“I really love Indonesia. There’s part of me that really miss Indonesia, even I never been there. I love Indonesian food, the people, they are so humble and gorgeous! Ohya of course I like spicy food. Hahaha! You know, I have many kind of sambals in my kitchen. Sambel oelek, sambal badjak, sambal brandal, and what is it the stinky but really delicious one? Terasi! So great! And you know, my husband is infatuated with nasi goreng (fried rice). I hope I can go to Indonesia one day..” (Mrs. X, Dutch, lives in France)

“Wow, nice t-shirt, Isyana. May I see your back? Bali! I love Bali! I stayed there almost 2 weeks for holiday and it’s soooo beautiful. The beaches are great! Ah ya I also went to Manado, my husband dove there and he said he found many kind of beautiful under water creatures. Yes, and no doubt of it because Manado is famous for the world class muck diving. Oh gosh, instead of having summer in France, I really want to Bali..” (Mrs. X, Dutch, lives in Geneva)

“Excuse me, Ladies. Are you Indonesian? I heard you were talking in Bahasa. I know couple words of Bahasa. Terima kasih, selamat siang, selamat malam, makan. Hahaha.. Is it right? I live in London, but I’ve been to Indonesia many times and I love it. Satay, Rendang, ummm.. Cendol.. How I miss those foods. Okay, Ladies, sorry for interrupting you. Sampai Jumpa.” (Mr.X, lives in London, met in Frankfurt)

“Halo, selamat siang. Malaysian? Oh no, you’re Indonesian! Ah, so glad finally I can see Indonesian again here. I worked in Jakarta couple years before. Yes the traffic jam was horrible. Still like that? But it’s really a good city, with enormous buildings and shopping malls.” (Mr. X, met in Paris)

“Yes, I’ve been to Asia, but never been to Indonesia, just to Bali.”
WHAAAAT???
Bali is Indonesia.
Well, one of the biggest problem facing by Indonesia I think is its fame in the eye of the world. Many of people still think Bali is a country, not one of province under Indonesia.

I can’t suggest many options to solve this case. But as a student who study abroad, I have mission to introduce Indonesia to my friends through any media, including myself, my attitude as Indonesian.

In my campus, Indonesian students known as ‘polite party goers’ because what we mean with ‘making a party’ is having dinner together and then we play some games with music or sometimes one of us will sing. Just that. And luckily, even we surrounded by people who some of them think that cool party is being drunk, still there are many friends who would send these messages after attending our ‘party’: ‘Guys, it was a great party! I love your food!” “Invite me again when you make other party, I really would love to come.” “Hey my good friends from Indonesia, let’s hanging out together again!”

Last year, we celebrated Id Adha together with Tunisian, Turkish, Pakistan, Albanian, Italian, Sudanese, and many other countries. It was really nice. We prayed together then we ate together with foods from us (satay, perkedel, soup, and fruit ice), Tunisia, and Turkey.
And they loved perkedel and satay sooo much! We even made queue for food distribution. Hahaha..

My university, Universita della Calabria, regularly organize dinner from other countries so we will know better the differences of foods and cultures from any countries. Indonesia also participated on that dinner. We decorated mensa (canteen) with Wayang, Batik, map of Indonesia, and our nationality flag. Some of us who has good voices, not me off course, sang songs from in English, Italian, and Indonesian include Dangdut and songs from Benjamin. We also presented Nandak dance from DKI Jakarta, and amazingly they like it! For the closing we invited all of our friends there to do Poco-poco dance. So funny because it was the first time they did it and Poco-poco isn’t so easy to do, so most of them improvised the movement. So chaos and funny!

What I wanna say is, as students in abroad, we really enjoy our role as the representation of Indonesia. We’re happy explaining what is Indonesia, where is Indonesia, and making papers about Indonesia (because it’s also easier to be understood haha). We also try to make good impression to our friends from other country so they will appreciate and respect our values as Indonesian.
Because the good of one country is reflected by its own people. Do good thing, then your country will be respected.
Other people from other country love Indonesia, why can’t us?

Happy birthday Indonesia!

17 August 2012 (in Indonesia time)

I just heard to Aqua’s song – turn back time, and I used to have some wishes after hearing that song: I wish I could come back to…, I wish I didn’t do…, Wish I didn’t choose…

But now I learn that wishing something you should be done in the past is useless. And actually without doing it probably you already got better things than you ever wished for. Or probably you just on the way to those best things, you just don’t realize about that because you’re stuck with: Wish I..

August 2006 was the second times I knew that I failed to be a doctor, I didn’t pass the entry test again. I was so down, and I wished. Wish I studied more, Wish I chose another university maybe I could pass, I wish I prayed harder, and many other wishes, but they didn’t make me feel better, just made me suffer even more. Then my friend texted me:

“Isyana, I’m so sorry to hear that, but you have to  know that sometimes God won’t give everything you want, but believe me God will give you everything you need. Maybe being a doctor is not what you need.”

And time passed by, and when I think about that again, she was totally right. If I were a doctor, I wouldn’t meet my very best friends, I wouldn’t work in the biscuit company and meet my other best friends, then I wouldn’t apply the scholarship to Italy and couldn’t travel around Europe and meet Indonesia-Rende family here.

Well, I don’t know either if I were a doctor I would have great experiences also or maybe I would go to jail because I gave a wrong medicine to my patient hahaha..

I do feel so grateful with ‘failed to be a doctor’. I’ll keep move on and chase whatever in front of me without feeling sad with something I never had.

Well, today I’ll have my last exam for this semester. Wish me luck 😉

So I just realized I always stay far away from my parents. It doesn’t mean ‘far’ but real far on distance. I took my bachelor degree in one city named Bandung, okay it’s Jatinangor, suburbs of Bandung. And it takes 2 – 3 hours by car from my home. For the first time I felt I couldn’t do that, staying alone not with mt parents, what should I eat? What if I got sick? And what if I ran out of money?

But time went by, and I knew by living far away from my family I learnt a lot of new things. I’ve became maturer and I could do things I couldn’t imagine before, such as:

1. I could repair my own television, lamp, and radio.

2. I could build my own cupboard

3. I could sleep on little space on my bed because it was wet since my rooftop were broken

4. I could eat something and stay alive with Rp700 (0.075840 USD) for 2 days because my bank had a problem at that time so my parents couldn’t send me some money hahaha..

And now I live in Rende, South Italia, it’s around 15 hours from my country. And I’m improving my ‘unimaginable’ ability into cooking since there are no Indonesian restaurant in here.

But the most unimaginable thing that goes on me now is: I can travel around Europe. Not all Europe, yet, but I will. And the magic things always come. For example, I went to Paris and Brussels with few money because that was all I got AND I met a lot of nice people who helped me (and my friends) with free places to stay and delicious meals! And I went to Frankfurt a week ago because I met a nice person who offered free airplane and bus tickets, and also I stayed there for free.

I know this post little bit random, but if you were staying far away from your family and felt scared, don’t be. Mostly, when you’re under uncertainty circumstances you will find 2 things:

First, the best of you to deal with the problem, and

Second, there will always be helped from people around you. You know, you won’t be alone, ever

I just got my happy day (again) on wednesday.. We had festa in Italia, Anniversario della Liberta, auguri Italiaaaa!!

And I had some stories today, but by the way I’ll write in Bahasa Indonesia.. hahaha..

Temen-temen gw yang ada dicerita ini ada:

1) Sebut saja namanya Titin, mahasiswi S2 di Italia, wanita Indonesia yang sedang dituntut mamanya untuk segera mencari pasangan

2) Dodo, mahasiswa S2 dari Indonesia yang entah kenapa nyasar juga ke Italia yang Ayahnya baru aja ulang tahun kemarin lusa (selamat ulang tahun, Om!) dan sang Mama mengingatkan kita untuk selalu “rukun-rukun.”

3) Kiki, pria, sahabat gw yang suka lupa dan bingung mendadak.

4) Nina, temen sekamar gw, keturunan Cina tapi ga mau ngakuin kalo dia Cina, “aku ga Cina, cuma mirip Cina aja 90%.”

Cerita 1

Jadi kita lagi makan malem di mensa (kantin) bareng anak-anak Indonesia lainnya, dan kita ribut seperti biasa. Temen kita, Dodo ngeluh kalau perutnya sakit dan gelembung, “kayak busung laper gitu.. apalagi kalo abis makan.. banyak banget gasnya..”

Gw: pakein minyak angin dong..

Dodo: ga suka gw.. perut gw sakit gitu deh..

Titin: jangan-jangan kamu sakit Gajah Duduk!

Gw: (mikir apaan coba penyakit Gajah Duduk?? Tapi kayaknya sih ada) nah iya penyakit Gajah Duduk tuh nama lainnya Jantung Koroner, men! kalo lo ngerasa perut lo begah, terus abis itu lo demam, lo harus segera periksa ke dokter, karena kalau ga, lo bisa langsung lewat!

Titin: parah ya Gajah Duduk itu..

Dodo: Eh, Gajah Duduk sih merek sarung kali!!! Angin Duduk kali!

hahahaha! Bloon semuanya!

Cerita 2

Titin: Emang nih parah profesor gw, kata temen-temen sekelas gw aja “bitch woman.”

Kiki: Wanita Pantai??

Dodo: eh, hati-hati lo jangan sampe ganti Y-nya sama T!

Kita: (hening, mikir)

Gw: kok ada Y??

Dodo: iya kan Wanita Pantai.

Kita: (ngernyit, mikir) emang ada Y, di kata Wanita Pantai??

Dodo: ada lah! PANTAY!

Kita: buahahaha! alay lo! Pantai tuh pake I bukan Y! Bahasa Indonesia lo berapa sih, Do???

Cerita 3

Nina: Jadi waktu itu temen gw yang pramugari cerita, dia lagi ada penerbangan dari Papua. Nah ada Bapak-bapak yang naikin Babi Hutannya ke dalam kabin. Temen gw negur dong, “Pak, maaf, Babi Hutan tidak bisa masuk kabin.”

Bapak: Tapi dia bukan Babi Hutan, dia Patrick.

Pramugari: ………………….

Simple things that really made my day yesterday:

1. Breakfast with toast and omelette

2. I was smiling at the mirror and realized that i’m quite pretty.. hahaha..

3. A simple twit from Red Ranger

4. My nice classmates.. They are sooo kind and nice and funny, and always help me, eventhough they can’t speak English very well and my Italiano level still really really low and we should use gesture sometimes to explain something

5. A little rain and good music while I was walking back to my apartment..

6. Saw the karaoke videos with my best friends 4 years ago.. Yes, we were singing like a bunch of people who did demonstration!

See.. how little things could make me happy, make me smile, and feel alive..

And when I was walking in the rain today, I whispered “Alhamdulillah” to Allah for always giving me the unpredictably-best things to me