birthday

21

It’s the time of year where I apply kaizen: To stop, reflect, and continuously improve.

I’m scared of the future. It seemed so uncertain and scary out there. Meanwhile, my days in university is numbered. I couldn’t start it with positivism and optimism like what I did in my 17th, where after reading it back, I laughed at myself 😃 Many things have changed but some things will not. I saw my wishes from my 18th birthday, I felt that I did fulfilled all of them already by this age: improved designing skill (check; hey, back then, my designing skill was really bad); improved public speaking (partial check; I think co-presented a presentation during international conference counts? hahaha); built personal website (check; it was a mini-resume now, with few side projects hosted on it). …

20

8 October 2015

It’s official. I’m 20.

Over the past one year, I realized that I changed a lot. Thanks to NTUBS.

Now I am more confident, easier to speak in public, don’t feel much awkwardness when leading, and can express myself truly.

I haven’t updated this blog for quite a time due to my busyness (just knew that this is a valid word, I’ve been using the wrong word the whole time since I thought the noun for busy is business :P ).

How busy?

Now I’m the Vice President of Dharma in NTU Buddhist Society 33rd Management Committee. It was a coordinator role, overseeing three portfolios and also being together with the other coordinators in leading the society. It was quite a big task for me since I was new to this field and it is really heavy as most of the decisions for society will be taken by us.

That aside, during my life when I’m 19, I’ve traveled to some places that I never been before:

  • Bangkok, Thailand (ACM ICPC Regional Asia-Bangkok 2014)
  • Samosir Island, North Sumatra, Indonesia (family holiday during December 2014)
  • London, UK (only inside Heathrow airport, just for transit; but then I’ve enjoyed BBC Radio 1 live on FM :’) )
  • Mexico City, Mexico (Wikimania 2015)

I also did my first internship, it was at Healint, a start-up company where I did quite number of stuffs.

The best part I guess is that I received Wikimania scholarship and was covered in travel & accommodation expenses to Wikimania 2015 global conference at Mexico City. There, for the first time, I met those people that share the same idea of freedom of knowledge, those people that speak the same Wikipedia terminologies, and those people that are willing to spend their precious time editing Wikipedia. This conference has rejuvenate my motivation in editing Wikipedia that has been diminishing since 2011.

Let’s look at what I planned to achieve from the previous birthday.

  • Actively writing this blog.  –> partially, until the summer holiday; I felt that I always not writing on the weekends where I should have.
  • Do more side projects and have more ideas. –> initially yes until school projects ruined it. By having school projects, it was hard to have any more free time in doing other side projects. Besides that, (during internship) after work was also not good as I still have some chores to do and was already exhausted from the day.
  • Be more strict on schedule. –> I haven’t achieved this, though in the first half of this new semester, I have a more or less good sleeping/waking up time.

What I hope to achieve in the upcoming year?

  • Maintain body and mind: do sports and meditation. Also be strict on daily schedule and have some time for daily meditation and weekly sports (which I plan to be swimming) Besides that, also try to reduce consumption of meat.
  • Contributions to open source projects. MediaWiki? Mozilla? Who knows? Or at least do some more side projects that are useful.
  • Do charity, at least by donation to causes that needed it.
  • Frequently update blog on life events, thoughts, etc.

That’s it. Let’s hope for a greater year ahead :)

Week 8, Semester 3

14 October 2014

It was week 8 of the semester, which started peacefully and the workload increases again. It is packed with a holiday, my birthday, NTUBS stuffs (Dharma Camp and Committee Day), and ICPC training. …

8 October 2014

9 October 2014

It was my 19th birthday.

The day itself was just a normal Wednesday, until I was surprised by my friends for a birthday celebration. Well, technically the Facebook event for this surprise shows up in my News Feed, which was surprising. After that, expecting they will celebrate at night, I just kept myself busy with many things, waiting for them to come :P although I tried my best for not knowing the event, to make them happy.

I woke up at 7, having prepared for the day, I went to CZ2002 lab. The lab itself was not so complicated and I managed to finished it in an hour. Going back, I took a short nap first before “fixing” the problem with my Surface, in which after I “refresh” it, it wouldn’t run Windows Update. In the meantime, I played Bejeweled 3, free full game from Origin. Besides that, I received many birthday greetings already and I start to thank them one by one.

After lunch at Canteen 1, I continued doing these stuffs until I went to HW0210 tutorial which talked about writing conclusion and recommendation, and abstract. After the tutorial, our group went to a TR (chopped one of course) for a meeting, discussing about the current state of the report. In the end of the meeting, they greeted me a happy birthday. Going back after dinner at Canteen A, I did my laundry, cleaned up my room, fixed my Surface problem, revised my part of HW0210 report, and then continued playing game. I also received an email from the past me, that is written on May 2014, wishing myself a happy birthday and reminding me about the status of my goals I’ve set earlier this year. In the end, I watched Magic Kaito first before going to bed (although I knew that they are coming).

Just right after I went to bed, they actually came and “surprised” me. I was greeted by a cake in front of the door by Alwyn and Chun Wah. :) Then, they took me to the bus stop where everyone else were waiting. Woah, a lot of people were there. They sung happy birthday, I cut the cake, we all ate the cake, did chit-chat, and finally took photos. I received a lot (read: A LOT) of birthday greetings here from my friends and received a birthday card (and gift) from NTUBS Fellowship team :) Yay, it was a little minion.

http://instagram.com/p/t6k5Z3BXsw

Usually people do resolutions on New Year, but I do it on birthday. So, this year’s resolution is:

  • Actively writing this blog. At least covers the story of every week of my life, preferably to publish every weekends.
  • Do more side projects and have more ideas. I should do a big side projects (the one like “Raun” is big enough for me) during holidays, and in the non-holiday period, think of project ideas. Besides that, I would also like to learn new tech stuffs, like learning Rust, Node.js, or mobile app development; and to make full use of my devices (laptop, tablet, and phone) in doing the projects.
  • Be more strict on schedule, especially sleeping time and waking-up time, and don’t waste time in procrastinating, always have something productive to do if I’m not resting.

On the side note, I would also like to enhance my public speaking skill, interview skill, and English skill. This is because I realize that I’m sucks at those things and would like to further improve them.

I hope that those all can be achieved by next year’s birthday.

May all be well and happy,

Kenrick.

Week 2, Semester 2

26 January 2014

On Monday, Indonesian SCE freshies planned to celebrate Edwin’s birthday. The plan dragged till 5.30 pm because of the clashes between our schedules. But then when the celebration was held, I was not there because I’m still in a class till 6.30 pm. After my class (of EE8087 Living with Mathematics), which I met 3 new Indonesian people  (which is good as we can form a team of 4 for the group project), I straight went to Canteen A, where the celebration occurred (which they left a piece of cake for me) and another celebration for Crystal will occur. Just right after I arrived there, the celebration for Crystal started. Quite surprising that their cakes are of the same type!

On Tuesday, after the lectures, I went to “Glow with the Flow” event organized by Red Cross Youth NTU Chapter. For me the event was a fail one as everyone were there just for the free dinner and for the lucky draw. The event did not make the participant want to stay because the MC was asking hard questions and then for those who can’t answer, they did a forfeit. I somehow escaped from the event after the dinner and then came back when the lucky draw event started.

On Wednesday, I attended the first tutorial class of CZ1007 Data Structure, CZ1006 Computer Organization and Architecture, and BU8201 Business Finance. In my opinion, the tutor for CZ1006, Dr Teo, somehow resembles the teaching style of Mr Johnson because he (Dr Teo) like to discuss little things of the questions, especially when someone does it wrongly, but the teaching style exclude Johnson’s renowned style of teasing people. After the lecture on CM8001 Impact of Chemistry on Society which was quite nice as the lecturer incorporated interesting videos to the lecture, which in my opinion made people more interested in the lecture, I attended the Business Finance tutorial. This is the first time I’m in a Seminar Room at S4. I found out that I’m the only Indonesian in the class after signing the attendance, and most of the people at the tutorial are Singaporeans. In the first tutorial, I went out to present my answer on one of the questions, which the tutor commented, “can be made better in the tutorial presentation”.

On Thursday, at 0830, I went to One Stop @ SAC to cover Aryani’s slot. The workload was quite normal, just around 10 people came in total with no one coming at the first hour. After that, I went to lectures on CZ1007, CZ1006, and EE8087. Honestly, for CZ1006, I did not understand many of the theories here but then I’m still able to understand if were asked the practical question (at the Clicker session).

On Friday, after working part-time as CITS ITSA at LWN Library, I walked to Rizky’s room at Hall 6 to help preparing Aryani’s birthday card. At 6.15pm, I left them and after having a detour at Canteen 1 to take my dinner, walked back to North Spine to attend my CNS 2014 interview which I am allocated a slot at 7 pm. I arrived there just some minutes before 7. Quickly filling the registration form, I was then called to be interviewed. I was applying for Welfare Manager and Logistics Manager. Unlike others, I was interviewed for two positions at the same time. This interview took around 45 minutes in total (including the time which the interview was disrupted by false fire alarm).

After the interview, I waited at the waiting room for the time to pass by without realizing that another event which I wanted to go (by NTU Open Source Society) was occurring near that room. I’m a member of NTU OSS and am willing to attend their events, but every time since their first event, there was NTUBS event occurring on the same time. :(

Nevertheless, I waited because Aryani’s birthday was scheduled to be celebrated after the interview session ended. Aryani have been going in and out to the waiting room. Seems like she knew already that her birthday will be celebrated, but she just didn’t know when. Finally, around 11, after we pretended to go back, we then surprised her!

On Saturday, after did my laundry, finally I had the chance to eat at Canteen 11’s Temple Street (Chinese Cuisine). The last time I ate a meal from that stall was for the dinner on the day I arrived back at NTU (at 6 January). After lunch, I had meeting with Peter and Stephanie at SAC, discussing NTUBS website, and making NTUBS library online. At the night, I finally watched Sherlock season 3 episode 1, which was nicely done. Near the midnight, I went to Evando & Teheri’s room to join the preparation of Dion’s birthday celebration. After waiting for everyone to come, we then start the plan. The celebration itself is at Dion’s room which then moved to the TV Lounge.

On Sunday, I went to Buddhist Fellowship, with Dhika, Liniki, and Nardi. This Sunday Service, the speaker, Bro Yap, talked about broad things about 2013 and 2014, which in some times I’m distracted with other things. Going back from BF, I shopped at Fairprice for a while, I did not know why, but this time it was very crowded. Arrived at NTU, I took a little nap before knew that for CNS 2014 I was offered as Logistic Subcom. Quite disappointing, but then in the end I accept the offer after taking some time to think.

The week has been filled with a lot of fun although it ended with disappointment. Don’t let the disappointments diminish the spirit. Nevertheless,

“Let go and let’s go”