Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there’s doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

My first research poster on the project I currently doing for the RAG lab, which I design for the Northeastern Research Expo.

O Marvel! a garden amidst the flames.
My heart has become capable of every form:
it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,
and a temple for idols and the pilgrim’s Kaa’ba,
and the tables of the Torah and the book of the Quran.
I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love’s camels take,
that is my religion and my faith.

(Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi – ‘Tarjuman al-Ashwaq’)

Well, my daddy left home when I was three
And he didn’t leave much to Ma and me
Just this old guitar and an empty bottle of booze
Now, I don’t blame him ’cause he run and hid
But the meanest thing that he ever did
Was before he left, he went and named me ‘Sue’

Well, he must o’ thought that is was quite a joke
And it got a lot of laughs from a’ lots of folk
It seems I had to fight my whole life through
Some gal would giggle and I’d get red
And some guy’d laugh and I’d bust his head
I tell ya, life ain’t easy for a boy named ‘Sue’

Well, I grew up quick and I grew up mean
My fist got hard and my wits got keen
I’d roam from town to town to hide my shame
But I made me a vow to the moon and stars
That I’d search the honky-tonks and bars
And kill that man that gave me that awful name

Well, it was Gatlinburg in mid-July
And I just hit town and my throat was dry
I thought I’d stop and have myself a brew
At an old saloon on a street of mud
There at a table, dealing stud
Sat the dirty, mangy dog that named me ‘Sue’

Well, I knew that snake was my own sweet dad
From a worn-out picture that my mother’d had
And I knew that scar on his cheek and his evil eye
He was big and bent and gray and old
And I looked at him and my blood ran cold
And I said, “My name is ‘Sue’! How do you do? Now you gonna die”

Yeah, that’s what I told him

Well, I hit him hard right between the eyes
And he went down but, to my surprise
He come up with a knife and cut off a piece of my ear
But I busted a chair right across his teeth
And we crashed through the wall and into the street
Kicking and a’ gouging in the mud and the blood and the beer

I tell ya, I’ve fought tougher men
But I really can’t remember when
He kicked like a mule and he bit like a crocodile
I heard him laugh and then I heard him cuss
He went for his gun and I pulled mine first
He stood there lookin’ at me and I saw him smile

And he said,
“Son, this world is rough
And if a man’s gonna make it, he’s gotta be tough
And I know I wouldn’t be there to help ya along
So I give ya that name and I said good-bye
I knew you’d have to get tough or die
And it’s that name that helped to make you strong”

He said,
“Now you just fought one hell of a fight
And I know you hate me, and you got the right
To kill me now, and I wouldn’t blame you if you do
But ya ought to thank me, before I die
For the gravel in ya guts and the spit in ya eye
‘Cause I’m the son-of-a-bitch that named you ‘Sue’”

Yeah, but what could I do, what could I do

I got all choked up and I threw down my gun
And I called him my pa, and he called me his son
And I come away with a different point of view
And I think about him, now and then
Every time I try and every time I win
And if I ever have a son, I think I’m gonna name him…
Bill or George, any damn thing but ‘Sue’! I still hate that name

Remeber “The Sixth Sense” ?

Well, this semester I take an HCI course and each of the students has to present a research paper at least once, so I choose to present “WUW-Wear Ur World, A Wearable Gestural Interface“, which is all about the sixth sense.

Above is my presentation slide, it also has some demo on it. Enjoy!

I’ve been noticing the way my Indonesian friends send Eid greetings from time to time.

The oldest I can remember is by sending paper cards by post. I still remember the joy of card shopping - choosing the pretties pictures and picking the wisest words, usually during the last week of Ramadan. My father used to order a bunch of these cards, which looks more professional than cute or pretty, to be sent to his colleagues. “You get what you give. meaning, in returns, we also received cards from friends and family. I’d say this media in comparison to other media mentioned here is the more personal, less practical and less environmentally friendly.

Couple of years later came mobile phones with it’s fame replacing all those cards with text messages. Phone call is just for personal VIPs because having to call and say the same words over and over again to many random acquaintances is just too much to do. Not enough by simply saying “EID MUBARAK, people invent the art of Eid text messaging that to my knowledge can be categorized as wise words, poetic (pantun included), pictures made of characters, and jokes.
Confession: I’m a not so good Eid text messages artist and I used to exchange messages I received from one friend to sent it to another.
Imagine how much money those cellular providers made during those days!

The internet gives us more media alternatives to send Eid Greetings. E-cards is quite popular back then. It’s just like the paper cards, except that it’s electronic, and the picture can move, sometimes added by sound and some of them are free. Okay it’s nothing like the paper cards.

But, the most advanced technology in Eid Greetings is probably via Facebook. Here’s some of the things that you can do with it:

1. Write the greeting on your status and sort of just wish all of your friends will see it and so the job is done.
2. Send the greetings to friend’s personal walls, which takes more times.
3. Upload pictures that act as Eid cards and tag friends whom you wish to send the greetings to.
4. Write a note and tag friends to whom you’re writing to.

EID MUBARAK! May Allah accept (the good deeds) from you and from us.

Boston, Summer 2009

My little angel embraces my soul
Whenever I ask her about love,
She always says it’s all around me

My little angel caresses my face
When the rays of morning sun comes
She lets me know that here and there,
I am in the embrace of the Almighty

The love of the Absolute Love
The light of the Absolute Light
Then I shouldn’t be in fear nor feeling lonely

My angel took my hands and leads me to fly
then I see:
all the ground that I walk on is my hometown
all the places where life brings me to settle in is my home

I was born as a wanderer,
then my happiness is hidden at the secrecy of the places that I would see
If it means that I have to travel the world for eternity
Then let it be… -AW

Four season. Summer to summer. I am halfway done.

I am still struggling but I am also enjoying. I miss all the things that I left but I also know I’m gonna miss all the things in here.

This period of my life that I thought would teach me to be smarter but, when I think of it, taught me more to be stronger.

For what it’s worth… I am thankful.

I can now call Boston home.

Kopdar? Well, you may say so.

I really admire her. One, for her intelligence for sure, second, for her achievement and third, for her talent - she’s also good at making sketches, singing, and playing musical instrument. Now, that I’ve known her in person, I can also say her personality - she is very nice, friendly, modest and so cool

Isn’t it great to finally met someone you admire so much? When I met her for the first time however, strangely, I did not feel awkward at all. I feel like she’s been friend with me for so long. We have many things in common and ,turned out, she’s a good friend of a good friend of mine.

Teh Mer, before Obama’s Commencement Speech at ASU

Merlyna Lim is a scholar studying ICT (Information and Communication Studies), particularly on the political shaping of the Internet in non-Western contexts. She currently holds an Assistant Professor position with a joint appointment at the School of Justice and Social Inquiry and the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes at Arizona State University. She previously held a Networked Public Research Associate position at the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. She got her PhD, with distinction (cum laude), from University of Twente in Enschede, The Netherlands, with a dissertation entitled @rchipelago Online: The Internet and Political Activism in Indonesia.

She has been invited to give keynote speeches, public lectures, and various academic presentations in more than 50 occasions all over the world. Among the most recent ones was a keynote lecture at the Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) in 2006 in Brisbane, Australia.

She is also an active blogger, with blogs in English, Indonesian, and Sundanese.

- Wikipedia on Merlyna Lim

Nice to meet you Teh. I wanna travel around the world for free by giving lecture too. Someday!

I ‘met him’ again this may when I went to the Desert Botanical Garden at Arizona. It was not an indoor exhibition, it was outdoor, mingle with the surrounding. All I can think about how painful it is to make them, how he has to be very careful or everything would just be shattered into pieces, and I admire those who do things I cannot do and good at it

I am neither an artist nor an art reviewer so I cannot give any meaningful explanation, detail description, and critique whatsoever. But, there are many essay that you can read about the work of Chihuly. I am merely a spectator and I like it How bout you?

updated!

Chihuly is a fulbrighter too from America. He had his study in Venice, where he started to developed the glass artwork. Awesome!

Rezy and Yunan was high school friends in SMU Taruna Nusantara. In 2001 they graduated from high school. Rezy, who won a physics Olympic medal, then go to MIT till today finishing his PhD while Yunan went to Electrical Engineering, UGM as my junior. After 8 years, these high school friends were finally met again!  lovely moment

 :: Happy 26th Birth Day to Yunan!!!

Updated!

We have a little birthday celebration last night