November 17th, 2008 — Pictures, Travel
Remembering summer vacation, now that it’s way over.
Pompeii ruins, near Naples, Italy, 12 July, 2008
Effects by Poladroid
November 6th, 2008 — TV Shows
I remember when I watched the X-Files, waiting for the late hour of 10 o’clock. Trying to stay awake while watching the night news “Dunia dalam Berita”, which of course sometimes got prolonged with the extra special report “Laporan Khusus”. But the urge to watch Mulder and Scully, the black oil, the X sign on Mulder’s window, the Lone Gunmen gang, and to hear the very typical X-Files theme song, all of them kept me awake, most of the time anyway.
It was one of what I call “one-hour-TV-shows” that made me searching other TV shows. Several worth mentioning are:
Of course Lost! I’m now literally sitting at the edge of my seat waiting for next season (due on January).
The ever popular Heroes. But now I think the show is going down, the large cast needs more character and a stronger plot but not plot where a turtle is involved, people time travels and change the future every other episode, where an adoptive father of an illegitimate daughter gets partnered with the biological mother and the biological father has a thing with a character that should have been dead but revived only as the third twin. I think I can say that Heroes is a super-heroic version of The Dynasty for the Petrellis.
The Office (US edition), the most recent TV shows that makes me smile and laugh lots of times, embarrassedly alone. It’s funny in a strange way, at least “That’s what she said”.
Prison Break in a nutshell: breaking out of a prison, becoming fugitives and running away to Panama, got busted and breaking out again from (this time) a Panamanian prison, and now doing outsource field work for an FBI agent to find a six-headed monster (probably a data centre). Tips from this show to get a heavier plot (probably will be useful for Heroes, see above): kill some of the sidekicks. Although for the lover of the main character, revive her from the other side, at any cost (a side plot on how she’s still alive after all this time is a bonus).
What do you get when a member of a Miami Metro Police Department, specifically a blood splatter analyst, moonlights as a serial killer hunting bad guys unseen by the law? An interesting plot (it’s from a book) and Dexter.
True Blood. Vampires are now eager to live side-by-side with human, at night anyway, due to recent Japanese invention of “True Blood”, a kind of soft drink that has all of what’s in the human blood. They say those vampires are “going mainstream”. But one is in love with a waiter that apparently can read others’ minds. In Bon Temps, Louisiana, nothing is what it seems to be. Guess what? It’s also from a book! Beware of some rather explicit sexual scenes on this show, though. Probably, this vampire theme is also fuelled by the upcoming, highly anticipated movie “Twilight” (also from a book, popular among the girls). If you haven’t managed to see the trailer of a particular Swedish vampire movie, then you should make some time to do so (again from a book!).
Fringe. Amongst all the show I’ve mentioned, this show is the one that has the most resemblance with The X-Files. “Monster of the week” gets a face lift to “weird events that can be solved by even-weirder experiments of the week”. The larger story arc “do alien exists?” is translated to “mysterious ‘Pattern’ of strange events”.
What’s your favourite TV shows today? I still have more, but I’ll save them for the next post 
October 27th, 2008 — Education, Erasmus Mundus, Study
This post may be a general guide to answer How much money I should prepare for Erasmus Mundus scholarship? By general I mean don’t expect it to apply for all cases. Don’t forget to always check with the official sources.
Several Erasmus Mundus programmes/courses still ask for a mail application rather than only electronically. It means that you have to send your application (completed forms, copies of transcripts, diplomas, and any other documents) to the consortium of the course directly. Some programmes also request confirmation by mail (you sign a form) when you are offered a scholarship. Finally, follow-up registration form such as accommodation application may also have to be sent via mail.
The fee for sending documents to Europe varies to what service you would like to use. Several options including (I’m not promoting anything, price listed according to my or other experiences 1 year ago):
The service reliability for DHL and EMS are pretty good, meaning you can track your mail. It is publicly known that you can’t track regular post mail, so if you’re going to use it, pray hard that your mail reaches its intended destination.
Get a real English proficiency test. By real I mean official and valid internationally. By that I mean the one that in order to take it, you have to pay quite a large amount of money. In Indonesia, IELTS test costs USD 180 (click on more information) and TOEFL test costs USD 150 (find TOEFL test locations on the available PDF document).
My suggestion is that practice your English and practice specifically for the test you’re going to take (get mock-ups or samples) and then take the test. Probably they also have mechanism to send the result directly to the course consortium directly. I’ll leave the IELTS vs TOEFL choice to you (or probably another post?).
It is implied that you’ve already have your own passport when you’re going to apply for a foreign scholarship. The cost of getting an Indonesian passport is IDR 200,000. Go to the nearest Immigration office.
Meanwhile if you are going to another country, you have to apply for a visa. Getting a scholarship offer may or may not make you entitled for a visa fee waiver. UK visa fee for student is GBP 99 and there is no visa fee waiver for non-Chevening/Fullbright scholarship holders. Some embassies or consulates will waive the visa fee if you can prove that you are awarded a scholarship.
A one way flight to Europe will set you back around USD 550. As soon as you can set the date of departure go search for a cheap ticket and book. I have a good experience with Emirates and I searched the flight using STAtravel (they have a branch in Jakarta: PT Pacto Holiday Tours).
For the fiscal tax (IDR 1,000,000), there is a procedure for a foreign scholarship holder that can be done. Don’t worry, if you get the scholarship, the procedure will be informed to you. You can read the official information about fiscal tax (in Indonesian only), the information about scholarship holder may be entitled for fiscal tax waiver is on page three (letter p).
For the first few weeks (may be up to two months!) you will probably have to live on your own. Because the living expense in Europe varies, my best recommendation is to bring as much as you can.
My experience on my expenses (as far as I remember them):
I need to remind you that other fees exist, not limited to:
October 8th, 2008 — Education, Erasmus Mundus, Study
This is a part of series I will write about Erasmus Mundus, due to heavy demand (not really, but some people did ask me about it). It will also be translated into Bahasa Indonesia and posted at http://indoem.info. The first part of this series is a small FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions), an introductory post if you will. Please bear in mind that the information written here is not official. I have no relation with EU, EC, or any Erasmus Mundus consortium other than becoming an awardee of the scholarship and enrolling in MSc NeBCC programme. By saying that, I beg you to always check with the official websites, in which some of the links I will provide below. Please DO READ the official info at the appropriate official websites carefully, before asking me anything in the comment section. Lame questions or comments get deleted and ignored. You’ve been warned.
In a nut shell, it is a mobility education scheme funded by European Commission (EC) and implemented by consortia of several European universities. Let me say that in another way: two or more European universities work together (in a consortium) establishing a master degree programme/course, the approved ones get funded by EC. If you enrol in one of these programme you will study in, at least, two universities (in different European countries), hence the word “mobility”.
More information can be found in these websites:
The bottom lines:
According to European Union website, European Commission is the executive body
of EU. It has the right to propose legislation and ensures that EU policies are properly implemented
. You can learn more about European Union at a glance, or visit the official website of the European Commission. The EC has a delegation to Indonesia and Brunei, based on Jakarta (Firefox on Mac OS X has problem in viewing the site).
For me, the most important thing is that the EC pays my scholarship.
These websites try to answer the benefits of studying in Europe:
For me, it’s the opportunity to experience a very heterogeneous continent, while getting a master degree, free! (with the scholarship of course).
NeBCC stands for Network and e-Business Centred Computing. It is an Erasmus Mundus master course held by a joint consortium among the University of Reading, UK, Αριστοτέλειο Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλονίκης (that’s Greek for Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) Greece, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (and that’s Spanish for Carlos III University of Madrid), Spain, and the (silent partner, probably not taking active role in this consortium?) Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Find out more at the official website of MSc Network and e-Business Centred Computing. It is an 18 months intensive course (including 3 months-or-so breaks/vacations). Students will study at all three universities (UoR, AUTh, UC3M).
As the name suggests, the course comprises of subjects/modules about network and e-business technologies. Have a look on brief descriptions of each modules at the aforementioned official page. I will tell more about MSc NeBCC in the next post.
Important dates for 2009/2010 class:
Apparently, according to Wikipedia, Desiderius Erasmus was a Dutch humanist and theologician, while Mundus is a Latin word for “world”.
IndoEM is a community of Erasmus Mundus awardees from Indonesia. If you have been awarded an Erasmus Mundus scholarship, you will be invited to join IndoEM. We have tried to put up a website indoem.info, to communicate with Indonesians interested in Erasmus Mundus. Not a very successful website, it’s getting revamped soon.
Yansen, an alumni of EMCL (European Master of Computational Logic), an active member of IndoEM, have also put up another (relatively more successful) website about Erasmus Mundus, emundus.wordpress.com.
That’s it for now, and it’s not so short after all After visiting sites linked above, if you still have relevant questions, shout out at the comment section.
October 6th, 2008 — Erasmus Mundus, Pictures, Travel
As per the post title, the summer break is over. I’ve been in Leganés for about a month now, doing on-and-off-semi-quasi-research on my thesis project. I hope to write more about it later. More as in around 12,000 words more in a dissertation book :p
As I wrote in the previous entry, I’ve spent most of my summer break traveling. To travel is really not my high-point, as in I have never travelled much before, but nonetheless I enjoyed my 7 countries and 17 (I think, I’ve lost count) cities travel.
My friend, who is an avid traveller said that traveling is his passion because he needs the “constant change”. I’ve certainly changed quite a bit of my daily life (and the mystery is that did I gain or lose weight?) for these couple of months, but now it is time to yet settle again and focus on my thesis.
For a gimmick, I’ve taken this picture as a souvenir on my travel. Can you guess where it’s taken? Clue: from this angle, it’s not leaning that much.
July 10th, 2008 — Life, Site, Walk
I will be (at last officially) on hiatus this summer.
I will go for a trip and it is very unlikely that I will have the chance to post here. I will do so if I can, but in the mean time, until next time! (unintentional rhyme)
July 10th, 2008 — Current Events, Erasmus Mundus, Madrid ES
Long time no see, eh?
OK, here we go:
Luthfi and I made kolak to be sold in the bazaar. I joined the PPI-Spanyol booth and managed to sell some of the goods (mainly clothes, small purses, etc) using my broken-Spanish. Some of my classmates came to the bazaar (thank you guys!) and most importantly I had fun!
In Madrid and Spain in general, the temperature rises to 30 degrees centigrade on average. Meaning: v e r y h o t! Also means: open that window wide while you sleep at night. At summer, the sun sets at around 10 PM and rises at around 6 PM. Must adapt.
All of the taught part of my program, Erasmus Mundus MSc NeBCC, has been, er…, taught and I must say that the results are not too dissapointing :p I think I’m not one of the top students in the class, but anyway, I passed almost all of the modules (just waiting for one more result to be announced).
I will do my project at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, España, starting from October (but my supervisor insisted that I should start this summer). The project will be about BPEL and web wrappers. I hope I can post about it later.
This summer, there are quite a bunch of events in Spain:
Unfortunately, (or fortunately for the last thing on the list), I missed them all. At Eurocup final match, I was studying for the next day’s exam. But I was able to hear from my room, the crowd cheered as the Spanish team scored the only goal and after the won the match. As for San Fermin, I didn’t manage to make it because it is not exactly close to Madrid, and did’t have enough time. Rock in Rio is far too expensive for me, I watched some of its highlights at TV though, Shakira was incredible! And as for the Pride, just browsed in the local news (do you know that Madrid is supposed to be the gay capital of Europe, what a world we live in).
That’s it! Sorry haven’t had the chance to upload pictures though.
May 28th, 2008 — Culture, Current Events, Indonesia, Madrid ES
¡Hola!
If you are somewhere near Madrid this weekend, you are invited to Bazar Benéfico Indonesia 2008. You are free to invite more people and we’ll be delighted to have you all to discover a bit Indonesia this weekend. You can see this event in Bazar Benéfico Indonesia 2008 Facebook event page (you don’t have to have Facebook account to view the page).
If you need a map from the nearest Metro (Arturo Soria, Line 4), you can view it in Google map.
Charity Bazaar 2008
31st May - 1st June 2008
Saturday and Sunday from 12:00 - 20:00C/ Agastia n°65, 28043 Madrid (Metro: Arturo Soria)
Free Entrance
Traditional Dances, Typical Indonesian Food, Arts Flea Market, Lottery
and much moreWe’re expecting you and your friends!
Organized by Republic of Indonesia - Tél 91 413 0294
Disclaimer: I made the (non-official) poster, grabbing photos from Flickr without really paying attention to the license of the photos. Sorry if you (the photographer) read this.
April 30th, 2008 — Culture, Movies, Reading UK
Update: go directly to the web instead. I got a majestic white cat lynx! I think the flash animation intercept this page to be loaded correctly using Internet Explorer.
I’ve seen the movie when I was still in Reading. A cool movie, not too good, but OK. I don’t usually follow this viral marketing thingy, but the idea is great. Please help me to determine what my final dæmon would be like by clicking on the animation above and participate in a simple 5 questions questionnaire.
If you are reading this from RSS reader or aggregator site and can’t see any flash animation above, go directly to my Dæmon’s page, Eumelia.
You’ll have the chance to have one of them yourself, after you do the questionnaire.
Got this from sandclow.
April 26th, 2008 — Culture, Erasmus Mundus, Madrid ES, Reading UK, Study, Thessaloniki GR
In this NeBCC international programme, I’ve been in to several groups for doing group assignments or labs. I could identify several specific issues I encountered in becoming members of these groups, namely: