Planet GBT

It's that time of the year. School is on! Tomorrow I am going to teach a new course; an Introduction to Information Technology. I am excited ... but ... here's the story.

I've just got the information about the class not long ago. The formal information that I am teaching the class was delivered a couple weeks ago. Now, I am struggling to digest the textbook which I've just got a couple weeks ago.

I've been working hard on this course for the last two days. Well, I actually looked at this a couple weeks ago but I didn't dig deeper. Today I spent the whole day (and night - in fact, I am still going to) working on the course.

[Students, look what I have to go through to prepare a good class. I hope you'll enjoy the class.]

This afternoon I went to Starbucks at BIP and read (almost) one chapter from the book. I got the gist of the content, but I still have to prepare the lecture.

After I got home, I head straight to my computer and did some internet search. The textbook comes with an internet...

As usual, I went jogging this morning. But this morning was different.

Today was quiet. The universe was quiet. ha ha ha. I guess that's because yesterday - 17 August 2008 - was our Independence Day. Everybody was so busy yesterday with their events and competitions that they were tired and perhaps were still sleeping.

I took some pictures on my way. Here they are ...



My jogging track. Look how quiet it is and how the beautiful the background is. Yeah, I live in a nice place. I can see the mountain and there are still green trees. I hope it's still the same.



Indonesian flag waving in front of an empty school. Ah, how lonely it must have been.



a house with independence theme... good stuff.

I went home charged by the quiet environment. Ahh...

I have just read an interesting email in a mailing list. Let me just call him a friend of mine. (I am not sure if he's interested to become my friend, but for the sake of argument, let me just asume he is. ha ha ha.) His initial is MD.

His writing is very good, simple, but not dull. At times, it is fiesty - the way I like it - but polite (how could it be). It is full with wisdom and funny at the same time. I am a fan of his writing.

So, a few days ago I wrote him an email asking whether he is thinking of writing a book or blog for that matter. He replied that at this point in time, he is not planning to write a book or blog. He lives a simple life. He needs no pressure (of finishing a book or taking care of a blog).

How simple is his life? He has no car, no TV, no cellphone, no landline phone, and no computer at home! Where does he live? Right in a big city - in fact, downtown - in the USA! He lives just 3 minutes walk from his office, where he gets all his computing facilities. So, the...

why people are so complicated?
... write complicated articles (songs?)
... create complicated situations
... live in complicated dreams

i love simplicity
that's the town i am heading ...

[picture was taken in the 90s]

I have to see her ...

Yeah, it's happening. This is the cover of August edition of Biskom magazine.



I am still waiting for the magazine, though.

Selamat untuk Indra dan Sade atas pernikahannya.

(Mohon maaf kami tidak dapat datang pada acara tanggal 2 Agustus 2008. Kemarin acara makan-makannya menyenangkan.)

Semoga kalian berbahagia dan rukun-rukun selalu, serta dalam lindungan Allah swt.

Last Friday, Merlyna, Chika, and I went to Artepolis seminar on campus. To tell you the truth, I crashed into the seminar. I was not invited and was not registered. The thing is, I forgot about the seminar. Last year, I joined the seminar (had a paper in it). This year, I was supposed to submit a paper but I forgot. (Sign of getting older?)

Anyway, I went into the session on creative industry (?). It was not planned. We went there just to see and support esduren. :) When I entered the venue - Aula Timur - friends who recognized me asked why I didn't submit a paper. Sheepishly, I had to admit that I forgot.

Originally, we just wanted to say hi to esduren and leave, but she said we should stay. So, we did. We listened to three presentations. Lo and behold, I had questions for those presenters. Ha ha ha.

The first presented talked about comic industry in Indonesia, or lack of. He said that one of the problems is that there is no Indonesian comic magazine. There are plenty comic books, th...

[a singlish-style conversation...]

Question: can you code?
Me: coding? still can lah ...

ha ha ha.
Yes, I can still code. perl coding, that is.
See the code I did this morning (twice!) in this posting.

I used to love reading. I read, read, and read. But now, it feels that reading is a task, a job, something that I am forced to do. Yeah, part of my jobs (actually my main responsibility) is reading (and understanding of what I read). It's not fun anymore. It has become a job. Arrrggghhh.

How do I make reading fun again?