When you lose your pride you lose everything
When you lose your friends you lose everything
When you lose yourself you lose everything
When you lose your faith you lose everything
I lost everything times four
Dulu sepupuku pernah bilang:
“Kita perempuan Soewondo harus bisa melakukan semuanya, walau hanya sekedar membungkus barang”
I say: “Amin” to that!
Its almost been 21 years after I have first breath the air on earth. Ofcourse I almost don’t remember my first five years, so maybe they don’t count, but as for the rest 16 years (which makes me 16 years young), I remember most of it. Or if I really get to think about it, what is it after 16 years of remembered years, that I really do remember?
Most of all, there are my families, all lying around in my memories, somehow giving warm feelings everytime I remember them. How can you forget them? And then there are my friends, those who were my friends and the ones I still consider friends even when we never really get to meet anymore. In a bit of a highlight, there are also the teachers, the good ones and the bad ones, who helped teaching me who I am. My enemies are also remember able, from the ones who beat me(of whom I look back smiling) and the ones who talk behind my back, the backstabbing bitches of eternity.
What I really do remember about my long yet very short life is how other people leave a certain impression on me. I don’t really remember anything else. I do remember places and beautiful and interesting things in life, but the highlight of my life will always be about those people who come and go, making life so much more interesting.
If I have to break down all the good memories in life, I would almost certainly come up with a story of me with a friend somewhere doing something interesting. So now as I am trying to breakdown my best birthdays, and what I would love to have this year, I can only come to one conclusion. What I really want for my birthday is to have all my friends get out of their busy schedule for 1 or 2 hours and get them all to talk about how they are doing just like old times, Because in life what matters most are the people in it, and no one can buy them for me. So lets just hope that I am still rich enough to get my wish this year, dear friends are you all coming? Because I miss you all the most, and you are all I want.
Some People may see me as someone unwilling to meet people, or to spend time with people. Some even go too far by stating that I seem like someone who does not need other people. Of course as I reflect myself, I am entirely sure that this is not true.
I love my friends. The people from my Civil Engineering world are actually very lovely indeed, but the loveliness of them and also my great love towards my own lust for knowledge in the Civil Engineering world does not hold me back on doing what I think is right, and in this context doing right is doing my duty and responsibility in everything I have agreed upon.
For me life is like a bowl of limitation. Everything that’s seems irresistible and nourishing at first, will somehow give you a burden of limitations. A burden of responsibilities. In life I guess I have an attitude of trying to do my best on everything, and sometimes forcing myself way to much for it. And this attitude has somehow brought me into a world of even more responsibilities.
Of course the more things you do do right, the more you put yourself in a place where people are expecting you to keep doing the right thing, and your responsibilities become even greater.
I like to complain about it, and I like to think really bad about my life because of it. But yesterday I had a chance to reflect on to myself and see that with this Burden of responsibilities I have in life, I have actually have learned lot, and with the challenges I faced along the way I got a chance to strengthen my very weak personality and increase my self esteem.
And although these burden of responsibilities have driven me far from my friends and from my world, my safety zone, I have found that even so in a place I would not have expected at first, I have found other friends, other worlds and another safety zone. I am very lucky indeed. So tell me life, what other challenge should I take?
i feel alone. is someone out there?
You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.
by James A. Froude
in a weird world as mine you will see that in many cases, two heads are always better than one, but in contrary, if you were given more than two heads, three heads for example, you will see that three heads will not be better than two, sometimes three isnt even better than one.
It is a strange world for sure, where the sum of heads are not equal nor linear to the growth of quality of the output of these heads.
You must consider this a phenomenon, only for weird worlds as mine (maybe in yours to), that the more people gather, the more the real purpose of their gathering dissapears.
sometimes, the gathering becomes not a way to exchange mind for the better good, the gathering becomes the better good. which then dissolves the whole purpose of the gathering, because the heads then will enjoy the gathering to much to spoil it with the purpose.
which will then leave you dissapointed of the times you wasted with other heads, and force you to forget the better good you felt because of the other heads, which will force you to really get nothing out of those heads!
there are no preliminaries of how to socialize or how to behave, or how to set a purpose, things don’t always get done as planned, but they might actually work out anyway, so why push it?
you see, you must always remember that the future comes one day at a time.
to get to where you want, in a weird world, you must simply trust your instincts and foolishly (I say foolishly) go for what you want. what happens will always happen and no head has ever thought of how to stop time or even go back to it.
gather with other heads, and talk it out, you might actually get something out of it. but if you really need something out of it, try gather two heads first, before three. (in a weird world)
Setiap saya memikirkan tentang beton, saya selalu berpikir, betapa rapuhnya dia.Saking rapuhnya saya tidak menyukainya. Tapi seperti yang dosen saya selalu bilang,”Tidak ada beton yang tak retak”, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t need to learn how to make the best out of it.
Logis bagi saya berpikir seperti ini: kenapa saya harus menggunakan material ini(beton), padahal material ini begitu rapuh, sehingga banyak perbaikan yang harus dilakukan, banyak extras yang harus ditambahkan untuk membuat dia kuat. Kenapa kita tidak mencoba cari material yang lain saja? Yang lebih kuat dan lebih gagah dari beton? Yang lebih praktis dan tidak perlu dimanja-manja seperti beton? Seperti baja misalnya.
Tanpa saya ketahui, bahwa dibalik keperkasaan baja, dia ternyata mudah bengkok. Which means basically, nothing is perfect. In a way or the other, at one point you just have to learn how to use it and make the best out of it.
But since I am currently studying about concrete, let’s discuss about concrete rather than of steel or wood, or any other material. At least for this time beingJ
Apa sih sifat beton yang paling bikin frustasi? Beton itu brittle, rapuh. Tapi walaupun dia rapuh, dia itu sebenanya kuat tekan, although dia tidak kuat tarik. Itulah yang kita semua tau, beton bisa ditekan sampai maksimal, tapi untuk menahan tarik barang kecil saja, kekuatan dia sudah tidak bisa diperhitungkan. Saat ada tarik, beton itu useless, untuk minta bantuan terhadap tarik kita harus langsung lari ke tulangan. At least so I’ve heard, sehingga kalau ditanya tentang kelebihan beton, kita semua bisa menjawab bahwa, walaupun dengan segala kekurangannya, dia itu sebenarnya kuat tekan.
Tapi setelah saya dengar-dengar lagi, dan melihat foto-foto tentang penyebab kegagalan suatu struktur bangunan beton, ternyata sifat brittle-nya ini tidak hanya mempengaruhi kuat tarik beton. Beton jika ditekan secara berlebihan, tetap saja bisa gagal. Karena sifat beton yang brittle itu membuat dia gagal terhadap tekan apabila dia tidak ditahan dengan baik oleh sengkang. But you see, any failure can be anticipated, any failure has a cause which can be predicted, and again with anticipation, in can be prevented.
So what do you think that means in terms of humans? Men are of course in a way just as brittle as concrete, or even more brittle, but this doesn’t mean that someone can’t try to give their best. No matter how high the pressure is, or how appealing something is, we can still protect ourselves from the failures caused by it.
Of corse it will not be as simple as putting some reinforcement into your concrete, but you can always have friends who can be counted on when you are weak, you also have a family who will keep you grounded and together, so you don’t fold on pressure or give in to your irresponsible desires.
Any failure that has happened to you can be predicted, if you could only see the signs in your daily life.Nothing happened to you just because it happens, everything is just a part of the never ending rule: action=reaction. If something bad has happened to you then you must ask yourself why and how can you prevent this from happening again. Because every failure is, as I have said before, preventable.
You alone may be week. But you are not alone, so you are not weak. Remember : “tak ada beton yang tak retak”.
Dalam satu tahun, ada 4 momen dimana saya biasa berkaca kembali. These are the moments dimana saya tiba-tiba merasa,”Wah, gak kerasa ya, tiba-tiba setahun udah lewat!”. Momen-momen itu terjadi pada setiap awal semester baru, pada hari ulang tahun saya dan hari lebaran.
tentunya dalam setiap momen tersebut, renungan yang terjadi berbeda, walaupun setiap tahun terulang yang sama. Pada setiap awal ajaran baru yang saya pikirin adalah hasil kerja saya secara akademis dan betapa kinerja akademis saya butuh perbaikan, sedangkan pada ulang tahun saya, yang terpikir adalah cita-cita saya, semua hal yang ingin saya capai, dan apakah saya berada di jalur yang benar atau tidak untuk menccapainya, sedangkan pada saat lebaran, tentunya refleksi saya ini leih berbau agamis.
Didera dengan pendahuluan satu bulan penuh berpuasa, tentunya Idul fitri ini bukan refleksi yang main-main. Akibat berpuasa selama satu bulan penuh, dimana di dalam hari-harinya dituntut untuk terawih, membaca Al-Quran, bersedaqoh, berzakat, dan semua hal berbau agama lainnya, tentunya muslim yang menjalankannya akan terus berhadapan dengan Islam dengan intensitas yang jauh lebih sering daripada pada bulan-bulan lainnya.
Idul Fitri itu menjadi istimewa, karena dia merupakan sum up dari semua pemikiran kira tentang Islam selama satu bulan, yang nantinya akan menjadi basis perbuatan kita selama sau tahun kedepannya-at least ini buat saya ya.
Pada dasarnya, Manusia itu sulit untuk meluangkan waktu untuk refleksi dan memikirkan tentang Allah. Ya, kita solat 5 kali sehari, tapi solat hanyalah merupakan alat untuk refleksi tindakan sehari-hari kita, dalam keseharian kita, tentunya tak sempatlah kita tinjau ulang tujuan hidup kita. The world is moving to fast to wait for us to rethink what we want. Saat kita berhenti untuk berpikir, kia akan tertinggal dari dunia.
Tapi toh Allah memberi kita alat untuk refleksi tahunan kita. Alat untuk sekali lagi memikirkan arti Allah untuk kita setelah satu tahun pertambahan pengalaman kita. Karena sepertinya, bertambah dengan kedewasaan kita, dan pengalaman kita along the way, pengertian kita terhadap sesuatu juga berubah. Kedewasaan bisa membawa kebijaksanaan ataupun ignorance, each membawa kita pada pengertian Allah yang baru. dengan pemahaman yang baru, tentunya apa yang kita tuju akan berubah, orang cara kita melihatnya juga berubah!
Oh indahnya idul fitri. dimana semuanya menjadi lebih terang kembali, when everything takes place again. Sekarang, setelah satu bulan refleksi, pada idul fitri ini pertanyannya, saya mau lanjut ke kiri, atau siap untuk agak bengkok ke kanan?
The word we has been spoken
and it hasn’t been broken
we both have always been alone
and in loneliness we do belong
I am the beast, You’ve seen it
Maybe you’re blinded by it
But does it mean to run from it?
Stay, dont go away.
Do you remember?
290106
bridging thoughts 