Indonesia at IPhO 2008

As usual, TOFI got golds at International Physics Olympiad 2008 that was held in Vietnam, 20-29 Juli 2008. With this consistent achievement, I believe that Indonesia will be more appreciated by other countries, and Yohanes Surya vision that Indonesia will have a Nobel Laureate will be fulfilled.

Hmmm.. I can't wait to see what will TOKI bring from IOI 2008. Nothing to do with this :)

Best Pork Food in Medan

[caption id="attachment_128" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Panggang B2"][/caption]

When in Medan, I usually go to Ola Kisat if I want to eat pork food, especially Babi Panggang Karo (BPK).

But then, lots of people said that there's a place that offer a better BPK than Ola Kisat, the place is Tesalonika.

So two weeks ago, I decided to give it a try. The pork meat there usually ordered in a KG (kilogram)-based. I bought 1/2 kg of BPK for Rp. 19.000,- plus Rp. 3.000,- for the Rice, Soup, and Vegetables.

And it's true that, the taste is much more delicious than in Ola Kisat. Of course, this is my personal preference.

So for the next time, I'll change my prefered place to Tesalonika.

When things got f*cked up

It doesn't take a scientist to consider whether "that" arrangement is unfair or not. It truly is a sh*tty idea, completed with lame argument, conveyed with big bullsh*t.

In that kind of situation, I'll just use my common sense, and don't let f*cked things ruin my plan.

But, even in a very bad situation, I'll still try to always give my best.

Kompas E-Paper

I just want to share a link where you can read Kompas newspaper (printed version) digitally. You can access it here. So far the access is still free. I just wonder, how will they get money?

Three days ago, 26 Years ago

A very handsome child was born and now become the most handsome man ever.

Okay, I heard complaints already. Coveting means slacker.

Pesta Danau Toba: Not that bad

I was curious about Pesta Danau Toba, because since I've been working in Laguboti, I've never been to that event. At first I was afraid I couldn't go to that event because of my strict schedule and over weight job :), but then I heard that the closing of the event is delayed until 18th July 2008, and so the chance for me to go there finally came up.

So I went to this event on 18th July 2008. What makes this event special was that the president of Indonesia, Soesilo Bambang Yudhoyono, will close the event by himself.

I arrived at Parapat in the afternoon, I thought that I late but the event hadn't started yet. The event would not be started until Mr. President showed up, and we all waited for Mr. SBY about 2 goddamn hours (it's rainy there!).

But the waiting was worth it. The shows were very fantastic. Pretty contradictary with what lots of people said in mailing lists. They said that the event wasn't as good as it's promoted in the media. Maybe they came at the wrong time :)

The event was started with a traditional dance from Simalungun, called "Harian Bolon" (if I'm not mistaken). The dancers dance the dance in the rain with joyous terpsichore. SBY was amazed with the dance and the dancers zealously that he invited all the dancers to perform at the Palace.

Then come the speech parts, opened by the Minister of Culture and Tourism. I didn't really pay attention to what he said :) (Hey, I didn't come to this event only to hear that boring speech, hehehe). Then continued with speech from Samsul Arifin (Silaban). This new North Sumatra Governor is really funny that Jaya Suprana gave him a reward from MURI as the funniest governor in Indonesia ever. The speech then closed by SBY.

After that, there's a show about the longest Ulos in Indonesia (and even in the World, claimed Jaya Suprana) and also a traditional dance of Batak Toba, called "Sigale-gale". The dance was very awesome, unfortunately I didn't have a nice view to record the video :(

The most interesting part of this event is that SBY and all ministers, chief of BUMNs, etc sang a Batak song called "Na Sonang do Hita Nadua". I recorded the video, but I didn't quite sure I could share the video of the president :)

After the closing of the event, there's a music shows from famous Bataknese singers, such as Jack Marpaung, Joy Tobing, Bunthore, Nauli Sister, etc. There was also a performence by the famous Batak Commedian, Nai Malpinas dkk. I recorded almost all the shows.

The show was planned to be ended at 1:30 AM, but too bad I can't stay that long, I'm afraid that there will be no transportation mean available for me, so I went home at 00:30 AM from Parapat, and I arrived home at 2:30 AM (yeah, the transportation was very rare at that night).

Ah, what an experience :)

[gallery]

Afternoon Jogging

Today I felt so bored (you may think that I'm easily get bored, well not really, but it is normal considering the place where I stay is very draggy) that not even a fabulous movie can cheer me up.

So I decided to do a little workout, jogging. At first I planned to jog from my campus to Laguboti, but then my friends warn me that the road is unsafe because lots of cars passing through in a high speed. So they suggest me to jog from YTP Arjuna until Gasaribu village. And so the jog started.

[gallery]

The above pictures are what I saw when I was jogging. In the left and my right side there are rice fields spreading as far as I my eyes can see. The third picture is the condition of the road where I jog, not too smooth but still fine.

I thought that it'd take only 30-35 minutes to travel all the road, but it took 90 minutes for me to travel and back to my campus, very exhausted but I kinda enjoyed it. For the next jogging, I plan to go to Lumban Binanga, they have a very beautiful view out there.

If Ever You're In My Arms Again

It all came so easy, all the loving you gave me
The feelings we shared, and I still can remember
How your touch was so tender, it told me you cared
We had a once in a lifetime
But I just couldn't see, until it was gone
A second once in a lifetime, may be too much to ask
But I swear from now on

Chorus:
If ever you're in my arms again
This time I'll love you much better
If ever you're in my arms again
This time I'll hold you forever
This time will never end

Now I'm seeing clearly
How I still need you near me
I still love you so
There's something between us
That won't ever leave us
There's no letting go
We had a once in a lifetime
But I just didn't know it
Till my life fell apart
A second once in a lifetime
Isn't too much to ask
'Cause I swear from the heart

Chorus

The best of romances,
deserve second chances
I'll get to you somehow
'Cause I promise now

About Imagine Cup 2008's Winners

I just read a news in detik.com titled Inilah Para Bintang Imagine Cup 2008. Indonesia is great, I talked to myself. I tried to search more information about the winners of Imagine Cup 2008 directly from its website, and I found no winner from Indonesia for the 8 categories contested. What the f*ck?

But then I scrolled to the bottom of the page and found an (additional?) award for Rural Innovation Award, and there was the team from Indonesia. Is this detik.com's definition for stars?

Modifying Vista Look

Bored with that not-so-cool standard theme MS Vista offered? Well, you can change it with any theme you prefer by following these simple steps:

1. Install VistaGlazz (download the installer from here). This tool will allowed themes that have not been verified by the operating system to be installed. Run the installed program and click a button to patch the dlls.


2. Restart your computer.


3. Download any theme you desired and extract to %WINDIR%\Resources\Themes.


4. Right click on your dekstop, choose personalize, and click Theme link.


5. Choose your preferred theme and activate it.

To make your vista look even better, you may want to replace the standard icon as well. Just download any icon you like, and modify your registry:

1. To change drive icon: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Applications\Explorer.exe\Drives\X\DefaultIcon (where X is the drive letter whose icon is to be changed).  Just replace the default value in the righ pane with the preferred icon's path and name.


2. To change default folder icon: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Shell Icons. Add string variable named "3" and enter path of the icon as the value. Also add string variable named "4" and enter path of the icon as the value.

My vista look is now:

[wp_caption id="attachment_101" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="My Vista Theme"][/wp_caption]

The Mist

Last Saturday I was so bored so I decided to watch a movie titled The Mist.

It's a story about horrible creatures (product of military experiment) invasion. The lab where the creature was created was somehow leak and all the creatures went out to town preying human flesh. The terror begun when a mist surrounded the town, and from that mist all the creatures showed up to catch and eat human flesh.

Almost all people in town gathered at a store. At the end, a group of people consists of a father, a son, a young woman, and a couple of old man and woman managed to escape from the store and tried to travel as far as they could, far away from the mist. In the middle of their travel, the car run out of gas. So the man killed all other person in the car, he thought it's better for them to be killed by a gun instead of eaten by creatures.

But, not long after he killed other persons, a bunch of military personel came to rescue. And all he could do was crying, regreting what he's done. May be it will be different if he didn't act stupid and encourage other person to strive until their last and not surrender to death.

Moral of the story: Even in a very bad condition, there will always be choices. Pick one that give more chances to step ahead.

Not all

Not all people who like to quote Bible verse is a person who's a true Christian (although they might be "religious" - doing religious activities, wearing religious attributes, etc). So don't ever judge a person by his/her words.

Shawsank Redemption is a movie that gives a very good example about my statement above. It's just too fabulous to be written here, so I suggest you to watch it by yourself :)

Activities during Academic Holiday

My campus is in holiday now, but it's only for the student, the staff (lecturers, administration staff, etc) are not. Pity me :(

Even in this holiday, I still have lots of "homework" to do:

• PI Del's Entrance Test program that will be held on 9th July 2008


• Job Training supervision


• Final Project supervision (now in collaboration with supervisor from I*B - not this one :))


• Course preparation for the next semester

Beside that homework I have several matters to do:

• Reading books (There are several book that I've started but has not been finished yet)


• S****r S****l


• A******g S*********p


• etc (suddenly I realized that almost all my plan is quite confidential so I think it'll better for me to stop writing about that, heheeh)

Several matters listed above are the implementation of my mindmap (previous post).

Alright then, I hope that I could accomplish all that I've planned.

Mindmapping Myself

After several occasions occurred lately, I felt that I need to re-organize myself. First, I have to re-define what's the most important things in my life, and focus my energy on that. Second, I have to list what's the least important things in my life (that I kept doing), and throw those off my life.

I finally noted down five most important things in my life (sorry I can't write it here, it's confidential :)). These things also have several related things, so I need to depict them in a tree-like structure, and also such a ways that is easy to memorize. I remember a methodology that can be used to draw something that resembles to how human brain works and will help us to memorize something better, that is Mindmapping (I'll not explain about this, yet).

I use Freemind program to draw a mindmap of my life (plans, priorities, etc). I thought that it will be just a two level "nodes", but it grows to almost five level with lots of branches. But it's kinda fun, I can memorize all that I wrote.

Creating the mindmap is easy, the hardest part is to conform with what I've written. I have to, and I must, because it'll help me to be a better person.

NB: This post has nothing to do with the upcoming 18th July 2008.

Firefox 3 Download Day Certificate

To appreciate those who've participated in helping Firefox setting a Guinness World Record, Firefox gives a certificate that can be generated online through this link.

There's no validation process whether the person requesting the certificate really downloaded FIrefox at the designated date, so any person can create their own certificate.

I think it'll be funny to put the certificate as my desktop wallpaper :)

Life is short

Today is a very dark and gloomy day for our campus, because we lost two of our dear fellow workers Ramlan Marpaung (Photocopy Staff) and Berton Situmeang (Security) who died in a  accident in their way to Balige on Tuesday, July 01, 2008.

Ramlan was a very warm and helpful person. He used to greet me with his smile using his funny Batak language's accent. "Horas lae, tibu ma ho ro" and "Naeng mangan do lae?" were two greetings that he used to say to me when we met. He was also ready to give his help anytime when I need him for my work, especially in PMB.

Berton Situmeang was also a friendly security. When I went home from office late at night, I used to saw him walking doing his duty monitoring our campus, and he used to greet me there.

As a Christian, I believe that they're now with LORD in heaven. May God blessed and give strengths to their family.

This moment reminds me that life is very short, and I must make the most it. I'll try to never waste my time in useless activities.

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. - Philippians 1:21