Second Opinion by G

Just my perspective towards different things.

[mowkow-g]

I GOT THE SCHOLARSHIP!!

Hey!! So if tou see the previous post I was telling you that I applied to a scholarship for my master degree!!! I GOT IT!!! By the time I'm writing this post, it is only amonth away before I will be leaving to Melbourne University and starting my master degree!! Yeeaaay!! Bought the flight tickets, got a place to stay for at least a month. It's waiting time now. Hope everything goes well. I will try to write more when I'm arrived in Melbourne. See you then!!

[mowkow-g]

Let’s Go!!

I decided to continue on my journey towards my master degree. Applied a scholarship and I am waiting for the interview call. Hey! Who knows it is destined for me. Wish me luck!

[mowkow-g]

Trying to forget you is a futile effort .. all over again. Cause even when you go, you don't seem to go too far.

Ghazi Mokoginta, 2015

[mowkow-g]

COLLECTIVELY

Many people think of higher education as a tool to help them cope with the future. Helping them to achieve a higher position in their career, building their business for the benefit of themselves and their family, or even to aggrandize their image in the society. The existence of this kind of perspective in the society is an evident phenomenon which cannot be seen as faulty.

In my own journey to pursue a higher education, I have been going through many eye opening moments, occasions, and even quotes. Now that I am questioning my underlying motivation to pursue a higher education, I can see things clearly. The banal daily events and interactions that were not very meaningful -or maybe I did not perceive them as one have become the reasons why. Being brought up in a humble yet optimistic middle class environment in a developing country, I witness many things that can be ameliorated if only a sufficient amount of education with a sincere spirit is present.

I would like to revisit my thoughts and my underlying motivation to assure myself that I am ready.  I asked myself whether I want to get a higher degree for the limited use of myself and my family? For the limited purpose of building my career? To increase my allure as a social being in the society? The answers were yes. But then I realized that if those are the only reasons why, such sacrifice shall go to waste. Not everyone has the calling to challenge oneself to go back to classrooms and lectures. As someone who has it, I should really put into account how I can be beneficial for those around me. The opportunity even just to try to pursue an education should benefit not only me. My alacrity in the pursuit should have an impact to others and inspire others in any possible ways. My willingness have to really show. i should let people see that I try, and I try hard. Not to get compliments, but to tell people that if I do have the willingness and see the importance, so can they. I am not saying that I have reached the apex of altruistic motive, I am trying and will always be trying to reach it. And I started it.

The one thing that I am trying to really plant in my mind is that "the essence of education is not to show people that you are "better" than them. The essence of education is to share your knowledge for collective benefit." This very same philosophy was articulated on the day I graduated from my university holding a bachelor degree, "to enrich your own self using the knowledge that you have is too shallow a goal, use your knowledge for the betterment of the society collectively." The more sincere I live this philosophy, the more meaningful my efforts in the pursuit will be. Once again, not only for me, but also for those who witness it.

[mowkow-g]

Dari Kakak untuk Adik

Dik,

Aku berdoa untuk jiwa mu yang suci.

Untuk pikiran mu yang jernih.

Untuk masa depan mu yang cerah.

Percayalah, aku cuma punya kamu di masa depan nanti.

Begitu juga kamu cuma punya aku, kakakmu, di masa mendatang.

Pergilah. Berkarya. Bawalah harga diri mu, harga diri ayah, dan harga diriku. 

Ikatlah dihatimu kasih sayang, harapan, dan kepercayaan ibunda padamu.

Jagalah dirimu sekeras kau menjaga ibunda dari jatuhnya air mata.

Dik,

Walau ku tak ingin, pada akhirnya hanya akan ada kita dan kasih sayang ayah dan ibunda yang mereka tanam di hati kita.

Jagalah dirimu sekeras kau menjaga ibunda dari jatuhnya air mata.

Aku berdoa untuk jiwa mu yang suci.

Untuk pikiran mu yang jernih.

Untuk masa depan mu yang cerah.

[mowkow-g]

My 2013

2013 has just passed.

I can't believe how fast 2013 passed.

Honestly, 2013 was an amazing year for me. It was all started back in January 2013, the month I graduated from the university. Let me see how to put it.

2013 was the year I:

1. Eventually seen as an adult

2. Created new friendships and cherish the old ones

3. Learned to swallow bitter pills and move on

4. Struggled to unleash myself from the limitations that I created in my own head

5. Learned not to over think and take risk

6. Learned to Focus on the solution instead of the problem

I guess those 6 sentences above are the most suitable sentences to sum up everything I learned in 2013. To be honest, I feel like I am not who I was in the beginning of 2013 and I'm grateful for that since I know I'm transforming to be a better human being. I'm not saying that I'm satisfied with who I am right now, I'm saying that I know I'm heading toward the right direction.

2014 surely keeps secrets and mysteries for me. Even better!! Learnings and a whole new experience of living a life. 

I'm sure you had an amazing 2013.

Happy new year and wish you wonderful year ahead.

Ghazi Mokoginta

[mowkow-g]

Valentine's Day for Singles!! (Edited by Samira Shihab for Lokal*Social)

Valentine’s day is coming! Got a date on Valentine’s day or what? Planning to have a romantic dinner with your special one? Uh-huh, or maybe … just maybe … you are SINGLE! Don’t worry if you are because there are so many things you can do to celebrate the day of love!

  Celebrate V-Day with your lovely family

Sometimes, growing up means tearing us apart from our family for a while. You might think that you see and talk to them everyday, but our hectic lives get in the way of things. But who knows what you missed during your busy days or the nights? This is a great time to get back to them and to show them that you care and love them. 

Love yourself with an All Day Pampering

C’mon! It’s Valentine’s Day and you are single. It’s not like you are going to spend your money on a fancy dinner or a big bouquet of flower. Look, being single doesn’t always suck – it gives you plenty of time to devote to pampering and getting your body taken care of. Maybe with waxing, scrubbing, and beautifying will tackle the reason why you are single in the first place. True story ;)

Friendly Valentines

It doesn’t sound amusing, but it actually is not pathetic. There will be some of your friends that will also be single and you can enjoy this day together. You know, single persons gathering together with some other single persons, you might even find an attractive single man or woman who is a friend of a friend whom you talked about with a friend several weeks ago. Whaddup!?

Setup a date with your parents

In rights and wrongs, tears and laughter, and sweet and bitter, your parents will always be there for you. The older we get, the bigger the possibility we get unattached with our parents and the less time we spent thinking about how they are both doing. THANK GOD you are single! Go book a decent restaurant, get your Mom a new dress, suit your dad up, and go have dinner with them. You don’t want to turn to your parents only when you have problems. They want to hear your stories ~ they want to spend time with you! No one deserves to spend this special day with you more than your lovely parents!

Valentine’s Day Cookout

Do you have or a friend has a nice pad for a party? . Go get him/her on the phone and arrange a cookout! Now check out some other friends who can join the two of you in the cookout! Several close friends cooking meals in the open, keeping up with each other, sharing each other’s future plans, and just bringing the whole thing to the next level. How better can any other day get?

[mowkow-g]

What I say you have to do for the long weekends!!

Hi! How have you guys been?

We, Jakartans, are the best long weekend spenders, aren’t we? Well, some people think that their long weekend sucked. Yea they do. But mine definitely awesome. Speaking about long weekends make me feel like writing about what things that we can do to spend them. Here are my top 5 list of what to do for your long weekends:

  1.     Call your close friends and plan a sleepover a friend’s place

This was exactly what I did on my last long weekend. I called my close friends and arranged a sleepover at a friend’s. It happened. What we did there were cooking our own meals together, eating them together, and keeping up with each other, and spending some money on some booze at night. Having a good time is the main thing. Do anything you consider as fun together with your friends will make its fun level doubled, or maybe even tripled!

  2.     Work on your postponed works

So actually this is such an important thing to do if you have some. If you keep procrastinating, you will find them all beating the hell out of you at the end of the deadline. Trust me, you don’t want that to happen. Just brace yourself and start typing!

  3.     Get out of the ugly duckling image: A weekend makeover

You might wanna surprise your colleagues or campus friends of whom you meet everyday at work or at school with a killer new look. Go to a massage parlor today and get your entire body scrubbed. Spend some time to find the best salon in town and get a new haircut. Be extreme with the haircut, a totally new haircut and be confident with it. Get your face taken care of. Make sure you don’t choose a treatment that takes a long time to cure such as peeling, it will only make you look silly with all those lingering dead skins on the next Monday. Get a new affordable daily use perfume, and finally, spend a bit more cash on new clothes. A weekend make over.

  4.     Reconnect with a long disconnected relatives

I know that you have been very busy at work or at school and that you got no time to connect with your relatives. Here in Indonesia, relatives are somehow important. You might don’t get it why they are even important for you, but trust me, they are. Let’s put it this way, they are your second family. Our ancestors have made a system for us to be somehow related to the people that we usually call relatives. The long weekend is the perfect time to get reconnected to them. You don’t even need to visit their place, just greet them on Facebook or twitter or maybe dial their phone number and talk to them just to keep up or …. Re-introduce yourself.

  5.     Make a personal budget planning

This is not a bad idea. How are you gonna survive the rest of the month with a given budget at hand? Yeah, be your own financial planner. Make a budget for the rest of the month. It’s very doable. You have all the information you needed based on your experience such as how much a single meal will cost, how much a bus ride will cost, etc. Well, the most important thing of it is still, the implementation.

  Ha! Finally. So these are what I think might be useful for us to spend our long weekend. Spending long weekends with boring and non value-adding activities is a waste of our precious time. Hope you like ‘em! Ciao! 

[mowkow-g]

What I do to get rid of my insecurities

Hi Guys, how are things going?

Hope things are going well with you.

So, I would like to share a bit of my thoughts with you guys. I have always had these kinds of insecurities in my life lately. I feel like my friends have been going through a lot of things that I haven’t, I feel like people are really smart in some way, and everything. Well, I personally think that it is only my portion of vanity of myself that bugs me, but maybe it happens to most of the people living on earth. I mean, we are human beings and we want things to go our way, we want to achieve things, we want to be looked up to, we want to satisfy people around us for being who we are, and so forth.

I have been trying to get out of those insecurities so that I can feel better inside. I decided to do several things that I thought might make me feel better. From so many things that I tried to help myself out of those insecurities, there are several things that really made me feel better and somehow empowered. Here they are:

1.     Read anything useful

Okay, so you have to choose which kinds of information you might need first. I mean, I chose to read the news more frequently, read any links that I found interesting from the twitter accounts that I follow such as Forbes, Harvard business review, the economist, Jakarta globe blog, and many more. These things make me feel like I know what is going on, gives me views, and enables me to create my own views about it. And more importantly, they add more knowledge to my head. 

2.     Join in an internship program

Well, in my case, I am a last year undergrad student so that I don’t have the time to get a full time job. If you have graduated you might want to get a permanent job rather than an internship, I guess. Well, the point of joining in an internship program in order to get rid of your insecurities is that it will make you feel useful and empowered. More importantly, it does make you useful, and as a result, you feel empowered. It will make you busy, yes. But it gives you a great opportunity to learn and grow and I personally love keeping myself busy. A little step to start shaping the ideal you.

3.     Socialize

Get out of the house, hang out with your friends, attend parties, make new friends, be open to new people and environment. You still have to choose which new people or environment you might want to be open to, though. The point of socializing as a panacea for insecurities is that it makes you aware of your environment. You know what the latest trends are, you know who is who, you know what is on, you know new places, and everything around. That will make you fit in the society and grow together with the people or maybe, having your own stance about what should be happening. This will make you a person from today and that feels great. Trust me.

4.     Try to stop comparing too much and start focusing on growing yourself

Well, I am currently struggling to do so. I think it must be my nature to compare myself to others that makes me feel bad and often feel like being left behind. Maybe comparing yourself to someone better is good cause it will give you a motivation to grow, but comparing too much will burden you. At least that is what happened to me. So, I have been trying to stop myself from comparing and to start focusing on growing myself. I try to close my eyes –I open it regularly, though and start doing things that will benefit myself and will eventually make myself to be a person I want to be. To be a person who is complete. I still can’t define complete here, but I want to feel complete since I don’t right now.

Well, those are four things that I have been trying to do to help myself out of my insecurities. By the time I write this article, I have to admit that I still have them inside, but those four things help me to feel better cause I know that if I do them seriously, they will shape me to be the person that I want to be.

I don’t write to suggest these things for you, I write to help you find some inspirations to get rid of your own insecurities. So, hope this article will be of any help!

[mowkow-g]

Crisis! Get through all those nerve-racking problems!

Hi guys, how are you doing?

  Been feeling blue lately? Have you found out the causes? Feeling lost? Well, I have been there once or twice. Well, not only once or twice, several times. Sometimes, I would feel really disturbed by something that I knew was there but somehow, I didn’t know what or where. It drove me crazy at times. 

I didn’t like the feeling of disturbance and my incapability to drag myself out from the ‘sadness’ or whatever you want to call it. Sometimes, I also felt like I was lost and had nowhere to go. I felt like I needed some help to figure things out so that I can look for a way out. Wait. A way-out? Yes! That’s it! I gotta look for a way out! But where do I start? I realized that I needed to find a way out and tried to formulate some steps for myself. Now, I wanna share it to you guys, who knows it will also work for you when you are in crisis.

1. Set your goals

This is essential. You need to set your goals so that you can always look back to them when you feel lost and have nowhere to go.

2. Remind yourself of your goals

You need to remind yourself that you have certain goals to achieve so that you will try to keep yourself on the right track.

3. Admit

Once you feel that something disturbs you or you feel like walking to the wrong direction, admit it. You need to admit that you got a problem before moving on for a solution.

4. Ask questions

Now that you have admitted that you got a problem. Look for answers. Ask questions to yourself. The questions should be a sequence of questions that dig to the root so that you can find what the real problem is.

5. Formulate a rescue plan

Build your own ladder to climb out. Formulate a set of necessary actions for yourself to solve your problem. You don’t always have to write it on a piece of paper or make a special note about this. As long as you can remember what you gotta do next, it is acceptable. But it is not a bad idea to write it down so that you will not get lost in your effort to climb up.

6. Take Action

Now, remember what you formulated for your rescue plan, get through them step by step. Climb your way out! Linger no more and feel good and be assured once more. 

So there are some simple steps that I formulated for myself to help me out whenever I got a problem. Actually, t is not as simple as that, sometimes, the actions that you need to take in it are high risk ones or something that has some certain thing on the line. It depends on what problem you are facing and what actions that you feel you need to take though.

So, hope they are useful for you! 

Be happy and assured. Know where you are going.

[mowkow-g]

A Bite of "

Hi guys! How are you doing?

So I went out with my close friends 2 or 3 weeks ago. We have always been really close since the first time we knew each other in our early uni years. Some of them were even my roommate until our last term ended. But now, since we started to separate because of our own activities, we rarely can meet each other.

So there were the 4 of us visiting marche on a bright Wednesday afternoon. We promised to go out to have lunch together. In the middle of having a quality time together, the youngest in our group (19 years old) asked us an intriguing question.

"Ho does it feel to be 21?" said she,

"What is it with that?" I replied,

"My friend told me that 21 will change our life"

And there began the conversation. We talked really long about being a 21 YO. And everything that we felt about it. I personally, agree that 21 has changed my life. I see things differently now. I don't know since when the change started, but now, all I know, Life has changed.

I am being careful in each step I take, each decision I make. Not afraid. Careful. I consider people's feeling more in making decisions and taking actions. I think of the best way to present what I think as right without having to hurt other people's feeling in a debate. I try to see things from many different ways. In short, I think of how to put myself in the society.

I feel thirsty. I want to absorb things more than ever. I feel optimistic while fighting my arrogant and childish personality. I am being more realistic. I understand about tradeoffs, take and give, and effort-result relationship a bit more than I did in the past. I want to learn. I want to grow. I want to be someone new, someone to look up to. And those feelings come together with the insecurities for each desire. Those were what 2 of my friends are feeling too. We are standing on the sart line. Ready for the race to start.

From that conversation, I concluded that, when you are 21, you are growing. You are entering a new phase of life. You start to understand who you are and have this picture of who you want to be, and starting to move your foot to make your first step. If you are older than 21, I don't know if you felt the same and if you are younger than 21, I don't know if you will feel the same.

Let us grow and be better.

Cheers,

[mowkow-g]

A Gap Between Two Teeth

Hello,

So, my friend invited me to go to a party last night at portico bistro Senayan City, Jakarta. I refused to go at first, but then I eventually went to the party. It turned out that the party was fun and the music was also great. Not to mention the place, I always love portico. I didn't eat anything last night, but having a bottle of beer instead. That night, a DJ named Ben westbeech was performing and he was goddamn cool. I actually had never heard about him before. But I instantly loved his music.

So there I was, partying with my friends and these high-end Jakartans in one of the most popular venue in town. At the party, I thought to myself that life is so goddamn good.  Great friends, great people, great music, and great place. This is what a friend of mine called 'Cengli'. We talked, laughed, drank, and danced. People around us are showing off their wealth. Fancy dresses, shoes, jewelries, and everything. Expensive drinks were raised in the air by people's hands, beautiful playmates strolling here and there, glasses clinking, people laughing. Portico last night was so full of rich people. The city's jet-setters were all coming to Portico to socialize, party, and to be seen.

It was so long before I realized that I was extremely exhausted. I kissed my friends goodbye and drove back home. I instinctively drove home and my instinct were proven to be able to bring me home without full consciousness. I was till feeling the happiness after the party when I saw a man was abusing a woman by the street. I was shocked but sadly, I did nothing to help her. I assumed they were couples having a fight and her husband was abusing her. This was a very different scene from what I saw earlier at Portico. I saw effing rich people partying and jut hours after that I saw that some broke couples having a fight and a woman being abused by her husband.

That was when I started to contemplate about this two very different sides I have seen. I saw rich people living in a made up happiness and attending a party, while on the other side, I saw the "not so rich" people living in a genuine suffering. Instead of coming home in happiness after partying, I came home feeling bad because I went to that party. It was because I think that it was very inappropriate that I am living in an elevated lifestyle while there are people who are living in pain and suffering and I haven't been doing much to help others in my life. It couldn't be that bad to live in a humbler way, right?

Best Regards,

[mowkow-g]

Sexual Evolution? Ready? (Edited Post)

Hi, 

Just read an article about the shifting of Indonesians’ eastern culture towards sexual activities. It cited statements from youth aged 21 and older regarding their premarital sexual activities. Their perceptions intrigued me and made me realize that premarital sexual intercourse isn’t tabooed any longer by certain Indonesian generations. I evaluated the things that happened around me, including several friends’ confessions of their sexual activities, and realized that the particular phenomenon is true. I didn’t feel awkward when hearing the confessions from my friends and I took it casually. 

Furthermore, the sexual evolution is not only seen from the casualties of people having sex without being married first and admitting it, but also from the people’s level of acceptance for the LGBTs. This can be seen on TV where there’re many effeminate characters being ‘sold’ and the people watching at home like them. According to the article, this wasn’t a common thing a decade ago. A decade ago, these characters on TV are the bully targets and that was why people watched them. Today, these characters are given the spotlight.

Beside the TV facts, it’s not hard to find some people admitting their ‘uncommon’ sexual orientation. Wait, ‘uncommon’? Which one do you think is more common these days? Heteros? gays? I think this will open our eyes that people start to feel okay to admit that they don’t feel like having it with the opposite gender.

Neither your sexual intercourse habit nor your sexual orientation is the main thing. It's more about the attitude towards these perceptions and the possibilities of the upcoming discriminatory actions one might get by admitting their sexual acts. These discriminatory actions may include the "marry-a-virgin" hypocrisy, which sadly stays while the sexual intercourse strictness is walking away. Sexual evolution. Ready?

[mowkow-g]

It was a good night!!

[mowkow-g]

Quick Question!

I just wanna know what you think about these things I wrote in my blog. Are they thoughtful or lame?

[mowkow-g]

A story of an unrequited ..... Love?

Hey you! Yeah, you!

You know, I really had fallen for you since the very first time we met. Your eyes, your smile, your jokes, your personality, your sturdiness, I just love everything about you. But there's this one thing I know for sure since the very beginning too. You and I together? Will never happen till the world ends. It is how it is. Full stop. The end.

It hurts to know that I cant have you as mine and you probably dont want me to be yours. It really is sad. But then I decided to move on and continue with my life and stuffs. Fortunately, faith wanted us to be .... friends. Good friends. I mean, really good friends.

Time passed by and we got really close and seemed to understand each other really well and bla bla bla. You know who I was and I know who you were. We exchange stories, experiences, even the darkest secrets of our lives. You know, those secrets. Yeah, those ones. rite.

After knowing my sins, I could smell what you wanted from me which was exactly what I wanted to happen between us. Then one day it happened. Thank God it was great and beautiful and unforgettable and everything. From that day on, I kept wanting more and more and I just couldn't believe that you too, kept giving me more and more.

At first, I was so contented to be able to satisfy this thirst inside of me -and maybe inside of you too- until one day, I felt really empty. I knew I could have your body the way I want and you would voluntarily let me do my job -cause I know you like it too. Then I realized that all I can have from you is only what I can see, but I will never have your heart. And there happened the shits. I couldn't detach myself from you(us?) but you seemed to be effortlessly detaching yourself from ...... (us)?

Well, once again, I decided to move on. I keep being your friend and listening to your stories. I keep being the person you want me to be. At this point, I realize that, what I feel inside for you, is love. I am happy to give you anything you want, anything you need, without wanting to get anything from you. I am happy in giving, for you.

Let's continue with our lives, mate. I just want you to know that there will always be a place for you in my heart. I have never erased you from it. I buried our sweet memories deep down there, in the very bottom of my heart. I have always loved you, and I will always  do.

[mowkow-g]

Quotes: Segerombolan Mahasiswa Marketing FEUI 2009 sedang Rehat belajar di H-1 UAS PRP Semester Genap 2011/2012

So, hi!

All of these quotes were recorded by me and Iki sari dewi while we were resting and just talking with each other after studying several chapters of marketing research for the following day's final exam. These are all authentic quotes from the people studying together at that time. I forgot the exact date, but the pressure wasn't that bad tho. All of these quotes were written on a piece of tissue paper, so  i decided to post them here to make them more .... eternal. Well, i guess, at least the blog wont be deteriorated sometimes soon ... 

Well, actually, the reason that i decided to post these quotes beside the one i wrote above is, at that time, i realize that all marketing students who studied together there can really get along with each other easily and trust each other. We werent even close before. Well, nuff said, hope you can see the value beyond the writings and the quotes!

"Yaudahlah istirahat dulu setengah jam" - Ari Wicaksono Hameru -

"Hati kamu kayak SEM, ga ada yang ngerti" - Iki Sari Dewi- 

"Ini lagi mengajar dua anak pemalas" - Ezni Balqiah: Dosen Sakti; oleh Faatih Natasha dan Fitria A-

"Iki tuh mentalnya mental bayar!" - Ghazi Mokoginta-

"Kimia woy sama kayak sabun!" - Iki Sari Dewi-

"Anak kelasnya Adrian ga ada yang ngerti" - Yossi Arieza-

"Regersi gak mungkin keluar" - Handy Putranto-

"kak Aryo!" - Laura Monica-

"Nanya lagi dapet TV lo! USB!" - Faatih Natasha -

"Lo orang gobl*k!" - Yossi Arieza-

"Pengen tiduran!" - Iki Sari Dewi -

"Sabun juga bahan kimia!" - Yossi Arieza -

"Ciee Senyumnya Mia beda!" - Iki Sari Dewi -

"Nania be*o! Bukan narnia! hahahah" - Iki Sari Dewi -