I barely write
on this blog lately, so I figured I’ll just write a few things that have been
happening. Here we go...
Long story
short, I am now in my final year at college. Most universities in Indonesia
required the final year students to do a research, like undergraduate thesis.
So, as any other normal senior year students, I am now working on my
undergraduate thesis. Yesterday I had my proposal seminar, there were two
professors asking me things about my proposal in front of a bunch of audience,
which I think I nailed it. Though, there were a few revisions regarding the research
background which according to both of the professors who questioned me was not
really to the point. I get it, I might’ve exaggerating the first few pages with
all the insights and pre-research observation, so I’m revising it now as I’m
writing this blog and I’m planning on having it all done by tomorrow morning. I
need to finish this in two weeks so that I can graduate right on time. I have
had enough with college; I just want to get out of here as fast as I can.
I also have
been taking TOEFL preparation class and Spanish class. Besides working on my
thesis, I don’t really have anything else to do, so I signed up for those two
classes. I hope by the time I graduate, I’ll also have my TOEFL certificate and
at least can speak a little bit of Spanish.
Speaking of
which, I remember the first time I took my TOEFL, I was 16 years old and I got
a total score of 476, which wasn't too bad for a high school student. The
second time was two years after and I got 530, which was way above average and
I was a bit surprise as I thought I wasn't that good. The third time I took
TOEFL was in 2011, I got 570. And then again, I took the last one about a month
ago, and I got 593! I startled. And beyond happy, of course.
Since 2009, I
haven’t been listening to any kind of Indonesian songs; I limit myself to only
listen to English-speaking songs. I don’t watch local channels, I only watch English-speaking
channels preferably American TV shows and with no subtitles on. I even train my
brain to think in English language, not Indonesian. I read news only from the
website of Huffington Post, Bloomberg, LA Times, LinkedIn, Financial Times, etc.
I can name you all the 50 states in the USA, but I don’t even have a clue of
who the Parliament Head of Indonesia is. I can talk to you about Obamacare, Twitter’s
IPO, Nelson Mandela’s passing, Virgin’s CEO Richard Branson loses a bet to Air
Asia’s GCEO Tony Fernandes, Obama’s SOTU speech, Stan Wawrinka beat world’s
number 1 and 2 on his way to became the champion of Australian Open, or even
for the fact that KIA’s Executive Thomas Oh has been repeating the same speech
over the years of Australian Open (Yes, Mr. Oh, despite the cute accent you
have, I can hear every words you say loud and clear every year). But if you’re trying
to talk to me about what’s been happening in Indonesia lately, my honest answer
will be “I have no idea”.
So, for all
the hard work I've been doing for 5 years, I think I deserve to achieve the
high scores that TOEFL can possibly offer. Why do I have to take another TOEFL
preparation class despite the 593 score I got? Well, back to basic human nature
of in-satisfaction, and as a human, I’m not easily satisfied with 593. If I can
make it 650, why not?
