Teaching Eglish Part II

Ok, 2 years has passed since I finished this part time job. I feel like I need to write it in my blog. First of all thanks to my Filipino's friend who introduce me to the job and let me had the experience. I could say that was the coolest part time job I have ever had. Here, I would like to highlight and share some of interesting moments I had.

1. First Day was like Hell

Yes! to be honest for someone with low mentality and limited social skill, it's very scary to speak, teach and guide students. Although I had prepared some materials, in the end experience will speak the most. Another thing is, as non-native speaker it is very challenging to have confidence to teach English while in other room there is native speaker who also do the same job. So, I was just trying my best.

Then, my first day goes not smoothly. It is obvious that I am lack of teaching experiences as well as standard English pronunciation. I saw my students were confused like they don't know what they supposed to do. They confused and I also confused. Such a bad teacher. But thank God we as teacher are not supposed to teach them the language but play games using the language instead. The main goal is to encourage students speak up and use their English.

2. Overcome by Overzealous

Well, I realize overzealous is a good thing especially in encouraging people to do something. I wasn't really confident to teach English and I am lack of skill and experiences. BUT I need the job, because I need the money. So, I push myself, that I forgot my fear and worry. And I try to be overzealous to deliver my message to the students. And guess what, it works! So, then, day by day I can enjoy teaching more and more

3. Everything needs preparation

Without preparations I won't be able to push myself that far, defeat my fear and worry. It helps me a lot. As a teacher, to prepare teaching materials are mandatory. Students can feel whether teachers are well prepare or not. Through preparations I managed to create a fan base among my students and have a great time in the class.

4. Invite students for discussion

Teaching materials are actually have been prepared by the organizer. So, my job is only to execute and make sure students are learning from it. From all teaching materials, there is 1 subject that interestingly encourage the students to participate more. The subject is called "DEBATE". In this subject, students are divided into several groups and have 1 group as judges to decide which group has better arguments. At first I thought this subject won't be interesting to them, considering that Asian students are generally afraid to speak up. But guess what? The students are excited for this class!!! Each of them like competing, rising their hands and speak up. And we had sooo much fun because some of the arguments are totally nonsense but appropriate. When I shared my class experience with other teacher, apparently not any class are excited about this subject. And then I realized, there is another important thing to bring up students to participate on discussion. That is to have a simple but interesting topic to argue. Teacher also play very important role here as moderator.

5. Games always work

Well, almost all teaching materials are playing games. And all of them are worked. No matter what kind of games it is, students they just like to play. Even for the most stupid game like "Robot Race", where someone is being blind folded, cover his/her eyes with fabrics and the rest are helping him/her to walk reaching a certain spot. I was so tired playing this games with the students as the organizer assigned me more than 5 times playing with different class. And every class was playing the game hilariously. Some of the class were too excited that they almost destroy the classroom! And this is girls high school!!! I never know that girls could be this wild! But anyway, I enjoy it.

6. Hobbies help you on teaching

Exactly! I had this experience at closing ceremony of this English program. So, everyone were gathering at school hall and having a closing ceremony. Apparently the schedule were running too fast that organizer asked us to play a yell yell game! In this game, each class has to make a yell yell. No reward will be given, but this game was like challenging each class teacher their ability to lead and produce a creative teamwork result. I was very confused in beginning, not knowing what to do, and the students also have no idea what they need to do. Thank GOD I had experienced singing a chants in a football live gathering. I love Chelsea Football Club and every time I go for live gathering, we always make a chants. So, I just change some words, that it becomes a new chants for our class. There was no scoring for this game, but I bet if there were, the score for our class would be the highest one. We did it very well.

7. Be who you are

Apparently there is nothing more comfortable to do things as who you are. And becoming who I am while teaching gives me more power, flexibility and access to deliver my message to the students.

Yeah, so.. those are some points I want to highlight from my experiences as non-native English speaker teaching English in non-speaking English country. I hope some of them can motivate you to do something or even defeat your fear. Thank you.

Teaching English

Good Morning!

Yes... That's the first words I always says to my students when I was teaching English in Tainan, Taiwan. Well it was a great time as I never thought that I could have such opportunity in Taiwan. There are a lot of native speaker in Taiwan or people who can speak fluent English without Indonesian accent. However, that opportunity came to me, and even though I was full of hesitation and afraid about what to do, I couldn't help myself not to grab the opportunity while my pocket was shrinking.  Yes, it is true that the payment is half of normal teaching English salary here, but still, it is good enough to support my life for a month or two.

A little bit of flashback, one of my classmate offered my ex for teaching English. My ex is from Slovakia and her English is way better than me. With a western look and gorgeous looks, she will be easily get the students attention and interact with them. However, when she got this offer, she first refused to do so. She said, she doesn't like playing monkey for kids for their entertainment. Well I couldn't say much, because that's what she experienced. However, I told her to try, because we need the money. Thereby, She decided to try and suggested my classmate to also include me in the project. Well I never though they could hire me, therefore I never hoped, but then... my classmate reply "Sure... you can come with us to the office and have interview with the boss".....In the office, even after interview I still doubt they are going to hire me, until I received email from them to come for a consolidation with other teachers involved in the project, including my ex.

So, the boss assigned us to teach in two different school. And for one school, the schedule is fix and teacher will teach for 4 weeks straight, while in other school the schedule is not fix and teacher might teach for a week or two. Interestingly, they assigned me into the fix one which is a private girls senior high school, while they assigned my ex into non-fix one. My ex suggested me to change the job with someone else, so we can teach at the same school. However, the other school is a normal school with both boys and girls. And they have assigned me into girls school.... So...Which one will you prefer as a BOY? Of course Girls Senior High School! So I decided not to switch the schedule and stick to my beautiful faith :)

to be continue...

SnipMe

Hi all,

After long break from laziness, I successfully push my backbone to sit, put my fingers on keyboard and turn on my brain, start blogging again. Yes, it's been too long since my last post and for sure many things had happened. Too many things I would like to write, but for now, just a quick notice, I have been working at Interchan for about 10 months. The working environment is good and colleges also very nice and supportive. However, currently we are facing a difficult situation as revenue goes down and needs to shift the business into mobile apps. I myself see this as an opportunity for a company to bounce back and follow current business trend and grab potential market. Nevertheless, company needs huge effort and take some risk on the process. On the managerial side, there has been some changes going on. As company decide to shift its business, Indonesia Value Added Service business is left and terminated. Well it is not completely terminated, however, company doesn't want spending any more penny for VAS business in Indonesia. This way make my position unclear. But.... on higher managerial level there is a talk going on that Indonesia team will be switch into mobile apps team. Well, I am looking forward to this opportunity to be honest and feel excited. Yet, I need to make sure what kind of role is given to me. I would love to do more on market research and knows more about mobile apps marketing. I like the company industries. I see this as a future marketing industries. Even huge corporate such as Google and Facebook still finding their way on effective mobile marketing business model.

Ok, let's stop the speech and continue to what our company have done so far. Well, specifically for Indonesia we customize one of our apps to be suitable for Indonesian. We added Bahasa Indonesia as the main language on menus as well as the contents. The name of the apps is SnipMe. This apps is very useful for your daily life who needs to be updated with news, knowledge and infotainment. Everyday the apps will feed you with valuable information that you prefer. Well, if you bored with information in Bahasa Indonesia, then you can switch to different information in English, Chinese or Thai. This apps hugely maximize your knowledge and come in handy. No need to think even more, quickly try our apps by clicking the link below:

Download SnipMe!

Taiwan

你好...

It’s been a long time that I haven’t written a blog since last year. A lot of things happened for sure. Too many things, too many stories I had experienced since 2010. In short, my decision in 2010 to pursue a master degree in Taiwan instead of career at Bank of Tokyo in Jakarta, had changed my life. Some people might be disappointed with my decision. Working at one of the biggest bank by assets in the world should secure my future and career. However, I have a bigger picture of my future. There are some dreams that I wanted to reach since I graduated from Bachelor degree. And working is not the option. I always wanted to see the world. Study abroad perhaps the most reasonable purpose to see, experience and gain knowledge from different country when working abroad is rather more difficult unless you are willing to do a labor job. Right after I graduated, I tried to apply for a scholarship to study for a master degree in Japan. I don’t know why, but at the time I was very confidence that I would get the scholarship. And well… I didn’t get the scholarship. Thereafter, I tried again in the following year, but still with the same result. Japan with its Monbukagakusho Program was not the only country I was trying to go. I have tried Australia (ADS), Netherland (Nuffic), Europe (Erasmus Mundus), Germany (DAAD) and some other scholarship to study abroad provided by Indonesian government (Depkominfo and DIKTI). Well, when my hope was deteriorated, I got an information about studying in Taiwan. I didn’t expect much even though I saw an opportunity to get a scholarship either from the university or Taiwanese government. And….. it started to be a big hope as soon as I socialize with a lot of foreigners from Couchsurfing. I felt it to be exciting and enriching my life. And then, I was gambled a little bit when I faced a decision whether to accept or dump the offer from Bank of Tokyo while I haven’t been accepted yet in National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, and al thought they could accept me, I was not sure about the scholarship. In the end, sacrifices are equal with the gain. 1 week after I dumped the offer from Bank of Tokyo, I got an acceptance letter from National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, with the scholarship. So…. Here I am, now, in Taiwan for more than 2 years. About 2 months after my official graduation date, I got a job in Taipei :) and probably another year in Taiwan…..

Last Moment in Bali

“Brusshhh..brumb….” it is slightly echoing  in my ear. The noises keep me away from the crowd, stress, and daily activity. It comes soft to my ear and gently whisper where I am. As soon as I gain my consciousness, the warm feeling inside stretch my lips into a smile. The fresh air is telling me to go outside but the blanket smother me and manipulate my mind to go back to sleep. The same noises suddenly change into another lullaby. “This is the sea-wave,” I was talking to my mind. “Ahhh…it’s been 5 days I am in Bali with my girlfriend and her friend. In a perfect place called Bungalow which is located in Tabanan beach. We live in an exotic bamboo house facing the beach and surrounded by banana tree. The place is far away from the crowd. It is approximately 6 hours from Denpasar, the capital of Bali.

“Ilmanko.. wake up.. wake up… see the beautiful sunshine. Let’s go outside,” my girlfriend nudges on me and woke me up from my second sleep. I was too lazy to wake up, but as the curtain open and sunshine coming through the window, it forced me to wake up and jump out of the bed. My girlfriend is an active person and very passionate about traveling. She is a woman in need of affiliation. Easily touch, full of emotion and sometimes meticulous. Compare to me, I am more passive, thinking logically, look emotionless but cheerful. Her friend is somehow similar with me; she is ‘motovidlo’ (a generic term in Slovak to point somebody with slows motoric). However, her friend is a very nice and smart girl. Three of us have been traveling in Bali for 4 days and finally we need to prepare ourselves fly from Bali to China through Singapore and Macau.

“This is the scooter key,” I said to the man who rent us the scooter. “Ok, you guys can take a bus from here to Denpasar and continue with taxi,” said the man. “Ok, no worries, thank you for the scooter.” Yeah, we were traveling in Bali with scooter, and only one scooter. 3 people in a scooter? That’s insane! Well, when you have no better option with limited budget, you need to take a risk. On the first day, we were traveling to Pura Besakih, a Hindus temple located in Karangasem County. It is about 80 km from our place. We knew that it is against the law to ride the scooter by 3 people. And I knew that we are going to have a problem if the police caught us. Therefore, we came up with this strategy. If I saw a police from the far, then I will stop and tell my girlfriend to jump out of the scooter. That strategy seems work. Moreover, I believed that there would be no police patrol on the street. In fact, finally I realized that in touristic island, they are doing more. We were so happy riding the scooter, but not until we arrived in a big roundabouts. I couldn’t see the police as the road was climbing. When I said “jump” to my girlfriend, it was too late and the police dragged us to their post not far away. My girlfriend was exploded when the police fined us with Rp.50,000 around US$5.5. She was crying, complaining and started to hate Bali! I was trying to relief her, and gradually she can understand. After this incident, we change our strategy. Instead of taking the bus, we were more adventurous! My girlfriend decided to hitchhike! She is an experience hitchhiker. She eventually managed to hitchhike a big truck until Karangasem County! We were following the truck with the scooter by then. All that crazy stuff in the morning was nothing compare to what happened on the evening. On the way back to our Bungalow, we cannot hitchhike anymore as it was getting dark. No other options than going back home with 3 people in a scooter. If you never experience riding a scooter in 3 people, that’s good. And don’t ever want to try it! This is especially if you have a long destination. We were sharing middle size scooter seat into 1/3 tiny part of it. The first 3 hours was ok for me, even though it was raining. Another 3 hours, it was torturing! It was such a pain in the ass. And guess what? We were riding scooter in total for 8 hours!!! I was almost screaming in the end of the ride, but keep it cool with Craig David’s “Insomnia” in my head.

Well, our first day was crazy but not so bad for the second day. We met a girl from Canada who is happened to stay at the same Bungalow. On the second day, we didn’t have any trouble for transportation. The girl was renting a scooter as well; therefore my girlfriend’s friend can go with her. We decided to go to Kuta beach in Denpasar. Everything was fine until I realized that we missed each other. Me and my girlfriend was thinking everything’s going to be fine and that was true, as later on we met them healthy in the Bungalow. The second day was amazing for us. Me and my girlfriend were having so much fun playing in Kuta beach as well as Nusa Dua beach. She had that exotic feeling from Bali as well as romantic. The ocean wave was high and calling us to jump in. The sun was bright and warm. The sand was very warm as well. The crowds were breaking apart and mostly populated in the downtown. The beach was quiet but loud enough to carve our memories.

We were outside of the bungalow complex with our backpack and hand bag and then cross a nicely pave small road in front of our bungalow complex. Al though the man suggest us to take a bus from the Bungalow, it seems it’s going to take an hour or two to wait for the bus. Suddenly we saw a police mini truck park nearby Bungalow complex and just about to leave. Of course this is like an exogenous phenomenon, giving an idea to the hitchhikers. Interestingly, the policemen allow us to go with them until the roundabout! Yes, the roundabout where we were caught by them! There is another funny thing about the roundabout and the police. On the 4^th day in Bali, we came back to our Bungalow in the midnight. I believed there would be no more police at this late night. However, I need to convince myself twice that we were in touristic place. The policemen are always around the town. On that night luckily I saw them from far away, and I managed telling my girlfriend to jump out of the scooter. I was confidence! But I should know that the policemen are not stupid. They stopped me and they knew that my girlfriend was with me. The worst was, they were the policemen who caught us on our first day in Bali. They completely knew anything about me. I was ready to pick up my wallet and spent some more money. Fortunately, the policemen just let us go. The main reason remains a mystery, but I thought it was because we look so damn poor.

After we arrived at the roundabout, we took a bus to go to bus station in Denpasar. We stopped by at Padang’s restaurant and continue on to the airport with public transportation. We were arguing before we took a public transportation to the airport. My girlfriend was insisting to try hitchhiking, her friend try to be rational to take a taxi, and I suggest them just to take the public transportation. We were arguing for 10-15 minutes until I was really upset and drag them all to the public transportation. I didn’t want us spending time for small things. Every day was challenging in Bali, although the beauty will not fade away from our memory. The first day was with policemen, exhausting and horrible journey. The second day, we missed each other. The third day, we were struggling in finding the cheapest available hotel in Denpasar after we realized that we were too exhausted to go back to our Bungalow. The fourth day, again! We were missing each other. That time it was even more terrible as my girlfriend was separated from us and she didn’t bring anything with her, not even a penny. I had enough with all of those adventurous situations. I hoped our last day in Bali would be at peace. Yet, since we were in the public transportation, we cannot stay in peace. We were so nervous because there was a long traffic jam on the way to the airport. We were kind of relief after the driver made an initiative to jump into pedestrian walk and made our journey as if in Rally Dakar! Eventually we arrived at the airport on time, two hours before our departure. We were so happy and thinking about souvenir to buy. We entered one souvenir shop on the airport and spent a lot of time there. We start to be panicked when we realized there were 20 minutes left to go for check in. We were rushing to our airline counter, running like crazy. We were so glad that it wasn’t that far from the souvenir shop. Finally we reach at the airline counter and telling in a hurry that we wanted to check in. Suddenly the officer of the airline told us that we were in a wrong counter! We were in domestic flight counter and we need to move to international flight counter! We were extremely panicked; we were running out like crazy! By the time we arrived at the international flight counter, it was 5 minutes late for check in. 

Couchsurfing Experience

Now it's time for a couple from France

This year 2010 looks like a year with couchsurfing for me. I got a lot of things from couchsurfing. New life, new experience, new adventure, new friends and new knowledge. Almost every month that we got a guest from outside Indonesia. From many different countries. It's really fun. Many things that I learnt, especially the language. Well, I have told you that previously I already had a guest from Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Swiss, Argentine, and Belgium. Still in the month of April, after a couple from Belgium, I hosted another couple. And this time from French. Really interesting. Always different country.

The first time I met them was in my internet cafe. Well...as usual... it was Pandu who received the couchrequest, then he asked me to do the job. They came to Pandu's house with a cab on their first day in Bandung and fortunately the driver was dumb enough and made them lost. Luckily, they met a good guy who willing to help them, accompany them nearer to Pandu's house, although still not in Pandu's house yet. Well, in short, they finally found Pandu's house through the second cab. After having several conversation and relaxing a little bit in Pandu's house, they came to my internet cafe. It happened to I was on duty and wasn't free enough to accompany them. This is why Pandu brought them to my internet cafe, instead of me who come to his place. Well, the time they went to my internet cafe was late in the evening. It was almost midnight. So, it was like they were accompanying me being an operator. That night we knew that they must be starving, then we recommend them to eat 'pecel lele'... hehehe... it was really funny because they never had things like that before and they had to eat it directly with hands. So, maybe around 1 am, I finished my job and closed my internet cafe. Then I brought the couples to my house. We had very few conversation as both of them really tired, so I just showed them places in my house, like bathroom, my bedroom, their bedroom, and so on. Afterwards, I say goodnight and see you tomorrow.

Before we go any further, let me introduce them more specifics. The man names is Jo and the woman is Chloe. They both are younger than me but still above 20. Jo can speak a little bit of bahasa, even sundanese.. hehe.. while Chloe, she looks pretty and kindhearted girl. She also looks really delicate, but later I knew that she is a really tough girl. Both of them are fluent in speaking french.. the hell yeah.. they are from french, from La Rochelle. Like Jeff and Sandra, that morning, Chloe wake up earlier than Jo. When I look at her, she always reminds me with a french movie, Emily. Well, she doesn't look like her, but, somehow her appearance fill me that way. Chloe wakes up and then go to the bathroom, cleaning herself and prepare for the day....meanwhile, her boyfriend, still sleeping in the other room quietly. It's really funny. Based on my experience hosting people, I always find the same case. Travelers guy always seems to be very lazy and always wake up late, while woman travelers, they are really punctual, neat and clean, always wake up early. Even some of them wake up earlier than me and woke me up.. hehehe...So..... that day we decided to travel to the volcanoes, Tangkuban Perahu Mt. I forgot the exact time when we went there, but accompany them traveling to Tangkuban Perahu was an experience. I mean... we had been went to the volcanoes for many times, almost every time we had a guest, we took them there. But each guest always had their own story. Like this one, with Chloe and Jo, we try another way to go to the top of the mountain. And damn, it spent more than an hour hiking. We were sweating a lot, especially Pandu, but Chloe, wow she is marvelous, she wasn't looking tired and sweating at all. Another interesting things with them was, we saw the black monkey 'lutung' in the jungle around the volcanoes, which is hardly to see. Ahh.. and then there was this funny things when traveling to the volcanoes. Well... it was already evening when we finished our exploration in the volcanoes and it was already dark. No more public transportation that can took us from the top of the mountain until down to the big road. We had no choice but walking. But suddenly, we had a good idea... why not trying to hitchhike? So....we knew that people wont give a damn to local travelers who trying to hitchhike their cars. Hence, we put our beloved guest in the front line to wave their hands calling the car that passing by. And..... oh lala... it works.. hehehe. There was this family car, a nice one that stop and offered us a ride. Wahhh.. we were very lucky, then we hitchhike their car until the city. It was really fun. It was my first experience on hitchhiking.

Chloe and Jo, they stay only for 2 days, but they have their own story for us. They traveled only to Tangkuban Perahu in Bandung, and in the following days after Tangkuban Perahu, they went to Batu Karas, in Pangandaran. Hope to see both of you again, somewhere, someday...

Couchsurfing Experience

I hosted another couple.. this time from Belgium!

Ok.. let’s continue our journey. Not long after an angel visited my house there comes another guest. This time it’s a couple from Belgium. Well, the guest actually asked a couch to Ika, who is a couchsurfer from Bandung as well, but then Ika asked a help to Pandu to host them. And you know.. when there is a couchrequest to Pandu, in the end he will notified about it to me. Hehehe… especially this guest is a couple. So, Pandu then asked me to host them in my house. I still remember, it was in the evening of Friday. Pandu has told me that the guest will arrived in Bandung from Medan in the evening. So I just passed Pandu’s house before I went to my internet café and suddenly Pandu came out from his house and shouted at me…”ilman..ilman…” wow… looks like the guest really has arrived at his house. Then Pandu asked me to come inside his house and introduced the guest to me. The guys name is Jeff and the woman’s name is Sandra. The woman looks fashionable and beautiful. Worth enough to make me forgot about my angel for a second. What awakes me is the fact that she has been taken. Well.. after the short introduction, I have to go to my internet café to work until 3 pm.

Then… maybe Pandu has got no more idea to make a conversation with them, so he took his guest to my internet café at 2 pm. I really loved when Pandu took them to my internet café as it helps promoting my internet café. People will start to think… “Oh my GOD that internet café always full with Caucasian.. Sounds interesting there…it’s an international place” hehehe…. So, what we did in my internet café was just having more conversation and learning some bad words in Dutch and Flemish. Potverdieken! That’s the word that I still remember until now. Finally it’s 3 pm, then another operator, which is my employee, took over my place and I can go home. Then all of us went to my house and planning for next things to do. We were all a little bit exhausted so we just spent some time in my house for relaxing and chitchat. Me and Pandu asking them about their destination in Bandung, and they said they had none. So, on that afternoon we just recommend them for sightseeing our historical building in Bandung which is located in the downtown. They were agreed then Pandu asked me if he needs to go home for a while to prepare everything and will be back soon. While waiting for Pandu, I teached them to play OHU. Yesss.. OHU.. it’s a mathematic game, play with the cards. The rule is simple, we just have to find out a solution for a number that based on 6 cards times with 10 and added with the value of the cards on top of the deck. The highest number must be 71 and the lowest number must be 61. The value of the cards itself based on its number while J, Q, and K has value of 10, while Ace can be 11 or 1. So there are 6 cards on the table and we should find out the numbers by added, subtract, multiply or divide all 6 cards value. The one who find out the answer should say OHU! Well… I played this game with Sandra and Jeff. Even though they seem not enjoying the game so much, but it was a good game for killing the time. They had to think and for the first time it took quite a lot of time to finally get the answer. But I see that Jeff has a potential. He learnt it quickly and at least always found out the answer. Ahhh.. finally I knew why he was that gorgeous. He is working in a bank in Belgium and is a manager. After several times playing the game, Pandu comes. Then all of us were preparing to go to the downtown to see the historical building.

Well.. well..well… we arrived at downtown pretty late.. it was afternoon. Around 5.30 pm. What we do is only turning around the downtown, seeing Asia-Africa buildings and then goes to Masjid. Yeah, however, even when I hosted a guest, if it comes to praying times, I will take it as my number one priority. So, while they were waiting for me and Pandu praying, we told them to taste “Es Cingcau”. Hufff… looks like they were boring because not so many things that appealing. Then, we decided to take them to “Paris Van Java” to watch a movie. At first we want them to see an India movie, but then Jeff looks like unhappy with it, so then we choose to watch a Greek mythology story which is I forgot the name of the movies. Ahhh.. this movie was so so.. nothing special for me but worth enough to kill the time. After all movie things finished, we wanted to take them to our special place, a cheap restaurant but yet good enough to introduce our traditional food and the scenery of Bandung at night. So we had to go to Pandu’s place first to take his and mine motorbike, because it needs a vehicle to go there. No public transportation can reach the place and taking a cab would be killing us. It would be damn expensive. Then, when I was finally at home willing to take my motorbike, suddenly an old friend of mine, a friend from high school, calling me. He was asking me if I were available that night. He wanted to meet me. Then I said, sorry, I was having a guest from Belgium and we were about to go to ‘Punclut’ . So if you don’t mind coming with us, you can meet me, I said. Then, unpredictably he said, ok… I’ll come to your house 15 minutes later. Wow.. ..that was so good as this old friend of mine was bringing his own car. So we were able hitchhike his car. His name is Yudi and he is working on a bank as an IT staff. Yes, it was like he said, he comes like 15-20 minutes after calling me. Then I took him to Pandu’s place to pick our guest. Aftrewards, we went to Punclut. And that was the end of that day.

Morning…….. wow… it seems my guest still sleeping, except Sandra. Yes, Pandu was requesting me to host the guest as it would be a little bit hectic for them to stay at his place. Feeling that the sunshine was almost high, Sandra then tries to waking up Jeff. And it works, although needed 5 minutes to smack him and wake up.. hehe. So, on that day, we were planning to go to the train station to buy a ticket for both of them to Yogyakarta for the following day. And then, afterwards, we would like to join in CS Bandung gathering. It was around 12 pm that finally we were able to catch up with other member of CS in a gathering. We met up at “Gedung Sate”. And there were quite a lot of member that participated in the gathering. The gathering itself has a theme of culinary. So the planed of the event was to try several food in different places in Bandung. Of course the good one and the unique one. All of us were having a good time. Especially Pandu. You know what… Pandu was appointed as a contact person for the event. So it was like anytime and anywhere that he always seeing holding his cell phone, texting a message. He looks really busy. And yes, afterwards, Pandu writes his feeling about being a contact person in his blog. And the way he described it was really funny.. hehehe. On that day I was really happy and would like to join in with the event until the end. But as describe in my previous story about couchsurfing experience, on that day, I was also texting a message with Sara and there was a chance to meet her again in Indonesia for the last time. I was never felt that crazy of wanting to see a woman like I did that day. Then in the middle of culinary, it was around 7 pm, I say goodbye to all member that attend the event and asked a help to Pandu, to take care the guest. And then I hurriedly back home to pack my things and preparing to go to Jakarta to meet Sara. Well….at 9 pm I was at the pool of a shuttle bus and I was ready to go to Jakarta. In the end, the guest from Belgium was sleeping at Pandu’s house, leaving a funny story. Where Pandu realize that western mostly sleeping without clothes put on, only wearing pants. And he also realize that why some beautiful girls didn’t want to be snap by a camera while they were sleeping.