The Idea of Home

Hi readers!

Currently, I am enjoying my spring break so I would have plenty extra time to write on my blog. In this post, I would like to take on the idea of home. Hope y'all enjoy it!

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People say that there is no place like home. The place where we enjoyed our childhood, the place where we grow up, the place where we have so many friends and memories. This notion would be 100 percent correct for most people. Why most people? Because some of us has traveled such a long way and could not find place like home.

This idea struck me when I had a conversation with a tutor at the university writing center. She asked me, where I would like to be after college? Yes, many people have asked me this question and it is still long way to go. It is a tough question for me because I do not have the answer and because I could not control what will happen to me after college. She told me about her husband who went to college in New York and now living in the United States. Currently, her husband misses Turkey yet he had spent more time in the US than in Turkey. Funny story, once when he was younger, he sent a mail to his parent in English. He did not remember that his parent do not speak any English.

What about me?
I had left my hometown after I graduate from junior high school. I was fifteen. I had to go to school three hours away from my home, and I only went home once every four months. Now, I am living in the US, and I only went home once in a year. I realize it when I went back home to Indonesia last summer, I met with some of my old friends but I realize that it is hard to maintain conversation - we just catch up on each other. Then I did not have much to talk about. Coming back to my hometown, everything seemed very different. People and places that were once familiar to me, were not familiar anymore. Does people and my hometown have changed? Or is it me who changed so much?

I do not know. What I know is that a place that once I called home does not feel as home-y as before. I am just 20 years old and I have spent a quarter of my life away from the place I grew up. I am excited with my life, but sometimes I am afraid. What if one day I might not have a place that I could call "home"?

"When you finally go back to your old home, you find it
wasn't the old home you missed but your childhood." -Sam Ewing-

Making Life Decision

I believe that most of you, at least once, had been faced with tough life decision. I guess that most of us would talk to people who matters to us on how to make the decision. They could suggest us anything. Yet, we all know that at the end, we are the one who make the decision and we are the one who would be affected by our own decision.

In my 20 years, I had been faced with several tough life decisions. It all started at the end of my junior high school when I had to decide whether to go to a high school 3 hours away from my hometown or not. This decision was very tough to make, because I would have to live far away from my family, I was just 15 years old, I had to life in a dormitory with so many strangers, and it is a brand new high school. Leaving to a new town would mean that I have to start over and tried to make new friends. I decided to go to that high school and having best years of my whole life! Overseas travel, meeting so many amazing friends, meeting my mentor, and the experience taught me to be a stronger and more humble person.

The next major life decision is to go to the US for university or not, at the end of my high school year. It was tough choice for me because, as you all may have known, my mother suffered tumor since I was 13 years old, and the idea to move to a different country 30 hours flight away from my hometown was very scary. I did not understand the culture,  I did not speak the language very fluent, and honestly I had no idea where Lubbock is. Did I take the opportunity? Yes, I did. I am now also enjoying best year of my life. Making great new friends, learning a lot about new culture, be able to travel around the US, and I learned that if we are being honest and genuine to everyone, we could give them happiness.

The thought of moving around is scary. The idea of not settling is frightening. Yet, every time I decided to take the opportunity to move, I am having the best time of my life. I do not know where I would end up after college or maybe in several months. Yet I know that my life is an adventure, and my job is to enjoy it and work as hard as possible. 

"I don't wanna know where I would be in 5 years because I want my life to be an adventure" -Robin Scherbatsky-

New York during Christmas

Hi Readersssssssssss!!

I am sorry for missing another month. I won't have a long writing on this post, but instead I would throwback on my winter break to New York City!! Enjoy the pictures and I wish y'all could be here someday!!

*pardon me for too many selfies*

Inside Empire State Building

New York Stock Exchange

Wall Street

Time Square

Time Square 2

Rockefeller Center

4th Street

Grand Central Station

Central Park

View of NY skyline from Central Park

Belvedere Castle

NYC skyline

Central Park

Madison Square Garden

Empire State Building

Lombardi's - a legendary pizzeria in New York

And of course, the Lady Liberty!

"Once a year go someplace you've never been before"  -Dalai Lama-

The issue of hatred (WHILAL pt. 5)

Hiiiiiiiiii readersssss!!!

I am so sorry for missing past four weeks - balancing between school, job, organization, workout, and social life is consuming me. (Well, that was a lie, I just did not have any idea what to write. LOL). Alright, people say that February is the month of love, but I would take a perspective of hatred! So, enjoyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

I know that all of you have several people that you just hate because of their existence. If you don't have one, bless your heart. I believe that hating people is part of life and it is YOUR RIGHT to hate people because not everyone deserve to be loved or cared for.

However, do you realize that when you hate people you are wasting your energy for nothing? They might be happy or do not even realize that you hate them!
Yeah, I feel like by hating others you are a less happy person. They pass by or even hearing they breath made you very uncomfortable.

So, instead of hating them, I think we should be able to just ignore them. Ha! Isn't it fun to ignore people we hate so much? It seems that they have no power or effect on us at all! But the top solution would be stop hating them, forgive them for whatever they did and move on! Or you can be very nice to them. I believe that it will make them fell guilty and it will be a win win solution!

I introspected my self and I realize that sometimes it is very easy for me to hate people. Even if I do not know them at all. Isn't that ridiculous? But after a while, I make my decision to be a happier person by first ignoring them then forgive then tried to be very nice to them. And trust me, it works like magic!

Do you have any experience of hating people? Share it here! I would love to hear from y'all!

See you all on the next post!

“Throughout life people will make you mad, disrespect you and treat you bad. Let God deal with the things they do, cause hate in your heart will consume you too.” -Will Smith-

Understanding Yourself Better (WHILAL pt. 4)

Hey All! I hope you all had a great start for this amazing year! I also hope all of you will achieve your new year resolutions! This will be my first post for this new year, I will try my best to keep posting some new stuff in this blog for those of you that might be interested.

Alright, as a kickoff, I would share you some of my reflection when I was in New York. Enjoyyyy! Oh, I will also share you some pictures during my winter break on the next post.

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Let's catch up a little bit. Several years ago when I was in Junior High and Senior High, I barely had friends. After little bit of tweak and twerk, most of my colleagues told me that my mean and arrogant attitude made most of my colleagues did not like me. At the end of my senior high, I had so many friends and they told me that I changed to a better person and I won their heart.

But I feel that I did not change that much; and sometimes I wonder why I was hated.

My reflection happened when I had a conversation with my good friend, Mike, about different cultural upbringing in different states in the US. He goes to USC in California, and his friends said that he is very rude. He told me that he was just being honest and straightforward because that is how people in New York City, honest and straightforward.

Then I my brain start thinking.  Was I hated because I was being honest and straightforward? Part of me said yes, because I realize sometimes I said what is in my mind without thinking about the circumstances. My colleagues thought I was mean because I did not make friends with everyone -- I only make friends to those who matter to me.

Being honest and straightforward is not wrong; but for me, I should understand the culture and circumstances better. As a note, in Indonesia, people are very very nice to everyone. Even nicer than Texan. We are supposed to be friends with most people around us.
And that's what I was hated for. I was not hated because I am honest and straightforward, I was hated because of my ignorance!

Voila!

My high school experience and my conversation with my friend in New York made me realize that I am less ignorant person today than several years ago. That lesson also taught me to be nice to everyone and I enjoy it! It also makes me understand myself better.

Do you think you understand yourself good enough? Share your story!

See you next post!

Christmas Greetings from Timmy

Dear Friends and Colleagues, 

I wish you a happy holiday and hope that you will always be in a great shape.

2013 has been a great year for me. And at the end of this year, I would like to share you some updates about me.

One of the most exciting updates is that I finally have some new friends. Ha! As you all know that I had some trouble finding friends in here last year. Thanks to the new organization that I am involved in this year, the Rawls College of Business Ambassador – and I am also just elected to be a Treasurer there. In the organization, I learned a lot about professional connections by having dinners and luncheons with donors and alumni; also give building tours to guests and prospective students. 

At the end of my third semester, I am so blessed with another 4.0 GPA. It has been three 4.0(s) and I will keep my tenacity for another 4.0 in the following semester. During the past fall semester, I also had a new job as a student assistant at the University Writing Center. I helped the Writing Center by managing the appointments, making phone calls, and greeting guests. I am working with great people and I love my job so much.

This semester, I have been living in an apartment with two other Indonesians. I am so excited because I have finally been able to eat rice every day and to make some Indonesian food such as soto, rawon, and rendang. I also made some homemade alfredo sauce, chicken katsu, and bake some brownies and cupcakes. My post-dormitory experience has been awesome. 

In terms of my education, currently I am a Finance major but I am thinking about adding a second major, it could be Accounting or Economics. Both second majors are interesting to me since I enjoyed my first accounting class and I always love economics. By next semester I will try to take one extra class every semester and I will make my decision from there.

Again, 2013 has been great to me; highlighted by some super exciting moments such as meeting with Ibu Sri Mulyani on April, having an internship at P.T. H.M Sampoerna over the summer, and being elected as Treasurer for the Business Ambassador. I hope you also had a great year, and I would love to hear back from you. 

I am honored to cross my paths with you, I am sure I would not be in the same journey if we had not crossed our paths.

I wish you a great holiday season, and please stay in touch.

Sincere regards,

Christian Timothy Wijaya

Finance

Rawls Business Ambassador

christian.t.wijaya@ttu.edu

The Law of Attraction

         Luke 11:9-10, “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” The verse is very simple, yet I have had so many magical experiences since I hold onto this verse about 5 years ago. I did not find the verse is very special up until I read a book titled “The Secret”. Basically, the book uses the verse in one of the chapters to explain the law of attraction, “Everything happened in your life is attracted by your thought. Good thoughts and good feeling will attract good things to happen and vice versa.”

            Many people do not agree with this value, because they think that it is impossible just to attract stuffs with thought. They said that people who believe in this value are over optimistic and not realistic. These people who disagree with this value mostly think that thought will literally attract something happen. They will say that if this value is real, there will be no poor people and everyone will be rich and successful. The problem with these non-believers is that they oversimplified the law of attraction. It is true that good thought will attract good things; however just thinking will not make everything happen.

             Since I read the book, I started to control my thought and my emotion to be positive most of times. It was not easy on the beginning, and it does not get easier because there are at least 600,000 thoughts pass through our minds every single day. One part of the book mentions that a person should believe that they can achieve what they want to achieve. I always want to travel overseas, however there were not many opportunities to travel for free. Up until a day when a foundation came to my school and mentioned that they would select one boy and one girl from my school to have a month study abroad in New Zealand.

            I realized that the opportunities might be the only opportunity for me to go overseas. I applied, and I had done my best in the selection process. I came to the final interview and everything seemed went very well for me. Yet, I was not selected. I was confused at that time; I feel like I had done my best and attracted the trip strong enough by imagining myself in New Zealand every day. Then I thought maybe I had to do better than just imagining it. I felt down for a couple of days, yet I know that if I kept attracting the overseas travel, there would be another chance. As a part of my redemption, I made a visa even though there was no opportunity for me, and I kept telling my close friends that I would go overseas before I turned 17. The New Zealand process was on April, about seven months before my 17^th birthday. It might sounds crazy, but the next thing happened I was on my flight to UK on September the same year I was selected by British Council to represent my country for UK school games, British Council only selected one boy and one girl from all around Indonesia. Even up until this point, I could not believe that my first trip was actually happened. I was not selected when I competed with my school friends, yet when I competed with all people in Indonesia, I made it. 

In the U.K with some other volunteers

            My first overseas trip to UK before my 17^th birthday made me believe that the law of attraction does actually work, and it made me keep myself positive. On August the year after, I was selected to be the only representative from Indonesia to an International Camp in Japan. And the year after Japan trip, I found myself in Lubbock, studying Finance at Texas Tech University. Then I started to recall that I have been attracting about studying overseas for my undergraduate degree since I was seven years old. My dad reminded me during our Skype call sometimes ago that I have been telling everyone that I want to go overseas for my university since I was seven. And my dad always kept telling me that as long as I keep working hard and pray hard, someday my dreams would become realities. 

My winning group in Japan - Group R!

             The things that happened to me did not always the same with the thought that I have. I realize that I cannot actually attract specific things happened in my life. When I wanted the New Zealand trip, it did not happen to me. During my application to college, I wanted to go to Cornell, but it also did not happen to me. Even after I graduated from middle school, I did not want to go to my high school. These three are very small examples compared to what have happened in my life, I could not specifically request things to happen. However, I always end up to stuffs that I needed instead of what I wanted. If I did not go to my high school, I might not end up studying in the U.S. If I was selected to go to New Zealand, I might not go to U.K. There is no rocket science about why and how these things happened. And every time, all things always work together for my good.

            I realized that my experiences made me have a counter argument for the non-believer. The idea of law of attraction is not just attracts thoughts and it will happen to our life. The idea of the law of attraction is that positive thoughts will keep us stand even though the circumstances let us down. Many people say that it is not genius person will be successful, but those who never give up no matter how hard is the condition. The other reason why law of attraction works is because positive thoughts lead to positive attitude that makes people around me have faith in me that lead to myself believing that I can be the person I want to be in the future. Started from my best friends in high school who supported me when I told them about me going overseas before my 17^th birthday, up until my friends and professors today that support me when I told them about my dream to be the Indonesian Finance Minister in the future.

            Positive thought does not directly attract good things happen to our life, but it indirectly leads us to reach our dreams by giving us optimism to face tough condition. It also gives us belief by having positive attitudes that lead us to people that support our dream. As a bonus, our positive thoughts will give us energy and inspiration to people around us. I might not live long enough to face hard condition in life; but in my young age I know that this value will keep me going on through life whatever happened in the future. 

“if you tell yourself you feel fine, you will.” -Jodi Picoult