Keeping up with me

Hi, you!

I am writing a post now, finally, five months after my last entry. Was I too busy to stop doing activities and write here? Hmm not really, but the facts are; last June was full of deadlines before summer holiday; July and August were spent in delightful Indonesia; September was tensed because of .. a lot of things. It is mid-October already when life is at last adjusted with Universiteit Utrecht's pace-rhythm for a moment, just before the exam period is waiting in the corner of the month. Well, my bigger problem is, finding a thesis-internship, which is not difficult but definitely not easy. I am 80% excited with all these possible developments for my near future, and the rest of it is a mixed feeling of anxiety and desperateness hahaha.

Also, still in the realm of college life, I feel like my confidence (not that I usually have enough of it) is falling free stylishly from a cliff. As everyone knows, my academic English skill is not decent at all, but I feel like it becomes worse lately than ever. I guess, the perfect combination of two comments on my research proposal that said 'your grammar is lacking' and endless days of speaking that language made me even more inferior. Last year, I realized that I got so many back-ups with group projects (there would always be a final editor before report submission) that make my shortcoming stayed off the radar. However, now, with constant individual assignments (esp. with peer review), I need the urge to proof-read my paper before clicking that send/submit button. I also signed up for premium Grammarly and new academic writing class by PPI Utrecht, all in all for my Achilles heel.

Enough with the rambling, maybe I will just spam the rest of this post with pictures. Yes, pictures always cure!

Too much pictures? Indeed! The first one is what left from the Ramadhan dinner with Utrecht Moslem group (as Andri calls it), the second is my beloved family, the 3rd and  4th pictures are typical Indonesian tourist spots, 5-6-7th are the memory of visiting amazing Disneyland and Studios!  8th is the garden of Palais Het Loo (the one full of  Late Queen Wilhemina's vibe), while the rest are just me showing off my friend and I, strutting along Hoge Veluwe  

What else can I say here? Too many stories I want to share but my limited brain capacity to write in English won't take us any further. Oh, and I am going to Schiphol today, to bid a farewell to Puti, one of my closest friend in Utrecht :'( She is finished with everything and will fly back to Indonesia for good (at least for now). I'm losing my friend one by one.

Till we meet again,

Noya

Sweet dream are made of this

Yesterday, I watched four movies in a row as addition of wake up lazily (i.e. very late) in the morning and basically laid all day long on my bed. As usual, I regretted my decision to be such a couch potato on a quite sunny (and supposed to be productive) day thus I went to sleep with a determination to do better. But then.. here I am writing a post about how useless was my life yesterday instead of working on a stack of assignments that waiting for me gracefully. But really - in all of seriousness, these two courses I have for this block are not to be played with. June - particularly after the 2nd week - might be the death of me because there are at least 5 reports, 2 presentations, and 2 exams. Ok, let have anxiety attack again, writing about this. Both of the course are actually very interesting, one is about the legal framework (what, who, and how) that govern one's water resource. Thanks to this course, I figure out that Indonesian Law of UU No. 7/2004 about Water Resource is revoked, in the name of avoiding further privatization of water management. As I dwell more into the case of water allocation in Indonesia, now I realize that my insight about many issues are actually only on par with Jon Snow get the reference? eh-eh-eh? not funny? no? The other course is a bit technical on how you can treat water to get potable grade quality yet there are several points of chemistry are involved which made it more challenging to understand -- as it is my first time to learn (basic) chemistry with English ;) There are a lot of things I can complain about but hey, it never made anything better though. In addition of all those new knowledge I got from the courses, I learned another state-of-the-art perspective last week, about circular economy where you won't talk about cradle to grave cycle of life but it should be from cradle to cradle. Sounds like sustainability? It is!

On another report, last week, Irene, Ahma, and I had the chance to join pm2am trip to Switzerland where we visited Rhine Waterfall (ahey I went to the upstream part of the most talked river on my class), Lucerne, and Zurich. Those places were magical with majestic eternal snow in Alpen range as background and both Lucerne and Zurich lake up front as far as your eyes can observe. The trip was overall worth the price, since I only had to pay 65e for transportation (back and forth), yet the long duration you have to sit in the bus without any plug nor wifi was a bit torturing ahah.

well, Switzerland is beautiful and all but sure I won't make it to live there unless I inherit enough from a Sultan

Back to the movies I watched last Friday; I was actually needed an escape from reality for a moment thus four old school movies (80s-90s) were somehow succeeded to transform the ambiance around. The thing is, I watched those four movies with a very different plot and genre, in a row which of course caused one of the drawback as I couldn't absorb all those meaning and lingering feel after. The first movie is Fast Time in Ridgemont High (1982) with its usual conflict happened in 80s high school: normal girl that never have sex wants a boyfriend-finally have sex but not a proper boyfriend-having fun anyway-get pregnant-realize she did wrong-one decent guy helps her. Young Sean Penn is looked stoned as ever ahah, he is the highlight of the show. Second, I watched Beetlejuice (1988) where you fell in love with Alec Baldwin-Geena Davis-Winona Ryder as the protagonist and loath Michael Keaton as this naughty evil bio-exorcist (guess again? yes, it is human removal service who live in a haunted house). Anyway, I never know that Baldwin was such a gentleman during that days, in addition to his hot glasses nerd character which make it perfect. You're gonna love this if you want to reminisce Tim Burton style of art. Next, Groundhog Day (1993) is (maybe) one of the pioneer movie with its lead character stuck to relive one day over and over again. It may sounds so-so nowadays but it was fresh in 90s plus Bill Murray acting was on point both as a jerk and sincere person. Lastly, I decided to try Being John Malkovich (1999) which is directed by Spike Jonze.. which made me acknowledge of the amount weird/quirky/disturbing ideas here. The title explains everything, so lets just give credits on how genius John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, and Catherine Keener (she's such a babe, bad one) here. As I already stated before, the movie is disturbing (at least for me) but hey, I dont say it was not worth to watch.

The fact that less than 24hrs will be again a monday sure bugs me for the rest of the day. But anyway, Ramadlan is coming next week and I have to fast from 3am to 10pm (fighting!). May we all have the blessing of this holy month and become a better moslem in the process *spread the love in the air*

And I would like to give a shout out to Quicksilver (X-Men version): thanks for your scene in all the latest movie, it gives me life! *eurythmics on repeat

XOXO,

Noya 

What's the common between water, antonio gaudi, and detectives?

Ola amigos!

Yesterday I stumbled upon a personal blog of Dieni Fitriani (the chronology started from me cleaned up my gmail inbox, includes google+ folder, when it contained some new email about recommendation on 'what you missed from Dieni' thus I lurk into hers and spent almost 2-hours there). Afterward, it feels compulsory to write here (as usual ahah), well, after a period of my academic progress. What have I done so far? The third block of my master program just finished. I just received my final grade on one course titled Quantitative Water Management where I am Alhmadulillah passed with not so bad (but not so good either) grade. Moreover if you compare it to one of my classmate who achieved 9.5/10 for a final grade. Holycow! I have to keep reminding myself that I should be more thankful to at least meet the requirement for this course. My exam grade is free-falling but thank Lord I did okay on assignments, thus I passed! For the other course, Managing Future Delta, there was no exam, but we had to submit a 50-pages group paper and an abstract abstract (literal meaning of abstract, if you dont get it maybe bcs it is more like a inside joke of my class). We havent received any news about grade, but I am quite confident in this as my group consisted of silly but great people and we already spent so much time to work on the paper (long live Sunderbans!!!). On a side note, I actually love this course with broad scope in delta management but somehow focus on many things involved per-lecture. We also had excursions, twice; to southwest delta where krammersluice-brouwerdams-neeltjejans-maasvlakte is located and to zandmotor where the magic happens the Dutch again succeed to implement such out of the the box approach on their ecology friendly water defense. It was nice and all but dont get me to start complaining about how the weather always betray us. Oh the perks of living in the Netherlands. 

As in currently, I have again two courses which in more social side (Water Policy, Governance, and Law & Drinking Water and Sanitation). I started this period in a lighthearted mood after 10 days of day offs (that was too much holiday, actually) followed by a symposium about water management in TU Delft. The later one was so interesting eventhough it felt like a very long day full of lectures (there was 6 spokesperson) but I got so many new insights about water related challenges, some subject stroke me the most are the water and sanitation problem in disaster area (by Biserka, MSF consultant), urban design for city protection (by Kees Christiaanse, ps: when we had discussion with him, he thought that garuda plan in Jakarta Bay is a stupid idea), also a lecture about how to resolve water problem in conflicted area (remind me of Banglandesh-India dispute, Mr. Rens de Man). Lisanne and I had a great time there as well as motivational reflection on how to search suitable internship for me (dank je wel, Lisanne!). Anyway for the next part, please envyjoy the sightseeing from Madrid and Spain where I explored only in 4 days (not enouuuuugh!)

Madrid is fine but Barcelona steals our heart, thanks Mr. Gaudi to make this city sooo beautiful 

Since I had too many day off recently, I watched all new movies in the cinema, as well as, streaming some old movies online so.. one more rambling for this post, why is action/superhero movies (almost) always let me down recently? London Has Fallen, Huntsman: The Witch's War, Batman vs Superman, Capt. America: Civil War.. all of them failed me (in different aspect). Instead, movies like Zootropolis and The Jungle Book blown my mind (well, this is mainstream opinion). Also, I finished a fairly new k-drama titled 'Signal' where this time I finished it until the last episode, unlike the last time I, and million other people, lost interest in 'Cheese in The Trap'. It is one of the best drama I ever watched! Minimum cheesy romance, superb acting, and brilliant plot, who could say no to an amazing cold case-solving-detective storyline, eh? I really recommend this one :)

It seems I already write above my average word counts here, so.. lets part ways for now. And dont forget to be happy!

Ciao,

A. Noyara Rahmasary