The Ulterior Motive(ation)

You know about the final thesis assignment I'm currently working on? The one with Whiskas? Yes the thing that lately distracted me from the real world? Yea? Yea it's getting intense.

I'm reaching the end.

My thesis adviser thought that it's about time. I'm just this close to being ready facing the trial. She kept rushing me about the date and stuff, and I'm so glad that she looks so excited.

When I imagine about the trial day, I swear I'm not ready.

But if I remember what I'm going to do by January, I'm super moved.

Mhmm, it's another trip.

To Vietnam and Cambodia.

Here's to get the picture of Ho Chi Minh, and here's to get to Phnom Penh.

Okay so I'll fly to Ho Chi Minh City on January 21 and will be back on February 4, just 4 days before the ceremony of my graduation. Get it? Four days. I won't have enough time to take care about the administrative shits, unless I have it all settled before I depart.

The same thing also goes to my thesis. After my trial, there will be a major revision I have to finish at least for a month. So if you do the math, the trial should be done no later than December 21!!

So now here I am, -instead of- rushing myself to finish everything like EVERYTHING -I just sit in front of my laptop, blogging- so I can go traveling with peace! And you know what, I'm gonna make an oath out of it.

"I, Rifky Ramadhan Amin, will officially announce that on LAST term of my college, I will rarely spend my TIME for flash-term pleasure things such as watching movies, eating out and buying things prodigally, AND HAVE MY THESIS DONE SO SOON."

-Indochina Trip Oath-

And I really meant it.

I want everything to be done by Christmas.

So I can "Ho Ho Ho" all the way

Catching Fire (Again)

After winning the 74th Hunger Games, Katniss Ever--okay you know what, I've done this before. Please just read here if you want, it's not what I'm eager to talk about.

So...

What did I feel right after? Superior. Gue udah baca bukunya duluan kan, bahkan sampe buku ketiganya pun udah ludes. Jadi pas keluar dari bioskop, yang gue lakukan adalah melangkah angkuh dengan dagu yang naik. Sumpah ya, orang orang keluar studio pada diem kayak rombongan pelayat, trus berdiri gerombol sambil nanya nanya "itu tadi kok gitu sih?" ada juga yang komen "ah gue paling gasuka ending kayak gitu..." sementara gue udah tau kalo nanti President Snow bakal... Oke gue bisa mati dipanah kalo spoiler disini. Tapi gimanapun juga ya namanya udah ngefans, walopun sepanjang nonton gue selalu mendikte di dalam hati apa yang selanjutnya terjadi, gue tetep ngerasa terhibur. Hats off to the actors, bow to the director and his crew, but all credit goes to Suzanne Collins of course.

Tapi yang paling oke adalah deg degannya sih. Ngena parah, mulai dari sebelum, selama, sampe sesudah filmnya selesai. Gatau ya deg degan karena filmnya, plotnya, sinematografi, musik atau emang murni deg degan karena akhirnya setelah penantian satu setengah taun gue bisa nonton ini film juga -kayaknya sih deg degan karena alesan terakhir.

Dan sekarang mesti nunggu setaun lagi buat nonton Mockingjay. Okay that's fine. Setaun lagi gue udah kerja. Gatau sih yang pasti kehidupan gue baru karena bukan lagi mahasiswa.

Yaa I don't know. Anything's possible.

Like maybe, hopefully... I get to watch the movie

Straight down in Los Angeles?

Image Source: here

NP: World of Digital Past

Halo.

Gatau kenapa akhir akhir ini gue ngerasa mellow banget. Bawaan pengen nostalgia ke jaman kartun masih berjaya -dan bermutu- trus merenung, trus diem, trus... Nangis :'/

Oke jadi di postingan gue beberapa hari lalu, gue bilang kalo gue mau nambahin kesan youthful di blog gue ini kan. Nah jadilah setelah pertimbangan matang dan mumpuni, kayaknya gue mau bikin sesi nostalgia deh buat kesenengan pribadi.

And I'm gonna name it "Neverland Playlist"

Sesuai namanya, isi dari segmen ini adalah playlist lagu lagu jaman dahulu. Bukan lagu musik gitusih, dulu jaman gue kecil gue belom doyan musik kali ya, MTV juga belom kenal.

Instead, playlist ini bakal berisi lagu opening kartun populer -bukan populer as in "pokoknya pulang teler" ya, temen temen Bali ku :)- jaman dulu yang kalo gue dengerin lagi sekarang... Berasa muda dan bergairah kembali :')

Nah buat batch pertama, gue mulai dari yang paling gue suka dulu kali ya.

Digimon

Category:

Younger Elementary

Oke gue freak banget sama anime yang satu ini. Booming pas gue kelas 3 atau 4an gitu gue lupa, pokoknya bukan gue doang tapi temen-temen sekelas gue juga pada gila. Ceritanya yaaa bocah banget gitu deh, anak-anak kejebak di dunia monster, ngelawan monster jahat, ngebebasin dunia nyata dari monster jahat yang lolos... Fana banget. Tapi suka banget soalnya monsternya bisa berubah dan levelnya banyak! Ya tau kan gue kayak semacam orgasme gitu kalo ngeliat film yang tokohnya banyak dan ada hirarkinya.

Nah di Digimon itu ada 8 anak terpilih beserta Digimon mereka masing-masing, berarti ada 16 tokoh utama kan? Ya jadilah ya gue dan 15 temen gue membentuk pasukan Digimon kita sendiri. Favorit gue adalah Koshiro -versi Inggrisnya namanya Izzi- dan Digimon gue itu Tentomon, tapi gue lupa siapa temen gue yang jadi Tentomon.

Hm Digimon.

Saking maniaknya dulu gue bikin komik sendiri ceritanya gue dan temen-temen imajiner gue terjebak di dunia Digital trus yaa sama aja sih kayak versi kartunnya, tapi tokohnya aja berubah. Dan ada guenya.

HAHA UDAH KALI YA??
Jadi keumbar kan masa kecil gue.

But that's just the essence of Neverland, isn't it?
So I'm afraid it'll last quiet long with more posts coming.
Enjoy the time machine, Vick

And Then There Were None

Ten guests were invited to a mansion in the Soldier Island, owned by the mysterious Owens. Ten guests, ten different individuals and backgrounds, with no ideas at all about each others, and about the Owens whom never even showed up. Ten guests, trapped inside the island due to storm, no one could go out and no boat pulled over. Ten guests, one died down to nine, one died down to eight, seven, five, two, and then there were none.

What did I feel right after? Merinding. Tangan sama kaki udah kayak ayam opor, bulunya bangun semua. Mesti gue jelasin lagi gak sih kalo gue suka sama cerita yang banyak tokohnya, trus satu per satu mati? Yang lebih serunya lagi, kan kita gatau kan ya siapa pembunuhnya, jadi YAGITUDEH! Dan yang gue suka adalah, serial killing ini bukan tanpa alasan, 10 orang itu dibunuh karena mereka adalah pendosa!! Mommy :( Pokoknya kalo baca buku ini, jangan pernah buka halaman terakhir karena disitulah nama pembunuhnya ketauan dan untungnya gue udah belajar dari pengalaman kan, jadi ya gue tahan ajadeh kayak b3'0L.

Duh tapi gak kuku nih kalo gak spoiler.

Nih deh ya, gue kasih kisi kisi biar seru

"The Killer is not a killer.
But at last, The Killer is the killer."

Image source: here

Freeze!

Recently, as you might all noticed, there are tons like TONS of TV series genre-ing action with stories of crime investigating. You know, CSI, NCIS, Cold Case, Law and Order, Rizzoli and Isles, la la la damn! So overwhelming.

And lately, as I told ya, I been distracted by these two out of many of them -well you know it's always been my habit to instantly 'fall in love' with serials I only watch like in several episodes. If I happen to watch all those serials at least two episodes each, maybe I'll spend the rest of my life watching TV.

And they are

Picture of Jane's from here, Logan's from here.

Okay. The Mentalist and The Listener. Both are exciting, both are sit-still-and-keep-watching making. Both are crime based stories, both are revolving about murders and both have the female protagonists who are somehow more firm and fighting-capable than them. Both, are identical. To each other.

Yea they're just too similar sometimes I wonder, who copied whom?? So I made up my mind and picked one of them as my favorite. Can guess which one? Let's hear my thoughts first.

So the main character, Patrick Jane and Toby Logan, both can read minds. Although some source refers Logan as somebody "with the ability to read minds" while Jane as somebody who was "previously employed to 'read' minds."

Spot the difference?

Yes. Patrick is a pure, skilled mind reader. He detects crimes using psychological point of view and traps victims by manipulating minds. The way his mind works, the way he sets suspects up to be confessing, sometimes it's just mind blowing.

Now Toby. He has sixth sense. He observes through 'extra' visuals others can't see. The facility helps his team finishes cases much faster and of course, easier. Yaa for me it puts less pressure to the serial. Interesting, still, but not nerve-wrecking.

So... Can you now guess which serial I like the least? Bingo! It's

Picture of blah blah blah's obtained from here. Boo 'em.

Got to admit, the serial's light and fun.

But a writer joining some detective unit to help investigating crimes with some excuses of making a crappy novel, that in every single cases becoming the one who can decode every single clue, making him the one who everybody, even the best detective depends on him? What the hell??? I don't like how Toby Logan works, but at least he's a part of the institution yet Rick Castle IS NOT.

Phew. Glad to let it all out.

I'm wondering why I acted so intense toward Castle--oh I know! It's because he's a writer, interested in crime, can write about crime and make it for the living.

I'm a -soon to be- writer, or copywriter yea whatever, interested in traveling but umm, still have no idea whether or not can I write about traveling for the living.

Stupid jealousy.

Hope this doesn't lead to

Committing crime

That's The Way It Is

So I call this blog "Neverland".

The land where age stops counting.

The place that promises eternal youth.

Well.

The outfit says it all.

Fully animated yet simple.

Disney-ish with some Peter Pan quotes.

But the content seems like it's ruled by some newly post-adolescent, standing on the verge of being mature. Not yet an adult, but definitely no longer a teenager. Well as a matter of fact, I am actually on that level.

But it's just, against the value of Neverland.

I gotta make some youth touches in this blog.

"The only way to feel again your childhood,
is by doing, watching, listening, sensing all
the things you sensed, as a kid."

Watching eh?

I think I know just the right thing to do.

Sit back and enjoy what I'm planning.

Local kids my age will feel what I feel.

Oh speaking about local,

I think I'll be using Indonesian for this.

You know life was much simpler back then

When the only English word I always knew was

Cartoon

殆どそこに - Almost There

Let's update about my Japanese skill.

Anybody's dying to know??? I do, I do!

Since next year or so I'll be going to Japan -AMEN O LORD ALMIGHTY, I been working my ass off to master how to speak Japan. I bought the textbook, I watched Naruto like everyday, reinforced myself with a dictionary, got to admit I began to know some words, how to use it and... I still can't speak Japanese.

So I asked to myself, where did I do wrong?

Apparently, it's because I skipped the basic part.

手紙 - The Letters

Yea stupid me, I started everything just knew some Japanese letters. I constantly forgetting certain letters it made me lose my will to get to know what words those are forming and at the end of the day, I earned no progress.

But call me Vickette if I quit so soon.

For the last four days, I gave myself an intense letter-memorizing-session every night. It was identical to common student studying at night with books and papers everywhere, trying to memorize some math formulas or historical chronological orders by writing it down time and time and time again.

A note I made to easily memorize katakanas.

To be honest, the method was kinda helpful tho because now,

I know each and every single letter of both Hiragana and Katakana!

So next stop: Kanji.

Okay, that's just it. Told you it'll just a brief update.

Now if you excuse me, Vicky needs to learn some kanjis.

Or should I call myself, フイキ ?

Solitude

You might be wondering where have I been, eh?

No? Ahh too bad, I prepared A good long story for that.

Hell no, kidding.

I've been pretty occupied by Whiskas. Yea you know my situation. It's D-31 due the thesis submission deadline and chapter four drove me crazy already but, I can do it MYSELF of course. I produced some print ads and other cool stuff I honestly want to show all in here but, maybe later after I graduate? :)

So. Basically this post is just a taken-for-granted one because I only made ONE post along November. There's no particular thought or experience I want to share now so...

Oh I do have one!

Today everybody left to Singapore.

It's only me now at home, with six cats of ours.

I never been literally ALONE at home. And there's no historical track in my family that they go traveling just the four of them, without me. Well I just got home from US and I have this purple thingy to take care of so, I have to let them go.

Now the interesting part is, as I told you, that I'm alone.

But that doesn't seem too desperate for me. In fact, I like it.

Woke up early to wish my family a fun trip, chilled inside the air conditioned room watching The Mentalist -seriously, lately I been exposed by many serials that turned out to be so entertaining, talk about it soon, fulfilled my curiosity watching some Bermuda Triangle documentary, spent the whole morning singing to MTV, bought some random chicken black pepper that turned out to be extra yummy and ate it while streaming Naruto, took nap while the TV aired Lilo and Stitch, wasted all afternoon down to the evening watching Hell's Kitchen, The Apartment, America's Next Top Model and Miss Universe 2013 -I honestly have no idea whether I should be proud of watching these things or not.

Well the point is, as you might guess,

I seriously enjoyed this total LONELINESS.

And to make it complete, it rained most time of the day.

It's just me getting to know and hangin out with me,

Talking, judging and having intense discussions with myself,

I might just gonna marry you, Vick

Took Me All The Way

It ended yesterday.

You do know what I'm talking about.

The best time of my entire life so far.

A moment I never expected to come. 

October.

How couldn't it be not the best?

First of all, dad was having his 50th birthday. A special number not just for him, but to every single member of this little family of ours. It was just a day we all together realized that, in no time, dad -and mom- will start settling down, and there'll come our time, the kids, to take control the life business. Crazy.

Also, I finally finished the pain-in-the-ass Mirai Ocha task -although on some level, it was all majorly done by my teammates because I left them... ごめんね、皆さん :(

And for the whole month, my mentor made it smooth for my final assignment -the Whiskas stuff. It's now down to the last complicated chapter, and one complementary part to finish. Should I say I can't wait for the trial? No? Of course not, I'll regret saying it...

But the best part, as you know... Is USA.

Want me to tell about that all over again?

Haha don't worry, I know you're tired.

It won't feel good for me anyway.

Yes, because I still haven't completely moved on.

And I'm tired of keep thinking about it, honestly.
But umm, can I say just, this one last thing?

Okay.

"I'll be back there, somehow.
But for this trip, I'm done.
So memories,

Safe flight!"