Selasa, 21 Januari 2014

Hackathon Experience: Do Not Give Up

Hello! Today, I am going to tell you one of my experiences. It was a very simple story while I am still undergoing college life. I learnt so much from this experience and arguably, this is one of the moment that made me very striving to moving forward no matter how grieving is the situation. 

In some time at 2012, I gathered some of my friends to compete to a local hackaton at Bandung. The four of us met and discussed our ideas since about one month before the hackathon. Almost every week we dedicated some hours to review our ideas and pick the best one. We do not want to compete with just "good enough" idea. We want to build an idea that has a great potent to make impact and winning the hackathon.

And it comes to three days before the hackathon. It started with a simple question I asked. "Do you guys have applied the hackathon ticket?". They looked very surprised and from their reaction, I could simply concluded that they have not. I was not saying things like "I have told you guys to apply the tickets since a long time ago", but I quickly check the website and found that the tickets has sold out. Our morale suddenly drops, but we know that we would not walk away without a fight.

So, we sent an email to the committee to explain our situation and asked for additional tickets for the rest of the team. Surprisingly, the response was quick. It really made us amazed since in our mind, it would take a couple day if we contacted someone by email. The answer is simple but exhilarating. He said that he will help us. Pheww. It. Was. Com. For. Ting. From a short moment of intense, the room cooled down drastically. Then, we continue with the discussion as scheduled.

In the end, we got the second place of the hackathon. It is really exciting when I tried to remember the experience. It is like the line between winning or losing it the time when we choose to give up or not. Yoda said that "Do or do not, there is no try". It was a great moment to won the hackathon, but the accident made it perfect. :D.

Selasa, 07 Januari 2014

On Love and Romance

One night after the New Years Eve, I talked a lot with my friends and I knew that the later the night goes on, the talking topic will converge into romance and gossip about people. I thought that it would be fun and interesting to listen to high school romance stories and actually, it really is. I could understood what they are undergo at their age. Here is the first story.

One of my friend, he is older than me, told that he did not like chase his crush if the girl is very easy to get. He wants the thrill of chasing. He wanted to give out the best of him before finally got the one. He described his experience that he went all-out to one girl. He told us that he wanted to give the most romantic moment with the girl. Every single important day like Valentine or Christmas always goes with a lot of presents. Then, he told everyone again that he did not want to date girl that makes the first move and most of the girls agree. 

It was a fairly interesting story to know that we, human, are driven by challenge. We do not want to acquire something without great effort. Me too, has already experienced the thrill of chasing girls. The feeling of waiting our significant other respond and each respond give me some kind of hope. :D. Until one day that I realize that was not the point of love. I think this is the reason why so many breakups while dating or marriage. When the excitement is lost, they want to find new excitement to fulfill their desire. They feel that excitement is point of any relationship. 

My dear friend, love is a verb. The feeling of love comes from loving action. It is the fruit of love. Listen to them, give your attention, care for them, appreciate their work, sacrifice your time for them. If you want to learn the real meaning of love, look to people who sacrifice them self for the sake of the others. Let's look to parents. They give birth to child. They sacrifice their life, health, and time for the child. If you want to get the excitement, love them. If you want to feel the value of love, you need to release your ego. Ego is the big wall that stand between you and love. Destroy it and you will feel love. :").