Moved to www.thehumanartist.blogspot.com

Thank You and Goodbye

2011-12-22T14:19:00.003+07:00

I'm now exist only in

Visual Sensibility and Talking Frames.

I thank you who have already followed this blog. I won't delete it because it has so many memories, including my old posts with photos taken with my pocket camera, Kodak V550. I'm now using Canon EOS 400D I bought this September. I hope I can shoot better using it since I'm now playing with depth more.

Thank you so much.

Sincerely,

Sheyka Nugrahani

“Green Girl” says “Marhaban Ya Ramadhan”

2011-08-14T00:08:00.000+07:00

“Green Girl” (Final Look)

Watercolour and watercolour pencil on paper ; Letter size

Friday, August 12th (sketch and half-finished) and Saturday, August 13th

A commisioned painting for Indonesia Kreatif

The ‘green’ theme of this painting was inspired by the cover of an old GoGirl! Magazine and the fact that I was appointed to be one of Ganesha Hijau’s Agents of Change represents HIMASITH Nymphaea (a student council name of School of Life Science and Technology Institut Teknologi Bandung) that demands me to be a representative of living a ‘green life’ in my campus. Thanks to friends from Ganesha Hijau, especially my new boss, who’s given trust on me.

If you noticed the colours on the watercolour pad beside the watercolour cake, they were colour palletes for “Green Girl”. Just like colour palletes on Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw, they will be very useful if I’m going to make different painting with same theme.

“Green Girl” was made for a cover of Eid Idl Fitr greeting card designed special for Indonesia Kreatif (IDKreatif), a name of Ministry of Trade’s research division specialized in creative economy. I was among the other 4 artists (Faisal Azad of Salazad Papertoys, Rahmat Kurniawan of Rekarupa, Thom Dean the Cartoonist, and Beng Rahadian of Akademi Samali) who was appointed to make an artwork for IDKreatif’s greeting card. So honored to know that I was in the same job with my favourite Indonesian artists. If it wasn’t Mbak Mia who asked me to design a greeting card with a painting as its cover (and also agreed to have me as an intern for 2 months at IDKreatif), I wouldn’t have been this happy. I thank her so much (again) for giving me an opportunity to show my side-talent.

“Green Girl” says, “Marhaban Ya Ramadhan”. Many thanks to Deasty Imara as one who saw the final look of the painting at the very first. You know what your words meant for me so much, Dear :)

“Green Girl” was actually my second human painting after “Thinking of You”. Same with the previous painting, I used the face of an actreess as an inspiration to draw the face of “Green Girl”. Having Kate Bosworth as my reference for “Thinking of You”, I had Emilie de Ravin on the cover of old edition of GoGirl! Magazine for “Green Girl”. Though I didn’t really know her movies (same went for Kate Bosworth), I chose her face because it looked unique to me.

As usual, I did a painting with vibrant colours that Rara thought as my own way of showing the audicity and simplicity. Felt so honored to be given an opinion about my paintings from one of my favourite bloggers. Same like my mother, Rara’s thoughts on life was technically sarcastic, yet so adorably genuine!

"Orangutan" Painting

2011-07-14T21:44:00.001+07:00

“Orangutan”

15 x 11 cm , watercolour on paper

Wednesday, July 13th, 2011

As an Indonesian, a human being who live in a country with its second largest biodiversity, and a Biology student whose life’s been haunted by the figure of Jane Goodall and George Schaller since last year, I feel that I have an obligation to promote my own country to the world. I really am not saying this with uneasy feeling. There’s nobody forces me to came to this realization. Even my parents, they’re not the one who told me to take Biology as my major.

So, it all started when I saw a brochure on a download page of WWF Indonesia website. The brochure told me that the Javan rhinos were in danger because of their decreasing amount. I don’t know why, but the pictures of the rhinos somewhat inspired me to do something. Something that was interesting and could be important in future. As a I sketched the Javan rhino’s head, a very surprising thought came to me: this wildlife painting could be my own way in saving the animal, especially the endangered one like this rhino. So, right after I finished painting, I promised to myself that I’d continue painting wild animals. Just because I can’t participate in NGO activities (because of very tight schedule as a student) doesn’t mean I can’t do something different to raise the awareness of people of the animals in Indonesia.

One of my 2011-2012 resolutions as a painter is paint at least two endangered animals in Indonesia. Some of them I’ve known so far are Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae), Javan rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sondaicus), Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus), and Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii). I’ve made a painting of the head of Javan rhinoceros with same medium and tools (titled “Hello, Rhino!”) last December, so with this “Orangutan” painting, I’m coming to the minimum amount of paintings I should made according to the resolution.

The sketch

The final look of “Orangutan” painting. Honestly, it doesn’t look very real to me since I painted it with no hair. Maybe the most suitable title for this painting should be “Bald Orangutan” or “The Orangutan with No Hair” (reminds me so much of “The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo”) hahaha.

I’m looking forward to paint another endangered animals in future. How about… the Sumatran rabbit (Nesolagus netscheri)?

P.S.: My paintings are now available on postcards! Please kindly inform me if you’re interested in exchanging postcards with me. For you who don’t live in Indonesia, let’s do some pen-pallings. I have a Postcrossing account. How about you? :)

Children at Museum Tekstil's Batik Workshop

2011-07-14T08:46:00.003+07:00

For more stories and photos, please kindly go to my Tumblr.

I'm open for photography or painting commision, just email me at sheykascooby[dot]gmail[dot]com .

If there’s someone ask me what object that I like the most as a photographer, I would surely answer ‘human beings’. As a huge fan of innocent and expressive faces, the objects of my creativity in controlling angle by angle of shoots are mostly children. In shooting them, I love making them laugh, excite, and do things which later result the expressiveness drawn on each of their faces.

In this event held by Indonesia Kreatif in cooperation with William Kwan and Museum Tekstil, I wasn’t allowed to make them gave me some expressions like things I usually do when I was with children, because they’re busy giving their concentration to the fabric in their hands. Nevertheless, just because there was no children who were free that time didn’t mean I couldn’t make some pictures. As I observe them carefully, the more they concentrated, the more the face told me something in their mind. For a photographer like me, this thought was like a sign for priceless moments.

So, with Nikon in my hand and smile drawn on my face everytime one of them looked at me, these are photos I’ve captured at the event. Tada!

Still in The Year of Bunny!

2011-05-06T07:22:00.001+07:00

Good morning!

It’s 6 AM here at Bandung, Indonesia, and I’m freezing. It’s kind of foggy out there and the sky is quite cloudy. Bandung has been like this since weeks, probably 3 months ago. Honestly, it is a very friendly weather for students and workers who go out this hour unless the rain falls suddenly that there will be some nuisance, such as shoes getting wet and hands gripping umbrella so it will be hard for people who carry too many stuffs in their hands.

However, we can’t deny the fact that we can do nothing about the weather and its stuffs. Life is going and things out there can’t be helped only by grumbling, whining, complaining, and doing the other things that waste our energy. I personally am thinking that being grateful is more than enough. You can still type things now on Tumblr post box, breathing fastly and slowly as if the air is unlimited, seeing things clearly through my eyes though it’s kind of blurry without glasses, and doing the other things that’d make you feel pretty much thankful to God for giving this life. By shutting your mouth and not typing something like “Ah, the weather is very cold! Why does it has to be like this again and again?” in Twitter or any socmeds, it’s enough to have your mind standing in a thankful state. It’s not hard, isn’t?

“Now in The Year of Bunny”

Postcard size (4R), Watercolour on watercolour paper

Thursday, May 5th 2011

Anyway, asiding from the facts about weather and life, I’m very happy right now, I admit it. I had two paintings done in one night and both of them only took me almost 4 hours! For you who’s been wondering why on earth I was happy with this ‘almost 4 hours’, I tell you, it is a kind of improvement for an amateur painter like me who doesn’t paint frequently because of a very tight schedule, both arranged by me and my own faculty where I’m currently studying my major at. An amateur painter, just like a person who does sports unregularly that she/he will be very tired after doing activities, mostly take much time in doing one painting. The reason varies, but mostly the painter has trouble in deciding what to paint and how to paint what drawns in her imagination that it takes her/him too much time only for thinking about the colours.

“The Dolphin”

Postcard size (4R), Watercolour on watercolour paper

Thursday, May 5th 2011

Actually, both of them are for my (younger) brothers. They’re having test weeks just like me, so I painted these paintings while thinking about them. And one of them, the youngest one, was having a birthday yesterday, exactly on the day I finished the paintings! What a very happy day to tell you, Readers, that I was having my brothers as my inspiration in working hehehe.

Anyway, have a very happy day, y’all! Hope you always have a very healthy body and mind. Tschüß! :)

Satu Malam bersama Sang Diva Muda

2011-04-04T18:46:00.006+07:00

Dira Sugandi tampil sangat memukau malam itu. Berkali-kali ia menyapa penonton, termasuk Sang Ibu yang juga ikut melihatnya dari kejauhan. (Photo by me)

JAKARTA. Mungkin adalah A3 BNI Hall, tempat dimana para pengunjung mendaratkan pilihannya untuk mendapatkan suguhan pertama dalam rangkaian acara Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival (JJF) 2011. Seperti dirasa paling tepat bagi banyak pengunjung untuk dijadikan awal mula JJF 2011, ruangan itu penuh. Malam itu (4/3), Dira Juliati Sugandi atau yang lebih akrab dipanggil Dira Sugandi menjadi artis pertama yang menandai kehadirannya di ruangan yang dapat memuat sekitar 1000 orang tersebut. Tidak hanya orang-orang yang merupakan fans nomor satu dari Dira Sugandi yang rela berdiri menyaksikan penampilan solois jazz tersebut, tapi juga orang-orang yang penasaran seperti apa artis yang akan ’menyentuh’ A3 BNI Hall pertama kali. Mungkin beberapa dari mereka tahu, Java Festival Production tidak akan main-main dalam menempatkan seorang artis di hall sebesar itu.

Indonesia boleh menyebut Dira sebagai ‘anak baru’. Namun, bukan lagi merupakan sebuah kejutan bagi para pencinta musik jazz mengetahui Dira diberikan sebuah panggung yang akan dipakai oleh Fourplay dan Brian Culbertson pada malam yang sama. Mereka sudah dapat menduga dan tahu bahwa Dira sangat pantas mendapatkan posisi sebagai seorang diva. Gadis muda kelahiran Bandung itu sudah dikenal di mata para personel grup Incognito dan penyanyi terkenal Jason Mraz. Belum lagi, ia begitu sering diajak berkolaborasi dengan banyak musisi jazz terkenal di Indonesia, salah satunya adalah Oele Pattiselano. Karirnya yang terbilang mulus sebagai pendatang baru itu pun menjadi semakin berwarna ditambah dengan keterlibatannya di salah satu teater musikal tanah air. Diawali dengan Get Through to You, salah satu lagu dari album terbaru dan pertamanya, Something about The Girl, Dira memberikan sebuah penampilan solo perdananya di Java Jazz Festival dengan sangat baik. Dengan warna suaranya yang begitu kuat, para penonton seolah-olah terhipnotis malam itu.

Aditya, bukan Adithya Sofian, tapi Anugrah Aditya, adalah salah satu musisi yang diberikan panggung besar di JJF tahun ini. (Photo by me)

Kejutan. Mungkin itu yang banyak dirasakan orang-orang saat menonton Java Jazz Festival tahun ini. Beberapa penyanyi yang tahun lalu diberikan stage kecil, kini diberikan stage besar, seperti yang terjadi pada Anugrah Aditya yang dulu hanya diberikan spot kecil di booth Femina Group atau mungkin sang diva muda Dira Sugandi. Selain itu, musisi-musisi jazz Indonesia juga semakin terlihat mendominasi, walaupun format special show dari dua musisi luar negeri, George Benson dan Santana, tetap diadakan dan beberapa artis dari luar negeri masih memenuhi banyak panggung-panggung besar. Walaupun baru hari pertama, Java Jazz Festival tahun ini sepertinya sukses meraup banyak sekali pengunjung yang ingin menikmati atau penasaran akan seperti apa musik jazz itu. Tiap pengunjung seakan diberi kesempatan untuk membuat ’playlist’-nya sendiri, walaupun harus rela melupakan santap sesaat di beberapa booth makanan atau mungkin kalelahan berlari mengejar jadwal main artis favorit. Benar-benar khas Java Jazz Festival. Seluruh venue bak YouTube semalam suntuk. Harmony under one nation. Anda pilih, Anda dengarkan.

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Ditulis oleh Sheyka Nugrahani, mahasiswa ITB dan penikmat musik jazz.

*Artikel ini merupakan bagian dari tugas mata kuliah Jurnalistik Sains dan Teknologi

Sukses 'Tanpa' Bekerja

2011-04-04T18:27:00.004+07:00

Apakah sukses itu? Apa ketika kita punya perusahaan sendiri dan menduduki posisi tertinggi dalam sebuah perusahaan? Atau mungkin saat kita punya banyak uang? Jawabannya terserah Anda. Tapi coba renungi, apakah hal itu sudah membuat Anda bahagia?

Passion. Sebuah kata yang dijunjung tinggi oleh banyak orang, termasuk Rene Suhardono, dalam bukunya yang berjudul Your Job Is Not Your Career. Dengan bahasa yang lugas dan format yang sederhana, career coach itu mencoba mengajak para pembacanya untuk berpikir ulang sebelum mengambil langkah ke depan tentang pekerjaan dan karier.

Citra kesuksesan begitu lekat dengan jabatan, uang, fasilitas, dan kekuasaan. Namun, apakah itu semua jawaban atas kesuksesan hidup? Lalu, bagaimana jika seseorang tersebut ternyata tidak bahagia? Bagaimana dengan seorang pria yang ingin menjadi seorang pelukis, tapi sudah terlanjur disekolahkan orangtuanya untuk menjadi seorang pengacara? Bukankah bekerja di bidang yang tidak disukai sama saja seperti mendekati keburukan?

Your job should never define you. Berulang kali, Rene, dalam bukunya yang pertama itu, menuliskan kalimat yang sama. Bahwa bukan pekerjaan yang seharusnya dijadikan cerminan dari pribadi seseorang, melainkan karier. Karier adalah passion, tujuan hidup, dan kebahagiaan, sedangkan pekerjaan tidak lebih dari sekedar alat, kepentingan perusahaan, dan lingkungan kerja. Pekerjaan Anda bukan karir Anda, begitu slogan tersebut berulang kali dituliskan dalam buku setebal 160 halaman ini.

Dalam bagian Cerminan Karier, Rene membahas mengenai obrolan tentang uang (money talks). Seringkali dirinya bertemu dengan para pengusaha, teman, dan juga saudara yang ingin pindah kerja dengan alasan mencari tantangan yang lebih besar dan baru. Ujungnya kata 'tantangan' itu sendiri memiliki arti 'more money' alias ingin mencari lebih banyak uang dari lahan pekerjaan yang baru. Sementara itu, ada juga yang memiliki rencana-rencana untuk mendapatkan titel yang berbeda di setiap jangka waktu yang telah ditentukan. Orang-orang itu bisa jadi adalah orang-orang yang akan sangat kecewa jika ditawarkan sebuah titel yang tidak sesuai dengan strata yang diharapkan. Sayang, pada kenyataannya, hal ini merupakan sebuah fenomena yang biasa terjadi di sebagian besar mahasiswa lulusan perguruan tinggi bergengsi yang dikenal atas prestasi akademiknya di sebuah negara.

Walaupun refleksi atas karier adalah pilihan pribadi, lewat bukunya tersebut Rene mencoba untuk mengoreksi pendapat dari sebagian besar orang akan persepsi 'life is meant for living'. Tolak ukur atas karier seseorang akan lebih baik jika dibandingkan dengan tingkat kebahagiaan, bukan tingkat pendapatan atau material. Posisi atau jabatan akan senantiasa berganti seiring dengan berjalannya waktu. Namun, tidak untuk kebahagiaan. Bagaimanapun jalan yang dilalui dalam karier, kebahagiaan yang timbul akan selalu diingat dan dijadikan inspirasi untuk melangkah lebih baik lagi ke depannya.

Passion dan Identitas
"Your strength is not what you're good at," tulis Rene dalam sebuah chapter dalam bukunya. Keunikan diri, atau passion, begitu deinisi Rene, adalah sesuatu yang penting untuk disadari. Hal yang tidak akan ditemui pada orang lain tersebutlah yang patut dijadikan sebuah identitas diri. Menurut Rene, memang tidak mudah untuk menemukan passion tersebut. Dirinya bahkan butuh waktu lebih dari 9 tahun untuk menemukan miliknya. Beberapa orang bahkah ada yang jauh lebih lama. "Namun mencoba menemukannya akan jauh lebih baik daripada mengacuhkannya sama sekali," begitu tulisnya.

Dengan menyertakan beberapa contoh pengalaman dari beberapa teman dekatnya, Rene membahas tentang tujuan hidup (purpose of life). Menurutnya, menjadi sekaya Warren Buffet bukanlah tujuan hidup. Tujuan hidup didapatkan seiring dengan dijalankannya passion dari hidup itu sendiri. Diawali dengan dilakukannya refleksi atas masa lalu, prinsip-prinsip hidup dapat dideskripsikan dan masa depan dapat tervisualisasikan. Langkah selanjutnya, menurut Rene, adalah memperluas wawasan. Dengan didapatkannya tujuan dari hidup, values, atau yang menurut Kazuo Inomori sebagai kumpulan atas jati diri akan lebih mudah ditemukan.

Tidak Menggurui
Buku Your Job Is Not Your Career ini seolah-olah membuktikan bahwa untuk bisa dekat dengan para pembaca tidaklah diperlukan bahasa yang biasa digunakan dalam kehidupan sehari-hari. Berbeda dengan buku-buku self-learning lainnya, Rene yang mendeskripsikan dirinya sebagai ‘bukan siapa-siapa’ di dalam bukunya itu menulis berbagai tips, cerita, dan nasehat terkait dengan kehidupan dengan bahasa yang tegas, tapi tidak terkesan superior. Berbalut kesederhanaan, buku yang direkomendasikan oleh para tokoh-tokoh pergerakan masa kini Indonesia itu seolah-olah mengajak masyarakat untuk merubah pandangan hidup, tanpa terkesan menggurui. Kalimat-kalimat retorik yang dituliskan oleh Rene tidak terkesan sedang menyidang atau memarahi pembaca, tapi justru menimbulkan kesadaran.

Tidak kalah bagus dengan buku utamanya, Career Snippet, sebuah buku yang dikemas satu paket dengan buku Your Job Is Not Your Career tersebut, yang juga adalah karangan Rene, seolah-olah diberikan bagi para pembaca sebagai sebuah bonus. Bonus yang diharapkan dapat memandu dalam menjalani langkah awal untuk merubah pandangan akan karier dan pekerjaan, serta meraih kesuksesan. Buku ini lebih banyak membahas tentang pengalaman-pengalaman para tokoh (Rene menyebut mereka sebagai rockstars) yang dianggap banyak orang sebagai role model atau panutan. Dengan cerita-cerita hidup para tokoh tersebut, diharapkan para pembaca akan lebih terinspirasi untuk jalani hidup dengan orientasi ‘your job is not your career’.

Sayang, di dalam bukunya, Rene sendiri tidak mengulas tentang kehidupannya dan bagaimana caranya meraih kesuksesan. Mungkin saja dengan begitu Rene dapat lebih mudah menjangkau para pembacanya dan membuat mereka mengerti akan latar belakang dari seseorang yang sedang ‘memandu’ perjalanan hidup mereka tersebut. Namun, sekali lagi, kesederhanaan, termasuk berbagai kalimat yang mengesankan kerendahhatian dari Rene adalah sesuatu yang unik dari buku ini. Sebuah kesederhanaan yang dibalut oleh aksi-aksi nyata dan usaha, serta niat yang besar.

Ditulis oleh Sheyka Nugrahani
Mahasiswa & penulis lepas

*Review ini adalah bagian dari tugas mata kuliah Jurnalistik Sains dan Teknologi

It was All Yellow

2011-03-01T00:44:00.003+07:00

WHOA.

Has just captured some photos of today’s sunset and pretty much surprised by the colour of the sky. It was so different from the days before today (yesterday and 4 days before). It was all yellow.

This yellow-coloured sky had only been lasted for about 6 minutes (photos above), and then it was replaced by the usual colour of sunset (the orange-red-ish colour) just like what was being shown by a photo I captured about the next 6 minutes below.

(Do you notice the difference between the clouds arrangement?)

For your info, I took the pictures 15 minutes earlier than my usual time of capturing sunsets (18.10 WIB). It was so worth it, by the way. Alhamdulillah :)

*I swear I didn’t edit the colours at all. It was all yellow naturally :)

P.S : Took a photo of flowers from my plant too.

Hello, Rhino!

2010-12-24T21:44:00.002+07:00

Hello, Rhino!

Watercolour on Canson paper (180 gr), size 9x10 cm.

I made this painting on the second day of my holiday, which was exactly two days ago. It was my intention to paint something related to something that I’ve been concerning about lately.

At first, I was thinking about a painting that resembles a campaign to save the earth (for example, by planting some trees and prevent the animals from extinction), but when I looked into some electronic brochures and leaflets from WWF (which were able to be downloaded from their official website) in my archive, a picture of Rhinoceros from Sumatra island caught my eyes, as if it strucked my mind and wanted to be painted in just a second (Oh, I’m telling you the truth about a feeling of a painter who sees something that was so interesting).

Suddenly, I remembered a ‘SAVE THE RHINO’ campaign by WWF (Rhinocare) and somehow it inspired me to paint something related to it. I wasn’t so friendly with abstract paintings which have a lot of strokes and lines, so I decided to paint something definite. This kind of painting was actually a breaktrough for me because I’d never paint something so real before. Most of my old works were inspired by my own free mind, which weren’t pointing a thing, surreal-like.

So, after I drew the rough illustration with my HB pencil (based on a photo of Sumatran Rhino on the leaflet), I painted the rhino’s main head first with a mix of black and white colour (with lots of water, of course). I left both of its ears, eye, and its only horn (you REALLY didn’t expect a rhino with two horns, right?) to be coloured later.

Done with layering by using wet on dry technique (I wasn’t so fond of painting wet on wet and I couldn’t paint dry on dry because I was using watercolour pads, not tubes), I decided to paint the negative spaces with bright yellow. I added some vignette-like effects on the edges of the paper by applying darker yellow (more like orange, actually), then I paid my attention to the rhino’s eyes, horn, and ears.

(you can see that I was playing with both dark and pale grey a lot, then adding some black colour to resemble the rhino’s actual skin pattern)

You know, watercolouring is all about patience. Your paint would be so messed up if you applied new layer of colour without getting the base dried first. I had about 5 minutes to have mine dried before I added some details. If you had a sharp eyes, you’d notice that I added some redish brown to the rhino’s eyelid, the inner side of the ears and horn, and some white highlights to some edges of each of the head’s parts.

Finally, it’s done! :)

P.S : I’m currently selling this painting of mine. If you’re interested in buying it, please contact me via email. I’m also accepting questions related to this painting and other else. Thanks! :)

2010-12-11T08:13:00.002+07:00

So many updates on my Tumblr and lot of things going on there. Please go check it if you haven't :)

Recent Photos : OCT-NOV 2010

2010-11-17T21:04:00.007+07:00

See what I've been capturing since October (by clicking Read More) and see what I've been telling about them in my Tumblr.

Thank you for viewing! :)

Scientist vs Pure Scientist

2010-11-05T22:21:00.003+07:00

This is my latest artwork, almost similar to my July Graduation poster. A poster design for Biosystematic subject and also a report for our small-field lecture which took place at Bandung local zoo on November 2nd.

Made it in almost 3 hours, started from today’s 7 PM to 9 PM, helped by my friend’s Wacom Bamboo Pen (Thanks so much, Peni!). It’s actually my first time using Bamboo Pen for work. Feel so awkward, but also excited to get my own comfort position in holding the pen :)

Life is tough for tropical mammalogists. They work on a group with a limited number of species, maybe 150 at places like the ones we are in, and most of those species are bats and rats. Other than monkeys, most of the large mammals in the Amazon are rare. To detect them, mammalogists look for signs — scat, tracks, scratch marks, anything to let them know that a species is here. Worse, they have yahoo ornithologists reporting weird bats, and clueless botanists seeing rare deer. But they have to follow up on these reports. They also have to work night and day. Some mammals (monkeys, for example) are out in daylight hours, but for most, nighttime is when they are active.

Paragraph above was one of the excerpts from a blog post of a scientist featured in NYTimes.com. As I read the rest of the post, I began to take my interest in studying about mammals and also got an idea of becoming a mammalogist someday.

The mammalogists are both quiet and even-tempered.

Sometimes I wonder why there were really quite a few mammalogists (or maybe even other type of wildlife biologist) who were willing to spend their quality time blogging and posting about their new discovery about animals they were observing. The NYTimes.com post was actually written by a scientist too, Douglas Stotz. He’s a Conservation Ornithologist and is active in programs to preserve biological diversity and threatened habitats, both in the Chicago region and in other countries. This fact reminds me of a reply mail from a wildlife biologist that I mailed first via his Facebook account. He (the biologist) said to me that most media articles like those you read in National Geographic, Animal Planet, and any science media were written by journalists who are in charge of ‘following’ the life of scientists. He didn’t told me why weren’t the scientists themselves wrote the articles for National Geographic and such. I thought it was enough for me to ask him about that because he’s a wildlife biologist who works inside the lab, not observing things directly on the field.

Well, what I’m trying to say now is that I’m currently not really interested in being a ‘pure scientist’. I don’t like being in a lab too long and I don’t like putting myself too much concerned with one thing. I don’t know if this perception of mine would change someday or not, but at least I keep trying to love what I do now and what’s real life’s been teaching me since I entered the university life.

I’m trying, Mom, Dad. I’m trying to hold my responsibilities as a person who’s already willing to study in an institution called Institut Teknologi Bandung still.

I’m not in a sad mode or what right now. I just need to do things like this (talking about future) to keep me stay still in my real line. I’m not doing this kind of thing (studying Biology) just to get a Bachelor degree or popularities. I want to make my parents and family proud of having a child studying in ITB. I want to make the future of Biology in Indonesia bright. I want to make a change. A change for what’s real related to what I’m studying in real.

In the name of Allah SWT, I’ll begin my own real journey. I will keep trying to do what’s best. Please wish me so many lucks in studying about Biology and such.

Cheers :)

More Pictures on Tumblr

2010-09-09T16:28:00.009+07:00

I have my own Tumblr now and will be frequently use it almost everyday.
For you who are interested in seeing my recent photoworks and writings in English,
please do visit this visual memory storage of mine.

Below are some photos taken with my friend's Nikon D90 :) --> click "Read More.."

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World's Best Painting Part. 2

2010-09-08T22:55:00.007+07:00

Another God's painting. Most of them were taken in the morning, when it's best for people to inhale deeply to the fresh air.

P.S : All of them was taken by me with my Nokia N95 camera. Too see more of my recent photos, go to my Tumblr. Thanks! :)

And the last photo is the best shot, taken in between the afternoon and the night (look at the small moon!) :

Merendah Seperti Ashadi Siregar

2010-07-23T20:59:00.004+07:00

Dari tulisan Maria Hartiningsih di Kompas Minggu (18/7) tentang profil dari Pak Ashadi Siregar, saya belajar satu hal baik, yaitu kerendahan hati. Dari semua kalimat yang terkumpul jadi satu halaman dalam rubrik Persona itu, muncul gambaran dalam benak saya tentang betapa istimewanya Pak Ashadi Siregar sebagai seorang jurnalis senior. Tidak ada salahnya untuk husnuzhan (berprasangka baik) kepada seseorang walaupun hanya dari sebuah tulisan yang berupa laporan si pewawancara. Dari kalimat-kalimat yang ditulis kembali oleh Maria, saya yakin bahwa Pak Ashadi memiliki banyak sekali ilmu dan pengalaman, tapi tetap menjunjung tinggi sifat rendah hati.

Satu paragraf yang paling menusuk saya adalah saat Pak Ashadi dimintai pendapat tentang novel hits-nya yang berjudul Cintaku di Kampus Biru :

“Saya melihat dinamika itu faktornya bukan karena novel itu menarik. Jadi, faktornya kebetulan saja,” ia melanjutkan. “Orang bilang, ‘Kamu kok merendah begitu,” tetapi saya bilang, ‘Tidak. Sebagai orang yang belajar media, saya tahu, faktor itu benar.”

Dari jawaban yang (bisa saya bayangkan) beliau jawab dengan nada tegas tersebut, bisa diambil suatu makna dari sifat rendah hati yang beliau miliki dan terapkan dalam kehidupannya. Rendah hati yang menjadi sifat dari Pak Ashadi bukanlah sifat merendah berlebihan yang justru membuat karyanya jatuh (alias rendah diri). Sifat rendah hati beliau bukan berarti pernyataan kekalahan, tapi justru sebagai sikap lanjutan dari fakta-fakta yang kita ketahui, bukan dari pujian-pujian yang dilontarkan oleh orang-orang. Dari jawaban beliau itu, bisa disimpulkan bahwa merendah tidak selalu berarti buruk jika terselip sebuah alasan yang dilandasi keyakinan bahwa kita benar. Sifat dari Pak Ashadi ini bisa saja menimbulkan ketidaksukaan dari beberapa orang yang justru malah salah paham akan sifat rendah hati kita. Akan tetapi, buat apa memiliki perasaan khawatir berlebihan tentang pendapat orang lain terhadap apa yang kita lakukan? Seperti apa yang Ibu pernah bilang, “Nggak usah nge-judge apa yang dilakukan orang itu benar atau salah. Jadi, jangan berikan tanggapan pada apa yang orang lakukan untuk hidup mereka selama kita tidak diminta, kecuali di situasi yang sangat krusial.”

Sebagai seseorang yang begitu ingin bisa terjun ke dalam dunia jurnalistik, saya begitu mengagumi sosok-sosok seperti Pak Ashadi Siregar ini. Beliau punya Twitter dan Facebook, tapi apa yang beliau update bukanlah sesuatu yang membuat seseorang iri padanya. Bisa saya lihat dari timeline Twitternya , beliau memanfaatkan Twitter sebagai papan pengumuman dimana beliau memberitahukan apa yang sedang ia lakukan kini, dan kebanyakan dari kegiatan-kegiatan itu adalah pelatihan jurnalisme.

Satu lagi hal yang saya kagumi dari Pak Ashadi Siregar seperti yang ditulis Maria di profilnya. Beliau digambarkan sebagai seseorang yang pemurah dan suka menolong orang lain, tapi kikir dalam mengungkap kisah kehidupan bersama keluarganya.

“Tak ada pentingnya orang-orang tahu kebahagiaan kecil saya di rumah,” katanya.

...

P.S : Saya tak punya foto terbaru dari Pak Ashadi. Fotonya ada di Kompas. Kapan-kapan saya scan ya :)

Menjadi, Tidak Seperti, atau Bukan?

2010-07-22T21:34:00.004+07:00

Saya dulu punya topeng. Topeng yang saya gunakan untuk bisa menjadi orang lain di waktu-waktu tertentu. Di akhir, saya baru menyadari bahwa selama ini saya tak lebih dari seorang pengecut yang takut untuk jadi dirinya sendiri. (Model : Citra Indah Lestari)

Menjadi seseorang yang memiliki kemampuan tinggi untuk berimajinasi tidaklah selalu menyenangkan. Karena kemampuan itu, saya, contohnya, selalu punya banyak bayangan rencana dan masa depan yang kadang tidak sesuai dan terlalu dipaksakan. Tentu saja semua bayangan itu belum pasti terjadi, apalagi jika Tuhan tidak menghendaki. Tapi apa jadinya kalau bayangan-bayangan itu terus menghantui orang yang sangat mudah terdistraksi dan ingin semuanya cepat terjadi…

seperti saya?

Tanpa pernah disadari, saya mungkin adalah satu dari sekian banyak perempuan yang memiliki kemampuan multitasking. Kemampuan ini memang penting untuk masa depan seorang perempuan, karena di masa depan, kita harus mampu bertindak sebagai istri dan juga ibu. Adalah Aiko Urfia Rakhmi, salah seorang perempuan yang saya ketahui punya kemampuan multitasking dan juga multipassion dalam bidang seni. Namanya pernah dimuat dalam rubrik Sosialita di Koran Kompas. Disebutkan disitu, Aiko adalah seorang seniman yang sukses dan punya banyak bakat.

Saya ingin bisa menjadi seorang ilustrator yang disewa oleh National Geographic untuk menggambar di poster sebelah kanan, tapi saya tahu bahwa segala sesuatu harus dimulai dari yang kecil (lukisan mini di sebelah kiri)

Saya beritahukan pada Ibu tentang Aiko itu. Saya bilang pada beliau bahwa Aiko begitu inspiratif dan begitu mirip dengan saya yang sangat multitasking dan punya banyak passion di bidang seni. Seperti biasa, Ibu hanya menanggapi seluruh kalimat yang saya ucapkan dengan menggebu-gebu itu dengan senyum dan berkata, “Mama sudah baca artikelnya di koran,” kata Ibu. “Tapi kamu nggak usah iri sama dia. Mama rasa ini juga tidak terlepas dari faktor uang. Ia bisa mencapai semua ketertarikannya pada bidang seni itu, pasti butuh uang banyak kan?”

Saat itu saya hanya bisa terdiam mendengar ucapan beliau. Perasaan dalam diri saya berkecamuk, antara kesal, sedih, dan pasrah. Kata itu lagi, lagi, dan lagi.

Uang. Ya, pasti ujung-ujungnya adalah uang. Baik dalam hal fotografi, kuliah, les Bahasa Jerman, melukis, bahkan memakai internet pun, semuanya berkaitan dengan ada atau tidaknya uang.

Sejujurnya, saya tidak marah pada siapapun mengenai hal ini. Ini hanyalah masalah nasib, masalah rejeki masing-masing. Keluarga saya memang keluarga biasa, yang begitu mempertimbangkan untuk mengeluarkan uang sepeser pun. Selalu saya yakinkan dalam diri bahwa semua hal yang terjadi dan dialami memiliki sisi positif. Dengan kebiasaan berhemat, serta mengontrol mata dan hawa nafsu, yang diajarkan oleh orangtua sejak kecil itu, saya dan kedua adik laki-laki saya sampai kini tidak begitu suka berbelanja, dan Alhamdulillah, tidak mudah buta mata.

“Jangan jadikan Aiko sebagai target mau jadi seperti apa kamu nanti di masa depan. Aiko dan kamu boleh punya ketertarikan yang sama, tapi kamu dan dia berbeda. Maksimalkan dan syukuri apa yang ada sekarang di diri kamu aja. Uang bisa ada kok kalau kamu mau nabung, nggak harus minta ke Mama atau Papa secara langsung.”

Dan di saat itulah saya sadar bahwa saya selama ini sudah sangat serakah.

Saya dulu iri sekali dengan orang yang bisa keluar malam tanpa harus meminta izin orangtua terlebih dulu dan 'nongkrong' di kafe dengan laptop dan segelas kopi/teh di sampingnya. Terlihat keren. Sekarang? Tentu tidak. I've already have my own spot :)

Saya ingin semua yang saya inginkan terjadi. Saya sudah diterima di ITB dengan segala usaha susah payah saya tapi saya masih memiliki rasa iri pada orang yang kuliah di tempat lain.

Saya rakus.

Alhamdulillah, tidak perlu waktu lama bagi saya untuk bangkit. Semakin hari saya semakin tidak ingin jadi seperti Aiko. Tidak juga ingin jadi orang yang terlalu banyak terinspirasi pada karya atau kiprah orang lain di dunia ini. Karena seperti kata Ibu, “Nggak usahlah menghabiskan waktu untuk mencari orang sebagai inspirasi. Idola boleh ada, tapi tetap harus cintai diri sendiri."

Kalau dipikir-pikir lagi…

Aiko kuliah di institusi seni, sedangkan saya kuliah di bidang sains yang butuh keakuratan tinggi. Kami berdua jelas berbeda dari akar studinya. Mungkin Aiko tidak mengalami hal-hal yang buruk karena multitasking, tapi saya? Kemampuan yang sulit fokus pada satu hal ini terkadang memberikan efek buruk bagi studi saya yang terfokus di bidang kehidupan makhluk hidup. Saya mudah teralih, mudah bosan, mudah terhasut. Kalau keadaan yang seperti itu terus terjadi, bisa jadi nilai praktikum hancur, IPK rendah, dan dengan dibumbui oleh mood yang kacau, saya akan hancur.

Segalanya butuh jadwal, butuh perencanaan. Begitu juga dengan target untuk menjadi diri sendiri, yang lebih baik, tentunya.

Jadi, targetnya adalah bukan untuk menjadi the next Aiko, tapi jadi diri sendiri yang juga bisa menonjol karena bakat, bukan karena harta ataupun status. Ambil sisi positif dari Aiko, yaitu kemampuan untuk bekerja keras dan semangat juangnya yang tinggi sehingga semua yang diinginkan bisa terpenuhi.

Remaja (jujur, saya nggak tahu kapan saya dan teman-teman harus melewati tahap ini untuk selanjutnya dipanggil sebagai 'orang dewasa') terkenal dengan tingkah lakunya yang tidak stabil. Kami punya banyak kemauan dan mayoritas menginginkan semuanya terlaksana.

Sebenarnya, nggak ada salahnya kok kalau sebagai remaja kita punya banyak ketertarikan, multipassion, atau apalah itu istilahnya. Kalau kata teman saya sih, “Namanya juga remaja, Shey, masih labil. Selama bukan sesuatu yang dosa dan buruk, segala sesuatu patut dicoba biar nanti kalau sudah bukan umurnya lagi, nggak nyesel!”

Saya mengutip teman saya itu bukan berarti saya setuju lho. Tiap orang punya pendapat sendiri, jadi harus tetap dihargai.

Selamat menjadi diri sendiri!

Cheers : )

Part. 3

2010-06-24T15:24:00.005+07:00

Vania Anindita, salah satu model yang pandai berekspresi natural. Kamu bisa lihat barisan gigi depannya yang rata itu? Dia baru saja lepas behel tidak lama sebelum kenaikan semester :) Makin cantik ya?

Sekarang saya sedang mendengarkan Wishful Thinking dari Earl Klugh. Lagu yang dipersembahkan oleh salah satu musisi jazz favorit saya itu adalah salah satu dari sekian lagu yang sanggup menemani saya yang sedang ingin sendiri. Saya bukan tipe yang suka menanggapi apa yang terkandung dalam sebuah lirik lagu. Itu kenapa saya lebih menyukai lagu-lagu instrumental (tanpa lirik) dibanding dengan lagu-lagu yang membuat saya ingin menyanyi. Kebanyakan dari lagu-lagu itu bergenre jazz, atau lebih tepatnya lagi, smooth jazz. Nuansanya penuh dengan improvisasi dan terdengar begitu mandiri, tak terbebani lirik yang memerlukan tekanan melodi disana dan disini.

Saya pun begitu. Seperti lagu-lagu itu.
Orang boleh mengikat saya dengan sesuatu yang bernama aturan, tapi saya sudah pasti ke depannya akan memberontak. Tidak, bukan minta dilepaskan, melainkan saya memberontak agar kekangan itu melonggar. Seperti bagaimana orangtua memperlakukan saya sampai kini. Mereka mengikat dengan aturan terkait agama dan adat istiadat, tapi mereka tahu bahwa saya makin dan sudah dewasa. Perlakuan itu mengakar begitu dalam, sehingga saya yang ingin have fun pun, Alhamdulillah, masih bisa mengingat kata-kata Ibu sebelum benar-benar melakukan kegiatan-kegiatan yang tentunya berhubungan dengan menghabiskan uang itu. Bahkan, pernah di antara gemerlap buku-buku best seller yang menggiurkan, saya masih bisa ingat sebuah kalimat dari Ibu, “Ingat, kamu belum menghasilkan uang sendiri, dan kita bukan orang kaya.”. (Untuk yang belum tahu, ya, saya adalah seorang yang gemar sekali membaca buku. Buat saya, buku layaknya sebuah baju bermerek karena sudah menjadi sebuah barang mewah. Dan tentu tak lupa, bagi kami, 50000 rupiah bukanlah jumlah yang sedikit.)

Pajar Huzaifah, salah satu teman yang menyimpan seperempat dari rahasia hidup saya. Dia teman yang baik dan kami punya toleransi agama yang besar juga :)

Jujur, saya ingin berubah. Saya sudah bosan dengan kebiasaan saya yang masih sama seperti yang dulu; teledor, ceroboh, mudah panik, terburu-buru, mudah khawatir, tidak disiplin, dan sebagainya (tidak lupa bahwa manusia seringkali lebih mudah mengucapkan kejelekan dirinya dibanding kebaikan dirinya sendiri). Saya juga sudah bosan dengan kepribadian saya yang kadang terlalu terbuka dan bergantung pada teman. Saya sudah muak menjadi seseorang yang dituntut untuk menjadi orang lain saat bergaul dengan teman-teman sefakultas, sekampus, satu SMA, dan lainnya. Saya muak menjadi seseorang yang mudah takut ditinggalkan teman dan dikatai “freak”. Saya sama sekali bukan artis yang harus terus menjaga imej, tapi pergaulan yang ‘terlalu kota’ ini lebih sering menuntut saya untuk menjadi seseorang yang bukan diri saya sendiri. Bahkan artis pun kadang menangis karena dirinya terlalu lelah hadapi kenyataan hidup dimana dirinya harus terus memakai topeng dimana pun ia berada.

Rindu karaokean lagi. Rindu me-labil ria lagi. Sekarang masing-masing dari kami sedang sibuk dengan diklat panitia penerimaan mahasiswa baru (OSKM ITB 2010).

Tidak perlulah disebut teman-teman saya itu siapa dan ada dimana mereka. Jujur, saya suka dengan kepribadian mereka yang baik, ramah, dan supel. Mereka bersikap sangat baik pada saya selayaknya kepada teman-teman lainnya. Akan tetapi, jujur, sampai detik ini juga, bersama dengan mereka, saya tidak pernah bisa menjadi diri saya sendiri. Saya yang bisa dibilang berlidah tajam ini harus memasang pelindung di ujung lidah saya sendiri saat sedang bersama mereka. Sebisa mungkin saya tidak menyakiti hati mereka ataupun mengkritisi apa yang mereka katakan. Mereka sendiri bisa dibilang jauh lebih beruntung dibanding saya, dibalut dengan kekayaan dari keluarga mereka sendiri yang membuat saya kadang merasa rendah diri jika berjalan, bersanding dengan mereka.

Tentu saja saya tidak mungkin menuntut teman-teman saya itu untuk berubah. Bahkan saya tidak punya hak untuk berpendapat bahwa mereka bersikap buruk. Mereka sendiri sama-sama sudah dewasanya seperti saya, sama-sama sudah kuliah juga. Saya sadar bahwa sayalah yang harus berubah terlebih dulu jika ingin keadaan pembohongan diri sendiri ini tidak berlangsung secara terus-menerus. Segalanya harus dimulai dari diri saya sendiri. Jika ingin sesuatu berubah jadi lebih baik, pribadi sayalah yang harus dimodifikasi. Dimana-mana, perubahan yang baik adalah perubahan yang dipelopori oleh seorang ‘agen perubahan’, bukan dibuat dengan cara mencuci otak orang-orang sekitar. Buat apa ada kata ‘pelopor’ di dalam Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia jika segala sesuatu dimulai dengan cara menuntut orang lain untuk melakukan sesuatu dan berubah?

123hup, proyek seri foto terbaru saya yang libatkan banyak ekspresi natural. Modelnya bisa siapa saja, tapi kebanyakan memang masih teman-teman satu fakultas. Model (ki-ka) : Tria Widiasih, Deasty Imara, dan Helena Prihastuti.

Sebagai seseorang yang telah menginjak tahap awal kedewasaan (dengan menjadi seorang mahasiswi dan mendapati bahwa kehidupan perkuliahan tidaklah seenak yang dibayangkan), sudah seharusnya saya bisa menjadi seseorang yang berani menghadapi resiko dari apa yang telah saya putuskan/pilih/lakukan. Secara tidak langsung, Ibu pernah berkata, “Nggak usahlah kamu khawatir akan ditinggalkan atau dikatain teman-teman main kamu dengan bersikap menjadi diri sendiri. Kan masih ada Mama dan Papa di rumah. Mama dan Papa akan selalu jadi yang pertama untuk nolongin dan nemenin Kakak, sampai kapanpun juga.”. Jujur, saya menangis hebat saat mendengar beliau mengucapkan hal ini. Saat itu saya sadar bahwa saya tidak sendirian di dunia ini. Di lain waktu, beliau juga pernah berkata, “Kalau ada yang ngatain kamu, anggaplah mereka hanya iri sama kamu, Kak. Coba bandingin diri kamu sendiri sama mereka. Lebih berbakat yang mana coba? Dan lagi, biasanya kalau kisah orang sukses itu kan dulunya mereka adalah yang dikatai oleh teman-temannya…”

Dari sebuah diskusi kecil dengan Agus Salim (@Gus_Lim), salah satu alumni ITB angkatan ’91 yang menjadi teman saya di Twitter, saya bisa menyimpulkan sebuah pelajaran berharga untuk hari itu bahwa teman bisa dicari, tapi kalau kehilangan jati diri sendiri, mau dicari kemana?

Begitu bersyukur saya bisa punya teman-teman seperti mereka. "Percayalah teman, teguhkan hati. Kita adalah saudara..." - lagu angkatan, 'Sahabat Perjuangan' oleh Rumanti Wasturini, Daryl Purawijaya, dan Dienda Citasyari

Semoga kamu bukan termasuk orang-orang yang (sempat) kehilangan jati dirinya seperti saya juga ya. Punya alter-ego itu nggak selamanya enak, lho. Kalau bisa malah jangan. Beneran. Suer! :)

P.S : Tulisan ini dibuat bukan untuk mengeluh, tapi lebih tepat untuk mengekspresikan sesuatu yang nggak bisa saya bilang pada siapapun. Tidak ada tujuan menyinggung atau apa. Semoga kalian bisa lebih baik dari saya ya :)

Part. 2

2010-05-23T18:15:00.001+07:00

Teman-teman saya di SITH-ITB : (ki-ka) Jecika Ardiati, Fitria Dewi Astari, dan Dila Fitria Fauza. Ketiganya memaknai hidup ini dengan apa adanya, seperti pandangan saya sendiri akan hidup :)

Di dunia virtual, kamu dan saya bisa menulis apapun sesuka hati dan bahkan menulis dengan Bahasa Inggris yang grammatically correct. Akan tetapi, untuk saya, begitu laptop atau komputer dimatikan, headphone yang memblok suara-suara di luar dilepas, dan mulai melangkah keluar kamar, segalanya terlihat dan terasa begitu berbeda . Kadang rasakan kesunyian, kadang juga yang terlalu bising. Keluar dari kamar saya artikan sebagai melangkahkan kaki kembali ke dunia nyata, baik itu hanya sekedar meminum segelas air putih dan kemudian kembali lagi ngendon di kasur.

*
Kadang saya merasa diri saya pengecut.

Ada saat dimana saya tidak berani tampil dan bersuara di dunia nyata, walau tidak sering karena pada dasarnya saya adalah orang yang senang ngobrol. Pada saat-saat dimana alter ego-alter ego dalam diri terlalu mendominasi dalam beraktivitas, saya hanya berani mencela dengan cara berbisik pada teman dekat atau ceplas-ceplos di blog sendiri, Twitter, ataupun Facebook. Dan kini, beberapa tulisan itu (atau mungkin semua, saya tak tahu) dikatakan sebagai tulisan yang provokatif oleh beberapa pembaca. Jujur, saya tak tahu itu artinya tulisan saya adala tulisan yang baik atau buruk. Saya hanya menulis apa adanya, gangguan kejiwaan dan pikiran setelahnya itu masalah Anda.

Teman-teman saya yang tadi. Tiga 'model' langganan saya. Fee-nya murah, mereka hanya minta agar foto-fotonya di-upload ke Facebook :)

Pernah saya menulis mengenai bagaimana lucunya bangsa Indonesia, terutama kaum muda, yang memiliki tradisi ikut-ikutan dan menganggap bahwa menyukai musik jazz adalah sebuah prestise. Saya juga pernah mengomentari hal-hal (yang menurut saya) ironis mengenai bangsa ini, termasuk dalam hal politik (walau tidak sering), bahkan kadang sampai mengumpat dalam bahasa sehalus mungkin yang saya tujukan untuk para pengguna Facebook yang menggila. Untuk satu hal yang terakhir ini, mungkin saya bisa dikatakan sebagai pengecut keterlaluan bermuka dua. Saya terlalu munafik untuk mengakui perbuatan sendiri. Saya mentertawai para pengguna Facebook yang seakan menganggap bahwa salah satu promotor jejaring sosial itu adalah Tuhan kedua, yang semua yang diomongkan patut untuk dipercaya, sedang saya sendiri (walau frekuensinya sudah berkurang dibanding saat-saat dulu) masih sering bergantung padanya.

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Sebenarnya, saya bukan tipe yang suka show off (disini maksudnya 'menampilkan diri', bukan 'pamer'). Jika ada sebuah lembaga masyarakat, analoginya saya adalah salah satu anggota internalnya, bukan bagian eksternal yang berdemo. Saya itu sebenarnya pemalu. Pemalu yang, Alhamdulillah, masih open-minded, masih peduli, tidak anti-sosial.

Tidak ada yang tahu kalau saya pernah terlihat dalam kegiatan anak-anak Fakultas Seni Rupa dan Desain. Foto diatas diambil saat saya sedang membantu salah seorang teman yang perlu beberapa orang untuk instalasi di sebuah pameran. Kami mengumpulkan ranting-ranting dari dahan-dahan pohon yang baru saja ditebang. Ini merupakan kegiatan 'aktivis lingkungan' yang kecil tapi kreatif bukan? :)

Ini hasil dari ranting-ranting yang telah kami rangkai menjadi sebuah 'rak' sepatu. Sepatu-sepatu ini adalah produksi Kulkith dan dipamerkan di yapeluncuran perdana FOLD Magazine diselenggarakan di Gedung Indonesia Menggugat.

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Saya bukan seorang aktivis ‘resmi’ yang seolah-olah menempatkan diri saya sendiri sebagai perwakilan dari golongan muda. Saya bukan yang menyuarakan secara langsung untuk mendaur ulang sampah-sampah yang tidak bisa membusuk, bukan yang tampil di iklan-iklan di TV sebagai wakil dari kampanye lingkungan, bukan yang ikut berpartisipiasi dalam konser Live Earth atau EarthFest, bukan yang menjadi penggagas perubahan di konferensi-konferensi, dan bukan yang termasuk anggota perwakilan dari negara-negara dalam sebuah konferensi remaja internasional tentang perubahan iklim. Bagi saya, dengan menjadi seorang aktivis di lingkungan sekitar terlebih dulu merupakan sebuah keputusan yang cukup baik. Dengan mengingatkan teman-teman untuk donor darah setiap 2 bulannya (yang merupakan salah satu acara rutin di kampus), mengingatkan bahaya merokok, dan menyimpan sampah di tas selama di perjalanan sampai menemukan tempat sampah terdekat, saya rasa itu cukup untuk menunjukan bahwa saya peduli pada bangsa ini. Bukannya berpendapat bahwa menjadi aktivis itu salah atau mengajak teman-teman untuk tidak bersuara demi kepentingan bangsa, tapi saya pribadi lebih suka bekerja di belakang layar. Tidak ketahuan orang kalau sayalah yang menggagas ini, menggagas itu. Tidak peduli kalau teman saya yang aktivis itu jauh lebih dikenal namanya. Tidak peduli kalau teman saya itu follower di Twitter-nya ribuan karenanya.

Saya bagai jeruk yang diletakkan di atas kertas rangkuman Biologi (yang fotonya saya ambil satu hari sebelum UAS Biologi). Saya masih kecil, masih muda, tapi saya senang berada di antara hal-hal yang rumit.

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Saya bangga jadi orang yang biasa-biasa saja.

Saya bukan seorang blogger queen yang postingannya seolah-olah jadi inspirasi bagi hampir seluruh blogger, terutama untuk para pembaca yang masih muda. Saya hanya berusaha jadi diri sendiri, bersikap apa adanya. Jika beberapa ada yang berpikir saya unik (atau bahkan mungkin aneh), mungkin ini dikarenakan saya punya pandangan sendiri terhadap dunia dan apa yang terjadi di sekitar. Ini juga merupakan salah satu ‘hasil’ dari didikan Ayah dan Ibu pada saya dan adik-adik sejak kecil. Kami diajarkan untuk jadi mandiri, tidak terpengaruh oleh pendapat orang lain, dan belajar berdiri sendiri (walau hal ini tidak terlepas dari kebutuhan kita sebagai manusia akan orang lain dalam kehidupan). Saya juga bukan blogger yang link-nya ada dimana-mana, yang pernah ditulis tentang blognya di majalah-majalah remaja sebagai blog of the month atau apa. Saya hanyalah seorang rakyat jelata, yang kebetulan beruntung dan dikaruniai banyak hal oleh Allah SWT. Saya menjadi blogger murni karena apa yang ada di pikiran saya memang harus diutarakan walau hanya dalam bentuk tulisan, karena kalau tidak, mungkin kepala saya ini sudah meledak sejak dulu.

Sekali lagi, saya bangga jadi orang biasa, dan sepertinya saya akan berusaha untuk terus jadi orang yang seperti itu.

Biasa di luar, tapi hebat di dalam maksudnya ;)

P.S : Foto-foto diatas tidak dibuat semata-mata untuk posting-an ini. Saya hanya berusaha merangkai kata-kata saja :)

Vector Designs #1

2010-05-12T02:45:00.005+07:00

Some of my vector designs :)

for further designs, please visit my dA page.

Both of designs above were layouts of two first pages of BITS (Buletin IT Kampus) Magazine. I was the one and only SITH student who work for the magazine. The others came from STEI. But surprisingly, the judges (yes, this is a project, not a real magazine which wouldn't be published later) couldn't believe that I was only a life science student. She thought I was an art student or STEI one. Omona~ hope this could make SITH proud :)

This is for my group's Biophysics poster project. I was the one who design the poster, but my friends were the ones who gave the words.

I'm just a beginner in vector-world, so please do write some comments, suggestions, or even critics. That's the way you appreciate people's hard work, and thank you :)

*All made with Adobe Illustrator CS3

Jazz : Beli Gengsi atau Esensi?

2010-04-04T01:21:00.005+07:00

Another article to be featured in Kompasiana :)

George Duke. Saya jatuh cinta sekali dengan lagu-lagunya, terutama kolaborasinya dengan Lee Ritenour dan 2 lagunya yang sering diputar di mobil Ayah, Sweet Baby dan Born to Love You.

Saya masih ingat beberapa waktu lalu, tepatnya di minggu terakhir dan minggu pertama di bulan Maret,timeline Twitter saya penuh sekali dengan pembicaraan mengenai Java Jazz Festival tahun ini besertahashtag #JJF-nya ataupun pernyataan-pernyataan yang ditujukan untuk akun resmi Java Jazz Festival (JJF) 2010. Mulai dari penulis muda sampai artis mancanegara seperti John Legend pun nge-tweettentang hal yang sama. Semua orang seakan-akan harus tahu dan memang selanjutnya akan tahu bahwa JJF akan menjadi salah satu acara paling meriah di tahun ini, sama seperti tahun-tahun sebelumnya. Mulai dari orang-orang yang sudah membeli tiket early bird atau yang masih menunggu pesanan tiketonline-nya datang, sampai yang hanya bisa mengeluh bisa datang ke JJF tahun ini karena ketidakadaannya uang untuk membeli tiket pun tahu kalau suasana di tempat JJF diselenggarakan masih akan tetap sama : penuh sesak dengan orang-orang kelas atas yang beberapa diantaranya mungkin datang hanya sekadar sebagai penanda hadirnya mereka dalam perhelatan internasional di Indonesia.

Kuis di Harian Kompas yang, Alhamdulillah, saya menangi Maret lalu. Thank you, Kompas :)

Sebagai pecinta musik jazz, kadang saya sangat menyayangkan perihal terkenalnya musik jazz di Indonesia sebagai musiknya orang-orang kelas menengah ke atas (the haves). Saya tidak tahu kenapa pandangan seperti ini bisa ada dan menyebar di antara semua kalangan. Saya juga tidak tahu ini karena kebanyakan orang membandingkan music jazz dengan para pembeli tiket helatan jazz terbesar diIndonesia, Java Jazz Festival, yang kebanyakan berasal dari kalangan the haves (dan memang kebetulan harga tiketnya juga terbilang mahal) atau memang sudah ada dari saat ayah dan ibu saya masih berpacaran. Saya sendiri bukan berasal dari keluarga kelas menengah ke atas. Kehadiran saya di JJF tahun ini (itupun hanya hari Minggu-nya saja) semata-mata karena terpilihnya saya sebagai pemenang dari sebuah kuis yang diselenggarakan oleh Kompas Muda dalam rangka ulang tahun Kompas Muda yang ke-3, 5 hari sebelum JJF diselenggarakan. Well, saya rasa uang bukan segalanya. Kalau sudah cinta dengan musik jazz (atau hal apapun), nggak akan ada sesuatu yang bisa menghalangi. Kalau nggak punya duit untuk beli tiket daily pass baik yang early bird atau yang bukan, masih bisa nonton versi rekamannya di TV. Yang penting kan bukan kehadiaran fisik kita yang ada di acara itu, tapi justru sense of listening-lah yang harus ada agar bisa merasakan apa esensi dari musik jazz itu sendiri. Untuk tahun ini, saya yang hanya menang tiket daily pass hari Minggu dari Kompas tidak bisa menyaksikan artis kesukaan saya, Manhattan Transfer, secara langsung karena tidak mampu beli tiket special stage-nya. Ini juga berlaku bagi artis-artis special stage yang lain termasuk John Legend. Sayang memang, tapi nggak apa-apa, toh mereka juga cuma manggung selama 2 jam, hehehe…

Beberapa waktu yang lalu, jauh sebelum JJF tahun ini diadakan, saya pernah membaca artikel mengenai perihal harga tiket JJF tahun 2010 yang menjadi lebih murah dibanding tahun-tahun sebelumna. Jujur, saya sendiri juga merasa bahwa JJF tahun ini memang jauh lebih ramai dan sepertinya hal ini dikarenakan harga tiket yang lebih murah. Walau hanya datang hari Minggu (7 Maret), ada saja stasiun TV yang menayangkan langsung setiap harinya dari PRJ Kemayoran dan teman-teman yang senantiasa memperbaharui status Twitternya setiap beberapa menit sekali mengenai keadaan terbaru dari JJF 2010 sehingga saya bisa membayangkan berada di sana di hari Jum’at dan Sabtunya. Dari tayangan di TV dan status Twitter saja saya bisa tahu bahwa tahun ini, yang datang ke JJF hanya dengan kaos oblong dan jeans ada jauh lebih banyak jumlahnya. Bahkan anak-anak muda, baik yang masih SMP sampai yang sudah jadi mahasiswa pun bisa terlihat kehadirannya jauh lebih banyak dibanding tahun-tahun sebelumnya, walau masih belum bisa mengalahkan jumlah penonton dari golongan umur 28 tahun keatas. Lagi-lagi, saya tidak tahu ini dikarenakan harga tiket yang lebih murah atau memang karena Kemayoran adalah tempat yang strategis.

Foto di atas adalah David Murray, salah satu saxophonist favorit saya selain Dave Koz dan Kenny G.

Walau sempat membuat saya miris, kadang saya tertawa kalau mengingat bahwa saya bisa menemukan berbagai macam tipe orang di acara JJF itu. Mulai dari anak kecil yang masih ingusan, fotografer yang (nggak tahu cuma karena pengen kelihatan profesional, pamer, atau memang karena beneran profesional) membawa 2 kamera lengkap dengan lensa tele, tripod, dan flash-nya, sampai wanita yang berpakaian minim (kemben, hot pants, dan thongs) pun bisa saya temui disana. Dan yang anehnya lagi, saya benar-benar nggak ngerti ini karena terlalu gengsi, atau memang karena mager (alias ‘malas-gerak’) dan ngerasa nggak terlalu penting, atau memang karena nggak hafal tampangnya, setiap ada musisi yang lewat dengan peralatan mereka, baik yang sudah selesai tampil dan yang belum, orang-orang yang lalu lalang di acara JJF itu hampir tidak ada yang meminta foto bersama. Saya sendiri, Alhamdulillah, berkesempatan berfoto bareng dengan Oele Pattiselano, salah satu bassist-nya David Murray yang saya tidak tahu namanya tapi saya tahu dia Muslim, dan Dwiki Dharmawan hanya dalam 1 hari itu. Ketiganya sangat baik dan ramah waktu diminta foto bersama. Untuk Oele Pattiselano, saya ingat sekali bahwa ia adalah orang yang saya hampir tabrak saat berjalan ke stage-nya Elfa Secoria. Refleks saya hanya tersenyum dan meminta maaf pada orang tersebut, tapi saat saya memandang muka orang itu, betapa terkejutnya saya saat mengetahui bahwa ia adalah salah seorang musisi jazz Indonesiayang saya kagumi! Saya tidak pernah menyangka kalau musisi seperti Oom Oele berjalan di jalan yang sama yang dilewati orang-orang yang datang ke JJF (saya kira para musisi yang tampil punya jalan sendiri untuk keluar-masuk). Ini mungkin bisa menjadi salah satu hal yang unik di helatan JJF ini. Kalau musisinya saja diperlakukan sama, kenapa kita sebagai orang biasa malah memperlakukan musik jazz sebagai musiknya orang kaya?

Yang bikin saya miris lagi, saya ingat bahwa saat sedang berjalan menuju stage di area B, saya bertemu dengan 2 orang teman sesama mahasiswa satu kampus disana yang kebetulan saya tahu betul kalau mereka bukan penikmat musik jazz. Saya ajukan pada mereka pertanyaan yang biasa ditanyakan sesama penonton JJF, “Lagi mau nonton apa?”. Mereka hanya nyengir sambil berpandangan satu sama lain. Keduanya membawa kamera DSLR saat itu. Saya yang bingung pun bertanya lagi, “Emangnya pada lagi mau kemana sih?” Salah satu dari mereka yang masih nyengir menjawab, “Nggak tahu mau nonton siapa, Shey. Kita nggak tahu nama-nama artisnya, jadi kita sih nonton di tempat yang orangnya banyak aja…”

Jujur, saat itu saya cuma bisa geleng-geleng kepala dan tersenyum miris. Salah siapa dong kalau begini? Promotor JJF yang kurang memperkenalkan artisnya atau memang dasar 2 temen saya yang cuma nyari gengsi datang ke tempat-tempat rame kayak JJF? Kadang saya suka nggak ngerti apa maunya orang-orang yang duitnya kebanyakan…

*Deep thanks to Kompas, especially the Kompas Muda crews for choosing me as one of the winner of the quiz. Never thought that I would be the one of the choosen ones. Really really thanks to the International Java Jazz Festival too for giving me a whole-day full of jazz for the first time in my life. Thanks to my parents for introducing me to this genre since I was only a little kid. Thank you, Al Jarreau and Earth Wind and Fire, for being my first jazz musicians that I knew. I wish the next JJF could bring both of you again like the previous JJFs.

Part. 1

2010-04-04T00:14:00.010+07:00

Saya bukan orang kaya.

Saat teman-teman saya pergi ke Paris Van Java untuk sekedar hang out atau bahkan mungkin membeli Sour Sally, saya selalu dengan berat berkata, “Tidak”. Saat mereka mengajak saya untuk menonton bioskop 3D di Blitz Megaplex PVJ atau bahkan mungkin XXI di Cihampelas Walk, mostly saya menolak. Alasannya bermacam-macam. Kadang karena kepala saya terasa pening, mood saya yang sedang tidak ingin nonton (yang sudah pasti tidak benar karena saya senang sekali dengan hal-hal yang berbau teater), merasa tidak enak pada Bude karena pasti akan pulang malam, dan sebagainya. Sebenarnya penyebabnya hanya satu, dan itu pasti : Saya tidak punya uang.

Tulisan ini terpikir saat saya sedang berada di sebelah lapangan futsal pasir di SARAGA ITB. Ya, saya sendirian saat itu. Hanya ditemani oleh tahu bulat yang saya beli tepat dari abang-abang yang berjualan di dekat pintu masuk area itu.

Saya memang dapat uang jajan setiap bulannya, tapi itupun harus diatur sedemikian rupa agar tidak habis sebelum ‘tenggat’ waktunya meminta kembali pada Ibu. Bahkan kadang karena terlalu ekstrimnya saya menjaga pengeluaran agar tidak berlebih, uang yang diberikan untuk bulan lalu masih ada walau sudah lewat berhari-hari dari ‘tenggat’ waktunya itu. Saya sendiri jauh lebih sering merasa tidak enak pada Ibu. Saya tidak pernah suka dikasihani dan Ibu sendiri yang pernah mengajarkan saya untuk tidak pernah meminta belas kasih dari siapapun.

Saya pun baru pertama kali merasakan kelezatan Sushi saat di bangku kuliah. Waktu SMA, yang saya tahu Sushi itu mahal harganya. Alhamdulillah, di Bandung banyak Sushi jalanan yang murah :) (Bahkan sampai saat ini saya belum pernah makan di Sushi Tei atau restoran Sushi karena harganya itu membuat rasanya ingin mencekik leher sendiri)

Saya juga tidak berasal dari keluarga yang punya uang banyak.

Saya memang ikut Ujian Saringan Mandiri untuk masuk perguruan tinggi negeri pilihan saya. Tapi apa dengan saya ikut USM itu keluarga saya bisa dicap sebagai keluarga kaya? Saya sendiri punya teman yang ikut USM dengan uang SDPA yang dibayarkan lewat pinjaman dari bank. Oke, mungkin ini semua gara-gara UU BHP (Undang-Undang Badan Hukum Pendidikan) terkait dengan membolehkan perguruan tinggi untuk membuat peraturan sendiri, termasuk mengenai uang kuliah (tuition fee). Alhamdulillah, kini UU BHP sudah dicabut (terhitung sejak 31 Maret 2010). Semoga saja warga miskin dan menengah ke bawah seperti saya bisa dapat manfaatnya. Amin.

Saya memang fotografer, tapi...

Handphone, kamera, sampai laptop saya bukan dibeli dari gaji Ayah. Hampir seluruh barang elektronik milik saya adalah hasil pemberian dari kakak dari Ayah dan adik dari Ibu. Keduanya memang sangat baik, saya sendiri kadang tidak mengerti kenapa. Saya merasa saya bukanlah keponakan yang istimewa. Saya hanya menjaga sikap sesuai dengan apa yang Ibu ajarkan pada saya jika sedang menghadapi orang yang lebih dewasa. Ibu juga mengajarkan saya untuk tidak pernah meminta pada orang lain walau masih saudara satu kakek. Jika memang citra saya di pikiran mereka-mereka yang dewasa itu adalah baik, ya Alhamdulillah. Saya rasa ini semua adalah hadiah dari Allah SWT, hanya saja disampaikannya melalui Oom dan Pakde saya itu.

Saya ingin jadi seperti pohon-pohon itu. Walau dipangkas habis daun-daunnya karena takut akan roboh diterpa angin besar yang akhir-akhir ini melanda Kota Bandung, ia tetap berdiri dengan tegar. Bersiap untuk hadapi 'fase' berikutnya, tentunya juga dengan dedaunan yang baru :)

Twitter? Facebook? Keduanya saya gunakan hanya untuk komunikasi dan memperluas wawasan, bukan untuk gegayaan. Walau saya tahu saya tidak bisa menjadi seseorang yang kaya harta karena memiliki akun di keduanya, setidaknya saya masih punya kemauan dan keinginan untuk tetap jadi orang yang kaya. Ya, kaya hati dan kaya wawasan, Insya Allah :)

*Semua foto diatas diambil dari kamera handphone, Nokia N95. Jadi, bukan faktor kameranya kan? Yang penting itu yang mencet shutter-nya :))

The Important Taste

2010-03-06T23:50:00.005+07:00

I’ve been addicted with any dark chocolate’s product since Dad gave me the Cadbury Gold Bar from his work trip to Singapore last month. It was a dark chocolate, the type of chocolate that I used to hate because of its strong taste, so at first I thought that I wasn’t going to eat it later. Beside the Gold Bar, he also gave me a Lindt Milk Chocolate, which I ate soon as the chocolate touched my hand. I was so surprised when the milk chocolate taste really bad in my tounge. Then I grabbed the Gold Bar to compare the milk on to it and ate it. Later I found myself falling into the strong taste of the dark chocolate. The dark one was a lot more delicious than the milk one. Tasted really real, as if the thing was only a pure chocolate without any chemical substances.

Later before I left Jakarta, Mom brought me to Carefour to buy my daily needs. When I walked along the sweets and cookies section, I found some dark chocolate brands in the counter, including the Silver Queen, Van Houten, and Toblerone. I choosed the Silver Queen’s because the price was cheaper that the others (didn’t think about the quality at all that time, hehe), so Mom wouldn’t be angry at me spending a lot of money for just a chocolate bar. Then in my travel-bus, I was seated at the back of the car and it wasn’t full of people that day so I didn’t have any companies beside and behind me. Then I took the Silver Queen out of my bag’s pocket and ate it. The taste was almost the same with the Gold Bar. Don’t know this was because of the brand or not, but oh my god this was only a chocolate, People! Who made it wasn’t important. Just like photography, the thing was on the taste :) – omona, lol for being wise.

The first photo was Pajar Huzaifah and the second was Indra Rudiansyah. Both of them were some of my boyfriends in SITH. Most of the boys here love camwhore-ing, LOL :D

So, I'm enjoying myself taking pictures of my faculty friends recently. We had a lot of great time and the togetherness in diversity. I love them so much that I can imagine to live without them in my days, my life would be sooo boring and frustating because of the exams, homeworks, rivalry things, etc.

In case you're wondering how Bandung looks in my head lately...

The Ganesa 10 road. This is the road where almost all of ITB's buildings located.

My favourite breakfast, LONTONG KARI ('lontong' curry). Yummy :)

The roads of home, located at Sampurna Street, near Boscha Street, Cipaganti.

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One of the biggest and frustating case of Indonesia. I was a fan of Antasari, by the way.

P.S : Psst, most of the photos in here were taken by my N95 camera-handphone. You can see that there's no big difference between the ones taken by Canon Powershot (Silver Queen and my friends' photos) and the rest of them. So, don't bother about the technical things, it's all on yours! :D

Camwhore-ing at Cooking Class

2010-02-13T15:54:00.004+07:00

Dandri Aly Purawijaya, 7 years buddy :)

Me and my two friends had a cooking class last month. It was an event organized by Kompas-Gramedia Bandung, I saw the advertisiment on Kompas newspaper. We had to pay 150 thousand rupiahs for the class, including the coffee break and a month of Kompas newspaper and Nova tabloid newspaper subscription. The cooking class was fun, but our youth spirit seemed couldn't let us sit like some good children there. After having our coffee break and had our chance to taste the chef's dishes that day (or you can also called it as a lunch, because we didn't eat anything more), we decided to do camwhore-ing with my friend's camera (thanks to Efrina Chandra, who lend me her Canon 400D that day. Actually, the camera was for the next day's event). Of course, as usual, it was me who took all of the pictures and I ended up having no picture of myself. But that's okay because I really enjoyed myself capturing the expressions of my friends (coincidentally, both of them had big numbers of photos of themselves in my archive).

and oh, if you followed my blogs, you'll notice that two of them were my regular models ;)

The World of Humani Part. 1

2010-02-06T00:47:00.005+07:00

Bandung and what's in there have caught my eyes. I couldn't sleep well before I posted some of my new photos of my new photo serie. It's called 'The World of Humani' because I've began to crave at anything about human-interest and journalism.

Feel free to view my deviantArt for more photos and my Kompasiana page for more of my articles both in Indonesian and English! :D

Some of the snapshots that I took with my friend's camera are below. Oh, by the way, all photos above were taken by Canon EOS 400D (not my Orca, nor my NorthCakes) because I forgot to bring it that day. It wasn't my camera, it's my friend's. He told me that he bought it for 5.600 thousand rupiahs.

wait for the next photos, still related to Human-Interest, and of course, Bandung! :D------------------------------------------------------------

this is the photo of HIM, who lend me the 400D camera that day. Thank you, Yosia! :D

Walau Nyeleneh, Yang Penting Sehat!

2010-02-05T18:06:00.002+07:00

Berikur adalah artikel yang saya tulis untuk Kompasiana bagian Ekstra-Muda. Artikel ini terinspirasi dari 2 orang teman SITHeads saya. Saya ingin sekali menjadi jurnalis, dan saya harap ini bisa jadi langkah awal (walau kecil). Dimohon komentarnya ya :)

Sebuah artikel yang ditulis oleh Uud Wahyudin, Dosen Manajemen Komunikasi Fikom Unpad, di bagian FORUM di Koran Kompas (04/02), yang berjudul Kampanye Antirokok mengingatkan saya akan berita yang baru-baru ini saya dengar. Salah satu teman cowok saya, sebut saja namanya M, dikabarkan telah berhasil menghentikan kebiasaan merokok yang telah ia lakukan sejak masih di bangku SMA itu. Karena takut hanya sekedar gosip, saya mengecek kebenarannya lewat status Facebook terbarunya yang kata orang-orang mengisyaratkan bahwa saat itu ia sedang kesakitan karena sudah tidak merokok selama beberapa hari. Di statusnya, teman saya itu menulis, “Mencoba berhenti merokok, kepala pening, perut rasanya nggak enak. Ah, pokoknya nggak boleh kalah sama dia!”. Saya nggak tahu secara pasti siapakah gerangan yang disebut M sebagai ‘Dia’, tapi saya dan teman-teman lain sempat menduga kalau M berhenti merokok karena alasan wanita. Saya pernah tahu bahwa sebelumnya ia pernah punya masalah dengan mantan pacarnya dan begitu menginginkannya kembali. Saat ia sedang dalam masa-masa stresnya itu, M sering buka-bukaan merokok berbatang-batang di depan umum. Di samping segala masa lalunya itu, saya benar-benar salut dengan apa yang ia lakukan. M memang hanyalah satu dari teman-teman baru saya di fakultas yang sama. Pribadinya yang kurang terbuka tapi suka berbicaranyeleneh dan berani itu membuatnya populer di kalangan teman-teman yang lain. Selain dirinya, ada juga 2 teman sefakultas lainnya yang merokok walau tidak seberani dirinya yang sering merokok di depan umum dan membuat saya serta teman-teman cewek lainnya tidak bisa berhenti ngocehsampai M pergi menjauh. Kini dirinya kelihatan lebih segar semenjak berita bahwa dirinya berhenti merokok itu santer di Facebook, bahkan penuh oleh puluhan komentar dari teman-temannya.

Selain M, dari 2 orang perokok yang se-fakultas dengan saya itu juga ada satu orang lagi, sebut saja namanya P, yang sudah berhasil menghentikan kebiasaan ngasap-nya itu. Bahkan yang saya tahu, P yang juga adalah sahabat saya sejak hari pertama ngampus itu sudah berhenti merokok cukup lama sebelum M. P sendiri merupakan pribadi yang terbuka, tapi memiliki sebuah kenangan buruk akan keluarganya sehingga terkadang –akunya pada saya suatu hari— merokok adalah salah satu cara baginya untuk melepas stres dan penghalau depresi akan masalah-masalah pribadinya itu. Ia pernah berkata pada saya bahwa asap rokok yang membubung ke langit sama saja seperti melepas pergi masalah-masalah yang menimpa dirinya itu. Ia sendiri mengaku bahwa dirinya ingin sekali berhenti merokok, tapi sangat sulit baginya untuk melawan godaan setan yang seringkali kerap menyatroni. Baru-baru ini saya mengetahui bahwa ia berhenti merokok karena alasankhas yang tidak jauh beda dengan si M: wanita. Selidik punya selidik, ternyata ia langsung memutuskan untuk berhenti merokok begitu tahu bahwa gebetan-nya itu tidak suka pada pria perokok.

Dua kisah diatas membuat saya berpikir bahwa tidak ada kata ‘tidak mungkin’ untuk berhenti merokok. Walau alasannya mungkin terdengar kekanak-kanakan, yang kalo kata orang dewasa sih, “Dasar anak muda!”, secara tidak langsung dan tidak sadar, kedua orang teman saya itu sudah berkontribusi besar dalam pengurangan polusi udara di kampus dan juga untuk diri mereka sendiri. Pada dasarnya, yang terpenting adalah niat dari si perokok sendiri, walaupun niat tersebut berlandaskan hal-hal se-nyeleneh apapun. Bahkan setelah berhenti merokok teman saya yang bernama P itu tidak malu untuk berjalan-jalan sambil ngemut permen bertangkai alias lolipop, warnanya merah pula. Tidak ada sama sekali yang menertawakan dirinya walau tidak banyak yang tahu bahwa salah satu cara dari para mantan perokok untuk menghalau diri mereka dari godaan untuk merokok adalah dengan cara memakan permen, terutama permen lolipop yang keberadaan tangkainya itu seolah-olah terasa seperti sedang merokok.

Mengutip apa yang ditulis Pak Uud Wahyudin di Kompas, “Sekadar contoh, di Amerika Serikat sejak tahun 1970-an konsumsi rokok menurun drastis karena meningkatnya kesadaran akan kesehatan.” Saya tidak tahu kalau dua teman saya itu benar-benar sadar tentang bahaya merokok untuk dirinya dan orang lain (yang menghirup asapnya secara tidak sengaja) atau tidak. Pentingnya berhenti merokok karena alasan kesehatan mungkin menjadi hal yang klise, tapi itu memang sangatlah benar adanya. Bahkan di negara-negara seperti Korea dan Jepang dimana para artis lokal begitu digilai oleh para fans-nya, jika seorang artis terkenal tertangkap basah sedang merokok, berita tersebut dapat membuat pamor di artis di negara tersebut turun secara drastis.

Saya harap kisah ini dapat menginspirasi seluruh golongan muda di Indonesia, karena jujur, lebih mudahngebawel ke mereka dibanding golongan yang berumur di atas 30 tahun. Saya sendiri merasa bahwa kami semua menjadi acuan dan harapan mengenai bagaimana Indonesia ke depannya. Jangan mau kalah dengan teman-teman saya itu ya! Malu ah, kalau nanti tiba-tiba suatu hari nanti (mau tak mau harus) di-rontgen paru-parunya dan yang tampak hanyalah warna hitam.

Sheyka Nugrahani

www.shekkung.blogspot.com

Happy Random Holiday! :D

2009-12-25T16:06:00.004+07:00

The backyard door of my Mbahkung's house (we call the grandfather in Javanese with 'Mbahkung' and 'Eyangkung' instead of 'Opa' or 'Kakek' ; 'Opa' and 'Kakek' themselves are the trans-languange from Dutch). It's my intention to give it a dramatic colour to resembles my Mbahkung's strictness and strong heart.
Good evening, Fellas :DSo happy and relief to know that Mom supports me very well. Yeah, a few minutes ago, we were just had a great discussion in the living room, talking about all things related to my future plans and my future career. We're also talking about my current condition as a college student and how hard was I struggle in my campus with all those subjects and my contribution in student units. I told her everything, from the friendship thingy and handsome lecturers, to the stories about the boys. Well, studying in here sometimes more like living in a all-boys private school, because mostly students here are males (even the females sometimes dress-up like males, tomboy-ish). So, if you were asked by your friend to tell anything about your campus life in here, it would've be no fun if you're not talking about the boys, LOL :D

The very useful book of first aid, "How to Be a Doctor in Your Own House", was found along with my old teen-magazines from the abandoned corners in the back of our house.

Remembering the times when we used to get confused with the Pre-Final Assignment hunting with the LFM crews at UPI (left to right : Kinsya, Yosia, Dini) ; the previous photo was here!

My best-7-years-buddy, Daryl Purawijaya. I took this shots of him a long before he got his hair cut off. He drives a bike to the campus and it made me envy him a lot because he was allowed to bring his bike to Bandung! (sob) ;'(

I have to go back to Bandung in Sunday, which means I just have almost 2 more days to be spent with my family in Jakarta. At first, Mom looked dissapointed and asked about my next free days. But after I told her that I have to take care of my photography final assignment and settle some things related to this semester's IP (Achievment Index for one semester), she finally understood. She's just told me to keep taking care of my own health. She knows that I love photography so much and have already spent a lot of efforts to keep my name stay on the list of CaKru who were allowed to do the final assignment. She doesn't want me to quit the unit, just some words to remind me to care about my own scores and my goal to get Microbiology next year. Mom's really the one who knows the best for her children. Thank you, Allah :)
I've just want to post some old stocks of my photos this time. Some taken when I was in holiday in Cirebon (last September) and some taken randomly (I forgot the time). I'm in my high spirit of updating and writing, hahahaha. Totally an opposite of Cassey ;) --> Peace, Cass, haha ;P

The crowd, hot, and hectic situation at the Kanoman Market, Cirebon. These photos were taken from the back seat inside of my father's car (to prevent everyone's knowing that I brought a camera) while I'm accompanying my Mom and Dad to the market that day.

Oh, I'm in love with Perfect Girl Evolution/ Yamato Nadeshiko manga by Tomoko Hayakawa right now. If you want to download/read all of the complete chapters, you can go here! It's a good and a very entertaining manga. According to Wikipedia, it's about a girl who was called "ugly" by a boy, the first and only person to whom she confessed her love. This incident sparks a life change, and as a result Sunako Nanahara (the primary character) shuns all forms of beauty, both in herself as well as in life. Concerned by her change for the worst, Sunako's aunt, the owner of a beautiful mansion where four very handsome students live, offers the guys free rent in her mansion if they can turn Sunako into a "perfect lady" (referred to in Japan as the titular Yamato Nadeshiko).
While the four of them manage to make Sunako physically beautiful enough to become a lady, the problem lies with her attitude and interests (which Sunako has no intention of changing). Up until the most recent release in the story, they've managed to convince Sunako's aunt that her niece is indeed a lady befitting the mansion in which they live (and prevent the rent from skyrocketing to triple the required amount). However, in reality, Sunako has not changed considerably.
And oh, I'm currently in love with French and Russian songs too! I love how the speech impediment (disability) like the unability to say 'R' made your vocal sounds very sexy when you are talking with French, Russian, and German languange. I reccomend you to listen to Celine Dion's Ziggy, Mon Ami M'a Quitee, and Pour Que Tu M'aimes Encore. And for the Russian ones, try the beginner level first (LOL :D), Inner Universe and Rise sang by ORIGA (real name Ol'ga Vitalevna Yakovleva). Both of them was the original soundtrack of Ghost In The Shell : Stand Alone Complex anime by Production I.G. It's a great anime for you who loves anything with mecha, tokusatsus, robots, and futures.
If you want me to provide you the links to download all of those songs, you can drop a comment here :)
Yeah, my grandparents in Cirebon have been living in the their old house until now. Notice that 3 different house numbers? It's so common for the people to buy more than two land-lots for their house back then. The price was not so expensive and mostly it's for the long term investation.

This sunset photo was taken when I was in the road to go back to Cirebon (from Blora). I had to use big numbers of shutter speeds that time because of the shaking of the car. The other and greater version of this photo was in this post.

Took a photo of mine, reflected by the glass with curtain inside. Just for fun :3

My Mbahkung's favourite bike. An old bike, but not oldies to keep his heart running normally.

One of a kind of plants (with flowers? I still can't find the name of this plant) in my Mbahkung's garden. He loves gardening too, by the way :3

The backyard door with a different version from the first one.

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"HAPPY HOLIDAY! :D"
P.S : It will be a great pleasure for me to have your comment about my photos. Bitte :D

Jurnalistik dan Idealisme

2009-12-21T13:53:00.004+07:00

Saat ini saya sedang berada di ComLabs, hot spot dengan kecepatan download 1 MB/s (terkadang kalau lebih malam lagi bisa sampai 5 MB/s, yang mana adalah hot spot tercepat di Indonesia) yang terletak tepat di dekat gerbang belakang kampus ITB. Saya tahu tempat ini sepi kalau sudah mulai masa-masa liburan, terutama tadi sore baru saja saya menyelesaikan UAS terakhir untuk semester pertama saya sebagai mahasiswi ITB, jadi rasanya seperti meng-'hedon' saja.

Mom's new cat, a gift from my Aunt. Mom was like having a new baby, she does a lot of smile and she's taking care of her like her own child. Thank You, Allah, for bringing this cat to Mom.

Di selang waktu menunggu unduhan saya, CSI New York episode-episode yang tertinggal, saya tiba-tiba teringat akan kata-kata dari seorang fotografer senior kelahiran Bandung yang juga adalah pegiat foto, Mas Galih Sedayu. Ia adalah fotografer jurnalistik pertama yang pernah saya temui dalam hidup saya. Kebetulan ia juga sudah menjadi teman saya di Facebook (berteman dengannya membuat saya update dengan acara-acara fotografi Bandung! :D) dan ia pernah sekali menyempatkan datang ke sesi pendidikan foto Liga Film Mahasiswa ITB tempat saya struggling kali ini sebagai CaKru. Ia sedang menyampaikan materi mengenai sejarah fotografi dan beberapa hal yang berkaitan dengan fotojurnalistik saat itu.

“Sulit untuk menemui fotografer yang pintar merangkai kata,” katanya. “Fotografer memang mendedikasikan dirinya untuk menangkap momen-momen hebat dan memiliki kemampuan untuk memberhentikan waktu. Akan tetapi, satu hal yang merupakan kekurangan terbesar dari seorang fotografer kebanyakan : kemampuan untuk menulis dengan baik.”

Well, seorang fotografer (terutama fotografer jurnalistik) memang harus selalu tahu yang mana yang harus difoto dan apa yang bisa ia berikan pada orang-orang yang melihat fotonya tersebut. Itu baru fotografer, bagaimana kalau fotografer jurnalistik? Terkadang dengan mengimbuhkan kata ‘jurnalis’ dibelakang kata ‘foto’ seakan-akan menambahkan suatu beban pada fata tersebut. Pada kenyataannya, menjadi seorang fotojurnalis memang sangat amat tidak mudah. Anggaplah diri kita sedang berada di medan perang, dimana kalian dituntut untuk tidak panik dan harus selalu tahu apa yang harus, boleh, tidak harus, dan tidak boleh kalian foto. Belum lagi apa yang kalian capture kadang bertentangan dengan kemauan sang chief editor jika misalnya kalian bekerja di salah satu media massa. Ingat Peter Parker di film Spiderman? Cowok geek itu adalah seorang fotografer jurnalistik bebas (freelance) yang rajin berkontribusi di salah satu media massa di kotanya untuk mencari nafkah (sebelum akhirnya ia terkenal sebagai Spiderman).

Omong-omong tentang banyaknya fotografer yang tidak ahli dalam hal tulis-menulis (mungkin lebih tepatnya bercerita), Alhamdulillah, saya merasa diri saya tidak menjadi bagian dari mereka. Saya suka, bahkan cinta sekali menulis. Saya dulu pernah punya buku harian, tapi semenjak konflik pubertas dan amukan batin di dalam diri saya sudah mulai banyak (saat itu adalah masa-masa kegelapan saya sebagai murid anti-sosial di salah satu SMP swasta yang terletak di Rawamangun), saya berhenti menulis di kertas dan mulai beralih ke komputer. Saat SMP, saya sudah punya blog, tapi masih khas anak muda: acak-acakan, aneh, dan terlalu memalukan untuk dilihat jika seandainya blog itu masih ada sekarang. Well, walaupun begitu, saya merasa bersyukur sekali sudah diperkenalkan secara tidak langsung pada cara mengekspresikan emosi diri tanpa harus mencoba sesuatu yang bernama narkoba ataupun rokok.

Sebenarnya, menurut saya, bercerita itu lebih enak dibanding menulis. Lebih seru, lebih menggebu-gebu. Apalagi untuk orang yang berkemampuan visual tinggi seperti saya ini, inginnya langsung diceritakan saja semuanya yang terjadi saat itu. Teman-teman dekat saya sudah mengerti sekali kebiasaan saya yang satu ini. Mereka nggak pernah bilang saya aneh karena memang apa yang saya katakan dan ekspresikan itu benar, bukan sengaja dilebih-lebihkan.

Passion saya yang tinggi pada bidang tulis-menulis dan fotografi membawa saya untuk memberanikan diri mengatakan bahwa saya ingin sekali bekerja di National Geographic pada Ibu. Saat itu saya memang sedang tergila-gila dengan majalah NGI yang bisa saya beli hanya dengan merogoh kocek 35 ribu di TOKEMA ITB itu. Saya tahu Ibu akan kaget, tapi bukan anak kuliahan namanya kalau ngomong ke orang tua saja masih takut setengah mati. Dengan ekspresi bingung yang saya sudah duga sebelumnya, beliau merespon, “Kalau kamu ingin jadi wartawan seperti itu, ya kenapa masuknya ke ITB? Kamu disekolahkan ke ITB bukan untuk jadi wartawan, Kak, tapi jauh lebih dari itu.”

Tiba-tiba saya jadi ingin meng-hedon bersama SITHeads (sebutan untuk para mahasiswa SITH angkatan 2009) di McDonald's lagi. Saya cinta sekali dengan makanan apapun yang mengandung keju, salah satunya ya Cheeseburger ini.

Walau sudah siap akan segala kemungkinan perkataan yang keluar dari mulut beliau, saat itu saya hanya bisa diam, merenung. Benar juga apa kata Ibu. Jika saya menjadi seorang mahasiswi di ITB tapi ujung-ujungnya saya hanya bisa jadi wartawan, buang-buang uang dan waktu itu namanya. Masuk ke ITB sendiri bukan suatu hal yang mudah. Saya harus pertaruhkan semua materi baik Bahasa Inggris, Matematika, dan IPA yang telah saya peroleh selama 6 tahun saya bersekolah di sekolah menengah. Belum lagi SDPA yang harus saya bayar untuk bisa bersekolah di kampus yang lambangnya gajah duduk itu. Saya tidak mau menyebutkan nominalnya, tapi yang jelas angka-angka itu membuat saya benar-benar merasa berhutang budi pada orang tua saya. Tentu saja, utang-utang itu nggak bisa saya balas kembali dengan nominal yang sama. Ibaratnya, angka-angka itu sudah berbunga tiap detiknya. Utang saya bagi dua orang yang telah mati-matian menjaga saya agar tetap hidup itu sudah terlalu banyak. Belum lagi utang pada Allah SWT yang masih ngasih saya nafas asli sampai saat ini (kalau jeli, kamu bisa sering membaca status Facebook saya mengenai bakteri yang hampir membunuh saya berulang kali), bukan dari alat pacu yang sering saya lihat di seri barat Grey’s Anatomy.

Perkataan Ibu yang meninggalkan bekas yang dalam pada diri saya itu membuat saya mulai bisa meredam kenginginan saya untuk bekerja di National Geographic, baik sebagai kontributor, fotografer, maupun staf redaksi. Tapi, suatu hari di bulan lalu, alangkah terkejutnya saya ketika tiba-tiba Ibu menghampiri saya yang sedang asyik berkutat dengan Carmanita di ruang tengah lalu memberitahu pada saya bahwa ia baru saja menonton TV dan melihat iklan adanya pameran foto di Jalan Widya Chandra, Jakarta Selatan. Selain itu, ia juga memberitahukan pada saya bahwa ia pernah melihat salah satu tayangan di Metro TV yang mengisahkan tentang 2 orang warga Indonesia (satu pria, satu wanita) yang sudah 20 tahun bekerja di salah satu media massa yang disebut-sebut sebagai koran Kompas-nya dunia, Reuters. Dua-duanya bekerja sebagai fotografer tetap. Well, jujur saja, saat itu saya benar-benar kaget. Apakah ini adalah Ibu yang dulu pernah tidak setuju jika saya menjadi seorang jurnalis? Kenapa sekarang ia tiba-tiba memberitahukan sesuatu yang berkaitan dengan passion saya yang bukan di bidang sains itu?

Ibu kemudian mengatakan pada saya bahwa ia bukannya tidak setuju jika saya menuruti kemauan hobi saya di bidang jurnalistik ataupun seni (waktu itu Ibu juga pernah menentang saya untuk menjadi seorang seniman). Ia hanya tidak mau saya menjadi jauh dari dunia nyata. Walaupun ia tidak menjelaskannya secara detail, tapi saya bisa mengartikan kata-katanya dengan sangat jelas. Beliau tidak mau saya menjadikan jurnalis, seniman, ataupun fotografer sebagai pekerjaan tetap saya. Ia memperbolehkan saya menjadikan itu sebuah hobi yang diseriusi, tapi bukan untuk jadi satu-satunya bidang untuk mencari nafkah. Ia masih menginginkan saya menjadi peneliti dan disekolahkan sampai memperoleh gelar Magister (tentu saja dengan mencari beasiswa). Saya ingat Ibu dulu pernah menyebutkan salah satu alumni Astronomi ITB angkatan ’75 yang sekarang menjadi Redaktur Senior Harian Kompas dan pernah menjabat sebagai Direktur Utama Kompas Cyber Media, Dr Ninok Leksono. Awalnya, Mas Ninok bekerja di BPPT dan disekolahkan oleh BPPT ke luar negeri, tapi setelah ia kembali ke Indonesia, sambil meneruskan penelitiannya, ia juga mengekspresikan minatnya yang besar terhadap jurnalistik (dengan memberikan berbagai info yang berkaitan dengan astronomi dan sains). Benar-benar role model saya. Ibu tahu dan bahkan sangat tahu bahwa saya ingin sekali bisa jadi seperti Mas Ninok itu, serius dalam mengembangkan daya tariknya pada jurnalistik, tapi tidak lupa dengan apa yang pernah ia dapatkan selama jadi mahasiswa di ITB.

Kenapa saya nggak pernah libatkan sosok Ayah dalam pembicaraan ini (dan mungkin pada pembicaraan-pembicaraan sebelumnya atau berikutnya)? Well, Ayah bukanlah seorang yang bisa memberi pendapat sambil merasakan bagaimana rasanya jadi orang yang diberi pendapat itu. Kalau kata orang-orang awam tentang ITB yang melahirkan banyak orang yang idealismenya tinggi, itu bisa dikatakan benar jika yang menjadi salah satu contohnya adalah Ayah saya. Idealisme beliau kadang nggak bisa saya terima begitu saja. Bahkan tidak jarang Ayah berdebat dengan Ibu, yang merupakan Sarjana Hukum UNPAD dan mengambil majornya di bidang hukum perdata (walau sekarang hanyalah seorang ibu rumah tangga biasa). Sebagai satu-satunya anak perempuan, memang benar kalau Ibu-lah yang lebih banyak mengerti tentang kemauan saya. Ibu pernah memberitahu saya bahwa Ayah dan keluarga besarnya senang sekali begitu tahu saya masuk ke ITB. Ayah tahu kalau saya cinta sekali dengan seni, tapi ia nggak pernah tahu tentang ketertarikan saya pada bidang jurnalistik. Ia dilahirkan di keluarga yang memilih pekerjaan-pekerjaan selayaknya orang awam, kalau nggak dokter ya insinyur. Idealismenya Ayah juga dipengaruhi oleh kebudayaan Jawa yang mendarah daging dari buyutnya. Dari sekian banyak cucu kakek saya (yang dari keluarga Ayah), hanya 3 orang yang meneruskan sekolahnya di ITB, termasuk Ayah saya sendiri. Dua orang cucu kakek saya itu, saya dan sepupu perempuan saya, berani mengambil keputusan untuk tidak mengikuti ‘tradisi’ memilih UGM sebagai kampus kebanggaan. Well, bisa dipastikan kalau Ayah dan keluarga besarnya tahu mengenai keinginan saya untuk menjadi seorang jurnalis, saya nggak tahu apakah saya masih punya muka untuk pulang mudik kesana saat libur Lebaran nanti.

Sheyka.

Welcoming The Alter Ego

2009-11-27T12:02:00.007+07:00

I'm currently welcoming my favourite alter ego back, KIMSHEY. Well, in other words, it means I'm in my mood of art right now. Forgetting about the college assigments and my future plan to take a major in Microbiology next year... for a while.

Above is one of the photos of my pre-Final Assigment in LFM (Liga Film Mahasiswa). Its theme was Human Interest and it tells you a story about the 'Curiosity'. Both of the men in this photo was sitting on the big window of central mosque of UPI. From the face expression of the man on the right, you can see that he was curious while looking at his friend's handphone. You can also notice that the situation really supports him from the eye of the photographer : They were framed in a big window, and window is the symbol of knowledge which National Geographic uses. Well, Alhamdulillah, this photo won the title Photo of The Day which was given by the senior photographers in LFM.

Although I don't want to spill out the stories of my life in Bandung (I think now it's not the time yet), I still cannot pull myself to not to tell you some words about my current condition. My days as a Bandung citizen and also as a first year studentin* in ITB is so full of a heap of schedules. It's really hard to tell you about what I've been doing so far, because it's really a lot to be told. I don't have an internet connection at home and if I wanted to get a wi-fi connection, I must bring my laptop to the campus. That's why I can't update my blog every three days like I used to in high school. I'm so sorry for the lack of updates, especially for you who still concern to follow my blog (though you've never give any comments here). To tell you the truth, I've never thought that my blog could reach more than 30 numbers of followers, and it was like amazing to see that it was surprisingly became 55 in my hiatus weeks. Actually, I'm curious to know the reasons why you followed my blog. Please, don't tell me that you did that just because I've ever got it exposed on GADIS magazine in August.

I was too lazy to write all of them in my notebook so all I did was saving it in my camera's memory. By the way, in every of our photo assigments, we must have one page of assistance.

I'm still in my huge passion of photography and art, though I've been preparing to take a major in Microbiology next year. The GPA requirement is very high, above 3.2 points. The rivals are so many, just like the previous years. I hope I can get the IP above 3 points in this semester, so that I can save some and then study harder again in the next semester. Amin Ya Rabbal Alamin :)

I’ve been ‘sleeping’ for a long time since the last time I post something on this blog. I think now is the best time for me to wake and write down some of my thoughts, my experiences, and my life stories. People ever said to me that it’s not good to keep the goods in for ourselves. Good things happened, must be told.

I took this photo when I was in the Lighting education session with the senior photographers from LFM. The crew used a small softbox and built-in flash that time. So all I did was just sitting in my seat and waiting for the flash and softbox to be turned on, and then I press my shutter. Well, it went out like this, hahaha :) I set my exposure for 15 seconds, fyi

I’m currently spending my holidays in Jakarta now, exactly since Thursday night (I left Bandung in 6 PM and spending the rest of the hours with long traffic jam, argh). Yesterday was the Iedul Adha day, the day where all of the moslems in the world, including Indonesian ones, sacrifice (qurban) their animal as a symbol of the thankful appreciation to Allah SWT. We had 15 minutes this morning for the Shalat Ied and then it came for us the time to enjoy the breakfast with, of course, the legendary Opor Ayam (or Chicken Curry; it’s like a must-eat food on big days of Islam). It’s different from Iedul Fitri day because in Iedul Adha, most of moslems didn’t take a breeakfast before we went pray Ied. Mom said that it’s like a symbol of tolerance to the poors. Got it.

Photos of the children that I saw during Shalat Ied. Most of them was looking bored because, of course, they couldn't understand what were their mothers doing that time. I thought that they were cute so I took a lot of shoots of them.

Well, actually, the one that I wanted you to read is about my previous experience in Jakarta (too), exactly 3 weeks ago.

This is one of the children that I noticed when I was in Shalat Ied together with all of the people. I love to see children's face structure. So perfect, far before they were contaminated by Jakarta's 'polutions'. Finally, Mom allowed me to bring my camera outside, teehee~.

I went back to Jakarta last Saturday (Oktober 31st) to visit my Mom and my two younger brothers. I’ve been missing all of my family members since the last day I saw them on my Lebaran holidays. Dad’s been going out to Blora to visit my grandfather since Wednesday, so it’s really a good coincidence for Mom to have me in her side, although it’s just for a night. I took a shuttle bus instead of the train because I thought it was the one that was available anytime while I was dealing with my hectic schedule that day. I had a hunting session with my LFM crews at the center of the city (There was an event called Kemilau Nusantara that day. It was a carnaval of the traditional cultures of Indonesia and was the part of the Helarfest, a yearly festival which was held by Bandung Creative Community) from 11 AM and I had to end it at 2 PM because I had to run to the nearest ATM. Yeah, stupid me, I forgot that I didn’t have enough money in my wallet to pay the shuttle bus fee, so I didn’t have any ways beside running to the ATM BNI near the Advent Hospital. Then, after I got some money in my hand, I ran as fast as I could to my Aunt’s house (where I’ve been staying since August), packed my luggage, and then walked fast to The Promenade, where the X-Trans office located. The shuttle bus would depart on 3.15 PM, so I should be there at least 5 minutes before it departs. Then after I got the things done, I went into the car. Because of exhausting, I slept for a long time in a seat that was closest to the car’s door. To tell you the truth, that’s not a good seat at all. You’d be the most disturbed by the sound of machine of the car (it ‘drinks’ solar, fyi, not the premium one. So, the machines are sooo diesel) and the sound of the wind that was passing the car’s window. Well, this I advice you, if you want to ride a shuttle bus, be sure to reserve at least a day before your departing and take a seat that was furthest from the car’s door. You don’t want to end up like me in that day, right? :D

Since I've got myself into ITB, I'm deeply in love with National Geographic. Beside it supports my study in SITH, it has a lot of great photos from amazing photographers in the world too!

After arrived in Jakarta on night, I had some discussions with Mom although they weren’t last long because I knew that Mom was really tired. Fyi, I just had a night to go on in JKT. So, instead of forcing Mom to stay awake for me, the next day I cleaned and washed all of the dishes and in the morning, I helped her doing laundry. While helping her, I took a look at her silently. Her face looked tired and I knew that she was in a big stress because of problems that of course, I couldn’t spill in here. Her wrinkles showed that she has been living in a tough life. I couldn’t imagine how tired she is everyday, doing the houseworks, from cleaning the floors to cooking for the dinners. I can’t blame anyone for this, including Dad who’s been busy with his works, earning the money for us out there. I once told Mom that I can return to home every weekend to help her, but she replied to me a “No”. She told me that she didn’t want me to think about the family problems, the houseworks, and all about things that was not related to my study. She’s been telling me to keep up my study in ITB because she knew that it must be really hard to live as a student in there. My Dad was a former civil engineering student in there and she still remembered how Dad struggled with his life that time. Then Mom told me again that if I want to come home on the weekend, of course she would be okay for that. But she didn’t want me to force myself to spend the money to pay the shuttle bus or train, especially if I just have a little time to go back home. What I could do that time was nodding to her words. Mom ever told me that wherever I go, I still can help the family with prayings. Allah SWT is always be on your side, accompanying you through the nights, so don’t be shy to ask Allah SWT to give the good things for the family. Whenever I remember her words (though now Mom is currently sitting behind me, watching TV), it's like I really want to hug her tightly.

Above is Sayyida Latifa's Yashica analog camera. One of my photos for the pre-Final Assigment too, but it didn't amaze the juries, hahaha. I've told them that this camera was like abandoned by the owner and they told me that my concept was good, but it was very unfortunate that the photo didn't really illustrate my concept.

After visiting my family, the days in campus felt a lot more better than before. I felt that I’ve gained the new energy to face the reality that I’m still a student of ITB and I will always struggling with the days for the next 3 years. That’s the consequences of life that I must face because I’ve already agreed to live like this. I’m not a high schooler anymore, not even a teenager at all. Plus, because there’s no and there will be no official age range for young adults, people treat us like a real adults. Even some of my friends have already planned their marriage from now on, LOL.

Oh yeah, you must be curious about the title, right?
I guess I’ve told you that I have some alter egos in my personality in my previous posts and have been keeping up all of them nicely since the first second I realized each of them in my own soul (exactly after graduated from Labschool junior high, where I 'learn' a new word called FUN. Blah :P). I don’t name my alter egos. They just like my masks. The good masks.

The one in the left is Kinsya and in the right is Dini. Both of them are my CaKru friends in LFM. We were in the hunting session at UPI, Bandung, when I took this photo.

Most people think that the other side of a person must be always darker that the real side. But my case is an exceptional. My other sides are all kind and act good to everyone. Of course I’m still a normal human being who can be mad and sensitive sometimes. But I don’t call that moment as the situation when I changed myself to one of my other sides. It’s like an opposite for me that I think I was in my real personality if I was angry and sensitive. I don’t want to have any bad alter egos. Let them be good to everyone because they are important to be used to face the people around me, except for my own family (Mom, Dad, and my brothers; but that’s not including to my Aunts, my Uncles, my cousins, and other family relations). It’s enough for me to hurt my parents back then, so I don’t want to hurt anybody else. Well, that’s my thoughts about the alter egos of myself. They can be your full-face masks which covered you from the harsh words that you heard and bad things that are happened to you while you are crying and angry behind it, but they can also be your half-face masks which can show your real smile and let the people know that your mouth says ‘thanks’ when there’s someone who gives you a candy or have good things happened to you.

As for myself, I have 4 alter egos which I use the most. One is used to face all of my friends, one is used to face the friends that I don’t like, one is for the people that I care (beside parents, of course), and the last is for facing the invisible people like the virtual friends. All of them has been helping me through my life until now. They've been keeping my real personality safe, no matter what words that I’ve been heard, what views that I’ve seen.

I took this photo when I was waiting for the public transportation which would take us to the Monumen Kota, where the Kemilau Nusantara event was held. This reflects the situation in the Ganesa sreet when it was really people-less that time. Fyi, the left is ITB and if you turn right, you'll see the Salman Mosque.

Of course, at first, it’s weird to change yourself suddenly, especially when the people that you don’t like is coming when you are talking with the other. Double face-ing surely helps me to get along with this hectic life. But of course, I never recommend you to have an alter ego because it’s not something that is easy to be controlled. Some people even have their alter egos turned them into a bastard, coward, and bad person, which makes themselves to be a person that is hated by everyone because they like to talk about everyone behind and be the backstabbers. Everything that is happened to you in your life, including this, is a life’s choices. Having alter ego makes me learn how to make other people happy, how to behave to somebody, and how to react to what is happened to you. But I still have an impact to my personality, although it’s far smaller that the first time I let my alter ego out. Sometimes I can't recognize my own real personality. When I use my first alter ego for the first time, people told me that I was really different than before and it was really bad. Since that time, I began to control my alter ego like trying to arrange the good words when facing the people that I don’t like. To tell you the truth, IT IS NOT EASY and it needs a lot of time.

Oh yeah, I remembered that many people have asked me whether ‘Kimshey’ is one of my alter ego or not. Actually, at first, I think it could be the other alter ego of mine because being a ‘Kimshey’ makes me think that I can do works related to my art hobbies better. But I realized later that it’s better to be my artist/designer name rather than be one of my alter egos for some reasons that I can’t be told here. Hahaha, sorry, Pals : )

If you have an alter ego, please tell me by commenting in here. I’d like to read your story about it, in English or Indonesian. Maybe your case is nearly same or same at all with my case…, who knows?

Sheyka. (writing in one of my alter ego, special for blog writing only, LOL)
*and oh yeah, by the way, if you've followed me through Facebook, you'll know that I'm currently learning Deutsch a lot. Wish me luck! :D :D
**and I have a suprise photo for you~~ ^^

The cutest baby that I saw during Shalat Ied yesterday.
Omona~ the face expression was like, "Ah?" and looked so innocent! :3 nyunyunyunyu~

Keep In Touch

2009-10-24T15:51:00.008+07:00

I miss Blora, a small village where my Dad born. This view was captured when I was driving through a road in near Semarang, in a car with my family. We were heading to Blora to spend our Lebaran holiday like we usually did every year.

Scratched old Seiko watch, given by my Mom, exactly a day before I left Jakarta.

I'm back, People, thank you for waiting :D

Like the previous posts since I got into ITB, I'm publishing this entry with the intranet connection from ComLabs ITB. ComLabs is like a division of Information Technology in here. They provide us internet connection, IT laboratorium, and even you can work here full or part time (only for the 2nd year student). ComLabs itself is like a sanctuary for the downloaders and leechers. You can reach the download speed above 5 MB per second and your 700 MB movie will just finish to be downloaded in around 10 minutes if you are in the golden time.

One of my eyes. Can you notice that my eye has a blurred-pupil colour there? And omona, those eye-wrinkles, those are because of the computer radiation and glasses wearing.

I'm currently in love with the old love songs. Listening to them is very addictive. I recommend you to turn your radio on Delta FM at night (exactly above 10 PM). They will give you all of the songs without any stops (even the commercial break is just for 5 to 7 seconds) until midnight.

"Yas, come look at me!"
No response.
"I brought my camera here now!"
(Dias moved his head, looked at me, and then smile)

Recently, I just realized that blog is the only one which can be my media to express all of my feelings. I’ve been stopping writing a diary in a diary book since I ended my junior high school. Once when I opened again that diary, I noticed that most of the entries are all about my crushes, my love life, and how I hate someone back in junior high. I just opened it back once, and until now, I haven’t opened it again yet. I don’t have any intentions to bring back all of the bad and good memories that was happened during my junior high times, especially the friendship moments. No, I never be bullied by anyone. I was more into anti-socialist back then. People remembered my name just because there was no one who had an almost same/same name with me. I experienced my first photography work during junior high school, running through the people when the Lintas Juang run (a custom in the demisioner event of the former OSIS members which available only at Labschool, whether it’s Cinere, Rawamangun, or the Kebayoran one), trying to capture the scenes. Since that day, I started to crave anything about Documentary Photography or like most people usually called as Photojournalism.

I was just finished paint my Platinum Album (an LFM candidate homework) using cobalt blue, vermillion, some yellow, and some orange-ish red. I only took the blue colour one because the other colours have already 'contaminated' by red. Sloppy me, haha :D

When most of the people use Facebook, Twitter, and Plurk as the place to write their thoughts while indirectly calling all of the people who notice what’ve they wrote to write any comments about it, I’m going different by using a blog hosted in Blogspot to spill out all of my life stories. For me, it’s a lot more fun to read the full story about what have happened to you or to the people around you, instead of reading the half notices/statuses in FB, Twitter, and Plurk. I love being different and if I know that my thought, stuffs that I have, style that I use, words that I say, and others about me were being used by a lot of people, I would change all of them while still staying on the right line and the same intention. Weird, I know, but it’s the only way to ‘save’ myself in this like-roller-coaster life. If you don’t choose to be different, you will mean nothing in your life. You’ve never noticed and remembered by anyone because you’re just the same like the others. Like a playboy says to his exes, “You’re just the same. If I wasn’t rich or handsome, what else do you want from me?”

The one who was holding the DSLR camera was Enggar, my new photographer friend, who is also an LFM crew-candidate. We were in a hunting session with LFM that time.

Okay, enough for the dramas and let’s get out mind back into the reality. Well, to tell you the truth, living as an ITB student is not easy at all. At first, I don’t mind to tell you that I was stress and almost depressed with my own life, the hectic schedules, and all of the lectures. I was ever exhausted many times, even I fought with my own stomachache a lot of times because of my undiscipline eating habits while begging to Allah SWT to protecting me from all of the diseases which related to high-stress.

Do you know what was the one which I afraid of back then? The answer was getting my 6th Thypoid disease. Yeah, this year’s February was my 5th. Lucky that I’m still alive (haha T_T). Even the doctor ever told me that it’s not common for people to stay alive with thypus experiences more than 3 times (like me). And to tell you the truth, I’ve never taste a hospital bed at all (Na’udzubillahimindzalik, I wish I’ve never waste my money and my time for that). So, the fact that I’m still alive with the Thypoid bacterias in my stomach (the doctor said that Thypoid bacterias cannot be ‘erased’ if you’ve ever get with them more than 3 times) is really a miracle and I knew that I owe my life to Allah SWT and my parents which can never be paid by anything in this world.

One of my regular models (also a friend in SITH), Jecika Ardiati, came from 70 Senior High School Jakarta. She's very low profile, very far from common thoughts of SMAN 70 students. I told her to make an expressive face, but in the end, she decided to make this.
I called this as a 'Doggy' face. LOL :D

My life in Bandung which is really cold all day long everyday, a lot different from Jakarta, which for most of the times you can’t stay in a room without any ACs. I’ve been living with my Aunt and her only son since August around Cipaganti road, the road which is popular to the citizen or the visitors as the high-class road because a lot of large houses (almost same with Menteng and Pondok Indah residents) were built in there. It’s the only road from Pasteur to go into Setiabudi (which is popular with its Paris Van Java Mall, Rumah Mode, D’Cost, and other popular hang out places) so it can also be considered as one of Bandung’s popular and main road. Although we live around Cipaganti, my Aunt live in the other small road called Sempurna street and her house was not big like the other neighbors (exactly it’s not her house, but my grandfather’s house. She was divorced with her husband a few years ago, so she didn’t have any choices but to stay in there). It’s more likely a people-less in here so me and my Aunt really have to lock all of the doors correctly every night and everytime we want to go out to prevent our house from any burglars.

When I was looking for an object to be captured, this bamboo-matting pattern hat interested me, so then I used Super-Macro mode which featured in Orca.
I love matting patterns. Sooo, Indonesian :D

My niece from my oldest cousin. She reminds me of Boo in Monster Inc. "Mike Wazowski!" :D

After 2 months of adaptation, I think I’m ready to face the things as an ITB student. I’ve knew that some of my lecturers prefer to make their students learn about the basic concept first, but there are still some of them who aren’t. For the friendship thingy, I think ITB has a really strong perception about it and it is really true. Most of the people in here are very respectful and kind. Even there is a sculpted monument by an art student on year 1970 which was written with a phrase below the sculpted picture of ITB icon, the amazing Ganesha, “Once a Friend, Still a Friend” (“Sekali Teman Tetap Teman”). There is also a lot of goodies like T-shirts which are available to be bought in Tokema (a small store of ITB) and one of the T-shirts was written with “Good Friends are Like Stars. You Won’t See Them, but You’ll Know That They Always There.”. Mom ever told me that campus is a good place to get a lot of friends, especially the friends from the entire Indonesia. Some of my friends are Javanese and Sundanese, so while getting friend with them, the people from Jakarta like me learn about their low profile and their down to earth manners.

... (to be continued)

Mianhae

2009-10-17T12:31:00.003+07:00

'*Mianhae means "Sorry" in Korean informal languange.

Swallow sandals are the most flexible sandals in the world. You can wear it anywhere you want :) Hahahaha :D

Taken when my family was heading back to Cirebon. A sunset covered with Repsol advertisiment blackboard.

Taken at Purwodadi road, when me and my family were heading to Blora, Central Java, Indonesia. My Dad was driving really fast in a rough road that time. It was really like a roller-coaster riding. Omona~

I'm really really really SORRY for making you wait for my next entry.

But I really have no time to post, even to write anything.

ITB is killing me softly since October. I really have to deal with this new environment.

and if you noticed, I changed my watermark (again).
What do you think?

Being Visual Part. I

2009-09-14T20:25:00.009+07:00

(*This post is part one of Being Visual post. It's small, but contains a lot of photos taken by my Canon S5 IS. Calm down, People, it's NOT an SLR/DSLR one :D Teehee~)

Some of SITHeads 2009 mostly are girls. Above is my girlfriends and also my best models :D Such some expressive kiddos :) Kudos to all of your respects.

As a good human, I always agree to the "Don't Judge a Book By Its Cover" phrase.
Every people in this world knows that phrase, even the children ones.
But being a person who has a high sensibility of visual looks makes you have to took a hard deal with that phrase for most of the times, which is like what I feel.

Virginia Gideon, a VOLKS SD10g School C, one of Superdollfies that I love to look at as a visual person. Really pretty, even my Mom said, "Who is she? She looks like a doll!". Mom thought it was a person. Omona, Mom, she really is A DOLL :D .

Once if I saw my friend with a hair style that does makes me feel uncomfortable and I feel that it doesn't suit him at all (I use word 'him' because mostly boys are easier to be found with their new hair style, while girls, especially the medium-haired ones, are mostly difficult to be found walking with the freshly cut hair), I would've come to him then tell him that his new hair style doesn't fit his look. I don't care if he'd agree, disagree, or even angry to me because of my rudeness. Once I finished doing what I wanted to, case closed.

Well, you can tell that the first point/conclusion of those paragraphs above is :

VISUAL PERSON ALWAYS LOOOOOVE ANYTHING BEAUTIFUL, PRETTY, AND GOOD LOOKING.

Even for most of the times, it's hard for you to keep an eye off of a messy place/something messy, because you have two choices : Clean it or leave it without any glances. LOL :D

Careful! She could get used to that kind of thing. Hehe

My Nail-Henna, a gift from one of Mom's friends from her trip to Makkah.
First time using Super Macro mode.

Another Super Macro photo experiments with low light.
This dinosaur is the pattern of my new trousers :D

The pattern of my sajadah. I love the colours, even I didn't have to edit the colours as much as the other photos

A small road to my house. This road is closed above 9 PM, so I should take another road which is a little bit more far from my house than this small road.

There's a Becak in front of the small road (in the previous photo) entrance. I think this one is the only one which is being used actively in my house area.

There are two small ceiling windows in my room. That's where the sunshine come from everyday, like the light sources. Although they're small, they make my room very bright every afternoon. I didn't have to turn the light on until 5 PM :D

Omona, seems like the driver was really enjoying his afternoon nap.
Should I call this photo 'Pretty Legs in The Car' ? LOL :D

The east 'part' of ITB, which is where TOKEMA, LFM office, Campus Theatre, and East Hall located. If you had a sharp eyes, you'll notice that there's a septic tank in there :D

One of the corners in ITB. It's the office of PROKM crews. PROKM itself is an orientation event for the freshmen. Those pennants were used as symbols of the numbers of every groups. The leaders of each of the groups called Praba Amerta or 'Taplok' and all of them is the seniors.

The look of the SABUGA hall at the day when all of the freshmen of 2009 were settling the final files as new students of ITB. Most of them even should stand up for 3 hours! :O Omona.

Finally, time to say, "MINAL AIDIN WAL FAIDZIN" for all of you who read this. Please forgive me if I ever said harsh words or did something bad to you.
Lebaran day is geting closer and I can't wait to eat the Opor Ayam and the biscuits! :D
Model : (left to right) Dila Fitria Fauza, Juanisa Andiani, Deri Ardia, Fitria Dewi Astari, and Nabila Chairunnisa ; the SITHeads girls of 2009 :D Love you~

The One That is Important

2009-08-23T01:05:00.002+07:00

First : I've been working with my new camera from August 2nd, a Canon Powershot S5 IS, second-handed from my Uncle. Really, HUGE thanks to him and Allah because of this. I never knew that I would be given such a gift like this. It's a prosumer camera, a semi-SLR like that.
Second : In this post, you will see some of my captures in the GASIBU square in Bandung, while me and other SITH ITB friends were waiting for the ceremony to begun. We were honoured to represent ITB in the official ceremony of Indonesia Independence Day in Aug 17th. Above is a group 'Asongan' which tried their luck to sell their stuffs that day.

Woah, it’s like wanting to shout “FINALLY!” out loud here now, but I know it’s impossible because now I’m sitting in the middle of ITB students exactly at a place which popular with its good wi-fi signal. Yes, I’m depending on campus wi-fi signal although I bring my own laptop because I don’t have any internet connections at home, even I dared to refuse my father’s offering about Telkomsel Flash and M2. Omona, seriously, I couldn’t imagine how could I refused such a GREAT offering like that. At first, of course I regreted my answer very much, but later, I found that it wouldn’t be so useful for now. I still have to arrange my schedule for every week, because I’m bad with living organized which is the primary thing in surviving my life as a student in ITB. Many people around me keep reminding me that living as ITB student is very hard, because the rules are very strict and it’s easy to be dropped out from there. So, instead of playing with Facebook and browsing the other websites via internet, I think it’s better for me to ‘tidy up’ myself now. You know, as a downloader-maniac and internet freaks, once I got a chance to see the tiny icon in the bottom right of the desktop turns to blue (which means the internet has connected to my laptop), it’s hard for me to pull out myself from surfing with Firefox or turning off my current downloads from uTorrent. Well, actually, there’s still another reason beside talking about which one is important between browsing websites and doing my things as a college student. To tell you the truth, I was worry about my parent’s monthly expenses if I decide to have an internet connection in here. You know, I’m not a rich kid which is easy to spill the money out from the wallet, so although Mom and Dad still ‘feed’ me with their money and keep telling me not to worry about the family expenses, I still cannot have a heart to spend more money only for myself. Well, it’s the truth, although I can’t tell that reason to Dad or Mom, it’s no use to tell lies in here, isn’t?

Helen (left) is my new friend, but Irly (right) is my old friend in junior high. They are both kind people and of course, respectful :D They are in same faculty with me, fyi.

Picture above is the 'kits of freshmen in ITB' which I brought in my first days. The one that titled 'Buku Sakti' is an important guide for the new students and the book was very interesting because almost fully designed by Visual Design student from Art Faculty in ITB. There was a lot of informations about places in ITB, especially the one about TOILET locations which is very berry important, LOL :D

Talking about spilling out, I have a story for you. I had an interview with Mbak Egi from GADIS Magazine in the beginning of August, exactly at Saturday, 11 AM, as we planned before. About 3 days before, she tried to contact me via email, Facebook, even she followed my Twitter. In my reply, I asked her via FB about why she choosed me to be interviewed and how could she find my blog. I got my first question’s answer in my previous post’s (the one with title ‘Be Honest’) which you can see it yourself, then later I knew that she got my blog address from the internet. I don’t know if she got it from Google or by blogwalking and found my trace in someone’s blog. After that, I didn’t ask anything else. So then she asked me about the time for our phone ‘meeting’. I told her that she may will find it hard if she interviewed me after I arrived in Bandung. You know, I didn’t want to make the phone cost big, although surely she would use her office line. So, I told her to call me at 11 AM on Saturday when I was still sitting in my house floor in front of my laptop.

Had a 'sudden' photo session with Daryl (pronounce as 'Deril') and Deri (see? Their names almost pronounced same) in the trotoar of Tamansari Street (near the bypass road). We took a little advantage of the 2 PM sunshine, and woah, even I didn't have to adjust the colour like usual! Sunshine surely the best friend of photographers :D

At first, actually, I was nervous. I’ve never had any magazine interviews before. It’s different when you were asked by your own friend. You can tell any lies to them about yourself. But if you had a thing with mass media like magazine or even newspaper, of course lying and adding your imagination to your answers aren’t some good ideas (YEAH, LOL :D). But thanks to Allah for giving me some extrovert personality and a confidence. I did the interview with Mbak Egi as I was talking with my own friend. I answered all of her questions about my blog and my hobby as a photographer with my own answers. She also asked me what was the meaning of ‘Kimshey’ name to me which I answered with my own perceptions about Alter Ego and Artist Name. I also told her the truth about the primary reasons why I built this blog and some people who actually made me envy of them but also gave me a lot of inspirations. In the end, she asked me to send her my photo via email.

I love capturing other people expressions. When you had one in your camera memory, it's like saving a diamond in your pocket. Being visual is a great thing. I will tell you about it later :)

This interview thing inspired me to reveal one of the primary reasons why I built this blog. As you know, I love photography so much. Mom ever told me that photography was an expensive hobby. I agreed to her words, because that time, I just think about camera specifications and the kits. Of course, if you always think about the lenses, tripods, and the other additionals of your own camera, you will find that to be a good photographer, you would need a lot of money. That time, when I was in Labschool Junior High School which is full of rich kids, I find myself hard to be the member of the photography team. One of the members of the photography group ever told me that if I wanted to get into the activity, at least I must have had an SLR camera because their aim is wanting to learn about the photography without any helps from the camera itself (I use my NorthCakes digital camera, so I train myself with the camera features which is easier to be used than manuals). His words made me sad and dissapointed me, because it’s like I couldn’t join their team only because I use a digital camera, not a manual one. Okay, I knew my camera is only a cheap one. Later I stopped my photography hobby and gave all of my concentrates to my own study to get my favourite high school.

Some male and female armies and polices were waiting for the commands from their seniors.

When I got into 61 National High School, the air seems much different than a private school. The students paid a lot more respects for what you do and what you say. There’s no photography group in there, but sometimes I saw some people brought their digital cameras or DSLR/SLR ones in every school events. It made me inspired to ‘wake’ my photography hobby up again, because it seems like you can do anything there although your camera is not a pro one. You know what, between 2007-2008, because of my confidence to shoot anything that I saw in school (you know, it’s a little bit embarrassing for you to shoot the students daily, because most people ‘planted’ their own perception that photographers mostly work hard when there’s an event), the student organization and the school principals often asked me to be the member of documentation crew of the school events. I was very happy, it’s like you received a lot of respects although they never talk anything about your photos. I think respecting people is a lot of more important than just praising them.

My first SILHOUETTE photo. Although the object was doing something that I really HATE, which is SMOKING, I think the sunshine really helped a lot in here. Wish I could capture the smoke too, but unfortunately, it's hard to see it when the background is nearly white.

No, his right hand was not burning, LOL :D . It was because he was shooting while smoking with the hand which was being used to push the shutter. I tried my best in zooming, because it's really hard to prevent the blur because of the little shaking of the breath-taking. What do you think?

I decided to be a lot more serious not only on my study, but also dealing with my passion of photography. Started from August 2008, I collected a lot of photos of my friends. Then, in the middle of 2nd semester, I created a series as a dedication to my high school friends because of their respects to me which I named ‘School Series’. I never expect any compliments about my photos, because I knew that I was just a newbie and amateur who only use a normal digital camera which is really far from SLR/DSLR results. But when I tagged each of them in all of my photos via Facebook album, in 3 days, my photo album fulfilled with a lot of comments which mostly thanked me and gave me a lot of compliments about my photos. There’s almost no one who gave me any critics. My heart felt like crying, this was far better than just respecting, even they asked me to shoot them more and when I was in school, some of them often asked whether I brought my camera or not. I never thought that me, who ever being scolded by my own friend in junior high, gained a lot of respects and also popularity in high school just because of my confidence in using my own digital camera! To tell you the truth, although I had no special things or relationship with them, I missed all of my high school friends. In my opinion, there are no strangers in photography world. All of your models/people who were captured by your camera, although they’ve never say any words to you later, is YOUR FRIENDS. For me, they are very special. They were the first people who respected me trough my works. Well, of course, I will never forget them for sure :)

Being close with the models is very important for me. Although I don't know their names, I will keep smiling and saying good words to them. Praising your models that they look awesome is the other important thing too. You know, most of the times, praises can 'pull out' the real character of a person. Then when they smile brightly, all I have to do is just pressing the shutter :D -- By the way, above is Anissa Juanda Ardearini also called as 'AJ'. She's my new friend in SITH ITB and she always look cheerful which made her looks good in camera :)

So, the conclusion is, I wanted all of the readers of my blog know that CAMERA IS NOT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN PHOTOGRAPHY. Most people and newbies in photography have this vision. They wanted to buy an SLR when they had a lot of money. LOL, you know what, even some pro photographers said that if you had a normal digital camera which has normal features, you were blessed. Use it to train yourself in angle and composition controlling, because they are two of the most important things to make a great photo. Then when you had enough money and skills, buy the professional camera to learn about the focus. Like every professional photographers said, THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS ‘THE MAN BEHIND THE GUN’. Even a skillful brain person gain a lot more salary than just a person who only use her/his muscles. Well, of course, IT’S NO USE TO ACT COOL WHEN YOU HAD AN SLR/DSLR CAMERA IF YOU CAN’T PRODUCE GOOD PHOTOS AND HAD NO SKILL. It’s also no use for having an SLR without knowing your own camera ability. Even only with a camera which even has only 2 MegaPixels, you can capture a great scene. To tell you the truth, ALL OF MY PHOTOS IN FACEBOOK, FLICKR, AND THIS BLOG, IS ONLY 1.8 MEGAPIXELS.

Surprised?

He's cute, isn't? This photo was taken by AJ while I do the ugly faces to attract the kid and made him look at us. Although it's a little bit failed, at least my camera still could capture his face and his mini bike. This is the best photo of him, the others were blurred.

Cheers and keep understanding about yourself! :D

Sheyka.

P.S : Thanks for all of you who read/borrow/buy GADIS Magazine this week and you who dropped comments in here. Thank you so much :D

Be Honest

2009-07-25T10:52:00.006+07:00

I have new colours for my photo. This one is focusing on red and blue colours, so the yellow flash light from the USB flashdisk changes to green. Cool, I guess :D Well, I don't have any professional camera like DSLR, so I guess, beside the focus and angles, having some experiments with colours can be my power. Happy experimenting!

A few minutes ago, I just realized that I haven't signed my GMail account in yet. Today, I had a busy morning as usual: woke up at 5.30 AM this morning, pray Subuh, and then slept until 6 AM, then rushed to the backside of my house to help my Mom do the laundry. No ironing clothes today, because the sky was so dark since afternoon and the clothes haven't dried yet. Now I'm sitting on the floor (the Javanese usually called it as 'lesehan') while browsing my favourite sites that have boomark-ed. I'm not going anywhere. You can call my life monotone, but I love living like this, because I still can see my mother's smile after I helped her. Alhamdulillah :D

It has been more than a week since my father went out of town for his bussiness thing and brought my camera and my handphone with him. Alhamdulillah, there's still an internet connection (I've been using FastNet and it's really fast for a download-maniac like me), so I still can keep in touch with the world news and my friends. Well, I’m still enjoying the rests of my holiday now. Beside busy helping Mom, I’m also busy collecting a lot of new songs, albums (both by korean artists and western’s), videos, and movies (the olds and the news). I’m doing all of this because I know that in future I won’t have any high speed internet connections that allow me to do a thing that will be always one of my reason why I prefer staying at home to going out with friends: DOWLOADING. Hahaha, yeah, I'm telling you the truth. It's really hard for me to push myself from softwares like Internet Download Manager or Orbit Downloader. Oh, and also, you can't separate me from a site like MediaFire, Indowebster, and MegaUpload :D . Well, I don’t care even if you say that I was supporting the piracy in Indonesia. I’m downloading those free stuffs for myself. I never sell them to anyone if there's no one request it.

Introducing from left to right : Zhazha Laila Qadarsih (you can see more of her photos here), Andina Alia Latief, Christie Afriani, Fonda Desiana (first photo only), and Rifqah Indri Amalia. In the first photo, they decided to give an 'Alay' style. But in the second photo, I told them to get closer to my camera and act naturally. Pretty, aren't they? :)

Recently, Mom told me that I'm still careless for things around me, including the important ones. She also said that she feels like she still have to worry about me during my campus life because of my being careless so often. It makes me sad, almost cried that time. Hoh, it's really true that age 17 is nothing if you can't be an adult by yourself. Even Mom once said that I haven't change my bad habits yet until now. Hmm, talking about careless, if I didn’t post anything related to the recent things like Michael Jackson’s death or #indonesiaunite declaration that they are not afraid of the terrorists, the bomb attacks in Ritz-Carlton Hotel and JW Marriott Hotel in July 17th (a month before the Independence Day of Indonesia), and even how swine flu attacked our country, please do not say that that I'm careless. Okay, I’ll reveal something about myself which is maybe will make you feel that I'm weird. Actually, I love to be a person who have things that are different from what common people have. I don’t like popular things (which is being liked/had by people around me). For example, when something that I love which was discovered by myself (not by the recommends) being loved by a lot of people (exactly after I started to love it), my love for that thing will be gone fast (I don't hate it, just like loosing interest). Other example, I don’t want any of my posts have ‘clones’ in other blogs (this is only for people who were close to me, especially if the person was talking about the same topic). I also don’t like following the recent trends and posting something like what other people have posted in their own blogs. But if the things or the news were not gained a lot of people’s interests or there’s no one around me who has already posted it, the case would’ve be much different. I’d really love to promote them and made them gain a lot of interests to be read. For example, when Michael Jackson died, almost every bloggers post about them at their own blogs. That’s okay, I’m fine with it because it’s a part of their rights of their own blogs. But judging from the situation, I decide to not write anything about it in my own blog because it has already popular. I think it's useless to write about it here. It's enough to keep the condolence inside my heart, not to be written in here. Well, overall I still have no rights at all to warn them not to 'copy' my writing style or topics. I just want my you to know that I'm just like that.

Hezby Ryandi was my partner in sport divition in student organization. He likes photography too, although he doesn't have any cameras. Above is Bagus Dwinda's camera. A Canon EOS350, I guess. Bagus bought it on Kaskus forum.

Mom always told her children, especially me, who have born first, to be honest with ourselves and people around us. I never told any lies to my parents, especially to my own mother. I just can’t do that, you know. Even if you forced or threated me with a lot of money, I really couldn’t tell any lies to her. It’s just like… there’s always something which make me unable to be dishonest. One of my friends ever told me that it was because the power of loving my parents. Omona, it was really surprising to hear my friend’s words that time, because I never think that maybe it was the power of love. But later, I found that… everytime I made her mad, I would’ve get a punishment from Allah SWT not long after that. Well, I don’t care if you don’t believe me, but please, love your own parents who gave a birth to you without asking any ‘payments’ for it. Being a God-fearer is also an obligation for all of you, especially for you who will take a new step in the university. Mom once said that campus life is always in between the hard and easy. If you didn’t have any strong beliefs of yourself and your own God, you wouldn’t have stay for a long time in there. Recently, Mom also told me that I must choose friends carefully in there. Yes, beside the lecturers and the subjects of studying, one thing that will make you feel that campus life is very much like a roller-coaster is them who we called as FRIENDS.

Some of the Nugrahaka Lokha Samgraham female members. It's our student organization name. We were having a reunion last week. By the way, I made Shining Nugrahaka photo series recently. You can check it out on my Facebook album. It's my last dedication to them.

I have a plan to go swimming alone tomorrow, because all of my friends is busy with their own plans. To tell you the truth, it's the very first time for me to feel FAT. Even Mom said that I'm fatter than me in high school (although she doesn't suggest me to burn it). LOL, yeah, who will be getting fat in the final year of high school when all you can think is exams, exams, and exams?

The picture above is my Japanese short essay. It's a practice for tomorrow's writing test (for UAS in last May). The left is the Indonesian version, below is the textbook, and the right is my essay.

I miss my SITH friends, although they are just my junior high school friends. I really can't wait to see my other new friends in August 3rd and having my first lecture :)

Cheers and be healthy always! Do not drink even smoke because they can kill the future of your heatlh, trust me ;)

Sheyka

Thank You For Asking!

2009-07-14T23:28:00.004+07:00

I planned to draw a face which represent the look of Pajama Sam's unique phrase, "What You See is What You Eat". I wanted to draw the face parts with the drawing of vegetables or fruits, like shitake mushroom for the nose or a drawing of a slice of sunkist for one of the eyes. Omona, what a weird drawing. I'm sorry to make your eyes blunt, LOL :D

BONSOIR, Mon Ami~ :D
So, here am I again, writing in my own space where no one else can bother. Ahaha~ :D

I took some shoots of Dago street with my camera in July 2nd. That time, I was just bored while waiting for Daryl's sister. She was shopping in a factory outlet near there. This street is one of horse riding tracks in Bandung beside a street near ITB. I like a crazy people that time, walking alone with a camera in my right hand and wearing a skirt (it's not common to find a photographer with skirt, mostly they wear casual jeans). My friend told me that the secret of good photo hunting is only one, a confidence.

I had 2 surprises after I got home from Bandung in July 3rd. The first one was a goodie bag full of small gifts from Terrant Books and the last one is 2 books of Calculus. Do you know what is Calculus? My cousin said it's a book where you can learn about how to get 0 from 1 divided by 0. I know TPB will be a hard year for us, the freshmans.

Some minutes before, I've just finished watching one of Korean popular variety show called Come To Play (CTP). The guest star is Super Junior, whom I used to love so much for 1 year. Although now I don't do any fangirl-ing stuffs anymore, I still love them, because each of their personalities is very unique and their songs always be one of high-recommended songs ever in Korean music charts. So, what made my mood suddenly going up like this was because the Korean people, including the guest stars and the MCs love making jokes so much. You know, accidental jokes are much more funny than a planned jokes. Basically, Koreans really love talking and blabbering about something directly. It means, mostly, although they got the script from the Production Director (PD), the guest stars or MCs mostly cannot hold their own words. Actually, the video editors of Korean TV shows are the ones who are very amazing. They have so much sound effects and funny pictures that will make the final show looks much more funny and attractive than the original shootings.

See that? During the holidays, while laundry-ing, the CPU, my yellow laptop, and a small speakers with Dolby features (which will make a sounds like a home theater) always tuned in my playlist. I sing a long while the songs played. So fun while alone :D

Well, it's been a long time, maybe over a week since my last post in here, right? Some people even asked me about the reason why I stopped writing in my blog and didn't post any new entries or photos. To tell you the truth, those full of caring messages really touched my heart. I almost cried when I was reading them. I never thought that my life stories have a place in someone's heart, even it was just a little or tiny one. I just let what I got this day or the previous day shared to every readers out there. I know that I'm still in the situation where everything can be an important thing all of sudden. The situation where you still have no trust to your own choice and have no doubt of your own future. So, what I've got, I took it as a part of life lessons. I still have to learn how to live in a good way and erase all my bad personalities. Well, actually, I'm being so selfish very often. The selfish part itself has a very bad impact to me. Because of that, I love minding/bothering other people's bussiness and I always want them to act like the way that I want. It's a very bad thing, right? Ah, now you know how bad am I as a human. Actually, it's very embarrassing :3

The situation in Sabuga ITB, exactly on July 1st. It was very unfortunate of me, I couldn't take a lot of photos because I have to concentrate to the waiting call. Yes, we had a waiting call for the forms checking in those tables ahead.

What I've told you as a reason why I stopped writing here for a while is the real condition of myself. I'm very busy because these days is the rest of my holidays which means it's getting closer for me to leave my family for more than a month. I've already planned since I've got home from Bandung in July 3rd to do anything to my family during the rest of my holidays as a special mark, especially to my Mom. I feel very sad to leave her because she will be alone without me. You've already knew that we have no maids, right? So, I think she will do anything by herself everyday. All of those houseworks. Omona, I really can't imagine how she will look like after I made a comeback visiting someday. I always wish her and all of my family members a very good health and have a lot of life spirits. Amin Ya Rabbal Alamin.

One of my doodles. You've already know that I love Typography so much. Yes, since I was in JHS, I love writing the alphabets with new forms, mostly in 3D looks. I love writing strange sentences too. It's like... spilling them out from your head, whatever the sentences are.

Beside doing a lot of laundries and clothes ironings every once in 2 or 3 days, I also very busy browsing for my new design inspirations. Recently, my inspirations come from Graniph Design Store designs and the other Japanese/Korean artists artworks. I don't know why, but I feel more inspirated in Korean or Japanese designers/artists works than the Western's or even Indonesian's. Mostly, the Japanese/Korean works are very simple for the first impression. But after I tried to do it someday, it's not as easy as I thought before. I don't know why, but it seems like their hands seems like easier to be moved than my hands. Maybe it was because their traditional culture mostly based on typing something. You know, even both of them have their own languange in a complicated form, I mean, the Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji for Japanese and Hangul and Hanja for Korean. Although I have studied Japanese for 3 years in high school, I still can't remember the right form of some Katakana and Kanji letters. It's also really hard to arrange those letters to be a sentence.

Yesterday, Mom cooked us a Red Spinach Soup and made a Butter Fried Chicken delivery from a Chinese restaurant. Actually, the original leaf colour (before it cooked) looks more like maroon to me. I think because 'maroon spinach' sounds strange, mostly Indonesian called it as red spinach. Btw, red spinach has more benefit to our health than green spinach, although the price is more expensive.

Beside browsing for Adam Hayes artworks, keeping in touch with my favourite artists, and reading their interviews (this is my favourite section of an online lifestyle magazine like in DesignBoom or PingMag. They usually give their own inspiration source, recommended songs, and even sometimes telling about their experiences from just a newbie until become an popular artist like now), I also busy browsing about Korean Indie musics. To tell you the truth, I used to say bad things about Indie musicians because I think their songs have the weirdest sounds ever, especially when one of my friends forced me to listen to Sigur Ros songs. Omona, that time when I was a major artist lover, I can't hold that earphone more than 1 minute because the song makes me sleepy. But later, I found myself oversleeping with Yozoh's latest collaboration with Sogyumo Acacia Band in a song titled My Name is Yozoh in the morning. Fyi, Yozoh is a Korean Indie artist which popular with her Cute-Pop songs (sung with cute voice too) and her songs mostly sounds slow. Even I've already had all of Humming Urban Stereo and My Aunt Mary albums in my harddisk now. Omona, I regret underestimating something generally just because I've had an experience of one of them. Although until now Sigur Ros and the other western indie musicians still cannot amazed me (because actually I really think that his songs sound weird to me), I've already had a big respect for the indie artists. They were not a bunch of cool people, but they are truly AMAZING and genius. Even Korea's popular hip hop group, Epik High, is moving in their own label, Map The Soul, now.

My new friend, Mauri. It's Nokia 7310 Supernova. I got it last week from my Uncle in Cirebon as my 17th gift. Alhamdulillah, I never expect a gift like this. Really :D

Well, fyi, I will move to Bandung start from August because I will study in one of Universities in there. No, I haven't packed my luggage yet. It's just me who had nothing else to do beside thinking of my new ATM PIN number, hahaha :D

I think these paragraphs above are enough to be my comeback entry in this blog. Thank you for asking my health and my condition. Alhamdulillah, I've been very healthy until now. You know what, I made a new phrase about art : "There's no ENVY in art, there's just some people who INSPIRED you."

Good night, sleep well~
Aja aja aja~!

Sheyka :D

Missing (Something) In Actions

2009-06-29T21:26:00.005+07:00

This is my photo new colour theme as a result of my small-experience with Photoshop Actions. Do you like the colour? The little-girl was enjoying a game named 'Odong-Odong'. It's like a little-Merry-Go-Round with a children songs played in a small music box placed below the ride. This photo was taken when I was enjoying my Garage Sale with my friends. See my previous post to see my story :)

Bonsoir, Meine Freunde :)

I will be off to Bandung tomorrow by XTrans. For your info, XTrans is a mini-bus which we use as our transportation from city-to-city. It's like a public bus such as Pahala Kencana and the other big buses, which we can ride with a pre-reservation/bookings, but the different is only the amount of the passengers and its price. Actually, I wanted to use Parahyangan (it's a name of one of trains whose destination is Bandung. There is Argo Gede train too, but the price is much more expensive than both XTrans or Parahyangan, because AG is full-AC, Parahyangan is not) instead of XTrans because the price is more affordable for me (I don't want to make my parents spend much money because I still have to buy the college books, omona) and there will be a lot of amazing sceneries while riding the trains. But, because this is my first experience to go to the other city by myself, I'm still afraid of the trip conditions. I still feel that I need more experience in the other city beside Jakarta and when I can 'beat' that new city, maybe I will try to be more brave by riding a train by myself to go to that place. You know, train is full of strangers, and by the way, I'M AFRAID THAT I WILL BE OVERSLEEP SO I WILL MISS MY DESTINATION, Omona, LOL :D

oh yeah, I have some photos that I want to show you now.

This is my Twitter icon painting painted with poster paints. Did you notice something like hairs in the painting? It was my Chinese brush hairs, omona :D At first, I think it will make the painting looks messy, but in the end, the painting looks like texture-ed. Like it :)

This is the final result of my Twitter painting. I know it looks messy with that handwriting, but I do love its combination of blue and yellow. Colour is more important to me than the other part of paintings.

Oh yeah, for your info, I didn't get accepted in Universitas Indonesia by UMB. I knew it after I opened my account this evening. I'm happy now, because my decision to choose SITH ITB instead of waiting for the UMB result is REALLY RIGHT. Thank you, Allah SWT. Omona, I really can't stop saying 'Alhamdulillah' :) . Finally, Architecture world, my 15 years obsession, and "Wilujeng Sumping" for School of Life Sciences and Technology :)

Well, I must prepare the clothes, the documents, and the other stuffs for tomorrow now. So, I just want you to know that I will be off to BDG for 3 days until Friday (because I don't want to miss the Book Fair. You know, I am a book-worm, lol :D) and all of you cannot contact me between those 3 days because my handphone has been broken until now, I still don't have any money to fix it by the way, hahaha, and I don't think I will get any internet connections there (except, I get myself to go to ITB and steal their Wi-Fi connections, kekekekekeke ;3). So, my status maybe will be changed into M.I.A which means Missing In Action. Omona, I feel so poor of myself, hahaha :D

I took this shoot silently, without those kids' knowing. I really like their looks from behind. The photo was like saying, "PLEASE CHOOSE YOUR OWN FUTURE RIGHT NOW before you meet the obstacles in front of you". I hope all of you will gain a lot of success :)

Auf Wiedersehn. Have a nice holiday to all of you~ :)

Sheyka.

Name Those Respects

2009-06-24T08:34:00.008+07:00

Her full name is Ratri Kartika Sari but because of her 'slow-loading of brain', she was called 'Oneng' like the main female character in a TV show Bajaj Bajuri. Despite she has a 'weakness' like that, she is a dilligent girl. She is one of PASKIBRA members and has a good talent in it. Although she was in science class for 3 years in high school, she got a chance to study in UGM in Faculty of Social and Political Sciences. What a good-girl :)

Last Tuesday, I went to Aca’s home in Duren Sawit. Her house was so big if it compared to mine. For your info, she was my one of the talents of School Series before we were all separated after graduation day. There were the other school friends too in Aca’s home. We were laughing a lot, making fun at each other. Suddenly, Daryl pointed her finger to NorthCakes and asked to me, “What was its name? Is it the one you called as ‘Carmen’?” Then I answered with a little laugh, “No, it is NorthCakes. Carmanita is in here,” I opened my backpack to show him my yellow laptop. Then he looked at me like he was seeing a weirdo, “You are so weird, you know, you name all of your gadgets. Isn’t it too childish?” I was just laughing when he gave me those words. I knew that he didn’t mean to hurt me or what, because he’s one of my buddies and he was laughing too when he said that I was too childish for him. Even if there was anyone who said that with sarcastic tone, I wouldn’t have care about it. I did what I want and as far as I know, those naming habit is not a bad thing.

Ice cream is the regular gifts from Mom everytime she has her children's birthday. Maybe it is too simple as a gift, but her love for us will never melt like those ice creams :3

I live as a normal girl and I’ve been living in a small house without any maids since 2005. Mom does all the house works by herself and sometimes she called me to help her in the kitchen or wash and iron the cloths. I live in a normal way of living, even I didn’t asked Dad to buy me a new handphone although my handphone couldn’t be turned on at all. I stopped buying my private things with asking my parents to give me some money. I buy my things, like books, brushes, paints, magazines, etc. with saving some of my weekly money given by Mom. That’s the first way to learn how to be an independet person. My family have been stopping having a fun weekend with going out to the Mall or shopping at Carrefour since the bankruptcy of Dad’s company. Mom always told me to say thanks to Allah SWT because we still have a chance to live in a good way and eat the foods 3 times in everyday although our foods is just a regular Javanese foods. Alhamdulillah, Dad has found his new work and is working again with his new company. To tell you the truth, 2009 is a far too different than the past years for my family.

Two foods above is my favourite menu when Mom told meto make a delivery from a small Chinese Foods shop near our house. Sometimes, Mom was too tired to cook because she didn't have any maids and work in house all day.

Carmanita was bought by my Uncle which he gave me in the beginning of 2008 as a gift. I didn’t even know why he gave me such an expensive gift like that all of sudden. It was too early for me to receive some gifts because I was still stuggling with the preparations of Final Exams and USM ITB Daerah. But because my father told me to keep it as my future laptop (it means, I didn’t have to ask my father to give me a laptop when I am a university student). NorthCakes itself used to be the property of Dad’s old company. After its bankruptcy at the end of 2008, without any statements, Dad allowed me to keep NC in my own room. Dad is the type of person who doesn’t like to talk too much, so he usually expressed his own feelings with short sentences or just a little physical acts. I didn’t know why Dad allowed me to keep his company’s property although Mom ever told me that NC was not the company’s property, but it was bought by Dad’s own money. I knew that Dad wouldn’t answer my curiosity about NC’s past because he would remember about those bad times about his company’s bankruptcy. So, I just buried down those questions and keep Dad’s trust on me.

They are an almost-1-year couple, Dania Nurissa and Raditya Dwi Jayanto (usually called as 'DJ'). They asked me to shoot them and then I told them to make some poses for me. As a photographer, I was very glad when they asked me to shoot them. It means they trust me to take their photos as a couple.

Yes, that thing called TRUST was always be my reason why I named all of my expensive gadgets or stuffs. For me, naming the stuffs that you love is one of the example of respects, although it’s only a simple way of a little things. Actually, I was inspired by my photographer friend who has a lot of cameras, including one lomo camera, Cassandra Niki. She gave her cameras some names like Anakin and Nina (for her Diana+). I thought it was really unique to have your gadgets named. But time by time, I realized that naming your gadgets or stuffs was like naming a person like every parents always does when they have a baby. They gave a name for their baby because they wanted to have a baby blessed with the meaning of its name. They also did that because they love their baby. So did I. I love all of my gadgets, especially because their history wasn’t as simple as the other gadgets bought by the rich kids. I want them to have their ‘rights’ to be loved and it’s not because I feel lonely most of times, like someone said in the a website that I found yesterday :
If you yell at your gadget, refer to it by a pet name or otherwise anthropomorphize what your rational mind knows is a lump of plastic and circuitry, you should probably work on developing a few more human friends. So says a new University of Chicago psychology study that posits humanizing of gadgets as a means of combating loneliness.

“When you’re bereft of human companions, you’ll create them,” says researcher Adam Waytz, adding that gadget designer promote such connections. “When a gadget takes the physical appearance of a human, with a humanlike voice, it feels easier to control and it feels easier to understand.”

Okay, maybe you think that I’m getting weird now. LOL, but it’s the truth of myself. Even some of my friends ever told me that I was a unique girl and always think more different than the common people. Actually, sometimes I myself feel my mind is getting weird day by day. Maybe it’s all because I give the 40% of my life in this virtual world, where everything could happens. Omona, what-so-ever :D

Aditya Wibowo (Bowo, Bowie, Tyo) was a leader of the student organization in our school (OSIS) called Nughrahaka Lokha Samgraham, means 'to reach the bright future'. This photo was taken in front of TMII's flea market.

By the way, it’s good to see that so many sunlights come in across my room window at this time, after I finished helping Mom doing some laundries and washing the dishes. I always told myself when I woke up in the morning (Alhamdulillah, holiday doesn’t make me turn into a lazy girl who likes to wake up late) that I should help Mom in everything that day. From just a common one like washing the dishes until the heavy one like cooking the foods for lunch and dinner (cooking for me is a heavy work because you are the one who will be responsible for the taste of the foods). I always feel really glad every after I finished helping her, especially when she gives me a smile although it’s only a simple one. For me, the best thing in this world is making the person that you love feel happy for what you’ve done to him/her, especially when it comes for the parents. They are people who gave you this life, who gave you a chance to see the world with your own eyes, and always be the first who will worry about your condition everyday. For me, no one can beat my parents, especially my mom (you know what, when I’m writing this sentence, the song in my playlist suddenly turn into Kim Waters’s She’s The One. So surprising!).

First photo is the overall-look of the poster of our Garage Sale painted by me with my poster paints. From the closer look of the poster in second and third photo, you can see that I mixed the crayons and poster paint colours to make a good borders of each of the alphabet/typeface. I love when it comes a time for me to use crayons and paints together :D

This was how my poster paints palette look like when I was painting a Twitter poster (will be posted in my next entry). It was so messy, but I love it that way :D

Okay, enough for the family education. Now I want to tell you about what me and my friends did last Sunday. We were having a small garage sale in a small spot in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Here's below some of the photos of last Sunday activity in TMII taken by me .

This is how the TMII's flea market look like. It was soo crowd and there were a lot of small stands of foods, cloths, and some garage sale like what we've had. By the way, did you notice the changing of my photo colour? Could you guess it? Hehehe :)

Daryl bought his new 'Breaking Dawn' novel from Twilight Saga written by Stephenie Meyer only for 30 thousand rupiahs. It was so cheap, but later he found that it was a fake copy from the original book. Although it was a piracy, he still wanted to buy another books or comics in there next week. Omona :(

Left to right : Aca, Nia, Rafy, and Christie, four of my 12 friends who joined the garage sale in TMII las Sunday

Rafy and Christie is a new couple. They made us knew about their relationship via Facebook. Both of them born comes from Padang family. Omona :O

TMII itself has a flea-market every Sunday and we planned to sell our stuffs there. We sold our school books, especially the TOEFL Preparing ones, some little stuffs that we didn’t need anymore like key chains, souvenirs from Singapore or London, and some old magazine issues of Rolling Stone Indonesia, Animonster, etc. We also sold some Nasi Kuning and Nasi Uduk which was made by Ulya’s mother. Although we’ve only got 300 thousand rupiahs as our profit, I could tell you that we were having fun that day. We shouted to the people that came across our garage sale spot (we didn’t build any stands for our garage sale, so I just write our place as a spot). Some people asked us about our status and we just answered that we have already graduated from high school and most of us has already accepted in the best Universities/College in Indonesia (Dania, Bowo, Me, and Daryl has accepted in ITB, Christie, Ratri, and Ulya has accepted in UGM, Donald in STT Telkom, and Lutfie in UI). We were telling the truth to those people although there’s still Rafy and DJ who haven’t get accepted in any Universities yet. The selling system was simple, but persuading the buyers to buy our stuffs wasn’t easy. We also had a problem in spot reservations. We didn’t know that TMII official had change the rules of selling in the flea-market. Because we were ‘racing’ with the sun (it means, when the weather became very hot, people would be lazy to take walks to the flea-market ), we decided to ignore the rules and continue selling our stuffs with full confidences. Alhamdulillah, there was nothing bad happened that day. There’s no sudden-inspection or what and we could sell our stuffs easily. In half pas 9, we decided to stop the garage sale for that day and will continue selling the stuffs next Sunday. After that, we went to Dimas’s house which was located near Gamprit area, Pondok Gede, to make some new plans and arrangements for the next Garage Sale. Fortunately, Dimas’s mother had already cooked us some fried chickens at the time we arrived in his house (yaaay!). So much fun we had that day :)

Cheers,

Sheyka.

Killing Time with Handdrawings

2009-06-18T08:38:00.006+07:00

Emil and Gina from the latest part of School Series. They are my favourite talents. Do you know what makes them look good in front of the camera? It's because of their confidents. You must know that the camera eye never lie.

While busy uploading some of my latest part of School Series on Facebook, I wanted to show some of my handwritings, drawings, and even a funny sketch of people by my friend, Diedra Rasyid, which I have mentioned in my older post before.

Is there any of you who love to draw something? :)

Started from the blank-page of the sketch book. You can see I only use a normal/regular tools to draw. I can't afford any Rotring pencils because it's expensive, LOL :D

Then I draw a simple drawing dedicated for my addiction of Twitter-ing.

Next, I put some words about Twitter, exactly the primary factors why people needs to tweet their activities.

Well, this is my final drawing. It's not so good, I still have to learn more about handdrawings. Is there anyone who wants to teach me? :) Add me on MSN or comment here! Hohoho. Btw, I planned to copy this to the Adobe Illustrator as my first vektor.

This is how NorthCakes, my black digital camera, look alike. She's not too slim, not to fat. Her type is Kodak V550 Digital Camera, for your info.

This is my handdrawing as a practice before the psychology test for USM ITB Daerah. No, I didn't draw a tree like this in that test because they just gave us 10 minutes to draw.
It was need a lot of time to draw a tree like this. Well, you can see now that the yellow 'thing' beside my drawing is my Carmanita.

Here it comes the last drawings, presented by my friend whose talents in music and drawing is very good. His name is Diedra Rasyid. He was decided to continue his passion of music by applying a scholarship to Universitas Negeri Jakarta (UNJ). Alhamdulillah, he got accepted in there and planned to build his own music studio or what he called as sound lab named by his own name DYDRECORDS. Well, this is his face.

Changes are Necessary

2009-06-18T08:04:00.005+07:00

The view from the door of my room everyday. I usually woke up at 6 or half past 6 when the sun still shine softly. Then, I made up my bed and pray to Allah SWT. Thanks to Allah, I still can breath easily until I reach the age of 17 on June 14th.

Guten Tag, Everyone :)
It feels so good to have a free time again to write my stories here. It's been 6 days since my last post with .GIF pictures on it. Some people asked me how to make those .GIFs, so I just told them that I use Adobe Photoshop at first to make some layers and then there is a button in the software that allows you to transfer the layers to ImageReady. For your info, I have been using CS2 since I use ‘Kimshey’ as my artist name (also for my alter ego name). The Creative Studio 2 version of Photoshop seems more friendly to me and my laptop because I’ve already installed Adobe Illustrator CS3 on my laptop but it makes Carmanita lost some of her RAM and respond the commands slower than before, so I think CS3 version was dedicated to a PC with high specification of RAM, not for my Just-1GB-of-RAM laptop.

I met them after I took a lesson at Nurul Fikri. Children's expression always bright and natural, although they live normally without any laptop and camera like what I had :)

So, here I am today to tell you some of my life stories and experiences these days. Four days ago, exactly on June 14th, I celebrated my birthday with blessed feelings. There was no party in my home or even treating my friends in some restaurant. The situation was still hard for the other friends who were still studying/hoping/struggling hard to get their university target. It wasn’t right at all if I expressed all my happy feelings while they still struggling with their own future. That’s why we must learn how to understand the other people feelings. Well, as for myself, Alhamdulillah, Allah SWT gave me 3 gifts for my birthday. The first gift is my being accepted on Bandung Insitut of Technology as a student of School of Life Sciences and Technology (SITH). Then, next day, Allah SWT gave me a second priceless gift which is my being graduated from high school with good scores (at least I’ve got 3 subjects with more than 8,0 score on it, yaay!). In Sunday, I woke up early at half past 5 and then pray to Allah SWT, said thanks a lot because Allah SWT still gave me a chance to live until I reach the age of 17, which is in Indonesia it means I’ve already grew as an adult legally, and some prayings for my future such as my parents happiness, hoping a good life as a university student, and our family healthy conditions. If you think that I have a special food for my birthday or any special things from my parents, you were wrong at all. I only had Nasi Uduk and a mineral water for my breakfast and things went like my birthday was just a normal day. I ever told you before in my older post that my family NEVER celebrate any birthdays of the children or even parents with big party or a lot of gifts. The important thing is : Allah SWT still give a chance to live with your family in a good condition. It’s my family tradition which is my Mother’s and Father’s big family tradition too. As a Javanese, we always act down to earth, naturally us, and live in a normal way. So, the HUGE thing in my birthday this year is just a bunch of birthday greetings from my Facebook friends. Started from my chairmate, also one of my best buddies, Fitria Oktaviani, who sent me simple greeting via Twitter exactly on 00.00 and then came a lot of friends from elementary school until high school with a lot of greetings in their own ways. Until today, there is more than 130 greetings for me, including the greetings via Twitter, Facebook, and Shoutbox. It’s a great pleasure to knew that I have so many friends which care for my 17 birthday although no one of them gave me any gifts.

Even my alter ego made me draw a ‘Happy Birthday, Sheyka’ drawings on my sketch book for myself. I use mechanichal pencil and a soft eraser. Oh, by the way, I bought this sketch book only with 17 thousand rupiahs. What a good price in a market called Mester :)

For me, the greetings, wishes for my best futures, and their carings are the best gifts from them. I didn’t need any material gifts (for your info, I haven’t been receiving any birthday gifts since in I was in junior high school) because too much PRICELESS gifts for my birthday this year from Allah SWT, parents, friends, until people whom I call as virtual friends. You must know that I feel very blessed by Allah SWT when I look at my parent’s happy face when they knew that I’ve graduated with good scores and being accepted on one of best universities in Indonesia, ITB. Every good children must have a feeling like this when they see their own parents happy. Even my father, who is never give any physical act to his family members, touch my head softly while I bow down to him to kiss his backhand (you know, it’s a good habit for younger Indonesians. It means you give a lot of respects to the people.). I feel that after those good things happen recently, my family members, especially my Dad, act more different than usual. Dad become closer to each of the family members, including me (usually, in past he’s always busy with his own work). I also feel that I have change some of my bad habits—although it’s only a little—like oversleeping more than 5 times in a week and ‘suspending’ my Mother’s commands. Actually, it feels a little bit hard and my life as a freelancer hasn’t back as normal as most of teenagers yet. I’m still living like a hard worker which can’t be separated from internet and my lovely yellow laptop, Carmanita.

I still have to learn more and more about life. In past, I used to feel bored and useless, but I always tried to kill those thoughts. That's one of the secrets of loving yourself.

Mom always told me everytime she got a time to give me some life advices that living as a university student is not as easy as many people think. Maybe you think that university student has more free time than high schoolers which is always monitored by the teachers and have a lot of limits as a teenagers. It wasn’t wrong at all, you have a lot of free time, but you must know that the lecturers have more than yours. They have a lot of free time to make you struggle with the papers, works, and projects. Maybe you can escape from them, but they won’t care about that. It’s your problem with your own future and of course, the people who always hoping the best for you like your own parents. This is the scariest phase of life for most of pre-adults like me (I took myself as a pre-adult, because it’s not the time for me to act like teenagers anymore). The phase where and when you live as yourself, without any limits of acts and of course, you have the control of yourself in more than 95%.

You know what, the scariest thing in this phase is : FRIENDS.

It's one of the School Series Part. 6 photos. Here they are my classmates, Fita, Gina, and Sari. This photo was taken when we've just finished one of Final Exams. They are not my close friend although Gina knew some of my secrets, but they were very helpful :)

In high school, maybe friends can be your enemies, chairmates, classmates, or even just a people that you greet everyday in school. But in this phase of university student life, friends can be everything. Everything means everything. They can be your enemies, best friends, partners in crime, trusted people, respected people, great rivals, teachers, and even they can grab a part in your life if you haven’t build the ‘protector wall’ in your own self. You know what I mean, from just a smoking habits, drug dealings, until fighting against your own religion like what Ahmadiyah and NII did to Islam. Friends in this phase can be a good influence for you too. Who said a rival couldn’t give you any good things? If you have a rival in your student life, make him/her as a thing that can make you study harder to get the better position above him/her. Well, the conclusion is : YOU MUST HAVE A CONTROL OF YOUR OWN SELF. Be a good people, living closely with your own God, and of course, your communication with your parents shouldn’t be stopped because they are the first people who will ‘scream’ if you have any problems with your life.

Psst, I'm in love with this Seaweed flavour glaze-crackers now! Mom bought two Trenz biscuits yesterday and she didn't know thay I grab this silently for myself. LOL :D

I have write so many words today and I can feel that my eyes couldn’t bear any radiation contact anymore. Okay, Alex Chu’s Hwaboon (means ‘Flower Pot’ in English) is the best ending song of today’s post. I planned to paint something tomorrow because I’ve already got some inspiration from today’s post. Hope my story could ispire you too.

Love,

Sheyka.

P.S : I'm in love with Korean Indie especially My Aunt Mary! Anyone know about this band?

(Accidentally) Remembering

2009-06-12T13:29:00.010+07:00

Aunt's Persian-Indonesian cat. Live in her home in Blora with my Grandfather (from Dad's ) and my Aunt. Recently, my Aunt was hospitalized due to an accident. She fell down from the stairs in the attic and the accident made her bones broke (I'm still not sure where is it).

(wait around 10 seconds to see the effect)
The first .GIF of her. This is her look after a short nap.
Looks like she tried to look stunning, LOL :D

Another .GIF of her. She was an energetic cat. It's hard to follow her all the time because she seems to avoid my camera (even I turned the blitz off)

(wait around 10 seconds to see the effect)
Now, there comes my first B&W gift dedicated to my friend, Nissa Hudani Nabilah. She was impressed and thanked me because I tagged this in Facebook. It's very pleased for me to see other people smile because of us :)

Recently, I changed my main text colour because I read an article on a site (also from Shila's comment in my FB status), that too much white colour on black background will harm your eyes. Even there's a common rules in France to not to use too much white on black bacground. I don't want to change my layout or background colour, so I just decided to change the main text colour because I often write with more than 3 paragraphs.

I'm watching my new Korean drama DVDs now, When It's at Night, played by Lee Dong-Gun and Kim Sun-Ah. Carmanita is in her recovering mode so I won't use Photoshop for a while (she had just removed her 60GB 'waste' yesterday with total 18 blank DVD-R). I'm feeling a little bit dizzy too, I don't know why. Maybe it was because I take the Nurul Fikri lesson very hard (although I enjoyed the Math so much).

For your info, this is the SMILE that I like, maybe. Very natural, accidentally photogenic, and it makes their faces look brighter. They are my classmates, Gina and Enca, also two of my favourite talents. I hate when I see my friends use a trend smile with lips almost closed and the cheek looks like pull in to the mouth. Why on earth those people feel not comfort with their own face?

Will post about my recent play with LTE again soon. If you want to follow, just click the RSS or follow button on the bottom right. Thank you.

SHEYKA, ehm, no, maybe it's Kimshey writing now (because of the radical sentence in the last photo, LOL :P)

The Colours of ZHA

2009-06-10T11:46:00.004+07:00

Pretty girl isn't she? She was my high school friend, Zhazha Laila Qadarsih. She's an extrovert person but still lovely. I wish I could be the photographer of this photoshoots.

DISCLAIMER : Those are not my photos. Those photos was taken by Zaky Akbar from Jungkat-Jungkit Studio which is my (senior) friend. I just asked by the model/talent of the photo, Zhazha Laila Qadarsih. You can look more of the edited photos of her on my Facebook album. If you want to be added, just add me WITH message. I won't confirm anyone without message.

For more look of the photos please scroll down.

Around 8 PM, Zhazha gave me a comment in my School Series photo album. She was impressed with my colouring and then she asked me to edit her photos. At first, I thought her photos was only a common taken-by-handphone photos. So I agree to fulfill her request but I also told her that I couldn't edit any photos taken by handphone camera. The pixels would kill me if I did that (LOL, no I mean. The pixels will be 'broken'/messed if the the colours enhanced). She told me back that her photos was taken by DSLR camera and she told me to edit any photos as many as I could. So, I 'landed' on her photo album with 'Nevermind' title on it and I was really amazed with her looks and the photoshoots. Actually, the photos was taken with 'good hand' (I mean good angles and focus), but Zoey's face (Zoey is my nickname for her) were not lighted at all. The photographer just uploaded the photos without being retouched. So, I thought this could be my opportunity to gain more pride as a photographer :) LOL.

So, yeah, here it is. This is some of my edited-photos. The rest of them is available on my Facebook page.

This is the last photo which IS MY FAVOURITE AMONG ALL PHOTOS.
*I also told her that this photo was the best look of her. I suggested her to smile often in photoshoot rather than just a simple smile :) Why I suggest that? Because she had some acne/red-dot in her face although she was pretty. Smile is the best way to cover your face problem. Be confident !

SHEYKA.

Long Exposure

2009-06-09T10:37:00.008+07:00

Experimenting with flashdisk and Carmanita's monitor light. Now you can see my bedcover pattern and how Carmanita look like. Omona :)

DISCLAIMER :
Once again, my camera is not lomo, waterproof one, or SLR/DSLR camera. My camera type is just a digital camera, which has a standard features that most digital cameras have. I just play with those features and all photos in here was taken accidentally. Most of them inspired by Cassandra Niki's Ray of Light.

Accidentally captured. You can look at my stresful face above. Eyebags, face oils, messy hair. Omona, yes, I admit that I had a bad look. I took this photo with white wall as its background, so the flash made some like-red light.

And oh yeah, FORTUNATELY, my camera has a ISO modification feature and Long-Time Exposure (it's like Shutter Speed ; flash come first, but the 'click' sound came later depend on the time you want). I use Auto ISO in here and 1,5 secons LTE.

I'm not afraid of comments.
Please write some for me :)

*for the older post too, please! Thanks before :3

Live For Myself

2009-06-07T20:30:00.007+07:00

Front look of Sempurna House (named by my GrandDad; because it's located on Sempurna Street, Cipaganti, near Premier Plaza and Soeharti Restaurant. Just a common house and the structure has never been changed since 1990. It's a family home (from Mother) and now my Mom's older sister, which is my Bude, lives in here after she divorced with his husband.

Actually, about 15 minutes ago my father has just ruined my mood. I’ve already told him about the new rule of downloading via Orbit Downloader because this time, I’m downloading from a server that have no ‘tolerance’ for pausing, not like Indowebster server. It’s MegaUpload server that I’m using now, because Indowebster directory listing doesn’t have any files that I want. If you use Indowebster, you could pause your files many times (I think the limit is 10 times, but sometimes when the main connection was really good, IDWS could tolerate more than usual) without any problem with the connection. MegaUpload is a server, which popular among the downloaders because of its long-lasting file keeping (usually download server erase your file permanently if you didn’t have any paid account) and which popular among the South East Asian downloaders especially the Indonesians (my friend from Viet ever made a request not to put my files on MU, so I decided to put on MediaFire) because of its low-speed connection and the downloads cannot be paused. So, because of this facts, I mad with my father. But as a good daughter, especially as the only daughter and the first child who must give a good example of morality in front of my younger brothers, I just yelled at myself (without swearing of course). Fortunately, my brother who was using the computer that time, rushed to restart the download from the original link. At first, I didn’t believe that his way will return my download back, but after I looked at it myself, Alhamdulillah, there’s no problem with restarting. But of course, THE PERCENTAGE OF DOWNLOAD CAME BACK TO ZERO. That was so... OMONA :[

Mom was in the kitchen that time and then she said to me, “Inspite of making another wrinkles, you better wash the dishes now.” I didn’t know why I can control my mood that time, walking to the kitchen and then washed the dishes without any words. When I made the dishes clean, it’s like cleaning up my own bad mood. And then while washing the dishes, I talked with my mom about things I have to care about after I reach 17 age legally on June 14th. Mom said that from now on, I must took care of my KTP first because it will take about 2 weeks. I also asked her about making an account on PayPal (after explained to her what the PayPal was) and a new job in a photography magazine that will give me $150 if my photo could be submitted. Mom said that she was okay with that PayPal stuff and suggested that I must make another bank account in here as an account for PayPal (it’s better to save your primary bank account by yourself). So, after finished with the dishes, I go to my room and writing this story like now. It was amazing to see that Mom’s command (actually, it’s a suggestion, but it’s a command too for a daughter like me) could make my mood up.

Terrace of Sempurna House. Mom told me not to put my sandals on the terrace to prevent sandal-thief. Yes, at first it made me laugh, but after Mom lost her own sandals one day, I trust her 100 percent. LOL :D

Wow, there comes this time when I use English again. I don't know why, I think I just gaining up my mood in English writing. I also put some of my Bandung-captures photos in here. No, it's not buildings or any stores (well, most people think if we go to Bandung then the primary reason is because of those clothing stores), it's just my home look-likes where I used to stay for 4 nights.

It’s Sunday again now, exactly 1 week after I finished my ‘trip’ at Bandung for joining the other final grade students in a ‘war’ called USM ITB Terpusat. I had so much fun in Bandung. But FUN in here doesn’t mean that I really have FUN like shopping like whore or try the best Bandung dishes or what. I just feel like myself in Bandung. I walked around ITB with my cousin who will be graduated on October this year from ITB (he was in Aerospace Engineering from the Mechanical and Dirgantara Faculty) as a guide. We’ve talked a lot about future and the everyday life as an ITB student. About the USM ITB Terpusat itself, okay, I’ve already promised to myself not to talk about that thing again, but it’s just for reminder that I have been going trough a lot of stressful things until now. Even now, exactly on half past eight at night, it’s already almost 11 hours after I finished my last University entrance test in June, the UMB-PTN. What a life. I’ve never think that I will be like that now. After mood ruined with a lot of tests many times, especially the final school tests, I feel like I’m doing anything as myself now. No, I’m not leaving my alter ego because mine was doing fine (not like Schizofren of course), I just feel like... loving myself. Time by time, I find my own talents, my own self, my own... world. Yes, I want to be like this, I want to do this, I want to achieve this and that, and many things I want to do what I want as myself. Okay, maybe our talk here is getting hard now, but I don’t want to be a wise woman or what. I just think that : THE MORE YOU GET, THE MORE YOU ARE :)

Bude cooked this fried rice every morning before I went to ITB for the USM ITB Terpusat, which means two days, Saturday and Sunday. Really good starter for a day, especially she added the sausages on. I ate it while putting my socks on because I didn't want to waste my time. Yummy, I miss this food so much although Mom's fried race tastes better.

Wow, having some days of hiatus from writing my stories (the latest one with Typography title was a rushed-posting because I still so many things to be done, especially the UMB-PTN), it’s amazing I can write long words again. My friend ever once said in one of his blog entry NOT TO STOP WRITING IN YOUR BLOG OR YOU WILL FIND IT HARD WHEN YOU COMEBACK. It means, as a blogger, especially for the long-entry bloggers like me, stop writing for a while will make ourself getting hard with searching the writing mood. Yes, it happened to me 2 days before today, where I found myself feel very lazy to write anything even take some photos with my camera. Well, finally I realized that it was the feeling which in Indonesia, we usually call it, “Mengawang-awang” or in English we can call it as stress. LOL :D

My pre-USM ITB Terpusat study desk look. Really messy and full of eraser dust. There's TPA book for logical math exercises and a lot of papers of Math, Science, and English exercises. Of course Carmanita stays beside me. I can't live without music, so I decided to bring my laptop because my MP3 player was broken.

I’m with Jazz now, the other genre of mine. No, it doesn’t mean that I’m a romantic person, but Jazz in me means actually altough many people think that I’m a careless person, the fact is I have really big caring inside of mine. But, in the other way, Jazz for me is a music that make me feels free. I love listening to Al Jarreau’s Mornin' and Breezin’, Quincy Jones’s Ai No Corrida, Earth Wind and Fire’s Reason, In the Stone, September, After the Love Has Gone, and Fantasy, and the other Acid-Jazz or Funk-Jazz songs like DOMU’s even the instrumental ones like Fourplay, Peter White, Joyce Calling, and Dave Koz’s amazing Sax-Jazz.

Mom's older sister (I called her Bude) loves gardening. The Sempurna House didn't have large free space beside the garage, so she decided to put all the plants on the pot. That window behind this garden is the study room's window. So, when I was studying in the afternoon or early morning, I heard the sound of water splash sometimes.

Altough my mood still beating up until now, it doesn’t mean that this entry won’t meet the end. I think I will post another perception of mine about a thing called BESTFRIEND. To tell you the truth, I still can’t think about what the BF is for me. The final year of high school makes me think about my own future and most of the time I forgot my own life as a youngster (I like to being called like that, altough many people still call me as a ‘teenager’) with so many friends mingled. Yes, because I have so many friends, it’s really hard for me to CHOOSE one of them as a close one. It’s true. Being an extroverted and easy-going person is not as fun as most people think. It’s hard, really. Hard to control your own self, finding your own self between people’s thoughts, and live your life as you wanted to with those influencing friend arounf you. Okay, more of those things will be explained on next entry. Just wait, okay? ;)

Au Revoir and Keep Your Health,
Cheers!

Sheyka.

Sudden Love : Typography Part. 1

2009-06-04T13:05:00.008+07:00

Sudah 2 minggu saya nggak makan mie. Saya kangen sekali dengan Mie Keriting instan yang dijual di supermarket-supermarket itu. Keluarga kami memang menerapkan aturan keras dalam memakan makanan instan terutama mie produksi pabrik sejak saya terkena tifus untuk yang ke-enam kalinya.

Siang ini rasanya panas sekali. Saya nggak tahu kenapa sekujur tubuh saya penuh dengan keringat kayak habis main basket (ngomong-ngomong soal basket, saya kangen sekali dengan Gori dan Wibi, tetangga satu kompleks. Saya ingin sekali bisa basket bareng lagi!) sampai saya harus ganti kaos rumahan saya dua kali (oblong kebesaran dan sudah belel pastinya). Sekarang memang bukan musim hujan lagi. Selalu begitu setiap kali bulan Juni dan tentunya, setiap kali saya mau berulang tahun. Cuacanya selalu terik, jarang sekali dingin. Tapi ya nggak apalah, toh saya juga nggak suka sama hujan.

Suasana saat dikejar deadline video angkatan. Pengeditannya dilakukan di rumah Diedra dan beberapa di rumah Deryl. Yang diatas ini adalah teman saya, namanya Diedra Rasyid, salah satu teman multitalented yang saya perkirakan akan sukses dengan soundlab-nya. Sengaja saya ambil sebagai foto candid, karena apapun itu ekspresinya, Diedra selalu terlihat bagus. Well, dia memang nggak fotogenik seperti model-model majalah. Mau tahu apa rahasianya? Diedra selalu penuh peraya diri. Itu hal penting yang dibutuhkan si model untuk terlihat bagus.

Sebenarnya saya lagi malas menulis (tepatnya sedang tidak mood) karena banyak sekali rasanya hal yang harus saya lakukan saat ini juga (belajar untuk UMB, membuat layout web, deadline grafis, etc). Menulis itu sendiri membuat saya berpikir seperti buang-buang waktu saja (untuk saat ini saja sih, nggak selamanya). Saya yang orangnya moody ini memang selalu begitu. Baru-baru ini saja saya baru mengganti watermark saya (yang biasanya kamu lihat di sudut foto-foto saya, warna putih/hitam, bertuliskan 'KIMSHEY') karena saya menemukan font baru yang saya rasa lebih bagus dibanding yang lama. Well, perubahan watermark ini memang berkaitan erat dengan kesukaan saya pada TypeFace dan Fonts, atau yang biasa disebut Typography. Salah satu bagian dari desain grafis itu memang lagi menggandrungi saya banget.

Watermark saya yang baru. Kata teman saya, font yang saya pakai ini adalah sebuah proyek sebagai 'lawan' dari font Comic Sans. Ternyata banyak Typographer yang merasa bosan dengan font tersebut. Dan hebatnya, font Times New Roman yang tidak disukai banyak orang itu sangatlah di-'hormati' para Typographer.

Salah satu karya Typography pertama saya. Masih jauh sekali dari kata bagus, tapi dari gambar inilah saya memutuskan untuk mencoba berkecimpung di dunia grafis vektor (lawannya grafis bitmap; biasa dibuat dengan software Corel Draw atau Adobe Illustrator)

Setiap 3 hari sekali, saya selalu cek ke situs-situs penyedia Font gratis langganan saya, bahkan saya sempatkan untuk kirim email dan komentar-komentar untuk para Typographer favorit saya. Kebanyakan orang mungkin baru tahu istilah seni menulis secara grafis ini, atau bahkan sudah tahu tapi menganggap Typography hanya sekadar sebuah seni menulis indah yang segalanya tergantung pada bentuk dari font yang digunakan. Well, pendapat itu nggak selamanya benar. Memang beberapa Typographer pemula seperti saya, mudah tertarik dengan font-font baru yang unik, lucu, atau masuk dalam kategori Top 100. Tapi setelah saya sudah cukup lama berkecimpung di dunia seni 'menulis' ini, timbul suatu perasaan tertarik tersendiri. Saya ingin tahu, siapakah pembuat font Verdana, Times New Roman, atau bahkan Georgia, salah satu font favorit saya yang sering saya gunakan dalam tulisan ataupun grafis. Sejarah-sejarah dari font-font itu sendiri membuat Typography ini menjadi semakin menarik. Well, mungkin saya akan jelaskan itu lebih detail di lain waktu, karena saya sendiri sekarang lagi dikejar waktu (saya punya 5 deadline! Harus saya selesaikan, atau saya dipecat.). Yang terpenting, kalian bisa mengerti kalau Typography itu bukan suatu hal yang mudah untuk dilakukan. Seni 'menulis' itu membutuhkan ketelitian, high sense of art, kemampuan dalam hal arrangements yang tinggi, dan tentu saja, font yang menarik tidak selalu jadi hal utama.

Salah satu foto dari School Series Part.4 . Kiri-Kanan : Risa Rilanda (Enca), Fita Meilisa, Restya, Karina, Dania, Gina. Well, agak susah sebenarnya untuk meng-capture mereka karena cewek-cewek ini memang sangat heboh, LOL :D

By the way, saya baru saja meng-upload foto-foto bagian keempat dari School Series saya di Facebook. Ingin sekali rasanya posting foto-foto itu disini, tapi saya nggak bisa karena harus menyelesaikan beberapa grafis yang diminta oleh Moderator-moderator LiveJournal community tempat saya bekerja. Lain kali saja ya :)

Auf Wiedersehn!

P.S : Untuk sementara ini, saya nggak melayani pesanan pembuatan layout blog dulu. Sekali lagi, maaf buat Vinny karena janji saya kembali harus ditunda.

Countdown and Pray

2009-05-25T22:22:00.006+07:00

my first painting with Reeves poster paint. At first, I planned to draw a Balinese girl, but I failed. I did this for Art subject practical test in school. I've got score around 8, and I think it's a good start because I painted this as a beginner. There's some secrets behind this painting. If you want to know about it, just comment here.

Recently, I'm starting to dig deeper about fantasy novel and movies. After Golden Compass, Inkheart, and Narnia caught my mind in, I think I should read this novel again. Cornelia Funke is the author of Inkheart, and this Herr Derr Diebe has already filmed in 2006. The movie was not good, far too bad from the novel. I think it's a common problems, so... nevermind.

My latest still-life (flower and plant category) shoot. This flower is the 'latest' flower in Mom's little garden. Actually, I have more than 2 photos of this flower, including this one. But I think it's better to publish it with the other flower photos. I planned to make another photo series, but I still have to think about its title.

Those are the recent photos that I took with NORTHCAKES (or NC ; my Kodak V550 digital camera's new name. Inspired from Golden Compass movie and the rest of His Dark Materials books.) --> except the first photo (my painting) which was taken on January 2009.

I'm going to have a short-hiatus until the end of May, exactly on June 1st because I have a lot of things to be done ; about my university entrance test and so on.

Bandung Institute of Technology's Main Office at Taman Sari street. Taken in front of the Indomaret mini-market beside a large construction of a new building.

So, yeah, from May 27th to 31st, I have to go to Bandung, West Java,
as a FIRST STEP TO CATCH MY DREAM.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, WISH ME LUCK AND ABLE TO DO THE ENTRANCE TEST.

P.S : For Vinny, sorry, I have to postpone your layout-request. I have to finish a lot of things until June 7th. I will make sure after June 8th, your blog will be done quickly :)

*If you have any question, feel free to contact me here and by email : sheykascooby@gmail.com

World's Best Painting Part. 1

2009-05-21T10:44:00.005+07:00

taken on 6.30 AM, exactly on my class balcony. This is the view of my school's basketball court. The basketball court painted with green and red tone. Very colourful and eye-friendly :)

Guten Tag!
Kembali dengan mode Bahasa Indonesia, akhirnya, lega sekali bisa kembali posting beberapa hasil kedahsyatan perpaduan antara rasa, otak, kecepatan syaraf motorik, dan nggak ketinggalan, fitur si kamera sendiri, yang kali ini membuat saya 'menelurkan' photo series baru, WORLD'S BEST PAINTING.

Tidak, karya ini bukan saya dedikasikan sebagai kekaguman saya akan pelukis-pelukis dunia macam Da Vinci, Van Gogh yang membunuh dirinya sendiri itu, atau bahkan Michelangelo. Mungkin banyak orang yang nggak sadar kalau sebenarnya lukisan-lukisan itu ada di sekitar mereka. Tepatnya, lukisan-lukisan tersebut adalah karya dari Sang Maestro itu sendiri, siapa lagi kalau bukan Tuhan Yang Maha Esa dan Maha Kuasa atas segalanya, Allah SWT (kita berbicara disini dengan konteks saya sebagai muslim, bukan dimaksudkan untuk radikal atau apa). Ya, seri foto ini saya dedikasikan sebagai rasa kekaguman saya atas kekuasaan Allah SWT yang telah 'melukis' langit-langit itu. Saya yakin, nggak ada di dunia ini yang bisa membuat sunset, sunrise, atau bahkan langit-langit senja dan tentu saja, pelangi, selain Dia.

Untuk WBP bagian pertama, saya ingin posting beberapa lukisan langit yang semuanya saya ambil dari balkon sekolah. Ya, SMA Negeri 61 Jakarta, walau tidak terlalu beruntung karena terletak di dekat SUTET, sekolah tempat saya mendedikasikan hidup saya sebagai pelajar selama 3 tahun itu punya pemandangan yang indah. Kebetulan sekolah saya itu terletak di tanah yang agak keatas, dan keberadaan SUTET itu sendiri sudah merupakan hal yang seolah-olah jadi trademark.

Saya pagi itu datang lebih pagi dari biasanya dan sebagai hadiahnya, Allah memberikan saya pemadangan yang bisa dibilang agak langka untuk saya. Ya, sebuah sunrise adalah hadiah terbaik sebagai awal dari hari itu.

Sesuai dengan apa yang tertulis di foto itu sendiri, ya, saya mengambil gambar ini tepat pukul 7 pagi, sekitar 30 menit setelah bel masuk. Guru pelajaran jam pertama saya belum datang, jadi untuk apa saya sia-siakan waktu?

Saya ambil gambar ini dari depan balkon kelas XI IPS 2, tempat saya mengerjakan UAS selama 5 hari penuh stres itu. Kebetulan baru saja ada pesawat jet yang lewat, dan tentu saja mengarah ke Bandara Halim Perdanakusuma. Yang belakang adalah awan asli, tapi yang garis putih mencolok itu adalah bekas jalur pesawat jet itu sendiri.

Saya lupa tepatnya kapan saya ambil foto ini. Tapi yang jelas saya waktu itu sedang UAS, dan tentu saja, sama seperti foto yang sebelumnya, diambil dari balkon kelas XI IPS 2. Garis hitam di sebelah kiri itu adalah tiang bendera sekolah saya yang benderanya baru saja diturunkan seminggu yang lalu, karena memang tidak ada upacara apapun.

Susah sekali untuk mendapatkan angle yang tepat untuk foto ini. Saya harus rela menjulurkan badan kuat-kuat dan semaksimal mungkin dari balkon dan meminta teman saya untuk memegangi saya agar saya tidak jatuh.

Kalau kalian suka main game Final Fantasy pasti tahu apa yang namanya GF. Ya, menurut saya, awan-awan yang seperti kapas ini seakan-akan adalah 'monster pagi' yang siap menerjang seluruh langit. Bentuk 'monster' itu seperti aura chakra yang saya sering lihat di komik-komik ninja seperti Naruto.

Sama seperti foto sebelumnya, menurut saya, awan ini layaknya aura chakra. Begitu tipis, tapi kuat. Awan kali ini bentuknya seperti sayap putih. Dan kalian bisa melihat bahwa keberadaan SUTET disitu seakan-akan mengatakan bahwa ia sangat kokoh, sekaligus berbahaya (iya, SUTET kan tegangan tinggi bok, hihihi).

Salah satu dari achievment paling besar dalam karir saya sebagai freelance photographer, memotret bulan yang begitu sulit untuk di-image enhance, dan begitu sulit untuk mendapatkan angle yang tepat agar sinarnya nggak pudar. Saya potret ini dengan Night Mode, dan susah sekali menggunakan mode itu dengan sebuah kamera digital poket biasa.

Tolong sekali yang mampir komentar walau sedikit mengenai foto-foto saya ini. Benar-benar saya mengharapkan respect kalian :)

P.S : Untuk anak-anak SMA 61 yang baca tulisan ini, jangan khawatir, next target saya adalah SCHOOL SERIES Part. 4 :3 Saya sudah siap untuk mempublikasikan kaliaaan oh, teman-temanku tersayang.

Lantas Kenapa Kalau Saya Terluka?

2009-05-21T09:07:00.006+07:00

Saya nemu kecoak mati di depan tangga sekolah. Karena saat itu kamera sedang dalam posisi stand-by di tangan dan kecoak itu sendiri masih bernafas, untuk apa habis-habiskan waktu? LOL :D

Begitu banyak pelajaran yang saya dapat minggu ini, mulai dari membentuk jati diri sendiri sampai ingin rasanya untuk bisa menguliahi orang lain dengan apa yang saya alami. Saya kini menulis dengan kaki terluka (walau tangan masih bisa berfungsi, tentu saja), tepatnya tertusuk paku payung yang nggak sengaja saya injak kemarin. Ternyata paku payung itu berasal dari lemari tua saya yang terbuat dari kayu jati. Ya, rumah saya, sampai ke kamar dan lemari saya pun bukan tipe-tipe modern minimalis seperti tren properti dan desain masa kini. Ayah saya yang idealis nggak suka mengikuti tren, ia pun memutuskan hanya akan mengganti barang-barang yang kondisinya sudah sekarat saja. Ayah selalu seperti itu. Kadang jiwa idealisnya mendatangkan hal-hal positif, tapi yang namanya idealis tetaplah idealis, kalau tinggal dengan orang seperti itu, siap-siap latihan kesabaran yang tinggi saja kalau nggak mau debat lama-lama. Alhamdulillah, kesabaran Ibu sangatlah besar dan Ibu sendiri juga adalah figur yang sangat tegar. Ibu saya dididik secara amat baik oleh Mbahkung saya sampai ia pernah bercerita bahwa ia nggak diizinkan untuk pacaran sampai kuliah, sebuah aturan yang diturunkan oleh Ibu saya kepada saya sampai sekarang. Ya, saya belum pernah pacaran. Ibu nggak memberi ‘lampu hijau’ itu sampai ia merasa saya sudah siap benar, tepatnya setelah usia saya 17 tahun, dimana saya saat itu sudah kuliah. Saya sendiri sih nerima saja, wong saya juga ngerasa daripada saya jadi orang jahat yang nyuekin pacarnya terus karena kesibukan saya sendiri di sekolah maupun kerjaan saya di dunia maya, lebih baik saya nggak pacaran. Lantas kenapa? Mbok ya nggak salah toh. Pacaran itu kan sebuah pilihan, bukan kewajiban. Lantas kalau nggak pernah pacaran artinya nggak laku gitu? Ah, terserah kalian kalau mau beranggapan seperti itu. Tapi saya kasih tahu saja, itu namanya pikiran yang picik. Pikiran kayak gitu itu masih teenager banget. Nggak pantes ah, kalau calon mahasiswa pikirannya kayak gitu. Pacaran sama benda mati seperti kamera dan laptop saya saja sudah repot sekali, gimana pacaran sama yang hidup? Capek ah, rasanya kalau mikirin itu terus. Masih pengen egois dulu, belum mau berbagi perhatian. Boleh dong? LOL :3

Dua adik saya. Yang kiri nggak pernah sadar kalau dirinya berulangtahun tanggal 29 Maret setiap tahunnya, yang kanan selalu sadar dan karena masih kecil, tentu saja apa lagi yang bisa ia harapkan selain mainan untuk hadiah ulang tahunnya? Ini saat-saat dimana kedua adik saya itu sedang akur-akurnya. Sekarang yang terkecil sudah pintang ngomong. Blah :(

Tanggal 23 Mei nanti adalah pesta perpisahan kelas 12 SMAN 61 Jakarta, sekolah dimana saya ‘tinggal’ selamuh dengan double-T alias Tawa dan Tangis. Lah, iya toh, nggak afdol rasanya kalau belum pernah nangis dikarenakan sekolah. Waktu itu saya memang menangis bukan karena pelajaran di sekoa 3 tahun penlah sih, Alhamdulillah kalau urusan itu selalu baik-baik saja. Saya menangis sejadi-jadinya, bisa jadi yang ketiga dari tangisan paling sadis, paling keras, paling lama, dalam hidup saya (ah, yang pertama dan kedua nggak usahlah disebutkan kenapa). Itu terjadi waktu saya masih jadi OSIS, menjabat sebagai Ketua Seksi Olahraga, tepatnya Sie. 7—Seksi Kesegaran Jasmani dan Daya Kreasi—sekaligus Ketua event olahraga paling besar di 61, NASA.COM (eNAm SAtu COMpetition). Saya nangis karena stres berat. Ah, tapi itu masa lalu, bisa ngehabisin lebih dari satu halaman blog kalau saya cerita soal itu. Seperti kegagalan saya di USM ITB Daerah kemarin, saya kubur semua itu sebagai masa lalu. Saya hanya ambil hikmahnya saja. termasuk saat OSIS itu, yang nggak mungkin saya sebutin disini semuanya karena saya lagi nggak mood untuk nguliahin orang.

Salah satu dari anak kucing Anggora milik Bude saya. Ia bukan Anggora 100% seperti Ibunya karena ia adalah hasil perkawinan dari Anggora dan kucing kampung. Maklum, masih kecil sukanya lendotan sama manusia. Itu kaki Ibu saya, yang butuh sekitar hampir 10 menit untuk bisa lepas dari 'cengkeramannya'.

Well, kembali ke luka saya itu. Awalnya saya nggak pernah mengira kalau sakitnya bakal menyiksa saya. Walaupun sama nggak enaknya, luka dalam itu lebih berasa sakit dibanding luka luar. Luka luar lebih mudah dijangkau oleh cairan Betadine, nah luka dalam, musti dikeluarin darahnya dulu baru tetesin Betadine. Ya, kata Ibu, sehabis tertusuk (apapun itu), harus cepat-cepat dikeluarkan semua darahnya sampai dirasa darahnya sudah tinggal sedikit (karena nggak mungkin darah nggak bisa berhenti kecuali kamu pengidap/carrier Hemofilia). Ibu bilang itu untuk menghindari infeksi. Apapun itu yang menyentuh bawah kulit kita (duri mawar sekalipun), pasti mengandung kuman. Kadang ada orang yang salah paham, semua luka harus cepat-cepat dibersihkan dengan air keran. Mereka salah banget tuh, nggak mungkin ada air keran yang steril 100%, pasti ada lah seenggaknya beberapa persen kandungan bakterinya. Kalau kamu terluka, kebaret, apalagi jatuh di tanah/aspal, cepat-cepat ambil kain kasa (tisu dan kapas boleh juga, tapi lebih baik kain kasa) dan bersihin darah-darahnya dan kotoran-kotoran kecil, baru setelah itu kasih Betadine. Ah, kok saya jadi kayak Dokter gini sih. Well, ya, luka di kaki itu menyiksa sekali. Kalau jalan, saya harus jinjit karena kalau jalan secara normal, rasanya ngilu sekali, seperti menginjak benda tumpul seharian. Gimana untuk tanggal 23 nanti? Kalau kaki saya belum sembuh benar, bisa-bisa saya duduk terus dan itu dipastikan akan sangat tidak nyaman, karena saya adalah tipe yang tidak bisa duduk diam. Duh, doain saya sembuh ya.

Saya ada cerita lagi, teman saya, Dandri Aly alias Deryl, baru-baru ini ng-update status Facebooknya, saya lupa bagaimana persisnya ia menulis, tapi yang jelas statusnya itu menandakan bahwa ia benar-benar jobless selama liburan, sampai ia mengira bakal jadi ‘lumutan’ karena ‘ngendap’ di rumah terus. Awalnya komentar yang datang biasa, paling lebay-lebay dan ‘haha-hihi’, lama-kelamaan, starting from Marisa Sarnilita, mantan OSIS sama seperti saya, yang dijuluki Batak dan lumayan disegani karena sifat tegasnya (tapi tetap cantik dan konyol), ngasih komentar agak pedas bahwa ia nggak suka Deryl nulis kayak gitu mentang-mentang Deryl sudah diterima di Fakultas SITH ITB. Dia ngerasa masih banyak orang yang belum diterima, dan nggak seharusnya sebagai siswa angkatan Arvorescent yang solider untuk nulis seperti itu. Saya yang saat itu agak surprised, ikut ngasih komentar juga, tapi nggak terlalu pedas karena saya nggak mau Deryl tersinggung: Der, jangan nulis kayak gitulah. Bukannya gue marah atau gimana, tapi nanti ada banyak orang yang salah paham sama elo. Dikiranya elo sombong. Lo tau kan FB itu terbuka banget, siapa aja tahu apa aja yang baru lo update. Ya, Alhamdulillah si Deryl nggak tersinggung sih. Dia akhirnya minta maaf walaupun statusnya nggak dihapus.

Saya selalu berpikir kapan saya bisa melukis pohon yang begitu detil sampai ke daunnya seperti ini. Salah satu teman saya di dA pernah mengatakan bahwa untuk mendapatkan efek terbagus, harus menggunakan kuas Cina. Sepertinya saya akan kembali menabung :)

Pengen sekali rasanya cerita semua kejadian di minggu ini, tapi rasanya nanti akan jadi terlalu panjang entrinya. Yah, intinya sih, nggak semua harus diselesaikan saat ini juga. Nah itu salah satu pelajaran yang saya dapat tuh. Saya yang dulu orangnya suka banget memforsir kegiatan, alias menunda-nunda, dan ujung-ujungnya malah mengerjakan dengan sistem kebut-kebutan, dan men-total-kan semuanya pada hari itu jadi ngerasain akibatnya, si bakteri Salmonella Thyposa itupun begitu mudahnya menginfeksi saya kayak virus Trojan. Robohlah saya untuk yang keenam kalinya di rumah, sampai akhirnya saya tahu bahwa penyakit Tifus saya bukan penyakit yang seperti orang lain rasakan. Well, detilnya nggak usahlah ya dijelasin disini. Toh, tulisan ini dibuat bukan untuk mengemis belas kasihan, tapi untuk dijadiin pelajaran aja.

Saya senang sekali kalau tulisan saya bisa jadi inspirasi. Ternyata masih ada orang di Indonesia ini yang masih mau komentar di blog orang yang sama sekali bukan fashion blogger atau seniman yang lain :) Senang sekali rasanya dihargai. Makanya, belajar menghargai orang terlebih dahulu sebelum asal koar-koar ngomong, “Respect dong, respect.” Ah, sok keren itu.

*Saya lupa cerita kalau saya sempat kecipratan minyak lumayan banyak di tangan tapi bisa dicegah untuk tidak melepuh dengan mengoleskan putih telur secepatnya (bukan mentega) di bagian kulit yang terkena cipratan. Itu salah satu alasan kenapa putih telur adalah hal yang wajib ada di kulkas (ditutup ya, dan masukinnya di cooler aja, jangan di freezer).

‘Nostalgia’ atau Back to Basic?

2009-05-17T23:32:00.004+07:00

Bunga-bunga di taman milik Ibu mulai bermekaran. Salah satunya bunga ini. Saya nggak tahu namanya apa, tapi yang jelas bunganya cantik banget. Nanti kalau ada foto lain saya upload deh. Yang jelas, ini semua diambil bukan pakai SLR, loh :)

Ada sekitar 6 draft yang sampai saat ini belum saya publish di blog. Itu artinya saya masih sama seperti yang dulu, masih suka menunda-nunda. Sebenernya sih memang hanya 2 yang sudah selesai sampai ke kalimat-kalimat terakhirnya segala, 4 lainnya masih sekadar ‘numpang lewat’ alias hanya pikiran saya yang lagi random aja.

Kemarin sempet berkunjung ke beberapa blog penulis yang beberapa dari entri mereka membuat saya terinspirasi. Sebut saja salah satunya adalah Alanda Kariza. Bukannya saya mau promosiin dia atau gimana, tapi kalian bisa lihat sendiri blog-nya kalau nggak percaya. She’s worthed for praises as always. Walau sudah nggak ‘menelurkan’ novel atau cerpen lagi, kualitas menulis Nda memang patut diacungi jempol. Entri dia yang terakhir itu menggambarkan perasaan yang dia alami saat ini. Well, salah satunya adalah merasa kesepian. Walaupun Nda nggak ngomong secara blak-blakkan, tapi saya bisa paham dari isi Twitter-nya dan beberapa kalimat yang kejadiannya hampir sama seperti yang saya pernah alami dulu. Ya, dulu.

Sebenernya bukan inspirasi juga sih yang saya dapat dari Nda atau blog lain, cuma kok rasanya menjadi lebih tergerak aja begitu. Poin utama yang ‘menggerakkan’ saya untuk menulis random seperti ini lagi adalah dengan digunakannya Bahasa Indonesia sebagai bahasa posting-an. Masih banyak lagi poin-poin yang ‘masuk’ ke pikiran saya sih, cuma kayaknya nggak terlalu baiklah kalau terlalu sering menyanjung orang lain tapi diri sendiri nggak dicintai. Hahahahaha… Ya, sekarang saya mulai lagi belajar mencintai diri sendiri lagi nih. Mulai dari fisik sampai kesini, ya itu… penggunaan Bahasa Indonesia sebagai bahasa posting-an. Saya juga mulai bernostalgia dengan diri sendiri. Mulai mencintai PC Games lagi, tapi kali ini tentu saja bukan The Sims atau racing game macam Nascar dan NFS (Need For Speed) yang dulu saya gandrungi banget sampai lupa waktu. Kali ini yang saya download dari internet adalah game-game yang memeras otak, dari RPG yang karakternya masih ‘imut’ alias 2D (mainnya dengan emulator), strategy game layaknya Age of Empire, sampai ke detective game seperti Art of Murder : FBI Confidential yang sedang saya gandrungi. Saya sadar kalau umur-umur ‘peralihan’ kayak sekarang bukan saatnya untuk main game, tapi saatnya untuk mikir. Latihan berpikir, tepatnya.

Salah satu teman saya yang ikut-ikutan berubah ke arah jalan yang lebih baik. Saya ambil foto ini secara candid karena saya tahu orangnya nggak suka difoto close-up. Namanya Yolanda Sri Rahayu, sekarang di sudah diterima di fakultas Ilmu Komputer UGM. Hebat ya, dia yang urakan (walau sampai sekarang masih), sudah mulai potong rambut dan rajin belajar. Iut semua sekarang membuahkan hasil :)

Kalau soal musik, saya sendiri yang tadinya sempat ke arah electronica dan acid jazz yang tidak seringan yang dibayangkan orang (kamu tahu Buddha Bar? Saya sampai download 6 album mereka penuh dari Mininova), sekarang sudah beralih ke arah mainstream lagi. Nggak, maksud mainstream disini bukan berarti saya mulai dengerin lagu-lagu radio macam Gen, Prambors, atau Mustang yang terbaru(yang sampai sekarang sudah hampir 1 tahun, seriously, sudah tidak pernah lagi saya dengar). Maksudnya, saya mulai melirik lagu-lagu lama yang sudah saya tinggalkan karena bosan. Well, untuk lagu barat, saya mulai menyentuh masa-masa kejayaan boybands di dalam diri saya macamnya lagu Backstreet Boys dan 98 Degrees. Kalau untuk lagu Jazz, saya mulai mendengarkan musik-musik orangtua alias Jazz lama macamya Al Jarreau dan Earth Wind and Fire. Kalau untuk lagu Asia, saya mulai lagi mendengarkan soundtrack-nya drama Princess Hours dan Full House yang dulu sempat booming di Indonesia. Ya, saya punya semua itu. Tapi dulu saya tinggalkan karena saya bosan. Well, kamu tahu sekarang kan, saya orangnya memang cepat bosan.

Adik-adik saya juga nggak ada yang berubah. Masih begitu-begitu saja, paling hanya tambah nakal. Namanya juga masih kecil. Dan yang pasti, yang sebelah kiri, Igo, adik saya yang duduk di bangku SMP kelas 2 sekarang tinggin badannya udah sama kayak saya loh :)

Gaya menulis saya juga perlahan-lahan berubah. Mulai dari nge-blog sampai chatting. Kalian kan sudah tahu kalau saya sudah mulai menggandrugi lagi penggunaan Bahasa Indonesia sebagai bahasa posting-an dan disini saya juga nulisnya bukan pakai ‘aku-kamu’ atau ‘gue-elo’, tapi dengan ‘saya-kamu’ atau ‘saya-elo’. Saya pernah chat sama teman baru saya yang namanya Dhita (yang punya Jakarta Ceria), dia agak kaget gitu melihat saya membalas dengan gaya semi-formal (menurut saya; saya-lo) sementara ia menulis dengan gaya anak muda biasanya (gue-lo). Well, karena saya takut dia merasa nggak nyaman, saya pun merubahnya dengan gaya anak sekolahan seperti biasa. Yang lebay, yang pakai ‘gue-elo’, yang blak-blakkan, yah, pokoknya kayak bicara sama teman sekolah saja. Toh dia sendiri juga satu angkatan sama saya walau beda sekolah. Awalnya malah Dhita sempat nanya kalau saya bisa chat pakai bahasa Indonesia atau nggak. Saya sebenarnya ketawa juga sih kalau ingat itu. Rasanya agak konyol. Mayoritas posting-an saya memang dengan bahasa Inggris, malah beberapa menggunakan kata-kata asing dari Jerman, Jepang, dan Perancis. Tapi semuanya itu semata-mata bukan untuk biar terlihat keren kok. Sejujurnya, saya cuma ingin agar apa yang telah saya pelajari di sekolah (Jepang), di Goethe (Jerman), di ekskul waktu SMP (Perancis), nggak hilang begitu saja walau sampai sekarang hanya ingat beberapa kata-kata populer. Alasan saya menggunakan bahasa Inggris juga karena saya punya banyak sekali teman antar-negara, terutama negara-negara Asia macam Malaysia, Singapura, Vietnam, Thailand, dan Korea tentunya, yang tentu saja nggak bisa membaca bahasa ibu saya. Apa boleh buat, bahasa Inggris pun saya pakai karena saya juga kebetulan sudah merasa nyaman dan merasa ‘bisa’ menggunakan bahasa itu. Saya bisa kenal mereka semua karena saya suka sekali dengan budaya Korea terutama industri entertainment-nya itu. Mereka semua saya kenal dari milis, forum, LiveJournal (kebanyakan dari mereka adalah seorang fangirl, dimana LJ adalah tempat berkumpulnya orang-orang yang memiliki fandom), blog KimsheynotKimchi yang saya kelola dengan sahabat saya dari Singapura, Apple, dan beberapa situs internasional macamnya Soompi. Well, kalau orang banyak memandang sebelah mata pada kebudayaan Asia, terutama Korea yang terkenal dengan fangirling-nya itu, saya nggak peduli. Mereka nggak tahu kalau itu semua bisa menambah wawasan dan teman pastinya. Banyak yang nanya sama saya gimana caranya bisa dapat cowok dari negara lain atau teman orang Amerika, dan lain-lain. Sebenernya sih gampang aja. Ikutin aja apa hobi dan interest kamu terhadap sesuatu, lalu browsing dan do the research di forum-forum atau situs-situs internasional. Nanti juga akan merasa nyaman sendiri kok.

Masih soal bahasa, memang kadang western-minded itu bikin orang memandang kita seakan-akan kita nggak cinta pada Indonesia. Padahal orang-orang yang ngomong seperti itu juga memang mereka sudah pasti cinta sama Indonesia juga? Saya sih nggak mau munafik. Saya cinta sama Indonesia, tapi caranya bukan dengan ngomong, speech, promosi, atau apalah itu yang dilakukan oleh para aktivis. Saya bangga bahwa saya anak Indonesia, kelahiran Asia, mempunyai mata besar dibanding para Korean yang sibuk operasi plastik biar matanya jadi besar, dan pastinya, saya bangga saya dilahirkan di bangsa yang punya predikat pribadi baik di mata dunia ini (walaupun soal environment changes dan drugs Indonesia adalah salah satu dari negara yang ‘berkontribusi’). Jadi ya, intinya kalau kalian mau mengatai saya western-minded, terserah. Tapi memang kenyataannya begitu kok. Boleh dong yang kebarat-baratan itu pikirannya aja, asal bukan kelakuannya atau moralnya. Saya masih walking on the straight line kok, nggak nyeleneh ke arah clubbing/dugem, rokok, free sex, atau bicara kotor macam “Shit”, “Fuck” dan semacamnya. Sengaja nggak saya sensor, soalnya kadang ada orang yang berlagak bego alias pura-pura nggak ngerti apa sebenernya kata “F***” itu.

Saya juga mencoba lagi untuk kembali bersepeda keliling kompleks dan kelurahan seperti yang dulu saya biasa lakukan. Habis, kalau mau basket, ring kompleks sudah patah, kalau mau berenang, saya lagi datang bulan jadi nggak bisa. Ya sudah, lari dan bersepeda adalah cara yang paling bisa bikin capek :)

Diantara perubahan-perubahan yang dibilang ‘nostalgia’ ini, saya sendiri merubah diri saya agar nyaman terhadap diri sendiri. Kalau soal wardrobe, itu sih dari dulu nggak berubah ya, seleranya masih itu. Kalau nggak jeans, ya vest, atau t-shirt. Sama saja, palingan yang beda adalah adanya sebuah pikiran yang terlintas di benak saya untuk memakai rok selutut tapi tetap dipadankan dengan sneakers. Saya yang kata orang-orang berlebihan (bahasa gaulnya “lebay”) ini sebenernya merasa nyaman dengan apa yang saya lakukan. Mungkin nanti lain kali saya bahas mengenai ini. Karena sebenernya saya sendiri ingin sekali tahu apa respon atau komentar kalian mengenai entri-entri blog saya selama ini. Well, saya lebih suka kalian komentar di posting-annnya, bukan di ShoutBox :D .

Sekalian promosi untuk posting berikutnya. Salah satu karya kebanggaan saya sebagai makhluk ciptaan Allah SWT. Hayoo, siapa yang bisa tebak apa lukisan yang paling bagus sedunia? Kita lihat jawabannya nanti ya, :)

SHEYKA
*Sebenernya saya lebih suka dibilang bernostalgia dibanding ‘back to basic’ karena saya sendiri ngerasa nggak berubah sampai seekstrim 3 kata yang jadi judul albumnya Christina Aguilera itu. LOL :D

P.S : Untuk Dhita dan Alanda, maaf ya kalau namanya gue sebut :)

SuperDollfie of Arcadia Dolls

2009-05-02T09:29:00.005+07:00

See that? this is one of the SuperDollfie of Arcadia Dolls.
He is soo handsome, altoughs he's not alive. LOL :D

While editing the School Series Part. 3, I want to introduce something that maybe sounds new for all of you. This thing called Arcadia Dolls, one of best designers of Super Dolfie (Ball-jointed Dolls). If you explore the world of Super Dolfie, you will find that Arcadia Dolls is a brand with best design and concept. Arcadia Dolls was created by two Spanish sisters who like BJD, photography, fashion, design, illustration and art in general. First, they dressed and photographed their dolls just for fun, but soon a lot of projects started to rise in their minds. As a result, they started selling some of their doll outfits at eBay, and also started planning to do their own online shop. They’ve also published some of their photographs as calendars, postcards, bookmarks and badges, and sewing tutorials for Haute Doll magazine. They would like to publish a book with pictures, illustrations and the Arcadia Dolls stories in a near future.

Most of the Super Dolfie (SD) collectors have their own websites fully featured with Gallery or Contact Number in case if there's anyone who interested with their fuly-designed dolls. They vary in price from about 30.000 yen (about US $300) for the smallest, unassembled standard models up to about 150.000 yen (about US $1400) for the most exclusive larger limited dolls that come with outfits and accessories. Well it's like, if the dolls come with more accessories (especially the wigs and eye colours), the price will be more expensive.

Well if you are confused, you can compare SuperDollfie (produced by VOLKS, originated in Japan, and called as 'Dollfie Trends') with Barbie (produced by Mattel, called as 'Teen Trends').

SuperDollfies made from a high quality resin (as heavy as porcelain dolls) while Barbie made from plastic (depend on the variety, sometimes Barbie made from resin too).
Barbie has some joints (in Indonesia, it means 'sendi') while SD has more joints which make them look more like a human than just a doll.
The details of the doll are different too. Barbie has a hair that rooted and cannot be pulled and a lip that cannot be coloured and the eye colour that can't never be changed. SuperDollfie is much far different from Barbie. Like a human, you can change the eye colour, do make-ups even add a blush-on or eye liner, pull their wig (SD have no permanent hair like Barbie), and even you can see the details of the sexual organs.

For more info about the difference, you can see it here.

Because I have no money (even for SLR camera, lol), I can't buy this thing even for just a wig (cost above 100 dollars) and the cost of overseas shopping is very expensive too. But out there, a lot of Japanese people and Western people love to buy this thing. The main reason for them is for just a hobbies for people who have a lot of money (because this hobby is not an easy hobby. If you can't sew the clothes, make your own wigs, sculpt the resin, and design them yourself, you will spend a lot of money for it). If you are a teenagers or a child, maybe this doll can be your imaginary friend or just a collection. But there's some people (most of them are woman with age more than 40) who like to collect them and make them as their own 'childs'. Even some people like to have a house full with the dolls beside SuperDollfie or have a SuperDollfie with a height like a human (VOLKS sell like-a-human doll with height 170 cm too!). If you have no child and have a good imagination (lol :D), SuperDollfie can be like your own 'adopted child'. Well, the difference is of course : A doll have no soul, so you can't hear them talking to you, even moving themselves.

SuperDollfie photos spread around the virtual world. You can see them in DeviantART, but mostly on the designer's sites and Flickr. If you have a good sight, you will mention that SuperDollfie photos always on high-quality. It's all because the important thing of SuperDollfie photo is the details. It can be useful for just a visitors or the buyers. The higher quality of photo (more than 10 MP, taken by DSLR cam, mostly), the better it looks.

The dolls have their own stories too. In Arcadia itself, they have more than 10 stories for the dolls. It make the dolls have more meanings and of course, the buyers will be more interested. For me, the best brand of SuperDollfie is Arcadia Dolls.
You can see more on their websites.

Thanks to :
VOLKS, Super Dollfie Owner Lists, AngelDen, Den Of Angels

It's Just a Sense

2009-04-30T21:11:00.008+07:00

This photo is part of my School series. The after-shave boy is Indra whose nickname is "Botak". His face is cute, and all girls (even boys) love to touch his head and make fun of him. Altough he's funny, his basketball talent is great (his speciality is fast-break) and he was our team's captain.

Do you know what is my current obsession now?

I want all my photo looks good. Even I never use SLR camera.

I have no SLR, even DSLR camera (for you who don't know, DSLR is the digital version of SLR, it use memory, not a film roll). I have no money to buy it, even for lomo camera which cost less expesive than SLR/DSLR camera. What I have now is only a black pocket digital camera, Kodak V550, with a 5.0 Megapixel built-in lens, and of course, a sense of photography.

I took this NOT on night time (altough the light seems more likely night mode). Actually, this photo was taken on afternoon, when the sun shines brightly above our heads. The effect of the photo came all of sudden, I didn't remember what I was doing. Maybe I was just playing with the lights. But the Photoshop always helps.

I wrote this statement because a lot of people in my school (especially my friends who got model-ed in my School series) and some of my virtual friends asked me about that. Even some of them think that all of my photos was taken with SLR camera because of the angle. Omona my friends, please read carefully. I am just a normal people who came from a family with no interest of art. I have no grandparents or parents or family relations who have an old SLR camera or what, like the other young photographer who usually got their first SLR camera handed down from their family relations. Sometimes I don't know why I have such an interest of art like this. Even my Mom and Dad didn't agree to my hobbies at first, because they didn't want me to become just an artist. They told me that if I wanted to become an artist, I must continue my higher education in Europe or America, because most of the time, Indonesia didn't pay so much respect to artists (even they didn't pay so much attention to the social workers like Doctors and Nurses, not like in Japanese and the other countries). Just a few people who realize about that.

Well, what I wanted you to know is that : Camera brand or variety is not the primary factor of good photos. EVEN IF YOU HAVE A SLR CAMERA, IT DOESN'T MEAN THAT EVERY PHOTOS THAT YOU HAVE TOOK IS A GOOD PHOTO.

Many people didn't realize that behind all of those good angels and technique there is one primary reason why the photos look good. It is the sense of photography. If you love photography so much, you would search about it on the internet even ask a lot of people to steal their knowledges. It doesn't mean that you must buy a good brand of camera or any camera with high megapixels. A good photo comes from everywhere, even if you had a cellphone camera, you could get a good photo too. The point is that sense. Like a lot people say, "Like it, Dig it".

Last but not least, I don't like if there's someone who said, "Photography is only for rich people" or "Photography is an expensive hobby". Maybe most people thinks that's right, but for me, it doesn't.

P.S :
I accept any comments or critics. This post is just my thoughts. You know I'm idealistic :)

Sudden love : Kim Daul

2009-04-29T19:03:00.006+07:00

This is Kim Daul. She's a Korean top model and she's pure, not like the other Korean popular people who got their face done under the knife. That's why I love her.

While everyone were looking for a good-looking models and most of them are European/American, this girl amaze me only with her own life stories in her blog, I Like To Fork Myself. In her blog, she write all of her thinks without any afraid of getting bad comments. She is really cool. I found her looks and her crazy manners in Hong Sukwoo's, hanging around on Daily Projects shop in Cheongdam-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul with this outfit :

Daul was wearing a vintage KISS t-shirt and grey wig for her pictorial photoshoot session. Her skirt was Ann Sofie Back's.

I thought Kim Daul was like the other models who smokes and love parties. But later I found that she stated herself in here, that she doesn't care what people think about her. She doesn't smoke cigarettes, goes to bed early, and she doesn't party. She said that she only rave-ing at home and she always listens to her mother's words. Well, she stated something like this because she does a photo series with her French gay boyfriends and a lot of people asked her about herself. They said she was on high and drunk and like to act crazy. But the truth is : She's alright and she was just having fun with herself. It's better having fun with yourself and your friends with camera than having fun in parties or clubs.

She's just like a normal girl who just got lucky can be friend with Coco Rocha and she is a great painter too.
For your info, Daul was stopped public-school-ing at age 15 and then she was homeschool-ed until now. Daul's age is same as me, 17 years old this year. She was so young altough she looks older in photos or catwalks. She was ranked on models.com on #47 from TOP 50 MODELS.

This is her on Yeoh Lee backstage :

I really adore this girl, her thinks is different and her personality is unique.

*thanks to Hong Sukwoo and The Fashion Spot for her photos :)

Nothing To Spill Out

2009-04-25T21:19:00.003+07:00

No, I promised to myself and my parents to never stop praying altough I've already got what I want. This photo was taken after I pray Maghrib. I cried so much that time.

Another stresful week has finished, and in the last day of UAN, exactly on Friday 25th there was an university entrance announcement and all of my friend who joined the 'war' couldn't kick out their stress out of their mind before they could see it themselves. Well, the university name was Gajah Mada University (UGM) and around half of the third year students has applied. Today, I was receive a lot of infos about the announcement, a lot of my friends got accepted in UGM. Even one of my boy friends on XII Science 2 class got Medical Faculty (FK) altough I knew that he wasn't a top student, just a common student like me. It's really AMAZING.

See that? It's my lunch. I was alone at home that day (not yesterday, even not last week, this photo was taken on the stresful week of Final Exams). Mom didn't leave me any food to be eaten with rice, so I just grab a 'krupuk kulit' and 'tempe' for my lunch. You can see that I'm a very down-to-earth javanese person, right? Hohohohoho.

So, I am here. Just sit in front of my laptop to go back to work again as a graphic designer, searching for the graphic contests, editing photos, and other activities related to art. I'm planning to make another painting with my poster colour (actually, I want to make my paints out so I have a good reason why I have to buy new paints. I want a watercolour paints so badly and I know that Jatinegara market sell it with good price). I wanted to study about Physics again, exactly to improve my practical knowledge because from May 11th until 16th, there will be a practical test whose scores will be printed on our graduation certificate. After practical test week, there still a writing test for the second-important school subjects like History, Civil Education, Computer Technology, etc on the next week and the other next week there willl be a second entrance test for ITB. So, you can judge from here that the hard time of twelve grader still continues altough the stress level has reduced from 99% to around um... 75% maybe, because there still some 'little' final tests that will make you feel a little bit stress on May.

Now I'm chatting with one of my best buddy, Daryl, whose photos are around here (almost each of the photos contain him), asking some suggestions about USM ITB and life as usual. He got accepted in SITH ITB, you know, for you who doesn't know what the faculty is, all I know is that he will sutdy all about biotechnology there. It's like IPB in ITB, well such like that. Before that, I was chatting with Setyo Deantoro, my friend from the same class as Daryl, who got accepted in UGM on Technology of Farmation Faculty, he told me that he was really happy about the result of UGM altough he didn't get accepted on his favourite (maybe, because what I knew is that he choosed Mechanical Technology on almost all of university that he applied). Both of them told me to go fight more to reach my dream, especially Daryl who often said, "Fighting!" to me (gyahaha, I don't know why he did that, maybe because he knew that I was a sensitive person so he didn't want me to cry? Keine Ahnung :|).

Well, actually there something that I couldn't write in here becaue it's really personal and I knew that this blog is not a personal blog because there are a lot of my friends out there who already know this blog, ROFL.

I don't have anything to spill out right now. It's not my time yet to tell you about my experience on UAN. Maybe I will explain about it if there's anyone who wanted to ask me. I've already submitted a lot of contribution today, from my photos, graphics, etc. All changes, I did all of it today and I think both of my eyes couldn't stand it anymore. Well, all I can do about art is now painting, but I think it's not okay if I paint something on night. Maybe I should watch the next episode of True Blood (season 1) which I downloaded from Indowebster forum. You know what, I will tell you about that series in future if I not forget about it. Altough it's for adult (because of the sex scenes, bloods, and others), True Blood really amaze me. It's like watching Twilight movie, but adapted as a TV series. Vampire related thing like that.

Recently, my school has a renovation everywhere. From its garden, field, basketball field, rooms, etc. It's really bad seeing changes this time. It's all because we jut have around 2 months to enjoy it. After that, HERE GOES FUTURE! :)

OFF NOW, People :)

*Congratulations to Setyo Deantoro (Technology of Farmation Faculty), Bagia Ramadhan Alim (Medical Faculty), Yessica Gloria (even she got ITB too, omona, such a lucky girl she is!), Hafizha Herman (Medical Faculty), Nur Hanifah & Ananto (Chemistry Faculty), Yolanda Sri Rahayu () and the other people who got accepted (my facebook spammed with some unimportant application and other stuffs, so I don't want to access it for a while).

SCHOOL SERIES Part. 2

2009-04-24T21:43:00.002+07:00

left to right : Lina, Feby, Egi, Dynta, Anggi, Andra, Fonda,
Emil, Arum, Vindy, Anita, Ochi.

*I made new banner and header for my blog! I took the images from Nylon Magazine scans, well I still take a header request, if you want me to do yours, just tell me, okay?

There's so much stories that I want to share with you about my Final Exam experience, but I don't think I can write those words right now (exactly arranged those words to be written as paragraphs, lol) because my eyes and my head need a lot of rests before struggling with words. Overall, all of good things come from Allah SWT and I never stop saying 'Alhamdulillah', 'Subhanallah', 'Allahu Akbar', and the other Asma Allah because without Allah's power, the Final Exam wouldn't be good.

I really miss reading the Goethe Institut library books. There's a lot of books about art, design, photography, and of course, Germany has a great architecture appreciations. Left is NOVUM Magazine, a graphic design magazine that I used to read every Saturday and the right is a book about Colors in Europe. Both of them is bilingual : Deutsch - English.

For your info, I made a little promise to myself that I will post the second part of SCHOOL SERIES in my blog after the Final Exam end. I've already took a lot of good shoots and I made a category for each of the photos. The photos of school series that I post now is only photos with category 'together' which means there's no single shoots here. I think my eyes couldn't bear with the editing parts anymore, so I just post the photos with the best amounts that I could.

Those photos below are taken on April 16th, 2009, which is the last day before we had a 3 days off and that day is the day where all of the third year students gathered on the school main field to pray together and apologized each other (like we used to have the day before the fasting month begin).

Emil, Arum, Vindy, Dea . They have a good expression face and I love taking photos of them, especially Emil and Arum (who often meet with me) because they are very expressive. You know, photographer love expressive people :)

left to right : Mega, Aca, Restya, Dania, Fita, Daryl (bottom; second photo), Gina, Andina, Sari (first photo only) . Most of them is my classmates (except Daryl) in XII Science 3.

left to right : Dania, Andina, Mega

Some of XII Science 4 students. Taken before the Biology class started.

Some of XII Science 3 students (except Daryl; lol, he's always hanging around, especially when there's a camera). Taken before the Biology class started. You can see that behind them is a matress for practical test (for 2nd grade).

left to right : Dea, Hesny, Dewi, Fita, Enca

the rest of the photos are in thumbnail mode, just click it, and made your own way :)

Big thanks for everyone who have a kind heart to upload and tag it on Facebook and also for everyone who give comments in this blog or my Facebook.

I made this series as a beautiful memories that we had in high school. Altough we aren't graduated yet, there's nothing wrong if I just spread some little stuffs that will make you realize that high school is one of best time in your life.

Regards,

KIMSHEY / Sheyka

Setelah Memanjatkan Do'a pada-Nya,

2009-04-19T11:41:00.005+07:00

SAYA MEMOHON DO'A DARI SELURUH MANUSIA YANG PERNAH 'HINGGAP' DI BLOG INI, mulai dari yang sekedari blogwalking atau blogstalking ataupun yang namanya pernah saya sebutkan dan tersebut.

BESOK ADALAH HARI PERTAMA, dimana saya akan berjuang, mempertanggungjawabkan 3 tahun pengabdian sebagai pelajar Sekolah Menengah Atas dan sebagai anak perempuan pertama dan terakhir dalam keluarga yang sampai saat ini masih melanjutkan studi bukan dengan biaya sendiri.

Mohon dido'akan supaya saya sukses, dipermudah, dilancarkan, teliti, sehat, dan segalanya yang baik-baik agar saya bisa LULUS SMA dengan nilai yang terbaik dan melebihi target saya sendiri.

Danke Sehr,

SHEYKA NUGRAHANI FADELA seorang.
(karena mata pelajaran pertama yang di-UAN-kan adalah Bahasa Indonesia, tidak ada salahnya dong, kalau saya menggunakan bahasa kelahiran untuk saat ini?)

School Series Part. 1

2009-04-09T15:32:00.012+07:00

I'm lazy to post this on my deviantart and facebook, so I decided to post these photos on my blog via Photobucket. I upload all of them within less than 1 hour, so that's mean I'm having my internet connection speed good :)

Three of them is my current 'models' : Gina Sofiana, Fita Meilisa, and Nissa 'ACA' Hudani Nabilah. They are my classmates and they are good brain people :)

Gina is the head of the class and nominated for 'Best Couple' with Rio Darputra (LOL, for you, dear!), Fita is one of people who got 'The Most Beautiful/Pretty Girl in High School' nomination for year awards, and Aca nominated for 'The Funniest' and 'The Most Kind'.
Gina got accepted in FK UGM and Aca got accepted by PMDK IPB. They are OSM :]

They are Ni Putu 'JYOTI' Parandjyoti, Hanifah 'HANI', and Novita 'NOVI' Hadiningrum. They aren't my classmates but I took this photo after I do my ABCDEFGHIJKLOVEYOU series with them as my models :)

He is Yusuf 'UCUP' Bachtiar. I took this photo when we were resting after doing an aerobic rehearsal for our sport subject practical test. He didn't want to be shooted and this is his expression of refusal. LOL :D

This is EMIL and ANITA, my good friends, with good smiles :) Their class is Science 4, while me is Science 3. I took this photo for my ABCDEFGHIJKLOVEYOU series and that day was Carrier Day at our school.

the girl who close her face is RIRI who were hiding from UCUP behind DIMAS's back.

this is RIRI and DYNTA. I took this photo when we were watching the boys playing soccer in the field below us. This photo was taken on our class balcon.

this is Risa 'ENCA' Rilanda. She got accepted in FK YARSI, but I think she will refuse it. She wanted to try hard again in USM ITB Terpusat like me :)

Let me introduce my favourite model, YOLANDA SRI RAHAYU. LOL, she's cheerful girl and she has a really-curly hair. This is some of her photos at school. Most of them taken by candid-shoot.

this is my best shot of her! Hahahahaha, she asked me to delete it but I didn't want to. She didn't know that her photos was posted in here :) She's expressive, right?

Left to right : Riyan Wicaksono, Rafy Suhanda, and Yolanda Sri Rahayu. They were having fun together because they successfully kidnapped a girl named Anggi from Science 4 class. She was behind the cupboard door beside where Rafy sat. Look at Yolanda and Rafy's smile, omona, sooo tricky :]

Left is Yolanda 'YOMA' Sri Rahayu and right is Indriani 'RIRI'. They are good friends of me, always give me supports anytime. Yoma is Riri's chairmate also her bestfriend from 1st grade.

End of School series part. 1.
PLEASE COMMENT AND DO NOT TAKE OUT WITHOUT MY PERMISSION.