“I think I have picked the wrong subject (in university), I’m not good with IT.” I’ve heard this complaint a lot of time, often from girls. This is not about the subject, it’s all about mindset. We all know that IT industry is overwhelmingly filled with men. When girls see that, they immediately label IT [...]

It’s a special day. I was invited to be a guest lecturer at ESQ Business School to talk about creative writing. Of course this is kind of suprising for me, because it’s a business school (unusual to have creative writing lesson in a business school) and I usually invited to talk about entrepreneurship. So this [...]

People often go to India or Nepal for spiritual search. But to me, I had my spiritual journey in the United States of America. I was invited by US State Department as one of 28 delegates from 28 countries (Argentina, Bangladesh, Benin, Brazil, Burma, Cambodia, Egypt, France, Ghana, Greece, Honduras, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Kuwait, [...]

When you write a story or a book, it’s only going to be useful for your readers, when you finish it. What I’ve heard from time to time, young aspiring writers have difficulties to finished a writing. I wrote the 3 basic rules to finish a book. One of them is about writing outline. An [...]

Just like Michelangelo who already can see ‘an angel’ inside a marble stone that later we know as statue of ‘David’, I also can see how women potential can sparks with technology. Women have highly potential traits like the ability to multitask; able to use time effectively, they have more empathy, they will think about [...]

The first time I have interest in Poetry was when I visit Dublin, Ireland in 2011. There, in a small bookstore near Trinity College, I saw a whole shelf full of Poetry books and I thought, I never see something like this in Indonesia. Poetry has been stamped as an ‘art’ that could never be [...]

I’m inspired by this post by Dimas about what you should do before 30. By reading the title of this post alone, you should know a little bit about my age :)) So here we go, my version of what you should do before 30: Backpack out of the country My first time backpacking was [...]

Ramadan is the best time to review our life and check if we have done something that Allah dislikes. And surely, because we’re only human, we will make mistakes. Unlike the Angels, that will only act on Allah’s command, human will initiate a lot of actions in his life according to his brain and common [...]

It was unforgettable moment for me, to be able to witness more 700 young people of Makassar, gathered in Fort Rotterdam and enjoy, really enjoying, poetry reading at the closing ceremony of Makassar International Writers Festival (MIWF) 2013 @makassarwriters. I said to Josephine Chia, fellow speaker & writer from Singapore, “Josephine, this is big.” Josephine [...]

“I strongly suggest you to postpone your trip to Istanbul!” My heart sank. I got a warning message from my good friend in Istanbul, just a week before my scheduled trip to spend my birthday there. There’s a protest-gone-wrong in Taksim Square, and things didn’t look good. But of course, if you tell me I [...]

This is my second time visiting Brunei. The last time was to speak at Think Big Innovate 2012. And few days ago I’m back to Brunei to speak about entrepreneurship to ASEAN young entrepreneurs on the first ASEAN Youth Entrepreneurs Seminar and Exposition. I thought this time I’m going to focus on one message: about [...]

It was such a great opportunity for me to be able to join the ASEAN Blogger Festival (ABFI) 2013 in Solo, Indonesia. I was fortunate to attend such event in Kuala Lumpur and Bali, few years back, so I can be able to say that now I’m part of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian [...]