LIstening Project

There are a lot of articles saying we should find our talent and passion. The problem, I'm not sure what actually my talent is. I'm not an artist and I'm not good at sport either. However, I find out that since I was kid, I have always been talkative. I talked a lot and I still do. I also listen. I often listen to my friends talking about their problem without giving any advice.

My listening skill is quite good but I'm not good at hearing. Yes, listening is different from hearing. According to Oxford Learner's Pocket Dictionary, Fourth Edition, listen means pay attention to sb/sth that you can hear while hear means be aware of sounds with your ears. My teacher explained, "When you listen, you intend to do it before but when you hear, you may not intend to do it. Example: I heard the thunder while listening to the song. Can you see the difference? In that sentence, I had intended to listen to the music but I hadn't expected to hear the thunder." Back to the topic, I'm not so good at hearing to the point that my mother accused me of having hearing problem. She intends to take me to ENT clinic while in fact, I just sometimes focus too much on what I do that I can't hear her calling me. I once wrote in this blog that I was difficult to concentrate. Yes, I am but once I concentrate, I do it totally.

I guess I have talent for communication so I make a project which I call "Listening Project". Since I talk a lot, I think it's important to make more time for listening. In this project, I'm dedicating a week from Tuesday, April 29th to Monday, May 5th for listening to people. I'll just listen to them and respond if it's necessary then I take note of what they say and share some in this blog.

p.s. I'm sorry if I sound like bragging about my suspected talent. By the way, I still believe I have talent for communication in spite of my failure in communication OSCE.

Parents' Thought

Today I went home from campus by bus. I spent my time in the bus reading my lecture note. On the half of my journey, a woman and her little son sat beside me. The woman noticed my reading and asked if I was going to have exam. Soon she discovered that I was (I still am, by the way) a medical student.

She asked me how much it costed to enter medical school and how much I had to pay each semester. I told her how much and I also said that the cost rised every year. She also told me that she wanted her son to be a doctor and she had been saving money for that.

“We have no idea what Indonesia would be like in the future and what profession will be needed much in this country,” she said. “However, doctors are always needed. That’s why I want my son to be a doctor,” she continued.

During conversation, I mostly listened. So many things happened in my mind while listening. I saw how parents concerned a lot about their children’s future even before the children  thought about it. I said parents because I remembered my parents while that woman talked about her son. I also realised that doctor was still considered a profession with future certainty while in fact I’m sometimes still uncertain about my future as a doctor.

That conversation also reminded me how I had really wanted to be a doctor when I was in high school and how my mother had convinced me a lot of time to change my decision. My mother thought that medical school was not a “happy place” and now I’m a medical student, I find out that medical school can be both happy and sad place at the same time. However, as my mother said, “It is your choice. Now study.”

It’s still a long journey ahead for me to be a doctor and a long time ahead for that woman’s son to make decision. I wish them a good present and future.

7 Facts about Me

I see many YouTubers make "7 Facts" video so here I list 7 facts about me.

1. My blood type is B but I don’t know my Rhesus. Do you believe that blood type can determine personality?
2. I like to learn languages but the only foreign language I can speak almost fluently is English. The reason is I don’t have strong willpower to master foreign language so I jump from one language to the others. Some language I’ve ever tried to learn are English, Russian, Italian, German, Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Polish, French, Spanish, Swedish, and Korean. 
3. For some indescribable reason, I'm interested in Russia. I even plan on visiting Russia someday. If I try to describe the reason, perhaps it’s because... Well, as I mentioned before, it’s indescribable.
4. I'm fond of going to bookstore. I rarely buy anything from bookstores but I go to bookstore once a week. I read some unsealed books and browse through the stationery section. I can find satisfaction only by looking at cute stationery.
5. I like to take pictures of insects and flowers. Since I got my digital camera, the feature that impressed me a lot is macro. I like the feeling of seeing small things closely and looking at the details. 
6. I'm a listener of classic rock songs. It’s a result of my mom’s influence. She likes classic rock a lot, especially Deep Purple. In my opinion, Deep Purple is the best rock band of all time but the best rock song of all time is Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin. You can disagree with me. Music taste can vary.
7. I'm difficult to concentrate. I distract myself quite a lot while studying. I study one topic then browse internet for a long while. After that I do homework and eat snack then continue studying and play computer game and so on. The fact is, I spend more time doing distracting activity than studying.

Journaling

Last Friday I bought a small note book which I intended to use as journal. Yes, I’ve just started journaling. The reason why I decide to keep a journal is that I’ve just realized I can get massive stress (not so massive actually, I just like to exaggerate sometimes) and I think journaling can be a nice way to reduce stress. By writing private journal, I can write anything I feel or have done without worrying about being judged by others. It feels different from writing something in social media or blog. Also, if you are a writer, those random things you write in journal can be ideas for your writing.

Sanya

His name is Alexander and he's called Sanya. He is another friend from Russia.

What I remember about Sanya is his first facebook profile picture. In that picture he stands with his cat on his shoulders.

Outside, Sanya can be a good example of genius (hey Sanya, I compliment you). He's smart at school, he cares about political issue, he can speak German, and he read Das Capital. I include reading Das Capital as genius to-do-list simply because I haven't ever read it and Sanya had already read it when he was 15. 

Inside, Sanya is, I may say, caring. He often goes out with his little cousin. He even celebrate his grandmother's birthday (for people who doesn't really care about birthday like me, celebrating birthday can be a sign of caring, sometimes).

Sanya doesn't like snow, unlike me. I always want to see snow because I live in a tropical country. Talking about tropical country, I remember when he commented on my facebook photos. He said that lotus (or water lily, sorry, I can't differ them) was unusual nature phenomenon and he was amazed of the dark green leaves in my country. "Green in Russia is not that dark," he said.

By the way, as I have said that Sanya cares about political issue, at first I thought he would study politics in university but he is studying physics in Moscow State University (MSU) instead. He said that he knew he would study in MSU since he was in first grade (good job, Sanya!). Now, Sanya is fighting with calculus and physic experiments. He has to do experiments then handle the results with, he said, ugly formulas, and answer the instructor.  However, despite his difficult subject (when I look at photos of his textbook, suddenly medical seems easy for me), he said, "I don't steal sleep time from myself."  Well, I have to ask him to teach me time management.

Maria

Catholics pray, "Ave Maria, gratia plena". Or in English, it's "Hail Mary, full of grace." However, I won't write about that Maria. This Maria I'm going to write is my friend. She's not full of grace. She's Maria full of case (to tell you the truth, I had difficulty finding word that rhymes with grace).

Gadukimo
"It's sunny in Moscow and St. Petersburg but it rains in Gadukimo," she wrote to me one day. "What's Gadukimo?" She said, "It's a fictional place where everything is bad." Maria is from Yoshkar-Ola, Mari El, Russia, the city which she said as bad as Gadukimo. However, when she showed me some photos of her hometown, I thought Yoshkar-Ola is not that bad.

Maria and Masha
Maria taught me about about nicknames in Russia which I consider unique. For example, Alexei is called Lesha. I used to call Alexei, my Russian friend Alex and she said, "It's fine. We know Western more than they know us." Other examples are Alexander is called Sanya, Ekaterina is called Katya, and Nadezhda is called Nadya. Then how do you call Maria? Maria is called Masha.

Since she's called Masha, I always remember her when I watch "Masha and the Bear" on TV and then I realize Maria is not so cute as that Masha. She's sweet actually, in different way which I can't describe.

I still have a lot of stories about Maria but I'll write again next time when I have idea how to write it (she's kind of difficult to be explained in writing). 



   

Some Names

I just want to mention some names: Alexei, Josh, Andrzej, Peiyu, Maria, and Sanya. Who are they? They are my friends whom I first met in internet and until now I've never met even one of them.

I had a lot of internet friends actually but the names I mention above are  my friends whom I'm going to write in my upcoming posts (hopefully, when my mood is right). Why them? I don't know, I just want to write about them.

If you ask why I don't write about my friends in real life. I just feel that since I don't show my clear identity and photos in this blog, I won't show my real friends' identity either. But you write your internet friends' names? Some (or maybe all) of that names are fake names. Who knows?