Bowery

I feel like now i know what happy and blissful means. I was completely amazed by their performance. If voices were food, then D.O = Green Tea Cake with Vanilla Cream Luhan = Strawberry Ice Cream Crepes Chen = Butterscotch + Cinnamon Popcorns Baekhyun = Nutella Cookies D.O has this distinctive deep, gentle & manly voice, a bit RnB perhaps. He is indeed the perfect choice for the opening part (as expected from my favorite ballad singer!). What captures my attention the most is somehow Luhan's voice. He is my second favorite member after D.O. I've noticed Luhan's great singing skill since their debut but somehow he never gets the chance to really put it on display. I've been waiting for the moment when SM Entertainment will finally unleash his power and yeah here it is!

August 17th is Indonesia Independence Day and i happened to be in US instead of joining balap karung in Indonesia. So, my hostsister and i decided to make Nasi Goreng or Indonesian fried rice to celebrate. You know how i am really bad in the kitchen but my hostsister is a really good chef. So we looked at the recipe online and she did most of the work though since i didn't want to ruin the taste.

At the Dulles airport, some YES committee welcomed us and we met few Indonesian volunteers too. We then headed straight to Hilton Hotel DC where we had our Orientation with other friends from all over the world. I guess Paris Hilton should feel thankful because we'd just added her pocket money. My roomates were Amelia (fellow Indonesian from Aceh) and Gifty from Ghana. All of us fell asleep on the first night so we missed dinner and the welcoming speech. Amelia & i were hungry that night so we wandered around the hall in the middle of the night trying to find some foods then we met a friend from Egypt (who has just arrived that time) who thankfully gave us info about sahur. If we hadn't met her, we would have starve while fasting the next day.

After saying goodbye to our families at Wisma Insan Cita Depok, we were heading to Soekarno-Hatta Airport Cengkareng by bus. I decided not to cry. I wasn't so sad anyway. I was thrilled for the adventure ahead. All kakak Bina Antarbudaya volunteers were also coming with us. We took many pictures with them. We got on a plane on 19.35 PM. What took my emotion control away was when we were entering airport security check, all kakak Volunteers were standing in a line holding a banner that said "Selamat Jalan. Sampai Jumpa Tahun Depan' while singing nationalism songs and some other mellow songs. I couldn't help crying. What i really love about kakak Volunteers is that they are the true kind-hearted & sincere people.I am so touched. I want to be volunteers in Bina Antarbudaya when i go back to Indonesia next year. Gosh I love them!

Yes i am here again. After months of constant struggle of dealing with bunch of paperworks, presentations, essays, i (finally) am officially accepted as one of 85 Indonesian students who receive scholarship from U.S. Department of State as an exchange student. This program is called Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study or YES. We are going to live in US for almost a year with a host family, attending an American Highschool and getting involve in any community service to promote cultural exchange and religion understanding. (for those who are curious about this program just go to http://yesprograms.org/ ) Before our departure to US, we had Chapter orientation and National Orientation where we were given many information, tips etc to survive the year ahead as an exchange student. I personally feel thankful toward all the kakak volunteers who have worked really hard as the committee of our orientation programs. At first, i thought this orientation would be just another usual '...