Hi readers. I cannot believe that I have not posted in a very long time. Life got the best of me, I just could not find the time (nor the motivation) to write over here. I was only writing once a year about my new year resolution. It kinda became boring and monotonous, so I stopped altogether.
However! September 2021 marks a decade that I have been living in Europe, so I feel like this is worth a blog post at least! Oh man, what a decade it has been, I could see the montage of experiences in my head. Not all happy and shiny, but precious nonetheless. Landing the first time in CDG airport, getting my first croissant in Le Creusot, learning how to cook, getting over my fear of dogs, losing a good friend, getting my Master’s and PhD diploma, meeting with people from all over the world, bedroom karaoke sessions with friends; good and bad, I would do it all over again. To be honest, there are just too many things to share in this short blog post, but let me give you a quick update.
I guess the biggest news since the last post is that my company recently got acquired by Intel, September 2020 to be exact. So now I am working as a Manager at Intel (look at me!!). Honestly, if I could go back and tell myself that I would become a manager at Intel in 10 years time, 21-yo Andru would not have believed it. Why would he? He did not (barely does now) know anything about processors. But I should not be too surprised. After all, I barely knew how to use MS Excel/Word before going to uni for my bachelor’s.
I have also now achieved one of my long goals, which is to buy a house. I am now a proud house owner, yeay! Although the house is not actually the place I am living in now, I am still very happy. I bought a house in Indonesia where my sister is living in now. I am happy that the house could be useful to my family and has alleviated some of their worries along the way. In addition, they will take care of all the formalities of the home-ownership (tax, book-keeping, house-keeping, etc.). So, I’d say win-win. I am still renting here in NL, but who knows maybe in a couple of years, I could also get a place here. Fingers crossed! 😀
Oh yea, COVID. How can we forget about COVID!? I was obviously in Netherlands when COVID shenanigan went down. Being far from family was quite difficult, there is always a worry how my family is going to be; it was particularly concerning as the Indonesian government seemed to be lacking leadership and good decision-making process when it came to the guidelines and enforcing them. But luckily, all my family and I are healthy and still kicking. Hopefully, the COVID situation will be gone soon, so that I can go back home. I haven’t been home for almost two years now, which I believe is the longest period I have not gone home. I miss all the food.. and my family too of course. 😛
If I may go back to being an old sappy dude, I would like to reflect again on the last decade. As I mentioned, this last decade was not without pain. I had to learn many things the hard way. I guess the single most important thing that I wish I could tell my younger self was that nothing is more important than your happiness and health. I was all wrapped up with giving perfection at every step of the way, which has taken quite the toll on me. I thought that if I did all I could at the time, then I would be relaxed in the future. But instead, this became my undoing. I developed quite a deep-rooted anxiety and I have always been trying to please everyone but myself, making promises that are hard to keep. I am however learning to unravel this part of me and trying to prioritize myself now, letting people know how I am actually feeling and removing things that are not good for me from my life. This has been quite refreshing to see how understanding people are when you tell them how you feel.
There are a lot of things I wish I could tell my younger self, to save him from all the heartbreaks and the pain that he would be facing along the road. But, all of these experiences made who I am now, and who I am is pretty god-dang good! So, I would go through it all over again!
To close this weird post, let’s raise our glass for the third of my life being spent in Europe, learning and growing. To yet an even more adventurous decade! Cheers!!
Jurnal Si Oom 