My Dune-fever

It's been quite a long time since the last time I touched this blog of mine. I don't know exactly what restraints me from doing so, except that I felt extremely lazy to do it. This feeling is superimposed by the burden of my study which certainly does not help at all. But why, of all things, is this poor blog that's been conveniently put to blame for such a thing? Why didn't I choose my fondness of manga instead, which has my constantly addiction and full attention? I wish I could delve deeper for any satisfying answers for that...

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OK, OK.... enough rambling. Now that I have taken a little bit share of my interests to do anything decent to this poor Blog of mine, I would like to use this luxurious opportunity to tell you about something I am enjoying to do lately. That is reading science fiction & fantasy books. This hobby of mine has been strengthened by the availability of original books of this genre here in Europe. Although I have bought some SF/Fantasy books in Indonesia, but the availability is not as many as I would like to be. Thus, being in Dresden here, means that I have arguably better opportunity to fulfill my desire for such books. Another thing is the practical way to obtain the books in particular through online books stores such as Amazon or even the online auction site: E-Bay. For your information, right now I have obtained a complete collection of Dune Chronicles by Frank Herbert and also a complete collection of Dune prequels by his son Brian Herbert and another renowned SF author, Kevin J. Anderson. Overall there are six books of Dune Chronicles and another six books of Dune prequels. I just hope that my wife does not scold me for this.. :D
She knows best my "bad" addiction of those books, because it may make me to spend too much money on it... :)

My interest on the Dune series is accidentally aroused when I browsed through a bookstore next to Markplatz, Dresden. This bookstore has a quite a lot collection of books in English. (It is just because I am not able to enjoy reading in German yet, that I only focused on English books. If later I finally be able to do that, of course the German books will be considered too.. :)). Back to this bookstore, a section that I find compelling is of course the SF/fantasy section. One peculiar thing that I observed is that the tendency of books of this genre to be published in series, probably the most popular form is trilogy. I cannot reason this except to the assumption which I read somewhere, saying that publishing trilogy (or you can say, dividing a book/story into trilogy) can boost the buyers' interest. And I find that this reason is undeniably justified in the case of Dune prequels and Lord of The Rings. Probably, there are more example of this that you can find on other titles.
Back to this bookstore, I found myself interested in three books arranged together side by side on the shelf. These three books share the same title: DUNE. Some of you probably have heard a science fiction story which is also called the same name: Dune, which tells a story about human and sandworms living in some all-desert planet. Well, you have it almost right, because those three books is the prequel of this story. In fact, those three books are the most ancient in their timeline compared to the original Dune. And it turns out that these three books are a trilogy. At that moment, I decided that I must own these three books as my collection. Thus I bought those three, although I did not buy them at once, but one at a time.... :) And guess what? The story is so charming that I managed myself to look for and obtain the entire Dune series....!! So finally I must force myself to be satisfied with this, because I don't want to spend so deliberately my monthly allowances from my scholarship just for the sake of book collection.. :D (Even though right now, I have finished 10 out of those 12 books). I hope next time I can share what I find in this interesting series. Meanwhile to have a preliminary information, you are invited to visit:

Official Dune Website
The World of Dune

Or just google the word "Dune" and you will find all related links... :)

First blog from Dresden

Blog pertama setelah pindah dari Leipzig. No no no... bukan berarti aku udah punya kompie baru. Ini masih nebeng temen juga. Mudah-mudahan bisa keep this up to date, soalnya ternyata kuliahnya lumayan berat eeuuy...

For more info tentang kuliahnya browse ke:
International Master Program on Computational Logic -- Technische Universitaet Dresden

O iya about the weather: sekarang setiap hari alternating antara mendung dengan sedikit hujan sama cerah. Suhu berkisar 10-15 an derajat celcius kalau siang hari. Katanya sih akan bertahan sekitar ini selama musim gugur. Matahari terbit jam 7.30an dan terbenam jam 6 sore at least sampai minggu terakhir Oktober. Setelah itu jam dimundurin satu jam karena ada Daylight Saving time.

O iya lagi... puasa.... nggak ada kolek, kolang kaling, es buah, dst....
Kangen masakan rumah... T_T

Selamat mencoblos

Selamat mencoblos besok (eh beneran jadi besok kan?)... mudah-mudahan pilihan Anda dapat benar-benar membuat Indonesia jadi lebih baik lagi. Amiin.
Rasanya sudah terlalu lama kita menunggu adanya kondisi yang lebih baik.

Dari saya pribadi, saya nggak nyoblos. Bukan nggak mau tapi di sini nggak ada yang mengorganisir, maklum nggak ada KPU cabang Leipzig, lagipula orang Indonesianya mungkin juga terlalu sedikit.
Sebenarnya bisa aja sih ke Berlin, tapi males soalnya belum lapor ke kedubes dan juga transportnya mahal.... :(

Beli buku...

Barusan beli buku (natürlich auf Englisch) genre fantasy novel...
from Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel series: The Last Continent.
Yah gpp lah sekali sebulan. 10 Euro buat beli buku.
Sayang baru ngerti 'ein bisschen Deutsch', padahal banyak fantasy novel di 'Buchladen' tadi. Bikin gue ngiler aja.

Related link: http://fly.to/discworld (belon gue cek juga sih...)

Naek gunung....

Coba ke Saecshische Schweiz
Tenang! Ada bahasa Inggrisnya kok, lihat aja di menu paling atas....

Wochenende kemaren gue pergi ke sono ama rombongan DAAD scholarship holders.
Acaranya...: Naek gunung! Gile capek banget.... btw, cocok juga nih buat ngurusin badan buat 98-ers yang butuh... :p

Btw lagi, tadi baru baca di Alvi's kalau L.B. Moerdani mati. Quote: "semua yang bernyawa pasti akan kembali kepada sang Pencipta". Jadi inget tadi istri gue e-mail kalau pamannya meninggal dunia setelah kecelakaan. Reminding me again to be prepared for Al-Mauut!

first experience with a bit cold weather...

sebenarnya sih bukan pertama kali kedinginan gara gara cuaca..
tapi itu pertama kalinya kemarin gue kedinginan pas maen bola.... :(

dulu waktu di indonesia gue biasa maen bola hari sabtu jam 9 sampe siang di lapangan fisip. Biasanya sih bareng si Bangkis ama Isman terus ama anak-anak 95 96 an fasilkom. Tapi kemarin gue maen ama orang-orang Eropa di sini.... gile.. anginnya dingin banget sore sore.... gara gara itu baru beberapa menit maen kepala gue senut senut.... :(
Abis maen capeknya kerasa tapi keringetan kagak sama sekali.... wah lain kali gue mesti maen bola pake jaket tebel kali ya.... :-/

jalan-jalan

Sabtu ini gue jalan-jalan (lagi). Akhir pekan lalu gue udah ke Magdeburg dan ke Braunschweig, kemarin gue ke Berlin. Biasalah pake tiket wochen ende 28 Euro berlima bisa ke mana aja yang kita mau (in Germany of course ... :)).

Terus ngapain aja??
Ya liat-liat lah.... walaupun sebenarnya yang dilihat bisa dibilang sama aja kalo traveling ke kota-kota di Eropa: city center, historical places, gedung-gedung kuno, istana-istana, gereja-gereja (Kirchen, Dom, Kathedral), museum-museum....
Tapi kata temen gue yang udah duluan tinggal di sini sesempat mungkin jalan-jalan ke mana-mana soalnya nanti kalo udah balik ke Indonesia nyesel nggak sempat mengunjungi suatu tempat. Kalo dia bilang yang penting udah "nginjak-injak" Paris, Wina, dst.
Yah kalo soal biaya sih sebisa-bisanya nabung dan menghemat... :p

Omong-omong soal Berlin, gue ngeliat bekas tembok Berlin yang udah diruntuhin orang 13 tahun yang lalu. Terus ngeliat display mengenai sejarahnya, wah ternyata manusia bisa segitunya ya...
Coba bayangin rumah loe hari ini digambari garis putih yang membelah jadi dua, sebelah sini wilayah kekuasaan negara A dan sebalah satunya lagi wilayah kekuasaan negara B. Terus tau-tau udah ada pagar kawat pemisah di garis putih itu. Terus lagi tau-tau di tempat pagar kawat itu dibikin tembok yang lama-lama terus ditinggiin. Akhirnya dua tempat itu terpisah puluhan tahun tanpa pernah bisa kontak sama sekali.
Nggak percaya kalo nggak bener-bener ngeliat sendiri....

Dan ternyata itu terjadi juga sekarang ini: Israel bikin tembok di daerah Palestina...
what a disgraceful history....

On another note: gue pengen upload foto-foto pas di Berlin tapi lagi males ....

Yang pertama ....

Bismillaah...

Posting pertama.... dari Leipzig.

Waktu di Indonesia nggak pernah jadi buat bikin blog, begitu udah cabut baru jadi deh... (jangan-jangan gara-gara kebanyakan waktu luang..???)

Orang bilang memulai itu perkejaan eh pekerjaan yang susah.. jadi inget dulu waktu SMP pernah disuruh Pak Guru keterampilan bikin stiker sablonan tulisannya "Well begun is half done". Walaupun kalau mau jujur sebuenarnya memulai bikin blog ini nggak susah-susah amat. Buktinya sekarang gue bikin blog juga di nebeng koneksi di laptop punya Mas Wikan. (Abis gue masih kere belon punya laptop sendiri :p).

Rencana gue:

1. Beli rice cooker, abis nggak nyaman terus-terusan makannya roti... (wah dasar orang Indonesia... nggak bisa lepas dari nasi..)


2. Ngitung-ngitung duit beasiswa cukup nggak ya buat beli laptop baru... atau second juga gpp.


3. Belajar bahasa Jerman di InterDaF Uni Leipzig (itu mah bukan rencana atuh... kan wajib dari DAAD, kalo nggak mana bisa dapet duit lu).


4. Belajar (siap-siap) buat kuliah di TU Dresden. Mudah-mudahan bisa lulus dengan sukses 2 taon lagi.


5. Cari-cari info siapa tahu istri gue bisa ikutan ke sini... hiks hiks nggak enak juga kalo udah nikah terus jauhan... :(