It has been quite a while to live in agony, It’s hard not to show it  for these two years, I think I have moved on, making myself busy with many things, and still, there’s this scar inside.

Anyway, scar is a scar, It’s only a sign, but it shouldn’t hurt anymore.

It’s time to move on…

A Lonely Heart, An Idle Mind

The fact that there is always someone by my side
Doesn’t mean I don’t get lonely inside
The fact that I hold my head up with grace
Only hides the hurting heart behind this face
The fact that you don’t hear my screams
Doesn’t mean I don’t have dreams
The idea that I seem to fly with the doves
Doesn’t mean I don’t desire to have love.

A lonely heart, an idle mind
Look inside and there you’ll find
A need for love to hold me tight
Not only a day, nor just one night
Something to last forever, always
to lengthen the nights and shorten the days
A lonely heart and idle mind
Look inside and there you’ll find
A need for love to last for life
A need for love so true so right

Because I don’t cry, Doesn’t mean there aren’t tears
My will to be strong Is not to say there aren’t fears
The fact that I won’t take part
In the freak fest of the day
Doesn’t mean I don’t want
To be wanted, to be craved
All I want is a man I can love
Someone to wake up to, someone to hug
All I need is someone I can please
Someone with whom I can share my dreams

A lonely heart, an idle mind
Look inside and there you’ll find
A need for love to hold me tight
Not only a day, nor just one night
Something to last forever, always
to lengthen the nights and shorten the days
A lonely heart and idle mind
Look inside and there you’ll find
A need for love to last for life
A need for love so true so right

                                                            LakeToba, 21^st August 2008

These few days I’m completely exhausted. Starting from preparing for USU English Debating Championship until now, I can hardly say I’m having a good sleep.

USU EDC was held on 18^th and 19^th, and the preparation was damned lot, and Mona, Novi, and I all have done our best, and we are very happy when the tournament went successfully.

By the way, this event was on celebrating USU 56^th Dies Natalis or USU Anniversary, and on Wednesday, we had the party at Pendopo. Nice…

I couldn’t have imagined I would come to today, that at Pendopo, out of the blue Bu Lita would call me and asked my help to accompany 24 Malaysian students from UUM (Universitas Utara Malaysia) to purchase some clothes on jl. Perniagaan, which then I came to know the name of the place, i.e pasar ikan.

The Malaysians are nice people, I personally enjoyed being with them, though I should admit that I was quite tired doing all of these. Happy go lucky, anyway!^_^

Then, I was asked by Bu Lita to accompany or guide them to LakeToba, only for a day, Thursday to Friday, and this is where I am right now.

I went here with Hotma and Suwanto as well, It’s kind of nice and tiring, again and again, helping them shop and negotiate the price, but hey I should say, they are very independent and better in negotiating the price, wow, and I was quite impressed.

Anyway, I look forward to meeting them again in Kedah, Malaysia.

Back to Medan, we went to Merdeka Walk, and ate at Iskandar Muda until 2 am, chatting and exchanging pleasantries.

Really nice fellows…

At Pendopo, USU, ferry, and the entrance of Tomok

It seems that my gears are turning once again my dearest boils and ghouls…I am writing again, with fevered passion…with frenzied pace…though I must admit at times I am still running up against a wall.

I have been stumped lately. Like a sponge that has been squeezed dry of all creativity. It is coming back to me…yet again, but it is disheartening when my well-spring runs low.

At times it feels as if the little imps that run things within my mind have slammed all the doors shut, locking and barring me from opening them. Those little mischief makers in my head have no problem causing all sorts of vivid, heartbreaking flashbacks on someone I loved…yet they torment me by making my desire and heart to stay cold from time to time. Or maybe it’s my way to act aloof , so that I don’t have to be too emotional  in dealing with agony? Questions and questions add up and I simply can’t answer it right now, or maybe it’s not even worth asking, I just don’t know.

What is it that makes us think with our hearts? Why do I allow memories of the past to influence what I do in the present? Why do I allow Lucas to affect me and remember?

I cherish every relationship I ever had, including the bad ones. Each one taught me something, now of course at the time of the relationships I didn’t feel that way or see it that way, but hindsight is wonderful. The problem though isn’t in what I learned, but rather in the ones that ended in a way without closure. To this day my heart wonders and wanders down paths that I need to let go of. I don’t know how though, my heart wants to know why, my heart wants to understand what it was that caused the relationship to take the turns that it did. It isn’t that I want that relationship back or even the person, it is just that I want to know why, I feel like if I had the why then I could move on completely free of Lucas, the old memories. I feel like if I had the why I could look back and feel fondness for the person and see the lesson or lessons that I was supposed to learn.

Maybe though there is a lesson, maybe I am supposed to be learning that not all things have a why….

Yes, why Lucas died and abandoned me? The feeling of hurt is simply there every time the sweet memories he left for me popped into my head. Is it fair? I’m supposed to leave all the pieces behind, just like missing puzzles are unable to unite a complete picture. Trying hard to balance emotion and logic, and somehow, it fails me.

Oh, God, I miss him, miss him so much… It’s worsened when I listen to the song of Bryan Adams and Barbara Streisand “I finally found someone”, my heart aches, a song that he ever sang to me. Lucas had shown me his affection in such a way, that his favourite song became such a memento of his existence and company.

It’s been almost two years, but hardly could I forget about him. Should I or should I not forget? It’s such a conundrum, I don’t want him to be forgotten, yet, when I remember, the aches can’t linger any how. Should I just rely on dreams?

Dreams are sometimes humorous, though they are the most terrible force to be reckoned with in my life. They always have been and I suspect they always will be. It’s just something else that haunts the shadowy depths of this unstable mind.

Melancholy is the mind, as it runs freely through your veins-
The agony in your mind’s asylum reaches in,
It grasps you by the reins.

My six days in Banda Aceh were
simply incredible! I was staying in Welly’s house and Adi was along with us.
The early days were hot, shirts were full of sweat, yeah, it’s hot as Banda
Aceh was near the beach. Nice… Renting vcds from original store Ultra Disc, and
copying all inside our laptops, alright, I know piracy is forbidden, but it’s
for my personal possession basically, particularly because purchasing the
original ones cost high over the roof.

Welly’s parents were very cordial
and hospitable towards me and Adi. We could even call them ‘Mom and Dad’, just
like our own parents. One thing I admire from Welly’s family, they were very
close to each other, showing love and respect in such a way that hardly exist in
families nowadays. Feels like home indeed…

I learned cooking from his mom,
well, I should say, I seldom cook in Medan due to my hectic time, but there in
Aceh I had to learn, helping his mom cook and cut potatoes, onions, garlic, and
for me, man! It wasn’t easy… Now you know what kind of girl I am, I always
thought I wasn’t a housewife type, but it’s wrong to think like that, things
might change in the future, and cooking, doing household chores are few things
that can enrich me to be independent woman, skill that certainly worth studying
and exploring. Fight, Cath!

We went to Lhok Nga, and there
were such big waves, really suitable for surfing.

We also went to purchase
fresh fishes in the harbor, it’s sort of cool. There people mistook me as
Japanese, and I was like so afraid everything went expensive due to my
existence there, luckily, it didn’t happen. We ate roasted fish that night.
Tasty… Then we went to see ships post tsunami. What was interesting was, one of
the ship was on a house, they said that the ship has saved around 50 people’s
lives, well, it wasn’t a big ship, and now the place has been made a monument.
The other ship was very big, it was PLN ( State Electricity Company) ship, and
when tsunami attacked, that gigantic ship landed on several houses, and the houses
went flat claiming many lives, none of the residents was alive.

Tsunami was indeed a tragedy,
particularly for Acehnese, hundreds of thousands were dead, and of course,
there were lessons pulled from the disaster. Now if you go to Banda Aceh,
you’ll see big development, many schools, buildings, houses have been built,
thanks to social workers, volunteers, and NGOs.

Well, my journey to Aceh was
indeed remarkable, time went flying, hardly did I realize six days have passed
just like that. The food there was ok, and my enjoyment there was beyond
expectation. So, go to Banda Aceh, if you guys get chance to do so.

He drew his sword from his scabbard and was about to slay the dragon, when the damsel cried, "Stop! What do you think you’re doing?"

The knight was taken aback. "What do you mean what am I doing? I’m killing the dragon in order to rescue you."

"How could you be so cruel to animals? I could report you to the authorities, you know?" she threatened.

"But it’s a dragon! It’s not some domesticated animal that you can keep as a household pet; it breathes fire and kills people!"

" Hah! That’s the stereotypical view about dragons. On the contrary, for the past two weeks since I’ve been here, it hasn’t laid a finger on me. So you see, not all dragons are as dangerous or evil as you might think. Some dragons are rather gentle, like this one." To demonstrate this, she went to the dragon and patted it on its head. The gentle dragon smiled.

The knight looked extremely dismayed. "So I guess you want to stay here with the dragon and not be rescued?" he asked.

"That is correct," said the damsel. "But if you do rescue me, what am I supposed to do then? Marry you?" she asked.

"Well, of course! That’s how it should be in fairy tales."

"But why should I marry you?" asked the damsel again. "I hardly know you."

"That’s a good point," said the knight. And so the knight, after much thought, got onto his horse and rode off. Just then, the dragon sneezed and breathed out fire. That was the last time the damsel was seen alive.

So, guys, care to tell me what’s the moral of this story according to your interpretation?

I was just back from Padang today, the food there was tasty and spicy, then I went with several friends of mine to Pdang Panjang, Bukittinggi, and Payakumbuh, nice…nice and nice.

So, I went to Padang for competition,i.e NUEDC(National Universities English Debate Competition) regional A1 in Padang, there were fun and disappointment. Well, in debate competition, we always expect the best adjudication.

Most of the adjudicators are inexperienced, sadly to say. The only adjudicator that is most experienced is Rachmat Nurcahyo, the chief adjudicator of NUEDC A1, a lecturer of UNY (Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta). He indeed went to several national as well as international debating events. Then we also had some people, though not that experienced, but ever joined BP/ other debate competitions, for example Muhardi from UNIMED, Mr.Yulianus Harefa, our lecturer, Fauzan from UNP but there were only few of them, and at least we considered them more experienced than the others.

However, most of the adjudicators, they were only good English speakers, but absolutely not good debaters, let alone adjudicators. We can convincedly say that we are much more experienced than them concerning debate.

USU sent two teams, USU A consist of me and Monalisa. USU B consist of Fajar and Khomas. The motions came quite late, and we had to do research hastily.

Anyway… USU A went smoothly and got absolute winning in preliminary rounds until the semi final round (or I should say, we ARE SUPPOSED TO GET ABSOLUTE WINNING UNTIL FINAL ROUND which I’ll explain later). What we mean by ‘absolute winning’ is getting the first rank out of four teams, which rarely happened in real debate competition. However, we can say that the debaters there, from other lands, were not used to debating, and only had English language skills as their basis.

It was unfortunate for us, because the adjudicators didn’t know about the rules, and therefore when we did some POIs (Point of Interruptions) , we were considered bad-mannered, and we were criticized until Final Round JUST BECAUSE we applied our knowledge in debating. In Final Round, it was such a disappointment, with seven adjudicators, four were lousy adjudictors, and three were experienced. After the Final Round, we were sure that we could win the debate with the 1st rank, as the previous winning of six debates. Yet, three experienced adjudicators, including the Chief Adju, gave the winning to us, as the other four who were actually not aware of debating gave the 1st rank to UNP A (Universitas Negeri Padang). The chief adjudicator said to one of us, that he couldn’t do much to help us, as the other four lecturers, mostly form Padang were very stubborn, but he told us that it was supposed to be USU A who got the winning. It was quite upbuilding for us, because we now know that we SHOULD HAVE BEEN the real winner. He told us that the only debaters he could see there is from USU. HEAR2!

As for USU B, which consist of Khomas and Fajar, they were great, and we suspected there were some kind of discriminations happening to them. Anyway, they got into semi final, and did their best till the end.

Yes, we all have done our best, and we are proud to say that USU, until the end of tournament, didn’t do any cheating, all casebuildings were done by ourselves( not like the other teams, for God’s sake, they used laptop when casebuilding, asking their lecturers, and casebuilding with their friends), and we still maintained good records of winning in the first debate until semi final round.

Please hope the best for us in PIMNAS, Semarang, in July, at least we wanna show their lousy lecturers that it’s indeed their wrong understanding, and we are supposed to get the 1st rank from the very first place! We don’t hate the debaters but we wanna show how lusy the adjudication was in the Final round!

Anyway, I love the committee, LOs, THE DEBATERS, they were very warm, and we did some games, drama, together.

P.S: I have got a fans club in Padang, hahahahaha! They absolutely love Catherine… .! Hear, hear!

Ambition, means "an eager or inordinate desire for preferment, honor, superiority, power, or attainment." The desire to achieve prominence is very strong. Even some persons succumb to it.

At one point’s of people’s life, our necessities change.And I myself have experienced it, that my goal has changed, I’m not really who I used to be. I can say I was more ambitious in the past, with a lot of ambitions, and wishes… However I have come to realise one thing, that if we lean upon the thingamabobs of this worldly system, our core satisfaction isn’t accomplished. So, my message to myself, don’t lean, but use it as to support my goal, make my life balance, in addition to relinquishing my previous ambitions.

Well, does it mean, that if we relinquish our high ambitions, we won’t develop any longer? My answer is NO, because we’ll still develop, mind, mentally and spiritually, depending on whether we still read, watch or learn.

For me, I have another goal to achieve, but a humble goal, not a high ambition, still I have to educate myself a lot in order to achieve it, something that most common people won’t comprehend.   

Yesterday I experienced something which really annoyed me, yuck! if I think about it again… I don’t even want to bother to write the details in my blog. The point is I just got an unfair treatment form somebody. Stupid redundant somebody, I know I know,if I compare with my previous blog upon optimism, that sounds hypocritical,but hey, I have my judgment and value to judge whether a person is valuable or not to be looked optimistic upon. Yuck, yuck, yuck!  That doesn’t apply to the one who has rubbishedly ungrateful, and demanding, stupid, robber of mine, self-centred, absolutely presently unchangeable, helpless creature like her!!! I can’t believe she did that to me… Anyway, my optimism applies in me, that whatever she said and done, it will not affect me. Just like what Eleanor Roosevelt said " Nobody can look down upon you without your consent". Yeah, yeah,I don’t and won’t consent to that! Who does she think she is!

In spite of that, I’m thinking that now my life, with tiny or big changes, doesn’t matter, should lay for me the basis to study, subject and history to learn. At least that’s what I think as the moral of my stupid experience.N before we trust somebody, we analyse first the situation and not to be stepped under someone’s foot!

Now I’m angry, furious, indignant, heated up, mad, pissed off, livid, wrathful, resentful, aarrghhh, but who doesnt have rocky rocks in their ways of life, right! One thing for sure, after a day, this shouldn’t be my problem anymore.

The only thing I need is to alter my mindset that condition now has changed and I’m going to look optimistic and contented with my condition now. Like it or not, I should get used to it…