LIfe is Absurd

"Absurd" is a word that is popular among my national team, so it's weird that i have the thought to use it now.
To be honest, today i haven't done anything productive. Deep down, i know i should be a prolific student somewhat but.... i guess sometimes i could still lose my sense or worse lose my MIND.

Anyway, here i am spending my time reading my senior's blog www.davidorlando.com .It's somewhat inspiring, it reminds me that everyone makes mistakes. It's totally humane, however i just don't know i guess. I don't know why and i don't know how i've gotten to where i am now. Totally lost. I know that all of this is merely bull but i just can't believe where i am now, what i've gotten so far despite all my ass work.

I'm probably one of the new starters in this Astronomy field and how life leads me is just amazing. I've met so many great individuals, like really great in terms of characteristics and power. SO..... i guess i am finally able to feel and realize where i am going.This anxiety i feel is over-excitement which i could not apprehend and change it into my "fuel" initially.

What i am saying is that this is the present, this is what i'm living in and living for. No matter what gets in my way, i'll prosper in my own way and i believe that i have the capabilities to think, to make decisions, much less to determine what's best for myself as that what i've been doing up to now.

I've finally realized that i"ve been alone up to now, however not as in physical situation. It's more like in life.When i fight, i always fight alone. I've never been dependent on people but i guess i could always open up and accept others in ways i can.

Key to getting what you want

So my friend asked me the key to success and i'm guessing that she was asking advices to get what she wants so here are some tips :

1. DON'T EVER LOSE ENTHUSIASM1
2. ALWAYS LEARN. No knowledge is a waste of time (P.S. your memory can hold as much information as you can think of).
3. BE POSITIVE, and think positively.
4. "Give you best or go home" - Paul Walker.
5. Life is not merely a room with everything you need inside, LIFE'S AN ADVENTURE. So keep your cool and sweat on small stuff.
6. Never believe that you're a genius or an idiot. Even if you believe that you're really an idiot, then LEARN HARDER THAN ANYONE ELSE.
7. DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE FUTURE and what will happen. Face reality with all you got.
8. NEVER LISTEN TO OTHERS cause they're not you and they don't know what you've been through.
9. Don't do what you like but LIKE WHAT YOU DO!
10. BE CREATIVE, 'All roads lead to Rome'.
11. Sometimes it's not whether it's the right thing but WHETHER IT'S THE RIGHT THING YOU CAN DO.
12. Life is not about how many times you've failed but WHAT YOU'VE DONE WITH those FAILURES.
13. "HAVE DIFFERENT PERSONALITIES" for different aspects of life
14. "The path to success is taken daily" - Franky Pandana
15. "You may delay but life will not" - Benjamin Franklin

Or you could say the key point is, as my tutor taught me, C3

CALM,COOL,CONFIDENT

The rest of my journey

 So i thought i took too much time writing a one-week journey so i decided to give you bigger pictures.

The rest of the month just went by with my position stayed in the top 5 and anxiety still was my biggest problem.

However, i had fun. I had fun with them staying up all night until 4- 5 AM. I had fun cooking and having breakfast 4 AM in the morning with my friends (mostly girls but one guy suddenly getting up ,claiming to not yet go to sleep) and the instructors (that's what they call themselves) and stargazing, telling stories, and using telescopes all night long.

Then there was the out-bonding Sunday which was really fun and crazy like hell.

Then there was the final test and some of us prayed to God for blessing, for protection, for mercy and moreover to thank Him for have given us the chance to meet one another. We cried and afterwards we just go back to our room without even saying a single word.

SO YEAH... it was great... it was a memorable experience that i'll never forget. Each of them gave me a lesson surprisingly. I learnt a lot there about life mostly and even though we came from different races and different areas, somehow somewhat we managed to stick as one. And believe living the natives (if you a racist individual) is amazing, there is no other word to describe my gratitude towards them,

In the end, i just stop thanking them, thanking the mentors, the instructors and the lecturers, and how i could not just stop saying sorry for not being completely who i was and who i am because i was shadowed by my fear of losing. I know it's not such a big deal eventually so i really felt bad.

Now that i'm going to join the second one, i promised that i'll be who i really am and if i actually lost but i give my best, that's fine with me. It only mean that somebody who is better than the best of me is going to represent Indonesia in the internationals and at least have a chance to take a medal back home.

My resolution to win for Indonesia might not be really absolute and not clear, but i wont have any regret in my life despite the obstacles and hardships there is and i'll live my life to the fullest

TOASTI 14 Phase 1 Week 1

Spoiler: This might be one hell long of a post so sit back relax and probably have some popcorn

I'm gonna talk a bit about my excruciating, 1-month-long journey to be someone who is capable enough to represent Indonesia in the International Olympiad of Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA) or International Astronomy Olympiad (IAO) of 2014 phase 1.

So it all started on the 27th of October,Sunday when i arrived in Bandung after returning home from there on the 8th of September for the nationals.However, unlike before, i was alone. Yup, there i was, coming to my home for the next 1 month alone without anyone familiar.

Since i was not very comfortable at first, automatically i wanted to look for a friend...Elsa, who moved to Bandung not so long ago. I missed her to be honest. She was the gatekeeper to my success in Astronomy since she joined the team first before i did, but she joined merely because she loved astronomy. Anyway, I spent my sunday with her, talking about our new life, having lunch together, drinking some coffee and all, and more importantly, gossip ( i know it's weird for a boy to gossip (P.S. I'm straight) but sometimes it's fun to do it with your friend) but we didnt gossip about boys and all.... we just talked about this particular girl and this particular guy at her new school or at our school. And yeah, it was one crazy Sunday because i never thought that i would have so much fun just by talking all day long.

Afterwards, i got back to my room. I was surprised to find one of my roommate is the first rank in the Nationals, then i thought "Yeah putting the first and the second rank is like totally the best idea ever since they could be best friends and get close to one another" (hope that this does not happen in the second one). Then i spent my the rest of the day like a stranger.

Then, the next day we had an opening lecture which was not actually that important but to be honest, it was quite interesting and i could get to know more people.In the evening, we had a pretest which had a question that i had never known (like every question i had done in this circumstance). And the rest of the week was spent in an ordinary way since most of the lectures are about reviewing things. Not many things happen. I got to know them bit by bit and all. So it was quite fun actually joining this kind of event (despite the fact that i have to catch up with the lesson when i got back)

Oh yeah, on Friday we went to the Bosscha Observatory ( the only one in South East Asia) and we got to look at a really big telescope, the Zeiss telescope  and other smaller telescope like the Surya (Solar ) Observatory, GAO-ITB, Schmidt Bima Sakti(Milky Way)

Zeiss

And we had a test after the tour to write down everything you remember about the instruments.I ignored the specs and focus more on the history so yeah everything i wrote down on that time is like a history book with barely any numbers.Then there was also a task to write down 88 constellations which i expected to happen so i managed to get every single one but i guess i wrote some mistakenly like (Equuleus --> Equules,etc)

Then there was a practical test to assemble telescope which i should've been able to do since i the telescope used (Celestron) is quite similar to the one in my school (Skywatcher) but i guess coming there made me uncomfortable and i didnt manage to assemble everything properly (there are some parts that are assembled beforehand) in the given time (10 minutes) although i had ever assemble Skywatcher in about 5 minutes completely. So yeah the whole week went by with me getting nervous all the time even though i know i was not supposed to.