Fun Video Production Class

I know it's been a while since my last update last month, I was kindda busy, kindda not in a mood to update my blog, but hey you are here only for a year :)
I want to memorize every detail that I experience here, so I got my second wind to update my post hehehhe
Wow it has been more than a month since the first day of my academic class, I'm not that busy but it will get busier this month, October I mean. I take 6 classes which mostly video and audio production, but I take marketing class as my elective course, I do love all of the classes!
There aren't Indonesian students in our class (only me, tari and milka) which is good! In my video production, there are a lot of students who speak Spanish, so happy because I speak their language :D
So I can speak both English and Spanish in the class yaaay!
Video production is very challenging class for me, since I have no experience to do the production by myself. I work for advertising as Senior Account Executive, I mostly don't do the execution by myself but I'm familiar with the concept and the whole pre production, production ad post production process though hehehhe
The class assignment involved me to make my own story board which I usually just ask my art director to make it! Now I feel you guys hahhahah..but I had a lot of fun in making my own story board, thinking about the angle and the reference, may I apply a job to become copy writer when I come back? hahahhah you wish!
Then I did my first shooting and got help from other students, a guy name Kazu was really helpful! Turns out he works for NHK the biggest Japan TV station, uwooooow!
When it came to editing, I had to edit using Final Cut Pro 7 which I had no idea about it, but I learned it step by step and now I can edit a decent video, not to fancy but still properly edited hahahahha

Well, I guess I learn a lot in this class for one and half month!
Ready to get an A for this class!

This is the pics of our video production class, the editing part and of course my style for the video production class *harustetephits* :D

I found peace in the park

There are a lot of options to spend your weekend, some of you prefer to stay at home, some prefer to hang out with family or best friends, some may do their groceries shopping, some prefer to do the household on this day, and some prefer to do voluntary work. Those things are absolutely fun things to do. We chose the last option as the things to do on the weekend.

We did volunteer work with One Brick for the event "peace in the park" which took place Saturday 24 August 2013 at Golden Gate Park. We required to be on spot before 9am, we set off around 7.30am and managed to get there at 8.30am, yes we were early, but thats the girls in my house do, always come earlier! So proud of you girls ^^

Not long after than Suzanne our coordinator showed up, she gave us some instruction about what to do, was basically help with tent setting, table and chairs setting, lift stuff or food. Gave any help for those needed help. Also, she asked us to help with the volunteer registration, gave away volunteer t-shirt and meals. It was fun and we glad that we could at least help. Victor, one of the Brazilian also came to help on the voluntary work, it was very nice of him as he wasn't required to do the volunteer as he doesn't belong to CCIP students, but he did anyway.

These are the photos in that day

Tari, Ana and Me at Volunteer Booth

Some of the volunteer team "Peace in the park"

The event is called "Peace in the park" because it's about the activities to lead you to find your inner peace, happiness, things that make you feel better and feel the balance of life. There are yoga, wishing tree, face painting, and many more. It's one of the event organized by big Indian/Hindu community. I spotted Indonesian Booth, Shadow puppet making, where I met Sarah and her daughter Nia. They had been living in Bali for 3 years and now they are in the "Sanggar Budaya Bali" near Berkeley.

I was very happy to meet them, especially Nia, she is very nice and cute. She is 8 years old and she already started to learn Balinese dance, I was amazed. I became more amazed when I saw the Balinese dancer, dancing on the stage, they aren't Indonesian. Amazing! The moved perfectly, they danced Balinese dance perfectly. I'm Indonesian but I can't dance Balinese, I feel ashamed. They are American but they dance Indonesian perfectly. I should have learned it before I came. I always think that Balinese dance is very beautiful, My mom used to dance Balinese dance. I wasn't interested to dance when I was kid, I prefered to play Basketball anyway. Yeah well, now I regret it :(

How envy I was, seeing these beautiful ladies dance Balinese

Balinese dance

I found a peace seeing them dancing Balinese, I found a peace when I heard Balinese gamelan playing, I found peace when I was doing my volunteer work, I found peace when I helped others and seeing their happy face. I found peace and happiness when I hold 'Nia' a lovely little girl whom I met in the  event. I don't need to take Yoga class or whatever, I found my peace in that park easily :D

What makes you feel good?

You may feel good after shopping latest fashion items, you may feel good after eating a delicious food and you may feel good by doing things you love. But I just found out one thing that makes me feel real good, volunteering and using my skills and knowledge to help other people.

Indeed, shopping my latest fashion items also makes me feel good but in this situation volunteering makes me feeling even better :)

Today, I started my first day of volunteer work in helping people with literacy in Spanish literacy class. Fortunately, I found this volunteer work in my campus and I emailed the teacher offering a help for her class, Trust me, they will be glad to have your help. Volunteers are needed every where, in campus, in community, there a lot of opportunities to do voluntary work here. It's a big US culture.

Can you believe that I helped Spanish speaking immigrant to write and read? Spanish is not even my first language not even my second language. I do speak Spanish but I forget a lot of Spanish words because I never use it. But I'd love to help using my knowledge that I have.

Anyway, the teacher is Rita Moran, she's american but I think she's an english teacher for Hispanic people as well. I haven't gotten any chance to talk more about herself since we got very busy in the class. I helped some group of students to write properly, there were about 7 or 8 students in my group.

They are from El Savador and Nicaragua, most of them have been living in the US for minimum 8 years. Things that I love is I got attached easily with Hispanic people. I experienced living with Hispanic immigrant from Honduras in Granada, Spain. It was a precious experience living with them.

Sp hispanic students are very nice and warm and they treat me as family. I remember this kind of feeling, it was kind of Dejavu. 

I'm just happy, happy, happy that I could help them, to contribute to their life, i do hope they can have better job and living, thats why community college are serving them, I'm glad I'm part of it.

Can't wait for the next meeting! I volunteer every Tuesday and Thursday at CCSF Mission Campus. Love it!

Golden Gate and Sausalito Trip CCI San Francisco

We officially visited Golden Gate after waiting for about a month until ESL class had finished. First, we celebrated the first long weekend, we didn't have a class until Wednesday yaaay.
Second, we celebrated that the fact that we all (the girls in our house) got an A for ESL class and got the highest ESL test result to follow the academic programs.
I'm so proud of my girls, Tari, MP, Ana, Roslina and Ibu Milka. They are very determined and smart! They didn't spend their time only for studying but also exploring the city to enjoy their time. We all know how to live our life when we are here :) I love you girls!

We were stunned with the view of the Golden Gate Bridge, It's beautiful. It was sunny that day, we were lucky. There is strong wind around the bridge area, so you better prepare our thick jacket and scarf. I still can not believe it that we are in San Francisco, California hahahah but when we got in to the Golden Gate, yes we are officially Californian Girls :D

233 Girls

CCI San Francisco

We also glad to have Tay Park who arranged this Golden Gate and Sausalito tour, thanks Oppa, Tay Park is the tall guy wearing glasses in the above picture. We are nothing without youu hahahhaha
After seeing the view of Golden Gate, we walked crossing the bridge, and it took an hour to walk to other side of the bridge. We took a lot of picture that day from the real camera (Roslina's)

We continued walking to Sausalito, a small bay with beautiful scenery across the bridge. It was 2 hours of walking tour, indeed we were a bit tired. But after seeing the scenery, we feel refreshed. It's totally worth walking for 2 hours. You may drive the car, ride bicycle or maybe on a tourist bus, but we preferred to walk and come back to SF with ferry ride. Ahhh how stunning Sausalito, a tranquil small village near the ocean

Sausalito

The shops and restaurant are beautiful, I really love it. I may be back here when my boyfriend visit me on winter break. We had lunch in a pizzeria, I order Lasagna with salad for $10, it was pretty good deal, as in this tourist area, food tend to be expensive. We got 1 hour to enjoy Sausalito, we walked along, sit near the beach to enjoy the sun and scenery. Enjoy the beautiful Sausalito :)
And this place remained me of Spain, the fisherman village "Cudillero", aah finally I could feel and see this scenery again :)
We came back to SF with ferry ride, again enjoying the sun on the deck of the Ferry, we could see teh Golden Gate and The Alcatraz Island from the Ferry. It is amaaaaziiing!

What can I say, I was so happy, I was glad that the fact I live in San Francisco, I fell in love with this city, the bad summer, the foggy house but at the same time a nice weather near the ocean and downtown. This city is so happening!

I Love Mission!

We finally made it to explore Mission District, well I can't say I already explore them all, but some part of Mission we exactly did. What I love about Mission is their vibrant life, a home for immigrant, particularly Latin American. I can hear people talking in Spanish every where, in the street, in the stores, every where..ahhh I really love it. I miss talking and listening Spanish. I really do!

Mission is warmer than CCSF Campus or Park Merced, there is sun! Yes sun is very important for us. We actually visited this place twice, but the first time we only visited the mexican restaurant "El Farro". The mexican food tastes good, I ordered Burrito but I think Quesadilla tastes better.

Burrito ala taqueria

MP, Tari and I fully loaded with food

Ana and her Tacos

I even spoke Spanish with the waiters, I'm so happy, finally I could practice some Spanish yaaay, I dont know I can't describe my feeling when I hear people speaking Spanish, I'm just too happy!
Mission is well-known for Mexican Food, Thrift Stores, Cheap Stores for example $1 store, everything for $1 only ! Girls went crazy here. Shop hopping from one store to another store.

We made an agreement one store for 10 minutes but we couldn't manage our time, we ended up spending 40 minutes shopping in one store, girls oh girls, BEHAVE!

The girls in the Mission

Shopping in Mission

I started to like this city, there are a lot of places to visit and those places are really happening. We love Mission, we love Downtown, we love Castro etc. I'm so lucky to have these girls because they love to walk and explore the city, we make a good team :)

To go to Mission district from CCSF Ocean campus we need to take 49 bus (Ocean-Vanness) or you can take BART from Balboa Park to Mission. Since taking Muni bus is cheaper I recommend to take bus, and you can see the scenery and all the stores in Mission district, enjoy!

I'm in love with volunteering!

Friday 26th July, it was our first day of volunteering. We required to volunteer in the Farewell BBQ Party for ESL Summer Class. The voluntary work was counted 5 hours, so it was a good start for us. As we are scholarships with style we volunteer also with style  . Check some pictures of our volunteer style!

Volunteer Style

The BBQ party took place in Golden Gate Park, Hellman Meadow particularly. We arrived at 11 am, it was a pretty difficult to find the spot but we managed, thank you Google Maps Cecile and some other guys were there earlier, we were a bit late. Anyway then we offered the help, I helped to prepare the salad, prepared the table, other guys helped to do the BBQ. Then we helped prepare the plates, napkins, forks, bread for hotdogs and hamburgers etc.I even helped to set the volley net and court, it was hard because it was very windy, it kept falling and falling. Then we changed the direction to the wind flow, we succeded yay!

Owh Ana from Brazil already arrived as Tari told you before. We love this girl, she is s funny and crazy hahahhaha but she is adorable  . She entertained us so much. So glad that she became our housemates. Now are house is complete, there are six adorable girls which are Tari, Me, Milka, Rossie, MP, Ana. I love them all, hope we will have a lot of good time, share a good laugh for the next 10 months. Even though the house has no carpet,  I’m sure that the six of us will keep it warm This is the girl, she wants us to call her Baby 

Baby and I

Both Ana and MP are models, they are so pretty! Lucky to have them in our house . Help me and Tari to be models for our school’s work please 

I didin’t take many pictures during the picnic because we were kind of busy to help serving the food as part of our voluntary work. I helped to serve the plates to some International students and to Brazilian students. This is a very nice volunteer work, we help and we eat and we got some food to bring, perfect.

We played a games and it was fun! I felt good after doing volunteer work, I’m looking forward to the next volunteer work. Helping others made me feel happy, and that is called the spirit of volunteering 

This is the pictures of the CCIP girls on our way to volunteering

CCIP San Francisco Gang

More Fun Things To Do At Weekend, San Francisco

Time does fly! It's my second weekend in San Francisco! Last weekend was about a quiet day as we were adjusting our new life and getting used to the weather. During the week, we felt very cold and tried to survive with this cold summer with our summer style clothes.
Yup sounds silly, we expected that summer would be much more warmer than this, we knew that San Francisco is very windy but at least we could feel the sun, in fact we didn't get any chance to feel sunny day. It was foggy the whole week.
Anyway, I don't want complain about the weather, I'm sure we will get used to it, it's just a matter of time.

Therefore, we decided to feel the sun and go to the warmest and sunniest place in San Francisco. As we know that San Francisco has 8-12 different climates and it can change rapidly during the day. We went to Embarcadero which lead us to the Fisherman Wharf, one of the most popular spot in San Francisco. Unfortunately, we couldn't manage to get there because some of us were really tired to walk to get there. Man, you have to get used to walk, this is the USA, it will involve a lot walking.
Tari managed to find on SFfunandcheap that there were farmer markets on the Ferry Station, so we decided to see the farmer markets since it was held on the warmest part of the city.

Ferry station San Francisco

Ferry Plaza, Embarcadero

Sunbath :)

The fruit and vegetables are fresh, some of us bought some vegetables and fruit that we couldn't find in the supermarket. I love this place, it is warm and sunny here, I suppose to come here some time in the weekend. We kept walking to Fisherman Wharf, enjoying the scenery, the place was packed with many locals and tourist. This place was really happening!

Embarcadero

Pier 39

Inside Ferry Plaza

Embarcadero

Although we couldn't make it to go to Fisherman Wharf, it was still a very beautiful day. It's really a blessing to place us in San Francisco because there are a lot of interesting places that we can visit at the weekend :)

Ahhhhh really looking forward to it.

ESL summer classes at City College San Francisco

Finally we got our test result to place us in different levels of ESL classes which consists of reading, writing, grammar and communication class. I was placed in the highest level of all classes together with Munira from India and Bongadi from South Africa. They both use english as their second language, they do speak and understand English very well. As an Indonesian, I don't use english as my second language as I have the javanese and indonesia as my first and second language, then comes the english. My english was getting worse when I started to study Spanish, I kept mixing English and Spanish everytime I spoke. So, being placed in the highest level was a surprising thing for me though, I haven't use english as much as other students do.

All teachers are really nice, only my grammar teacher gave a different look to all new students that joined her class, she kept telling us that her class was the most advanced gramar class in the ESL, she was afraid we couldn't catch up with the material. Wow, were we just being underestimated by her??  just because I'm from Asia I don't know english, really? Man, I have been studying english for more than 10 years, I took english courses for quite a long time and I use english in my office.
However, I hope that she doesn't really mean what she has just said.

Here are the fun part, check out our campus style! You know we are scholarships with style :D
Being smart and fashionable are very important!

Marie Paule Style

Tari's style

Me

Me

What is unfortunate is we only have ESL classes for two weeks, the class will end on 26th July which is next friday. Anyway it is good for getting use to the english language. I'm really looking forward to improve my english before I start my program.

We are lucky to have ESL classes at the Ocean Campus (main campus) because the view from here is very nice, actually San Francisco landscape is really stunning! 

Nice view from our campus

Oriana, Me and Munira

Roslina, Milka, Oriana, Me, Munira and Tari

I haven't got any chance to get to know the city, I would love to, probably I will try to get around this weekend. I'm really looking forward to it. Last weekend and these couple of days are about settle down with school, home, new life etc. Hope everything will be just fine :)

First Two Days in San Francisco

Saturday 13 July

First weekend in San Francisco, CCIP students planned to have some lunch and groceries shopping together with our program coordinator Ken this noon.
We went to Stonestown shopping mall for shopping yaaay! I found Forever 21 store here, OMG only walking distance from our house, isn't greaat? :D
We took some pictures that day

CCIP San Francisco-The girls

Small park next door

SFSU

Rumah Ibadah wajib

After done some groceries we were heading to downtown and tried our first Muni ride, one of transportation system in San Francisco, it was really exciting, SF has good transportation system.

San Francisco Downtown

Metro Powell Station

We could easily find branded store such as old navy, Zara, Forever 21 (three stories),  H&M, LV, Gucci, Armani etc, this more live shopping avenue similar to Plaza Catalunya in Barcelona, Orchard Road in Singapore.

We went to H&M and Forever21 also to T-mobile and AT&T to buy some simcard, I was so upset when I found out my smartphone Lenovo didn't match with the simcard. I was sad because my boyfriend bought it for me before I left, he knows that I need android phone there :(

Feeling upset then I went back home, I was thinking to buy used Iphone 4 with reasonable price, I dont want to buy android like Samsung or LG because I already had android phone.

I'm so saaaad, I have no US number yet, I have to save money to buy used Iphone, untill then I'll be depending so much to the Wifi connection.

San Francisco I'm coming to you

Thursday 11 July 2013

Here's coming July 11th, my arrival date to the US.  Feeling happy, sad, mixed up. Happy to finally get a chance to study in one of the best city on US, San Francisco, but at the same time feeling sad because leaving my lovely family and dearest boyfriend, as we planned to get married the upcoming year.

Anyway, I went AMINEF office for pre departure briefing at 10am in the morning. I have my luggage packed at home and my mom will bring them up and we will go together to airport between 3-4pm in the afternoon.

After finishing pre departure briefing, I went to pasar festival to cut my hair, and OMG it was too short :( well can not complain since it's not my favorite salon anyway.

I met up with my boyfriend at Tosari bus stop then we went together to Ratu Plaza to meet up my Mom and Dad then heading to the airport. I was fully sad along the way to the airport, can not imagine that I have to separate for 10 months with my boyfriend who I always see almost every day and spend the weekend with.

Got to the airport pretty early as we prepared to deal with the bad traffic jam, fortunately today was smooth, almost no traffic, thanks god I have more time to chat with family and my boyfriend.

But what I can I do, clock is ticking, it s my time to leave :(

My boyfriend and I

I was crying when I left him, got on my plane and try to not think about him. In about 2 hours I landed in Singapore for long transit (6 hours). I came together with other CCIP participants who will be going to SF, Arizona, Boston, Houston, we decided to get a comfy sofa to get some sleep, we managed to get up at 4am, perfect time to start check in to the airlines, we flied with United Airlines.

4 in the morning in Changi

We flied from Singapore to Hongkong, it was 4 hours of flight. Then we change the plane to SF, the flight was 13 hours, it was pretty exhausting for me. I was a bit nervous because I have found out that my name in the US visa a bit different with my DS2019, I kept praying and hope everything would be just fine and fortunately it did. I passed the immigration smoothly, I was very lucky. The immigration officer named Calderon greeted me, talking to me about SF, school and wish me had a great time in SF. I didnt get through custom check even I declared I bought some indonesian spices, Calderon let me pass and direct me to the arrival gate, thank you so much sir. I really appreciated it!

It's weird I didn't feel too excited when I arrived in SF, it was because of the tiredness or I couldn't figure it out. Ken and Stephen picked us up and take us to the house where we would live for the next 10 months. We stayed at Park Merced, about 30 minutes from down town by metro. The place is nice and quiet with the beautiful neighborhood, I kinda love it.

In front of our house at Park Merced

Me and Tari Bedroom

Kitchen

I am so grateful that the house is very nice although a bit empty, lack of furniture :)

I think it will be a nice house to live in for the next 10 months yaaay

I gonna unpack my stuff and tell you more about San Francisco in my next post