It’s been exactly two years since my last entry. It was too long, wasn’t it? Many things happened in two years. Especially in this information age. So where was I?
The story so far
I won’t bother to tell what happened in the last two years, some stories might shows up from time to time in my next entries, but for now, let me simplified it by saying “It wasn’t what I hope it would be”.
But the last two years was not a complete disaster. Not at all. It was a very appreciated learning experience. Some experiences taught me more about life, hope, romance, expectation, politic, economic, business, ethics, friendship, communities and others.
All and all, everything was quite decent. Life’s suck sometime but once in a while there will be a rainbow when the rain stops. All I hope is someday I’ll be at the end of the rainbow when this storm pass.
What I miss the most
Still, lot of things are missing. In fact, some of them seems like miles away from my grasp now. I miss a reliable and affordable internet connection. ‘Broadband’ in Indonesia is actually ‘Fraudband’, come on – most countries are selling ‘broadband’ in MBps while Indonesia is selling in Kbps and called it ‘broadband’. Just call it ‘fraudband’ and be done with it. I paid € 20 for a 6 MBps ADSL connection back in Germany and here with more or less the same amount of money, all I have is an up to 512Kbps (shared with 10 other customers) wireless connection courtesy of Diginet. Thankfully it is unlimited (I never understand the purpose of “quota limit” except to extort more money from the customer).
I also miss a reliable and affordable public transportation – taxi is good but not so affordable if I have to use it every day. Ojek (the famous motorcycle taxi run by individual) is one of the choice too but well, face it – it is not really a ‘public transportation’ solution. I miss the change of seasons, while winter sometime sucks but it brings some nice experiences too (Try to walk at night when the light snow falls down and reflects the street light – it is beautiful!). I miss inhaling clean and breathable air. I miss sitting, talking and laughing with friend in a small, cozy and friendly bar (Not the one inside the mall or shopping arcade). I miss listening to chill out and drum & bass music in a club (Again, not some repeatable boring and dreadful house music which strangely very popular in Jakarta). I miss discussing philosophical issue about life, the Universe and everything without afraid of insulting people, belief, religion and other sensitive issues in Indonesia (Face it, as much as Indonesian denounced it, Indonesian are one of the most racist people in this planet – while racist usually deals with different skin colors, Indonesian are dealing with different ethnicity! Same skin colors, same almond eyes, same short nose but because you are Javanese and I am Sumatran, you are worse than me – absurd, isn’t it? Oh, by the way – if you are feeling insulted because I said it then great, you just prove my point, thanks).
Where am I?
So where am I? Right now I am doing a personal mission. I am currently trying to run a personal consultancy service within the information technology products design and development and put the emphasize on user experience. In plain English, what I do is “if you want to create an IT-based product (software’s, website, multimedia presentations and else), in the end your product will be used by a human being. I’ll make sure that your product will be usable, accessible and satisfying to the people who are using it.” My catch phrase is “Creating for people”. So if you think you need my service, go to avianto.com and contact me using any means provided there.
Of course running a personal business will be hard. So I always open for any job offer related to my specialty – actually, currently I am sort of eyeing on any IT-related Business and/or Product Development field. So read my resume and if someone thinks I am the right person for some company, I’ll be happy to talk about it. Working abroad will not be a problem for me – I am ready to leave this country anytime.
Other than that, I’ll be around Binus University International to continue teaching undergraduates. I am an adjunct faculty there, in School of Computer Science and this semester I am teaching 3 courses, ‘Multimedia System’, ‘Visual Gaming’ and ‘E-Issues’ for accounting students. These classes will be a lot of fun, I’ll see into them. I already prepare a blog for these courses, so I’ll announce it later.
Epilogue
So here I am. Biting the bullet of my decision returning home. Do I regret it? Sort of, but I have to face it anyway. Do I am happy now? I believe I do as happiness has nothing to do with the situation around me. One of my teacher back in grad school told me, “There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way” (Thanks, Richard – this one for you) so while I am currently unsatisfied with my situation now – I choose to be happy with it but of course, once the opportunity to fly away arise, I’ll be on the first line to grab it.
I am back blogging now, thanks to everybody who keep irritating me about blogging again (Just kidding, folks – I am glad some are still paying attention to me) – thanks to Mr. Nukman from Virtual Consulting, who keep on insisting me writing about my knowledge and of course for paying my return ticket to Indonesia – Sir, I owe you more than you know, Priyadi, Thomas, Amal, Thalia, members of GF, these people keep on harassing me to blog back, and to others whom I forgot at this moment – sorry, but I’ll mention yours every now and then later, OK?
So keep on reading for more of my usual rants, unusual wisdom, tips and hints about technology, lifehacks (this is a new stuff, it’ll be interesting) and of course my usual mumbo jumbo about life, the Universe and everything.
That’s all for now, folks. Avianto’s back!