Reinhard Gouw's Journal

Hello everyone. As Christmas is not too far behind I would like to say Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrates!

I didn't feel any Christmas vibe at all throughout the month. I was busied by IDN CreativeFest. 

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Speaking of IDN CreativeFest, it was an event by IDN Media. Formerly it was called Hyperlink Project. Me and Lia was entrusted to handle it. We worked for the event just the two of us, and it was a little too much to handle. haha in the end it wasn't perfect at all, but we did it anyway. Thank God!

The whole experience made me learn a lot. How to deal with clients, guest speakers, vendors, and excute the event itself. The moment I enjoyed the most was execution day. Managing and coordinating people (freelance crew). I've always loved event execution. Seeing what you've prepared for some time turn into reality. It's priceless. I'm thinking about having my own event organizer one day. Not wedding or birthday, but youth events. It would be awesome!

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So, back to Christmas. I was blank about what I wanted to do on Christmas. I thought about going to the church just like most people do. But my family was out of town and I was at home alone. My childhood church, Mawar Sharon, was distributing tickets before Christmas and I didn't request them. I was really unprepared at all for Christmas. So I decided to just duck at home and wait for the mood to go to church alone.

I started going through my things and decided to clean up before new year. When I was clearing my wardrobe, I thought hey, why not donate these? Charity. It's one of the kindest thing to do on Christmas. Going to church hasn't been my style lately anyway. So yeah, I started to take some of my clothes and put them in boxes. Then I thought, why not make this bigger? So I created this.

We might not have the same belief, but we have the same kindness inside. What's the reason not to share?

Hi. I promised I would post this, so here you go.

After the qualifier in Tangerang, we went to Malaysia on October 6th-9th to compete in Astro Asian Battleground 2016 with other crews in Asia, including Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Korea, Japan, and India. How cool is that?

When we arrived, we went straight to our hotel, Dorsett Hotel. It's the first time in my dance journey to be accomodated with 4-star hotel. That's just so generous for a dance event organizer. Well it's TV show, what did you expect? We met a lot of dancers. We created a short video for our intro, sharing about why we dance. Along this trip, I was forced to speak English a lot. Which is REALLY GOOD for me since I need some improvement in spoken English.

The first and second days were full of general rehearsals. We repeated our concept for a lot of times, rehearsed about how we enter and exit the stage, where we should face when doing this, when doing that, where we should stand during announcement, et cetera, et cetera. Wow, extreme details, I thought. It sure isn't an easy task to be TV program producer.

Along the rehearsals, we watched other countries bringing out the best of them. Every country has different style of dance, has different strength and uniqueness. And it just ignited sparks in us whenever we watched each other dancing our own concepts. We start to get this pressure, anxiety, and at the same time fire to perform our very very best and exceed our limit. We used to compete with people in Indonesia, and then this was just a whole different story.

A lot of unexpected misfortune happened in the 4 days journey. Some from external circumstances, and some from our own negligance. I, being me, over-organized everything. I kind of wanted everything to just go perfectly without any flaw. But you can't expect that from a journey you know nothing about. Even when we prepared this and that, there's still a lot o things that are outside our expectations.

On the other hand, we didn't only get to know dancers from other countries, but also know each other deeper. Every night, we evaluated and prayed. How we could improve the dance. How we could improve our attitude in this competition, our positioning. What we should do to be a better representation for Indonesia in front of other countries. We learned a lot of lessons not just in skills, but also mentally and morally.

The 2 days felt really long (imagine waiting for 13 other crews to rehearse, then start over again and again till midnight!), but the awaited day finally came. A lot of supports started to pour in; on Instagram, LINE, and other platforms. Showed how much people around us supported us. It gave us strength, confidence.

As much as we wanted to win this, to at least bring Top 4 to the name of our country, I sticked with my same mindset. The ultimate focus is not winning. It's always been to give very best of you. If we focus on winning, we would focus on outrunning other crews. But when we focus on ourself, to just enjoy the music, give the very best, and pour our heart out, it will all come out naturally. In the end, performing our best is the goal, and winning is always just a bonus.

Overall, it was a really valuable experience.

Thank God for this overwhelming opportunity. Believe it or not, it was one of my 2016 goal to join an international dance competition. (I wrote it here!). Now it's checked off the list. And I have another beautiful thing to share from my whole dance journey later. God always has His own beautiful way to make things happen, doesn't He?

Thank you to my team: Kak Black, MP, Bobby, Edope for the sacrifices and hard work to exceed the limits, our temporary manager Wisnu, our leader Ko Edo, and everyone who gave their support.

More to come! :)

Source: mayhemandmuse.com

Birthday. Again.

It was not as exciting as it was when I was ten. Or at least twenty. Me, a small matter who just emerged from a simulator called education into a jungle called real life. I mean, what's so important about me then?

Two weeks ago, with a shallow excitement about birthday, my crew leader offered me to represent Last Minute Street Crew in Asian Battleground 2016 in Jakarta. The winner will represent Indonesia to go to Asian Battleground in Malaysia. I took it to consideration since I knew that it was on my birthday. Spending birthday outside my hometown where my friends and family reside in? No way. But then again, my emo mind said, "no one cares anyway" and I think spending my birthday to rep my crew will at least make myself a better use. So I decided to say yes. Bye, birthday.

To be honest, I didn't really have the money to afford this dance trip. I even borrowed some from my mom. But payday is on the way, I thought. So there goes. Before I departed, my dad suddenly send me some money, enough to survive there. Thanks dad! He was so caring that he even gave me some supplement pills before departing. That was a remarkable support coming out from him.

Long story short, we went to Jakarta on Friday, 26th. Me, MP, Edope, Bobby, and Kak Black. We were picked up at the airport by Tara and Inez from O2 dance crew. We spent our nights at Tara's. Past midnight no one seemed to notice my birthday. There were only 3 people who sent me messages, and they're all my exes. haha. Then, I decided to sleep the sensitiveness away.

In the morning, on the way to the venue, some of my best friends called and messaged me and gave strong encouragement. They told me how much I was valuable to them, believed in me and my future, and how we shared impacts to each other's life. Suddenly, it was a delightful morning for me. My mood shifted, and I had this positive vibe going on (Thank you Joditha, Ipin!). Along the day, there were more and more encouraging wishes. God, how can I be so blind about the fact that I have such great and caring friends?

Competition.
The preliminary round was dance performance, and the semifinal & final were crew battle. We managed to get to top four. Which then led us to semifinal, then final. The final was intense. Our competitor was just wow. They have strong connections one another, they have this strong aura coming out of them (they wore black. told ya, black works perfectly). While personally, I think my team needs a lot of improvement on connection. They were just wow. Well I don't know how we were, you can't really judge yourself right. In the end, I was kind of prepared to get any result. Win or lose, it's OK. Suddenly, the judge announced our name as the winner.


I was utterly in shock. Then this rush of emotions flowed inside me. God is so kind to me. I foresaw this gloomy birthday. But this was not gloomy at all. I got something to look forward to, repping Indonesia in Malaysia Asian Battleground 2016 to compete with other Asian countries. One of my dance goal this year is going to be crossed off my list: Join an international dance competition. God made it happen. As bonus, my plane ticket will likely be refunded by my comunity as we we're on the 1st place.




After the competition, we hung out with O2 dancers to celebrate. It was a good night. Then we got home and I fell asleep while the others were watching TV. Suddenly, I was woken up by them singing happy birthday. There were candle lights on top of burgers and fries. Wow. We knew each other for one day and they gave me a surprise. That's something! Thank you, Tara, Inez, Danzel, Stefina, and my team. I feel so grateful and loved.


We spent the next day hanging out, shooting, shopping. We laughed a lot and I felt comfortable with them even though we just got to know each other. It felt like we've been friends for years. They are such warm people. Again, I felt comfortable and loved. Then they sent us off to the airport. I thanked God once again for this birthday gift: a dance trip with a winning, a goal checked off, great new friends, something to look forward to, and so much more.

As we arrived in Surabaya and went outside, my closest friends were already there holding a banner  with my name on it and sang Happy Birthday to me. And that was not expected. At all. They brought a cake which is their own-made (thank the chef, Eric and BonBon!). Thank you, also for Ivan, Lia, Samantha, Ipin, and Pikok! Again, I felt so loved. I thanked God for this life.



As all of this happened, I realized that all this time I was feeling ungrateful. Why did I feel so unspecial? Why did I feel so shallow? I have a caring dad. I have a great dance life. I have friends who cared about me. I have God who never gives up on me. And so much more that I let myself be blinded to. It was me. I was the one who chose not to see those beauty and be grateful. I was too greedy and only wanted more and more.

Thank you, God. I will learn how to feel enough. I will embrace the beauty that I have around me, and not take them for granted. I will be happier. I promise.

Source: www.magic4walls.com

Welcome, 22!

People say follow your passion. Others say be realistic.

And most of us are caught up in between.

I find it hard to really know what I should do with my life. I mean what is passion itself? All I know is that I have certain situations that can light up a spark in me. These are the certain moments when I feel fire igniting inside my soul, and it is the best feeling in the world. It makes me feel alive, it makes me wanna do it again and again, it makes me feel belong, it makes me feel home. I believe you can recall that feeling too.

For me, it's:

1. When I achieve a new milestone in dance, or simply perform in certain events.

2. When I manage people.

3. When my idea and concept turn into reality (esp. in event concepting).

4. When I meet a lot of friends and initiate the "lots of friends" vibe.

5. When I go on a trip, especially the ones with beach, nightlife, and a little shopping.

Somehow, despite all the reality and logic going on inside my head, I believe that they are what I should chase. Apart from the facts of reality, of our social structure, and of conventional life cycle (graduate - work - marry - have children - raise them - death); I'd rather walk and capture these sparks along the way; at least that's what I feel deep inside.

I think sometimes we think too much.

When we were children it was all easier (and honestly it worked out well too!).

Before I graduate I thought a lot of what I'd do after I finish my university life. And up until now, all those nights of endless thoughts breed no certain choice that makes me feel secure. Each choice has its own strengths as well as its own drawbacks, and to only believe in one choice would be too risky. I have so many things that I want to check off my bucket list. And no social system should prevent me from pursuing them.

Some people live to work their asses off in an office, and they're happy. Some others dance their performances away to glory. And there's nothing wrong with both. Simply as long as you're happy, you're fine. No one can set your way to live, as long as you mean no harm to anyone. Then again, some of us may think of this mindset as naive ("wake up, it's real life"), while others call it "really living". Honestly, we'll never know who lived a better life until we kick the bucket and looked at each others'.

So I think I'll say for now that as long as I live, I will always seek these sparks along the way. And when I can't, the least I can do is that I will always -- look forward to it. I will always try to keep myself alive. 

Well this is my young and confused self speaking.
Let's see later what my 40 years old self would say.

I've been working for precisely a month now.

At first, it felt really uneasy. I used to be free, did things on my own time and arrangement. Now I have to work from 9,30 to 5. I have narrower time on my hands. I have to be strict on my time management along with my priorities. I also have to see everyday the people I'm not close with. I have to learn to blend in.

I've gotten used to be on top. In organization life, dance life, etc. Now is the time where everything goes back to point zero. The hardest part to chew is that I have to switch from "sharing" to "learning", from "O.G." to "newbie", from "the famous guy" to "the new guy". I am leaving my comfort zones. Although you might say it's a cycle we all go through, I think it's still an unpleasant phase to be in. But I am trying to suck myself up.

As much as my inner Reinhard likes to think that this ain't the right scene for him, I'd like to say that I'm just trying to adapt with the situation, the work, and everyone in it; and adaptation takes time. I remembered the point where I just joined Last Minute Street Crew. It was a really insecure move for me. Being one of the brightest dancer in campus (call me arrogant or having self-esteem), I have to be the newbie, with not much of an ally inside. I built a wall, considering that most of them was my enemy. But now, they're my family. It took more than a year to break down the walls, but it broke down anyway.

So the whole point was adaptation. I need quite some time to adapt. It made me think it's not the right place. Yes, I feel very small inside this new place. It even made me thought to just quit the whole scene. But, no. I have to adapt in some point of my life. Honestly, the bigger picture of this is about quit trial-ing and start living in the real jungle called life. By time, these bizzare things will slowly be familiar, and I will find my safe ground once again.

May 24th, 2016.

It's been two months. My dog died of accidentally eating rat poison. His name was Vodka. He was 7 years old, and had just celebrated his birthday about three weeks before.

When I heard the news as I left my campus, I was astonished. It was like an ordinary bad news for me at first, I didn't really spend a lot of time with him everyday. But hearing my mom cry made it worse. I started to worry about what happened to him. As soon as I entered my house, I saw my mom carrying his body. Then I grabbed and hugged him. All of a sudden it bursted. I cried to my bones. He was not breathing, nor moving. I never expected the pain to be that deep. I will never see Vodka again, who has been living with our family in the past 7 years.

He's been watching over our family. He's been inside the life we're in. He was there when my sister had her sweet 17th birthday, entered university, graduated. When I entered university. He took good care of our secrets. All of my naughtiness, as well as my sister's. My family dramas. When we fight, when we pray (he would bark at us), when we had good time. The points where everything was okay, the points where everything was hell. He were there as a living member. He was a part of us.

I never really noticed him inside the house. He was almost like an interior for me. All I heard everyday was the bell ringing on his necklace whenever he walked, the barks whenever I ate (which I always ignore, or kick him away if the moment wasn't right), the whole house laughing and gossiping about him. He was always there, seeking attention and care. Just a little rub on his back would make his eye linger and sleep easier. Hugging him with his hands around my neck was comfort.

I took him for granted. I thought he would always be there. But no, he's a living creature. He would die at some point of my life. I didn't value and give a nice amount my time for him and yet his death was painful enough to make me (and other members of my family) shed tear once in a while for about 2 weeks.

In the end, his death made me contemplate. What if it was my closest family members' death? How painful would it be? We lived together longer, talked with each other, shared mutual interaction. I can't imagine how painful it would be.

Rest well, Vodka. I miss you so so much.

I've been reading a book about emotional intelligence and absorbed a real lot of insights in just a few pages.

Emotions are like reactions inside of you towards everything going on. Its system is shaped mostly by your past. The trigger, the frequency, the intensity, they are set by what happened before. Therefore, yes it's hard to control how they evoke inside of you, but you can control how you react to it. Whenever that jealousy ignites inside of you, you can choose to give in and turn it to rage and other forms of insecurity, or you can choose to rationalize and instead, boost your self-esteem and let that jealousy suck itself up.

In the end, we can't deny the presence of emotions; they are there inside of you, inside people around you. But on the other side, we can't make emotion a definition. You can't blame someone for saying he's angry or has his fist shaking, yet. If he's punching people or slamming doors, blame him.  You can't blame someone for feeling jealous if she's not being overprotective. Focus on the reaction, not the emotion. It is also nice to tolerate others' slip of reactions when emotions override them at certain intensity.

We're all learning to control our emotions. They can't define us, as long as we don't give in to them.

Source: jessyelouise.blogspot.com

There was a time in my life where I was crawling on the ground, looking up. Some of you may have known that story. Then the wheel of life turned and I was blessed with magnificent change. I got the chance to engage in a great dance journey,  made a lot of achievements, became a senior in university organizational life. My life changed, a lot. I felt proud, and obviously confident in myself. Who I was, who I would be. 

Time passed by. It's been telling me many things about life. About my family, about working for money, about the real world and mostly about myself; and everything is not as beautiful as I thought it was. I used to believe in so much positiveness, I even dreamt about being someone who spreads positiveness throughout life. Inspire people, being both an informal and a formal motivator. But honestly all along, I've been running with scars on my back. 

I didn't realize that all this way, I ran only to lose my religion, throw money away for nothing, hurt so many people, and ruin my own ideal image of me. I've become someone I never wanted to be. Five years ago, I never thought I'd be this someone. I guess I'm disappointed with myself, and it doesn't only rest as a feeling. It's been leeching happiness and positiveness away from me. At some points, I feel so dry and small, I feel distant and so lost.

So now let me stop promising, stop pretending to be perfect, stop running like everything's OK. I don't want to promise myself much anymore. I won't promise to be a motivator or such. I won't promise to always be perfect. I only want to try, and yes, that's the only thing I can do now, To remove this leech off of me.

Tomorrow I'll enter the first day of the last semester in university. Wow. Time flies. It's been a nice journey. The first three years were awesome. I got to know a lot of people, I achieved many things I've never expected before, bonded with some valuable friends along the way. Well at least those moments were great. I never regretted entering Universitas Ciputra. Despite of people's comments about it being an easy university, a money-oriented university, and things, I learned many great things here. The organization life in Universitas Ciputra was quite new. The competition isn't that rough to be a member of organization or committee. That gives us greater chance to be leaders and from-zero-builders. I never joined any serious organization in high school, but here I got the chance to strive and given high responsibility. That boosted my organizational skill and confidence a lot. Thank you UC for a great organizational life.

Well that's a little intermezzo about UC. How's my life?

It's a picturesque question.

It's a weird beginning of the year. On January, someone who I considered an enemy died unexpectedly. I was just cursing him the other day in my anger, saying that I'd kill him with my own hands if I had the chance to. And then the next day he died, of an illness. The news of his death stunned me. The first regret that came into my mind was that I never got the chance to meet him in person and punch him in the face. The second one is that cursed him without even knowing he was that sick. I searched for his life record in his Facebook. People were saying good things about him, they were even inspired and blessed of his life. He might be an antagonist in my life, but he's not in others'. I don't know why, but I hoped that he'd be forgiven by God. I hope that aside of the bad things he had done that affected me and my closest people, God would consider his goodness that blessed people. I don't want to think any further.

My family? From what happened earlier, my family should be on the starting over phase. It lighted up my hope a little that the tragedy brought positive meaning. But so far, it's still blue. I've been seing despair, anger, rejection, and shut offs. Does it affect me psychologically? Honestly, I don't know and I've been hoping it doesn't. I still want to be a bright and positive someone. This phase of starting over was a stake for me to latch and step onto. I'm looking forward to slowly climb back to who I should be. Well, in the end, I think that we're all still recovering. Each of us are wounded, and wounds don't heal in an instant. We're recovering, and who knows how healthy we can be in six months? A year? Let's just see.

I'm graduating soon. What do I do after that? Honestly, I don't know for sure. My mom told me to pursue postgraduate scholarship overseas. It's a really good idea for me to start over. To look for strength for myself to believe again in a bright-futured me. I think while I wait for the departure date (if I pass the scholarship test), I will work somewhere in event management field or as a dance teacher. Well, I hope that I get the scholarship. Starting over sounds just perfect for me.

Source: blog.jiji.nj

I realized that since I was little, I overrated perfection too much. I would be passionate in starting something, but when that something went just a little off of the original plan, I'd lose my spirit drastically. That also happened to little things such as playing games. I'd restart a game if I did something wrong, even though it's repairable. I'd also be upset if I made a little stain when writing in a new notebook. I think it pictures enough how my mind works. Starting over is something I yearn for because I've been seeing too much stains in my life lately.

My 2016 goals? Well it's been going quite well I think, though I haven't been able to accomplish some points, I still feel good.

- I joined a bodybuilding course. Even two to be exact. Punch MMA and Celfit. I've been in love joining TRX classes. Well I hope before I (again, if I pass) spend my education time overseas, my body is well-looking enough to fit in. Don't wanna be a short fat geeky dancing guy on the corner of nofriends.

- Reading a book and watching dance videos are still not on the top of the list but I promise myself I'd make it happen soon.

- Sleeping well is still on learning stage.

- Achieve high GPA, well would you believe. Aside of final project, I'm taking two other classes that I already took before, just to repair the score and jack up my final GPA. Sounds crazy, right? Yeah, I think I'm too obsessed with my GPA. But I planned to make university a satisfying one-shot. So I don't want to be sorry in the future just because I didn't go the extra miles.

Well I think that's that.

I hope tomorrow I can start fresh and be a better man for my future.

Spirits up!