huckabees?

I couldn't review much of this movie since I've just watched it once and to tell you the truth, I didn't enjoy it much. I thought (at first) that this movie was funny-type of movie. You know, the ones that might have made you laugh. Or at least, if not laugh, thinking to yourself and then ended up with a slight grin or something. But no! Although this movie was categorized as a comedy, I couldn't get there.

Maybe it needed an extra intelligence to accept that this movie was actually funny. Oh yeah, it did had several funny scenes and dialogues which could make you laugh a little but most of them were pretty dull, I guess. But I have to tell you, it was very creative to take a phylosophical theme for a comedy.

I mean, this movie was all about coincidences, identities, boundaries, universe, meaninglessness, etc. Although I didn't really enjoy the movie comedy-wise, I was pretty interested in the dialogues and ideas they were carrying. So, if the phrase "nothingness is not nothing", "everything is nothing", or some other stuff like that interest you, then I'd say that you should check this movie out.

I'd give 2 out of 5.

crappy days

It's just another one of those crappy days I've been having these times. I have no idea of what to write so I think I'd just start to make some junk here (bear with it!).

Anyway, the first session of the finals finally ended and I'd have a brief moment to enjoy myself in a very short holidays. Christmas and New Years' week will be quite dull I presume, but nevertheless, I shall seek something to do. For example, say, continuing my works on Machine Elements project. There's still quite a bunch of jobs to do I must admit. Mostly paperworks though: drafting and making reports. But hey, I enjoyed the last part and I should also enjoy the next part (which, I wish, would be the last part) that I would be working on. The project has been quite time and thoughts consuming (although what I did was mostly slacking off).

OK, number two would be the iServasia project. It's this project I have been working on together with some of my friends. I was suppose to be the Technical Director who should have been in charge of the site maintenance. The problem is, that, it has been a long time since I was some internet literate person. Now I'm almost illiterate. I mean, I used to do stuff. But I didn't catch up the the latest and most up to date things that came up with the internet technology and now I have to start from the beginning again. Well, it's time to open up old projects, I guess. Hmm, I wonder if I still have my old websites projects.

Whoa, I guess I went to far here. I actually intended not to write to much. Well, I guess I'm just going back to my desk and do some more paperworks (reports, drafts, presentations, and stuff).

What?! No way...I think I'll cut some slack a little bit. LOL! Seeya!

register your number!

The government has stated that starting this mid December, all cellphone operators should start registering all of their pre-paid number users. The registration must be finished by April 2006. The registration data would be comprising name, address, birth information and also copy of some legal documentation such as driving license and passports. It needed to be done in order to thwart complete anonimity of phone abuse, fraud, or even terror.

What the heck is this?! The benefit of pre-paid numbers is that they're fast, efficient, cheap, no fuss no muss. All you have to do is to come to a booth that sells pre-paid number, pick the one you like, and then buy it. If cellphone number providers would start registering its pre-paid number users, then might as well as just use another post-paid numbers instead of a pre-paid ones!

sin of an engineer

Today was the last day for Metrology class. Instead of giving regular study materials, the lecturer gave the class last advice for the final test. Well, it wasn't actually an advice though. More of a story whatsoever.

It started when he told us to read more the materials that was there in the textbook. And then he started off from the nature of reading (how to do a good reading, understanding, application, etc etc) until at certain point, he arrived (I don't remember the connection exactly) to the topic where he revealed the sin that us, engineers (expecially ITB graduated engineers), had been doing in the past decades.

Why are there a lot of graduate students from engineering that finally ended up working in a bank? In this term, it meant that they ended up not working on the field they've been studying in the past years of college. Well, there are reasons. Mister Yuwono (my lecturer for Metrology, that is) said that one of them is that being an engineer, in Indonesia expecially, won't give you a good carreer path. Why? For example, if you (an engineer) work in industry, you might just ended up being operator instead of a real engineer. And for the rest of your life, you'll be operator.

Why operator, not engineer? In industry, for example: a factory, an operator is someone who run and do labor works. Assembling, running the machines, fixing things are the jobs of operator while engineer usually involved in the whole analysis and designing stuff. OK, for example, if a machine broken, the engineer would have the responsibility to analyze, calculate, and redesign or replan everything so that the production would run once again with the same or even higher efficiency. And after that, it's the operator who execute the dirty work.

OK, enough of that. So like, why are there so many engineers betrayed their profession? It's because once you're in, as an engineer (or operator, for this matter), you won't get a level-up. You will be an operator level, or engineer level for the rest of your life, in that industry (factory, for this matter).

That's probably why, some engineers chose to take MBA or MM as their master degree instead of continuing their specified master program in engineering. They do so to open a chance to mobilize themselves to the position of managerial office for a better promotion, salary and for some, better behind-the-desk job.

exhibition

Mechanical Engineering Today Exhibition will be held at Friday and Saturday 2-3 December 2005. The exhibition will be featuring various robots, machines, engines, researches, and a lot of other stuff that come from ITB laboratories such as Propulsion Lab, Design Lab, Fluid Lab, Thermodynamics Lab, etc.

If you happen to be around...just come and stop by. It's free.

Eastern Campus Centre
Institut Teknologi Bandung
Jalan Ganesha 10 Bandung

Organized by Himpunan Mahasiswa Mesin ITB and supported by Indonesia Power.

Sorry guys, I have nothing to write at the moment. My mind is totally twisted :-P but I have several things to be prepared to be posted later on. I don't know. Let's just see...

weekend

It has been a really busy week. I hadn't do anything much lately. All I did was doing some college stuff and being lazy. I actually don't know what to write in here, so I figured I'd just stop by and drop a line or two.

Well, after the holiday, activities has gone doubled. Besides classes and labworks, I had to do funds raising for the upcoming ITB Fair 2006. I also has to follow this Suzuki Training for Engine Tune-up later in December 2005. And that training is sure time consuming although it is quite fun. Two days of engine theories plus five days of field work will surely be tricky. I mean, some of the training schedules actually take place during classes. So I guess I'd have to skip several classes. Although the Mechanical Engineering department would give permission letter, yet, I'd be missing classes, if you know what I mean.

Despite all of the seemed-to-be on the go days during last week, I actually got through it quite well. But next week's still waiting for me though. Usual classes, two labworks and three presentations that could be issued at anytime next week, a load of assignments, engine tune up training, plus several event-preparations that needed to be done. Aw gee, I like it being busy...but it's just troublesome.

totally fantasyc!

I just watched Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children earlier and I have to say that, "It was totally cool!"

I don't know what else to say. As one of the Final Fantasy (FF) fan, I'm glad that Squaresoft (or was it Square-Enix?) has paid their debt to FF fans. Why would I say that? Remember FF: Spirits Within? Well, although it was a quite-good movie, it wasn't quite-FF. Oh yes, several part of the movie had something to do with FF but overall I didn't feel the aura of FF inside it. I heard people mentioned it as not-another-sci-fi-movie.

But it was different with the Advent Children. It has FF written all over it! It was obvious actually, since Advent Children was originally a sequel from the a best-seller Playstation game Final Fantasy VII.

Personally, I played the game already but never finished it. But I strongly recommend, that if you really want to enjoy this movie, you have to get through the end of the game to comprehensively understand the story. As for me, I managed to get most of what's inside the movie itself. No big problem experienced.

I don't want to give spoiler (yet), so I'll be brief. The story took place two years after the final battle between our heroes from FF VII (you know the band, don't you?) and Sephiroth (or was it Sepiroth? I forgot how spell it) who wanted to destroy the world. This time, there was a disease running around called Geostigma. Usually it infects children but somehow Cloud, the main character, also had the disease (I don't know, maybe there's more information about his in the game). And then there was this gang of three-men kept on searching for Mother. Cloud was forced to confront his past and his own personality (as always, I presume. But I was surprised that he hadn't recover from his mental problems all those times) and ended up fighting with those gang of Sephiroth-worshippers. I thought them as one since they were all resembled the cool-bad-ass-guy with black outfits and silver-hair color. Enough with the story (spoiler, mayhap?)

Watching Advent Children could be quite nostalgic. There were several scenes from the old game such as the city of Midgard, the church where Cloud lived, the Forgotten Capital, and of course several flash-backs from the game which was not actually there in the game (know what I mean?). Also, you can enjoy several original FF soundtracks by FF-specialist composer Nobuo Uematsu. For example, in the battle between Tifa versus one of the silver-haired guy, the music resembled the battle-scene in the game. Also, after that, you could hear the you-win-the-battle-music which was sooo FF (FF banged gitu loch!) that turned out to be the bad-guy's cellphone ringtone. And lots of other similar stuff as there in the game.

The sucky part of the movie that I managed to observed was hair animation. I don't know they did it on purpose or was it because it was so hard to animate hair. I saw on several scenes, that they didn't put details on hair-animation. For one, when Cloud and Kadaj (the leader of the silver-haired-gang) were riding high-speed motorcylces, their cool-styled hair looked only as if it was hit by a slight wind. I mean, come on, at that speed?! Plus, when it was raining, Cloud's hair was OK, it didn't even look wet. Maybe they put wax on it, who knows! If it was because the difficulty on animating hair movement then it's fine since I do know it's very very hard to animate hair naturally. But if they did it on purpose then it was so uncool...uncool!

The second part of the sucky scene were the fightings. No, most of them were good! It's just that...several fighting-movements were too fast that no man could ever do that (nor man's eyes could ever follow that, for this matter). All I could see was flashes of swords hitting each other. It decreased the appetite of enjoying battle scene a little.

The best part of the movie? The summon (was it Bahamut?) and the scene where you get to see Aerith (and Zack?)! Too bad we could only see a little of her and heard also a little of her lovely voice. But I guess Tifa's cuteness could make it even.

All in all, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is a worth-watching and worth-having movie. Thank God I bought the DVD!

back on track

Hello everyone, I'm back from the holiday. Well, it was quite a good holiday back then. I'd really like to compile some of the stories and pictures from my journal during the holiday. Let me check into it and see if I could do something about it. But I promise you nothing.

Anyway, how's thing going over there? It's not good in here heheheh, since it's another two days before I must go back to classes. Plus a whole bunch of assignments and tests will be waiting for me on the other side. Ah well, let's rock!

Well, since the day is almost arrive and I might not be able to write anything in my blog for the upcoming several days, so I 'd just say it now.

to everyone I know:
I might have done mistakes in the past,
I might have hurt your feelings before,
I could not do anything to fix it,
nor I could easen the pain I've caused,
but...
One thing's for sure, I'm asking for your forgiveness,
For I am humble...humble...

Thank you everyone! Today's the last day in Bandung for me, I'm going away for several days ahead and probably won't have any internet access. But worry not for we shall (most probably) meet each other again directly or bloggily (???) after that. Happy Idul Fitri for everyone of you and enjoy your good time. Seeya!

wrapping things up

Gee, I guess it is time for me to depart from Bandung since Lebaran's already very near. But this year's last moments (week) before Idul Fitri was totally hectic for me. OK, I'd like to wrap up and summarize of what's happened in the last couple of days. First, there were three mid tests held on the week: Kinematics on Monday night, Numerical Analysis and Programming on Thursday night, and in the end there would be Industrial Metrology and Statistics on Saturday morning. Although it is the last week before Idul Fitri, classes and assignments has been very time-consuming as well, not to mention additional activities such as committe-ship and other stuff.

Monday! Kinematics midtest. I had to say that I was pretty sure I did well in the test. But I don't know, there's always that unexpected factor which made disruption out of my prediction. Anyway, all in all, the test went well.

OK, let's see, I had a full-day at campus on the last Tuesday. Mechatronics from 09:00 to 11:00 continued by Matlab programming class until 13:00. Just after that there was Thermodynamics for 2 hours til 15:00. The last one was Machine Elements to the end of the day at 17:00. Thank God I hadn't take the Mechanics of Materials class. If I had, it would have been from 07:00 to 17:00. Ten hours non stop of sitting, listening to lectures.

Wednesday has always been quite a relaxing day. Only one class at this day, Manufacturing Processes from 15:00 to 17:00. After class, get ready to break the fast! Hell yeah!

Thursday, was a bummer. There was a class in the early morning and then one hour void, and then another class, another one hour void, one hour class, void (I took a quick nap here, yay!). Presentation for redesigning motorcycle's brake and life span was at 15:00. Last but not least, Numerical Analysis exam at 19:30. Unlucky! The problems issued in the test was out of the world! Well, not actually, I mean, the problem was strange enough that people were so confused. Finally, the lecturer gave several hints to help out, but still, it was just...uncool.

Friday. The three-men-team finally back in action! Yudhi Somali, Om Anda, and I decided to continue our assignment on analyzing and synthesizing a motorcycle's camshaft and its accessories after several weeks of vacuum. After a little bit of discussion, we decided to share jobs. We were to bring home the assignments and try to do some during the holiday. I got the assignment to get some data about bearings. In short, I have to get a hold of a bearing's standard catalogue (SKF, FAG, NSK, NTN) and adapt the equations from there. It's going to be a thought-occupying matter for the rest of the holiday but it needed to be done. Plus, I was also made to responsible for the sketch and drawing of the objects of camshaft, rocker-arm, and valve systems. That made it two things for me to be taken home during holiday.

Saturday (tomorrow) will be a hell of a day. I'll have Metrology and Statistics exam in the morning and then just after that, I must prepare myself for presentation on drilling processes. For the presentation, worry not about anything. It's the test I'm worrying about. There were rumors that the last grade of "A" issued was 10 years ago and there hasn't been any since then. But I don't know if it was true or not. Maybe it was just some hoax, but I have to admit that the subject is rather difficult. Test plus presentation will be finished around mid-day.
Before the day's over I will have to pay the bills (electricity, phone, water, etc) for the house in Cimahi. In order to do that, I must go back and forth Bandung-Cimahi-Bandung and it's very time consuming. I would have to say that it will spend half of my day. Let's just say I'll be back from Cimahi in the afternoon.
Last moments before going back to Cirebon (or Purwokerto, for that matter) I must do some other things. My brothers and sister has requested several things before I go home and I need to get the things for them. I also want to organize and clean up my room before I leave it for the rest of the week.

After all of those things have been fulfilled, next thing to do is to decide whether I shall go home at Saturday night (to Cirebon) or the next day Sunday morning (to Purwokerto). And finally, off I go...!

OK OK, back to real life. I need to study for tomorrow's Metrology, so...see you again later!

i'm not an assistant, mind you

I would've never thought anyway. It was just that, unexpected. You see, I was having this programming class using Matlab (this language has some pluses if you want to work with matrices, maybe I'll talk about this later) and that funny thing happened.

At that programming class I got the seat far behind, nearly at the edge of room. It happened because I had another class just before the programming class so I failed to come early. Anyway, since I sat far behind, I couldn't see clearly to the board (my range of vision is approximately 7 meters, maybe I need to wear glasses already) and I had to step forward several times just to see what the lecturer wrote on the board or showed on the presentation slide. So I went back and forth to the front and my workstation.

There was this one time, when I approached to my friend's workstation up front to ask him several things I didn't understand about the programming. Suddenly, the person who sat behind my friend's desk tapped me on the shoulder. I turned, and I thought that he tapped me because he couldn't see to the board since I was blocking his vision by standing next to my friend's desk. So spontaneously, I set myself into crouching position while kept discussing with that friend of mine.

Just when I was about to head back to my desk, the guy who tapped me before stopped me. And then he asked more or less like this, "Mas (what's the English word for this? Mister? Bro?) klo yang ini bgemana," by pointing to the monitor of his computer, confused of what to do next.

I was like, inside my mind, "Huh?"

But later I realized something. He might think that I was one of the lecturer's assistant! Why? Because during the class, there were two assistants going around the room trying to cover and assist every student while the lecturer was giving explanation in front of the class. And I was one of that person who went back and forth. Not because I was one of the assistant, but because I couldn't see clearly what was written in front!

As of that moment, after the guy asked me the question, I had two choices running around in my head. To ignore him and just tell him to ask one of the assistant, or stay and explain it to him.

I chose the latter, although it was quite troublesome. I came over and asked him in which part he didn't understand. After a brief words with him, I realized that he actually knew nothing of programming, totally nothing. He even asked me some basic stuff that the lecturer already explained in the beginning of the class earlier. It's either he was totally new in programming especially Matlab or he completely didn't listened to what the lecturer had to say. I ended up aiding him for, like, 10 minutes. A very valuable time since during that time the lecturer came up with some new things. But, hey, it's good to know that I could help someone although I was also, basically, a newbie.

preaching for kiddies

I have heard it since long ago, that one of our television station was going to have a competition to select young preachers. Now when I mentioned the word 'young', didn't mean that I refered to a middle-aged person or teenage ones. Far more younger.

It was just yesterday that I watched it with my own eyes. Just before fast-breaking time around dusk. A figure of a kid, giving sermon. He spoke with enthusiasm, conviction, and fluent language. I assumed that his age was around 10 or so.

It was actually amazing, to think that a boy of that age, already familiar (not to mention expert, possibly) in the field of religious philosophy. He could even recite several verses from Al-Qur'an itself that I have never been able to memorized it.

It is actually good to know that someone at that very young age already have the capabilities to tell (and invite, of course) people to live according to Islam. But one thing that generated doubt inside my mind was, his preaching style. I observed that the way he spoke resembled one (or many) of the Islamic preachers in old times. Also, the tone seemed too monotonous and gave me the impression that it was somehow made up (as in acting, too awkward). That led me to the hesitant thinking whether he really knew what he was talking about or was it that he just made another ordinary speech, without embracing the very essence itself?

Well, all in all, if the boy who showed on the television giving that sermon actually knew what he was talking about and has a deep understanding on the subject, I would be very proud and amazed. Then again, it was good to have some kids reminded me of religious things. It reflected that there are still so many things that I need to learn. Nice job guys (refering to those kids preaching via television)!

human's body energy seminar

As of yesterday (Sunday, October 9th, 2005), a friend of mine invited me into a seminar. Actually, at that time I was staying at my place preparing myself on doing several assignments for several days ahead such as the report on lab work about workbench and some homeworks on thermodynamics subject. Just after mid day, I received a message in my cellphone noting that there was somekind of seminar held at Sabuga by ITB's chemistry community.

As I still haven't got anything to do at that time plus it's been a while since I met that friend of mine, so I decided to pay a short visit on the occasion. At first, I thought the event would be quite big that there would be a lot of people and I had an image in my mind that Sabuga would be full of people and crowds. It turned out to be not. After I arrived at Sabuga, I couldn't see any crowds at all. So I strolled around to outside ring of Sabuga and then I found a small room filled with people. That was it. I met my friend there and then I was invited to join the seminar. At first, I was a little bit unspirited since I had a load of assignments waiting at home and I'd rather be doing it. But what the heck, I decided to observe. Who knows I might actually get something useful from it.

So I went in and sat down. It appeared that the seminar was held by a chemistry community whom called themselves by the name Alchemist (I didn't quite know the details, I forgot). The seminar itself was bringing up the topic of chemical energy and human body. There were two speakers as I recalled. The one was some person from energy-based martial art (tenaga dalam thingies) and the other one was a bachelor in chemistry science.

OK, first, I'd like to recall what the scientist said. Basically, what he talked about was something which I've learned years ago at my senior high school, on how human's body can generate energy. Yeah yeah yeah, he started talking about those carbohydrates, protein, cells, glucose, ATP, and stuff and stuff. When I sat there, listening, it was like going back to my times at senior high school. Back then, on my high school era, I had always been bored with that lesson because there had been just so many things that I couldn't understand and it had made several chain reactions or links. Therefore, if you lost a link, you'd have a hard time trying to understand the rest of the process. In addtion on why I could not master the subject very well would because there had been so many bio-chemical terminologies, properties, and roles I could not remember all of them at once. In short, I had been to lazy to study on that subject.

Now, the second speaker on that seminar talked about human's energy. Well, since he was actually a person came from the field of martial arts, his topic was around on applying those energy created by our body to the surroundings. He supported that which the first speaker came up to with and agreed upon his sayings although he didn't fully understand it. But he added that only several percents of the energy generated by the body could be channeled to do things. That was, he said, where the martial arts came in. It helped people to efficiently maximize their energy channeling so they could use all of the energy produced by one's body. Also, he told the participants of the seminar that we could also concentrate that energy into certain point in our body. For example, to carry a chair or tables, you had to use both hands to grab it and perhaps your hip to support it. Why do you have to waste such efforts if you could just concentrate all of your energy to one of your finger and lift the chair or table with it?

Another thing that the second speaker said was that about self-suggesting. Or probably, in they way I grasped it, you could also call it as a self-confidence, self-motivating, self-perception, or whatever self-thingies you'd call that. Basically, he said that we could set our mind to one perception and it will happen according to it. One's mind perception is so strong that it could change things. Sounded kind of philosophical to me at first, but then he gave an example. Some people would call this a mind game. He raised his hand and told everybody in the room to concentrate to and only to his hand. He also started to continually telling people to focus. Now, when I say continually, it was like he's going to hypnotize people but that wasn't it. He didn't hypnotized.

And then after a long while, he stopped. He started to walked around asking people what they saw. He asked the audience whether they saw his hand deforming, and then several people raised their hands. Then he asked whether any of the audience saw his hand becoming longer, then, again, several people raised their hands. Several questions that he asked were the emergence of aura around his hand and the disappearance or addition on one of his finger.

The conclusion that he brought was that, our mind can do anything, if we believe in it. He also added that his brains and the audience's were somehow connected so that he could know what's in the audience's mind. The power of the mind's perception could do a lot of and change things and so on and so forth. He even said that, in the most extreme case, one could turned oneself into a dragon or whatever. Well, I couldn't believe that far, but it seemed that it resembles genjutsu or illusionary technique or even hypnotize. I don't know. Mind's perception.

But it was a pity that he didn't tell us (the audience) in details on how to do so (channeling energy, strengthening mind's perception, etc). All he said that it all needed a lot of intensive training and everybody can do it. In the end, the second speaker ended his presentation with a quiz giving the audiences gift in form of cassettes of his recording (what the?), supplemental drinks, and several vouchers.

problem with camshaft

Yesterday (Friday, October 7th, 2005) I skipped the meeting with lecturer about my Machine Elements' assignment. Well, actually it wasn't just me. The rest of my team -each and every of them- skipped it also. It was because we hadn't made any progress at that time so basically, we didn't have anything to report to Mr.Pulung.

It appeared that analyzing (just) a camshaft wasn't that easy after all. You see, at first we were told to analyze any form of mechanical-rotary-shaft. Since one of my team member was very interested in motorcycle stuff, so he pointed out that we should analyze the camshaft. Although I didn't know anything about camshaft (nor anything about motorcycles in this case), we agreed to do so.

Why did I agree?

When he presentate the thing to me, the camshaft was a tiny-sized and was only equipped with two bearings and one sprocket as its accessories. So I was like, "Hey, I think it's going to be rather easy."

But that was where I got it all wrong. OK, it was just that one shaft, two bearings, and a sprockett. Ideally, all you have to do is count the loading along the shaft, how much force the bearings can stand, and torsion of the shaft itself. So be it.

But no! Those weren't all. Since camshaft's job is to move the rocker-arms, we have to calculate how many force loading the rocker-arms would inflict on the camshaft itself. Plus, since there was a sprocket, we also have to calculate the power transferred by the chain, plus the role of a tensioner to the chain itself. It didn't stop there! There was this angle between the rocker-arms and the camshaft and we had to calculate that also, the properties of spring inside the valve, and so many more things that needed to be taken into account. About the angle, since motorcycle's components are made with precision, we couldn't just make guesses. This is where it went quite tough. When we couldn't find the standard in any books, we had to measure it by ourselves. Sigh!

the city is suffering

gee,

If you had already read my previous posts before, you might have known that I once written something entitled the city has changed which basically tells that how Bandung is different from years ago, which again -in my opinion- is a deterioration instead of a development for the city itself.

Well, it appears that there are those who had the same opinion as me for today I read the newspaper that expose such news. As I read the morning newspaper, it was told that Bandung had actually becoming a worst city than ever before. The development that has been done these years didn't make Bandung as a better place for the people. Instead, it created more and more problems such as garbage, traffic jams, flood, pollution, etc. It was said that Bandung used to have a maximum temperature of 27 degrees Celcius yet now it has reached the level of 34 degrees. Theres's been said also that Bandung is currently lacking city-trees in number of around 650.000! No wonder it's so hot nowadays in this chilly-used-to-be city, and it seems that it was not just me who felt that way. The fact said so, by the way.

It seemed that the money which was supposed to be allocated for developing the city's environmental supporters had been used to pay the local bureaucrats. They said that in order to eliminate corruption, the increase in public servant's prosperity was needed. Well, what's the point on increasing the salary of those city administrators if the people who actually paying for them couldn't get the benefit?

Oy, you supposed to be public servants. You serve public needs. Not the other way around!

project: machine elements

phew,

This semester will turned out to be quite busying. As of this semester, unlike any other semesters before, I took extra credits. In the previous ones, I usually took 18 (the package) but as of this one I took 20 since I had several subjects that's needed to be retaken. Not to mention that the current semester will have two lab works plus one project.

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Project. It's not ordinary project or assignment. It's a project that is done the whole semester. The subject is the Machine Elements Project for one credit only. But as you know, for real, it consumed more than just one credit. I took this project under the guide of Mr. Ignatius Pulung Nurprasetio and teamed up with two of my friends, Anda and Yudhi.

Mr. Pulung told us to make an analysis and synthesis of a rotary shaft. Since Yudhi was kind of interested in anything connected to automotive, he gave us the idea to take the topic of a motorcycle's camshaft.

At first, I didn't even know what a camshaft is. I never really liked automotives that much. But I thought that this might be a good media for me to learn, so I agreed with him. And there we were, deciding on taking the topic of a camshaft. Things that we needed to analyze according to Mr. Pulung were the camshaft itself, bearings, gears, chains, tensioners, etc.

In the first week, we go on a hunt of how to obtain the object we wanted to analyze, so we went to engineering market known as Jatayu. I passed there several times when I want to go back to Bandung from Cimahi, but I never actually visited the place. It was the first time for me. And yes, the market sells all kinds of engineering materials, from automotives to electrical generators. A real heaven for engineers. Anyway, after asking around and talking with the sellers, we finally got what we want: a camshaft for Rp.25000, a gear for Rp.5000 and a piece of bolt for Rp.500.

september graduation

whoa,

I wouldn't have thought...but what do you know...next Saturday is already another graduation will be held. Well, as far as I know, this term of graduation should be held at around October. But I guess since early October of 2005 will be mostly occupied with fasting-month for those who are muslims, then they move the graduation day earlier in September.

Yes, indeed. It's like only been a week I felt since the last graduation. The posting about it is still here. It's two or three posts behind, I guess. It's so near because I missed the month August with no post at all. Yet, as I said. It felt like it's only weeks instead of months since the last graduation.

Anyway, the next graduation won't be taken care by students of 2003. It will be handled by the new members of 2004. So it made the last graduation party my last one as the committee. This time, I shall only be a spectator, one of the crowds who watch only. Gladly, with that status makes me able to move freely to see things, not bounded by the responsibility to watch over those seniors who'd just been graduated.

I hope there would be good things happen. I know what to do, and I shall do it. Last time I wasn't able to do it since I was compelled to stay at my post. But now, I shall search...and I shall engage. No matter what. This may be my last chance.

No more pending o'peacemaker.

my way in English

okay,

I wanted to write the following entry because I visited Oskar's blog and found out that he wrote something about writing in English.

Well, firstly I'd like to explain as of why I wrote most of my entries in my blog using the language English. Of course, since English is currently the international language, so it may be fun to actually write in it. Imagine the possibility of people from around the world came and read your entry in the blog, they interested in it, and eventually might become a friend of mine -or yours, that is-. Also, it is quite common for people who uses internet that they should understand English since most of the information stored in the net are prepared in English. One more thing is that I write easier using English language. I know this might sounds a little bit funny knowing my mother tounge is actually Indonesian. But I just don't know. Ideas and thoughts flow easier when I write (or speak, in certain cases) in this western language. I wrote my Book of Journal, Book of Ideas, and Letters of Record, all of them in English. I felt uneasy when I tried to write (or tell) something in my own native language. Does that mean I am not a good civilian?

Those were several reasons why I had to assume that people who visited my blog and read my posts would already understand the language. This is where it gets quite tricky. If I write in English, I had to sacrifice those who couldn't understand it. I tried not to. That's why I also -sometimes- wrote my posts using Indonesian. You can find them, but not many.

As I read in Oskar's blog, there were quite some people who protested (in form of comments) him since they couldn't understand what he was saying. Well, I got them too. A friend of mine told me already that he couldn't understand what I was writing in my blog and he felt a little bit annoyed. Some people actually complained to me and some others over-complimented me that I was an English expert. Well, thank you, but not at all. I also made mistakes. I am not that expert. Sometimes I still jumbled my sentences and used the wrong grammar or structures. But it is not the grammar that matters, it is your way of writing (and speaking) it. As Oskar already wrote in his blog, that, it's not in the proper or correct grammar nor structures. As long as people can grasp the main idea of what you're trying to say, then it doesn't matter anymore. It is, after all, the main purpose of language itself: communication. Even if you're a language expert yet if you can't communicate your idea well enough, then it would be a waste. Once again, there's no reason to be afraid of practicing your English (including other foreign languages).

Most people are afraid of using or practicing languages since they see to those who're already fluent. Somehow, it made certain people to go downhearted and eventually stop practicing their language skills. As I said before, there's no need to be afraid. There's no reason to feel that way. Nowadays you can find English in almost every aspect of our lives. Television, newspapers, radio, books, and even in day to day life. Once, when I was in my campus, I overheard two students talking in English. Their grammar/structures or even accent was not very good, but at least they were trying and I was so itchy to get into the conversation yet I ended up just listening to them. One of my friend, from Meteorology and Geophysics, doesn't speak English very well. His pronounciation and vocabulary selection aren't very good at all. Sometimes he needed at least one minute to think about the word he wanted to say, yet he kept trying and I actually understood what he was talking about since he also used gestures while speaking.

What did I do or where did I learn to reach this level? That is the most frequently asked question to me by my friends as they wanted to know the effective way to practice their English.

Well, I couldn't say anything, the most effective practice is to practice, I guess. I mean, OK, I did have several courses but I believe most people were also did. Plus, most of the basics for English language were already taught to us from junior high school (maybe) until most of our senior high school. It's all in there and it's all given to you. All you need to do next, is to practice with it.

As of my experience in English language, it go way back to when I was a little kid. I think it was in my early childhood when the only television existed was TVRI. Back then, there were some television programs using English, especially cartoons (kids like cartoon, yes). The next level there was RCTI which presented a kid educational program called Sesame Street. But hey, as of now, there are also numerous kind of children educational programs served in the television. It's even more than it used to. Yes, but the difference is that those programs nowadays have their language dubbed. And that goes for not only kids educational programs. Mostly every foreign programs such as movies, serials, documentaries are all dubbed. Maybe that's why people can't learn faster or better.

Courses? Yes, I did go and take English courses several times. My first one was ESC (English Study Center, was it?). I joined that course by the invitation of a friend in my early year of junior high school. After that I took the course at EF (English First). I did the course for around one year and after that I quit since I needed to prepare myself on facing the national exam.
But everybody's different. Those were my ways, and you might have your own ways. Find it, make use of it. Just train yourself in any way you find comfortable and do it frequently. Just...don't be afraid to make mistakes, even stupid ones. It might turn out quite cool, y'know :-)

the city has changed

sighs,

Today I took a walk around Cikapayang bridge (under, that is). Actually, I was on my way back to campus from Annex Building in Tamansari. I had to do some administration stuff there in Annex. But that's not the point though. It was, when I walked under the bridge and around the streets of Tamansari, I didn't feel the atmosphere anymore. As I walked under the highway and several steps towards Annex, I already felt exhausted and sweaty because of the heat of the day caused by the intense ray from the sun, and of course those thick dust and smog coming out from cars as the street at that time was on a traffic jam.

Why? It's Bandung. The city isn't like it used to anymore. I mean, ten years ago when I lived in Cimahi -and several years after when it was my early year of living in Cirebon- Bandung was so nice. The image I got from Bandung was some big green trees in each side of the road with shades covering us from the heat of the sun. Now, you can only find that kind of atmosphere mostly in residential areas whereas commercial districts are now stuffed with shops and buildings.

When I was living in Cirebon, I always couldn't wait to go back to Bandung (although right now I still do) since everytime I went there, each time I came out from Pasteur, there were those bunch of big palm trees. I've always been amazed by those trees. But where are they now? All I could see was just some billboards and that fly-over highway.

Indeed that this kind of thing (development) is inevitable. It may be good for the city that it actually developed with its rapid growing of infrastructure. But it has changed the image of Bandung itself where it used to be a green, cool, and fresh place into some not-another-Jakarta kind of city. It seems that the development of the city only concentrating itself on commercial sectors and to some point, industrial sectors. I just felt that, Bandung isn't suited anymore for walking pleasure. You'd be needing at least a motorcycle to enjoy strolling around roads in the city.

aeroexpo 2005

uh okay,

Today I kinda went to an exhibition. It was called the AeroExpo held by students from Aviation Engineering (Aeronautical). The exhibition was held in Aula Timur of ITB campus on Jalan Ganesha 10 Bandung. Yes, it is my beloved campus, so to say.

I went there with my friend Tito from Aviation Engineering himself to see how good it was. Well, to tell you the truth, the event itself wasn't very lively. It used -after all- Aula Timur, which was not so spacious at all. Outside of the room, just near the reception desk, there was this booth from the TNI AU (Indonesian's air defense force). From what I saw, they showed somekind of jeep-like mobile (perhaps as air-dropped-kind of mobile) and several equipments and gadgets. But since I wasn't very interested in those things, I just went straight ahead to the reception desk and put my name in one of those visitors book.

As I entered the main room of the exhibition itself, there weren't so many booths as I recalled. From what I remember, there was only about 10-15 stands. Most of the room was filled with models. But I'm not talking about those sexy-catwalker models. They were models of airplanes and their variants. There were gliders, helicopters, etc. In one of the booth (I couldn't remember from where it was) they showed us how to remote-control a mini-airplane through computer. It was like playing a flight simulator, but you get an actual plane flying around. But of course it was just a dummy or toy-like airplane instead of the real one.

The second booth I visited was the Garuda Maintenance Facility Aero Asia (GMFAA). Why did I visit that stand anyway? Well, it appears that several days before the exhibition, one of my friend from mechanical engineering kinda invited me to do some work-practice (what the heck do you call kerja-praktek in English anyway?) in GMFAA. It turned out that GMFAA itself has participated in the exhibition. What a coincidence, so I said! I went there and do a little research and data gathering. I asked here and there, had some conversation with the man in charge there, although the man seemed not knowing so much all he did was refering me back to the brochure everytime I asked about things.

Last booth that attracted me from the rest was this steward school. It was named International Stewardess Training (Sekolah Pramugari Internasional -although it was named like that, there was actually steward there). Well, you know why. Because there was actually stewardess in charge of the booth and I'm telling you, she was cute! So I started asking things here and there. Most of the questions were not actually serious though, since I had no intention of getting into that steward/ess school whatsoever. The only thing that made me asking questions was to engage the cute stewardess in the booth. Hehehheh...

My friend told me before that there used to be three or at least two stewardesses in charge. But since I visited at around 1200 to 1300, it was likely that the stewardesses were mostly having a breaktime. When I approached the booth there were only one stewardess and she was like, sitting there alone without anyone to talk to. That was when I came in! Starting with asking for the brochure, and then asking about things...like: what's the activities, the requirements, tests that must be taken, and some other things. It was kinda cool, actually. She was nice and full of smile (ohoho, of course she was).

But not long after that, people started to come and tried to talk to her. First there was this steward from the same school as her (classmate perhaps) came around and was trying to take over for her on explaining things to me. And then there was also this mister from GMFAA who jokes around (or was it flirt?) with her. Finally, some guy out of nowhere suddenly came and took over my conversation with her (hey, I got here first dude!). Well, since the situation was not supporting anymore for me to engage the steward, I said quick thanks to her and unpresent myself. I didn't get her name though, not to mention her pictures :P I also wasn't in my full potential at that time since I wasn't feeling very well at that moment, and to tell you the truth, I hadn't taken a bath so my mind kept telling me to go home, take a bath, eat, get some medicine, and sleep. The classes for the day was already over anyway.

wisudaan

gee,

Besok, which is Sabtu 23 Juli 2005 bakal ada wisudaan di kampus tercinta ITB. Ga tau deh. Biasanya sih tiap wisudaan kampus jadi rame, karena banyak himpunan-himpunan mahasiswa yang ngadain arak-arakan buat wisudawannya. Tapi wisudaan kali ini ga jelas, soalnya rektorat ngeluarin surat pengumuman tentang tata tertib selama wisudaan. Acaranya jadi lebih ketat. Arak-arakan ngga dilarang secara eksplisit di dalam pengumuman itu, tapi tetap saja ada warning yang mengarah ke sana (ga boleh ada arak-arakan).

Anyway, saya besok harus standby juga. Kenapa? Karena saya diminta untuk menjadi salah satu tim penyelamat wisudawan. As you might already know, di Mesin ITB (HMM, terutama), wisudawan selalu diceburin ke kolam mesin yang airnya-berwarna-hijau-pekat-asam-rasanya pada saat acara puncak perayaan wisudaan. Kalau ada wisudawan yang ternyata ga bisa berenang, that's where we're coming in, the rescue team. Yah, semacam baywatch gitu deh.

Tapi kenapa? Bukannya tahun ini seharusnya angkatan 2004 yang nanganin wisudaan, kok 2003 lagi?

Well, seharusnya emang angkatan baru yang ngadain acara perayaan wisudaan itu, khususnya untuk himpunan. Lihat saja himpunan-himpunan lainnya, yang ngadain acara wisudaan pasti 2004. Sementara itu, di Himpunan Mahasiswa Mesin ITB, angkatan 2003 masih berkutat dengan masalah-masalah wisudaan ini. Malu ngga sih? Sudah tua dan uzur besok masih harus teriak-teriak di depan pintu Sabuga sama angkatan-angkatan muda. Heheheh, lagian sih...

Hal itu terjadi karena angkatan baru (2004) untuk HMM belum dilantik. Tersendatnya regenerasi HMM tahun ini dikarenakan kaderisasinya distop oleh Departemen di saat-saat terakhir. Males banget ga sih?! A lot of reasons, pokoknya kasihan banget both 2003 sebagai panitia dan 2004 sebagai peserta. Dua-duanya menderita karena masih terbebani dengan masalah yang satu ini.

Argh, jadi males ngurusin wisudaan nih.

fricken new cellphone

see,

As you all may have already know (from friendster, that is) that I've lost my old cell-phone. So, automatically I've also lost most of my friends' numbers stored in that phone. It was indeed a great loss to me.

But what I wanted to say in here is not anything like that. It is about my new cell-phone. It is Sony-Ericsson K750i. Although it is definitely, obviously, and totally more sophisticated from its predecessor which was Nokia whatever-the series-was-I-never-actually-remember-it, one thing bothered me all the time until now.

The keypad.

They're so close to each other, narrowed distance. The pads are quite small, although I must say that it is the standard size for cell-phone's keypad. But surely, it is not comfortable at all expecially when I wanted to write or type an SMS. The problem that I always have until now is that when I wanted to type the letter "s", I always missed it with "g" or "ppp" or "qqq" or even "pgp". You know, when you want to type the letter "s", what you do is to press the "7" button four times. I just don't know why but it always happened. Sometimes it's not just with that one button (the "7" or the "s") but also with the other ones. It's really bothering. Maybe my fingers are just too big. Sometimes, I even must force to type using my nails, for accuracy. D'oh.

points from JOVED

well,

As I told you in my previous post before that I was attending the JOVED although I was there just an Observer. But it was kind of worth it. I got a lot of things to learn there. So many things. I just couldn't tell every details of it, so I'll just go with things that I got from JOVED.

New friends.
Crazy people, with crazy attitude...but sometimes could be decent also.
That I am on my first step (or was it several steps already) in becoming an Arbiter, or Firebrand, or maybe Adjudicator itself, or whatever.
Martial arts. Thanks to Master I-Sex (Isach) who had taught me some basic art of fighting although my original intention was to look for some food but ended up being taught those styles which made me even hungrier before I went to bed.
Sex...sex...and more sex! You filthy people (pointing to Master I-Sex).
Free (but illegal) food and free (also illegal) lodging.
Photos. As a test ground for my new camera-phone which Faiz's always bothered with it. OK, man...what's the point?!

What else??? I could not think of other than what I have mentioned before. Well, I guess those were the most things I could remember for now. I shall give more when I suddenly recalled it. Now I need to think.

debate contest

hell yeah,

The last time I remembered I was on that kind of situation was back on senior high school. Waktu dulu yaa masih jaman-jaman rada gak jelas gitu lah. Well, waktu itu juga sama...debating contest. Sekolah ngirim dua kelompok, the first one was filled with Irwan (not Irwan Suyudi, that is), Hana, ama Ari. Trus tim kedua consisted of me, Andres, and Finish. It was the very first time to debate in English for me.

OK, it was Friday as I recalled it very much that the competition started right after sholat Jum'at, although me and my mates already prepped ourselves since the morning. Ya begitulah, jadilah saya sholat Jum'at terlebih dahulu, bersama Andres. Finish didn't, since he was a Christian. And then, kita (me and Andres) mampirlah dulu ke rumah salah satu teman yaitu Ansol dikarenakan rumah dia dekat dengan masjid so I thought we could...y'know...do some things before go to the masjid.

So was it. Karena rumah si Ansol deket dengan masjid (which was tempat lomba debatnya juga deket dengan masjid) so we decided to unload our things there including leaving our shoes there and wore some sandal jepit instead.

Ternyata...!!! Baru saja sesaat setelah selelasi menunaikan sholat Jum'at, salah seorang kurir datang memberitahukan bahwa lomba akan segera dimulai.

"WHAT TH-?!?!" so I was shocked.

Why was I shocked? Good question. The only thing I worried about was: We were still wearing sandal jepit!!!

And for worse...my group got the first round debate...against the other group from our school which was Irwan, Hana, and Ari. Jadi ngga asik, masa baru ronde pertama dah ketemu ama tim satu sekolah. Yah, jadinya saya sama Andres terpaksa mengikuti lomba debat tersebut dengan mengenakan sandal jepit. Hihihiih...still remembered it how we tried to cover our feet behind curtains.

Anyway, about the debate, the motion was something about Cirebon being the capital of West Java. I couldn't remember much though. Debatnya ngga berjalan sesuai aturan yang saya tahu sekarang. Waktu itu ga ada first, second, and third speaker gitu. Yang penting orang yang mana yang mau ngomong ya udah trus ntar direply ama orang laen dari tim laen juga bebas aja. Jadi ya kayak debat biasa aja gitu. Ya maklum lah, it was my first time, and we didn't actually know the rules. Gak tau ya klo Irwan and his team. Harusnya sih dia lebih tahu, tapi kayaknya sama aja deh.

Akhirnya yang menang timnya si Irwan sih. Actually, I didn't care much. Soalnya waktu itu mikirnya udah, "Need to change to shoes...need to change to shoes..." dan debatnya juga gak jelas gitu lah. Newbies.

Setelah debatnya selesai, I felt sooo relieved dan kitapun langsung balik ke rumah Ansol buat ngambil barang-barang kita lagi, gak peduli lagi dengan whatever happened to the debate competition after that.

Why am I writing about this? Well, karena after quite some time (I decided not to have anything to do with English competition anymore some time ago) saya akhirnya harus ikut nimbrung lagi in debating competition. Yang satu ini, besok, Jum'at (oh my God, it's the same day as the last time) 8 Juli 2005, bakal diadain di UnPas Bandung Setiabudhi. It is called JOVED.

the council

whoa,

Last night I stayed at Andres house with the rest of the guys. It's been quite a while since the last time we gathered like that. Spent the night playing PES4 soccer game, and now my left thumb was...let's say...crippled? Heheheh...

Anyway, I'm thinking of going back to Cirebon by the end of this week. There'd be a lot of things to be done before and after. Need to reschedule...

Padi concert

alrighty,

Last night I went to this...Padi band live performance stuff...with my friends, Informatics guys. It was on Sabuga. The play should have started at 19:00 but when we got there at 18:30 there were some announcements saying that the gate would be opened at 19:20. What a bum! I mean, the schedule said "19:00". So I assumed that at that hour the Padi show should be starting or what. Phew, it appeared that designated time in the schedule was the time when they'd actually open the gate.

Anyway, as suspected, the show wasn't even started until around 20:00. It was quite a long time to wait. And while they kept us waiting, they showed us some commercials from a certain cigarettes provider which was, actually, the main sponsor for the show. They kept playing the same commercials again and again. How boring. But once in a while they showed some video clips from the band though.

As the band started the live performance, one of my friend provoked me to come front and watch from the festival section. Well, I thought why not, I mean...we could actually see the show from nearer point of view. So I ended up giving my seat to a friend of mine who just came and didn't get any seat at all.

Going to the festival section was a bad idea after all. Once I was there I realized that it was already full of people so me and my friend had to stand behind. Well, a little movements here and there and I managed to move several steps forward. But it was then when I realized that the festival section wasn't for me at all. With the height of only 165s cm I couldn't see between people's head...and hands which they started to raise them up to the air. I tried to find someplace to climb to so I could get a better view, but most of them were already occupied.

"D'oh, this sucks," so I thought to myself.

So I went back to the higher ground and found myself a place with a better view of the show but it was quite far from the stage plus no seat, so I had to stand all the time, far from the stage. Ah well, at least I still had the chance to enjoy the music.

Personally, overall last night show was around 6 out of 10. Various factors. Hmph...

written!

Well, what do you know...
I finally got the idea last night, at aroud 23:00. Since I was too lazy to do it instaneously, I decided to wait until morning. And there I was, started writing from 09:00 until 12:00. Three hours, three paragraphs. Not bad eh...?

Anyway, the theme was about free trading. Hehehehe...

need to write

ok,

OK guys, here I am, right here, trying to find something to write. Well, not for the blog, that is. For an essay. Yeah, I've been assigned to write an essay. Not very lengthy, actually. Only about 350 words or so. But the problem is, that, I couldn't find the perfect main theme that suits me. So, I spared myself a little time to walk and think about a theme. I was thinking of bringing "Miss Universe" or capitalism, but then again, those are for last resort, I guess.

Well, if you happen to have something good to write about, would you let me know? I'd appreciate that :P anyway, the essay should be submitted tomorrow afternoon at 13:00. Heh, not much of a time isn't it? But who knows!? As I was saying...just let me know if you have a crazy idea or some sort. Thanks! :-)

want to become an instructor?

anyway,

Hari ini ikutan tes tertulis buat jadi instruktur Comlabs.
I came late for the test though :P hehehehe...Harusnya tes mulai jam 09:00 so I should've been there since like...about 08:45. Tapi baru berangkat dari rumah jam 09:00, alhasil baru nyampe tempat test jam 09:15.
Ih, tapi gpp gitu. Tinggal masuk-masuk aja. Tapi keliatannya emang it was just me yang terlambat.
Then again, ternyata tesnya gak susah-susah amat ko. Banyak yang jam 09:45 udah pada selesai. Saya sendiri selesai jam 10:00, lebih dikit.
Heh, tinggal tunggu wawancara. Masih lama sih, ntar Agustus. Liburan dulu deh...

Aksi Prihatin Terhadap Skema Bisnis Anne Ahira

I got this from a friend of mine, and I kinda agree with him, so...

source click here

Walaupun rada telat, but then again:

Kami, warga masyarakat dan komunitas Internet, merasa prihatin terhadap model bisnis yang diterapkan oleh Anne Ahira. Kami keberatan bahwa bisnis ini diasosiasikan dengan melakukan marketing di Internet. Marketing yang dilakukan di Internet sebenarnya adalah sesuatu yang baik dan wajar asalkan dilakukan dalam batas-batas etika dan kewajaran.

Setelah melakukan penyelidikan, kami berkesimpulan bahwa bisnis ini hanyalah sebuah praktik skema piramida yang dibungkus dengan istilah Internet Marketing. Hal ini jelas terlihat dari apa yang harus dilakukan oleh setiap anggota Elite Team, yaitu merekrut empat anggota baru. Skema piramida sejatinya merupakan penghisapan oleh segelintir individu terhadap banyak orang. Menurut kami, Internet tidak perlu dikotori dengan pemasaran dari bisnis tidak jelas seperti itu. Silakan melakukan pemasaran via Internet sejauh masih dalam batas-batas kewajaran dan bisnisnya adalah bisnis yang baik dan jelas.

Lebih jauh lagi, kami melihat bahwa Elite Team menawarkan janji yang menyesatkan, yaitu menyatakan bahwa tujuan Elite Team adalah agar semua anggota Elite Team memperoleh penghasilan $6.688 per bulan, dan bahwa ini adalah tujuan yang realistis. Tetapi realitanya adalah: seandainya semua anggota Elite Team bekerja keras dan teguh pada regimen Elite Team, hanya 1 dari 341 orang, atau 0,29%(!) yang memperoleh $6.688 per bulan. Sangatlah jauh dari apa yang diakui sebagai tujuan realistis Elite Team.

Produk yang ditawarkan Anne Ahira/EliteTeam adalah keanggotaan representative (rep.) di Financial Freedom Society, Inc. (FFSI), di mana setiap rep. harus membayar $54,95 per bulan kepada FFSI. Setiap rep. memperoleh komisi dari menjual keanggotaan FFSI ke orang lain sehingga menjadi rep. baru. Orang yang direkrut ini disebut sebagai affiliate, atau di MLM lain dikenal dengan nama downline, dan setiap rep. juga memperoleh komisi dari penjualan yang dilakukan oleh downline-nya sampai empat tingkat downline.

Selain dari keanggotaan FFSI, boleh dibilang tidak ada produk atau jasa yang dijual oleh Anne Ahira dan Elite Team. Dalam sistem Elite Team, besar penghasilan bulanan seorang anggota tergantung dari jumlah downline FFSI-nya dan bagaimana struktur downline tersebut karena tidak ada atau hampir tidak ada penghasilan seorang anggota Elite Team selain dari komisi FFSI.

Dengan perhitungan satu anggota mendapatkan 4 anggota baru, seperti yang dipraktikkan oleh Elite Team, maka hanya dalam 17 tingkat piramida jumlah anggota keseluruhan menjadi sebanyak 5.73 miliar. Sedangkan jumlah populasi manusia keseluruhan di dunia hanyalah 6.4 miliar. Jika seluruh 5.7 miliar manusia tersebut mengikuti program ini, maka hanya 89 juta orang yang akan berpenghasilan $6.688 per bulan. Sementara 5.3 miliar lainnya merugi!

Dengan demikian kami menghimbau masyarakat Internet untuk tidak mudah terjebak oleh iming-iming kekayaan yang dijanjikan oleh Anne Ahira, Elite Team maupun pihak-pihak lainnya. Kami berharap masyarakat Internet bisa menyadari adanya model bisnis semacam itu sehingga dapat lebih waspada. Kepada redaktur media massa juga kami berharap untuk selalu melakukan investigasi terlebih dahulu ketika membahas bisnis-bisnis yang tidak memiliki kejelasan seperti itu agar nantinya tidak dimanfaatkan oleh pihak-pihak tertentu sebagai promosi terselubung.

Internet, 22 Juni 2005

Tertanda,
Oskar Syahbana

ps. Bagi rekan-rekan penulis blog yang ingin menyebarkan pernyataan sikap ini dapat menyalin seluruh isi tulisan ini pada blog masing-masing. Tetapi tidak menutup kemungkinan rekan-rekan yang bukan penulis blog untuk mengikuti aksi ini.

sunday

hello :)

Hari Minggu nih, libur. Tapi kok, kayak bukan hari Minggu ya? Biasa aja tuh. Tetep, abis bangun...tidur lagi. Harusnya hari ini maen basket sih, ama anak-anak so-called-iServasia. Tadinya malah mau jogging dulu for a bit trus baru maen basket. Tapiii, yaaa, itu tadi. Bangun sih bangun, but...i couldn't help it! Males bangettt! Plus, sebenernya emang gak niat juga sih. I mean, I'm not that good at basketball. Gak tau tuh anak-anak yang laen jadi apa kagak maennya, yang terakhir kemaren-kemaren sih katanya gak jadi. Sigh...

Anyway, kenapa ya kok hari Minggu rasanya kayak gini? Biasanya klo hari Sabtu sore ato Minggu pagi perasaan seneng banget. I mean, it felt like...just...whoa! Tapi sekarang...
Barangkali gara-gara lagi liburan nih. Jadi hari Minggu pun terasa bagaikan hari-hari biasa hahahaha :)) Bahkan, sempet juga tadi lost-track-of-days. Sempet ngira hari ini tuh hari Senin. What the?! Hehehehe...

Ya gitu deh, jadi gak jelas gitu. Seharian terkurung (or was it mengurung diri?) di dalam kamar bermain bersama Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, winamp, The Simpsons, 5cm, dkk. So that you know, I don't have any television connections. Yang tadinya biasanya nebeng nonton ama kamar tetangga, sekarang jadi gak bisa. Why? Semuanya pada gak ada. Ya iya lah! Hari Minggu gitu. Pada jalan-jalan lah, ada yang udah mudik ke kampung lah. Punya sih saluran TV sendiri. Tapi lagi rusak (since more than a month ago) dan saya belum sempet aja ngebenerinnya (bilang aja males! hehehe)Well, I'd rather stay and read some books. Kenapa saya gak mudik? There are reasons. But enough for now. We shall talk again about it later (as Kreia would say).

nar shaddaa

the dying moon,

I didn't waste much time here on Nar Shaddaa. As my character arrived, he went straight to the point on his intention coming to this place: to find Master Zez-Kai Ell, and kill him. Most of the quest were the same, except this time I played the exile to slain people. He slain the Serrocco gangs without questions, intimidated most of the refugees there, and of course used his mind tricks for fun hehehheh...

One thing different here of course. I got Hanharr instead of Mira. That's too bad though. Mira was hot! But Hanharr was totally strong and his frenzy ability could shrug off damages to zero point!

Anyway, here and there, this and that, finally I met with Master Zez-Kai Ell. Well, after a short talk, I decided to fight him. Since my character was strong enough already, so that time I didn't have to run away again like I did when facing Master Vrook (well, not actually running away though, more of...pending hehehhe).

After I defeated Zez-Kai Ell, I went to Kreia and talk to choose the path my character shall take. And I chose to be a Lord. Cool, with a Lord character I could change alignment or something. But I haven't tried it. Anyway, right after I got my higher prestige class, I went back to Dantooine to challenge Vrook. This time it was quite easy, unlike before. The damage he inflicted wasn't as big as before and Urias' power has grown, so I defeated him. One new thing: as Urias' nearly defeated Vrook, he learned a new form which I've never seen before. I forgotten the name but it added up to Force damage to ++ while consuming your own Force. I don't know, hadn't try it though.

Next thing: Master Kavar on Onderon!

escaping telos

a progress,

My darkside character, Urias Shin (a male Guardian) has finally escaped Telos' Citadel Station and were now able to explore most of the Outer Rim. Well, since I wanted to make this guy as a darksided person, so I visited Korriban for the first time.

Not much of a new thing though. But somehow, I was finally able to reveal the secret behind the holocron in the locked chamber. Just after the guys blew it up with a thorium detonator, went in and activated the holocron. It appeared that the holocron was a recording of Bastila's comment on Revan. I don't know why, but in the previous game when I use a light-sided character, the holocron wasn't activated no matter how much I tried. You see, that's just why I needed to play this again and again and again. So that there might be some other thing that I haven't found out. Exploration.

It turned out that going to Korriban didn't actually gave me lots of darkside that I needed :( all I got there were lots of nasty tukata, shyrack, and hssiss to be slain. Plus, some dead person (Master Vash). So, there weren't that much of an adventure back then in Korriban. Even when I tried to fight Sion, Kreia told everyone to run away, and they did. Since after running away from Sion, the academy's door was locked, I tried and explored the shyrack's cave to enter the corrupted tomb. But as Urias wanted to enter, he was stopped by the darkside energy field protecting the entrance. Kreia said that he wasn't powerful enough to enter the tomb and should be back again later.

Urias' second destination was Dantooine. I haven't decided though, whether this time I should be sided with the Khoonda people or the mercenaries. Before this, I've always been in cooperation with Khoonda and got most of lightside. This time I think I will kill Master Vrook but still trying to defend Khoonda. If I couldn't then the Khoonda people would just have to die.

playing games

phew,

I don't know. I just don't know. I've been spending the last one week playing game. Well, I couldn't see any other perfect time to waste instead of in this holiday. So I ended up sitting in front of the computer all day long which successfully led to arse-suffering that I got.

Anyway, I was playing Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic: Sith Lords. I think I played it for the third or fourth times or so. It's just...enjoyable, you know. The fact that you could actually explore with different types of characters and different types of alignments made me wanted to play again and again and replay it again and again and again...and again. I've tried several characters: male-female, light, guardians-sentinels, weaponmasters-watchmen. Yeah, the only think that I haven't tried were those of Consulars and Masters. I also haven't tried to aligned myself to the darkside. I just couldn't. Everytime those dialogues appeared and left me with choices that should be made, I always chose the ones that brought me to the path of the light. Maybe I should go and try to embrace the darkside once in a while. You know, like, just kill someone without hesitation and without any reasonable cause (I used to save people, instead of killing them).

I don't know. Maybe it's just me. Maybe that tiny little thing inside me always told me to stay on the path of the light no matter what. I mean, it was just a game, come on. But then again...I think to myself, "Hey, it's a game but somehow it reflected me...in some ways, any way."

At this very moment, I'm trying to replay the game for the I-couldn't-remember-how-many times. I hope I shall revealed the secrets of the darkside this time. I'm using a Guardian and probably would choose Marauder or a Lord in time.

At this point, I've cleared Peragus and still trying to get out of Telos. I've played it several times so I guess I would be able to do this quickly. After this I wanted to play again with a light alignment and become a Master. I don't know. Knowing the fact that the last time I played was a darkside, I just couldn't accept it. I needed to bring it back to the light. Pointless? Maybe. But then again, maybe it's just me.

a start

OK, I must admit it. I haven't been very consistent in my past writings. But I guess this time it shall be conserved. Suddenly I just had this sensation inside of me which indulged. When I saw the others, it gave me another piece of spirit I lost. The upcoming times may not be ever consistent as it was, but I shall try to bring what I have in mind, in here.

So, as of this day onward, 15th of June 2005, the journey begins.