The advisor asked me, last minutely, to perform some stress tests over several TFTs for at least 10 straight hours each, TEN HOURS EACH, I tell you!! There goes my plan for attending V's baby shower and some H-town museum visit. Heck, I'm still going clubbing tomorrow night.

For two weeks now, I haven't been able to fall asleep before 4 in the morning. I still wake up at normal hour and haven't feel fresher in each and every single day. Other anomalies are in my decreasing appetite for food and the fact that I do not feel hungry by dinner time even after skipping breakfast and lunch. I even seem to have increasing focus on research, class material, and exercise. Psychological and physiological roots of these observations haven't been researched further.

There are not many people who could deliver lines like "....There we were poor graduate students looking at all these people with fur and fancy jewelries. We were seated with some of these interesting people, who are out of our league at that time" and stil manage to look humble.

Location: WISE reception last night.

"Yahhh...semoga semuanya baik2 aja....Kenyataan yang aku gak bisa pungkiri lagi, memang dia udah pergi.Cuma lewat doa, aku bisa tenang."

--A dear friend of mine is widowed six and a half months into her pregnancy.

"h******"
"hei, pa kabar vir? kapan due date?"
"bentar lg, kamu sibuk gak, minggu depan ada baby shower, bisa datang gak"
"woohoo, asik asik, bisa dong"

--Another dear friend of mine is on the last weeks of her pregnancy.

"Well, yeah, I'm in a PhD program now."
"And what will you do after? A PhD and then what?"
"Uhm, I don't know, some job in the related industry will be great, otherwise I'm looking for a teaching position somewhere."

--Sister Michaela of Italy (blue line) inquiring about my plan in the future. Well *pondering*, maybe it's not too late to join a convent?

"Do you know what we call washing dishes in French?"
"Nope, what?"
"La plongée"
"As in?"
"As in diving..."

--JP and I volunteered to help with a church dinner

"Hi, gosh, H******, right?"
"Yes, and oh, I forgot your name"
"Joakim."

--I always forget names but remember faces.

On Valentine's Eve, my sister and I were watching the Grammy's while doing our homeworks.
The assortment of chocholates we bought the day before were long gone by this time and we ended up just staring over the commercial breaks.

One of them featured a SAAB commercial where they showed people waiting to pick up their bags in the baggage claim. All of those bags were identical down to the red ribbons that were intended to serve as an identification tools.

And I turned to Sis,

Me:
"I know the kind of travelling bag you would have. It's big and has magnificent bright colors, it easily stands up among those other muted colored blah bags."
Sis:
"And it should have lots of pockets and preferabbly cheap. Like those Barbie carry-ons, that would be perfect."
"While I, on the other hand, would buy the more expensive one with the blackest black and the most obscure label."
"Yeah, haha, and when you have kids, you won't buy them dolls or other useless cute stuff, you would rather buy them puzzles, mindgames, educational Leap Frogs, and books, lots of books"
"Hahahha. What would you buy 'em?"
"Barbie's, lots of them, and I'll dress them in the most girliest way possible. We were talking about girls, right. It should be purple and pink, cute tank tops, shorts, skirts... *evil laugh*"
"And I'll dress mine in these little suits. *evil laugh*"

Gosh, off course we won't be to that extreme. Our daughters and us will be like Rory and Lorelai, pop culture whores to the bone but still classy, wise, and sophisticated in our own ways.

Happy Valentine everyone!

And best wishes for my dear friends and former colleagues who will tie the wedding knot this Wednesday.

Jeng, kamu kok ngedeluanin "mak comblang"-mu sih? Huhuhuhu...

1. FileZilla, Mozilla Firefox, Foxmail are the three new applications installed in my newly revamped PC.
2. Humor Can Increase Hope, Research Shows
3. Ti, I am not sure about the ballet thing. Opera or Broadway stuff is closer to my current liking. Check this out, or better yet, this. Are you interested on any of these instead?
   

Do you know what are my favorite things to do on Ash Wednesdays? Aside from attending the mass, it's walking around campus staring at people's foreheads. I couldn't do the walking around this year due to the teaching schedule. I miss it, it's always a fun thing to do. It's also a relieve, a big one, to see that there are people that actually take time to attend mass during their hectic mid of week schedule.

And we're not talking about small number here. There were approximately three to four thousand people attending the 10 masses offered around campus. That's roughly 10 % of A&M's 44,000 student body. But it has never been about number, right. Every year this time around, this old friend of mine always teases me if I was ignorant enough to totally miss Ash Wednesday altogether. FYI, old friend, I've never missed the mass for five or six years now. That makes me quite a relic. But everytime did I grasp the true meaning of Lent? I am not sure. So, it's all back to our own inner selves.

I am actually quite looking forward for Easter. The question is what should I give up for the season? Maybe watching too much The X-Files reruns before bedtime, yeah, that and carbs.

Don't bother saying you're sorry

Why don't you come in?

Smoke all my cigarettes - again.

Everytime I get no further

How long has it been?

Come on in now

Wipe your feet on my dreams.



You take up my time

Like some cheap magazine

When I could have been

learning something

Well, you know what I mean.



I've done this before

And I will do it again

C'mon and kill me baby

While you smile like a friend

Oh and I'll come running

Just to do it again.



You are the last drink I never should have drunk

You are the body hidden in the trunk

You are the habit I can't seem to kick

You are my secrets on the front page every week.



You are the car I never should have bought

You are the train I never should have caught

You are the cut that makes me hide my face

You are the party that makes me feel my age.



Like a car crash I can see but just can't avoid

Like a plane I've been told I never should board

Like a film that's so bad but

I've just got to stay 'til the end

Let me tell you -

it's lucky for you that we're friends.

--Pulp

Jeng Detta, lagu ini bener deh bisa ngena banget. *srut srut sesenggukan*

B: THRotC :
ever heard of the Millionare Next Door?
The x-girl :
I have the paperback version, read it halfway through.
ah, good. so are you an UAW or PAW ?
what are those?
if you passed through the first three chapters you should know that
gosh, i forgot, it was four years ago.
ah, i c.
they have the newer version of that book, for women
yeah, i noticed that from amazon
so, are you practicing?
not right now, not with a stable income
well, at least you're closer to that kind of thing. it will really help if you're a double income and have quite significant amount of inheritance, huehue.
that could be arranged, if the thing with this girl works.
hey, btw, is she on friendster?
nope.
why are you suddenly becoming so overprotective?
because this could work.
not even a name?
d*****
d***** what? well, anyway, gtg. good luck with everything.
bye

I missed the first half of the Superbowl due to the complication between our pre-game BBQ, the heavy rain, and the fact that the host did not have a TV, d'oh. The second half was much better anyway, so I was told.

After I had started reading SI again, it was tough to choose between the Pats and the Eagle. So, I went with the one with the more humanistic logo and Teddy Bruschi --a truly smart linebacker that Teddy.

So, again, kudos, Boston, you're probably the coolest city in the USoA right now.

Oh, hey, Lent is just around the corner.

When my mother was 18, she hopped on the plane all by herself to Semarang to continue her training for a midwifery degree. After graduation, she was stationed in Pekanbaru in a local parish owned hospital. There, she met my father. As many young good Catholics do, the two had been actively involved in helping out around the parish. One day, my father found out that the girl who spoke fluent Javanese all those time is actually a woman of Batak lineage. Long story short, he proposed, they got married, and a year later I was born.

Mom was a 100% homemaker until my youngest brother was in kindergarten. All those year, she dedicated all of her time for the four of us. She was our best teacher, best cook, best confidant, the center of our world.

Mom turned 51 today. She still looks as young and beautiful as ever.

Happy birthday, Mom!

...especially when you don't have much choice of a wardrobe. I've learned that the hard way last Wednesday.

See, it would not be appropriate to pay the last respect to a dear Profesor when you are dressed with visible food stain on your dark clothing. I didn't even remember what was the binge eating occasion that causing this ridiculous problem. But judging from the brown gravy stain, it might be from either that Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner two years ago. Anyhoo, I decided to wear the ensemble but not after trying frantically to remove the individual stain bits as much as I could.

The memorial service went on beautifully. There were a lot of angelic singing by the choir, the double-trio, and the congregration itself. Funny stories were shared during the eulogy. The family members even read the memories written by his students over the years.

When the son started reading the second (or was it the third?) memory, I was again preparing to listen to another heartbreaking piece. He first mentioned the title in a voice so low I couldn't listen to it very well. Then, came the first sentence, the second sentence, and it was starting to get familiar. He had been reading that blog entry that I put on the special box that had been set up by the department two days before!

When you listen to your own writing being read in front of hundreds of mourning people, it becomes no less nostalgic and heartbreaking than the other things mentioned before. Even I got teary all over again.

Towards the end, just before the last paragraph, the son paused reading and sobbed. In a shaky voice he said, "The reason I want to share with you all this particular memory is because of this last paragraph."

The day before his departure, I saw him sitting on his office, a life-size stuffed red parrot perching from the ceiling. The room is full of souvenirs from his students all over the world. I was thinking to drop by and say "Hi" but hesitated and instead walked away upstairs to my office. I still regret that.

I am still trying to absorb that those words I'd written could have such an effect.