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Showing posts from 2012

Quick Post?

I have left UK for good (HUHUHUHU) since September. Means it has been almost two months since I left. Haven't posted anything because, I don't know, don't have anything I really want to write really. Been doing this and that, not much to mention here... I'm sick at the moment, that's why I have the time to make a blogpost. Anyway. One thing I can tell is that I have enjoyed Makassar food extremely well since I got back. But of course there are foods of Manchie that I'm seriously craving: - Italian BLT, wheat bread, Subway. - Beijing Duck, Pacific. - Five layers of chocoloate, Oxford Pub. - Any food pub, really. Well. Later.

Korean Wave for Laladanilela

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*reader discretion is advised* This is another pointless post. Please don't take it too seriously. Lately I've come to like Korean entertainments: variety show, dramas, and music. I used to watch these kind of show quite often, during junior high and undergrads. K-drama, Taiwanese drama, Japanese... Then for some reason I don't watch it as much anymore.  I remember during undergrad I used to watch a variety show called Golden Bell. Watched it diligently every week on cable. It was a "cerdas cermat" kind of show. So Golden Bell team would go/invite a middle/high school, put 100 students on mat, give them 100 questions (if i remember correctly). The one student left have to answer the 100th question correctly under the golden bell, then he/she/the school would received a handsome prize. The show was impressive for me because the questions appear to be quite difficult, but the students can answer them well. And they'd do funny mini games should there

Counting Down Manchester

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Writing blog posts while listening to ballads WILL put you in melancholy. I've bought my return ticket. My return for good ticket. Needless to say, I have mixed feelings about going home. I'm super excited to meet all my loved ones back home. However, it would be really sad to say goodbye to my friends here. Especially my classmates, whom will also return to their homes and jobs in every corner of the globe. We don't know when we'd meet again. How do you make a promise to see a friend in Nigeria in foreseeable future? I'll meet my Indonesian friends again, I'm sure. Most of them live in Jakarta, it is not that difficult to see each other in, say, next four months. But the ones in Chile, Brazil, India... I have only known them for a year. It's very short, yes. But I've spent a lot of my time with them and they are a big part of my life here. That's how life goes, I know. But I'm not made of stone, so the thought of having to say goodbye is sa

Dissertation: what's done and not done

Sekiranya ada yang biasa blog saya, maaf ya lama baru diupdate. Juni Juli kemarin adalah bulan beban bernama "THE OVERVIEW OF MAMMOGRAPHY SERVICE: THE ROLE OF INNOVATION AND SERVICE BLUEPRINTING". A.k.a my dissertation. Now what's left is editing, finishing touches, and so on. But the major part is done, thank God. Emm... Dan belum di proof read juga sih, tapi tinggal itu aja. Minggu depan proof read, abis itu dijilid, terus submit deh. Terus tenang deh. Terus pulang deh. Hehehe. Deadlinenya sih tanggal 3 September, tapi kita harus selesai sebelumnya, karena harus di kasi ke supervisor dulu, terus harus kasi ke proof reader biar perbaiki grammarnya huhuhu, terus karena mahasiswa master yang mau jilid disertasi banyak jadi proses jilid bisa makan beberapa hari. Makanya kita harus itung2 biar gak kepepet. Makanya dikejar slese nih barang sekarang. Sekarang saya AGAK lega. Agak harus capital semua, karena saya tidak bisa bilang saya sudah sepenuhnya lega dan bahagia.

An Ode To Unirider

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HAHAHAHAHA what a pretentious title. Naah, I can't write poems. Fear not lads and babes, I'm not gonna pretend I can write a poem, let alone an ode. This is just a regular blog post about.... Unirider!! It's the bus pass we students use throughout this past 10 months, since September 2011. Today is its last day. *sentimental song as background.* The Unirider is a very important item, for me at least. It's much cheaper to go around the town with, compared to buying, say, weekly bus pass or daily rider. I use it to go to MBS, church, city centre, Trafford, gym, and so on and so forth. Sometimes I walk to school but other times, when I was almost late, it was snowing or raining, I use the bus. About a month ago I lost it somehow. However, somebody returned it. That's one thing I like about UK, people return your belongings. If you left your mobile in a cafe, you could go back and still find it safely kept for you! Well I can't guarantee, but it happened to me.

Spaghetti Carbonara ala Danilela

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Made this for today's meal! Easy, quick, deliiiiicious :) Recipe loosely based on this vid: Ingredients:  Eggs, bacon, mushroom, spaghetti, milk, cheese, garlic.  I don't have cream, so used semi skimmed milk instead. Don't have Parmesan cheese either, so instead used cheddar singles - sliced them really small. Nyahahaha ala anak kos!!   Mix whole egg, egg yolk, bit milk, and cheese into bowl. Put a bit of olive oil in the cooked pasta so they don't stick to the pan. Then pour the egg mix into pasta. On separate pan, heat a bit of olive oil. Put in cloves of garlic, I personally like to cook with A LOT of garlic. Then mix some bacon until it's a bit crunch, then throw in mushroom and spinach. DONE!! Nomnomnomnomnom!

Wondrous Wednesdays

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Me and Amaka started this habit since weeks back, perhaps around the time before second term's deadline. After the last class, we arrange to have a day out every Wednesday. We wanted to ensure to still have a bit of social life besides pressing deadlines. Normally we just had lunch or dinner at the Oxford Pub or Ford Maddox. Other times we go to museums. A few weeks ago we went to the Manchester Museum. It's right in the middle of the uni, free entrance applies for everyone, so we went. However, this past two weeks we have missed the Wondrous Wednesday. One reason is because we've been to all the free museums hahaha. We don't have any WW schedule for tomorrow either. Oh well. May be next week. Toodles!

Olympic Torch Bearer...

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  The London Olympics will start next month. The Olympics Torch Relay has been started and last Sunday it was relaid in Manchester. One of the torchbearer was Leehom Wang, apparently a famous Chinese singer. My friend Yuke likes him a lot, so instead of watching the whole relay show in Albert Square, we went to... was it King Street? Well it was right beside Harvey Nichols. We waited for that guy for an hour, saw some athletes passed by, some dancing, and when Leehom Wang finally showed up we saw him for a mere eight seconds. Hahaha. Oh well. He was a damn good looking guy, so it's ok. However, Yuke, the one who waited the most somehow didn't even see him. She was distracted by her cellphone or something. Of course after she was a bit disappointed, so I made her this slowmo video.:D

We Call It Sunday Comfort Food

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Meet my dear dear friend Amaka the Chiamaka Callo! She is a smart funny witty woman and also a good cook. Last Sunday I asked her to cook a rice dish. She doesn't exactly have a name for it, so I'm just gonna call it the "Sunday Comfort Food". First, you take regular long grain rice. Put some tumeric, because "I like my food to have sexy colors" - A.O., 22y.o. Add paprika powder, pepper, and cayenne pepper. And a bit of Knorr to ensure it tastes great. Mixed it up, then add some coconut milk and water then boiled it until the rice is cooked. Put some carrots, mushrooms, and other vegetables of your choice. Stir some more until vegetables are cooked, put rice aside.   For the protein, we marinated pork and put it in the oven.     Since we like our vegetables, we also stir some spinach with okra and red onion, mix with butter and some olive oil. Served with some more fresh tomatoes!! Full of vegetables s

Game of Thrones - TV Series

*reader discretion is adviced* FREAKIN FANTASTIC *with the Brit accent* is the appropriate term for these installments.  FE-REAK-IN-FAN-TAS-TIC. Bloody hell, it got me excited and blown my mind away over and over throughout the series. I just finished the last episode of its second series, so the excitement is still very much overwhelming me. I love fantasy novels, probably not as hardcore as some other people, but I still do. Even though I just recently discovered this series, which probably means I'm a late entrants of this fandom, but bloody hell I don't give a damn. A credit's due where a credit's due.  The storyline in freakin complicated, the problems felt so real. You have traitors and uprisings, a woman eating raw heart, incest within castles with a king whom is the son of that relationship - good grief that one is very very sick, zombies within the snowy northern wall, and so on. Oh no, the scandals do not stop there. Those are just some of the first

Two Weeks of Sun in Manchester

About two weeks ago, we had quite a lot of sun. There was no rain whatsoever and the weather was just plain hot. So hot it made me bought sunscreens. You'd see people walking around half naked. Well, it's understandable, really. Imagine people who are very used to cold weather that they wear only thin jackets in winter, if they feel that warm in winter, the warm weather was probably unbearable for them. Even I feel so hot. What worse is, my room has narrow ceiling which makes it even warmer. I prefer cold weather really. I mean regular MCR cold, not like, I dunno, north pole cold. During regular rainy Manchester cold, I can turn on the heater, wear layers of clothing, use the umbrella. However, when it's super warm, I've got no AC in my room. Good thing I have a fan. Not electrical fan. A kipas lipat, which I used to kape-kape all night. The warm weather and the sun didn't stay long, though. Manchester has already returned to its usual rainy and windy days. I

14,400 words

There are no exams for the classes I took on the second term. Instead, each of the courses have assignments and reports with various grade ratios. If I remember correctly, there were three reports and four essays. Each required various minimum words count and in total it's 14,400 words. Quite a big number, but after all the writings demanded for this course so far the total word count is not as daunting as it was when I first started the course. I'm not saying it's easy, far far from it. For a few weeks I didn't have any social live, after ICN I so rarely left my room. My days would start at 7am in the morning, usually began with a number of Carmina Burana - O Fortuna. Such powerful, only slightly frightening but it does motivate me. The classical playlist have helped me write until noon and I usually ended my days at 2am. The next morning start again at 7. Of course there were a lot of breaks in the middle, for food and youtube videos. But somehow I got through it all.

Indonesian Cultural Night - PPI GM 2012

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I was given the opportunity to become the project leader of Indonesian Cultural Night, an cultural and culinary event of  Indonesian Student Society in Greater Manchester. After months of preparation, by the grace of the Lord, we succeeded. The show and the fair was a great success and we managed to make a very sound profit and donate them to an NGO in our homeland, an organization called "Indonesia Mengajar". The idea was, as Indonesian students in Greater Manchester, we are very fortunate to pursue knowledge here and we would like to help others with their education to our abilities. In addition, we are sick and tired of British and many other people not what where and what is Indonesia. Thus we attempt to make the event. We had dances, song performances, free photo booth with traditional costumes, food, even batik workshop and traditional dance classes. Some Indo students from different cities also helped us with the event: Putu from Leeds (I think) danced a Balinese