! What I got, hoo..hoo 50% unbelievably yummy (for my taste) and 50% hmm... speechless, far beyond it supposed to be..
what else ?? remaining it's not so crucial -
* Before end of this year, need to start processing my application to geologist association here so that i can get professional geologist lisence
* This summer, wanna decorate house seriously - I need to wait until Mrs. in law goes back to her country (off the record) - kind of avoidance of her nonsense critics about decoration. In my opinion, she knows nothing!
* hope when I go back to work, I will absorb more expressions of local idioms, be familiar with them and speak them out!

The point is ---> This year should be different from last year, things should get better!!

Back to write

2007-01-23T10:37:00.000-07:00

Write..write..
Yes, try to spend time to update this blog Mam!! kind of hard in fact.. especially when Rafee starts cruising along the rooms.
Anyway, I got something to write about last night. So the topic is about being aroused by nostalgic moments in New Zealand..
It's been 2 times I had this situation. I was telling to Ska when the first time happened. I couldn't sleep for almost 3 hours in the middle of night. I was awake because Rafee cried. As usual try to comfort him, soothe him so that he goes back to sleep. What happened was he went back to sleep but not me. I tried to close my eyes but, my mind was like being taken to the memories started when I went to Auckland back in 1997. I can't believe it was almost 9 years ago, but I remember all the details. I can't forget all the corners of the Grafton Hall (dormitory I used to leave), of the course building, all the places I visited. The memories also bring me faces of my uni- friends, lectures, people whom I spent with leaving amazing moments which are not easy to forget. Oh.. I was really aroused, just couldn't help rewinding my memory tape in my head, my eyes contemplating the ceiling as if it views all the scenes. I got nobody to share, I can only tell it to my hubby. I said to him, promise to take me for holiday to NZ someday... Well, i am kind of losing contact with my NZ friends. It's been a while I didn't send emails to them. I still can dig out my old address book though, or searching in Google by putting some names there.
Then, until last night the memories were back again. In fact, I enjoyed it

Kepergianku tertunda

2006-09-25T17:42:00.000-06:00

Seharusnya malam ini aku dan Rafee terbang ke Jakarta, tapi karena suatu hal yang sepertinya sepele - tapi menurut aku bisa bikin repot, kutunda hingga hari Jumat malam. Hal sepele apa? Iya, hari Jumat minggu lalu, iseng-iseng kutelpon maskapai penerbangan yang kupakai, ternyata tidak ada kepastian Rafee akan mendapat bassinet selama penerbangan Vancouver - Hongkong (notabene 13jam penerbangan). Waks.. tak mau lah aku menggendong di saat dia tidur, bagaimana suatu waktu aku terlelap tidur. Itu bahaya (pakai "!"), terutama jika tiba-tiba tanpa sadar dia terlepas dari dekapanku karena aku terlelap tidur.

Akhirnya kuputuskan untuk merubah jadwal hari penerbangan dengan kepastian bassinet untuk Rafee. Yang bahagia tentu saja bapaknya, karena dia dapat 5 more days with the baby.

Di Ramadhan kali ini, Insya Allah, sejak hari pertama, aku berpuasa tanpa ada hambatan menurunnya suplai ASI, mudah-mudah demikian adanya hingga akhir Ramadhan. Selama ada niat untuk menjalankannya, kemudahan pastilah akan diberikanNya.. Awalnya memang agak ragu khawatir Rafee tidak akan mendapat cukup ASI. Sebelumnya kucek sana-sini via internet, and it’s OK karena pada dasarnya puasa hanya merubah jadwal makan. Hanya saja porsi asupan makanan dan cairan harus kutambah selama sahur dan berbuka.

Satu lagi rahmat selama Ramadhan ini, alhamdulillah tak kusangka-sangka pagi ini Rafee akhirnya mau membuka mulutnya saat kutawarkan barley cereal. Aku girang bukan kepalang karena mak!aku hampir putus asa dibuatnya. Dia mogok makan, menutup mulutnya, memalingkan muka saat kutawarkan makanan sejak 2 minggu yang lalu. Sebelumnya tak ada masalah sama sekali. Berbagai jenis sayur dan buah-buahan dia lalap walau kadang agak malas-malasan juga dia menelannya. Terakhir kucoba rice cereal dia tutup mulut, menolaknya. Saat itu kupikir dia akan tumbuh gigi, tapi kucek gusinya oke-oke saja. Karena aku makin khawatir, dia akan kekurangan zat besi (dimana salah satu sumbernya dari susu formula dan cereal - tapi dia nggak suka minum susu formula), akhirnya pagi ini, dengan rileks kutawarkan barley cereal dicampur dengan cairan susu formula. Ajaib, dia tak menolak sama sekali, dengan rela dengan muka gembira dibuka mulutnya lebar-lebar demi suapan cereal itu. Mungkin dia tak suka rice cereal. Sepertinya, aku harus pelan-pelan menawarkan dia makanan hingga akhirnya dia bisa menikmati makanan tersebut.

Sekedar intermezzo, ini gayanya dengan topi plastik yang sengaja kutaruh dikepalanya. Ha..ha lucu kan. Matanya nggak mau lepas dari kamera. Kemana kamera itu pergi, selalu diikuti padahal dia lagi asyik main hp dan telephon.

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Tanah Airku kembali berduka..

2006-07-17T13:19:00.000-06:00

Bencana alam kembali menimpa tanah airku tercinta.
Pesisir pantai selatan Jawa pada tanggal 17 Juli pukul 15.00WIB digoncang gempa. Gempa berskala 6.8 Skala Richter ini tepatnya menyerang Pangandaran dan sekitarnya. Selain itu gempa ini juga menimbulkan gelombang tsunami di pantai Pangandaran, pantai Cipatujah di Tasikmalaya. Gempa tersebut hingga terasa di daerah Jakarta dan Bandung.

Oh, Tuhanku.. cobaan apa lagi yang kau berikan pada bangsaku ini. Belum juga selesai isak tangis kami atas korban bencana alam sebelumnya.
Yang bisa kulakukan kini, kupanjat doa memohon padamu.. kuatkanlah bathin dan fisik mereka, bukakan mata hati mereka untuk tetap tabah dan menerima bahwa ini adalah suatu cobaan dari-Mu..

Sumber berita :
Liputan 6 SCTV , Republika

Ha-il

2006-07-06T20:05:00.000-06:00

Siang ini seperti biasa udaranya puanas, rasanya gerah sekali. Rafee mulai menunjukan ketidaknyamanannya, mulai rewel, merengek minta dicopot bajunya. Akhirnya dia tidur tanpa baju, hanya diaper melekat di badannya. Tak lama angin sejuk berhembus, dan mulai mendung. Wah kupikir Tak lama kemudian, hujan turun.. tapi koq ribut sekali bunyinya .. pletak-pletok. Saat itu aku masih di kamar dan tanpa ba-bi-bu, aku langsung melesat ke beranda. Wuih.. aku ternganga hujan es batu (hehe maklum baru kali ini melihat hujan es batu - hail).

Lumayan besar butiran esnya, kurang lebih dengan
diameter 2cm-an. Masih terbengong, terlintas di benakku andai saja aku diluar rumah... owala, kebayang sakitnya pasti seperti ditimpukin orang kali ya. Saat itu juga aku langsung teringat mobil kami yang diparkir diluar. Waduh bagamana rupanya nanti, apa kacanya akan retak, atau bodi mobil itu akan penyok-penyok. Aku cuma bisa melongok ke bawah mencoba untuk melihat dari kejauhan. Aku tak punya niat untuk turun hanya untuk mencek keadaan mobil. Akhirnya aku putuskan untuk menunggu setelah reda, mudah-mudahan mobil masih utuh dalam bentuk seperti semula.

FIRST THING on MOM vs RAFEE

2006-07-04T09:17:00.000-06:00

This idea came up when my hubby was chatting with Rafee, comparing Rafee and his mommy. Gap of generation.

Mom - Started learning computer when 18 yo.
Rafee - Sat in front of the compuetr when 10 days old and happily played the keyboard when 3 months old.

Mom - Got allowance from schoolboard (scholarship) when 10 yo.
Rafee - Got money from Govt when 3 months old.

Mom - Received the first mail from penfriend when 10 yo.
Rafee - Recieved a formal mail under his name from Govt when 10 days old.

Mom - Took airplane flying 1.5hours to Medan when 26 yo.
Rafee - Will be flying crossing Pacific Ocean to Jakarta for 20 hours when he gets 6 months old.

One hot summer day

2006-06-29T13:15:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, oh gosh ! It was really hot summer day. It was only 27°C but it felt like 35°C due to humidity.
It was okay, in the morning when I went out with Rafee. It was sunny and a bit windy. Our outing program was quite hectic. First, I drop some bric-brac of stuffs that no longer used at Thrift shop, then to Public Library.
At library, I picked up a book of Mitch Albom " Tuesdays with Morrie" that I requested to hold. This book in fact was referred by Slesta. "This's a great book", said one library staff at the checkout. I can't wait to read that. Other things, decorating books. Why so?
This is part of our big plan this year. Hooorayy finally ... we will be moving to our new house end of this July. I have been dreaming to decorate my own house. To gather ideas for the project, initially I visited website of my favourite TV shows - HGTV . Then, I was thinking why not getting the books from the library. So here we are.. I have got some projects to do for the house.

Around noon, I headed to one mall to meet my officemates at the foodcourt. Well, they are new mom too. Bronwen, a geologist with a 10-month baby girl and Debbie, an environmentalist with a 9-month baby boy. So, 3 moms and 3 babies met together. We chatted, shared stories, asked each other about plan to go back to office. Oh.. typical mom talks. I had a wonderful time and also Rafee as he had chance to see and maybe also to learn what big babies were doing.
When, I went to the parking area, ready to drive home. I realised the day got hot. Phew.. hot..hot.. hurry to get on the car, turned on the AC otherwise Rafee would cry all the way. I just can't concentrate to drive when he starts crying at the back seat - I have to put his car seat at the back seat. Finally, we got home. Though, I opened the window and door in our room, it was still hot. Rafee was crying, I guess because of the heat. I took off his cloth. He was smiling at me, happy .. then fallen to sleep.
I can't believe I will do that here. As since he was born, we always try not to let him be exposed with cold weather. It was the first time my baby sleep, just with his nappy on.

Hobby baru

2006-06-27T09:56:00.000-06:00

Ah ada-ada aja kelakuan bayiku ini..

Lucu, nggemesin..

Sangat Indonesia...

2006-06-25T18:14:00.000-06:00

O ala… ( baca dengan aksen Jawa)

Buat penggemar team Brazil, melihat gambar diatas dan membaca komentar dibawahnya boleh saja terpana, tersenyum kecut pun oke, atau lebih heboh lagi kalo mau ketawa ngekek juga sah-sah juga. Sangat Indonesia. Lumayan buat intermezzo. Betul, kita nih memang jagonya untuk urusan me-mirip-miripi orang ngetop, ya tho.

Tulis-tulis tentang sepak bola kenapa ya Indonesia tidak ikut serta di World Cup. ~~(Dengar-dengar mereka terlambat daftar ya.. - alasan yang sangat tidak niat).~~

Jika mau membanding-banding, Indonesia menang jauh dengan Ivory Coast. Negara ini jarang disebut, kecil pula, dan berpenduduk tak kurang dari setengah juta orang, di benua Afrika sana yang jauh dari keadaan makmur. Tapi mereka bisa mengirimkan timnya ke World Cup, walau gagal masuk ke 16 besar toh mereka boleh bangga bisa berlaga menghibur penggemarnya di arena bergengsi adu sepak bola dunia. Coba dibanding dengan Indonesia yang lebih punya potensi dalam hal jumlah penggemar dan pelaku sepak bola, – wah jauh!! Tapi kenapa ya Indonesia tidak ikut *^&*#@$^*…

Hm.. apa kita nih memang ditakdirkan cuma mampu mengelu-ngelu team negara lain… Waduh tak tau aku..

Catatan: foto diekstrak dari email seorang teman.

Summer is on now

2006-06-25T09:52:00.000-06:00

Akhirnya setelah ditunggu-tunggu datang juga. Dua minggu yg lalu cuaca masih tak menentu, selalu mendung, akhirnya diakhiri dengan hujan disertai kilat.
Sejak Rabu lalu, musim panas mulai mewarnai hari-hari di Calgary sini. Hm.. sangat mengasyikan, nyaman sekali untuk melakukan aktifitas di luar.

Uniknya disini, cuaca buruk adalah berat untuk disampaikan oleh pembawa sesi ramalan cuaca di TV lokal. Karena biasanya mereka seperti dituntut untuk menyampaikan keadaan lebih baik walau sesungguhnya bakal terjadi seperti misalnya storm, atau angin dingin berhembus atau hujanpun.

Ya begitulah tinggal di negara dengan 4 musim, tak kecuali ramalan cuaca ya harus dicek dulu sebelum pergi, sebelum membuat rencana piknik, kegiatan apa saja. Walau di saat musim dingin pun, berapa derajat suhu diluar penting untuk memperkirakan berapa lapis baju kita kenakan. Waduh, kebiasaan ini sama sekali tak masuk hitungan, dulu saat masih tinggal di tanah air. Ya mau hujan, mau mendung, mau panas, tak apa lah. Paling parah ya basah kuyub.

Imagi diekstrak dari sini

I am coming, weeked!

2006-06-16T09:56:00.000-06:00

TGIF

Thank God it's Friday again.
I didn't realise it until I see this little guy showing "Friday" in his shirt.

Oh yeah, that's his daily suit I always put on him, kinda a reminder for me who easily forget days due to routinity as a full-time mom.

Though, today the weather is still not promising to enjoy being outside I and my little boy tried to do fun with the computer.
This weekend not much to do I guess, though we will have picnic with Indonesian community here but again I don't think they can make it due to gloomy, rainy weather.

Look below here, just click the video box, nice way to share video huh!

Note : This video was taken on March 14, 2006.
Normally, when I need to make up the bed I put him in his bassinet.
I had a chance to record him.. he is so adorable..
watch his action!

GLoomy week, but it's OK (^_^)

2006-06-14T16:49:00.000-06:00

World Cup vs Stanley Cup

Weather this week is so gloomy, uncomfy for me to walk outside. It has been three days, morning are always cloudy with cold wind. At night, mostly shower pours sounded by thunder.
On Saturday, last weekend my hubby so panicked as he thought he would not be able to watch the World Cup games. He was mad at the TV cable provider we subscribe. They don't air live matches of the World Cup, they only air the recorded ones. Worstly, when he knew that CBC Sport program (note Canadian National TV) and other TV channels here prefer airing live matches of Stanley's NHL so called Canadian Sport to World Cup. Well, it is so obvious, they would rather cover the hockey because Edmonton team from Alberta (one Canada's province) is the winner of the West Region and will be playing in final play off with the East Region winner which is North Carolina (USA).
I still wonder why they don't cover the World Cup, I believe they know that World Cup is World sport, played and faved by all nations in this world. Moreover, we know that population of Canada are occupied by immigrants from various nations. FYI: Canada is known as the second favorite destination country for immigrants after USA. So if the Canadian TV channels take the chance to air the World CUp I believe they will collect more mony from commercials.
Anyway, my hubby is finally happy enough found that ABC covers most of the live matches. That's American channel. For sure they won't miss the chance to air the matches indulging the American which are mostly 50% from South America as one continent where the best football player are from.

Vacation goodies

One of it is passport. Its application was sent yesterday. First for Rafee, then for my expired passport. It was not so complicated to apply one for Rafee.. I can't believe he will bear Canadian passport while mine is green Indonesian passport. We just need to provide birth certificate then whoala he will get one. Yes, for thsi vacation, I will be flying solo just with him. Imagine when I land at CKG airport, I will be in the Visa on Arrival line, holding him. Hm.. I bet an officer will come toward me cynically tell me "Mam, what for visa?? You don't look like foreigner". This happened to my hubby when he came to Jakarta two years ago (his face is a typical Indonesian face). Well, possibly when I line up I need to show up Rafee's passport which is not a green one.
For mine, luckily it can be extended in the Consulate General office in Vancouver. I also ask them to put my address here in Canada so I can be free from paying fiscal fee when I return to Calgary. Talking about fiscal.. I think it's too expensive for Indonesian to pay 1 million rups just to go overseas. I heard Govt will revisit this regulation. Hope they did.

Got an extra cash

Why not, while I can manage doing it at home. Yum huh! making extra money to shop souvernirs for my siblings back home. This morning, when I checked my emails, I got one from the secretary of the office where I worked. She asked to call the chief geologist. I wondered what's up. I talked to the chief. He told me they are working on Buton's project (one mining area in Eastern Indonesia). To generate report, they have logs from previous report but need translation from Bahasa Indonesia to English. Yupe, they surely remember me. I am so pleased to do the job. I think I can manage my time. Importantly, they don't mind to pay me cash.

First Trisemester

Yes, my dear Rafee is 3 months now. Time flies like rocket. Look the pictures below showing how he is on his tummy, though he can't really flip over by himself.

Additionally, he becomes good at cooing-gaggling-gurgling. Well, those sometimes make me smile. I wish I could I understand what he says. I believe I can hear he can pronounce 5 vowels, also some important consonants for calling his mom-dad.

$MONEY MAKER

2006-06-11T10:54:00.000-06:00

make $$ through your personal website?? Wow. That's really appealing! I am so excited when I know this. I know you may say huh.. “How come you don’t know that!” Well, I don’t care whether it’s too late to know.
This definitely will motivate me to write more interesting stuffs so that more visitors who blogroll your blog interested in visiting your blog and clicking ads in your blog.. Then whoala! penny will come to your account. But, in reality it is possibly not that simple and easy. Do not expect that you will quickly grab money in short time I guess it depends also on the popularity of your blog.
Anyway, it's free to sign up to put ads. I did sign up an account and in the meantime, I am waiting for their follow up. Let’s see what comes up. I’m ready to go..

Satisfied?

2006-06-09T15:50:00.000-06:00

I feel so great after moving my blog to Wordpress. It's been almost a week, I madly wanted to change the look of my blog@Blogger. The problem is I couldn't decide which template that I want to use. I spent almost 3 days just to hang around in some websites providing easy instal Blogger templates. Then, end up finding Wordpress (WP). I signed up an account to blog. So far, I am fine and happy as I could make more than one page in my blog. I guess that's one plus of WP.

But this morning when I logged on to my blog, I found some snags.

First, my pictures in the Prologue page are not shown. Not sure why. I believe they are not huge pictures just less than 50kb. Then I checked WP FAQ page, I couldn't find typical problem. Looks like I have to post a question on this.

Second problem, this WP doesn't provide simple blogging to put link. It possibly will not be a problem to blogger who are familiar with HTML codes/tags in making link. For me ( as I always forget the tag codes) it gives a bit hassle. I found then if I want to link easily when I blog I have to untick the post editor so that all HTML tag function will be shown in the editing blogging page.

The third, I can't put shoutbox/chatterbox to my blog!! Butz.. it's not a nightmare for me. I was able to use one page (Gimme your shout) with comment function for chatting provided anybody interested in putting message in mine. Smart idea, eh!

Other thing, I think I should give feedback to them, about inability popping a new page, what I mean here whenever you click any linked word in WP it will always shown in the same page. I guess it's not really annoying especially when you are in the FAQ page then you need to apply to your blog page to follow the instructions, you have to click back-forward button repetitively. Huh, a lot work. It is enough to make me frustrated.

Well, not sure until when I will stand using this WP. Possibly I will be back to Blogger when I find a template that satisfy me.

Overall, after moving back and forth, trying-error some of the blog providers I realise that I need to get some sense of HTML coding. Nothing to loose to learn it while I know I have time now ( I am in maternity leave now). I am really challenged to master HTML coding.. I am gonna learn this stuffs!!!

Be ready!!

2006-05-24T17:52:00.000-06:00

Summary of tips to fly with infant

Though it’s still long way to go, I thought it’s wise to have summary of my finding on tips/tricks ahead of time - I collected from internet - to prepare for my solo trip from Calgary to Jakarta with my 6 month old baby in September. I am hoping I would have free stress flight, puih.. would be almost 20 hours. This is my first time experience and it would be challenging.

( Ticket

Try to book non stop flight if not choose one whose route with less and short time transit. Cathay Pacific offers this for flight from North America to Asia.
Manage seat in the aisle with bassinet

( A pack of baby stuffs

Always try to make the pack handy, reachable.
They contain more diapers, wipes, changing pad, towels, plastic bags for disposal
Have soft quiet simple toys, story colorful books to make them happy and comfortable when they are awake.
Be prepared with blanket, extra clothes
Have extra solid food, your own utensils, bibs, empty bottle for expressed milk
Pacifier in case your baby doesn’t wanna have breast milk
Get advise from pediatrician before you leave. The pediatrician may recommend a decongestant. The pressure of takeoff could potentially cause extreme discomfort

( Stay sane

Be hydrated if you are breastfeeding so bring your own water bottle
Keep your face, lips moisturized
Don’t be shy to ask for help
When the baby cries, calm down, don’t get frustrated he may annoy others.
Be prepared with nursing clothes, bottle of water, extra snack
Keep smiling to the baby and be happy with him

( Activities

Changing Diapers - can be done on the floor in the back of the cabin, bring a small pack contains the materials. Refill them when your baby settled - If you are not in busy row, change them in my seat.
To loo – you can put baby in the bassinet or bring baby with using baby carrier
to equalize ear pressure of your baby during take off/landing, breastfeed the baby or let him suck (pacifier)
To walk around the aisle with baby in your sling, exercise for you too.
During transit bring the baby with you in umbrella stroller, so easy to bring and to pack.

One Fine Day

2006-05-24T11:49:00.000-06:00

PUL-KAM PLAN
Yesterday was really effective day, not like other days. Since I have Rafee, my days are just filled with routine nurturing activities such as nursing, diapering, bathing him, and also playing. The latter gives so much fun and incredible pleasant feelings. Especially, when I observe and keep watching his development in behavior and mood changes. I love noticing every movement of his adorable tiny hands. They are just like mini size of adult’s.
In between those if possible, quite often I am able to multitask to cook some dishes, to hang out with internet. Well of course, cook simple ones. Anyway, daily life being a fulltime mom of a new baby is really up and down. Sometimes, I feel bored when things go dreary; sometimes excited especially when I am happy with his behavior or other thing comes up. So what’s up yesterday, accidentally, I called one travel agent appointed by my hubby to get an update on inquiry email I sent to them for my vacation ticket back home. Luckily, the lady there said there was a sale from CX whose time fits with my plan. So within 1 hour I decided to book and buy the ticket from this agent. To make me satisfied, I compared the price to other agent recommended by my friend.

This CX flight gives convenient route especially when you fly with baby who will sit with you. Hm.. talking about flying with baby, I found some helpful links. Overall we need to be well prepared otherwise you will have tiring, unpleasant flight moreover when you fly more than 20hours. You won’t believe you should know the tricks, tips, ways how to choose the seat, to make your baby happy not cranky during the flight, to get around, how to have your meals without disturbing your baby, to manage nappy time and sleep conveniently, to sneak out to washroom and also to breastfeed my baby like me.

Mulai lagi...

2006-04-11T22:07:00.000-06:00

MULAI... satu kata ini yang disebut beberapa kali di salah satu posting terakhir dari blog Boro. Teman lama yang satu ini akhirnya memutuskan untuk kembali meng-updet blognya.

Benar, memang agak sulit untuk memulai menulis lagi, seperti halnya diriku ini, setelah sekitar 4 minggu vakum karena kesibukan baru sebagai "a new mom" who dedicates whole time for my little guy, Mr. Rafee.

Setelah kupikir-pikir kenapa nggak menulis tentang keunikan dia, suka duka membesarkan dia.. ups and downs being a new mom struggling alone (what such a big job!) for him. Well, Thanks to Internet (again!), yang jadi nara sumber tanpa ba-bi-bu selalu setia menyediakan segala informasi yang kumau..

Speechless expressions

2006-04-02T16:34:00.000-06:00

Guemesin deh kamu !!!

2006-04-01T11:32:00.000-07:00

Saat-saat membahagiakan itu akhirnya datang...

2006-03-17T18:24:00.000-07:00

Adalah proses panjang yang harus kujalani
Untuk suatu kebahagian yang kunanti-nanti
Akhirnya dia datang juga
Begitu mengharukan saat menit-menit itu datang...

Selamat datang Rafee-ku...
Terima kasih buat teman-teman atas support-nya..

Miserable days

2006-03-02T18:54:00.000-07:00

Again about my pregnancy. It's been 3 days I have never ending cough... When I cough, it really hurts my chest. It's so dry, nothing come out so it makes my throat sore and like burning. I hadn't had enough sleep. Worsely, I am suffered from asthma too. What a complete gank of sicknesses huh! Well though the asthma is not really that bad but it still annoys me. I can hear the wheezing sound of my breath. Sounds like group of violists play a Mozart's. A good thing my baby keeps active, keeps kicking me most of the time as if what happens to me doesn't affect him. Oh, Hopefully. I am sure he wonders " What the heck is mom doing.. Hello I am shaken!! What kind of game is it!!" On the other hand, I keep telling him that he'd better come out when mommy feels better.
I am not sure what triggers this sickness. But I can guess it is mostly due to the reduced condition of my immune system which is common for pregnant woman in the last stage term. Besides weather also makes it even worse which becomes so cooler these days. Moreover, I lost my appetite these days. That's why I become so weak, easily get sick. Today, I am gonna see my doctor. Hope everything it is OK.

Bakal kejutan di bulan Maret

2006-02-27T10:43:00.000-07:00

Ya sebenernya sih mau kapan aja dia lahir 'ndak masalah buat aku.. aku 'dah siap siaga. Satu tas berisi perlengkapan inap buat bayi dan aku di rumah sakit dah siap tinggal bawa. Cuma satu harapanku, jangan minggu ini aja ya 'dek bayi keluarnya (^_^)

Lho kenapa sih aku khawatir sekali? Ya beginilah situasinya kalau jauh dari orangtua pas disaat-saat seperti ini kehadirannya bisa membuat ringan beban melahirkan. Tapi kenyataannya aku tidak mungkin menghadirkan mereka disini. Satu-satunya orang yang bisa menenangkan dan membantuku yang suamiku. Minggu ini dia lagi keluar kota. So, mudah2an bayiku 'ni tahu diri ya.. ngak mau merepotkan ibunya.

Leganya, hari ini aku mulai maternity leave. So aku bisa lebih santai 'tuk lebih mempersiapkan kelahiran. Yang dari latihan labour, ngumpulin info, baca sana-sini, telpon sana sini, bolak-balik sms adekku ttg gimana rasanya dan ciri2nya kontraksi (baru bisa ngebayangin aja nih), apa bedanya pipis ama pecah ketuban. Lumayan lah aku dah ada gambaran deh. Lucunya semalam aku nggak bisa tidur dan tiba-tiba aku mrasa seperti ada yang mengalir dan membasahi celana dalamku. Waduh aku langsung panik dan cek apa benar itu bertanda "waktunya". Oh, syukur deh ternyata bukan, mungkin hanya keputihan aja.

Ok kembali ttg maternity leave, enaknya disini bisa ambil jatah max 1 tahun cuti. Serunya, disini selama satu tahun aku bisa tetap dapet penghasilan tapi dari pemerintah bukan dari kantor tempat kerja. Karena selama kerja gajiku dipotong untuk employment benefit. Begitu selesai cuti aku bisa kembali kerja ke kantorku.

Final appearance of my BLOG

2006-02-23T12:05:00.000-07:00

YUPE! as you can see in this page

akhirnya proses pembelajaran dan explorasiku dengan Blogger berakhir sudah setelah aku puas dengan penampakan terakhir blogku @Blogger. Lumayan panjang prosesnya dan banyak yang harus dikerjakan - dari trial error sana sini (banyak error nya sih :) - utak-utik - tempel copot bagian ini itu. TAPI banyak yang kupelajari, jadi familiar dgn "mbosone website" seputar html codes and the gank, jadi tahu deh aturan menaruh link2 tambahan dan masih banyak yang lainnya. Cukup unik memang tapi untungnya mereka cukup konsisten dengan aturan2 yg simple so bisa lah kita pelajari sendiri.

So nanti kalo aku sudah bosen lagi dengan penampakan ini bisa kurubah lagi.. justru disitu serunya khan (^_^)

Tak lupa, kuucap compliment disini tuk CAZ's Free Templates yang akhirnya kupilih menjadi source tuk mendapatkan free design template for blogger. Sebenarnya masih banyak sumber2 yang lainnya. Hanya saja CAZ memberi ruang yang lebih leluasa tuk menaruh image yang kubuat sendiri.

Kalo ada yang tertarik tuk membuat blog@Blogger en mo install blogskin/template sendiri, berikut link yang menawarkan free templates yang kompatible dengan format Blogger:

Diaphaneity ◙ Thur's templates ◙ Beccary' templates ◙ Aman's templates ◙ Free Blogger templates ◙ Templates made by Martijn ten Napel from Noipo.org

Finally...

2006-02-22T14:07:00.000-07:00

Yes, I think I am done with this blog project.. I am quite satisfied.
So ready to highlight with colours using this "stabilo" BLOG..

Back to blogging at BLOGGER

2006-02-17T16:37:00.000-07:00

I can’t believe what I’ve been doing in couples of days. YES!! I am back blogging at my original blog at Blogger .

It’s been abandoned for a while when I was desperate coping with linking feature etc then I decided to escape to blog at Friendster. Then, during my leisure time I blogwalk around Blogger spots, I found that some of their cool features not available in FS blogs such as tagbroads (shouting spots), flexibility to modify your own design templates, to install ticker in your webpage and so on. I realize in Blogger I could have such things though I can’t really have it instantly .

It’s kind of challenge for me as I have to do self exploration through internet knowing that I got no website knowledge at all. Salute to Google which provides me hints to my dumb questions such as : "how I can get html code from tagboard providers, then where I have to paste the html code in the blog template, then how I can install pregnancy ticker and many other confusions". I am also never far away from website goodies as my source.

In fact, I am kind of taking my time to do this so that I won’t get bored and desperate. It’s fun and I feel so great when I am able to solve and get what I want. I made a dummy blog dedicated to my trial in this experiments. So you are welcomed to drop by sometimes to my blog later. Who knows any of you is also interested in blogging at BLOGGER.

Today, real winter finally comes

2006-02-16T08:36:00.000-07:00

Woala!! What we are waiting for finally comes. It actually started yesterday. We had big leap of 20°C. Before, we hardly had below 0 deg when it was so bad we could have -10C. Anyway, I felt so frozen yesterday. I complained to my husband about it. He said to me - Welll we'll see what's gonna happened to you tomorrow when it feels like -41°C with windchill. Hah!

Inevitably, I had to go to office this morning. I was a bit prepared, yesterday I parked the car at the backside of our apartment so at least I don't need to wipe the snow as the parking area is covered. But still, I had a nice welcome from Mr.Cold which gave me a bit runny nose.. sluurrp :( coz I had to unplug the cord of heater cable, heat up the car for about 5 minutes, enough exposure with coldness before ready to drive.

Why I complained? I thought this is part of the consequences that I have to cope with living in place with this extreem weather. I was fine las winter..
I wondered.. possibly because of indulgence of "summer-like in the middle of winter" I had at the beginning of this winter makes me hesitant to face the reality of winter o(^_^)o

Summer in middle of Winter

2006-02-13T08:29:00.000-07:00

Well, don't get confused, possibly it's just my expression. It's been almost in the middle of winter, but this year it appears we have a mild winter.
This weekend when the weather was quite nice, we had chance to come to one viewing spot nearby our neighborhood so we can see downtown, Bow River and range of the Rockies from distance.Wow,can't believe with the view, brown ground not white speck at all on the ground. Comapred to summer, we have no leaf trees o(^_^)o

WOW!! I made it..

2006-02-10T14:06:00.000-07:00

can you see now.. on right side of my blog now. Can you see the different.... cool hah!
I'm extremely content!Yuhuuuu
See if you believe you can do it.. so sure you will make it..
wanna know what I did.. I print all the code in the blogger template..
then lay it out with the display of my blog window... contemplate them, check one by one.. huh!!
finally I can decide where I am supposed to paste the code from shoutbox..

just above the part about powered by blogger!!

now.. I still have to struggle with how to post easily in blogger. i think still bloggin' in friendster a lot more damn EASY!! especially for link, pictures etc..

TEST..TEST

2006-02-10T14:05:00.000-07:00

Test...
First shot after being abondaned for this blog..
after been desperate (deadly!) due to my disability to install shoutbox
But I don't give up.. let me test in this blog...

Ideally i want to have instal the skin also to his blog at the end.. if I could..
but I wanna try to find it out how by myself.. too proud to ask someone..
it;s kind of challenge for me if I can manage it at the end..
Things that I hate about blogspot.. linking feature is not really user friendly..
I need to find out also how it works in such an easy way..

let's see what comes up!!

Tentang pujaanku : Seorang pujangga kecil

2006-02-07T16:40:00.000-07:00

Teringat saat tiga tahun lalu, aku menerima email berantai dari seorang teman tentang Abdurrahman Faiz yang saat itu dia baru berumur 8 tahun dan meraih Juara I Lomba Menulis Surat untuk Presiden. Isi email mengulas tentang dirinya dan karyanya yang ternyata membuat mataku berkaca-kaca hingga menitik air mata kagum dan haru. Sejak itu aku menjadi pengagum beratnya. Di saat luang, aku memburu ulasan-ulasan mengenai profil anak ini melalui internet atau media apapun jenisnya.

Tapi sayangnya, aku baru bisa menikmati tulisan-tulisan Faiz seutuhnya setahun kemudian saat aku mendapatkan buku-bukunya Untuk Bunda dan Dunia dan Guru Matahari.

Segala macam perasaan, tercampur aduk tak terkontrol saat membaca karyanya yang penuh makna dan berjiwa. Kagum, terharu biru, trenyuh aku dibuatnya menikmati rangkaian kata-kata sederhana yung dia tuliskan mengenai hal-hal ringan tentang kesehariannya yang lepas dari mata biasa kita. Bagiku, kata-kata sederhananya ini menjadi berjiwa dan sarat makna karena dia menulisnya dengan perasaan tulus ikhlas, seperti layaknya jiwa seorang anak kecil. Bagiku, Faiz adalah anak yang istimewa. Tapi dia tetaplah anak kecil yang masih ingin bermain, berteman dengan sesamanya dan tidak ingin meninggalkan masa indahnya seperti anak-anak lainnya. Dia begitu mencintai bundanya, ayahnya. Juga, dia peduli atas orang-orang dan keadaan disekitarnya yang dia gagaskan di tulisan-tulisannya.

Saat dia berumur 3 tahun begitu puitisnya dia berceloteh, " Bunda aku mencintai Bunda seperti aku mencintai surga". Mata hatinya begitu tajam dan dengan bakat menulisnya yang dturunkan dari sang Bunda, Helvy Tiana Rosa, menjadikan tulisan Faiz bernyawa dan penuh arti. Membaca buku-buku karyanya adalah pelepas dahagaku di saat aku haus akan kebenaran religi sejati tentang hidup di dunia yang sementara ini, pelepas rindu baktiku kepada kedua orangtuaku yang tak bisa hadir selalu disampingku. Karyanya mengingatkan kita bahwa tak ada yang sempurna di dunia ini, kecuali ke-MahaKuasaanNya.

Hingga kala ini, saat mengisi waktu luangku dengan mengunjungi situs pribadi Jalan Sunyi seorang Abhi, aku begitu bahagia tak terkira. Tanpa kusangka dan tak kurencanakan, aku terantar ke Taman Virtual Faiz: Aku di jalan kupu-kupu. Begitu indahnya. Terlebih lagi, aku juga diantar ke Situs Pena Kecil Bunda Faiz. Aku yakin, kunjunganku ke situs-situs ini akan membuat waktu luang menjadi penuh makna.

Catatan pengingatku:

Dua buku karya Faiz yang belum hadir di koleksiku

Blogging lagi di BLOGSPOT

2006-02-06T16:39:00.000-07:00

Sudah hampir setengah tahun, aku tak mampir ke blogku ini. Mungkin hampir setengah tahun. Terakhir kali, beberapa blogger pemerhati "Motivation" melontarkan beberapa komentar ke postingku tentang Motivation. Kuyakin mereka secara tidak sengaja mampir ke blog ku karena aku menggunakan word "motivation" di salah tulisanku.

Hingga saat ini, aku iseng mampir sejenak ke blog ku ini, karena salah satu teman memasukkan link blog ku ke daftar teman di blog nya. Ternyata, saat aku mencoba mem-posting tulisan, aku temukan beberapa fitur baru di blogspot yang tampaknya bisa memberi lebih banyak kemudahan utk menulis dengan fasilitas MICROSOFT WORD . Salah satunya fitur untuk memasukkan link. Tidak seperti dulu saat pertama kali memakai blog ini, rasanya aku sering putus asa untuk menulis. Kenyataan ini pernah juga kutulis di blog Friendster-ku . Ada beberapa kelebihan blogspot disbanding blog di FS salah satunya kapabilitas untuk memasukkan fitur Haloscan dan sejenisnya untuk meninggalkan pesan dan sejenisnya, sedang di FS tidak ada kemampuan untuk itu.

Sepertinya aku harus mencoba untuk menulis lagi untuk Stabilo di Blogspot-ku.. (

All about Blogs!!!

2006-01-28T16:40:00.000-07:00

Pagi ini agak mendung, baru jam 9 tapi aku sudah merasakan kesepian di akhir pekan. Iya, jelas aku sendirian dirumah, suamiku pergi ke klinik mengantarkan ibunya berobat.

Akhirnya iseng-iseng aku blogwalking. Biasanya jika aku blogwalking aku kunjungi beberapa blog dari teman-temanku di FS atawa di Blogspot. Ada beberapa posting yang lumayan menarik perhatianku diantaranya dari Only Sandra, juga Momon yang notabene pernah kena kasus di Poltabes Yogya. Dua2nya mahasiswa dari jogya dan lumayan aktif menulis fenemona2 yang terjadi di Indonesia. Dari situs mereka, aku jadi terhubungkan ke salah satu blog milik Priyadi, yang katanya sih vokal dalam menulis dan selalu dimonitor oleh Roy Suryo Watch. Organisasi nirlaba ini bener2 ndak punya kerjaan kali ya. Sepertinya mereka beraksi sebagai kaki tangan kepolisian/pemerintah. Anyway, disitus Priyadi, sekilas kubaca postingnya terakhir berkilah tentang "wakil rakyat yang seharusnya memiliki blog.. ". Penasaran siapa itu??? ya Angelina Sondakh. Siap yang tidak kenal cewek ini. Dia wakil DPR dari Partai Demokrat.

Cewek single yang mantan Puteri Indonesia 2001 ini bisa jadi wakil rakyat pertama yang mempunya weblog. Coba deh, sesekali kunjungi blognya. Salah satu postingnya yang terakhir berkisah tentang hubungannya dengan Adjie Massaid, sesama kolega di PD, dikomentari oleh 429 pengunjung!!

Babyhood | Comment (0)

One day home

2006-01-26T23:43:00.000-07:00

Initially decided to have half day off but ended up with all day off coz got "surprise" from my blood pressure .. I think I need a break
Relaxed in a local coffee shop to enjoy a cup of hot chocolate
Got home, cooked my favorite home cuisine
Indulged myself with afternoon nap
Had blogwalking
Enjoyed warm cozy afternoon day in winter season.. oh for this one, I still can’t believe what I have here. We have 6Â°C sunny day in the middle of winter !! It’s just like spring. I keep monitoring day by day, we have had quite infrequent snow fall. Whenever we have a slight cold day, Chinook, Wind of Rockies always comes to blow warm wind.
Read one novel I got from bookshop lately.
Overall, I guess it’s a good time to start preparing my activities during maternity leave before my baby comes.

Brain Drain - TKI Expatriate di Malaysia

2006-01-26T19:42:00.000-07:00

Mengingatkan saat 2 bulan lalu kudapat kabar dari teman kuliah yang pindah ke Kuala Lumpur karena mendapat posisi geologist di Petronas. Dia itu ternyata ya TKI juga hanya saja berembel-embel "intelek" atau "kelas tinggi" …

Berikut ini kukutip dari artikel di Republika (tulisan Anif Punto Utomo) - sekedar ingin berbagi informasi tentang fenomena yang terjadi di negara kita.

Wajah Lain TKI di Malaysia

Sekitar 15 orang tampak duduk santai di sebuah kafe di kawasan apartemen Kampung Warisan, Kuala Lumpur (KL). Suasana Jumat malam pekan lalu itu, benar-benar mereka nikmati setelah sepekan penat bekerja di kantor. Sebagian besar tinggal di apartemen dekat kafe tersebut, tak heran kalau banyak yang saat itu bercelana pendek. Hangat, akrab, dan penuh ger-geran.

Siapa mereka? Mereka adalah tenaga kerja Indonesia (TKI) yang mencari nafkah di Malaysia. Ada yang baru enam bulan, tapi ada juga yang lebih dari empat tahun. Mereka merasa kerasan di Malaysia karena selain iklim kerjanya enak, juga masih dekat dengan Indonesia, sehingga minimal setahun sekali bisa pulang.

Tapi, jangan berpikir bahwa mereka adalah TKI yang selama ini sering jadi berita TKI yang bekerja sebagai pembantu rumah tangga dan para pekerja kasar. Mereka memang tenaga kerja dari Indonesia, tetapi tenaga kerja kelas atas, para profesional, para ekspatriat. Kebanyakan lulusan perguruan tinggi ternama di negeri ini. Ada juga yang pascasarjana. Bahkan, nyambi jadi dosen S2 di sana.

Mereka adalah profesional di bidang perminyakan dengan usia 35-45 tahun yang tergabung dalam Ikatan Ahli Teknik Minyak Indonesia (IATMI) cabang Kuala Lumpur (KL). Malam itu mereka sedang kumpul-kumpul. Banyak hal diperbincangkan, mulai dari prospek ketenagakerjaan di perminyakan sampai masalah copet di kereta api di KL.

Jumlah ekspatriat perminyakan cukup banyak, sekitar 150 orang. Mereka tersebar di perusahaan minyak internasional, seperti Murphy Oil, Amerada Hess, Schlumberger, Haliburton, dan tentu saja yang terbanyak di Petronas — lebih dari 20 orang. Selain di KL, mereka ada di Trengganu, Kerteh, Kinibalu-Sabah, sampai Miri-Sarawak.

Selain di bidang perminyakan, di Johor, para tenaga kerja intelek (TK intelek, begitu sebutan populer untuk mereka) banyak bekerja di perusahaan kontruksi di bidang migas. Lebih dari 100 orang bekerja di Malaysia Shipyard and Engineering Sdn, Sime Sembcorp Engineering Sdn Bhd, Technip, dan Saibos. Profesi lain yang juga cukup banyak adalah pilot. Setidaknya ada 30 pilot Malaysia Airlines dan 50 pilot Air Asia, yang dibajak dari maskapai penerbangan Indonesia. Ada juga alumni dari PT Dirgantara Indonesia, yang sudah mahal-mahal dibiayai sekolah ke luar negeri, dibajak Malaysia, karena iklim bekerja di Indonesia kurang kondusif.

Kehidupan sosial para ekspatriat tadi relatif tinggi. Apartemen yang ditinggali bersama keluarga, harga sewanya lebih dari 1.000 ringgit (Rp 2,6 juta) per bulan. Mereka juga memiliki mobil yang harganya di atas 60 ribu ringgit, meski banyak juga yang ke kantor lebih memilih naik kereta — monorel atau light train. Gajinya, 2.000-8.000 dolar AS per bulan!

Pada 2005 silam, butuh 2,5 juta TKI di seluruh dunia untuk menghasilkan devisa 2,5 miliar dolar AS, dan ditargetkan 4 miliar dolar AS pada tahun ini. Jika saja pendapatan ekspatriat tadi dihitung, dengan jumlah orang yang satu persen saja dari total TKI, mungkin akan menyumbang separuhnya. Gaji besar mereka akan mendatangkan devisa besar pula.

Keberadaan mereka memang sedikit banyak menepis anggapan bahwa tenaga kerja Indonesia di luar negeri berketerampilan rendah. Kualifikasi mereka jelas sudah teruji. ”Kita nggak kalah sama mereka,” kata Rovicky Dwi Putrohari, alumnus Geologi UGM yang sudah dua tahun menjadi TK intelek di Kuala Lumpur.

Terbukti, kata Rovicky, hampir setiap proyek di lingkungan Petronas selalu ada pekerja TK intelek ini. Bahkan, karena reputasi itu pula, Human Resource Departement Petronas merasa perlu mengunjungi Fakultas Geologi UGM, dan universitas ternama lainnya untuk mencari bibit unggul. Saat ini tercatat 10 orang alumni geologi UGM bekerja di Petronas Malaysia.

Mulai mengalirnya ekspatriat itu, terutama di perminyakan, bermula awal 2000-an. Kala itu dunia bisnis masih lesu karena terpaan krisis 1997, ditambah dengan gaji yang masih rendah, mereka memilih bekerja ke Malaysia. Di samping memang Malaysia juga butuh tenaga profesional untuk mengisi kekosongan SDM, lantaran begitu pesatnya pertumbuhan ekonomi.

Cuma sayangnya, sampai sekarang belum ada tali silaturahim antara ekspatriat dengan tenaga Indonesia kelas bawah di Malaysia. Kebersamaan di rantau sangat diperlukan untuk memperkuat tali persaudaraan sesama orang Indonesiaa. Ketimpangan strata dan pendapatan dapat diredusir dengan semangat persaudaran agar tidak terjadi blok pemisah.

Tapi apa pun, kehadiran ekspatriat ini melengkapi kesuksesan beberapa orang Indonesia di negeri jiran ini. Kita tahu grup band seperti Peterpan, SO7, Dewa sangat terkenal di negeri itu, begitu pula penyanyi seperti Krisdayanti. Kemudian di sepak bola, Bambang Pamungkas menjadi salah satu pemain pujaan di Malaysia, khususnya Selangor.

Ada rasa kebanggaan memang ketika kita tahu bahwa tenaga kerja Indonesia di luar negeri bukan hanya yang unskill, tetapi juga banyak yang high skill. Memang, secara umum orang-orang Indonesia di sana masih dipandang rendah. Tapi, dengan makin banyaknya ekspatriat, kesan bahwa tenaga kerja Indonesia melulu unskill mulai terkikis.

Hanya memang, kalau direnungkan lebih dalam, teramat sayang juga tenaga-tenaga terdidik kita harus pergi ke luar negeri (brain drain). Sementara banyak hal yang bisa dikerjakan di dalam negeri. Tapi, itu bisa dimaklumi ketika kondisi di Indonesia menurut mereka masih bikin kesal, bikin sebal, dan penuh dengan ketidakpastian.

Tak heran kalau pertanyaan Presiden Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ketika berkesempatan makan malam bersama warga Indonesia di Malaysia beberapa waktu lalu, agak sulit mereka jawab. Pertanyaan itu, ”Apakah kalau Indonesia mulai membaik, saudara-saudara mau kembali?”

Kerinduanku

2006-01-23T16:45:00.000-07:00

Baru satu malam..

Dia tak ada disisiku

tapi kehampaan terasa lebih dari semalam

Walau ratusan hari terpisah telah menempa kita

puluhan ribuan miles diantara kita saat-saat itu

tak kuasa kumenanti dia kembali walau hanya 3 hari saja

Hm.. Kerinduan yang tak bisa kuhindari..

Belajar lagi…

2006-01-17T16:46:00.000-07:00

Aku lagi mood banget belajar petroleum geology. Nih sekarang di kantor, aku nyambi buat summary sambil ngulang2 pelajaran semalam, untuk persiapan kuis Rabu besok. Menarik juga!

Semalam kuliah hampir 3 jam. Cathy, dosenku, ngebut nguliah karena materinya banyak. Materinya ttg thermodynamic of the reservoir. Untung aku ada basic dari kuliah geothermal dulu so ndak pake kerutan dahi pas dengerin kuliah. Hi..hi.. serunya lagi, malam itu "Little Tuni"ku di dalam rahimku aktif banget, gerak-gerak terus ndak bisa diem, ya nendang, ya ngulik-ngulik bagian sisi perutku .. aku jadi senyum sendiri, kegelian. Wah.. nih baby bakal jadi geologist juga kali ya.. masih dikandungan aja dah diwejangin ama kuliah geologi..

Ya utk mata kuliah ini emang bener2 tough, selama 4x pertemuan diawali dgn kuis yg bobotnya 10%. so aku ndak bisa bolos euy!! Padahal, niatku mo skip kuliah ya barang 1x 2x gitu tuk nonton serial kegemaranku he2.. yg bertepatan dgn jadwal kuliah: Surface - bab saat ini pas lagi seru2nya tuh.

Yang paling repot nyiapin kuis hari Rabu karena cuma ada kesempatan 1 hari ngulang kuliah di hari Senin. Ya mau gimana lagi akhirnya aku cicil deh di kantor pas kalo lagi sepi kerjaan. Eh.. rasanya koq nelongso banget ya aku ini cuma kuliah satu paper aja repot banget.. lah dulu pas mahasiswa ambil berapa SKS coba.. oh kalo itu mah beda ya..

Ya.. yang penting tinggal 5 kali pertemuan kuliah lagi.. setelah itu selesai and take a break sambil nunggu saat due date Little Tuni-ku. Rencananya sih habis itu mo nyelesein sisa 2 mata kuliah lagi sekitar May-June.. ya mudah2an deh bisa terlaksana..

Toddlerhood | Comment (0)

Renungan 2 : Menjadi Bangsa Berdaya

2006-01-09T16:47:00.001-07:00

Opini akhir tahun dari Prof. MT Zen.

Note: Prof MT Zen adalah salah satu gure besar Geologi ITB . Tulisan ini dikutip dari Harian Kompas.

Di Indonesia sangat sukar berbicara tentang hewan-hewan yang dulu
lazim banyak terlihat berkeliaran di sekeliling kita. Ini dikarenakan
wabah flu-setan. Misalnya sapi, kambing, kelinci, domba, dan banteng.
Sebab, sapi sudah berubah menjadi sapi perah; kambing menjadi kambing
hitam; kelinci menjadi kelinci percobaan.
Domba? Adu domba. Kalau banteng? Oh, banteng biasa sudah langka, yang
banyak banteng moncong putih. Indonesia mengalami metamorfosis menjadi
animal farm.

Negara kambing hitam
Hewan paling favorit adalah kambing hitam. Kadang kala sangat
menguntungkan bagi yang berkepentingan. Contohnya kekacauan di animal
farm kita sekarang.
Bayangkan, seandainya di Indonesia ini tidak pernah terjadi tsunami
Aceh, tidak ada busung lapar, demam berdarah, polio, flu burung, dan
harga minyak bumi di pasaran internasional tidak mengamuk naik, matilah
kita karena kambing hitam tidak laku. Sebab, siapa lagi yang mau
disalahkan. Coba!
Kambing hitam paling perkasa kini adalah Amerika Serikat, Eropa, dan
lain-lain. Awal-awal Orde Baru dulu, komunis menjadi kambing hitam
terbesar dan laku dijual. Kini kalau ada bom meletus, mesti Amerika
yang mau mengadu domba.

Negara-negara ASEAN, seperti Vietnam, Laos, Kamboja, dan Filipina
senasib dengan Indonesia. Vietnam itu baru selesai perang. Namun,
perangnya itu bukan dengan Belanda yang mengirimkan KNIL, melainkan
Amerika Serikat yang mengirimkan B-52 dan bom napalm. Vietnam itu
hancur luluh. Kini dia bangkit. Pada SEA Games 2005, Vietnam menduduki
tempat ketiga. Lima tahun yang lalu Vietnam sudah memiliki sarjana
fisika bergelar PhD sebanyak 15.000 orang. Bayangkan, fisikawan saja
15.000 orang, sedangkan sejarahnya diwarnai penuh pergolakan. Sebentar
lagi ia menjadi singa-ekonomi.

Hal lain lagi, harga minyak pernah mencapai 70 dollar AS/barrel.
Vietnam tidak punya minyak sama sekali, tetapi tidak merengek-rengek
seperti bangsa Indonesia dengan menipu bangsa sendiri. Mereka tidak
mencoba menyihir minyak bumi menjadi kambing hitam. Namun, mereka
berpikir, mengerahkan segala daya upaya, mengatur taktik dan strategi
berjangka panjang, serta berpikir jauh ke depan. Tidak mencoba mencari
jalan pintas dengan menunggang kambing hitam.
Apa yang dimiliki negara-negara ASEAN lain yang tidak kita punyai?
Penduduk Malaysia itu sepertiganya Melayu, sepertiga lagi keturunan
India, selebihnya keturunan China. Keturunan India dan keturunan China
lebih besar jumlahnya dari Melayu. Mereka itu rajin, hemat, suka
menabung, dan kerja keras; mereka itu yang membuat Malaysia maju.

Kenapa kita miskin?
Kenapa bangsa-bangsa ASEAN lain maju, sedangkan bangsa Indonesia itu
miskin dan ketinggalan dalam banyak hal?
Hal ini banyak diperdebatkan oleh banyak ahli. Berbicara tentang soal
ini tak habis-habisnya. Singkatnya, beberapa ciri dapat dikemukakan
sebagai prasyarat kemajuan, antara lain: 1. Berpegang pada prinsip-
prinsip etika yang kuat; 2. Berdisiplin tinggi; 3. Bertanggung jawab
(accountable); 4. Menghormati hukum dan peraturan; 5. Menghargai hak
warga lain; 6. Senang bekerja (Kerja itu Mulia); 7. Bekerja keras untuk
dapat menabung dan berinvestasi; 8. Berkemauan untuk bertindak hebat;
9. Menghargai waktu; 10. Betul-betul memanfaatkan sains dan teknologi.
Ini yang disebut sepuluh prasyarat untuk maju, sejahtera. dan kaya.
Sobirin dkk (2005) mengatakan, bangsa Indonesia itu miskin karena
tidak memiliki sikap dan tidak memiliki kemauan untuk melaksanakan
serta mengajarkan prinsip-prinsip fungsional dari masyarakat maju dan
kaya.

Salah satu sikap dan kebiasaan yang sangat perlu dipupuk sejak kecil
adalah kebiasaan menabung. Kita lihat sewaktu krisis moneter menerpa
beberapa negara Asia di tahun 1997, Thailand, Korea Selatan, dan Taiwan
cepat bangkit kem- bali karena mereka punya tabungan yang besar.
Pada saat ini cadangan devisa RRC sudah mencapai 769 miliar dollar AS,
Hongkong 122 miliar; sementara Indonesia cuma 31,2 miliar (The
Economist, 10/12/2005). Negara-negara seperti RRC, India, Korea
Selatan, Jepang, Singapura, Taiwan, dan Hongkong semuanya dicirikan
oleh tabungan yang besar.

Bangsa Indonesia itu boros, sangat boros, tidak suka menabung,
complacent (cepat puas diri dan menjadi lengah), suka menganggap semua
masalah itu enteng dan mudah (taking things easy); hanya puas dengan
formalitas saja (jika ada masalah antara dua kelompok masyarakat,
masalah tersebut diselesaikan dengan acara yang sangat formal dan
superfisial, seperti menandatangani piagam bersama atau doa bersama
tanpa mencoba mengerti dan memecahkan masalah dasarnya).

Semasa Orde Baru muncul sikap arogan dan berkeyakinan bahwa kita
bangsa super: paling beragama dan paling rukun; paling luhur budi
pekertinya, paling ramah, Tanah Air kita paling kaya, paling indah; UUD-
45 itu adalah suatu masterpiece (tanpa menyadari bahwa UUD-45 tidak
lain dari jiplakan konstitusi Belanda tahun 1814).

Langkah ke depan

Sekarang kita terpuruk menjadi salah satu negara paling korup di
dunia; dikenal sebagai negara paling birokratik (in the worse sense),
pegawai pemerintahan hanya tahu memeras/minta uang jasa saja; jiwa dan
semangat melayani masyarakat tidak ada pada birokrasi pemerintahan. Ini
yang perlu dirombak secara total. Dari jiwa pemeras menjadi jiwa
pelayan masyarakat. Pegawai negeri kita, terutama yang di atas,
dikatakan paling arogan dan manja (tas sekecil apa pun, sampai ke
kacamata saja harus dibawakan ajudannya), sementara pemimpin negara-
negara maju lain tidak berbuat seperti itu.
Padahal, kita bukan apa-apa. Ini diakui dulu. Namun, kita harus sadar
bahwa kita mempunyai banyak hal yang dapat membuat kita menjadi bangsa
yang mandiri, berdaya, dan jaya asal saja kita jujur (kenal diri kita).
Kita mempunyai tradisi dan budaya yang dapat dikembangkan. Ketahuilah,
kita mendiami suatu Tanah Air berupa suatu benua maritim yang amat
besar dengan letak yang sangat strategik. Benua maritim Indonesia itu
dicirikan oleh keanekaragaman yang amat besar, yakni bio-geo-ethno-
socio-cultural diversity. Keanekaragaman itu dapat dijadikan modal dan
tempat berpijak awal untuk berkembang.
Jika itu yang dikembangkan, Indonesia akan menjadi suatu pusat
penelitian ilmiah dunia dalam ilmu-ilmu pengetahuan alam. Itu yang
dilakukan oleh orang-orang Belanda, Jerman, Perancis, dan lain-lain.
Mereka meneliti kekhasan kepulauan Indonesia dan menjadi ilmuan
ternama, seperti Vening Meinesz, Umbgrove, Kuenen, Du Bois,
Weidenreich, Von Koeningswald, Eijkman, dan Wallace. Itu jauh lebih
besar nilainya dari sumber daya minyak, gas, dan batubara karena sumber
daya alam itu suatu waktu akan habis.
Pengetahuan yang dikembangkan untuk mengembangkan sumber daya alam itu
tak habis dipakai, bahkan semakin bertambah. Itu perbedaan antara
sumber daya alam dan pengetahuan. Semakin banyak dipakai, pengetahuan
itu kian berkembang, sumber daya yang tak habis-habisnya.
Negara-negara maju berteriak sumber daya alam tidak penting lagi, yang
penting kemampuan teknologi. Sikap kita seharusnya sebagai berikut:
Kita kembangkan teknologi sambil kita kembangkan sumber daya alam dan
lingkungan alam yang ada di sekitar kita secara optimum. Jangan sekali-
kali kita berkata, sumber daya alam tidak penting lagi. Jangan sekali-
kali! Bersyukurlah bahwa kita masih punya sumber daya alam yang sedikit
itu.

Kita harus tahu dengan sebenar-benarnya apa yang kita miliki, apa yang
tidak kita miliki. Itu perlu pengetahuan, perlu sains, dan perlu
teknologi. Kita harus belajar menjadi anggota masyarakat dunia karena
kita hidup di Bumi.
Kita harus insaf. Abad ke-21 ini sarat dan kental dengan sains dan
teknologi. Masyarakat manusia memasuki kultur abad ke-21 di mana muncul
modal dan industri virtual (maya); reduksionisme digantikan oleh
sinergisme yang tinggi; fraktal dan kompleksitas menggantikan pikiran-
pikiran yang linier dan geometrikal. Perubahan itu tidak menunggu kita.

Renungan

2006-01-08T16:51:00.000-07:00

Tulisan berikut saya kutip dari Resonansi Republika, karena saya pikir pesan yang disampaikan adalah benar adanya.

Belajar dari Musibah Oleh : Zaim Uchrowi

Apa yang kita pelajari dari musibah?
Baru sepekan kita mengenang tragedi tsunami Aceh. Baru sepekan kita kembali mengurut dada atas peristiwa yang merenggut ratusan ribu jiwa serta menorehkan luka begitu dalam pada warga di ujung barat nusantara ini. Lalu, musibah pun kembali datang.

Mula-mula terjadi di Jember, Jawa Timur. Lereng Gunung Argopuro yang mulai botak menggelontorkan air bercampur lumpur dan batu. Gelontoran itu sekejap menjadi banjir bandang yang menerjang apa pun di hadapannya. Berapa jumlah korban? Kita belum tahu berapa persisnya jumlah mereka, Bukit Pawinihan di Banjarnegara pun longsor dan mengubur kampung Gunungrejo. Sekitar 200 orang diperkirakan terkubur longsoran itu, termasuk puluhan orang yang berjamaah salat Subuh di masjid setempat.

Tidakkah kita mengambil pelajaran dari musibah-musibah itu? Ataukah kita menganggapnya sebagai hal biasa yang layak untuk kita lupakan lagi sebagaimana musibah-musibah terdahulu yang juga telah kita lupakan. Jangankan musibah beberapa tahun lalu seperti banjir bandang yang menyapu kawasan wisata Sibolangit, Sumatra Utara. Longsor gunung sampah yang mengubur puluhan orang di Bandung setahun lalu pun tak lagi ada dalam ingatan. Padahal, musibah-musibah itu cermin wajah kita yang sebenarnya:

+ Kita abai pada alam. Alam tidak lagi kita pandang sebagai ayat-ayat Allah. Kita pura-pura tak tahu bahwa ayat kauniyah sama penting dengan ayat kauliyah. Para ulama tak tertarik mengkaji ayat kauniyah, apalagi masyarakat kebanyakan. Alam kita pandang tak lebih dari sekadar hamparan fisik buat dimanfaatkan. Kita tak peduli pada keadaannya.

+ Kita tak terlatih waspada. Kita terbiasa curiga, namun bukan waspada. Padahal, waspadalah yang harus senantiasa ada. Seberapa waspada suatu masyarakat atau bangsa terhadap setiap hal yang bakal datang, sematang itulah masyarakat atau bangsa tersebut.

+ Kita biasa menggampangkan persoalan. Sebenarnya kita sering tahu persoalan yang sedang dan mungkin terjadi. Tapi, kita cenderung tak sungguh-sungguh mengatasinya. Kita biarkan masalah, sampai masalah itu membesar dan menelan kita.

+ Kita tak menata wilayah. Kita bangsa ‘alami’ alias serbaboleh. Permukiman boleh di mana saja, bahkan di tempat rawan bencana. Di negara padat penduduk dan rawan bencana seperti Jepang, musibah tak menelan korban sebanyak di tempat kita.

+ Kita tak siap evakuasi. Saban tahun bencana selalu terjadi. Tetapi kita selalu terbata-bata, bagaimana menolong korbannya. Di Jember, korban sampai terjebak dua hari dalam guyuran hujan dan tanpa makanan.

+ Kita tak siap merehabilitasi. Bukan hanya fisik yang perlu direhabilitasi pascamusibah. Lebih dari itu adalah mental. Kasus Aceh mengajarkan pada kita: Betapa dalam trauma para korban yang harus dipulihkan.

+ Pejabat kita tak memikirkan rakyat. Berapa banyak di antara kita yang menduduki jabatan publik, namun pikirannya melulu tentang kekuasaan dan kekayaannya sendiri? Bila pejabat bersungguh-sungguh memikirkan rakyat, akan lebih banyak bencana yang dapat diantisipasi. Bila musibah memang tak terhindarkan, jumlah korban akan lebih dapat ditekan.

Musibah memang kehendak Allah. Kita juga harus berlapang dada menghadapi setiap musibah. Inna lillaahi wa inna ilaihi raji’un. Tapi, bukankah kehendak Allah dalam soal musibah hampir selalu paralel dengan ulah kita bersama. Setidaknya banyaknya jumlah korban musibah selalu paralel dengan kesiapan kita menghadapinya.

Karena itu tidakkah kita –sebagai umat terbaik karena beriman– merasa perlu belajar dari setiap musibah?

.:He is always there for me..

2006-01-07T16:50:00.000-07:00

"Tuna, can you feel it?". I asked my husband again to make sure that he can feel the fetal movement inside my womb. He fixed his palm a bit to the left of my tummy so that he can feel the movement. "No, not yet..", he said. Then we were in silent for two seconds. Then suddenly he shouted, " Wow! What a big kick, I just feel it, Tuni". I was smiling at him. "Oh yeah, I feel it too. I think our baby is so excited as we put attention to him", I said. After that, the movement was kind of slowing down for about five seconds. I felt it softly and made me a bit tickle in my left tummy.

It becomes our habit every morning to check and feel our baby’s movement. It is too amazing to miss the moment. It seems he’s got regular biologic time to wake up, to move around or to sleep inside my womb.

I remember, one night, it was the new year eve. I guess it is really not a good thing to welcome New Year. But I can never forget that moment. I couldn’t sleep as I found that my baby was so quiet, not move at all. That night, for almost 3 to 4 hours, I kept changing my position in the bed. Tried every seconds to sleep on my left side, my right side, to feel my baby movement. But I couldn’t feel it. I was so worried something might happened to my baby. I whispered to my husband, telling him that our baby hadn’t moved at all this night. He was worried too, but then he felt asleep again. As I got tired, finally I could sleep. But when I woke up, I still felt tired.

I remember, that night as if my anxiety that night was continued into my dream. I dreamed that I went to my doctor to check what’s going on with my baby. In the morning, I was telling about my dream to my hubby. He realized too that I didn’t have a good sleep. Not long after that, we felt relieved finally we can be assured that our baby is back as I felt his movement.

Now I am rest assured, my baby will always be there for me.

Imagining how my baby is nested in my womb this time (almost 32weeks) is more less shown in the figure on right. (wprc).

She is strong enough to come out prematurely, but that’s not what I want. I want her to hibernate to develop and strengthen himself. Let him there till the right time to inhale the fresh air in this real world.

Imagine in that small room of my womb, when he feels bored with his position he tries to re-orient till he feel a cozy position. He has started to breathe in the amniotic fluid. That’s why sometimes I can feel he got hiccups. It’s really amazing thing to experience.

My baby, I will be patient to wait for you. I am always excited with what you are doing there as you give me wonderful feeling that I will never have if you are not there.

.:One year passed.:

2006-01-02T16:53:00.000-07:00

It’s been one year, I am here in different land where I come from. Last year Dec 26, 2004 I came here with all my dreams, wish, and confidence to start new life with someone that I love to spend the rest of our life in Calgary. I had no dream at all to be miles aways from my family back home. Though, I had a wish to live abroad, but not this far. Then, I realized and found that oceans apart mean nothing when I stay in touch with my family most of the time. They are never far from my thought.

Yes, the day I came becomes a milestone of remembrance day of all over the world as coincidence with the tsunami disaster hit some places of multinationals. I was so shocked when I came to know (in Vancouver early morning of Dec26, 2004) that my country had to face another massive natural disaster. We even haven’t healed from other disasters.

So far, accomplishments that we achieved are pretty good, make us happy and thankful. At least both of us now working in oil/gas sector as what we always dream. We have set up building a new house, at one nice neighborhood. Hopefully, before mid of next year we would posses it. And the most important project, we will be expecting to welcome our new member in our family by Mid March.. Yuhuuuu.. that’s the main goal of us to get together.

Of course, there have been ups and downs we face, unfriendly weather at the beginning of my arrival, survival jobs I had.. etc..etc.. all is part of the game, Yulini.

Anyway, I guess I am now more ready to face challenge in 2006. Let’s see …

Boring night..

2005-12-30T16:54:00.000-07:00

Dunno, why i feel so bored tonight.. on the other hand I can’t figure out what I really want.. I just kept grumbling to my hubby.. I want this.. I want that.. that’s not a good thing to do, right!!

Heyy!!It’s not a good way to welcome New Year. C’mon girl, be motivated, cheer up, at least start thinking of resolutions you wanna achieve for 2006!! o(^_^)o

Enjoy this comic guys… (source: comics)

Siap-siap Menghitung 61 detik Saat Pergantian Tahun 2006 ?@#!~!XC..

2005-12-29T16:55:00.000-07:00

Cukilan berita ini bersumber dari LiveScience Technology kemudian dikutip Kompas, Dec 26 lalu. Semua ini karena temuan para ilmuwan yang menetapkan tambahan satu detik di akhir 2005.

So, buat yang merayakan dan menantikan menit-menit pergantian tahun 2005 ke 2006, jangan lupa untuk menghitung sebanyak 61 detik bukan 60 detik lagi. Lalu, apa yang menyebabkan para ilmuwan ini berulah untuk menetapkan tambahan waktu sedetik di akhir tahun ini? Yupe! jawabannya tak jauh dari rotasi bumi yang makin melambat sedangkan pengukuran waktu yg akurat dibutuhkan di berbagai sektor kelimuan dll. Dan ini akan mengikuti jam atom yang dipakai penentu Coordinated Universal Time di London. Jadi, nanti tepat 31 Desember 2005, jam tersebut akan menunjuk angka 60 di detik 60 sebelum melompat ke detik 1 Januari 2006. Padahal biasanya, penunjuk detik akan langsung berputar ke 00 sesudah 59.
Yah, kalo tertarik ingin tahu lebih detil kenapa hal itu bisa terjadi, bisa cek di LiveScience Technology.

Ini semua Rahasia Alam yang secara umum berhubungan dengan iklim, cuaca, mungkin juga ada hubungan dengan Global Warming yang ujung-ujungnya menyebabkan bumi makin melambat berputar. Ahli-ahli tersebut bilang di tahun 1905 lalu Bumi berputar lebih cepat sehari dibanding saat ini. Wow dah hampir 100 tahun ya…

Malam Terakhir - ku akhirnya ada ditanganku…

2005-12-29T10:56:00.000-07:00

Thanks buat Nigar, sahabat bacaku di Jakarta yang sudah rela memberikan buku ini utkku. Thanks juga buat adikku yg sudah mengirimkan buku ini hingga akhirnya sekarang kembali ada ditanganku. Semua baik deh, beruntung aku punya sahabat Nigar yang masih suka ngubek2 toko buku utk mencarikan sesuatu yg sudah jelas susah dicari karena sudah tidak dicetak lagi. Sudah hampir 10 tahun kucari, sejak buku ini menghilang dari rakku. Dan saat aku jumpa Nigar, dia jadi nara sumberku untuk Keberadaan Leila
— Why Leila? Karya2 Leila sudah kuakrabi sejak aku SMP, hingga Malam Terakhirnya. Karya2nya umumnya berupa fiksi dan cerpen yang sering muncul di matra dan Kompas.
Sepuluh tahun terakhir aku mencari keberadaanya hm.. sepertinya malam Terakhir, benar2 karya terakhirnya.. and you know guys! you won’t believe I found something! Malam Terakhir.. jadi salah satu referensi utk stage6 Bahasa Indonesia Program di NSW, ANU…
— dimana sekarang kamu Leila..?

My interest | Comment (0)

Success

2005-12-20T16:59:00.000-07:00

Many quotes about success, but there is one that remain in my heart, which is from William Arthur Ward saying :

"If you can imagine it, you can achieve it. If you can dream it, you can become it".

To me, I completely believe it. Some success I achieved came true exactly through the process he described. Though, I think sometimes not the whole process is gone thourgh and you have already grabbed your success in your hand.

Other thing must have is faith. It is about your commitment on something you want to achieve which then lead you to confidently make it happen. Of course, you needs to have big picture of it to better plan how to make it happen. Well, how to get a big picture? Aha! it comes to what Mr. Ward say, you need to imagine it.. of course it’s pretty similar like how the artists work, I guess. Well, at least you need to have some ideas what you want, information how the things can be achieved.. such as: Am I ready? How I can do it? What situation that I need to make it happen and so on…

Photo Source : webshots

My share relevant to this. In fact, I am in the process of grabbing my dream to pursue my career as geologist in better place, here in Calgary. Calgary provides so wide chances in oil/gas related careers. Though, I am now happy enough with my job, truly it doesn’t mentallyu satisfy me. Not much room for me to improve and develop my skills to be a geologist particularly in petroleum industry.

You might wonder, why I eagerly want to achieve this.. why not just being a mom.. taking care of your kids.. well, to me while I am able to manage my career as well as raising my kids why not.. the main that I need is the quality of time provided to them not the quantity. I believe positive behaviour and different way of thinking I gain in the work environment may benefit to raise my children effectively. It is also part of my mission in contributing my knowledge to my environment.

So, next year I will have one year break time during my maternity leave. It is enough time to gather all my strength, to develop my skills (by self learning + getting certificates etc.) and also to maintain networking with other geologists I knew. The latter is really important as jobs here mostly known through networking. Great thing, my faith says that situation in Calgary next year especially its oil industry which become more demanding. This even may offer more job opportunity for me. Thanks to my hubby who fully supports me the scneario I have arranged in grabbing my dream.

Aside from it, I am realistic too, if situation changes not following the scenario I imagine. I may have to be flexible to the change. Don’t put too much adrenalin to strive for it if the atmosphere doesn’t really support you.. just change the channel to stick on your plan B which might be more realistic and achievable.

Photo source : Webshots

So, never give up to any of your dream, just because you think it is impossible to achieve it.. Believe it there should be some ways to make it happen. Like what said in the picture above, making dreams come true is like adventure lying ahead you. What you need to do take the first step. That may include plan and work it out in realistic ways… and keep the faith!!

o^_^o TGIF

2005-12-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

Thank God Today’s FRIDAY…

Days fly so fast… I didn’t realize that until it comes to Friday meaning end of the week comes. I love Friday! What I like about Friday? hm.. meaning that I will have free breakfast from Friday Treat at my office. We have kind of tradition, on Fridays each person is assigned (based on the list) to bring free breakfast for all of us. Well, any kind of food you can bring, what ever you like. Can be donuts, danish, cookies or fried noodles or spring rolls. Today, our receptionist brought Christmas cookies, which I guess she made by herself. It was nice. Overall, I like when our Controller had a chance to bring her Friday Treat as she always her traditional food which is Phillipino noodle. She always brings a big quantity so that we can even still have it for lunch meal. Me.. I had chance once, at that time I brought chinesse buns and spring rolls. The latter I ordered at the chinesse cafe accross our office. It was OK.. my colleagues I guess love it. Not sure what I can bring in my next turn.

Eye of GOD

2005-12-15T19:18:00.000-07:00

This genuine photograph was taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. The picture was also featured on NASA’s Website as an Astronomy Picture of the Day in May 2003. Astronomically, this space imagery portrays the so-called Helix Nebula described by astronomers as "a trillion-mile-long tunnel of glowing gases." At its center is dying, Sun-like star which has ejected masses of dust and gas to form tentacle-like filaments stretching toward an outer rim composed of the same material. The Sun itself may look like this in several billion years.

In my perspective, as a religious person, this phenomenon does not really represent the Eye of God. As I believe the Eye of God is not only one. His eyes are uncountable, keep watching and taking care His believers. The bottom line is this universe appearance may show his magnificent Power in ruling the universe.

Easy blogging with Friendster

2005-12-15T18:00:00.000-07:00

I wish I knew Friendster before I started blogging at my blogspot. Well, I should say, I am deadly more satisfied blogging at Friendster. Just because The blogspot gives troubles, so much time spent wondering how to attach photos, how to insert my links, how to make the fonts smaller and etc… This possibly has to do with my insufficient skills in troubleshooting the web making :). So Blogging at Friendster I found a lot easier, user friendly especially with features to insert links and pictures though no so much fancy look we can make but it’s ok for me. Blogspot has upgraded with new facility with WORD editor but still to enable it we need to install the software which badly takes some memory space in my computer. Anyway, that’s why my blogspot remains out of date coz I am too lazy to deal with those stuffs. At that time, I got it by myself how to make the link but I just don’t wanna go through the process again when I wanted to blog.

So here I am now, excited updating my Friendster’s Blog. Boro, my pal bringing me into the Friendster world (Too bad, he also never updates his blog - too busy maybe). At the beginning I didn’t pay attention at all to start. Until several days ago, I was flirted to write my first posting at Friendster.

Arti sebuah kebebasan berekspresi

2005-12-15T17:06:00.000-07:00

Ritual aktifitas pagi yang tak pernah kutinggalkan, mengunjungi Koran Republika Online, walau kadang hanya sekedar membaca Kolom Resonansi yang menjadi favoriteku. Hal lain yang kusuka dari Republika, beritanya obyektif (Note: this is just my opinion) dan kita bisa leluasa dan nyaman membacanya tanpa banyak gangguan dari kolom-kolom iklan yang kadang menghabiskan hampir 1/3 kolom dari halaman situs seperti halnya dijumpai di situs lain.

Kembali tentang Kolom Resonansi adalah Zaim Uchrowi dengan sekuel sosialnya: Orang Miskin Tambah Banyak yang menjadi kolumnis kesukaanku. Dia selalu mempunyai ide dan cara pandang yang lain terhadap suatu fenomena yang terjadi di tengah masyarakita kita.

Lepas dari semua yang kuceritakan diatas, pagi ini mataku terpaku ke satu judul berita di kolom Koran: Makna lain sebuah kelucuan.

Berita itu diawali dengan kutipan tulisan dari halaman Blog seorang anak muda bernama HermanSaksono yang bertema Paternless thoughts with pointless Wisdom.

Malam ini, ada sesuatu yang hilang di blog ini. Ternyata kita harus ingat, bahwa kita baru belajar kemerdekaan bereskpresi tujuh tahun. Dengan segala maaf postingan saya tentang ‘Foto Mayangsari adalah Rekayasa’ harus dihapus karena alasan yang tidak bisa dijelaskan di sini.

Awalnya dia hanya iseng, ditambah lagi bakat di bidang animasi komputer menggelitiknya untuk memodifikasi foto mesra penyanyi Mayangsari dengan orang yang diduga sebagai Bambang Triatmodjo (putra mantan presiden Soeharto). Tambahan info: Foto mesra ini sempat beredar di email berantai (aku juga dapet lho - hm.. to me it’s yuck and too nasty. I would say what a disgusting action of them!!).

Ulah Herman hanyalah semata-mata iseng untuk melucu dengan menampilkan hasil karyanya ini di blog pribadinya. Itu saja. Dalam foto itu dia merekayasa wajah Mayangsari menjadi wajah Presiden SBY, wajah MenSekNeg Yusril Ihza Mahendra, pengamat telematika Roy Suryo, serta pemimpin Media Grup Surya Paloh. Sehingga, seakan terlihat di foto itu Bambang Tri sedang bermesraan dengan keempat orang tersebut, dalam bingkai yang terpisah.

Buah dari kreasinya, anak muda ini kesandung apes. Dia diperiksa di Poltabes Yogyakarta (12/12/2005) karena gambar rekayasa yang dibuatnya, dianggap menghina kepala negara. Untungnya dia tidak ditahan, hanya dia harus merelakan posting-an untuk dihapus, karena saat diperiksa dia menyatakan bahwa aksinya ini tidak bermakna apa-apa selain iseng untuk melucu.

Ternyata banyak juga kasus yang berhubungan dengan tema dan ekspresi dari posting beberapa blogger yang dianggap menantang SBY. Umumnya, tim khusus Departemen Kominfo dan Unit Cyber Crime Polda Metro Jaya yang menjaring ulah mereka.

Disisi lain, membaca beberapa tulisan di situs pribadinya cukup membuat kita jadi tersenyum geli. Salah satunya ‘Berbahayakah Minum Bodrex Dicampur Coca-Cola?’ yang dibuat dengan serius tapi tak lepas dari upayanya untuk melucu. Sangat menarik, pesan tulus yang ingin dia sampaikan dari tulisan ini adalah, dia ingin mengenang almarhum Ibu Guru Kimianya.

Hm.. I guess this blog might be worth visiting from time to time. Well, just to have a bit variation of knowledge especially from young people who express what they think differently

Wonderful Dream

2005-12-12T16:00:00.002-07:00

Hm.. I can’t believe I had an interesting dream in my last hour sleep after had my regular pee trip at around 5.10am. I decided back to sleep coz I was feeling so tired. The thing that made me surprise. I could even remember all the details of the dream after I woke up at 6.38am. It was about my daily morning with my "daughther".. she was so adorable, with long hair, skinny healthy 5 years old little girl. I couldn’t help my feeling adore her all morning preparing her to kidergarten.. Seemed like real…

Oh I can’t wait to have my baby born!!! Just a matter of time.. Mid March won’t be long…

My God

2005-09-11T14:17:00.000-06:00

Tuhanku,
Saat ini ku mohon padamu,
Berikan kemudahan untuk menjalani masa-masa ini
Berikan kesehatan bagi kandungan yg ada di rahimku ini,
Berikan ketabahan bagi kami untuk menjalani ini.
Amien

Colour of Hope

2005-03-18T14:10:00.000-07:00

Rays of Sunrise to Calgary's downtown

A nice moment hard to forget.
Wish I can grab this view
Frame it on my daydreaming wall

It was really an amazing moment that I was lucky to be able to record it. Thanks to Tuna who took the picture.
Hue of orange inspires you to keep joyfull and happy, symbolic of prosperity and pride.

Motivation

2005-03-16T20:18:00.000-07:00

Wow.. you won't believe how powerful is a MOTIVATION.
Here I have a story behind that...

On my last working day, last Tuesday before we left, I saw Nory, our Lab coordinator wrote her email address on a piece of paper and gave it to one Chinese guy. I can't remember his name. What I know he is one of the new landed immigrants.
Speaking about new landed immigrants ho..ho.. too many new landed immigrants in my work place.
Mostly people working here are over-qualified, well at least just to work as laboratory tester. Their background varies from chemical engineer, civil engineer to botanist. I know some of them even already have 10 years working experience in their home country with quite high position. There is one Russian lady with PhD degree with I bet more than 3years working experience.
The bottomline, people working in this lab are just for the sake of getting Canadian work experience to get professional jobs.

It is one of the reality that we have to face as new landed immigrants in Canada that to get more chance to work professionally is not easy. Most employers here put minimum requirements of at least to have 1 year Canadian working experience. It doesn't matter where you work as long as you know about the Canadian work environment it may benefit to you.

Just like me... I really want to continue my career as geologist especially in oil company.. That's one of my dream here .. But the reality I have to go through a long path. But it's OK.. I am realistic. I have set some plans, from plan A for the ideal one to plan D for the worse one. Plan B failed to go and at the moment I am taking plan B, decided to take this survival job as a laboratory tester in AGAT. I found it boring but it is not really a complicated job you just need to follow instructions. So in this lab, there are 6 stations of sample preparation and petrological analyses. A good thing, I am quite familiar with this stuff and I still deal with rock samples, one petrological analysis (methylene blue).

Being here, I am hoping that I will get chance to leap frog to a real geology worksite by knowing some geologists here. People here call NETWORKING as one technique to get job in Canada, I believe there is kind of networking in other countries too, but just in different terms.

Being in Canada, especially dealing with job searching is really a big challenge and a new interesting to do. I learned so many things about techniques how to make a good resume so that we can get interview which I found is totally different from what we normally do back home. Also how to deal with interview, and a must to do i.e. how to deal with job search research.

So basically.. searching job itself is my first job here in Calgary. I found it so time consuming, you need to be able to independently work, creative to manage your stress level, also need to be active and optimist to meet new people to spread networking. The most important one, you have to be in full motivation.

Anyway, so far I am happy with the labwork, I can make a bit of money, seeing new friends. hey..let's go back to that lucky Chinese...

So wondering what happened to him, I heard Nory said that he won't will come back to work as he got a job at Shell. Wow.. how lucky he is. I don't know very well about this guy but what I know he is a production petroleum engineer. Honestly, I was kind of jealous of him. But I was trying so hard to keep sending positive sensor to my brain to positively react to this situation. At home, I told about it to my husband. After that, I couldn't believe to my reaction, I was so deadly motivated to start applying jobs, things that I haven't done since I work at Lab.
In the following day, since morning I was sitting in front of my Dell the whole day, revising cover letter, CV and sending all job ads.. I sent about 9 job applications. I can't believe it. Lastly, I was so satisfied though not sure whether I will get response or not.. I don't care at all about it. I thought I have done my best and I was extremely happy as I am back in the motivated mode and just because of that lucky guy.

So, to be motivated is really something subjective, dependent on the person mood or let say someone's character. If a little happening around him/her may trigger a spark of motivation to this person or this person may see the positive side of the heappening then it may give positive response to him/her.
Being motivated really makes your days so lively and full of hope.
Hey nothing wrong to keep hoping right as long as we realise that we have to keep trying and The Creator who will decide whether He will give it to us or not.

Malam terakhir - ku akhirnya ada ditanganku...

2005-03-12T20:57:00.000-07:00

Thanks buat Nigar, sahabat bacaku di Jakarta yang sudah rela memberikan buku ini utkku. Thanks juga buat adikku yg sudah mengirimkan buku ini hingga akhirnya sekarang kembali ada ditanganku. Semua baik deh, beruntung aku punya sahabat Nigar yang masih suka ngubek2 toko buku utk mencarikan sesuatu yg sudah jelas susah dicari karena sudah tidak dicetak lagi. Sudah hampir 10 tahun kucari, sejak buku ini menghilang dari rakku. Dan saat aku jumpa Nigar, dia jadi nara sumberku untuk Keberadaan Leila
--- Why Leila? Karya2 Leila sudah kuakrabi sejak aku SMP, hingga Malam Terakhirnya. Karya2nya umumnya berupa fiksi dan cerpen yang sering muncul di matra dan Kompas.
Sepuluh tahun terakhir aku mencari keberadaanya hm.. sepertinya malam Terakhir, benar2 karya terakhirnya.. and you know guys! you won't believe I found something! Malam Terakhir.. jadi salah satu referensi utk stage6 Bahasa Indonesia Program di NSW, ANU...
--- dimana kamu Leila..?

Fitness Corridor

2005-03-11T14:52:00.000-07:00

this is fitness corridor.. at the basement of our apartment. Quite helpful for exercise when the weather is pretty cold to walk outside.. just walk back and forward for about 30minutes of course I also listen to music from my discman otherwise i will feel bored especially when I walk alone..

Joke of Nortel

2005-03-11T08:42:00.000-07:00

This joke is about Nortel.. where Tuna works.. he sent me this morning.. I can smell how his hatred, ignorance feeling to his Corp (right Tuna? :)
____________________________________
--A guy goes to Nortel Networks to apply for a job. The interviewer
asks him, "Have you been in the service?"
"Yes," he says. "I was in the Canadian Armed Forces for three years."
The interviewer says, "That will give you extra points toward
employment" and then the interviewer asks, "Are you disabled in any
way?"
The guy says, "Yes 100%...a mortar round exploded near me and blew my
testicles off."
The interviewer tells the guy, "O.K. I can hire you right now. The hours
are from 8:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. You can start tomorrow. Come in at 10:00 A.M."
The guy is puzzled and says, "If the hours are from 8:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M.
then why do you want me to come in at 10:00 A.M."
"This is a Nortel Networks job" the interviewer says. "For the first two
hours we sit around scratching our balls.......no point in you coming in
early for that!!!!"
Now switch Nortel Networks with "a Government Services" job, that was the original joke.

Start blogging - Chestermere

2005-03-10T20:23:00.000-07:00

Oh nooo, my off day has gone for 3 days and I haven' been out. Well yeah, been sticked on my chair in front of our silent Dell. dunno just lazy to be out. Though it's been sunny every day with at elast 15C, it's good enough to have a stroll. I think, since early March. Then remind me what always been said by Tuna -my husband- hm, you are lucky being in Calgary, so warm.. I admit that. I am lucky. Anyway, my Ma (mother in law) is sick today so that worsely i can't really go out. I have no complaint. Hope she is gonna be better tomorrow.
This morning I called my parent in Jakarta.. I was missing them so much yesterday..Mum and Dad.. and always Dad still like joking around telling me about pisang kepok that just harvested from our backyard, "you want me to send it Yulini?" .. I responded : "How?" "well there is only way to send it to you, I will take picture and send the picture to you".. ????!!??
Anyway, I was happy to hear that they are happy especially this weekend my sister Desti is gonna spend long weekend at our house.
This afternoon, I, Tuna and Ma went to Chestermere lake.
It was about 15km driving eastward. The area is actually out of Calgary.. There are new residential areas close to the lake. My impression to the area remind me to Devonport, Auckland. It offers awesome tranquil sunset atmosphere, lucky to people who can afford to buy house with lakeshose as their backyard, must be more than $300K... TOO BAD I didn't take my camera!!!Tuna said don't worry we will come back. It was about 6pm when we got there, about to sunset btu we passed coz.. I couldn't stand cold wind.. we took a short walk.. watching some geese tried to walk passing the soft thin ice.. one of them deadly tried and slipped all the time. On the way home, we stopped at Elliston Park, the closest artificial lake in South Calgary. There are about 4 spots of playground.. I saw few there... the lake is partly frozen. Tuna said that most of his summer time spent there, no worries this year I will accompany you and in the following year will be with our kids... our dream..

Chinook : Wind of the rockies

2005-02-12T20:20:00.000-07:00

what a magnificient Nature is! experiencing the powerful of chinook in my new home really makes my first winter a "nice thing to hear" update to all my friends back home