Reinhard Gouw's Journal

Just after I finished the big project (UC Art Night and Charity), thoughts started to rush back into my head, harder than before. The fact that I'm 20 become a big board inside my head. Maybe everyone experiences this.

I've been thinking about the future a lot. What would I do. Where would I be. It's still all blurry but I knew I should come up with something fast. It's 2 more years to graduation. I won't get any money from my parents so I should start saving and work something out for some bucks. Although one good thing happened, I was chosen in my campus and got a scholarship by Pembangunan Jaya in form of a decent amount of fresh money! Thank God, I never deserved this. I promised myself I would save it for a start up business. (Guess what, I'm already cooking a project :) ) When I'm thinking about it, He opens a way. Awesome.


In campus, somehow I felt maxed out. I already achieved what I needed to achieve. I promised myself to make my mark in this campus, well I did. It's done. No higher aims. I shone enough, time for the next generations to. It's funny. You don't only feel satisfied and proud, you can also feel sad, knowing that your target is achieved. Like you now need to go back to what life obliged you to do. Yes, normal college life. Well, with a touch of recognition from people. But..uh. Okay. Like, now what?

Other than that, social life. I'm less of a happy go lucky teenager who loves to hangout. New cafes don't really matter. haha. Somehow, I can spend more of my time at home. I start to not prioritize friends who I don't really "see" being in my future. I was able to be even more bold of my priority, values, and things even in places where I can't before. I felt that I needed to always be able to speak up. It's my future anyway.
  
Parents. Sister. Family. I don't know how much year left I'd be able to spend with them everyday. Waking up in my bedroom on 2nd story of this house where there is also my sister's across the room and my parents downstairs. My mom cooking for me everyday, asking when I will take off to campus and when I will get home (which annoys me most of the time. I'm kind of a free spirit), and tries to always be patient with my fucking horrible attitude. My dad who is praying for us a lot, working hard, trying to make us happy while he's handling the tinnitus issue on his ears. My sister, who is happy and jumpy, who I become mean to everyday. Wow. Some short years from now, I don't know if I'd still see them everyday. And despite this scar inside me that I get from this home way back (It's over. But somehow the scars are still there. I'll tell you more about this later)  that becomes a trigger for my depressing bipolar and alter ego situation for most of the time in this house, I want to live in love everyday with them. It's hard since I get all explode-y most of the time, but hey, I gotta get over myself. I really do.

Spending? Well...... I'm still working on it. There's an increase in fear of excessive money usage though.

"Vampirism"? Well hello, old friend. Long time since the last use of this term. (For you who don't get this.....just try to keep up or simply think I'm one of those Vampire Diaries freaks. haha.) Being 20 somehow just sucks away that aspect. It's not gone gone, but somehow I didn't feel the strong need, the hope, the imaginations, and things. It feels like it's getting old. It's not that interesting anymore. More like "enough". The sweets doesn't look like it's sweet anymore. There's a craving in me; a void to be filled. I can never lie. It's in this phase of humanity I'm walking in. But, I knew that I gotta decide whether I would finally fulfill this phase or not in the future. If yes, well then I should start trying to be "human" soon. If no, well, just no. No need to. The void stings sometimes but I can handle it. This aspect is never my priority anyway.

Along with all of this changes inside, I found myself talking to seniors, esp. those graduated, consulting about what I should do next. They were mind-broadening sessions. I started to have more will to start preparing for that life after college. I came to a conclusion that there are some things I should start leaving behind, so that I can focus on the preparation before I become a real human in the real world. Tossed into the wild to strive and survive. A part of me is scared that all these good achievements that I got in college and high school won't be there in real life. Like it's gonna be different and that all that I did were just trials. I never knew what it's like in the real world, what's coming, will I still "shine" as I am right now because just maybe, it's only because my luck is still with me and actually can get away anytime. Maybe, I won't be as superhuman as now.

Gah. Thinking about this is never ending. It haunts me almost everyday.

Somehow it's scary, knowing you've lived 2 decades away from your birth. Realizing you're gonna be a single individual in a mad and wild world. But somehow it thrills to create something "bigger" than before. Maximizing yourself more.
Just; wow, I'm 20.

Hello, it's been quite long after my last post. I was busied by this one event since 4 months ago. Logically speaking, it was getting near the H day so I got busier.

So, it finally happened on October 15th, 2014.




It's a newborn event, a gonnabe annual event in this campus. It's concepted as one of the program of my department in Student Council of Universitas Ciputra: Department 2 of Humanistic and Student Living, a department that covers UKM (Student's Activity Units) and facilities. I was entrusted to handle the UKM division, and here's a way to introduce and showoff UC's art UKMs to UC students and also the public.

As the first art night in Universitas Ciputra, it brought theatrical performances as the main show, along with photo & illustration exhibition (also works of UKM), and also food & beverage bazaar from UC students' businesses. It was also a media of charity, we cooperate with Yayasan Pelayanan Kasih, a foundation that accommodates orphans, children with disabilities, and also old people.




Every purchase of our ticket, stand rent (food & beverage bazaar), and general donation were medias to donate to them, in the form of school fees payment for the children and also meat supply for the old people.

Concepting this event since the start of last holiday (straightly after last semester's final exam), we faced many things.
1st. Building the committees and performers
We did an online recruitment for the committees, the first in Universitas Ciputra. It also became the first event in Universitas Ciputra that gathered committees from every majors, other than UC O-Week. It was good since we became the pioneer of these systems, but what made it hard was that everyone else was having holiday. Looking for people to volunteer wasn't an easy task. We also didn't really plan how many people are we going to take. (We realized we needed more people just a few weeks to the H day). In the end, we worked online and the first big meeting was 2 months after. The performers also. Mostly they are able to start practicing after the new semester started. Like, only less than a month before the first rehearsal.

2nd. I was the president.
I never had any experiences of becoming an event president. I had always been in plan and concept division. It was confusing for me even till the last days since I had no gknowledge of what to do. But I did anyway. I questioned a lot, I was still learning while this event is developing and progressing.

3rd. We never had any art night before.
That makes our knowledge about art night zero. We needed Art Night 101 but no one really had any vital experiences of creating an art night. No past experiences, no "adapting from before", no "innovating from the previous", no nothing. So we built this thing from scraps, like actually from 0.

And those 3 things has been making me quite anxious in these past 4 months. I was terrified of the execution day. I was worried if we missed something and it makes bad impression, since the show was open for public.



BUT!



Magically, this event turned out just fine, and surprisingly beyond my expectation. :)
We had 460+ TICKETS sold while our target was 350 and capacity was 480. I can't tell you how the main show turned out since it gonna spend a dozen paragraph. Overall, it went out just fine. There were errors but there were no major ones. So far we got some negative feedbacks about technical problems but actually got even more positive ones.

It's been rough 4 months. It got me exhausted in many points, scared, but also excited at the same time. I got hospitalized, I skipped classes, I got almost zero time to actually relax. But hard work really pays off.
It's all over now. I feel satisfied of how it was, and also proud, but I also miss those times a lot. The time I sacrificed for this event, work till late, fell asleep in front of my laptop so many times, even fell asleep when I just got home- attempted to change my clothes but lost my consciousness while still naked #whoops. haha. The time where I have this big dart of this event in my head all the time. It is released out of myself now, and some part of me is still carried away, by this UC Art Night and Charity. :)

I learned a lot. What a leader is, how to be one, how to believe in your plans, in your team, coordinate, organize, considering carefully before making decision, being a perfectionist in some new ways, and things.

It was a valuable lesson, and I thank God that for once, I was given the chance to be the president of this event. To create something out of myself and make it a reality. It won't be done without the effort of everyone else, even the caring support of my closest people.

With the main actors of My Dream Keeper: Samuel (Samudra, middle), Friska (Cahaya, right), and Wayne (father, left)

And I am proud to realize that in the end, we were altogether the people who invented this event. I always told to the committees and performers, this event was nothing but a white sheet of paper; we knew nothing about how it should be done right and how it would turn out. So I always tried to motivate everyone to work hard in their parts, so that this white sheet could be a beautiful painting. Well for me, it did. Everyone; all committees, performers and audiences had put their colors and invented this wonderful painting. And I can NEVER thank you enough for that.


These are the committees and performers of the first year of UC Art Night and Charity.
We started from 0. We didn't know exactly what to do to make this thing happen. But it happened. We created SOMETHING out of nothing.

Here they are. The first people who made it happen. The ones who worked together to invent this newborn event. Thank you for every of your effort since the last holiday started. I am proud to have worked with each one of you adn hoped that we could create something more in the future.

Stay amazing, stay hard working. This show is nothing without you. 




The first time I entered UC, I promised myself that I would make my mark in this place.

It was only a dream without plan.
I was someone without any organizational experiences, and in two years I learned a lot from experienced seniors, friends, and the campus itself.

And now here I am.
Somehow I stood with that shirt with a tag that says "president" hung on my neck, in front of a banner of a newborn annual event in this campus.

This place has transformed me.
This place has let me place my mark.

Because there is hope in every dreams. And if you try, sometimes life lets you succeed. Just keep on placing your bet, and when the time is right you'll find yourself at the right place.

Thank you, God for these valuable years of life.
Thank you UC for these experiences.
Thank you everyone inside for sharing them with me.

I will never forget this moments. :)
Let's move on to the next one.



*more pictures coming soon!


What do you think of the event?
Please kindly give your feedback in comments down below if you watched the event.
Thank you! :)