The Power of GIVING!

Something unexpected just happened 2 me… somebody whom I respect a lot gave me a present for no reason. She is my supervisor when I did my final assignment in my undergraduate program (Astronomy). Her name is Bu Nana. I really didn’t expect her to give me anything. But apparently it was none other than the work of Allah.

Not so long ago, I attended this summer school in Evolution of Language in Utrecht, Netherlands. After going back to Indonesia, the Professor teaching the lecture gave me some files regarding evolution of language. And I thought, “Why don’t I forward the files to Bu Nana?” I thought this way ‘cause she said that she was also interested in language, linguistic and stuff. So I forwarded the files to her. I mean, after what she’s done for me (guiding me through my final undergraduate years), sending her some files which I thought it would be useful somehow would be great.

Couples of weeks later, I came to see her to just make a silaturahim and say “Minal Aidin Wal fa idzin” after Eid Ul-Fitr (Idul Fitri). What surprised me from that meeting with her, she gave me a BOOK which she thought I would really like it. And yes, that was probably one of the best gifts in recent years. The book’s called “On Nature and Language” by Noam Chomsky, which points greatly on the relation between language, mind and the brain. I can use the book for many purposes, my personal interest and especially my thesis. I study Science in Management now for my graduate program. And my final thesis will hopefully be related to language and multilingualism in which I will relate this to mind and brain as well… I say “Alhamdulillah”. This is out of my control… God (Allah) really works in a mysterious way… The power of giving really works (sincere giving, of course)…

I also see the existence of the power of giving through my mother… Subhanallah. I always notice that she always gives anything she’s capable of to the people around her… in many forms… and in Islam, it is said that when you give something to other, Allah will give something back to you multiply… Giving something to people can be a hard thing to do, … InsyaAllah it’s going to be one of our tasks in this life if we want to be happy… I mean I’m happy not only because Bu Nana gave me the book, but I’m more happy to see how things work if we BELIEVE in Allah…

May I always have guidance…

It’s LANGUAGE

Subhanallah, I’ve been falling in love with something else these days… it is LANGUAGE… I mean I’ve been speaking Indonesian, English and a bit Sundanese… It think it’s time for me to GET CLOSER to other language… I’m now studying German (Deutsch)… and I’ve been loving it… I have a belief that the more you learn language, the more you know the expression you should convey through words… I know that not every word in English can be interpreted perfectly to Indonesia… and vice versa… As for my future project, I’m planning to learn more about languages… German, French, Dutch, Arab, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, and many other languages… Thanks to Allah that I love languages… It’s one of my attempts to get closer to people from all over the world, to be able to communicate with all my brothers and sisters, from Adam and Eve (Hawa)… May Allah bless my dream… InsyaAllah… Amin

Hmm… I just want to be…

As a human being, I have many dreams. I believe that Islam encourages people to pursue their dreams as long as it is in the right path. I mean, here is the list of things I want to be and do in the future: musician, writer, scientist, journalist, lecturer, etc…

Yet, among these dreams all I want to be is just being a good Muslim, that’s all…
It is the ultimate goal of my life… Am I already a good Muslim? Am I a bad Muslim?
No way can I judge myself. Only Allah Al-Mighty has the right to say someone a good Muslim or not. We’re all trying our best. Yet, we have to always look at sins we’ve done and try not to count every good things we’ve done. All I do will be nothing when I don’t do it in the path of what Allah has determined. InsyaAllah… we’re all trying

Tampil dengan BANDOS ITB, di Blitz dan ITB…

Wah, gw akhirnya ada juga media untuk nambah jam terbang. Bermain bareng BANDOS ITB bener2 sesuatu yang baru dan menyenangkan. Ngeliat para dosen2 itu bermain musik bener2 buat penyegaran.

Penampilan pertama gw bareng BANDOS ITB itu waktu di Blitz. Ga nyangka bisa tampil di sini. Penontonnya cukup banyak. Om-om dosen bilang ktnya penampilannya lebih bagus daripada pas latihan. Lagu2 yang dibawain sendiri ada 6, “Prahara Cinta”, “In the Stone”, “Still a Friend of Mine”, “If I Ain’t Got You”, “Stand Up for Love” sama “You”. Ada beberapa kendala yang gw temuin, yaitu:
1. Gw belom pernah nyanyi trio, dimana gw dan teman2 (Dinda dan Dhien), harus berbagi suara 1, 2 dan 3. Karena gw cowo, cukup sulit untuk menyocokkan dengan kedua wanita bersuara merdu ini. Tapi, ini adalah sebuah tantangan. Dan ketika kita berhasil melewati tantangan, maka kita akan berada pada level lain.
2. Lagu2 yang dibawain itu, cenderung lagu2 cewek. Lagu “in the stone” earth wind and fire aja dinaekin nadanya… Ini karena mereka udah pernah bawain ini lagu dan sudah cukup fix kuncinya.
Tapi itu dia, semua tantangan positif itu harus dijawab. Dan Alhandulillah, waktu itu semuanya berjalan dengan lancar.

Penampilan yang kedua yaitu pas tampil di ITB, my campus. Tampilan kesekian kalinya di kampus (gw pribadi, hehe). Selain 6 lagu yang udah disebutin di atas, ada juga lagu “Cinta”-nya Chrisye sama “Kenangan Terindah”-nya Samsons. Jujur aja, untuk kedua lagu ini, latihannya cuma 1 kali. Jadi, cukup ga pede juga bawainnya. Dan lagu kaya gini, bukan lagu yang biasa gw nyanyiin. Tapi ya, coba aja lah…
Gw harus nurut dulu sama apa kata pendahulu2…heheh untuk fit in… nah, wal hasil… ada beberapa nada yang fals, gw nyadar banget pas tampil lagu samsons. Lagunya itu nadanya dinaikin jadi nada cewek. Jadinya, gw kebagian ref-nya… Karena kurang pd “tea”, ada beberapa nada yang slip. Ya gpp-lah… selalu ada evaluasi.

Yang pasti, pengalaman pertama dan kedua ini sungguh berkesan karena memberi suasana yang baru dalam hidup gw…hahaha.

God creates all the sciences

As a moslem, i always believe that God is one, has no parent and has no child, and nothing’s like God (Allah). And subhanallah, not only that I believe in this statement in and out my whole soul, but science has once again proved that. Subhanallah, subhanallah, subhanallah. I have no idea that my Astronomy major has introduced me to what is called the bridge between religion and science. Allah (God) says in the Qur’an that we have to always reach for knowledge in order to get closer. What i understand about getting closer to God is that knowledge can enrich the concept of things in the whole universe and in life so that we can feel humble. And what science do i mean?

Well, it’s the big bang thing. Astronomers believe that the universe was born through such explosion called “Big Bang”. Nobody can explain it. We can only try to “describe” it, like written in the article by Peter Marshall. So after the big bang, there came the universe. This is how I’m going to explain about how science connects with religion.

When the universe was born, the space and time were formed. In fact, the term “space and time” is inseparable with the universe. It means, before the universe was born, there never was what is called “space” nor “time”. Can u imagine that? Einstein said that there must have been a “Spirit” that once created the universe. Observations have shown that there needs to be a miracle that can form a universe like shown.
So prior to the birth of the universe, what exist is, i believe, immortality. As far as i’m concerned. Mortality is caused by specifically “time”. So when there is no time, everything’s considered immortal. Logical enough.

To sum up, I entirely believe the “Spirit” that i’ve been talking about is God (Allah SWT), subhanallah. And that GOD CREATES ALL THE SCIENCES. We never creates even a single form of science. What we do is basically, trying to find out what God has written in all over the universe (through science). Once again, we don’t really explain things, we can only try to describe things. It is what it is, that’s it.