Crimson. Tigers. Bulldogs.

It's the most thrilling, exciting, yet also stressful part of senior year: getting into college.

Those who read this blog will laugh, I can guarantee that, since what I am going to write is way beyond whimsical and seemingly far more ambitious than Hilter's attempt to find Shangri-La.

I am applying for the Big Three. That is the bombshell. At start it feels a lot more bombastic to my mind than seeing the 9/11 live on TV. You might have read this on my previous post. I'm applying to the HYP!

For those who don't know, HYP stands for Harvard, Yale, and Princeton Universities. Yeah, it's the best of the best in world, and I am trying hard to be accepted. Maybe this is my retaliation to the NYUAD failure, since that exclusive institution have the lowest acceptance rate I've ever seen (I got rejected). But this revenge to myself is sooo ambitious even I don't believe that I'm doing it.

I can't even imagine what anyone will think when they opened my Common Application. "This kid's crazy" will probably the most accurate vision of common app officials' mind. The Crimson, Tigers, and Bulldogs. Really? Okay let's see the odds: I'm not sure that I'm good essay writer. I took no AP. I have minimum knowledge about SAT compared to American students. I'm not even American. Yet I took it, I opened that common app and write those essays and took those SATs in the boldest move ever.

My ambition is bigger than reality. In order to feed my hunger of big and ambitious achievements, I will do whatever it takes to achieve it, even if I have the whole world against me. That is me. It took me a long time to realize that I have more gut than talent. Well not that I am without talent, it's just that maybe ambition is my talent. And boldness too. But I am smart enough to be bold, don't worry.

So let's just hope, since that is the only thing to be done.

The Return

"LONG TIME NO SEE!" (or write) is the only opening sentence I can find in my head right now.

It has been a decade (exaggerating) since I updated this blog, let alone write something. Why you may ask? Well, so many has been going on lately, so I barely got time to think of anything. So many? bad or good? BAD.

This is a summary of what had happened:

1. I got home from that trip to Turkey, coming home so relaxed but with clouded mind to focus on damn school.

2. I got extremely pissed off with the social situations around me. Fuck that.

3. I applied to the newly-created New York University Abu Dhabi. So I've been busy with the common application and it's supplement. But in the end it failed anyway. Hah.

4. My school scores are undergoing it's apocalypse process. There is nothing more annoying than this problem, since everyone is being so demanding lately. The school is practically blind, and mother is as conservative as always.

5. My ambitious self is taking over. I'm currently applying for the Holy Trinity of Ivy League. The Big Three. The HYP. And I'm extremely busy with all of the preparation (common app, essays, SATs, TOEFL).
*PS. God please do something so that they accept me, the three of them.

Soo, because of all of those things above, this blog is nearly forgotten. But why return now? It's simply because I need this "immerse" feeling to get back to my college essays, and I need something to put off all my emotional ranting (definitely not on tumblr, it's full of my emo ranting and people who knows me can see them clearly). So here I am, telling you the breaking news of my life (breaking, literally).

Travel Türkiye

Home from Turkey!! Oh so much fun! Here are things that I enjoyed

1. Visit Bursa and Istanbul. They will capture you (in a beautiful way)

2. Turkish friends. They are as warm as their Mediterranean coasts

3. Having nargile (waterpipe/shisa) in a traditional Ottoman style cafe

4. Baklava and baklava and baklava (ultimate sugar rush!!)

5. Taking random pictures

6. Turkish delights, another glucose guilty pleasure

7. Seftali (peach) ice tea, favorite summer beverage

8. Dondurma (Turkish ice cream). Try to turn it upside down!

9. Basilica Cistern. You'll wonder why Byzantium didn't make subway instead

10. Sightseeing Sultanahmet Square and the Hippodrome. Historically awesome

11. Scaling Blue Mosque and Aya Sofya. The marvel of medieval architecture

12. Shopping at The Grand Bazaar. The undisputed Souvenir Square

13. Exploring unknown alleys in Old City. Incredibly nostalgic!

14. Topkapi Sarayi. The wardrobe of the Prophets (and jewellers)

15. The picturesque Bosphorus cruise. You'll be as smitten as King Byzas and Emperor Constantine a long time ago

Too bad I didn't get to see Troy and Bodrum and Ephesus. But it was fun!!

Superheroes

Let’s start with a conclusion. For the 17 years of my life, I analyzed every dream the citizens of the world had. I didn’t mean that I studied the world since I was a baby, but for the longest time, I learned that every child dreamed of becoming a hero. Nearly all young humans in this world had idealistic minds along their childhoods. Manifested in every culture from Perseus to Superman, mankind is proven as a heroic and noble species. Little children love to dress up like superheroes of the comic books and dream to kill the villains of the world. But change is always inevitable. As they grow up, they realized that an ideal world is only a childish fantasy and that there are many important things to do in life such as careers, having family, vanities and ambitions. Their dream of superheroes started to shed as they struggled to become one with the world that they previously want to change.

Some of those dream survived though, in some people. I know Spiderman is not real and Gilgamesh is a myth, but superhero does exist. They don’t fly in an old-fashioned jump suit, but they saved the world many times. Not all of them are publicity-minded, since many of them worked in rural villages in world’s most dangerous mountain ranges. And not all of them work with NGOs with generous-but-cunning companies as beneficiaries. Lots of them are in fact the little heroes of the world. They are our teachers.

Maybe at start you were wondering that those superheroes are social workers and human rights activists, or maybe celebrated war veterans. I, too, thought like that. But then I realized that what they do is not really giving food to the poor, making emergency hospital tents, or defending nations in war zones. What they really want is to give examples, to teach the world to do good deeds, and that is what our teachers do. In the small classroom where we are sitting, they are not only teaching us math formulas and telling historical tales, but they are trying to give their best to the future of the world. Future is an obligatory investment for all mankind, and teachers are their best investors. We are the shares, shares in a very unbalanced and critical market called the World. By teaching us knowledge and morality, they invested for a brighter future. They want their students to find their potential, put it into practice, and make the most of it for themselves and the good of others. They don’t dream for themselves, but also for their students and society. And most of all, they want to share what they have to the people around them. Selfishness is not written in their dictionary, and therefore their task is the most noble of all causes.

In this world where personal ambitions and successes are held in high value, teachers are the ones who broke the norm, the wrong norm that is. When becoming CEOs and celebrities are the popular teenage dreams, people who become teachers are still live up true to their dream of becoming heroes. When the world cherishes for billionaires and presidents, teachers are working to ensure the continuity of the next generation. They appear so little, yet their cause is greatest of all global issues. The cure for all discords and problems in the world is knowledge, and teachers are there to give it. Really, they are the true superheroes.


*This is my school essay for the english assignment, and I posted it here just for fun ;)

S.O.S.

Some might wonder for their future, some might dream far away beyond the reach of time machine. It's all the same for me, I do wonder and dream. But a combination of them get me on a tight pinch. My future is, let's just say, an expensive and lucrative venture, and the problem is I don't have a Wall Street-sized pocket to ensure it. Planning to continue my education to a higher level, I lack the financial resources. And since scholarship is a little out of hand in my situation (my university of choice don't offer scholarship for undergraduate immediate entry), it's difficult to even think about it.

So I'm thinking for a solution: get a job. I love to write, and it's quite immediately that I want to be a writer. Well, maybe just a freelance one for now since youngsters these days are cursedly preoccupied by school. But of course it's not that easy, and that is why I'm asking for anyone who read this to help me. An opportunity for a desperate high school student to be able to gain money from what he write at home would be very nice.

I'm a sinking ship, and this is an S.O.S. call for help. Sometimes I want to contact some media agencies, but they are very selective and some are even reserved only for experts and established journalists. I'm not as desperate as Titanic, but I'm definitely sinking if this S.O.S. transmission gone unanswered.

Tumblring Melancholism

Hello!!

Honestly my feelings right know is like a ship being struck by a violent storm in the midst of cruel sea, which means I'm not really in the right mood to write, but eventually I just write again.

I just want to announce to anyone who read this blog (really, if there really someone who read this blog?) that I made a new one on tumblr. Why is that? Well, due to recent situations, I want to blog something that's really playful, and I'll present it here in my blogspot. But for a more serious matter (not exactly serious, more like a bit melancholic, but still serious nevertheless) I'll blog it on my tumblr.

Why differentiate, you might ask? Yeah, many people don't really like to read serious matter, or something serious in english, or other reasons, soo, I just turn this blogspot of mine to be a more like raditya dika's style of blog (even though barely the same).

Well just keep up with me whatever way you like. Ciao!

Credit Card and Snack Bucket

I'm stressed. That's the first word I got for today. I know, I've been really stressed up lately, to the point that I can't think straight, and go back to my original character: an introverted bookworm, cyberspace explorer, malls and cafes sweeper, and a living mannequin. I've been so depressed this past few weeks. How to deal with it? For me, a credit card and snack buckets are the solution.

Shopping is one of the most common activities for urban dwellers. But shopping addicts are something else. Many people I heard have this 'shopping addict syndrome', or so I observed. Well, to be honest, it's a infectious disease, and I already got infected. It's like my brain has a motto "shopping is stress relieving" kind of thing. But it's truly true. I'm a type of person who get stressed and worried easily, but then I bottled up those feelings on myself, never ever pulled it out on someone because I barely can trust anyone. It's hard, but that's my character (which I found very troublesome). But then, I saw a worldly heaven, called "shop". It's a place where I can seemingly forget my problems, and have fun on my own. But still, it's unhealthy. Excessive shopping can cause trouble to your own, of course everybody knows that. So, how can I handle this problem? I have a stressful life, yet I have to control my budget, which mean I can't spend all my credit for this expensive stress-relieving program. I got really stressed this week, and when on the way home, I stopped at the nearby mall, buy a trouser. And when I got home, I accessed the internet, ordered Russian and Japanese novels on eBay, just with a click. I can't stop, it's really troublesome. How to heal this disease? I can't blame it all on my stressful life, can I?

But it's not only shopping that concerned me. It's also eating. I have an eating disorder, I think. I rarely eat on everyday life. I eat twice or maybe even once a day, below the average of human diet. But when stress attacked, I can eat the whole snacks on the pantry by myself. It's not decent meals, but still, it's eating. I don't like snacks, or anything that related to eating. It's just calming if I eat while stress strike. So I eat excessively, not even care about anything else (aside from the shopping thing above).

Those explained things above are the unhealthy habits of mine. I can't stop them, because there are no solution for my get-stressed-easily habit. Or maybe I can, with a therapy or something. I don't know. I wrote this post just because I want to, but in the other hand I want this to become the solution for my problems. One thing for sure, credit card and snack bucket can be jewels, but they can turned into lava balls too. So beware!

The Gun and The White Pigeon

Have anyone paying attention to the news lately? You must have heard about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. What d'you think bout it? I personally have many opinion about it, and since it's my habit to express my feelings and thought everywhere, I want to write about it here. I'm a type of person who really care about the well being of mankind, and I think this world is really rotten. I just have a slight hope that this simple article can change the dark reality of humanity.

Ever since the time I barely remember in my mind, I always see a world stained with blood. Unfortunately, it is the world where I live in. I have seen atrocities all around the world, some of them were real experiences. I remember rushing to airport when local coup d'etat strike. Or I remember the fear seeing news of Iranian missiles that about to strike American naval base in the Red Sea nearby me. I just imagined, how it would feel for the Middle Eastern people, sulking in the corner in fear of something that they can't prevent: death. Why people always use violence in order to gain something, when others watching hopelessly to their tragic death? The world really is rotten. No, it's not the world which is rotten, it's humanity. Humans are violent creatures, exactly true, but we also understand love and peace. It's our emotion that hindering us from our own virtue. The root of the problem is ourselves. I believe that society is suffering from a social schadenfreude (a state of emotion when we feel happy seeing others' misfortune). Seeing others in pain is somehow natural for human, as we can see from the joy of watching gladiator or even tragic comedy. We even sometimes want to torture our hated ones. It is natural, yes (even I experienced it), but that is the root of violence in this world. It raised a questionable question: Why can't we be tolerant?

This article may sound really idealistic, but this is the fact of mankind. I found it really funny when I saw a poster or something that advertising for worldwide peace. They shout for peace, but at the same time, they raise their gun, in the name of obtaining peace. It's really stupid, they were contradicting themselves. You can't fight fire with fire. They use violence for abolishing violence. Of course they won't succeed. This paradox is main problem of this world. Why don't they just finish it by shaking hand, not firefight? Humans are really childish, you know.

Again I say, this may sound really idealistic, but I wrote this based on my observation and my own opinion about my own race. I'm a human, yet I'm sick of humanity. It's contradictory, even for myself. I just hope that in any way, I could change the world to a better place. It's a child dream, but it's what humanity truly want. I really want to see a world where peace is restored. But at the same time, I think it's an impossible wish, just because we are human..

"Maiden Voyage of the Year"

Haii, my first post on 2009!!

I don't have a lot to say, since my mind can't work really well after the new year's party. I barely got any sleep for days! It feels as if my brain is shutting off, but the saving process isn't done yet. Yeah, anyway, this post is a bit late, since I was quite busy last night. Playing board games, watching movie, chatting about something that I couldn't defined, and doing other things that I can barely remember. It was fun, though.

So, before the end of the first day of the year, I post this article, just for giving a silly remark for my heart. Weird, ha? It doesn't really have any particular meaning, this article is. It just some kind of a "maiden voyage of the year" article.

By the way, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

*(It's already passed nearly a day but my neighbor still lighten up their crazy-and-noisy fireworks. Stop it please! The dust is everywhere!)

Ilham in Wonderland

Well, been a long time since I write again..

Today is the 31st of December, the last day in the year 2008. It's still in the early morning, yes, but I just want to make my last post in this year. Haha, pretty silly, isn't it? Sometimes, I just want to do something remarkable (for me), especially when it comes to a good-bye business. Good bye? Yes, a good-bye to this year, 2008.

I just remember. Last year, at this exact time (mind the time zone difference, of course), I was sitting on the edge of a balcony in my aunt's house in Bali, accompanied by my dear Kuma (he's a cat, by the way). I was pretty annoyed for a few reasons back then. And my habit of planning things, which come up when I feel sad and fail, really occupied my mind. What was I planned at that time? I'm not even sure. It's seems like, I've been planning for all this time, the whole year, for something that I don't even had a volition to do so. I'm a dreamer. At that time, I would say "this year, I want to do this.." or "this year, I have to achieve.." I thought it was a plan, but it's only a dream, because when this year pass, which only have about 22 hours, I have achieve none of my goals. If you asked me why, I surely can't give you a proper answer, other than because the goals that I have set still stuck in wonderland.

So, in this exit door of the 2008, I want to stop my dreamland journey. The tale of Ilham in Wonderland has ended. I don't want to have it just when I get to wonderland, I want it to be real. My goals is real, and I will achieve those goals. I have to, since my life is truly goal-oriented, or maybe too goal-oriented, just like this article.

The Christmas Tree

Merry Christmas everybody!!!

In this very early morning of December 25th, I wishes you all who celebrates Christmas a Merry Christmas. May God bless you all..

Just got home from Christmas parties. I often sleep in my regular schedule, so it doesn't really bother me. Moreover, the atmosphere tonight makes me happy. I always liked Christmas. It's sweet. Ever since I was a child, Christmas gives me a sweet and warm feeling. It's not part of my religion's ritual, but it has become my culture (not my traditional culture either, don't get it wrong). It's my personal culture to celebrates Christmas with my family. I don't really close to my paternal family, but when Christmas come, we all there together under the Christmas tree, having dinner and exchanging presents. Sadly my half-siblings rarely present, but I'm still very happy, to be together with them. It's a kind of feeling that you won't get on anywhere else. But unfortunately, it can't happen anymore. It's mainly because of me, though. My two most beloved Christmas parties has been blown to pieces (not literally). I can no longer celebrates them. No more dinner, no more presents, and no more togetherness. It's all gone. Replaced by other parties, yes, lots of them actually. But those new parties are different, no togetherness. Isn't the meaning of Christmas is togetherness and cherishing each other? I have lost them. I have lost my Christmas.

But it's not only the Christmas tree that I longed for. I think it would feel better if I had mistletoe and holly, just to cover the emptiness of my decoration. Sadly, I don't have them all...yet

This Christmas Eve...

Yap, today is Christmas Eve..

Despite what had happen yesterday, I'm still feeling anxious. Yes, my psychologist (it's sounds weird, so let's call him 'counselor' instead) said to me that I'm worrying too much. OK, maybe I am, but isn't life is worth worrying. I don't like to be like this, but it's my personality, which is very hard to be changed.

Enough with the worry-thing angst and back to the main topic. Today is Christmas Eve! Even though I'm not Christian, I still indirectly celebrates Christmas (well maybe directly though, I technically celebrates Christmas). My family members has many different religion from each other, from the majority Islam to Roman Catholic and also Confucian. So, whether it's Lebarans (1 and 2), Christmas, or Chinese New Year (农历新年), we're always busy. It's fun. I'm still devoted to my religion, yes, but I respect differences, especially this is consists in my family.

And since this is Christmas Eve, I have to attend the Christmas party my paternal grandparents held. Well, have to doesn't mean will. I don't come to their party, not anymore. Why? Honestly, I myself don't know the answer. No, I know the answer, perhaps, but it's just me who don't want to accept it. Stupid me, for not being honest with itself. Well, man is a fool to himself, right?

Greetings, Earthians!!

(In a static accent) Hello, humans!! It is an honor for me to see you all. I am Ilham from the galaxy far, far away...

OK, enough with the absurdity. I'm called Ilham, true, but I'm not an alien. Maybe you thought me as a sci-fi geek, as shown in the text above, but actually I'm not. Well yeah, maybe a little. Still, I'm not that weird. Just expressing my thought to this newly-created blog of mine.

I'm pretty new to this blogging thing. Before, I don't really care much about getting online, aside from my hobby of surfing the web excessively. But, due to my recent misfortune with nearly everything in this known world (which I don't want to explain here and now), and my aspiring dream to become a writer, I made this blog, just to put my ideas, and to let my hand to do what my heart wants to do, writing that is.

Again, I say "hello" to everyone (whoever that everyone is)...