Next Path (Old Draft Finally Released :D )

/* This was written last year (2010) when confusion came around my head */

I never expected to have a difficult moment to choose the next path in my life. It was stressful, confusing and absorbed so much energy. The trade offs among the options that I had were extreme and mutually exclusive. But I am glad that I've passed that moment that I chose a path. I'm confident and ready to endure for everything that I will undergo. The choice that I picked, I should say, was not popular. I think if 10 people were asked about this, perhaps only 2 people will choose the same path as I am. It's like me against the world.

I may lose something but I will get something else. I keep saying to myself, I need to take few steps back to make a longer jump.

Patch goes beta

I've just got a news from the field that my beta patch already installed in GlobalFoundries, Dresden. So far they're quite delighted about the performance as the existing errors are gone now. Hope that everything will go allright (fingers crossed). Well, that's the only satisfaction that I can get as a software engineer, to have your software used by the big clients and it works fine.

Surrender

Sometimes our dream doesn't get along with the reality. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the sake of others. Sometimes we have to endure from something that we don't like. Sometimes we have to make a hard decision within an obscure circumstances. Sometimes we pray and we just don't get enlightment. Sometimes we walk in the middle of the dark tunnel and cannot see the end of it. Sometimes the universe forced us to stay although we want to leave. Sometimes we just give in. Sometimes we just give in. Sometimes we just give in. Sometimes we surrender.

Let It Go

Apprentice: "Jedi, I cannot start my appp properly. It always shows strange error messages. I don't have a clue what's going on. "
Jedi 1: "Hmm, let me see". (Jedi 1 only restarts the app and stare at the error messages..silence..)

.....

Jedi 1: "Apprentice, even I don't know what's happening."
The Guru: "What's going on guys?"
Jedi 1: "Blablablabla.."
The Guru read the error messages and in one second he shout "Semaphore!"
The Guru : "Jedi 1, you controlled the shared memory. That's why apprentice's app cannot be loaded"
Jedi 1: "???????"
Jedi 2: "Let it go Jedi 1...Let it go..."

Well, four hours without doing nothing is quite annoying. Apparently, Solaris hasn't deallocated the shared memory area. Don't know why.

Sticking to it

I am thinking to find something interesting to do in the future. One of them is doing contributions for the opensource project. To be honest, the experience of GSOC'08 was very memorable as I learned many useful things from the organization and the most important thing was, I got paid to do something that I really really love. As it's not possible to do something that I "really" love from 9 AM to 5 PM, perhaps to explore the interesting projects in open source world (outside the office hours) is the best solution for now. I keep talking to myself that I can make "something" from "something" that I love and I'm still sticking to it.

Another thing that I've done in the last several days was browsing through the SIGIR, WSDM, CIKM conferences and looking for interesting research papers. It's always fun to see how the researchers, computer scientists make something that doesn't exist to be exist, something that seems impossible to be possible. Implicit message: a dream to pursue PhD. It's not a dream actually, but it's a bit more like a plan that cannot be executed now because of my circumstances. But, I'm still sticking to it. Who knows, in the next 2 years it's possible for me to continue PhD.

Hi, I'm Samuel Louvan, and I'm still sticking to my hopes. How about you?

As usual, the after office hour moment has always been the blissful moment for me everyday.However, in the same time, it is also a time when I try to contemplate about things concerning my life such as how's my feeling today, what I've been doing in the office, what am I going to do for the rest of the night etc. Despite of many things that usually pop out in my mind, most of the time I only think about my mood, my bad mood.

Yesterday was the same routine, took the 149/150/174 bus to the station, tried to sleep along the way, but didn't manage. Arrived at the station,I was hungry, went to KFC to have unhealthy moment with those spicy chickens. Right after that, I decided to go to TU/e's library. As usual, I only browsed the Internet there. It's been like a ritual, go to the Internet, try to find something that can direct my life. I was not happy, I wanted to find something that I really like, something that I really passionate about. What kind of subjects do I like? I like IR Technology, machine learning, data mining related areas. I think if I could work in this kind of subject I would be very happy. But sorry to say, not many companies are in this business, but there is one, and it's really big. Google. When I tried to search something related to Google in youtube, I found one video that showed the graduation speech delivered by Marissa Mayer,a woman who is one of the Google's Vice President. In her speech, she shared her experience during her early years in college until she joined Google. To make long story-short, the main point of her advice is that you have to do something that you really love. In the beginning of her education at Stanford, she majored in medical education, she believed that she would be a doctor in several years. But one day she attended an intro ductory course in Computer Science and right from that moment she knew that it's the right path for her. After she graduated, she rejected offers from other companies and decided to join a company called "Google". Her parents were like,"What? Google?" But who knows that Google would be a giant internet company like today.

Not only Marissa, other people such as Steve Jobs the founder of Apple Inc. also had similar experience that he kept looking to everything that may interest him. He did not settle down until he found it. Stay hungry, stay foolish. Looking at these people's experiences, despite of their extraordinary skills I think that they are very lucky to have such life. As for me, it's only a dream except if I dare enough to do something that I really love. In reality, most of the people are willing to do something they don't really like as long as they can survive.

The Best Healer in The World

Grew up together with her, I never expected that she would be a person to whom I relied to. I must admit that she thinks faster, smarter than I am. It's like she resembles my father. A person who was the best healer in my ups and downs in life. Like Laura's status said "My sister is the best healer in the world", it happens for me as well.

Critical Section

I was in the middle of tough conversation, probably the toughest one in my life. I had to make a decision from a binary type question. It was not easy since I felt that I cannot take one of them in mutual exlusive manner. But I cannot do a "busy-waiting" all the time. A process should go on. I made a decision. A painful decision. However, life must go on.

Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better [Ecclesiastes 7:3].

Olimpiade Beijing 2008

Seperti biasa, Indonesia akan mengandalkan bulutangkis untuk mendulang medali di Olimpiade 2008. Akankah Taufik Hidayat mengulang sukses terdahulu? Tadi liat-liat di youtube clipnya Taufik. Liat maennya dia, emang sadis banget. Keren.
Nih kalo mau liat:
1. Yang ini liat di menit 5:16. Counter attack super.


2. Yang ini pertahanan super, dan backhand yang kayak forehand. Gila, pergelangan tangannya terbuat dari apa itu..


3. Yang ini pas masih belasan tahun, lawan Ji Xinpeng. Pertahan super lagi. Akhirnya smash menyilang.


4. Smash yang keras buanget.

Habis ini kemana ya?

Beberapa hari yang lalu liat-liat fs anak-anak Salatiga yang baru lulus SMU. Liat-liat comment mereka, kebanyakan dari mereka saling bertanya satu sama lain, mau lanjut ke mana? Mau kuliah jurusan apa.

Setelah tak pikir-pikir, waktu dulu aku nentuin jurusan pas mau kuliah, sebenarnya aku nggak terlalu apa yang harus aku pilih. Taunya sih kalo anak IPA biasanya masuk Teknik Elektro, Teknik Sipil, Kedokteran. Aku sama sekali nggak tau entar di jurusan itu nanti belajar apa, habis lulus dari situ entar jadi apa dan laen-laen. Dalam pikiranku sih aku cuma pengen tau lebih dalam tentang komputer dan programming, berbekal itu, aku pilih T. Informatika. Dan untungnya sih, jurusan tersebut lumayan pas denganku. Cocoklah. Dan setelah kuliah beberapa tahun jadi ngerti T. Informatika bukan tentang memprogram komputer saja.

Setelah cerita-cerita dengan temen-temen laen, pengalaman mereka juga relatif sama, mereka milih jurusannya tanpa terlalu tahu sebenarnya yang akan mereka pelajari itu apa. Bagi mereka yng cocok dengan jurusannya sih gak masalah, tapi kalo yng gak cocok wah bisa gak enjoy ngejalaninnya.

Aku nggak tau sih kondisi sekarang di SMU-ku, dulu sih paling banter ngundang alumni yang udah kuliah. Itu juga paling mahasiswa yang baru tingkat satu, orang-orang yang masih bangga ketrima di univ. top tapi sebenarnya mereka belom tahu apa-apa tentang universitasnya. Jadi ya masih tidak terlalu terbayang entar belajarnya apa. Harusnya sih bagian konseling atau BP di sekolah pro aktif dong tentang ini, jangan cuma kerjaannya ngurusin anak telat masuk sekolah, anak berantem hehehe.. (piss) Mereka harusnya bisa memberikan pengetahuan kepada murid-muridnya pilihan apa aja yang mereka miliki. Dulu pas aku masi jadi mhs baru di univ ini, rada aneh juga denger T. Geologi, T. Geofisika, T. Kelautan. Ya gimana, wong pas SMU juga ga dikasi tau. Padahal kan kalo kuliah di T. Geologi entar bisa kerja di BP, Exxon, Shell, Conoco huehuehue.

Selain pihak sekolah, kayaknya pihak universitas (PTN) ada baiknya melihat contoh cara penerimaan mahasiswa di U.S. Ini bukan artinya saya pro US hehe. Kalo nggak salah (kalo nggak salah lho iniiiii), untuk ndaftar di universitas mereka harus bikin essay, kadang-kadang ada interview juga. Jadi mau nggak mau si calon mahasiswa jadi mau mengexplore jurusan-jurusan yng ingin dia pilih, cari tahu apa sih yang dipelajari di jurusan itu. Sesuai dengan minat dia apa enggak. Masak nyeleksi mahasiswa baru cuma mengandalkan score UMPTN doangs..Kayaknya kurang komprehensif dalam menilai seseorang..