Time is Running Out

Sup!

First of all, if you have read the previous two posts from 2012, I would like to thank you. The posts have garnered more than 100 views in just one night, and hopefully more to come. That aside, I'm gonna write about my interesting and colorful life in the past six months or so in this post. I'll narrate the stories in chronological order, event by event. If you are a Year 6 / J2 student reading this, I hope this writing will help you decide on what you want to do with your long, long holiday next year. Cheers.


The graduation day.

Yes, finally the much-anticipated was here. Jan 6, 2012, was the day we the 5th IB cohort of ACS (Independent) would finally receive our results. Thank God, we all passed with flying colors, and even set a higher standard for the next batch to beat. I myself secured 43 points, which was nothing short of miracle. All praise and glory to God!

My beloved Chem teacher for two years, Mr. Chiam, and I, posing for the camera

Thanks to my relatively satisfactory results, I was invited to the annual Academic Award Presentation in my school in March this year. I insisted that my parents should come, too, since they were also invited. This was one chance to share the pride with my loved ones. A picture speaks a thousand words, and so here is the photo I would certainly print and frame to put in my bedroom.

Damn you tissue paper. Just, damn you.

I would be more than willing to go through the next four such bitter-sweet years in university happily, only for a single photograph like that.

SAT Whiz

I know, I know. This topic is boring, and way overused, but just bear with me. One paragraph is all it will take. After all, if not for SAT Whiz, I wouldn't have enough financial resources to enjoy my life. As Robert Kiyosaki put it, "Money is not the most important thing in life, but it does affect everything that is important."

For those of you who do not yet know, SAT Whiz is a tuition center I established here in Bandung earlier this year. As the name suggests, we specialize in SAT tutoring for the students aspiring to study overseas. Recently, our pioneering student, William Setiadi, successfully landed a much-coveted place at the Lee Kong Chian Business School of the Singapore Management University, thanks to his hard work in preparing for the SAT. That's all about it. And next...

The hangouts.

Yet another highlight of my relatively high life in the past few months, I have been spending many nights out with my now-best friends: Gide, Bijei, Pauline, Lucky, and Sunson. Some of the places we have gone to include...

唱歌 aftermath at NAV, Ciwalk 

Dimsum at Eastern with our guest-of-honor from Medan

Sushi Groove, Paris van Java

My bros and I at ION, after the treat from the birthday boys

Some of the more memorable nights are...

P's birthday! Enough said.

...

The birthday treat, yet another 唱歌 session, but this time with food!

Sierra Restaurant, 20 Jun 2012

(From left to right) Lucky, Pauline, Sunson, and me

The dinner to Sierra was the last night-out we had, because P had to go back to her hometown for now. But worry not, because I can promise you that there are MORE to come, especially since we had less than 3 weeks left together. Must really make the best out of whatever time remains, yeah?

A Night to Remember

Quite sure that only my closer friends will read my blog, and so I'm not gonna repeat what have been said in their blogs. Of course the story will be the same, but narrated in my own voice. I just want to say that the past six months have been so amazing, I couldn't possibly ask for more.


The birthday surprise.

It was a Saturday night, 2 June 2012. I was lazing on my bed when suddenly my Blackberry vibrated. It was a message from Yoyo. Wanting to go to bed early, I ended up talking with her till midnight. That was the start of our week-long planning for P's birthday. Yoyo asked me what P's greatest fear is, and I remembered the times when Gide teased her about ghosts. It was decided then: we would plan a fright night for her.

For those of you who don't understand Indonesian, please accept my apology

A few days later, I called for a meeting with Gide and Lucky. At that time, Bijei was not in town. The three of us met up at Paskal Hyper Square food court for about two hours, trying to come up with a rough plan for the fright night. Thankfully, my past experience from taking part in a similar fright night organized by my senior council, together with brilliant ideas from Gide and Lucky, made it easy for us to come up with a one-thousand-word document containing the detailed plan for the bash. Afterwards, on the Saturday before her birthday, all of us (Gide, Lucky, Sunson, Nana, Yoyo, and I) met up at J.Co Istana Plaza to finalize the plan and ensure that no details were overlooked. Fortunately, we happened to see Toto there and invited him to come for the party. The more the merrier right? Besides, we were lucky that Toto could join us for the night. Otherwise, there would be no compatible laptop to connect to the TV and we might end up watching the movie on a small laptop screen. That would not set the right mood for the fright night.

(By the way, as I am writing this paragraph, suddenly my iTunes played the One Missed Call ringtone. Shit.) One day before the P-day, I admit that I was far from confident. What if she already suspected that we were going to throw a surprise for her? What if she became so scared after watching the movie that the girls wouldn't be able to persuade her to play the games? What if the games did not work out as planned? As we started watching the One Missed Call movie at her home in the evening before her birthday, Yoyo and I almost decided to cancel the fright night altogether. The horror on her face, which almost turned into tears, was more than enough to make us abort the entire plan. To make things worse, I have to admit that I am weak with a woman's tears. Honestly, the terrified looks and the imminent tears on her face almost scared me to death. Yet, after much thought, Yoyo and I decided to still execute the plan for the fright night because P already looked better (not completely, but at least she could now pose a smile).


The details of the fright night can be found in my friend's blog:  http://gdsatria.blogspot.com/2012/06/trick-or-treat.html. To keep the writing short, the scared-angry-touched-happy smile on her face when we sang her the happy birthday song marked a perfect ending to a memorable night of her birthday.

The smile that made it all worth it. And Lucky being a  ridiculously-photogenic ghost.

If you really remember my blog's address and you are reading this, do know that we did all these for you just so that you won't forget us your friends twenty or thirty years down the road. It takes years to grow a great friendship, but it should take forever to forget one. Once again, happy birthday!


That, was the highlight of all the fun we have had so far during our time in Bandung. There ARE more stories, and I am gonna write about them later. Not now, because it's 2 o'clock in the morning, and I'm already struggling to keep my eyes open. Adios for now!

Crazy, Stupid Love.

Hello again!

It's 130am in the morning and I have just finished watching that movie.
You know why I'm a big fan of movies?
They never fail to inspire and remind me of what really matters in life.
Yes, that includes the movie Crazy, Stupid Love.

So here is what I've got from the movie.
Things will not always work my way. Yeah, I might not be as lucky as Carl who met his soulmate at the age of 15. I might fall in love a few times, get dumped and rejected a lot, dated girls, and whatnot. But eventually what really matters is what I feel. I mean, I still believe in my one true love and soulmate that is somewhere out there. And it doesn't matter if it is gonna take a year or ten years or fifty years, I will find the one. I will not rest until I find her. And guess what, it won't be a fairytale. When I find her, we may not get along well. We might quarrel and we may stop talking. But here is what is really important. I won't give up. No matter how painful it is too hold on, I won't let go. Yeh, sorry to disappoint you but I'm a 19-year-old who still believes in the old notions of love taken straight out of the Hollywood movies.
The moral of the story. I want to be like Carl. Yes, I might do stupid things that would tumble my world over. I might consider giving up a few times. But then, everytime I fought the urge of giving up, I know I grow to be a stronger person. I want to someday build a family that I can be proud of and who can be proud of me. I had not given up and would not give up no matter how sucks it is to hold on. After all, I believe in the saying that twenty, thirty years down the road, I will regret things that I didn't do more than things that I did. I don't want to live a life of regret. I will hold on.

The one exam before IB

Hello again!

After a two-month refrain from typing on my blog, I have finally settled down and I now have enough time to spare for a short post. The time I spent away from my blog has been an exciting last quarter of my high school life. What I began 15 years ago when I first stepped into my kindergarten classroom I finally am going to conclude in slightly more than one month - EDUCATION. Well, actually that is not exactly the case. I am definitely going to move on to a higher level of education, hopefully in a university of my dream. Nonetheless, let us take the next one month as my last one month of education, for the sake of reading pleasure :p

Now I will touch on the main issue I want to blog about: prelim exams. In case you do not know, preliminary examination is arguably the single most important exam I will ever sit for in my life. It is so important that perhaps only the real IB exam has the caliber to at most equal its level of importance. The reason is obvious - prelim result will be used to craft my predicted grades which would then make up the part of my academic achievement in my university applications. Initially, I admit that I was nervous and anxious if I would not be able to do well in the exam. Moreover, I did not put nearly as much effort in prelim as compared to the mid-year common test. For the reason, I prayed super hard prior to this exam that God will grant me the results that I desire. After all, I have faith that God will give the miracle when we need it the most - and I believe this is the time.

After more than two weeks of grueling exam experience, the result was finally released last weekend. Indeed, God proved Himself faithful again. My percentage in virtually every single subjects improve by an average of 10 percents. My IB points also jumped up by 4 points. What struck me was not my relatively sterling results for my own standards but rather the fact that I would have easily achieved 2 IB points lower than what I have got had it not been for God. Imagine the situation: I got precisely 80% for Chemistry which means that a single loss of mark would result in me not getting a 7 points in the subject. I hardly passed the grade boundary for 6 points in Maths by a mere 1-2% which further testified how God must have played a role in my exam. God is faithful, indeed.

During the course of the exam, I kept reminding myself of what Pastor Kong has told us in the church weeks before - "Do what you can do and God will do what you can't do." With that boost of faith, I decided that I would trust God to lead me through the test and I have now emerged victorious. God has never disappointed me in my 19 years and 8 months of existence in this world, not even a once. Why would I bother to doubt that he would let me down in the time to come, then? I trust God that things will take care for themselves for those believe. Amen.

Asian Cup, ACS Has Got Talent, IOC, Prelims

Hello,

It's 9 pm on a Sunday evening. I'm sitting idly in front of my computer while everyone is downstairs in the MPH cheering for the basketballers. Well, basketball is not for me so I'd rather do something useful here.
Tomorrow is another day of school. Next week is gonna be a very hectic one, despite it being the National Day week with plenty of days off. In fact, although school ends at 11 am tomorrow, I'll have to stay back in school until 6 pm for Asian Cup and ACS Has Got Talent (ACSHGT) rehearsal.
Well, actually why I decide to blog is not to tell about the busy schedule I have. I'm right now expecting a message from someone and I'm trying to hold back from messaging the person first. I hope I can :S

Sunday, 3 July 2011

Hi all,

So it's 7:58 pm right now. On normal Sundays, I would have been down in the prep room right now. Thankfully, tomorrow is a holiday for us students (Youth Day,  sorry working peeps). I think my last blog post dates back to about one month ago?

I'm in the midst of the year 6's notorious mid year exams (well that's what our seniors said - almost impossible to score high). Since tomorrow is a holiday (read: study break), I want to spend 15 minutes writing about something which has been bugging my mind over the past few days, or perhaps weeks.

What I'm feeling right now: intense feeling of disappointment. In fact, it's more than just disappointment. It's like doing something that, although you know you shouldn't do, you still do anyway. And the effects are outrageous: it's like everything I've built so far all falling into pieces. Thank God I still have another day to reflect and think about this before my next paper starts (it's Chemistry paper on Tuesday). Sometimes I can't help but blaming my negative traits for all that has happened. I wish I could rewind time by pressing that "restart" button. I know I can't, though. I'll just wait patiently and whatever God wants to happen in life, let it happen.

"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us" (Ephesians 3:20)

Adera - lebih indah

Adera - lebih indah

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kasihku..... satu janjiku, kau lah yang terakhir bagiku....