Life is simple, but to live it... simply not

First of all... I Thank God's blessings. Despite of all my worries, I have now officially passed University without ever failing a subject. These are my results for this final semester:

2006	MGF2351	2	INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS	2	6	74	D
2006	MKF3121	3	MARKETING PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION	2	6	61	C
2006	MKF3131	3	STRATEGIC MARKETING	2	6	51	P
2006	MKF3461	3	MARKETING COMMUNICATION	2	6	75	D

This semester is by far the hardest of all my uni life since I have to take 3 third year compulsory strands marketing subjects. Out of all the subjects I take this semester, I fear Strategic Marketing the most. I don't know why during exam time this semester I don't feel as much pressure as the few last semester... maybe because I know deep within me that it was going to be my last ever exams that I have to face. I was definitely struggling to focus on my studies and on the exam day itself, I really didn't manage to finish Strategic Marketing exam and it really bothers me. Now as you can see... I barely passed it with a mark of 51.

On wednesday quite a lot of people gathered at my place to celebrate our results as we planned. I cooked some food and while making them Harianto's suddenly screamed out "The grades are available, I've got mine already via SMS and I PASSED IT ALL!". Some people that have turned up at my place suddenly went quite and starting to take turns to check their results on my computer. Andrew (bokis) was actually praying hard before he managed to mustered the courage to open his results first and suddenly he yelled "PASSED ALL!". Second was Vivi and she also passed all of them, followed by me. As I opened my results, A feeling that can not be described by words builds up inside of me. It was a bitter sweet feeling if I try to describe it since I knew that it was the end of my Uni-life and it was a whole new adventure for me to go through. Kevin then opened his results with a stunning 3 HDs. The last and actually the most sorrowful was Robin as he failed Strategic Marketing as he expected. There is no chance for him to apply for NP either since his grade was too low. After that my home was full of all of my friends that started to come and gathered up in my place one by one to a total of about 14 people. Johan was missing because he said he was sick and he also failed a subject but it is possible for him to apply for NP. My place suddenly became so full of life, filled with laughter, joy and a little bit of sadness.

It was a celebration for our success and it was definitely a memorable day of warm friendship and to recindle the old memories of our lives in University. It was a joyus occation but also a sad thought came across my mind. We all have to go our separate ways, to different countries and different lives. That bond of being in the same boat that created our friendship have disappeared. We are no longer students in Caulfield Monash University living in Melbourne and it was time to decide our futures. The night ended but we had plans to celebrate more with having yum cha in the morning.

Today on thursday we went to Dragon Boat Palace and for those who don't know, it offers all you can eat yum cha on every weekdays. Most of the people from the night before came and this time we had to eat on separate tables since there were too many of us there. However even though we didn't get to talk much, I'm sure we were enjoying ourselves. It was then we realise that Robin have to leave for Indo tomorrow and it will be the last time for him to see some of the people there. We then went back to my place and play some poker. Then at night we planned to celebrate Indra's birthday a little bit early by throwing him into the pool. However the plan actually backfired for me and instead I was the one who ended up soaking wet in the pool with full clothes on. Robin and Kevin just pushed me from behind while I was holding Indra who got away just before the push.

I'm having such a great time these past two days... and recentlt I realised that the future won't be as good as now and the days in Uni are indeed the best time of my life.

University was tough but then, Things that were hard to bear are sweet to remember.

Posted by MaxJ at 6:11 AM | Permalink | Comments

I finished my exams 2 weeks ago, now I'm officially an Unemployed and since then my life is filled with nothing but having fun. The guys were all thinking about stuff to do for these holidays anywhere from having dinner together, clubbing, to staying over at my place and other ridiculous stuffs. I am having fun now but sometimes I really feel that I should do things that are constructive and even try to start building my career. For these last 2 weeks we as friends have grown really close and somehow I can't shake the feeling that it will be the last time we will have fun like this, since most of these guys will go back for good to indo or go to China to study language.

For the last few days I've been having friends either staying over or just playing around at my place until late. The biggest reason was... POKER. I thought all of them how to play poker and bought this professional looking chip-set. Since then my friends just simply got hooked by it and my place was turned into a pigsty in virtually a day ^_^ with all the people coming in. But it's not a big deal since it was really fun having people to come over, something that I couldn't do just 2 months ago.

This wednesday we went to a restaurant called Old Kingdom. We've been planning to have dinner here since before exams and the funny thing is, Chris (kuda) who suggested to eat here already went back to Indo for holidays. The specialty that everyone must try in this restaurant is its Peking Duck. I just have to admit this is the best duck I ever had in Melbourne and the other guys agreed. We HAVE to book the ducks first before coming to the restaurant and there is no way we can order extra on the spot. The duck was prepared for us in 3 ways, first the owner slices the duck right in front of us and gives us a slice each to make ourselves a peking duck and Yum... it was purely delicious. When the owner threw a slice of duck to Johan's plate, Johan was pissed and we all can see it from his face ^_^.

He said "that is no way to treat a customer you know, what if that duck hits me?".

After that first serve we all got worried that 3 ducks wasn't enough for 8 of us since we liked it so much, but it was alright everybody was happy enough with the portion. The second dish was duck stir fried with beanshoots. Those beanshoots disappeared quite quickly XD and I was surprised to see Makjang (chris) to eat vegetables so eagerly when he never even wants to eat any vegetables before. The final dish was duck soup, Andre and Harianto said they were not full yet. After this dish was finished we were all full and FAT with duck in our stomachs. Everybody starts to talk about random stuff from bacteria to Osama bin laden (WTF?). Anyway all of us agreed that we have to go to this restaurant again after we get our results. Then on impulse I just said that "ooh too bad Johan will not be joining us then" XD



Right afterwards we went clubbing to this event called "Flaunt". This is the first time ever Johan ever go clubbing in Melbourne, Hooray for Johan!!! Since me and Andre was driving so we decided that we won't be drinking. However things just starting to go bad since it was sooo boring when we got there and the only thing to do was drink. Somehow I controlled myself to stop drinking and had no more than 2 shots. On the other hand, Andre had 6 or 7 SHOTS!!!, got drunk and starting to act really stupidly XD while Nic on the other hand starting to flirt with this korean chick named "G", we know her from Caulfield and she works at Kim chi restaurant. Anyway Andre really decided that he's too drunk to drive so he went home at 3 driven by his girlfriend's friend and left his car in Docklands. Now comes the mystery and only some of us know this mystery and I can't tell it to just anyone XD

On Thursday morning we were all feeling tired like hell after last night clubbing. Moreover we didn't have enough sleep plus Andre needs to pick up his car. What I did after is kinda blurry cause we were all damn tired.

Anyway after spending a day of doing nothing at my place, we had a barbeque with Vivi and Luki on Friday to celebrate their b'lated birthdays. It was an awfully fun barbeque at Albert Park. It was especially fun when we decided to play this stupid save the hostage game at a kid's playground with wooden castle. Strangely it attracts everyone to play the game and it was just fun to see people catching people or saving them. I couldn't help but think that we sort of acting like we went back to our kindergarden times when we play those hide and seek or tag games ^_^

Anyway lots of things are happening in this holiday and I'm sure a lot of memorable things is soon to come. I hope I can remember all of them, cause just now I can't even remember what we did on Thursday since I've been having too much fun.

Posted by MaxJ at 5:47 AM | Permalink | Comments

Today is my last and final day as a University student since I don't have any more classes to attend. Like most people say, you do tend to get mixed emotions about your graduation. It felt like I'm still this same person, a University student and I thought I will be forever since the only thing that you can really feel about is now, the present time. You do look into the past and your memory of that time is getting blurry everytime you try to remember as time passes and trying to look into the future is just impossible and imagining it, is just too scary sometimes. So what you can actually feel is just what IS happening now... no matter how scary or happy now is. Just today my monitor broke down and I thought it was my computer that broke down. I couldn't help but feel that it is going to be a bad day especially when its the last day of uni. However I could say that today is a pleasant day where I can actually enjoy myself. The marketing people had a nice barbeque at Caulfield lawn today and it is to celebrate the end of our semester. I made a video of the event and I hope I can edit it and make it into a nice memorial video.

The mixed emotions I felt is really just unbearable. You just can tell how fast time is moving by going through events like graduations and nothing beats it. The fact that I'm graduating shows that I won't have the luxury of living under my parents anymore even though I never really felt that luxury. At the same time it also signify how my life is going to change dramatically from now on since most of us have been going to school since we were 5 or 6 years old and suddenly... we just suddenly stop doing what we've been doing for the past 14-15 years. I won't be studying, go to Uni, go out with friends, and even behave a little childish at times anymore. Most of all I'm scared that I will lose the friendship that I have along these years built by our common experiences for having to go to school or uni. An example is my friend from high school Fasco is coming to Melbourne today and to be honest, I do feel that we are not as close as we used to be. There are sayings about "No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship" but in truth if we don't have anymore similarities that built our friendship and we don't spend time or meet our friends, distance grows betweens us.

The other emotions that I feel and what I have been telling everyone of how we should look at the positive side of graduating, that little feeling of relieve. The relieve from doing things like assignments and stressful studies for exams. But if I think about it... going through those rough times are the things that actually made my life meaningful and like a wise saying said:

"Things that were hard to bear are sweet to remember." ~Seneca

Another reason to be happy is how from now on I am no longer a person who have to depend on others. And for some reason I always have this thought in my mind, "Why do people depend on each other? We were born into this world alone and we will surely leave this world alone. In the end you're on your own." Especially depending on parents, it really takes away your freedom and sometimes I feel and know for fact that my parents are actually a burden that prevents me from growing into an independent person.

Like my title... going through life is just not simple. At times I could think that time just stood still, things won't ever change and everything just stay as they are forever. But that is what all of us have to live through: CHANGE and to be honest it scares me at times like this. Change is inevitable and the passing of time equals change...
Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are. ~Bertold Brecht

We just have to make sure that things change for the better. I do have doubts in my mind that I will be able to make it so because sometimes things are just beyond our control. I feel awkward putting in all of these wise saying but they do represent the feeling that I'm going through now. Sigh... I really do hope from this moment on I can change and grow into a better person from what I am now and the friendship I have will remain unchanged despite reality that separates us.

Posted by MaxJ at 8:53 AM | Permalink | Comments

It's been 5 days now since my mom went back to Indonesia, and she will stay there for at least two months. Saying that it means that I'm living on my own now since my sister is living at her friend's place. This is the first time I was left home alone for more than 4 days and I really enjoy the freedom even though it feels a bit lonely at times. However it is not as lonely as I thought it would be since Robin and Johan each take turn to spend the night at my place on the first couple of night ^_^

Just yesterday I had to do a presentation on one of my subject, Marketing planning and implementation. The ridiculous thing is... we have to dress formally to do the presentation since a general manager of the company is coming to see our presentation. Have to admit, our presentation went quite well considering that we only prepared it the day before. Most credit goes to Josh, my groupmate a canadian born aussie with great presentation skill. He could talk for hours if he had to and it is very clear that language plays an important role in our everyday lives. Our presentation I can say was the funniest and most entertaining since we actually made a very big argument with our tutor and Josh just too good at arguing, especially on our idea where we proposed to change their company website. The representative to the company that came that day even joked about being insulted by our proposition and said that he was the one who designed the website. However he later admits that he didn't designed it and even supported that they will redesign the website later on.

The freakiest thing happened the night before that presentation day. At around 1.30 "AM" I found a piece of clothing lying on my balcony. So I went out and check to see it and finds it to be a jumper for men. To my surpise when I picked it up, it has some "Blood stain" on it. I hurry in and turn on the light to confirm that it is blood. After I confirmed that it is blood, I told everyone in my chatroom what I found. I remembered some guy saying "omg... there is a murder in your apartment" and "better call the police". So I did call the police and report what I found while saying "I'm not sure whether this is an emergency or not but I'm not sure what to do". The officer on the other end told me that I can either wait and they will send two police officers to come to my apartment and check it out or I can drop it off at the nearest police station. So I chose to do the later and dropped it off in the police station. When I came the police just looked confused and didn't even want to touch the jumper and made me wait for about 10 minutes. He finally came out, took my details, and said that he will keep it and made a lame joke asking me whether I want to keep the jumper or not. So I thought I did the right thing and that it all ends there...

At about 2 am something I got a phone call from the police and he said that two police officer will come to my place to try and find out where the jumper came from. I was thinking "is he serious? How the hell is he going to find out?" I live at a 3rd floor apartment with the biggest balcony and there are at least 17 stories above me. He said that they will be coming in around 10 minutes and I waited until almost 3 I decided they won't be coming and went to sleep. Suddenly the bell rang and I woke up to see the time is... F*****g 4 in the morning. So I opened up the door for a female and a male police officer. They went straight to the balcony and looked around the place and the female officer asked me a coule of questions about where I found the jumper and how did I found it. The most ridiculous thing is, I get the impression that she suspects someone jumped off their balcony to commit suicide or something and his clothes went flying and thought how dumb is that assumption? I really can't think much since I was sleepy so I asked whether it is human blood on the jumper and she replied "yes, but since we didn't get any complain from anyone so we don't know anything at the moment". She finally decided to leave after getting my date of birth.

I'm still getting a deep surreal feeling about the whole thing. It felt like I was living one of those CSI TV drama as a witness or something. Anyway I still feel something wrong happened and I'm feeling a bit worried if there was really a murder. We do live in a world where psychotic people exists and kill for no reason. Anyway just be careful if you ever come across something like this and be sure that you lock up the doors.

Boo!! ^o^

Posted by MaxJ at 3:52 AM | Permalink | Comments

OKAY! even this is a new record for me... To submit 3 assignments on a single day. I knew that these assignments are a pain in the ass and two of them are group assignments, but I've always known that I'll be having a very late night just before Monday but didn't expect to not get a good night sleep at all.

I'm so tired now... spent the past 3 days non-stop in front of a computer screen, be it a laptop, a desktop at home, or a desktop at library or even computer labs. I can feel my bad eye sight is deteriorating even further just from the effects of using too much computers. Last night I only had 4 hours sleep max and somehow it was a good sleep, maybe I was just too tired.

Anyway one more thing that bothers me is my fitness... I haven't been going to the gym lately and I haven't been going to soccer trainings with Gaucho. Man I feel lousy and getting a lot fatter even though the scale says that I've only gained 1 extra kilo.

Sigh... uni life is certainly taking its toll on my body. I just kept on encouraging myself remembering that its only 4 weeks left to go till I don't need to do any of these shits any longer. All the late nights doing assignment and studying for exams. The worst thing is, I still have another 2,500 words assignment due this thursday, a viva voce test, and a presentation of our assignment to corporates and finally EXAMS! I wish this all ends really soon but still some fears lingers in my mind on what I will be doing after uni.

Find a good job and work, stay regardless of not getting any job, or back for good to Indo?

Its a really big question and really urgent. Another option might be to take a masters degree, but f*** that... I've had enough of uni... its already time for me to get paid to do all of these work!

Posted by MaxJ at 8:19 AM | Permalink | Comments

After so many hard days we have gone through in university, we finally get a chance for a break to go and have a holiday. This time... I arranged a barbeque outing to Mount Dandenong tourist road about 60-70 Kms away from the city. I have been dreaming about this day for 2-3 weeks now and it finally came through ^_^. After telling Chris and Harry about my plan, Chris told me that we could visit Tulip festival farm along the way. And I thought if it is close, why not? I've never been there before either and after seeing some pictures it looks interesting. So the plan is set for our one day trip to tulip farm and Mount dandenong.

The preparation started yesterday when me, Chris, Hanna, Harry, and JoHaN! went to Queen Vic market to buy foods. We actually got there around 3 but a lot of the shops were already closed! I panicked a bit since that could be the end of our barbeque trip. Luckily some shops were opened and we spent about $90 for the foods. After that we carry on to safeway to get some sauces and other stuffs. The funniest thing is we actually got away getting a free 30 cans pack of coke worth $20 because the cashier forgot that she haven't scanned it.

After shopping we went to Chris' place to prepare the food and marinate them all to be ready for the barbeque. In the middle of the preparations a lot of shit talks were going on and it was really funny. The most useless people there was Robin and Johan, yes you two! hehe... just kidding, actually those two provided us with some entertainment. At the end of the day me, Robin and Johan decided to sleep over at Harry's since it was closer to go from there. So as expected, I couldn't sleep very well since I'm sleeping with those two in the same room...

So the people that was confirmed and coming are: Me, Harry, Robin, Johan, Chris, Hanna, Mike, Kevin, Will, Hans, Andre, Haryanto, Angela, Nich, and not coming with us to tulip farm are: Andrew, Vivi, Alvin, another Chris, and Indra. But Indra canceled at the last moment.

Anyway morning comes and we were all geting ready to depart but some people were late and we had to change our plan from meeting at Caulfield to meeting at Clayton, That actually cost us 1 hour delay, just as all Indo would say: "namanya juga Indo.." So we end up leaving from Clayton at 11 with me leading the way.

Along the way I knew that Andre must be really eager! to be driving fast and I can just tell from the mountain road that we were driving on. Anyway we've arrived at the tulips around 12 and I really liked the colorful atmosphere. I didn't like tulips very much but it was quite a beautiful sight to see and was quite worth the trip. My biggest regret was my damn digicam's battery ran out! I could have made a very good video of us playing around the field and capture the beautiful scenery.


After that everybody was hungry so we rushed to go to Mt. Dandenong's observatory to have our barbeque. Just our luck though, they actually said that the barbequers were broken and we can't use them. I was really depressed and felt that it could never get any worse than this. Luckily though we found a different place to do a barbeque just near the observatory. The place was kalomora park and it was quite nice but we didn't mind at all since we were all starving and needed a barbeque pit straight away.

We had a lot of laughs and eat a lot of meat today and it was really fun. We all had jokes and the biggest one was actually that our barbeque was treated by Johan and we sang him a happy birthday song which we were actually 3 months late! After we finished barbequing, don't know why but we decided to play dodge ball... corny at the beginning but it turns out to be really fun and everybody was actually playing the game. It made me forget about the disappointments of not being able to stick with a plan and it actually turns out fine. Still if only I had my digicam I could have shared this moment with all of you and capture the memory of this day.

At the end of the day while driving back home, I couldn't help feeling that this may be the last time I could have fun with my friends as a student... Since after that it is back to studying, passing exams, graduating, and then get a job and start to live in the real world. Thinking about that really makes me feel uneasy and it actually scared me to think about how fast time was moving. But if time doesn't move this fast, I will have to stay in my current depressing world for too long. Nevertheless this brief moment of happiness, joy and fun; I will always cherish it and remember it always.

Posted by MaxJ at 7:55 AM | Permalink | Comments

Man... so many assignment these past few weeks and not to mention those stupid 10-15 pages case study from strategic marketing that we have to do every week. After so long absent from blogging I really should recap on the things I've done for this past month... But really I forgot everything that happened. It's a shame that human have such a short term memory and we can't keep everything that we want to remember in our mind.

Anyway... I have to write something about my Mt. Buller trip last month with Harry, Robin, Chris and the others. remind me to post the picture later on :p

It was a very tiring day but nevertheless fun and exciting. I'm kinda embarrased by the fact that it was my first time ever to go to a ski resort, not to mention the first time ever to be around so much snow before. All I can remember from it now is this blurry white mountain and the pain I felt the day after. The day after that I still had to finish up my damn case study too and my body was truly tired since I went up and down the slope around 4 times that day.

Anyway holiday is over, recently I was interviewed for a graduation job with bloomberg. I didn't think that it went very well or it could have been better but somehow I was really surprised to hear that I went through to the second round interview. To my surprise that second round interview was actually a telephone interview directly from Singapore where I would probably be placed if I get the job. That telephone interview was really nerve-wrecking and worst of all, I was called when I was at campus playing table tennis (strange sport of choice).

Bloomberg is a finance company and the job that I'm applying for is financial sales. The hardest question she asked me was "How will you cope in bloomberg with the fact that you're a marketing student working in a finance company?". Nothing could prepare me for such a question and I know any answer will not secure me the job. And as I feared, the next day I received the bad news that I was rejected. Sigh... I really hoped that this could really be my starting point in my career but I guess its back to job hunting again. Just wishing that I'm lucky enough for my next job interview.

Posted by MaxJ at 1:17 AM | Permalink | Comments