One Thing at a Time

 "Whether Children stick their hand down a narrow goody jar, they cannot get their full fist out and start crying. Drop a few treats and you will get it out! Curb for your desire - do not set your heart so many things and you will get what you need" - Epictetus

I read this today on HabitApp - the app I have been using for the last couple of months to help me with my meditation, journaling and mindset. 

I really like this app because it helps me changing my perspective about life. 

I mean we can learn from the philosophy above. 

In life, we are so busy wanting to get everything at the same time, but when we do not get everything, we get disappointed at ourselves. 

We often say that we cannot do this or we cannot get this because we try everything at the same time without doing it properly or mastering it first before trying something else. 

I think we need to set a priority when we are doing something or when we want to get something. 

We need to ask ourselves if we really need it or we just want it. 

If we need it, what will we focus on getting it and how will we do it?

We need to do it one step at a time in order for us to focus in getting it. 

We need to ask ourselves what would happen if we do not get it and how will we react? 

All these questions are important because it will help us slowly to map our priorities in getting anything we need. 

As human being, we tend to do everything at the same time like I have mentioned before when we need to only focus on one thing - one step at a time. We can get another thing later on. 

This teaches me to be able to set a priority higher and to work on it without distracting myself with another thing. 

I am also learning to let go things I want but not my priorities yet in order for me to get to my priority. 

I enjoy reading the philosophy today. 

I hope I get to  learn and grow each day. 

Welcome Back, Nur!

 Hi, 

It is 2023. 

I have not written anything for the last couple of years. 

Health - Is It Important?

Being Healthy  -

I never thought about it before

Never cared about taking care of myself

Never thought about what food can do to myself -

Until one day -
when my coworker at Conrad Hotel Fort Lauderdale asked me after I checked in a great shape guy

My Birthday without You or Your Messages

Dear Juan,

It is my 31st birthday. You were supposed to send me messages and make videos for my birthday like what you always did since the first time we met in 2011.

You were supposed to throw me a birthday party like what you did when I turned 26, 5 years ago.

But you . . .  you left me . . .You left me without saying goodbye to me.

It has been a month since I heard the news from Mama Chicken. I thought time will heal my pain of losing you. But everytime I do something, I cannot stop thinking about you or the memories we had; teaching you how to swim, cooking together, getting lost together in Phoenix or Scottsdale

I miss you. I miss everything about you. I wish I could bring you to life so we could relive our life together.

I love you Juan . .

I have never had a friend like you before in my life. You were the only person who made me believe that best friend actually exists in this world. Your kindness, compassion, patience, and friendship have taught me a lot.

Thank you for all the lessons that you have taught me.

I will miss you every second I breath.

I love you.

What Goes Around Comes Around

I have traveled to some countries and often have had a situation where I needed help starting from losing my passport and money, missing my last train, getting lost or even just some small problems. Fortunately, there were always people who helped me when I was in that situation although they did not know me at all. I guess, we get what we give. What goes around, comes around.

Efforts and Hard Works

Doa seorang ibu itu pasti akan selalu dijabah Allah. 4 weeks ago I had an interview with this hotel to be Front of the House Supervisor. I was interviewed by 4 different managers. Unfortunately, I was told that they already got someone else for that position.

No Body is Special - We are the Same

It was 1:30 PM. I just finished my lunch at the hotel cafeteria and brought my plates and glass to the dishwashing area. I put my glass and plates together with bunch of dirty glasses and plates. I took them and put on the dishwashing machine and turned it on. My colleague who worked as the canteen staff stared at me behind my back and smiled. “Thank you very much for doing it, most of the people who work here would not care the way you do”. I smiled and said that I am here as an employee and whatever belongs to this hotel should be treated as they are mine.

Kindness and How it Goes Back to You

Eight years ago, In 2010, when I just graduated from UNG, I went back to Ampana. Stayed there for almost 1 year. There had been many times I saw most of the tourist guides in Ampana liked to rip off tourist; they had the perception that Europeans, Americans or people from western countries are rich, they would always double the price of something with western people. I tried to help most of the tourists who visited Togean by becoming a "volunteer guide".

I am AMSTERDAM

Dear world,

Today was my first day in Netherland. I live in Utrecht at Airbnb accommodation. I spent my day in Amsterdam. I left the house around 10 AM. It took me around one hour and thirty minutes to arrive in Amsterdam. I visited two famous museums in Amsterdam; Van Gogh museum and Rijk museum. They are very close to each other. I just needed to walk five minutes from Van Gogh to Rijk. I spent about one hour in each museum. Also got time to visit and take pictures at I Amsterdam sign which is an icon of Amsterdam, but the place was too crowded. I even saw so many tourists climbed the sign just so they could take the best pictures on the I Amsterdam sign. As an Indonesian, I know that we also have a culture to climb something but I never knew that people from other countries do the same as we do, I smiled when I saw that.

On My Way to Netherlands

Hello world,

I just came back from Amsterdam! I decided to write again because I know that in the future, this post will remind me about my experience. 

On Wednesday evening I flew from Milan Malpensa Airport at 9.44 PM. During the flight, I was so lucky because I got chance to see sunset. It was really beautiful, I cannot even describe how beautiful it was. One hour flight was not enough for me because I spent my time mostly looking through the plane window. Watching the sunset and the cloud. I love watching cloud as well. 

New Adventure in a Country Where Hospitality Was Born

Dear world,

YES! I just arrived in Switzerland! The country where hospitality was born.

Saat sekarang saya akan melanjutkan kuliah S2 di Swiss dengan jurusan Master of Science in International Hospitality Management di Cesar Ritz Colleges Switzerland dan University of Derby.

Kindness, it was great to see you!

Dear world,

I want to share what I just saw today. Something that made me have a strong believe that nothing is impossible.

Today, I just came back from my hometown. I traveled to and from my hometown, Pasokan, by using boat "Ferry" since it was Eid Ul Fitri last week. It took about  6 to 7 hours to arrive back in Gorontalo.

I had some kind of lessons I learned during my journey which I want to share to anyone who would love to read my post.

My first lesson of Life 

You know, I do not always talk with people like others. When I travel, I mostly spend my time reading books or just stand/sit in one place and watch people around me. But this time, it was different. I traveled with one of a kindhearted people, ka Lulu who is from the same village as me (she is always kind, helping me when I just started my study at the university, and she has wonderful attitude). She invited me to stay with her during our journey, so I did. I was talking to her when another person who is also from our village joined us. I started our conversation by talking about how things are in my village. We talked about how different the village is and how people have changed. We shared about things we face at our workplace, and when Andri, the man who just joined us talked about his experience with his students and the students family, I got really mad to hear his stories. He teaches Senior High School by only getting paid about Rp. 3,000 or equal to 50 cents/hour , can you believe that???

Knocking the Table???!!! Really!!!

Dear my wonderful kids,

Now, I am going to talk about attitude and I know that I have talked about it for 20 times or even more. I decide to write it because I just had something terrible happened here, at my work place.

I was doing my work in front of computer when suddenly the Executive Chef came and asked me " how many extra off do I get from my Manager on Duty schedule last month when I had to work on public holiday?" I answered him and said that I need to check it on my data first.

Wrong is Wrong & Right is Right

Dear my Children, 

This is another lesson I am writing for you. I am writing this for you because as I always tell you "I want you to learn from things I have been through or things I learnt from other people" I want you to learn all these because I hope that you will never face all the problems I had been through. I want you to read my posts carefully because every single post is very important for your future as well. 

Solve Your Problems

Dear my children,

I am writing this blog to let you know that I keep thinking about you.  Although you are not here, in this world yet. And every time I think about you, I want to share things I have been through everyday.

LPDP - Will I Make It?? (Part II)

I just came back from work and opened my email. Finally, the day has come . . .

Email yang saya tunggu-tunggu hampir dua bulan, sampe juga. It was from LPDP. Dengan perasaan dag dig dug, saya akhirnya membuka email tersebut .... 

Badan saya yang tadinya lemas dan capek, akhirnya kembali mendapatkan energi pada saat membaca email ini. Alhamdulillah ya Allah . .  saya lolos beasiswa ini, dan akan melanjutkan kuliah S2 saya dinegeri orang. Tidak terasa ada butiran airmata yang mengalir dipipi saya. I called my best friend and told him to meet me. I want to share my happiness with the only person who was always there for me. Saya ingin berbagi berita gembira ini dengan ibu saya, tapi karena ibu dan bapak saya tinggal di pulau (Pasokan - tetangga dari pulau Togean), akhirnya saya putuskan untuk menelpon adik saya. She was very surprised to hear that. "Alhamdulillah Nyak, ini semua karena doa dari ibu juga" (Cerita tentang kuatnya doa orangtua nanti akan saya posting kedepannya inshAllah). 

Malam itu, saya tidak bisa tidur. Mungkin karena pengaruh rasa excited yang tidak hilang-hilang sejak jam 6 Malam. 

Finally, usaha dan penantian saya selama ini akhirnya membuahkan hasil yang bahkan tidak dapat saya ungkapkan dengan kata-kata. 

Karena saya tidak bisa tidur, jam 1 malam, saya memutuskan untuk membaca blog-blog penerima beasiswa LPDP yang telah mengikuti Persiapan Keberangkatan biar kedepannya saya lebih siap untuk ikut program ini. Program Persiapan Keberangkatan ini merupakan program dimana semua awardee LPDP dibina untuk menjadi pemimpin bangsa, untuk belajar bekerja dengan tim dan menjadi teladan untuk orang lain. Kegiatan ini akan dilaksanakan pada bulan Februari 2016. Penerima beasiswa yang telah lulus di tahap 4 ini akan dibagi menjadi beberapa kelompok yang nantinya akan mengikut Persiapan Keberangkatan bersama-sama. 

Alhamdulillah untuk hari ini, one of the best days I have had. 

Terimakasih ya Allah . . . 

Terimakasih untuk Ibu dan Papa . . .

Thank you to my sister and my brother . . 

Thank you, bestie . . 

Kalau bukan karena support dan doa kalian, mungkin saya tidak akan mendapatkan beasiswa yang diidam-idamkan hampir semua scholarship hunters. 

I am grateful for what I have had so far . . 

LPDP - Interview, Leaderless Group Discussion & Essay on the Spot - Will I Make It?

Dear world, 

Hmm... 

Saya  baru sadar, ternyata saya punya janji yang belum terbayar untuk teman-teman yang pengen tau tentang beasiswa LPDP. 

Anyway, sebelumnya saya telah membahas di post sebelumnya mengenai bagaimana saya apply beasiswa tersebut. So, sekarang saya pengen share pengalaman interview, leaderless group discussion (LGD) dan essay on the spot. 

Setelah mendapatkan email yang berisi jadwal interview, LGD dan essay, akhirnya saya berangkat ke Jogja untuk mengikuti 3 tes tersebut. Saya berangkat 2 hari sebelum tes tersebut, tepatnya ditanggal 16 November 2015. Saya memilih berangkat dua hari sebelum jadwal tes wawancara karena saya ingin "settle down" ciee, seperti pindah negara aja, LOL. Anyway, dibandara saya dijemput mbak Nining dan diantar ke hotel Zodiak deket Malioboro. Sehari sebelum jadwal wawancara, saya dan dia mencoba mencari alamat tempat tes nanti, ide untuk pencarian ini datang dari dia, katanya untuk persiapan agar memudahkan saya pas hari H. Kita mencari tempat tersebut sebanyak dua kali pencarian, first, dengan mobil mbak Nining, and the second dengan motorbike yang dipinjamkan mbak Nining ke saya. And yeah he was right, pada hari H, saya tidak perlu kebingungan mencari alamat tempat LPDP melaksanakan tes tersebut. So, sedikit tip untuk untuk teman-teman, jika kalian punya jadwal ujian or wawancara, make sure kalian mengecek tempat ujian atau tempat wawancara tersebut sehari sebelum ujian, trust me, hal ini akan memudahkan kalian agar nantinya gak bakalan telat. 

LPDP - Will I Make It ??? (Part I)

Dear World, 

Sebenarnya saya nggak yakin mau mulai nulis cerita ini darimana. Mungkin karena faktor terlalu banyak cerita yang ingin saya share dengan teman-teman semua. Tapi di postingan kali ini,  Saya pengen cerita tentang pengalaman saya untuk mengikuti seleksi beasiswa LPDP (Lembaga Pengelola Pendidikan), if you do not know about this scholarship, silahkan di google dulu ya. . . 

Learn from Other People

Dear anak-anakku, 

I am writing this status to let you know that everything I write here is for you. I want you to learn from my experience. Today, I had an experience which teaches me something. You will never learn all these from your school or your text books. But I want you to learn from me, as your mother. 

As I told you before, I work at the 4 star hotel in Human Resources. The hotel management gives me chance to become a Manager on Duty (MOD) once a week to be responsible with the hotel's operation from 6 PM until 11 PM. The main job of MOD is to take care of everything, to be responsible with the operational;the service we give to the guest. The goal why the management  gives each manager a responsibility for MOD is to make sure that we give the best service to our guests. And every time each manager has an MOD schedule, they have to make a report or comments related with the hotel's operational. 

Last night, I was the MOD. There were few things which became my concerns which related with the service of our employees. I wrote this comments so all the managers and supervisors would read it and think about it. 

Here are the comments I sent through email to all the managers and supervisors as well as the General Manager. 

The Sexiest Thing on Earth