...it's just what I think and experience...: 6/1/11

Tips and Tricks: Not to Fall Asleep in the Class

Sitting in a classroom and listening to a lecture, sometimes, causes a boredom and sleepiness, moreover if the lecture is so damn uninteresting and dull. Yet sometime, because of a long night of partying, studying, dating, or being plain old tired, we usually fall asleep during the class.

I always experience this case; feel extremely sleepy in almost every single class I have!

My earliest class starts at sharply 7 am. Then, 10 am and 13.30 respectively. So, no wonder if occasionally I miss my morning class due to oversleeping. Even if I can successfully make it, sleepiness is hardly to avoid in the class. Often times, I find my chair and desk to be just right for a quick extra slumber and siesta during the lecture.

As my preventive action, sipping a cup of coffee in the morning is quite helpful. But again, it sometimes keeps me awake and fresh, but sometimes not. Maybe the coffee is not strong enough or whatever, have no idea…! But it’s rather hard to have coffee time in the morning before my 7a.m class, moreover if I fail to get up early.

Also, I always prevent myself to have a heavy breakfast or over eat before the class as it can just make me want to curl up like a cat and sleep all day in the class. Two slice of fried banana is my favorite breakfast before going to uni.

If my eyes cannot be compromised, most of the time, I always ask my friends who sit next to me to punch or tap my shoulder if I fall asleep little bit deep and take an adventure in dreamland. Yet it sometimes works, but sometimes not. They just take the opportunity to punch and to hurt me!

Another thing that I usually do when I am in the class is grabbing my cell phone and start facebooking! But you really need to be smart to deceive your teacher/lecturer with this. Prentending to take a note with neck bent and head over the chest is a good way to keep liking, commenting, and updating status in facebook! I find that this is the best way so far to divert your mind from sleeping. Yet we need to be careful and formulate good strategies designed to keep the lecturer from catching you hitting the daytime hay.

Need more tips? Here I wrap up some ideas from my friends through facebook on how not to fall asleep in the class. You might find some helpful tips, but you might think that the rest is just crap. You can sort it out by yourself. Here you go….!!!

Ask questionsss!! A looooottt of question. For instance, ask to urself "Siapa saya? Dimana saya? Kalian siapa? Apa yg saya lakukan?" (Dhian Ardhini Hapsari)
Make a conversation to another student in the class... *lol (Pambudi Wardhani)
Just learn 2 sleep with ur eyes open then... it helps some times... ƗƗɐƗƗɐƗƗɐ"̮... (Aisa Winnie)
I just sleep..........^^^^^*thats the best way ever(for me) (Jasmine Minji Eom)
Promise that if you fall asleep in the class, you will treat Muhtad Fadli. It’s easy, right? (Muhtad Fadli)
Nonton bokep 5 detik! awas kalo nagih! wakakak.... (Watch porn for 5 sec!) (Metta Dian)
Coffee!!!! (Torsten de Vries)
Every 20 mins, change your seat position or ask question to your lecture (Indra Yudanto)
Drink some energy drink.. it won't let you sleep (Helen Avel))
Put knife on your neck,hhi (Ifti Wulansari)
I have just the best tip.... simply dont go to your class and enjoy your sleep in your bed.....hahahhahaha :P (Panos Katsiadramis)
Slap your own face... hardly.. i did it, really... (Arif Rahman)

Interesting tips, right?

Watching porn video for 5 seconds -advised by Metta Dian- sounds brilliant idea though with a high risk. Or, as suggested by Ifti Wulansari about putting knife on your neck so you won’t bend your neck down and sleep. You guys have to try them out and prove that it works.

For those who have other tips, please feel free to add more….!!!! And for those who have the same problem with me, Happy Trying !!!

2nd Jogja Rally Motorbike

Got three-day perfect holiday in the middle of class boredom, I and two of my classmates participated in 2^nd Jogja Rally Motorbike organized by Jogja CoushSurfer. Uh, it was really an amazing race!

Basically the rally was a sort of treasure hunt or travel quiz that was designed a bit more for fun for everyone, rather than just as a competition targeting one grand winner. The rally was based around a set of clues/questions about interesting things (place, food, goods, etc) that we can do or see in Yogyakarta. Points are allocated for every answer based on how difficult the clue is to solve of how far you have to travel to solve it. It’s ranged between 10 up to 1000. The crazier the team, the more points we get.

The team should consist of local people and foreigners. There were two Australian (Alex and Bridget) in my team and one Indonesian that’s my classmate, Diah! Eh, but actually we got extra team mates (Ari and Yani), the sons of Alex and Bridget ;) We named our team “Dragon Keraton” that depicted spirit of Yogya traveler (that’s just my assumption though).

We started the race at 07.30 am and ended before dark. The race was riddled with lots of mysterious clue. Even for the finish meeting, we just got a clue “before dark in kuak-kuak (duck sound)” No idea about the exact time and venue!

The rally quiz was about 100 questions and commands. It was clustered into place to visit, foods, Yogya gallery, museum, etc. As we expected before, there were some ridiculous things that we should do, such as find a durian favor condom and the used one for extra point, drinking cobra blood, taking picture (or even kiss) the policeman, kiss the owner of guded seller, and so on! Also, the organizer supplied a photo of a particular slightly obscure landmark in Yogyakarta with one of the organizers standing in front of it in a silly pose. We might get 5 points if we could identify where the place is, 20 points if we go there and take a photo with one of our team in the picture, 30 points if the whole team is in the picture, and extra points if you could exactly replicate the photo or do something super silly there.

The super silly things my team did were: dancing and singing in front of Vredeburg main gate, dancing and singing with the street singer in a food vendor in Malioboro, invited people to make JOGJA letter by their bodies, Alex kissed two policemen, Diah kissed a guded owner, occupied the kitchen of Mirota Batik resto on the 3^rd floor, Bridget sold some stuff in the traditional market, and many more. No wonder that in the judging session, our team was awarded The Craziest Team in the rally. Hooorrraaaay!!!!

(Alex, Yani, and Ari on the becak! 20 points for this)

Another silly thing in the rally was about the judge. There were 3 judges and they were all bribable with SEX, ALCOHOL, MONEY, and MANY THINGS. Hahahhaa…!!! They said that this is Indonesia, so that's the common rule! Therefore, in end of the race there was some other prize for the most persistent team in bribing the judges.

This rally made my day! I hope I can participate in the 3^rd Jogja Motor Bike Rally next year ;)

For the other photos, you can click this

Karimun Jawa

Embarked with some tweets on twitter with friends about going somewhere for holiday, we ended up in the pristine beaches in Karimun Jawa. It's located in Jepara: 5 hours by van from Jogja to the harbour, and another 6 hours to get that places by boat. As it's one of popular hidden tourist destinations in Java, we started our first day with a very high expectation! Well, what we expected was fulfilled in the end of our trip. White sandy beach, stunning corals, wonderful fishes, tasty seafood, humorous companions, friendly local people, cozy hostel, and spectacular underwater experiences with sharks (which is one of the craziest things I've done in my life) will never be forgotten! It's such recommended place to visit when you drop by in Java, Indonesia. Glad to spend 4 days there before we get back to uni life :D

To save time and bandwidth on the blog you can see my albums of Karimun Jawa online in my facebook.

Make sure you check them out!

(Yey, super exciting)

(Swimming with the sharks)

(Sunset on the beach)

(Lunch time; seafood)

(Time to snorkling)

(Superb companion)

(Amazing underwater)

Sulawesi Exploration

Never waste your time and maximize every single holiday!

Last month I had a chance to get back to my homeland to attend my brother’s wed; enjoying the family gathering and reunion with some old buddies. When the party was over, everything turned to be normal. Everyone was back to their own business. As I did not want to be babysat at home (though I missed my home), I preferred to go out and tried to explore South Sulawesi with my Japanese friend who came with me!

Here you go….!!! Our first destination was the pre-historic cave nearby by home. It took me 30 minutes by scooter with a bumpy road up to the little rock mountain. There were two caves on it that supposed to have some carving and palm picture of the pre-historic human in Sulawesi. Unluckily, after hiking for about almost an hour, nothing that we could see! The caves were fenced as if it was a prison! Pathetic! Yet at least we could enjoy stunning sunset scenery from the top of the mountain!

Another destination was Bantimurung water fall! Got there with some old friends from high-school, we again did caving instead of jumping down to the river. We didn’t plan to get wet though, so we didn’t bring any extra clothes. Odd? Maybe!

Exploring the capital city of the province, I rode a motorbike to every corner of the interesting spots, lazed around in Losari beach, and ended up watching an international theater performance in Rotterdam Fort up to midnight. The theater was fascinating! Just knew that the story performed in the theater was the longest literature in the world which originally comes from one of districts in South Sulawesi. After sailing and performing in another country, finally they landed in the land where they were born.

(Sunset in Losari beach)

Before heading back to Jogja, I still had 4 days off! Toraja was already in mind for the next destination! Didn’t want to waste our time, we decided to crash Toraja on the following day. So exited!

We touched down Makale city in Toraja in the late evening! As we had no enough preparation for our itinerary, we spent our first nite in a small old-fashioned-motel. No need to complain as it was an emergency situation. The price was fairly reasonable though!

Our itinerary for two days in Toraja was finished just in a half-nite. Sitting couple hours in front of computer and browsing on internet got us lots of information about places that we shouldn’t miss, the foods that we should taste, and the things that we need to purchase as oleh-oleh (souvenir).

Lemo (the hanging grave), Londa, and traditional house of Torajan in Kete’ Kesu, and some other spot which I cannot hardly remember the name were in long list of our itinerary. For the most tourists in Toraja, Bakso Babi (pork meatball) was the most recommended food. Then before getting back home, some special Torajan handicraft would be a very nice souvenir for our lovers at home. Gratefully in the end of our trip, we were told that there was death/funeral ceremony. As it might be once in a life-time moment, no reason not to visit and to see how spectacular it was as people said.

And…as we expected! The ceremony was breathtaking! Never seen “genocide” of pig like that! Some people might find it scary, but for us it was incredible. We had no idea actually what the purpose of the ceremony, but we just nodded and amazed all the time watching the ceremony. Amazing Toraja!

(In front of Traditional House in Toraja)

(The hanging grave in Lemo)

(Waiting before dying in the ceremony)

(surrounded by Skullos)

(Londa)

Second Place of U-Competition MM UGM 2011

"Luckily I was nominated as my class representative to join an internal public speaking competition in MM UGM held by Marketing Club. As I believed in the beginning of the contest, it would be my first achievement in 2011! And….after a tough elimination round, I could break through top 3 and awarded 2^nd place of the contest!"

Elimination round was not that straightforward. Eleven participants took part in the contest and showed off the skill in public speaking, including myself. Randomly we got a topic that had to be presented in front of a Jogja-famous-news-presenter, Ferry Anggara. I got a topic about how to deal with urbanization in Indonesia if I were a president. Such an intriguing topic though!

Optimistically speaking, I did have high-confident for this preliminary round as I was helped a lot by friend of mine, Tito, to customize my power point slides and to dress me up before the contest started (Thanks buddy!). Confidently I came up with the Soekarno-looking with black-vintage-fez in the first page of my slide. Smoothly I could deliver my presentation well mixed with some spanking new jokes. People laughed, people impressed, and people clapped for my performance. There I went through to the final round in the following month.

It was about a month to get to the final round after a very long vocation. It was supposed to be a long preparation for me to the final round, yet I was away for my Toraja trip! Nothing that I could set up well. A day before the final I was still busy to make my ppt and practice my prompt presentation. No more Tito to ask for help! *panicked* And this day, I was supposed to be in the rehearsal for the final (fatal mistake).

What I could expect for my unpreparedness? Could not really focus on practicing..so just wish a bit luck and pray!

Having got the lucky number one from the ballot, I stepped on the stage and begun my speech about corruption. A bit shitter and dull now… I lost my vigor on my speech! It actually could be excused as it was in big stage with hundred eyes stared at me and with 2 famous judges who I could usually see on TV, Charles Bonar Sirait and Krisna Murti. Who’s not shaking in that scenario? But it’s final, dude! No excuse for that!

Three finalists had performed; it’s time for judges to criticize my performance. I had no reason to defense myself. I did admit that all. Yet luckily I was not that bad as I thought. Kindly they awarded me the second place. Though I should give up my ambition to get the chance to give testimonial on Charles’ book, I was already grateful for the prize. Next contest, I should have done a lot better with a lot superior preparation, indeed! I will always remember this, the effort will reflect the result of whatever we do ~