Shade of Dust

안녕하세요!!!

2010-06-30T08:11:00.000-07:00

ok.. last time i thought i'm gonna blog about my time in hsinchu, Taiwan... but since i've uploaded the photos of my Taiwan trip on facebook (link on the side), i will just skip it and go to my Korea adventure!

It was quite a crazy day/night at first... i went back from Taiwan to Singapore at about 1am in the morning. Decided to just go back to NTU and did some laundry, took the midnite cab, reached ntu at around 2am.. because my plane to Korea was the next morning at 9 am, after finishing all my stuff and packing, it was already 5am and i only had an hour or so of sleep before going back to the airport.

I took the plane that went to Beijing and then transfer to another plane to Seoul. It was a crazy 6 hours flight, my body was aching and i was totally super tired. after 3 hours of transit and another 2 hours of flight, finally reached Seoul. It was an accomplishment as in the last 24 hours, i was in 4 different countries... reached Seoul at 10pm, was not sure whether we should navigate ourselves at night thus decided to sleep over at Incheon while watching soccer.

Took the airport bus in the morning and get to our hostel. managed to get some rest before going out to venture Seoul. Gonna have to say that i totally love Seoul. Not because i am biased of korean stuff but this city is definitely a clean, nice, and happening city. The food is totally a treat. Haven't got to tried a non-delicious food yet (except for the corn tea i tried at the airport.. that one is totally sux!).. get my very first Naeng-Myeon (spicy cold noodle... a popular dish in the summer) and tried some street snacks that are just so good!!. Visited Myeong-dong, a popular spot for the young-adults and the Han river creek..

it's yoona!!!! not a real one though lolz..

korean food is really good!!

Dongdaemun area

the river creek... touch of nature in the middle of a metropolitan

a church in myeongdong... some scenes of You're Beautiful was shot here

More pictures and update will be uploaded soon... my summer school just started so was kinda busy but will try my best to keep this blog more lively!!!

Taipei 101++

2010-06-22T07:50:00.000-07:00

Taipei is such a fascinating city. There are tons of different stuff that one can do here. the combination of metropolis city with touch of nature is really breathtaking.

Back to Nature

the first thing that we did on our first day in Taipei was climbing the 7 star mountain (yangmingshan). Were not totally prepared to do mountain climbing, we thought we would be using somekind of transportation to get to the top. Turned out we need to climb the mountain ourselves through thousands of staircase up to 2.6km.

me and vifo at yangmingshan.. this one is before the climb (read : happy face)

Though didn't really make it to the top, we did see a breathtaking view of Taipei city. The weather was cool and windy, didn't feel like it was summer.

The Night Market

There are a lot of night market in Taiwan. Lots of them selling considerably cheap items and yummy food! To be honest, most of my spending in Taiwan was on food! from mee sua, crispy chicken (this one is super good), snow ice (my fav), and spaghetti hotdog.. taiwan is like a haven for food-lovers!!! Visited the famous Shihlin night market and ximenting night market..

love the snow ice! the best dessert ever!

spaghetti on a hotdog with taiwanese sausage! EPIC!

although my feet were sore and about to fall off, still able to walk through the whole market and found the best food there!

The Taipei 101 + sightseeing

Used to be the tallest building in the world, better to see it at night when the lights are on. Though not much to see except for the exterior (it's an office building!!). The Chiang Kai Shek memorial hall was a wonderful place and the national museum was amazing.

Isaac, me and vifo

these dogs are not dead.. they are up for adoption.. just too cute!!

the limited time i spent in Taipei really felt very short. next one will be about my traveling to Hsinchu, a city one hour away from Taipei! More photos are/will be available through my facebook account (mostly uploaded by my friends ^^)

Summer '10

2010-06-18T09:51:00.000-07:00

Finally my summer trip blog is O-P-E-N!!!!! gonna update lots of stuff happening around me...current location is in Taipei, Taiwan. Just landed at around 6.30pm. Taipei is not very much different from Jakarta, apart from everything is in chinese. The airport immigration officer spoke to me in chinese asking about stuff, and with my super-limited chinese ability, we are able to communicate somehow... super LOL moment!

pre-departure photo with the whole team!!

We took bus from the airport to the city centre. It was a long ride. The bus dropped us off way far from our place to stay. Thus we walked for about 30 mins to reach our hotel. We were starving but luckily the hotel (YMCA) is surrounded by a lot of food stalls and restaurants. After dropping our stuff off at our rooms, we head out for a food hunt!

Bought a lot of tidbits before settling on a famous (not sure if it is real but they said it is) mee sua stall. Definitely super yummy mee sua! it's different from those that we can buy in the crispy chicken stall in Singapore! this one has more taste and the oyster does not taste weird/ocean-ish. After that we divided ourselves into two groups, one going to mcdonalds(wth?) and my group went for more street snacking in taipei.

the famous mee sua food chain!

They said bubble tea originated from Taiwan, so we definitely have to try the original!

Oh for those still asking about me meeting the Wonder Girls... yes i did meet the wonder girls on 17th June @ iluma bugis! it was like one of the best days of my life!! so excited that the pictures i took were mostly blur but anyways i got all their signature and SHAKE HANDS WITH ALL OF THEM!!!! also got to talk to yubin and sunye!!! aaahh it was like heaven!!! they are way prettier in real life!!! more photos of the wonder girls meet and greet can go to my facebook account (link on the side!), the better quality is with on my friend's photo album.

are you trying to get my picture sunye?? hehehe

now that this blog is up and running again, gonna update this one quite frequently whenever internet connection is around! for more up-to-date stuff can follow me on twitter, http://twitter.com/DustinBT

Live Like We're Dying

2009-09-23T00:28:00.000-07:00

Sometimes we fall down and can't get back up
we're hiding behind skin that's too tough
how come we don't say I love you enough
till it's to late, it's not too late

Our hearts are hungry for a food that won't come
we could make a feast from these crumbs
and we're all staring down the barrel of a gun
so if your life flashed before you
what would you wish you would've done

Yeah... gotta start
lookin at the hand of the time we've been given here
this is all we got and we gotta start pickin it
every second counts on a clock that's tickin'
gotta live like we're dying

We only got
86 400 seconds in a day to
turn it all around or throw it all away
we gotta tell 'em that we love 'em
while we got the chance to say
gotta live like we're dying

And if your plane fell out of the skies
who would you call with your last goodbyes
should be so careful who we live out our lives
so when we long for absolution
there'll no one on the line

Yeah... gotta start
lookin at the hand of the time we've been given here
this is all we got and we gotta start pickin it
every second counts on a clock that's tickin'
gotta live like we're dying

We only got
86 400 seconds in a day to
turn it all around or throw it all away
we gotta tell 'em that we love 'em
while we got the chance to say
gotta live like we're dying

FAN-atic

2009-09-11T18:18:00.001-07:00

Fanatic - a person filled with excessive and singe-minded zeal. i believe most of us is a fan of something or someone, be it singer, actor, or even a friend. Then the question is, how far would you go being a fan?

The word fanatic has a negative connotation, most of us would not admit that we are a fanatic of something but i don't agree with that. i know that even if we don't admit it, there are some fanatic moments that we experience which affect our decisions and live in general. For example, i told myself that i am not a fanatic of apple company, but whenever i am talking about macbook or ipod, i talk aggressively and one-sided. Though i denied that i am a fanatic but my friends will say that i am a fanatic.

There are two kind of fanatics. Those that want to get their believe out there and make everyone following them and those that just keep it to themselves. The terrorists, for example, are those that wanted to get more people to join them and spread fear around the world through their 'questionable' ideology. Even some religions practice actively seeking out new members in any way possible which sometime i found it so annoying.

How far will you go being a fan? The recent big news in the K-pop world (yeah i listen to kpop now ^^) put a 2pm (a boy band group) member in the limelight. Due to an old post of his myspace, he got into serious trouble... the anti-fans really burnt him down, writing hate mails and even suicide petitions, and he then resigned from the group... and now his fans started a new movement to get him back, by boycotting any other activities of the other group members. It is really complicated and i am amused by how it turns out. All those fans/anti-fans will just do anything to get what they want...they call themselves a fan... but this is more like a fanatic..

Being a fanatic is good and bad... but sometimes we just have to put aside all this fanatic- ism and think logically and don't do anything stupid... being fanatic for your own country's sake is nationalism, but if u would do anything for the betterment of the country without thinking about the effect or even use of violence, that is terrorism.

So the question is, are you a fanatic?

I'll Go with The Wind Blows

2009-08-26T19:29:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time since my last post, had a three-month break from college thus i went back to indonesia and the internet connection there is not as good, updating a blog became a pain due to the slow connection.

It's a new semester, a new start for me... beginning of the semester, i did not get a hall yet thus was squatting at my friends' place, but i am fortunate enough that now i have a hall...

My life has not been going on the way i planned for most of the time, but i'm not gonna complaint about it, i'll just gonna let it flow... just follow what life has prepared for me...

this post won't be long.. not so much to talk about coz i'm in a quite bored-cum-disappointed mood so i'll just end this with a song which is a good one.. from All-American Reject - the wind blows

A Fool!

2009-04-23T22:49:00.000-07:00

How many times do we actually make the same mistake over and over again... once is okay... but a few more times? that is stupid...

I believe that people can never learn just by reading or just by theory... we need to see it, to experience it and to make mistake out of it... yet we are stubborn and egoistic that sometimes it took more than just a few mistakes for us to learn...

Last night i watched the movie 17 Again... yeah surprise surprise... i watched a movie starring Zac Efron... but hey one of the reason i watch that is because Matthew Perry from Friends and Michelle Trachtenberg, Georgina Sparks from Gossip Girl... it was a good movie, so much better than i've expected... it tells the story of a man who wanted to so called re-do his life and make the "right" decisions all over again... but in the end... it is about reminding him of the things from the past, his mistakes and his "bad" decisions, so that he can be a better person for himself and his family... a lot of points that we can pick up from the movie that actually surprisingly makes you want to say "Hey, that is so true!"...

We all sometimes regret the things that we did... and wish that we can do it all over again... even i want to re-do some parts of my almost 21 years of my life... but hey, i feel that whatever happens.. it happens and even if i have to re-do it, i might have just make the same mistakes again and that will be stupid... i've only been in this world for 21 years... i am still young and life has a lot to offer to me... all i can do is not to wish for time to turn back... but to do better right now so i can have a better future... and sometimes the bad decisions that we make is actually for the best...

Okay, enough with this psychological whatever talk... now is American Idol time... well all i can say is that this season is not my most-liked season nor my most-hated season... it is an okay season... but i feel that the final two is fixed... i don't like it... somehow i want danny gokey out... yeah i am mean... but it is still possible... i want a kris vs adam or matt (with kris in the final for sure)... Kris Allen is good... his performance of Falling Slowly is like the best performance ever from any of the contestants...

Exam is finishing soon... one paper left... i really want to study hard for it but my friends are all done with theirs so it is very hard to focus... whoever set the paper to be so far end of the month is just an idiot!

Gonna leave this one with a video from the Wonder Girls called "E Ba Bo (This Fool)" nice song and i just love the beat... it tells us that in love you have to go and get the love that you want and not to wait...

oh, it was earth day on the 22nd... well i guess we all should do our part in making our earth a better place... global warming is so not cool... it has been freaking hot here in Singapore... incredibly hotter than usual... let's plant more trees than building more shopping malls... we have a lot of those already...

With exam finishing soon means i am going back to indo... not sure when though but should be soon... haha... can't wait to go back!

Day by Day

2009-04-17T21:13:00.000-07:00

Now is exam period... we dread about this time... it's that moment of the semester where i usually wish time would just stop or the earth would just blow out and end everything.. okay that one is extreme but i just wish that there is no exam in life... but well we can't escape from it...

the first three days of my exam week are filled with four papers... the days felt super short and 24 hours in a day felt freakin' short! i slept for just 2 to 3 hours a day... and just studying... it was tiring and i felt washed up after the last paper of the week... speaking of the last paper... that one is the ultimate definition of a killing paper... Analog Electronics... i did not sleep for the paper coz i was trying to finish studying everything... after the paper... everyone's faces just changed... then a friend of mine told me... i should have get my sleep and not studying...

Overall.. for the exam... i feel that i have not prepared them well... it was a fault on my side... i can't blame time or the paper... i did last minute work... and that was bad... not gonna repeat this mistake again... have to really study well...

Okay... American Idol time... Scott was kicked out last week... not a fan so not really bother... this week however, Matt Giraud was eliminated... he is one of my fav... but the judges decided to use their save... oh okay.. good for matt so he can stay one more week and i can hear him again... but then the chances of him getting kicked out next week is high... hopefully he can pull off a fantastic performance... i still don't see the goodness of Danny... i don't like him.. yet he got most of the votes...

As some of my friends have known.. now i am in the Wonder Girls fever... haha.. yeah... you gotta love the wonder girls... i mean seriously... they are the next big thing in music...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz9LQy0rmq0

(follow the link if you have no idea what i am talking about)

and the people they are like the best asian girls ever... hahaha... oh and i love big bang too.. they are good.. music is cool... addictive songs...

this is like the best song from big bang... it's an acoustic version make it more emotional... nice...

can't wait for exam to finish and the tv series to start showing new episodes... i miss Grey's Anatomy...

I blog it anyway

2009-04-08T03:09:00.000-07:00

You can spend your whole life building
Something from nothin'
One storm can come and blow it all away
Build it anyway

You can chase a dream
That seems so out of reach
And you know it might not ever come your way
Dream it anyway

God is great
But sometimes life ain't good
And when I pray
It doesn't always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway
I do it anyway

This world's gone crazy
It's hard to believe
That tomorrow will be better than today
Believe it anyway

You can love someone with all your heart
For all the right reasons
In a moment they can choose to walk away
Love 'em anyway

God is great
But sometimes life ain't good
And when I pray
It doesn't always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway
Yea - I do it anyway

You can pour your soul out singing
A song you believe in
That tomorrow they'll forget you ever sang
Sing it anyway
Yea, sing it anyway
Yeah, yeah!

I sing
I dream
I love anyway

this is a song by Martina McBride - Anyway... very inspirational...

Cherry Cherry Boom Boom

2009-04-01T10:39:00.000-07:00

Exam is coming and i am super excited about it... oh well yeah.. i lied... but when you look at it at a different angle... exam means the last time you are going to see some of the worst, as in i don't like , as in i hate subjects... i'm looking at you, OOP!

I was a bit under the weather these past few days... i didn't know how suddenly i got fever in the middle of the night and start getting headaches and migraines... worse, i still had to do the damn OOP report and presentation... though in the end i did manage to finish them, with the help of Shiyun of course, i am quite satisfied with the result, well except for some problems that shyn and i faced... but not gonna bitch about it here... what's done is done... the migraines were getting worse and i decided to skip accounting and marketing seminars... not a wise choice but i really couldn't take it anymore... so i went back to sleep... but then before i slept, i watched american idol... hahaha... even heart attack won't stop me from watching this one...

About American Idol... this week theme, top downloads, suppose to be a week about current and popular song.. but i was mistaken... the AI's version of top downloads is any songs that you can download as far back as 1800... okay that was too much... but what's with the oldies songs? First impression, i really like Kris Allen's performance... and although the judges slammed him, i love Matt Giraud's version of the Fray's "You Found Me"... that is top downloads!! wth is wrong with the judges!.. Adam Lambert, who was my favorite for last week, did a quite okay job... Allison's cover of No Doubt's "Don't Speak" is kinda cool... Danny Gokey is okay.. i like his song choice.. but overall i just don't like the guy... I used to love Megan Joy... but her song choices for these past few weeks were horrible... i was kinda hoping she would sing something like Duffy or Amy Winehouse or Adelle... seriously girl.. find the song that suit your voice!

Turns out that Matt will still be in AI for another week... that is good news... coz i feel that out of the rest he is the one with the voice that can really sell... not Kelly Clarkson/Carrie Underwood/David Cook material yet, but i believe he got a shot in winning and become big...

I love David Cook and still feel that he is my favorite Idol winner, with Kelly and Carrie of course... his new single "Come Back To Me" is awesome.. i love the video... he got the looks and the voice... now i miss all the cookie goodness in AI 7... none of the contestants at season 8 has had an appeal like DC...

Now have to do some labeling for Art Assessment on Friday... this week is just another tiring week... and next week is revision time... haiz... i love my life... i love my life....

The Climb

2009-03-25T05:51:00.000-07:00

There's always going to be another mountain
I'm always going to want to make it move
Always going to be an uphill battle,
Sometimes I'm gonna to have to lose,
Ain't about how fast I get there,
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb

This one is a bit random but after listening to yesterday's PINTU radio with DJ Stephen about challenges in life and after a whole week of grueling marketing project, it makes me realize what kind of person i am when it comes to getting things done.. in facing challenges..

I feel that when it comes to challenges, in the case of university life is getting the project done, it really brings out the best and worst in people... the stress that gradually building up can really snap the sh*t out of anyone... we want to get things done quickly and perfectly but sometimes we are reluctant to take the extra mile... we dump stuff to others and expecting them to do them perfectly, while we whine about the amount of work that we have... we get angry when our mates can't finish their stuff(or don't even bother about it) and feel that we are the one who have to clean the crap out...

While i am not the person who always get somewhere or somethings on time and swiftly, i believe in getting the fun-factor, the experience out of everything that i do... i believe that there are no challenges that one cannot overcome... everything is possible.. it's just that our short-sightedness prevent us from seeing what actually lay ahead... we judge everything by what we see without giving enough thoughts on anything... we speculate and accuse something with just a little information we had... we put our arguments without looking on the other's point of view...

I feel that no matter what we do we just have to learn something out of it... no matter how high the mountain is, what we will remember at the end of the day is the hardship and experience we take climbing it... and these mountains will keep on coming one after another... after taking over one, the next one will be easier as we already done it before, though some are higher than the previous one but with the lesson we learned, it won't be that hard...

So the lesson to be learned is to take challenges head on... no matter how big it is, we will be able to overcome it... open our eyes and look for the way... it is not always rainbows and butterflies... but we have to keep trying... and you'll see that sometimes the mountain we've been climbing is just a grain of sands (kudos to Carrie Underwood!! ^^)

this post is a reminder to myself... be positive and have fun in doing your job...Ain't about how fast I get there, Ain't about what's waiting on the other side...It's the climb

My Life Would Suck Without You

2009-03-19T18:41:00.000-07:00

Hey... another post... glad to see that more people start to look through this blog... anyway just as said last time, i am so busy this week... a lot of stuff to do so the updating is a bit late

The week is kinda hectic for me.. firstly s

tart from NTU Open House last saturday... i was very excited to go to this event... and surely i did have fun... meeting some of the juniors from SRJC and know that they are doing well is very nice... my job at the open house was as a student ambassador and i did my job freakin' well haha... then i went to help out with my IEM

people to "psycho" the people to go to our cou

rse... and i think i was able to brainwash some of them lol.. well this one sounds bad but yeah IEM is so much fun! (this one is sincere^^)...

The week started off with Accounting assignment to do... and i gotta do the presentation for it on wednesday... everything went well buy during the presentation, i felt that the teacher does not like me that she kept on asking me questions, write stuff on the board etc... furthermore the air-con was off during that time and it was super hot... though i managed to make a quite good presentation but still... she doesn't like me!

Tuesday got lab session... it was a computer lab kinda stuff so we just sit in front of the comp and write a program... and seriously i hate this kind of stuff... it was a total waste of time and i didn't understand a single thing so i just opened up face

book and start facebooking while waiting for my friend to give me the codes... hahaha... yeah i am that bad... another thing that i hate about lab is that i always lose something after that... last time it was my thumbdrive (but lucky my friend took it for me) and then my phone headset... damn...

Still got a lot of work ahead of me... there's marketing project to be done by wednesday, and also object oriented programming (make a 3d game) and this one is a pain...

Although there are a lot of work to do, i do not neglect my weekly dose of tv shows... Gossip Girl is back.. finally so is Lost, Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy... but i am most excited with American Idol... last time i told you that i am keeping an eye on Matt Giraud... well he really delivers an awesome performance during country week singing Carrie Underwood (my fav!) - so small... it was incredible and i love it... Kris Allen is also good and i love to see that the so-called front-runner actually messed things up this week... Matt and Kris surely got a chance to win this competition..

Matt Giraud on Idol... he is the one to watch!

Speaking of Idol, the original American Idol, Kelly Clarkson just released her new album All I Ever Wanted... it is a great album.. love every single song in it and i really recommend everyone to buy it... if you were a fan during her Since U been Gone and Because of You era, this time it is so much better...

love love love My life Would Suck Without You, Already Gone, Long Shot, I Do Not Hook Up and many more... KC is the best!

so.. gonna go and start doing my marketing... that's it for now... ^^

A Little Taste of Heaven

2009-03-11T08:07:00.000-07:00

This is the first post! yay!! haha.. anyway.. this one is during my break after hours of studying Analog Electronics, honestly this one's suck big time... not gonna be an electrical engineer ever!

It has been a busy week though now is only wednesday... seriously a lot of stuff to do and i can foresee that the rest of the weeks leading up to exam will just be as busy if not more...

I guess it's true that university life is stressful... well at least here in NTU... i have never been a big fan of studying and i believe that your life is not entirely based on your grade... i would be lying if i don't want good grades.. seriously i really really want to get 1st Class honors... but sometimes i think to myself that the stuff that i've learnt and are learning right now may not and/or will not be relevant to what i want to be in the future... am i in the wrong course? i have no idea but i do enjoy some of the modules. They said "just focus on your studies and forget anything else for this four years, get a 1st class honors... after that you can enjoy yourself..." well they have been saying that since like forever... primary, secondary and JCs... is life really just about getting good grades?

For all of the ramblings... i am stuck in that world... and for what is worth, i may just have to suck it up and go on with it... it is not always stars and rainbows and roses but at least i can add some sparkles and stickers to make it meaningful.

So... been watching american idol season 8... not sure who to root for at the moment, no one really captivate my attention like David Cook did last season... but i am watching closely for Matt Giraud, Lil Rounds and Chris Allen... though it is obvious that the judges may want a Danny vs Adam finals... but one thing for sure, the guys are so much better than the girls...

New

2009-03-07T23:05:00.000-08:00

Hey, this one is a new blog.. some friends been telling me to update my blog on friendster.. but i don't really use friendster anymore since facebook.. so it's about time to have my own blog so here it is!!!

What are the stuff going to be here.. hm.. not sure yet, but surely something related to me in a way or another and it may contain some opinions from me according to some matters that may have crossed my mind or is kinda big news at the moment

can't wait for my friends to see this.. still new on using blogger but yeah.. do place your comments!!!