You often see cases like that, aren’t you? Those people who, even though they don’t have that much capability in painting, still chose painting as their way of life…Simply because they love it, the way they can create something new from a scratch, fusion of colors in their own individual way. So what if they lead miserable life? If the paints are unsold?

I somehow can understand this now. When you like certain activity, no matter how bad you are in it, you can’t necessarily escape from it, because the feeling is too great to be missed. Even though you’ll be hurt after slamming yourself to the wall of self-incapacity more and more times, still… you can’t really stop being a painter.

As we all have known, it’s not easy. At first, so many ideas came but then I should carefully chose which one is feasible to be written as my thesis – Are there enough resources? How will I measure the variables? Etc etc. In fact I spent several weeks just to choose the topic.

I really want it to finish quickly, so I can embrace the next stage of my life (the career life or graduate student life, I’m still considering those two).

But I also realize that since this thesis would be a symbol of my study in this campus, my present to the university, I should make it good. And so I should not see this with irritation; I shall enjoy the process of creating this final thesis.

But then I become one of them… Yesterday I just missed my train to Jakarta. I was supposed to take the train at 4.45 with my friends, but I arrived at the station at 4.47… It was because I didn’t really asked my friend who took me to the station to be hurry. I thought the economy-class train would be a little late, so we went slow in the motorcycle, had a good chat and whatsoever…

When I arrived at the station, I can still see my train. The officer at the gate saw me with an understanding eyes, asked me to run, maybe I can still catch the train. I run and run, but when my feet stepped in the platform, the train moved…

a bittersweet feeling, seeing the back of the train

My feet literally shaking when I realized I missed it. All my friends has already there inside (Later on I was informed that they were also almost late in catching the train… They just have two minutes earlier than me, so they also got all the running-for-the-train-drama. Only they got inside. Two minutes. A little difference that made significant changes).

Luckily I can still get the next train. Of course, more money to spend, but what else I can do?

The lesson of this story…? Isn’t it obvious?

But no, the most unique part of Ma Icih chips is not even in its spiciness, but its marketing mechanism. The distributors of Ma Icih are not ordinary chain store or stall. Anyone interested to be a distributor should apply to the producer (its produced in Bandung). The way to advertise the chips is through its official twitter account. The chips seller would appear randomly in any place, and the twitter account will announce the place where the seller stand by for two or three hours. For example, “Today in Jogja the agent will stay in XYZ street no.15 at 2 PM – 4 PM. Come!”.

And you know what, it always sold out that way! My friend come three hour after the announcement and she wasn’t lucky, the person before her become the last buyer of the chips. I think, the rarity of the snack itself that made people so eager to always find the chips. You know, you feel good when you are able to grab something that are hard-to-get.

Coming from a chili lover region, I’ve already familiar with the chili cassava since I was in junior high school. I used to buy similar (but kinda different too) chili chips from school canteen. Every time I went home to my hometown, I always try to find the chips and have it as a snack.

No it's not Ma Icih, it's the other chili cassava chips.

My friends and me once thought about bringing the chips and re-sell it to others, but then we thought Jogjanese who doesn’t really like spicy food would not that interested to the chips. We forgot to analyze several things.
First, people live in Jogja are not only Jogjanese, a lot of students gather from every region in Indonesia, including people from spice-lover region. Second, the Jogjaness also experiencing changing food taste, since they are exposed to various kinds of foods from others, therefore they are more tolerant toward spicy food now. But more importantly, the young generation here is really curious, up-to-date, and always follow recent trend. Ma Icih chips is no longer a snack. It’s a symbol of exclusivity, glorified by the social networking site and mouth-to-mouth marketing mechanism.
Now the question is how long this cassava craze will last.
Weeks before, there was a Magnum craze also in many cities here. The point was, the delicious ice stick was advertise a lot in the television, but apparently the stock of the ice cream in the stores were very few… the ice cream become a rare commodity and everyone really want to have it. Stores that were able to have the stock would increase the price significantly. After several weeks, the stock were increasing but then it become overstock and everyone are not really eager to buy it anymore… I call it Magnum bubble then…
As for me, I will always love chili food so I will keep buy the chips, not as often as I want though…

Life is a never ending challenge after all. Some challenges come without our consent, some were chosen carefully. Some were too big to bear (or so we thought), some were easy to be passed.

So here I am, voluntarily took a big big challenge, bearing a huge responsibility for one year, because of love and gratitude.

It won’t be easy I’m sure. But I’m willing to try. Especially since they have given me the trust.

10. Had a nice sleep, even though it wasn’t that long.
9. The weather was fair in the morning, which increased my mood. Hopefully it won’t rain again at the evening.
8. Had a nice brunch. Blueberry biscuit, beng-beng, scramble egg, and ice Milo. Full energy!
7. Made a fair presentation on the Special Children class.
6. I haven’t reached the deadline of my bloody assignments. So I still have time to do other things.
5. Accidentally found 5 thousand rupiahs in the pocket of my pants.
4. Reading birthday messages in mobile phone and facebook. Thank you thank you..!
3. Had a nice hang-out time with best friends last night. Good laugh in the mid of rain.
2. Early birthday phone call from my family. How I miss them a lot…!
1. Born to this world 22 years ago, experienced a lot of things. Hopefully, will be able to walk the live happily….

So. I’m planning to be more active in writing this blog. Trying to change the template into something more personal… But unfortunately still can’t upload it…

So this post is just like an intro.

it's gonna rain

Only the umbrella, though ^^;

Spring is coming to Borås… Do you know that Borås is a rain-town? Just like Bogor. Or Forks. Well. I don’t really like when the street become wet and make a dirt on my shoes… But the weather is so nice…!! Love Boras a lot..!!

Anyway. I didn’t post a lot here, because I’m a bit occupied with my effort to adapt with the life here… And also because I wrote on other blogs. The Indonesian one, and also the blog in SwedenInTouch. Here’s the link:

Tanti in SwedenInTouch

I think I wrote more serious -but fun- stuff there…

But I’ll try to update this blog more often..!

White

I got a very nice room in an apartment… Have a nice lectures, friends, school… But everything is so different! How, for example, the car will give you a way if you want to cross the road. While in Indonesia, it was really hard to cross the road, because all the vehicle will ignore you who try to do that.

Will face many cultural differences, must be interesting!