Merlyna Lim

Many wonderful things happened this summer. One of them was that I finally met teh Mer aka lady day, whose blog I am very familiar with since I was in Indonesia, in Tempe, Arizona. We first met at a friend’s farewell party and then two days later we went to the Desert Botanical Garden, Papago Park and we had dinner together.

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!

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Dale Chihuly at Desert Botanical Garden

I saw Dale Chihuly glass art for the very first time at an Exhibition in De Young Museum, San Francisco last year. It was also the first time I recognize his existence as an artist.

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!

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Birthday and Reunion

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

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