ANT

Mr. Manaek Nababan

18 July 2013

Today, one of the most beloved teacher in my high school passed away. He is Mr. Manaek Nababan, a physics teacher, who was our form teacher at grade 12. He taught me somewhat little, because in the first days of grade 12, I’m attending my brother’s commencement, and I did not get in school for a week because of OSN, and a month because of Pelatnas.

He gave us so many general and specific formulas and put it on a box that make the formula seems important. I did not like to memorize those formula though, I just like to memorize a very general and short form of concept that will derive out the formula. But his general formula is very general that it can be applied at very much cases but the formula is too long to memorize.

Before boarding the plane that took I and Peter to Pelatnas 1 at Bandung, we met a guy who claimed to be an alumnus of Sutomo and former student of Mr. Manaek. He said that Mr. Manaek was used to be a teacher at a public tuition class (like Ganesha Operation), which focuses on speed rather than concept, and that is why he like to give us formulas: to speed up our work in examinations.

There were many quotes from him that were quite funny, like

Gantungkanlah mimpimu sejengkal di atas kepalamu, agar gampang diraih

translation:

Put your dreams a span above your head, so you can reach them easily.

In my opinion, this was to motivate us to reach dreams that were reachable, not to put them at place which were out-of-reach.

On our class’s inauguration party, he intended to come, but because of family matters, he couldn’t make it. Before the party, he told our maths teacher, Mr. HL, that he said that this class was one of the best class he ever taught and he intended to go to the party. But in front of us, he apologize to us that he couldn’t come because of him being the host at his family party that night. The Monday after the the party, we kept the cake that were cut during the inauguration and then shared the cake to him.

The last time I saw him was 24 May 2013, he gave us the letter that states our graduation. His voice that time was already weak, and he wore jackets, like he was sick but pushed himself to show everyone that he was okay. Often they said that when he looked sick, if someone asked him, he will said that he was okay.

This essay may seem very disorganized, but I will keep it that way.

Good bye Mr. Manaek Nababan, thank you and rest in peace.

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ANT website

13 July 2013

This was the story of me building the website of my class, ANT.

It was end-2012, I have things to do but I need some refreshments, I’m tired of working at LM. I started an idea to create a website for my class. One day after another, it came to testing phase, I showed this project to the class monitor. If he granted me permission, I will finish this project. I was granted the permission and by the end of 2012, I somewhat finished that project. It was quite simple news website: add post, edit post, delete post, manage post, with some enhancements like tagging post as sticky post or announcement.

Usually when near exam period, we shared our resources via a Dropbox account, which was initially created by Wilson Tianusa. Curious of everything, I tried to search if I can access the Dropbox account of my class via the website. After some searching, some experiments, and some modifications, it was done! Out of my expectations, to just access it, users do not need to know the username and password of the Dropbox account. Usually we share the files via shortlinks, because some are shared via SMS and Twitter. Curious again, I searched and found Bitly API which I can utilize to generate shortlinks of every folder and files. Because they are all resource heavy, I decided to restrict them to registered users with sufficient roles.

But it did not lasts, the login/logout system was not quite well when we face our last school exam (UAS). After some complaints, I removed the code that required registered users to access Dropbox.

Just like expectations, this project was short-lived, it was busy when it was on exam period. Between them, maybe it was busy when we uploaded something new and we notified peoples that we did that. Overall, I was happy with this project: we can share our resources freely.

Link:

ANT Berastagi Trip

22 April 2013

On this day I and my classmates went to Berastagi to enjoy the last moment together. Our departure point was at Jl. Bintang, right in front of the school gate. We departed at 9 am by using 2 buses: a big bus (with capacity around 40 people) and a small one (with capacity around 15 people). I joined the big bus because the demand for the small one is higher.

Arrived at Berastagi around 11am, we had our lunch at Tesalonika 6, a Karo roast pork restaurant. It was my first time eating roasted pork. After lunch, we went to our villa at Villa Berastagi Highland. After settling my things there, I went out for a walk around the complex.

At 3pm, we went together to Taman Alam Lumbini. We walked around the pagoda, then the valley. Before leaving, we took a photo together.

For dinner, we initially wanted to eat at Restoran Asia, but unfortunately it haven’t opened yet. So we were told to spread around and came back at 6.30 pm at that point. I, Leonard, Satria, Golfin, Jensen, Vicky, and JL went to RM Timur to have our dinner.

Back in the villa, we played some board games before at 10 Ferry gave a breifing about Running Ant, a game which will be played on the next day. I’m getting intense. The first game was to line up in front of the villa at 6 am after waking up without alarm clock and taking breakfast.

My team, green team which consists of me, Eko, Jana, Wilson Lius, Andy Darwin, Ricky, Clarice, and Sylvia, have this strategy: Eko will stay awake until 12 and will call Ricky who will stay awake till morning. Then I went to sleep around 10.30 pm.

23 April 2013

Around 2am, I woke up because of a noise. But after I went to the toilet, I went asleep again.  It was at 4.30 am that everyone was woken up by the noise. When I woke up, I was given my breakfast, single piece of bread, but I’m still to sleepy to eat. It was around 5.30 that I ate them.

It was right before 6 that every single group lined up in front of the villa. It was a tie.

The next game was racing with our foot tied up to the other member’s foot. It was a side-by-side walking race. We got the 5th turn. We rehearse ourselves first. It was fun to finish the game.

Next, we have our rest until 11 because the next game was cancelled due to someone sickness. I strolled around the villa. I came across to take photos of Mt. Sinabung. It was rare because usually it was covered by a thick fog. That time, it was very clear.

It was 11. Time for the next game. Our team were told that we won the first place in the previous game. Yay! In this game we were told to merge teams: we merged with White team. The merged teams must cook dishes to be eaten at dinner. We were also given an envelope containing our budget and our time to spend in the market to buy ingredients for the dishes. We decided to make steak. In the market, the committee told us to tie up our hands. I tied up my hands with Mr. Andy Darwin’s. It was funny because there we needed just one piece carrot which everyone is selling at least a kilogram of carrot. After we buy quite many potato, the seller throw in 2 piece of carrot. Then we went back to the bus. Before leaving for lunch, I buy an ice cream. Haha.

We had lunch at Restoran Asia while some others went to other restaurant. After lunch, we went straight to Bukit Kubu to rest in the grass field. At 3 pm sharp, the real game of Running Ant began. Everyone was stuck by a name tag. Everyone task was to remove that name tag. Person without the name tag was considered lost. The last man standing will win the game.

At first our team make an alliance with White and Purple team. Our goal was to eliminate Yellow first, then Red, then Blue. After that, we agreed with White to eliminate Purple if it was just 3 team left. Our strategy, which was given by Ricky, was to play back-to-back and swarm others.

The game starts. We hid behind the buildings. It was intense but no one came. We happened to attack player which are in the protection of the jury because of technical errors like the name tag fell itself. We saw something terrible. Red, Yellow, and Blue teamed up and were together uphill. White and Purple are there but Green are far away. We rushed there but attacked from the side and we lost Ricky. Being disadvantaged downhill, we slowly went uphill. Yeah, from uphill we can saw every movement of the enemy. But it was dangerous because some part was very steep. It was a stalemate, attacks were easily repelled and we were all well defended. Nicholas attacked us but unfortunately the game had to be paused as he fell down and got an injury. The game resumed after a while with some decided not to play any more and the jury told us to just play downhill. We also agreed that all alliance were broken. Green target was Yellow first. But when we were approaching the Yellow, they also approach the other and Blue was in our way, we were being chased by Purple too. We must attack all. I and Andy Darwin faced Tommy from Blue, Tommy and Andy fell but I did not successfully removed his name tag. Tommy’s seem serious that Ferry decided to cancel the game. I felt sorry. Ferry also look very tired and stressed.

After taking photo together, we went back to villa. There we have some rest, some went swimming, and I have a stroll again. This time, I saw Ferry upstairs in wet and red face along with Ricky. He was crying. I left as I did not want to be in their affairs. Around 6, the girls started to cook. But it was predicted that it will not be enough for all. Around 8 we went out to buy some food and return to the villa. I decided to buy roasted fish (again) and ate it with rice. It was a very tiring day.

24 April 2013

I woke up around 7. For breakfast, I had a toast with UltraMilk. All wearing ANT T-shirt, we went to Mikie Holiday Funland that day. It was fun. I rode almost all of the rides. Photos said it all, I’m too tired to describe the rides. Before lunch, I happened to come across a big lizard in the bushes. For lunch, we had fried chicken which was sold there.

Around 3.30, we have some rest at the restaurant. I could feel in my head that I was being shake, rolled, and thrown. The funniest fire was “Dolphin Bay”. It was like riding horse but in a shocking way. Around 4, they started the paint-ball game until 6. They had 3 round in the game. We watched the game from a valley beside the arena which was covered by a net. Nicholas who joined the first round and became spectator in the second round got some paint on his shirt because of the paint shot. Before leaving, we took photos together with the ship and the Funland gate being in the background.

We took some rest before having barbecue beside the swimming pool that night. Some drank “beers” and got “drunk”. It was a nice experience to flutter the grill. It was showering lightly and sometimes stormy. Funny things happened that night. Usually when a flash happened, they counted till they heard the lightning sound. When I took photo with blitz, Khendry counted but there was no lightning sound heard. Haha. Also, that night was very foggy that we thought there was a fire near our villa. I went up to the roof of the villa to find out that it was just street light being refracted by the fog. But for sure, it was very similar. Haha. When I wanted to go in to my room, Leonard prohibited me saying that I may not in because they were discussing something important. Okay then, I left them to join the barbecue again. It was near 1 am. It was getting quieter and quieter. Then we decided that it was over. We cleaned the place until around 1.30 am. Then I went straight to sleep.

25 April 2013

I woke up at 8 am. For breakfast, I had my own SariRoti bread with UltraMilk. Around 9, I went  for a walk and then sat at a swing to enjoy the nature. I couldn’t do that in Medan: listening to the birds chirping, feeling the fresh air, and looking at the green grass and blue sky.  It was quite long. I had my phone played some songs. Roy and Vinsensius joined me talking little things. Some others cooked breakfast and even lunch with the leftovers.

Around 12 we went to RM Siang Malam then to the market and villa then went back to Medan but before going there, we had a problem: the chauffeur didn’t want to go to all those places because he said that the fuel didn’t enough for all those journeys. Okay then, we quickly packed our things and just went to RM Siang Malam to have our lunch. It was a small restaurant. We all ate in here. They cooked very slow that we had our lunch at 3 pm. Others who had finished their lunch went to the market.

At last at 4.30 pm we started  to leave Berastagi. On the journey home, I slept for a while. We arrived at Yanglim Plaza at 7pm. Some had dinner there, others (including me) went straight home.

Although there were many obstacles, this journey was really tiring and really fun.

“You must know that not every event will run smoothly like the plan” – Vinsensius when talking to I & Roy at the swing.

“I thought that we were all nice together” –Alvin commenting on quarrel of some people

Project: Revealed

Like our class monitor has announced, today, is the day where the project which I did since 12 December is released. Okay, the project is our class website. It is accessible at http://ant.t15.org. I thought I could release it by the semester exam, but I were so busy that I was postponed until the exam, i.e. I got more free-time on examination. It is intended for us to access resources from our Dropbox account via the website, because sharing links in Dropbox is too mainstream complicated.

Actually, this project is using most of the unreleased 2nd version of Lihat Masalah’s site-design and site-interface. Also combined with the first version of Lihat Masalah’s database. This project includes a new feature besides direct access to Dropbox: posting news and announcements. This project also uses the latest version of CKEditor: the 4th version. Lihat masalah has been using the 3rd version all the time. There is news sharing feature that utilize Facebook API, Twitter API, and Google+ API. There is one more to add: Bit.ly API. Woah, this is the first time I use API that much.

I revealed this website to Leonard on 23 December and he approved it. I was so happy to receive that news that I could not stop smiling. From that date, I worked more and more seriously on this project.

Today soon after the website was announced, there were bugs here and there, but they were resolved quickly. This website received positive reactions from ANT-ers.

I intend to post each profile of ANT member, so after we graduated, we still can access this website and find others’ profiles. I hope this project will be the basis of the 2nd version of Lihat Masalah, which I hope [again] can host a programming competition.

Visit ANT’s website at http://ant.t15.org.