I’ve started diving into graphics design. Learning Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, with AfterEffects and Premiere for movie editing. Thank God for my new system to handle all the rendering hehehe.

Fun stuff. Better than coding in Visual Studio? Let’s not answer that just yet

Some people, like me, live life in a whirlwind of emotional roller coaster. One day you’re as happy as you can be, and the next you wish that you could hole up somewhere and just curl up all warm and snuggly. There’s nothing inherently wrong about this, since everyone is different, and this is just one way that a person needs to unwind. You could say that this is how you recharge, to get back your emotional balance. This is how I feel, and it’s pretty strange for me to experience. One day I’m as happy as you can be, talking to people left and right, just happy..and the next day, I feel that I’ve got this weight on my shoulders. Words can hardly come out of my mouth and my mind feels like it’s jammed into neutral.

So..how do I get out of days like this? Well, I actually have a number of ways. One is that I listen to energetic and moving music just before I go out. I put the volume on LOUD, but not too loud as to make me deaf, and just meditate in my room for a few minutes before going out. Two, I meet up with my close friends, and shoot the shit with them, to get me into a talkative and more productive mode. For me, it’s all about how I can manage my inner self, how I can change my state of mind into what I want it to be. To focus on what’s important. To put things into perspective.

Life should be fun. All the bumps and obstacles shouldn’t be taken too seriously. I need to keep this in mind.

I love food. I love eating. So…combined…I would like to cook food to eat. Very nice logic!

That’s why I’m searching through the websites right now and picking out some really simple yet tasty recipes that I can try out. I’ve gotten stuff like Baked Potatoes, Creamed Spinach, and other easy to do meals. And I really want to take out my family’s crockpot and use it. I remember when I was about 10 or 11 years old, my family went to this state park with a stew half done in the crockpot. When we got there, we waited for the stew to finish while walking around this beautiful lake. It was a great time. After the long walk we had ourselves a pretty nice meal. I think the stew had carrots and stuff besides the beef.

I’m going to get the ingredients tomorrow (or the day after depending on how much homework I get) and start cooking!

Another year is here, and I am knee deep in stuff that I have to study for my final exams. This is LITERAL my friends: I am KNEE DEEP with materials I haven’t even touched. Scattered all across my room are papers with different states of scribles or text on them. Some have even gotten a bit dusty too. Man, and with this, I know I can still get a minimal GPA of 3. That says a lot about my study habits eh? Sad thing is, this time next year, I would probably forget half of what I study now. So…get the grade, not the knowledge. That is a terrible philosophy by the way. One that a lot of people around me seem to follow though. It’s not like I don’t know HOW to change, or WHY to do it…I have a ton of books and information on the HOW and WHY…. It’s more that I CAN’T change it. But then, it’s not that either. It’s because I’m PROCASTINATING!!!! Damn it, I procastinate daily. I have a million different excuses on why I do it, from my environment, to my neighborhood, to my friends, etcetera etcetera, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is all MY RESPONSIBILITY!!!! Change has to come from ME!! It is ME that has to decide to make a schedule, and adhere to the darn thing. Discipline is the keyword!!!!

Though you know, this semester I’ve done not too bad. Most of the stuff lying around in total disarray in my room is because I’ve read them. And just dropped them whenever I’m done with it. I’m a bit pleased with the progress from my first year, but there is a LOT that can be improved. I need to really think hard for myself and find out what I really want with school. From there I can decide to take CONTROL of my life and really LIVE it to the fullest that I want to. And if that includes things that will make me uncomfortable and out of my comfort zone, then SO BE IT DAMN IT!!!

There’s a lot of things that is beyond my control. And I shouldn’t really worry about them. It only makes me more down. So..don’t worry, and be happy.

Back in September, a friend and I set out to Rumbai, Pekanbaru, Riau, Sumatera on a Pelita Air airplane to start our Practical Training in PT Chevron Pacific Indonesia (CPI). The Practical Training lasted one month from September 11 to October 10, 2007. I was very excited going to Sumatera because I haven’t been there before, but I was even more excited to be going to have my Practical Training in PT CPI. PT CPI is the biggest oil contractor in Indonesia, and is part of the multinational company Chevron, so I am eager to learn as much as I can about the oil industry, and about working at a multinational company at large.

First off though, let me tell you a bit about PT CPI. I’m just gonna copy paste this from wikipedia :

Chevron Pacific Indonesia (CPI) adalah anak perusahaan dari Chevron yang bertugas mengeksplorasi minyak yang ada di Riau. Sebelum diambil alih oleh Chevron, perusahaan ini bernama Caltex Pacific Indonesia. Para karyawan CPI ditempatkan di 4 kota di Riau yaitu Dumai, Duri, Minas dan Rumbai. CPI juga merupakan perusahaan minyak kontraktor terbesar di Indonesia, dengan produksi sudah mencapai 2 miliar barrel.

My friend and I were assigned to the Business Application Team under the IT Department. We were both stationed in the Rumbai main office, specifically in wing 4. Now, the thing about PT CPI is, that there’s basically 4 groups of camps that are pretty big in Sumatera. One is in Rumbai, which is where I was stationed at, and Rumbai is basically the main administration office for the whole PT CPI in Sumatera. The second camp is Duri, a 3 hour drive from Rumbai, and it is the main exploration site at the moment which is famous for its Duri Crude Oil. The third camp is Minas, a half hour drive from Rumbai, and it’s the other exploration site of PT CPI in Sumatera. The fourth is also a camp, although not as big as the other three, and it is located in Dumai. Dumai camp serves as a port to send off the oil to other parts of the world in huge oil tankers.

In Rumbai, we lived at Double Bachelor Quarter (DBQ) Complex 211 room 1 for a week, before we were transferred to DBQ 210 room 4 because DBQ 211 had to be renovated. I liked living in 210 better, because it is not as far away as 211, and we are closer to everywhere else. Especially so to the Main Office in wing 4. It was about to say the least a 5 minute walk to where we lived to get to our office. It’s that close. The first few days though, we didn’t know about this fact because when we first came in on the bus to the Rumbai Camp, the bus went around and around and I got really disoriented so that I didn’t know where everything was. Anyways, it was on the third day when going home that we called a taxi to get to DBQ 211. The driver looked at us all strange and muttered “Deket banget”. My friend and I looked at each other but thought nothing of it. It wasn’t until that we saw how close the place actually was that we decided that maybe we should just walk rather than wait for the taxi to come pick us up.  I thought it was hilarious that we had to take an 8 minute ride on a car when we could just walk for 5 minutes. Hahaha.

This morning I started thinking about World War II, and somehow it got me to think about today’s armies. I mean, everytime I look at a picture of an American soldier in Afganistan/Iraq/whatever, I always get excited because the gadgets and equipment the soldier has on is looks really COOL. There’s the extra magazine cartridges strapped to the chest, the radio communicator on the neck, the M4A1 strapped oh so beautifully on the shoulder, the awesome looking pixel camoflauge, night vision goggles, and a lot of cool, high tech stuff. One soldier probably costs more than one Indonesian platoon!! Kidding!!!

Anyway, after I got on Google and started screwing around, I found this site, which is about French victories, hahaha!!! I just started looking around for Band of Brothers facts, like I usually do, when I remembered a joke I heard in a movie (forgot which one), about how the French army really sucks. So that’s how I got this site. Don’t understand why I’m laughing?? Click on the site and you’ll know. Good laugh, hahaha.

“The Road Not Taken” is a poem by Robert Frost. It is one of my favorite poems because I really feel its meaning about choosing the paths of your life. Whenever we meet a crossroad in our life, we just have to trust ourselves to make the right choice, even if it is the hard one. Then looking back, we can reflect on that choice, for better or worse, and strive on ahead with life.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I’ve got my hand full at the moment, what with college and my studies on the works of American Literature, plus the fact that I am working on my IBM Challenge project. On the other hand, I’ve never felt more alive!! I think being busy suits me. I remember back when I was in my first and second semester, where I didn’t have anything worthwhile to do after my classes. I would just go home and sleep, maybe read a book or two, or play games on the computer. But that’s about what my days would amount to. Now I think I’m more organized, though not nearly as organized as I want to be, but better than I was a couple years back. I’m thinking about finally reading the book “Getting Things Done” that I’ve had for YEARS now. So far the reviews I’ve read have been positive, and from the many blogs that I sometimes read, from finance to self-help, this book has been highly recommended. So that’s that, I’m GOING TO READ IT!!!

Speaking of books, I am currently reading “Player Piano” by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Wonderful book, great author. The past two weeks I’ve already finished “The Sirens of Titans”, “Mother Night”, “Breakfast of Champions”, “Cat’s Cradle” and just two days ago I finished “Bluebird”. My favorite so far is “Bluebird”. It has a very human side to it, and I love its quirky and attractive characters. A MUST READ. A close second would be “Cat’s Cradle”. Hilarious book. I’m looking for Vonnegut’s short stories collection, though I haven’t found much success yet. I will keep looking, since I’ve heard that the book is very entertaining. A word of caution: if you have trouble reading and understanding the English language, even with the likes of Harry Potter, then you would be hard pressed to enjoy Vonnegut’s books. His use of vocabulary is extensive and complicated, especially for non-native speakers such as yours truly, and I have had to use my trusty Linguist English-Indonesian dictionary on many counts.

Enough rambling on, time to work.

Toodle Doo…