A senior asked to meet to discuss about the tool I am developing for my research.
When I met her, she was scribbling, studying some paper.
And I found that... it was the paper I wrote.
The printout of my paper was full of her scribbles here and there. Some sentences were underlined. She has a bigger diagram from my paper printed out, as she said some diagrams can't be successfully printed out in small size. The folds and creases showed she has turned over those papers again and again.
Aww... =')
I thought I was going to melt at that time.
Never did it occur to me that someone would read my paper that intensively.
I can't help but think, oh, God, I hope there weren't any silly typos that I missed out >_<
I'm moved beyond belief.
May this moment motivates me more to do my research =)
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Monday, October 05, 2009
Random act of kindness
I have forgotten already how does it feel to accept random act of kindness.
Today I received one.
I was just running an errand, buying groceries for survival, in the nearby supermarket this afternoon. The closing time of the shop was not really convenient as I still had roughly 20mins to wait for the next bus going to my place.
As I crossed the street to the bus stop, a lady and her daughter suddenly said hi to me (in Italian). I greeted her back, having no idea what she might asked. Unless they are fellow students, or old people, it's pretty rare to have Italians struck a conversation first with a foreigner like me. As it turned out, she asked me if I wanted a ride with her since she said she's living nearby and going home now.
I was honestly...surprised, mesmerized, speechless.... and ashamed >_<
First, I somehow can't recall ever seeing her in my neighbourhood, yet she recognized me. Second, she graciously offered a ride while she could very well just ignore me as I could get on the next bus anyway. Third, it's been a long time that I don't find this side of Trento, of a small city where almost everyone knows each other and talks to each other in public .And last but, yeah, very least, I'm so not in a proper public clothes; as I thought I was just running a small errand, I only wore a jacket, my crumpled baggy pants, and my flip-flops. Oh, God.
And, curses to my very very limited italian language vocabulary, I can't convey any of those mixed feelings in proper italian sentences to communicate with her.
With my super broken Italian I tried to tell her it's fine, I could wait for the next bus. She simply replied "come vuoi..." (I don't know how to properly translate this, literally it's "however you want", but in conversation this is more like saying "up to you") and continued that she was going home anyway with her daughter.
I could finally only sheepishly said, yes, thank you, to her.
And so we rode her car. Her name is Patricia and her daughter is Adelle, 9 years old. She's a native of Trento, living in the upper side of my neighbourhood. I told her I'm a student here, from Indonesia. And I'm so embarassed that I had to tell her I've been living here for 3 years, but still can't use proper Italian for small talks like this >_<
(Note to self : it is of high importance to take the advanced Italian course now!)
And so.. the short ride ended, and we parted our ways.
Once again I cursed myself since I didn't even know how to express my gratitude other than saying "grazie mille". In english at least I would go on with 1 full long paragraph of gratitude sentences to thank her for her help. But all I could say in Italian was just grazie mille...grazie mille (repeated until the car door closed).
And here I am in my home, safe and sound without having to wait for the bus in the cold, with warm and fuzzy feeling after receiving such random act of kindness. I hope I could return the favour someday, somewhere, somehow, and I hope I could do such an act of kindness to stranger here too next time. Amen :)
Today I received one.
I was just running an errand, buying groceries for survival, in the nearby supermarket this afternoon. The closing time of the shop was not really convenient as I still had roughly 20mins to wait for the next bus going to my place.
As I crossed the street to the bus stop, a lady and her daughter suddenly said hi to me (in Italian). I greeted her back, having no idea what she might asked. Unless they are fellow students, or old people, it's pretty rare to have Italians struck a conversation first with a foreigner like me. As it turned out, she asked me if I wanted a ride with her since she said she's living nearby and going home now.
I was honestly...surprised, mesmerized, speechless.... and ashamed >_<
First, I somehow can't recall ever seeing her in my neighbourhood, yet she recognized me. Second, she graciously offered a ride while she could very well just ignore me as I could get on the next bus anyway. Third, it's been a long time that I don't find this side of Trento, of a small city where almost everyone knows each other and talks to each other in public .And last but, yeah, very least, I'm so not in a proper public clothes; as I thought I was just running a small errand, I only wore a jacket, my crumpled baggy pants, and my flip-flops. Oh, God.
And, curses to my very very limited italian language vocabulary, I can't convey any of those mixed feelings in proper italian sentences to communicate with her.
With my super broken Italian I tried to tell her it's fine, I could wait for the next bus. She simply replied "come vuoi..." (I don't know how to properly translate this, literally it's "however you want", but in conversation this is more like saying "up to you") and continued that she was going home anyway with her daughter.
I could finally only sheepishly said, yes, thank you, to her.
And so we rode her car. Her name is Patricia and her daughter is Adelle, 9 years old. She's a native of Trento, living in the upper side of my neighbourhood. I told her I'm a student here, from Indonesia. And I'm so embarassed that I had to tell her I've been living here for 3 years, but still can't use proper Italian for small talks like this >_<
(Note to self : it is of high importance to take the advanced Italian course now!)
And so.. the short ride ended, and we parted our ways.
Once again I cursed myself since I didn't even know how to express my gratitude other than saying "grazie mille". In english at least I would go on with 1 full long paragraph of gratitude sentences to thank her for her help. But all I could say in Italian was just grazie mille...grazie mille (repeated until the car door closed).
And here I am in my home, safe and sound without having to wait for the bus in the cold, with warm and fuzzy feeling after receiving such random act of kindness. I hope I could return the favour someday, somewhere, somehow, and I hope I could do such an act of kindness to stranger here too next time. Amen :)
Sunday, August 09, 2009
Monday, July 06, 2009
Saturday, January 31, 2009
xenophobic italy?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/article5622156.ece
Italy is going further and further into this direction...
In my city there were only 2 small mosques, one of them was so small that it is only for men. It couldn't afford any space for women. And yet still, on friday prayers, the rows of people would spill to the street in front of it.
The second mosque is bigger than the first. At least there is a small room for women. On Ramadhan we would be tightly packed on tarawih prayers in that room. It was usually hard to properly sit and bow during the prayers.
For Eid-ul Fitr and Eid-ul Adha prayers these years an indoor sport hall was always rented. Thus, bigger number of people could be accommodated.
Last year the moslem community of my city began to build a masjid from scratch. Not in the city, but rather in the outskirt. It was planned to become a centre of activities not only for people in my city but also for moslem in other cities in this region. It was planned that on last Ramadhan we would have our Eid-ul Fitr prayer there, and not in the sport hall. But the masjid building was still not yet finished by that time.
During all the process of this building there were already some movements to object having a masjid in this region. I heard there was one moment where they hold a petition signing event in a piazza, talking about the act of terrorism and ask people to sign their petition to object to masjid building.
I read in the paper that actually there was a statement from the church in the region that support the building of this masjid. They recognize that it is a facility for prayer and people with religion needs such facility (CMIIW my italian is not that good). I talked once with my professor too, (an Italian, and he was the one who brought up the topics) and he expressed how ridiculous and made non-sense it was to object a facility of prayer to be built.
But, then... the government decision was issued. The building process had to stop, they withdrew the permission to build the masjid.
That was last year.
I just recently came back from a vacation in my home country. And upon coming back I learnt that now the small mosque is closed. There is only one mosque allowed now in this city...
And here comes the banning of food...
I enjoyed staying in Italy because the people are warm, just like Indonesian.
they smile and say ciao to strangers, they chitchat on the bus. All italians I came into contact with are nice, friendly, and kind.
CMIIW but I think how the situation advanced now is scary...
Italy is going further and further into this direction...
In my city there were only 2 small mosques, one of them was so small that it is only for men. It couldn't afford any space for women. And yet still, on friday prayers, the rows of people would spill to the street in front of it.
The second mosque is bigger than the first. At least there is a small room for women. On Ramadhan we would be tightly packed on tarawih prayers in that room. It was usually hard to properly sit and bow during the prayers.
For Eid-ul Fitr and Eid-ul Adha prayers these years an indoor sport hall was always rented. Thus, bigger number of people could be accommodated.
Last year the moslem community of my city began to build a masjid from scratch. Not in the city, but rather in the outskirt. It was planned to become a centre of activities not only for people in my city but also for moslem in other cities in this region. It was planned that on last Ramadhan we would have our Eid-ul Fitr prayer there, and not in the sport hall. But the masjid building was still not yet finished by that time.
During all the process of this building there were already some movements to object having a masjid in this region. I heard there was one moment where they hold a petition signing event in a piazza, talking about the act of terrorism and ask people to sign their petition to object to masjid building.
I read in the paper that actually there was a statement from the church in the region that support the building of this masjid. They recognize that it is a facility for prayer and people with religion needs such facility (CMIIW my italian is not that good). I talked once with my professor too, (an Italian, and he was the one who brought up the topics) and he expressed how ridiculous and made non-sense it was to object a facility of prayer to be built.
But, then... the government decision was issued. The building process had to stop, they withdrew the permission to build the masjid.
That was last year.
I just recently came back from a vacation in my home country. And upon coming back I learnt that now the small mosque is closed. There is only one mosque allowed now in this city...
And here comes the banning of food...
I enjoyed staying in Italy because the people are warm, just like Indonesian.
they smile and say ciao to strangers, they chitchat on the bus. All italians I came into contact with are nice, friendly, and kind.
CMIIW but I think how the situation advanced now is scary...
Friday, January 30, 2009
lie to me
It's a title of new tv series j downloaded based on the ads we kept on hearing in yahoo launchcast. It builds the story around the fact that there are many things in body languages people can take hints from to tell whether someone is telling the truth or not. Because simply a slight right shoulder shrug could betray a full rehearsed lie.
But then maybe it's not the body languages who betray people,
more like people are betraying their own body by involving it in an act of lie.
When we see it that way, it is amazing how our whole body parts are actually given with an inherent resistance system towards making lies. The faster heart beat, the cold sweats, the shame, the guilty feelings that would churn your guts after you did something bad. It is a bad thing, therefore our body parts are encoded to make it harder for us to lie, or do something intentionally bad in general. In wars some studies have shown that actually more bullets are shot to a random direction, as it is not in human basic instinct to kill someone else. The corollary is shown in studies concerning how there are many soldiers suffered from depressions after war. As they are essentially fighting the will of their own body and mind by killing other people.
I guess this thought will go with some verse (or hadith?) which said that later in the judgement day our body parts will stand by themselves as the witnesses for us, and reports all things, good and bad, that we have done. Jokingly we can say our body parts have their own free will ^^.
Another possibility is that actually it is not about something encoded in the body. The conscience already know that a certain something is bad, therefore, although maybe repressed, it sent this signal to the whole body which then reacts. After all, mind controls everything in our body. People could say love hurts, because when you feel sad by love it goes to the same part of brain which sensor hurts literary, thus you feel the hurt.
Anyway you look at it, -whether it is something already encoded or it's something our own conscience is telling our body-, then it is actually easy to stay away from doing bad things, doing harms to ourselves.
May for our lifetime we don't need to betray ourselves from the true path. May we always be sensitive to listen to our conscience. May our conscience always be guided to always know the truth.
ps. no, don't lie to me though. i picked the title just because it's that series which sparked this thought. I myself am a bad lie detector and therefore a bad liar.
But then maybe it's not the body languages who betray people,
more like people are betraying their own body by involving it in an act of lie.
When we see it that way, it is amazing how our whole body parts are actually given with an inherent resistance system towards making lies. The faster heart beat, the cold sweats, the shame, the guilty feelings that would churn your guts after you did something bad. It is a bad thing, therefore our body parts are encoded to make it harder for us to lie, or do something intentionally bad in general. In wars some studies have shown that actually more bullets are shot to a random direction, as it is not in human basic instinct to kill someone else. The corollary is shown in studies concerning how there are many soldiers suffered from depressions after war. As they are essentially fighting the will of their own body and mind by killing other people.
I guess this thought will go with some verse (or hadith?) which said that later in the judgement day our body parts will stand by themselves as the witnesses for us, and reports all things, good and bad, that we have done. Jokingly we can say our body parts have their own free will ^^.
Another possibility is that actually it is not about something encoded in the body. The conscience already know that a certain something is bad, therefore, although maybe repressed, it sent this signal to the whole body which then reacts. After all, mind controls everything in our body. People could say love hurts, because when you feel sad by love it goes to the same part of brain which sensor hurts literary, thus you feel the hurt.
Anyway you look at it, -whether it is something already encoded or it's something our own conscience is telling our body-, then it is actually easy to stay away from doing bad things, doing harms to ourselves.
May for our lifetime we don't need to betray ourselves from the true path. May we always be sensitive to listen to our conscience. May our conscience always be guided to always know the truth.
ps. no, don't lie to me though. i picked the title just because it's that series which sparked this thought. I myself am a bad lie detector and therefore a bad liar.
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