~ An Ode to the One I Once Adored ~

Why did you choose that path?
Why did you —
Why —
Why —
Why –
Why

Testing My Courage

Assalamu’alaykum..

Hey, it’s been a long time eh??

I’ve been very busy with work and my study. However,  I have to force myself starting to write again. You know, I have to get myself used to writing again since thesis work is on the verge.. Pfiuuh.. Alhamdulillah, finally I am about to graduate yihiii.. InsyaAllah I will write about my study life in other post (if I remember :P)

Anywaaayy..This post is dedicated to my current experience following TEFLIN seminar last week in Surabaya.   I went with my three other group-mates and we would present a paper about practices of silence (which was actually our Pragmatics paper :P).

It was my first experience presenting in an international seminar with probable audiences from all over the world. Nervous? Don’t ask! I was trembling and even a little skeptical about our paper and presentation. I tried my best to prepare and pray HAARRD. However, I was in a dilemma of what to ask to God. If I ask for the seminar to have no audiences, our presentation will look pathetic. But if I ask for audiences, I’m afraid that we will make horrible presentation in front of those professional.. Tsktsk.. So, I just pray for the presentation to run well and enlightening.

The~n, the time had finally come! It was 2.15 in room B114 (Can you imagine how nervous I was, I can remember these details?? -__-) and voillaaa… there was no one.. (there was actually someone, but she said she was audience from the last one, and was intending to go actually and two other who are actually our friends whom we forced to attend our presentation, so we can’t count them 😀 ) Oh so I thought God had granted my first wish, a pathetic but save-from-questions presentation 😀 But then, 2 people showed up and I started to shake. Oh Lord, I said, please have mercy on us :D.

HOWEVER, this scene was no~thing compared to what happened next. Then, there came a man-a foreigner or bule- who looked like a professor. Hmmm, I think I’ve seen him somewhere, I thought to myself. I recalled, and recalled, and recalled, I tried to remember every foreigner I had met at that seminar. and then, WHAAATT?? He was Prof Andrew Lian who was also a board of TEFLIN, who became one of the keynote speakers (if I’m not mistaken). We were shocked, and thought that we’re soo finished!

Fortunately, he was very kind. He listened to our presentation very carefully without showing that he knew better than we did. Finally the Q&A session came, and we were literally finished 😀 But we felt fortunate to hear his enlightening thought and even support that our paper was worth-publishing with corrections here and there.

Once again we felt fortunate and to know that he approved our paper was something – i  think- I could be proud of.

So I think God has granted me my true wish, which is the best option, to make us better in what we were doing by ‘sending’ Prof Lian to our presentation out of nowehere 😀

There you go, my story about my nerve wrecking experience. Hope I can write again soon..

Credit:

Prof Andrew Lian — The Professor

Parawati Sondari — Group mate

Salmia Nur A — Group mate

Nida Amalia — Group mate

Istiqlaliah N H — Friend-audience

Ms Emma — Friend-audience