God Blessed Me !

As I promised you before I'd like to write something regarding the Title ‘God Blessed Me’ this time.

Where should I begin? It seems that I have been blessed for everything I was doing recently. :) Hmm...Ok, let me start from the big thing that I wouldn’t forget throughout my life.

May 1998

I was still studying in the most well-known private university, Trisakti University, Jakarta at my second year. At that time the overall situation in Jakarta was not so stable, but I still went to the campus to take a mini test as scheduled. After sitting in the class for around 30 minutes, there came in a lecturer who told us that the test would be cancelled for some reason. Most of the students went out and chit-chat with each other on the ground floor of the building, which with name of I Building (Gedung I) I still remembered so far. It was in the midest while some friends and I were gossipping very cheerfully there, suddenly we heard a very loud sound. What’s that? SHOT! Yes, they were actually some shooting sound. At first some of us were still suspecting that they were probably rubber bullets. We had got used to hearing the shooting of rubber bullets against those students who dared to protest on the road. In a sudden, one of my best friends, Lanny, whose eyes were captured by a shocking scenary that there was a bleeding lady who was carried by a guy in front of her. After a short while, all of us felt our throat pretty dry and our eyes couldn't help dropping tears. I and one of my best friend, Yunis immediately realized that something wrong could happend. We decided to run out quickly from the campus. We didn’t dare to walk in straight to the gate, but chose an indirect way which could use the wall as a barrier for protection. After we went out of the gate successfully, what was appearing in front of our face was another scaring picture. Hundreds of armed policemen were standing accross the street, all with guns holding on their hands. Luckily none of us got heart attack at that moment. Together with our hands holding tightly we looked down on the ground and slowly walked through the mass of policemen.

Finally we managed to arrive at home safely. On that night, we heard from the TV news that there were some policemen on the over-pass shooting at the students on campus. We were standing less than 10m far from where incident occured. It was said that 4 students were killed and a few of others injured in the course. Later on, this campus was known as Campus of The Reform Heroes due to sacrificing several Reforming Heroes. During that revolutionary period there were often many students protesting against the Indonesian ex-president Suharto.

What still remained in my memory after that incident? I was always contemplating whether I could finish my study or not, maybe someday my campus would be shut down without reason. I kept on praying now and then that my studies could be finished asap. 2 years later, eventually I got my degree and flied off to Singapore in no time. Eventough I were working, my parents still pay for my tuition fee and living expenses. My salary was still far from sufficient to pay all my bills as my preliminary salary was only a little bit higher than one month room rental fee. As you know the living expenses are pretty high in the capital city. Anyway I chose to work so as to gain more experience before graduation, at the same time I also have some pocket $$$ to feed my hobby, shopping desire. :) If there were any rests they would be carefully deposited into my savings account. In the end I could withdraw all the money and buy the air ticket to land Singapore...At that time I had a cousin in Singapore who let me stay at his place freely for a few months. God really blessed me a lot. I only hunted jobs for 1.5 months and then landed one from a big 4 audit firm. Later on, they successfully applied employment pass for me and my life had a new chapter ever since.

For my friends who were still staying in Jakarta, their lives are also not so bad under peaceful atmosphere. Some of them became true TAI-TAIs enjoying leisure life while I am a fake TAI-TAI to some extent. Anyhow I want to let you know that what happened in my life up to-date, really impressed me that I already has been very blessed. I don't keen on getting a title of 'TAI-TAI' at all. So, praying...