Since the end of last year, I started a new personal challenge every month, starting from #30HariBersuara (Dec 2020), #30DaysOfDataScience (Jan 2021), and #28DaysOfNLP (Feb 2021). The last two challenges are so technical, so I decided to break from this kind of challenge, as I failed and felt exhausted in the last week of February.
Writing a short story for me is like meeting a long-time old friend. Back in my school time, I’d like to write in my previous two personal blogs before (mostly in the Indonesian language), Enlik Blogspot and Enlik WordPress. Since I was becoming a full-time employee, Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, slowly this hobby faded away.
Based on that motivation, I’ll dedicate March 2021 as the revival month for my writing hobby. I’ll try to write a short story every day in this medium blog with this theme plans:
- 1–7 Mar (Indonesia stories)
- 8–14 Mar (Australia)
- 15–21 Mar (Estonia)
- 22–28 Mar (#Before30)
- 29–31 Mar (Wrap Up)
Day 7 — Biography Comic Series “Why? People”
I grew up with a lot of fictional stories ranging from Japanese manga and children’s fairy tales. My father owns a general store beside our home, it was quite successful at that time, so I love to borrow (or steal) some bonus storybooks that come from Nestle Dancow milk brand. It helped me to grow my imagination as a kid who dreaming a lot of things. Fast forward to my adulthood, at a certain point when I finally have my own money, that childhood experience reminds me of the benefit of imagination for shaping my creative thinking. The difference is, I’m not only interested in fiction, but also real stories from famous people like Albert Einstein, Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs, and you named it. These Why? People series is written by a South Korean author named Gyeongsun Ahn, who loves to draw and share an inspiring story from an exceptional person around the world. Reading these inspiring people in comic book format is reminiscent of my childhood storytime.
Day 6 — One Month Holiday in Bali
After finished my working holiday journey in Australia, I decided to give more time for myself. At first, I thought about spending time in New Zealand, as it was very close to Australia and have very cheap flight tickets from Sydney or Melbourne. But when I’m thinking about my uncertain future after working holiday, I decided to cancel this plan, as living cost in New Zealand is not friendly for my budget at all. Instead of spending money there, why not choosing the most ‘overrated’ island in my home country, which is Bali island. As I never been here before (sadly), the other is because most Australians always talked about Bali when they know I’m from Indonesia. “So let’s spend one month in Bali before I’m going back to Jakarta, think it like a spiritual journey as Steve Jobs did in India a long time ago”, talking to myself at that time.
I arrived in Bali in November 2018. Even as an Indonesian, I still felt the culture shock just after leaving the Ngurah Rai Airport. A lot of airport taxi drivers try to pursue me to get in their taxi, with most of them giving the overpriced taxi price. I can felt the high competition between taxi drivers in Bali International Airport, as most of the tourists are foreigners. For the first few days, I stayed in a budget hotel, until I found out the kost-an with an affordable monthly price and giving 5-star hotel quality (with television, high-speed internet, TV cable subscription, laundry, and cleaning service). In short, spending one month in Bali giving me a lot of new experiences, starting from seeing Hindu ritual on almost every street, renting a motorcycle which will save a lot of money for transportation (public transportation was not good in Bali), going to daily Catholic mass every morning and go the fitness center after that (healthy in mind and body), join a Startup Weekend event in Ubud, attending Google DevFest Bali, hiking to the Mt. Agung with new youth catholic friends in Bali, meetup with some inspiring persons, and finishing PS4 game Red Dead Redemption 2 with full satisfaction. It reminds us of how important that we take a break after a long-time journey.
Day 5 — Dreams of Numbers
During my childhood, I love to spend my school holiday to stay at my cousin’s home. The simple reason is that I felt bored staying at home while my dad was busy at his workplace. The other reason is that my auntie was very happy that every time I’m staying at her place, I always helped her giving the perfect number through my dream which later I found out that it was used for some kind of lottery called togel in Indonesia. As I remember, most of the dream that gave me a number is come from dreaming about Japanese comic book volume numbers. At that time, I’m really addicted to the Dragon Ball series from Akira Toriyama, and waiting for the new comic book volume is so enthusiastic. Probably this kind of thing leads me to have an interest in numbers and mathematics. These days, I’m starting to learn about investing in the stock market, and like the addiction to the Japanese shonen series during my childhood, I’ve got addicted to the number again, but now with a self-control, I hope :)
Day 4 — Exploring Surabaya
Another flashback to the year 2016, just a few months before I left Indonesia for a working holiday in Australia, I finally made my long-time plan to make my first-ever solo trip in Indonesia. I traveled from Jakarta to Surabaya, which takes around 780 km, the longest-ever trip using an economy train. I’m very enthusiastic and wrote all the travel plans in incredible detail. The first motivation back then is because there is a big developer event named “BEKRAF Developer Day 2016” hosted by Dicoding Indonesia and sponsored by BEKRAF (Indonesian Economy Creative Agency). The other motivation is because I read somewhere about JK Rowling who got the inspiration for her masterpiece novel “Harry Potter” when she traveled inside the train from Manchester to London. And for me, Jakarta to Surabaya (2nd biggest city in Indonesia) trip is giving a lot of similarities :)
If you look at my travel plan above, you can see how much budget that I spent for 5 days 4 nights trip in Surabaya, it’s insanely cheap, around 1.3 million IDR or around 100 USD (based on current exchange, March 2021). The rise of online-based ticketing at that time helped me to get some promotion prices from Tokopedia and Traveloka. Gojek that just launched in Surabaya helped me to travel around the city with flexibility and affordable prices.
BEKRAF Developer Day is just the beginning, as the most fun part of my trip to Surabaya is visiting some fellow game developer companies based in Surabaya. I’m so lucky to get a chance to meet them in person and learn from them. Thank you, mas Eka from Mojiken Studio and mbak Shellya from Alkemis Games who welcome me to the office and meet the team, I hope I can visit Surabaya again with not much restriction as in 2016 before.
Day 3 — Learning How to Build Startup
Flashback to early 2016, I joined the pre-startup course named “Startup Mission” provided by a Church community in Jakarta. Twice a week, we gathered in Bellezza Shopping Arcade, West Jakarta, to have a quick lecture and practice session in a group. During that time, I’m still a full-time worker in Jakarta, and after office hours became a learning time for me, one of the options is to join this course. I have heard about startups since early 2010 but never got a chance to dive deep into it. Through this course, I learned about business model canvas, idea validation, finding the well-balanced, and the most wiseful part, how to align your startup with a mission to solve a problem that helps people. As one of the mentors, Andy Zain from Kejora Ventures is an expert in this field, and it’s such a great experience to know him in person.
Our team named SEED, inspired by a Bible story about the mustard seed, the smallest seed, but it became a large tree when it is grown. Lead by Andre, with team members: Enlik, Fernando, Iwan, PingPing, and Vera. Our team consists of people from 2 different backgrounds, IT and business. Brainstorming about our startup idea is memorable, as it’s not about what we told about the concept but also our ability to give feedback to each other’s ideas. From this course, I experienced what people said: “Idea is cheap, execution is hard.” I also found out that good documentation will lead to good preparation in the future. Fast forward, which is five years later, I’m already in Estonia, I can still read what I wrote at that time, and it comes to my “ideas bank,” which I might execute here in startup country, Estonia. Wish me luck! :)
Day 2 — The Importance of Daydreaming
Today, I listen to the latest episode of “Endgame with Gita Wirjawan” podcast, with a fantastic guest, Dewi “Dee” Lestari. As one of the most notable Indonesian writers, she shared her experience about becoming a story-teller through her family (especially interaction with her siblings), which leads her to become a professional writer. The podcast host, Pak Gita himself, mentions the lack of Indonesian books about this nation’s long history. During the kingdom era, we have two great names, such as Majapahit and Sriwijaya. The guest replied that the lack of reference data became the primary issue to write about this historical story. Finally, Dee shared about the importance of daydreaming for her to find many inspirations for her book. The ocean of information and endless entertainment absorb our attention (and our time) very much, affecting the quality of time with ourselves, especially for daydreaming. It somehow reminds me of the book that told a similar philosophy, Bored and Brilliant by Manoush Zomorodi.
I grew up in a lower-middle-class family, with almost zero chance to dream about living and study abroad. But I remembered back then during my childhood, and I’d like to go to the school library during break time or after school hours. The reason is I’m feeling bad when asking my Dad to buy me a book, as its price still too expensive for him. That’s why I choose the library instead, and it’s free to borrow a book as a student. Big encyclopedia about science leads me to the interest in this field. Fictional comic books such as Tintin, Dragon Ball, or even Harry Potter open my imagination about how big this world is. I got know that in every part of the world they have their own cultures and languages. As a kid, I’ve got many chances for this daydreaming process, the most creative time when my mind never stops wondering how I will be in the future. It’s a reminder for me (and us) with daily routine and information overflow every day, without realizing that daydreaming is very important for our creative world.
Day 1 — Living with Community
Flashback in the year 2014, I’m still 23 years old, working full-time in Jakarta, Indonesia. Besides Monday to Friday routines at my workplace, I tried to become part of the community in Jakarta, especially in the spiritual one, as this is the growth phase during my twenties. I found the photo above from my old archive in my Google Photos. It was a birthday surprise celebration for one of our friends during our weekend spiritual retreat in the Puncak area, Bogor, Indonesia.
Looking back on that time, 2014–2016 helped me prepare for my big journey before moving to Australia in Nov 2016. That was when I learned how to live by myself, away from my family, saving money to survive in Jakarta, paying ‘kosan’ room rent, preparing my meal, buying the bath stuff, and take care of my hygiene. It made me realize that I mostly take it for granted during my time in my family’s house. Thank you to all communities that helped shape me in the right way.
