A brand new book that leads to the past..
I’ve been here in Groningen (again) for about 2 days, accompaniying Andri whose new publication wanted by a professor at RuG to be presented here. While he is busy from morning to evening with his university mate, I’ve plenty of time enjoying this nostalgic city, enjoying Dutch-English bonanza that I’ve been missing since living in Hamburg and walking myself in this very familiar city. Damn, I just realized that actually I still taking Groningen as a preference to be called as my second hometown than Hamburg. It’s a shame , I know ..but frankly speaking, I still can not speak German properly at all and may be some people won’t believe that my first "racism" experience after years abroad (as a kind of "victim" ofcourse) was in Hamburg!..hey hey……this is not the time to complain about Hamburg..and .this time I’m not going to talk about Hamburg though..
I am talking about Groningen, and my favorite place this last 2 days..? Bookstores and University’s library is my quick answer. Again…I mention: enjoying Dutch-English bonanza..as one of the reason. Yesterday afternoon..almost evening..I had to hurry myself up since I lost my self reading a book at the bookstore next to the University, for about 3 hours!
I was shocked..excited….and ..can’t describe my sizzling feeling..when I found that book. It is written by both my Professor and my superviser (who is also my friend) who supervised my Thesis and offered me PhD position 5 years ago. (some circumstances made me choose to let that opportunity go and I think my choice was the best) From that book I just informed that now my Professor is a director of a research Institute, special for private International Law, in the Netherlands… and…my dear friend is now an Assistance Professor. I am so proud of them. My Profesor is not at his 40th yet now, and my friend is now around 33. So young and so shiny. ..
My hands and heart were shaking when I opened the pages one by one. I can’t believe that I am so familiar with the content, able following and reading it easily. Those book supposed to be my project too!!..and it’s done now (without me)..with 2 series more to come. I don’t know how to describe this feeling. Somehow, my ego touched and that book woke my "sleeping"ambition up. But…at the other hand… I also surprised and excited. After 5 years almost never touch that subject and always feeling left ’stupidly’ behind, now I face the fact that I still clearly follow and understand the issue… I can freshly recall our discussion and talks,..yeah.. that long gone academic discussion over Private International Law… in summary, since yesterday, I face the fact that I am not as dumb as what I always thought..huh?! dumber perhaps,..since sometimes I let myself down and judged myself "dumb" to ‘legalized’ my self for giving my ambitions up.
No, my academic life is not collapsed yet. Oh for God shake, no!. Allow me to slap my brain and re-state my mind’s set up.. I am not giving them up..I am not a quiter..I am delaying that race..I am at another race..I have another thing to conquer..
… … 
heiyy….my ride is coming…need to start my activity today..this time..make a family visit and gathering, no bookstore for today.
Seed Scarification
This morning was perfect for re-viewing my plants, the temperature is started to rise as most of Hamburgers wish. Aber, tut mir leid,..I just figured out that some kind of seeds are likely not giving me any single hint that they will grow. All of those "failed" seeds are those seeds that I brought from USA, I guess they are just too old and bulky. So I decided to replace them with other newer seeds.
But I need to speed up the germination process, so this new seeds can catch up this season. I decided to try a simple technique known as "Seed scarification". This procedure breaks down the seed’s outer shell so that water can penetrate it more quickly and prompt growth.
This time I’d like to speed up my hot pepper seeds. I can simply soak these soft, papery coated seeds for 24 ours before sowing them. I hope it will work.. (and start dreaming of picking chillies on my Balcony)
hmm…meanwhile I have to think and choose the best way to keep the culture moisturised (but not over moisturised), because I won’t be able to watch them out for about 3 days. Tomorrow I am going with my Husband to The Netherlands.
"Hang on my plants..I’ll be back soon!"
Uncategorized | Comment (0)sosialisasi
Sosialisasi.. satu kata yang tentu identik dengan kita manusia sebagai makhluk sosial, tak terkecuali juga saya. Berpindah pindah tempat tinggal, berkenalan, bergabung, dan beradaptasi dengan komunitas komunitas baru memberi saya banyak hal untuk dipetik sebagi pelajaran bagi saya dan pengayaan pemikiran saya, yang semoga; mendewasakan jiwa saya.
Saya bersyukur bahwa sampai saat ini berbeda jenis permasalahan dan kendala yang ada dapat saya hadapi, atasi dan nikmati. Tuntutan utama dari semuanya itu sebagian besar adalah untuk tetap berprasangka baik terhadap perbedaan dan perubahan, kelapangan hati dan kemauan untuk mempelajari hal yang baru. Entah mengapa rasanya saya merasa pas menyemangati diri sendiri dengan satu kalimat: "tak boleh mudah berlelah hati".
Sepuluh bulan sudah saya tinggal di kota Hamburg. Sebuah metropolitan yang cukup kompleks dengan keaneka ragaman masyarakatnya. Di Hamburg inilah saya kembali bersentuhan langsung dengan apa yang disebut komunitas masyarakat Indonesia, di negeri lain.
Seolah tak cukup dengan kompleksitas yang ada di Hamburg.. masyarakat Indonesia yang saya kenal di kota ini pun juga terdiri dari berbagai macam komunitas kompleks, dengan berbagai latar belakang pendidikan, agama, budaya dan sebagainya. Sungguh sebuah pengalaman baru bagi saya yang sebelumnya terisolasi selama kurang lebih dua tahun, di sebuah Lab di Long Island di mana tidak satupun orang Indonesia di dalamnya selain suami saya. Dimana hal itu, tiga tahun yang lalu juga merupakan pengalaman baru dalam kehidupan sosialisasi saya. Demikian pengalaman pengalaman sebelumnya…ya, paling tidak selama 28 tahun terakhir saya hidup di dunia ini.
Sosialisasi, banyak membutuhkan energi fisik, mental dan tentu waktu. Di situlah kita sebagai manusia memiliki keterbatasan. Keterbatasan itulah yang membuat kita membuat pilihan-pilihan.Tak heran jika sebagai manusia kita terkotak kotak dalam komunitas-komunitas kecil yang memiliki klasifikasi kepentingan masing-masing baik disengaja maupun tidak. Sadar maupun tidak sadar komunitas itu terbentuk karena adanya kesamaan visi dan misi.
Bisa jadi kita berkeinginan menikmati sebanyak mungkin irisan dari berbagai klasifikasi komunitas-komunitas yang ada. Tapi keterbatasan itu memaksa kita untuk menentukan prioritas dan memilih komunitas poros. Hidup kita ini adalah satu paket komplit aset yang harus dikelola..dan yang jelas waktu kita pun tidak akan pernah bertambah..
Prioritas saya jatuh pada komunitas kecil saya. Komunitas kecil itu adalah komunitas terdekat saya: keluarga. Ya, pada komunitas kecil itulah kini sosialisasi saya berporos. Ah…semoga saya tidak salah langkah.
Menjelang tengah sabtu malam di Hamburg, 25 Maret 06.
Abi sayangku, "Selamat datang di rumah", ummi banyak sekali punya cerita lho……
Uncategorized | Comments (2)Sampai Jumpa Lagi Mbak Ari
Belum lama saya mengenal mbak Ari di Hamburg ini. Rasanya setelah lebaran baru saya sempat berkenalan dengan Mbak Ari..dan tiba-tiba sekarang sudah harus berpisah… Namun tidak perlu waktu yang lama untuk mengerti betapa besar kiprah mbak Ari dalam pendidikan anak anak di TQ Hamburg dan pengajian Ibu-ibu di Hamburg.
Akhir minggu ini saya menghadiri dua acara perpisahan mbak Ari yang akan meninggalkan Hamburg dan kembali ke tanah air. Di masjid dan di rumah Almy …penuh haru tentunya..hiks…akhirnya saya pun ikut berurai airmata padahal dari rumah saya sudah berazzam untuk tidak menitikan air mata…
Ah mbak Ari sekeluarga…selamat jalan dan sampai jumpa lagi ya Mbak..selamat meneruskan jihad-mu di tanah lain..dan semoga tali silaturahmi kita tetap terjaga.
Uncategorized | Comments (3)Plumeria (Frangipani, Temple Tree, Kamboja)
This adorable, wonderful, esquisit flower has been one the most collected flowers as well as the most wanted flowers since I was a little girl. I was even dreaming of having a big collection of Plumeria and I was begging my grand father to replace some of cloves trees planted on his field with plumerias. well, for some reason, he refused. However, I’m still keeping my dream until now. It’s even more like a passion running in my blood..
Most of Plumerias scented haevenly fresh, colorful, yet they are not diffcult to maintain in order to give their best performance in your tropical garden. Indeed.
One day, back to my junior high school-time, I cutted some mature branch of plumeria on my way back home from school.(let’s say I did it illegally because the plant was on the pedestrian’ way nearby the Police Academy, but surely no body would mind — that plant needed to be prunned anyway). Then at home, I just dipped (planted) them in to the soil, after tossed the leaves from the branches underwater.
My experiment was quite succesful, and they were growing nicely, alive and blooming after sometime. Those plumerias were only small plants fitted in pots..no big deal.
What’s the big deal? the big deal is when I came with an idea to plant big plumeria tree. That what my family took it seriously as a big deal.
At that time, my family refused my idea to planted big plumeria tree at home. They were afraid it would turned our garden become "spooky" because plumeria, in Indonesia also known as the grave-yard flower… you know.."Kamboja and the spirit beyond"…no? me neither..
quoting what my moom said: "oalah Ndhuk..kok yo macem macem wae tokh karepmu..Kamboja kuwi kembange sarean (kuburan/Grave-yard) ..ne’ ora nang sarean yo nggone’ nang cede’e’ sanggah (a small hindu "private temple" for daily praying, in almost every house in Bali) kono..pancene’ arep mbok kanggo sesajen?"
and my sisters said: "jangan dong mbak..nanti kalo banyak hantunya gimana? serem kan.."
then my Dad, added: "Ah..macem2 saja kamu Lis..mendingan kamu tanam pohon jambu atau buah, kalau memang kamu mau tanam pohon besar"
me: ??????!?# haa.sajen, hantu, pohon buah? are you all kidding me?! *grunts*
Na ja.. that was long time ago..perhaps none of them still remember this. Anyhow, I remember that everytime I look at Plumeria, for me this flower brings back romantic memories with my family back to the past.
Well, recently what I know is that Plumeria is a trendy flowery plants that used as key in designing tropical gardens and landscapes. And I think that is true, its too pretty to be missed. How come some one who designing a tropical landscape missed Plumeria anyway?
If you see some images here..will you disagree with me that they are adorable?
Next time, if I can get enough information and pictures..I’ll tell you about my experience with other my favorite flower so called: "Kenanga"
Uncategorized | Comment (0)Start the spring planting..even when Hamburg is still chilling
This morning, I started planting some bulbs and seeds that I’ve been collecting since last week. Some seeds are even from my collection when I was in USA. I hope they are not too "old" to grow.
Yup!yup! I started doing some "gardening" work and make an early start as what other impatient gardeners do.
I bought a new pair of gardening gloves. See that green gloves? yes, those are my new gloves with very thick Latex layer. 
I was thinking it might be usefull when I have to dig cold soil outside..but so far, I don’t need those gloves since I’m do my planting indoor..at my living room! and..I love to feel the soil touching my skin..
This is my third time planting bulbs and seeds and calling it as spring planting. ( in Indonesia, I could plant my flowers whenever I want!). The first was in 2000 when I plant for Maria’s land-lady at her backyard, in Groningen.
The second one was in BNL, NY (and it was a kind of sad story). I planted nice flowers in front of my apartment. It was not really a garden, it was more like planting flowers in a pine wood where animals are free to access but human required a special ID to get in. Back to my flowers, they grew nicely and scented so zesty. Alas, then the flower display ended too early on summer that year. It’s only because of at one evening, the terrace’s light that kept wild animals away from our terrace, was broken. We didn’t notice until the next morning and we found out that some wild deer ate my flowers!
Well,hmm.. this time is not a garden, a backyard and not even a wood with wild deer and other wild animals in it. Now, I’m doing the planting for my balcony. The balcony of our cute mini apartment..
I hope they’ll grow nicely and give me a beautiful display this summer. Wish me luck!
While I am so exciting about my spring and summer flowery plan, the view outhere still chilling and not encouraging for planting and gardening
…hmm…but somehow..I confesed that winter has it’s own charm. (only, too bad, I don’t have a good enough camera to captured its charm in pictures).
So here we go.. more winter pictures from my humble cell-phone… 
the last two pictures were from Mbak Muti’s camera..(ehem..they are just better aren’t they?)..
ohh..we’re so "puffy"..
Garbage (and strike)
The fact that today is just a typical winter day has wiped out my "spring-cleaning" plan. Hamburg is snowing and snowing and snowing since early morning.
I decided to delay my spring-cleaning and only do regular cleaning. Besides, what does “spring-cleaning” means, anyway now? It’s still chilling around here and there are no signs of bulbs coming out naturally.
However, I did clean my apartment and bags of garbage were the outcome.
Talking about garbage, here in Germany we have to get the garbage sorted.
When I brought those bags of garbage to our buildings’ “Mulltone”, I was quite surprise. 
There were so many garbage bags out side the Mulltone. They were just laid next to the Mulltone and I notice it was the accumulation of excess garbage since last week!.
Hmm…is something wrong happening?
is it just our Mulltone’s problem or the whole Neighborhood share the same problem?
Drag by my curiosity, I walked around the Neighborhood and found similar problems. Most of Mulltones overloaded.
Oh..What a sorry exhibition!. Having in mind that they might smell badly in warm weather, this winter weather is “helpful” while the cold weather freezes the garbage and the bacterium.
On the evening, Migo my dear friend called and I mentioned about this garbage problem. She told me that it must have been from the strike. There was public workers’ strike in the whole Germany in February 2006, and that garbage problem that I complaining about, is one of the remained effects. Though, she told me that the garbage in her area has been cleared up yesterday.
Oh dear…*sigh* Garbage,waste, trash, sampah, limbah …"Mull". I have knowing it as important issue since ever but somehow, most of the time I didn’t really “feel” the importance of handling it…. until the problem occur..one by one..in the future…
Uncategorized | Comments (7)