08. design: the paradise and the horror

i’ve never been a big fan of designing. actually, i hated designing. that’s why i chose research for my final year project, instead of design. i had always been good at mathematics, equations, and so on. but i was stuck in this valley of desperation called design.

this story was continued until i got a job. my first job, luckily didn’t require me to do much design work. all i did was transforming my bosses’ idea and their design into real drawing. but that doesn’t mean i did not have any chance to design. i had that chance! that kind of opportunity was considered as a gem, cause it was so rare for me, junior apprentice, to design something. yet, i failed to impress anybody. my design was epic fail then. LOL.

but i realized i did not have what it takes to be able to design landscape. i lacked of landscape knowledge. whether it was planting names or landscape construction principle, i had no idea about landscape at all. i did not know who is the best landscape architecture firm in the world, i did not know famous landscape architects at all. maybe i was just not into design.

i thought in grad school we were gonna talking about research, paper, seminar, conference, etc etc. yet i was fooled. i have to meet my biggest fear: design.

i am sitting here, in my lab desk, with bunch of tracing paper in front of me, headphone sticking in my ear, and enjoying my time to design. but why? how come i can enjoy designing?

if you are in the position that:

1. your design is not that good, but it’s enough to make you stay in the class. with effort, you can do better in the class.
2. the theory classes are almost incomprehensible for your brain to be processed.

i’ll take the option one, please. without any chili and please don’t make it spicy for me.

06. How’s life going on here

How’s life? I have been 3 months in Seoul, and frankly, I still find that it feels surreal. Sometimes I didn’t realize that I live in the land of drama and idols. Maybe it’s just because most of my social life (well, let’s assume 55% of my social life is happening in my cellphone–whatsapp, kakaotalk, line, instagram, you named it) and I am using bahasa Indonesia there! Okay, I have been using Korean and English in class and lab, but the percentage is about 35:65. If I compare my used language here are Indonesian : Korean : English = 45 : 25 : 30. I also think my English is getting poor here. NO! Okay, so, in conclusion: #1 factor why I feel like I am not living in Korea is because of the language used in my daily life.

04. Hal-hal random yang terjadi hari ini!

Hari ini banyak hal-hal bahagia (sekaligus berkat) dan juga hal-hal random yang terjadi! Gue gak bakal lega kalo ga ditulis di blog, hehehe.

Sebagai pembuka mungkin gue perlu ceritain latar belakang status sosial ekonomi gue. Mengapa gue ada di Korea? Sebenernya, gue di Seoul kuliah di jurusan tukang bikin taman. Celakanya lagi, gue kuliah di kampus yang bahasa pengantarnya bahasa korea, dan gue sejujurnya ga paham sama sekali, kecuali saranghaeyo kyuhyun-oppa/jongdae-ya, kisseu juseyo, bogoshipoyo. Yak, emang gue kuliah di sini sebenernya mission impossible sih, tapi yah namanya kuliah dibayarin, makanya gue embat aja.

03. How I got this scholarship–not a useful guide, anyway

How did you get the scholarship, that was the most frequent question I heard from people around me. Well, it’s quite tiring to repeat that again and again (*automatically dancing 2PM), so I think I’ll just write down it in my blog.

01. Persiapan 1 – Belanja ke Pasar Senen!

Dasar cewek, persiapan pertama yang langsung terbayang adalah beli baju! Yang terbayang harus dibeli adalah jaket untuk musim semi! Maklum, sebagai anak yang besar di iklim tropis, saya gak pernah punya namanya baju hangat yang layak. Seinget saya, harga sebuah coat di salah satu FO di Bogor kurang lebih berkisar antara 300-400ribu rupiah (hiks). Karena pertimbangan harga dan penghematan dan emang dasarnya orang pelit, saya penasaran mau nyari baju-baju tebel di Pasar Senen.

00 – 1.5 bulan lagi

1.5 bulan lagi berangkat ke Seoul buat sekolah. “Kabur” dari masalah-masalah di Bogor, untuk nyari “masalah” baru di Seoul. Yah, kalo bikin skripsi aja dulu dimulai dengan ‘Latar Belakang Masalah’ dan berbab-bab yang membahas tentang masalah itu, sampe akhirnya terjawab di kesimpulan dan saran. Memang yang namanya sekolah, apalagi S2 itu kerjaannya buat nyari ‘masalah’, hehehe.