Welkommen 2022 ❤❤

Hi there! its been a while since my last post here and finally it's gonna be my first post this year. How's life treating you so far? well enough? feeling finally get a hang of pandemic which will turn to be an endemic? For me, so far, my theme for the past months were about moving and adjusting myself in new environment. 

Adjusting in new place has never been easy for me, especially one during working remote period. One should be an active side to over communicate their intention and expectation. I've tried one time and I dont think it went well hahaha but hopefully this time it will be better. 

Anyway, I've just recently turned 32 years old this year.Feel so old especially if you work in tech where people are getting younger and younger. I felt this year I became more content about myself and know what would please and distasteful for me. I have embraced life and the unexpected things with open arms. Try to be a more optimistic person and not too jaded HAHAHA. 

I'll try to create new stories and posts more often than before to improve my writing skills as I think it becomes more more difficult nowadays. We will see lah ya.Hopefully my next post can be better and full of learning so that my readers can enjoy my post better HAHAHAHA

Till then, 

Raisa

Pandemic checkpoint

 It's been 3 weeks when Indo has got into crazy pandemic where the number of COVID patients are getting so high. We have constantly reached into more than 35000 patients each day. My friend told me that the ICU patients are getting younger which means the virus is getting stronger and more dangerous. 

The people who got infected are getting closer to my circle and the pain and suffering are getting more real. It is hard to stay sane and focus to the tasks at hand since the environment is so out of control. Reading books are no longer fun, even the cheesy romantic one which usually one of my guilty pleasure. 

Recently, I've found new hobby which is coloring! Just some fun to feed my design frill lol

I think this new hobby can help me to get a sense of getting control of some stuff and finishing some tasks which provides small wins. I am thinking to pick up some old hobby such as exercising and eating some healthy food to loose weight, not to be skinny and pretty, just to be healthy. Also, I think I need to reduce my time in using social media, especially Instagram as I just realized I usually spend around (almost) 2 hours everyday. 

 I think having some habits, will sooth my anxiety and needs to control some stuff. 

This post is intended to be lengthy without any clear key message, because I realized during this crazy pandemic what important is not being productive and efficient, is only about surviving.

Knowledge and Turbulance

Hi there!

This is my first post in 2021, although its april already 😂

Just got inspiration from a crime documentary film in Netflix "Why did you kill me"

It's really heartbroken to see how you can be a wrong person in wrong place at the wrong time and ended up death. How far "revenge" can drive you to do irrational thing which made you deft to your conscience and made you took a decision with irreversible consequences for the rest of your life.

I wrote about grudge a few years back and how it could differ me to feel happy and joy in my life. Looking for outside validation and/or somethings to be happened so that we can feel happy is not sustainable way to live the life. 

Therefore, Im learning ways to prevent the situation to grow from dissatisfaction to grudge or even make me seeking for revenge.  I learn to deal with my burst of emotion and be sensible that not all dissatisfaction should end-up be forgiven right away. It took a process to deal with the turbulance.

I found that doing reflection from time to time can help me to see thing clearer and know. Instead of just lashing it out or ranting around, I learnt to cope with my anger and dissatisfaction through writing my thoughts and labeling my feelings. Or even, when people asking for my responses, sometimes I can be blunt and says "I dont know what to do now and what I expect you to do for me. Let's rest it for a night and I will get back to you later"

By knowing myself better, what is my mental state, what make me happy, what make me tick and how it impacts me, it help me to deal (or even thrive) during this uncertain time and be more level headed with life

Like John F. Kennedy said "In a time of turbulence, it is more true than ever that knowledge is power"

so then, be the force of knowledge to conquer the turbulence 💪

Chasing dream and Living the dream

 Watching EmilyinParis in Netflix, really got inspired to apply for jobs in Paris. I just realized that ive never really think about living and settling down in Paris. Before watching this show, I always thought that the language will be the biggest barrier for me to get the job there. But then I realized, I
have a master

degree from great french univ,  A FREAKING MASTER DEGREE and the classes were delivered in French and I freaking nailed it. Incroyable!

Maybe the only barrier from reaching my dream is my own insecurities to speak the life that I want loudly and actually put efforts on to reach that.

I realized that this had happened before, when i thought I will never able to study in France, but my mom, with her persistence, has supported me to work and improve my candidature and applying for schools in France. Even though it takes longer for me to get the dream (yeah one year longer) but I finally got accepted and started my life in France in August 2015. 

 

This film got me so hyped and stimulated my brain to chase my dream for living abroad. Because I know, I fucking know that I get the capabilities and skills to compete in global markets. Yes, my french and german may be a bit rusty, but hellooooooo, I speak 4 freaking languages!! Oui, je sais que Je suis cool! mdr

It's freaking fantastic for an Asia girl!!

De toutes les façons, Will surely update about my journey here!

Thanks Emily for reminding me about my dream <3 

gros bisous!

Ciao Tonight Show!

I was such a big fan of Tonight show for more than 5 years. This show had been my friend every time I felt homesick when I was in Toulouse. It may sound like a freak, but I felt less alone and less stress to deal with my problems there. It became my go to entertainment every time I was feeling down or beaten up with my situation I've faced.


I was such a fan, I even recommended this show to my family and friends. I even managed to hook my sister to the show through direct verbatim which I've memorized like a weirdo hahaha
Even, when my sister was in Indonesia, I and my brother accompanied her to watch the show live from the studio. Never in my wildest imagination I will become a penonton bukan bayaran

My sister, me and my brother as penonton bukan bayaran

But nothing last forever, all we have is what's between Hello and Goodbye,

So I finally have to say goodbye to this beloved show. After 7 years airing, the show has been finally ended. One of the reason I think was the rating. Even though they have tried to add more spice to it, by switching the schedule, adding more people, having more various game and inviting very insightful guest, it didnt do much (IMHO) to the rating. Many of the viewers were watching the show through their Youtube channel instead of Television. Even for me who claimed as the show big fan. Yes, I can binge watching the show for hours, but through the Youtube, not Television. This behavior didnt do much to their ratings and how the execs measure the show success. 

Even when one of the host told us to watch the last episode in Television, I watched it through Youtube again. After watching the last episode, I did some reflection, why I prefered Youtube over TV? what drove me to it?

Then I realized, in Youtube, I have kinda the sneak peak about the episode through the title. In this digital world where users expect to have the autonomy to choose the content and have limited concentration span due to instant gratification mentality, it's kinda too hard to watch the show day-by-day and wait patiently for around 1 hour to be surprised whether the show was gonna be fun. Youtube allows me to have this flexibility for choosing which part I want to consume and when.

In addition, one the part I love from Youtube is the comments column. There's something magical about this column in Youtube which cant be fulfilled by watching in TV. I cannot really describe why I love it, but it added more joy while consuming the show and made me reply some parts just to get their (the commentator) points LOL

On serious note, I think these points shows how important one must adopt to changes. With shifting user behavior, companies are expected to be flexible and fast to pivot their business model to survive. Especially during corona pandemic like now, company which will survive is one that agile enough to pivot and smart enough to get the qualities expected from the users and use it to their benefits. I believe that you dont have to make any mistakes to lose, you just have to be slower on innovating than your competitors which will kick you from the race, like what happened with NOKIA.

But regardless what happened, I would like to bid farewell to my favorite show. Thanks for accompanying me and filling my lonely nights with laughs and information.  I closes this heartfelt post with Vincent's word on the last episode

Bukan pertemuan yang ku sesali, tapi perpisahan yang ku tangisi. 

Til we meet again Tonight Show,

Raisa

Toulouse, Airbus, France

I just realize that I have never wrote anything about my time living in Toulouse, France. Well,given that I rarely write anything in blog since 2018, so I think now im going to tell you my experience living there as part of creating the writing habit I have tried to build during quarantine period.

I continued my education here in France and it's beyond my wildest dream to finally able to study in Toulouse. I always have this dream to visit France and interact with French people in French. I have never thought that dream will ever come true, even when I took a french course for more than 2 years. Therefore, when it's finally came true, I still needed to pinch myself.

Speaking about Toulouse, this city is the 4th biggest city and also the best city in France for student. It's full of young people which give more spice of this city dynamic.


In addition, AIRBUS has one of their headquarters here in this city. Therefore, there are many aerospace companies are also located in Toulouse. As a girl who was growing up in third world country and studied business, aerospace industry was a very foreign domain for me. It had been very difficult to imagine the way this industry works. I was very fortunate to have the chance to get the inside scoop about this industry and this particular company when I joined a competition from AIRBUS. I even got the chance to visit one of their factory, YES THEIR VERY OWN AIRPLANE FACTORY.  Yes, me, this business student who had never visited ANY KIND of factory, but got the opportunity to see a very big and complicated airplane factory. Im forever grateful with this experience.

I think my experience joining this competition needs to be written in separate post LOL

So if I may continue talking about my time in Toulouse, I believe I have learned more about developing myself as a person. I really learned about how to deal with ambiguity and manage my budget wisely. I learned the hard way about when I was in shitty situation, I have to think with my brain not with emotion. I really applied my mom motto which is "swipe your tears and think". Those words became my mantra to navigate during one of the hardest time in Toulouse. In addition, I've become more mature so that I can let go stuff that used to bother me as I know those are outside my control.

I think im not really succeful to explain any points about my time there HAHAHAHA

Maybe when I have more patience and willingness to revisit this and edit it then Im gonna share you more points

Maybe.

Raisa

Confinement and myself

Entering the 13th day of confinement, I was quite surprise with how well Im surviving in this situation. Comparing with other situation which required me to work from home (during the presidential result announcement in 2019), I think I waaaay much better to cope with the situation now.

I dont really know why, maybe because I know it's going to be a long period, or maybe I have successfully set-up my expectation about how long this period is going to last, or maybe simply I have become a mature adult who can separate between things that I can control and which are not.

I think to deal with the uncertainty, I channel my need to control the situation by treating all the things I've done as a project which has time and place to do it. Like the exercise. I plan carefully the exercise could be done through the resources I have. It also apply for other things during my personal time, I try to do some handy works like decorating my bedroom, printing some photos from vacation years ago or sewing my own clothes.

In addition to that, I do believe keeping the routines does help to cope with this situation. I try to exercise every morning and start my work at 10am till 7pm. I make a to do list in the morning which provides sense of achievement whenever I manage to finish the tasks. Although some of the time, it might take longer than that, but I think the experience of working as a freelancer some years ago, really does help me to be able working by myself or virtually while still respecting my personal time.

Maybe some of my advice could be relevant for you, maybe not.

But for me, there always be a rainbow after the rain.

Yes, I know the situation is difficult with all the uncertainty ahead of us, but at the same time, I am excited to see how this situation can shift (maybe) our generation. From working behavior to way we run our lives. I can not to wait to see how companies could evolve in this situation. I want to learn how agile those fancy executives can come with new business model that will be sustainable for the future.  I want to know how the artist and art societies will absorb and interpret this situation into their artifacts.

All in all, Im kind of proud with myself about how well I can thrive in this situation, how about you?

Raisa