Mastermind

Just came back from the last paper of this semester, MAS 446 Probabilistic Methods in OR. Well, I can’t say it was my best performance. However, I’ve given my best (despite of reading incorrectly, and forget to multiply some things).. (Well, now it’s the time for me to hear someone says “that wasn’t your best!!”) haha… Anyway, nothing I could do anymore besides praying and wishing for the best, for whatever it is.

Regardless of whining about all those mistakes I’ve made unintentionally (of coz it was unintentional!), I must say I’m indeed happy. It’s simply becoz of one reason, the reason why in the first place I decide to study math. haha…. the last paper I had this morning was FUN. haha… And I have just realized that after all, the thing I’ve known for years of my life haven’t changed at all, not even a bit.

During school period everyone knows how hard I was striving to study math. (Or perhaps they dont know). I wasn’t and am not a very clever person, not in math obviously. I fought hard to understand it better by working twice or even thrice as hard as others did to understand a matter. Simply put me as “not gifted”, if that helps… haha….  However, I’ve always enjoyed doing math, especially those types of problems that are presented with simple sentences but need a very deep understanding and logic to solve. Or in other words, I like to trouble myself. ^_^ as the result, I have not been able to reach anything that is worth a big respect. Don’t expect me to grab a title in any competition, coz my ability hasn’t reached there yet. Haha…. This once had me to wondering myself whether I deserve to get every chance I got to represent my school for math competitions. When those desperations came into mind, I’d always felt disappointed. How come I still get nothing even though I’ve given everything? Then I started to get angry to math (simply coz it wasn’t a wise choice to get angry to people, so I chose to be angry to an abstract thing). I still remember there was a friend of mine told me that math has nothing to do with all I was facing back then, coz math has never been wrong…. Haha… it sounds funny…. but I guess I can accept that reason. And today I found that math has never changed at all. The more excited I get myself into, the worse I did the job. Wkaka…. This explains why I feel happy, even though I didn’t do very well today. I believe that everything got its own reason. Perhaps if I was so “powerful” and gifted, I would think of math as a simply boring subject (even though I know it will never get boring). But now, I’m seeing myself as a regular person in her dream to get what she can’t get in the real world. I mean, that’s what the dream is for, isn’t it? To create hopes for those who are hopeless… haha….

Maybe I’ve changed a bit, from a person who holds an idealistic view of life to a person who thinks more realistic. That has given me a license to simply learn everything efficiently (meaning all that necessary for the exams ONLY), instead of thinking into the depth of the problems. Nevertheless, I haven’t been good enough in practicing my new vision. I’ve always troubled myself to the greater view. I’ve always thought, if I can’t understand the problems, it is better for me to fail than to walk forward with nothing in mind. This term, I believe, is my own way to punish myself. (and I have been doing that since primary school).

That is the reason why I should get ready to face everything I will get for the result, even though if I have to fail and retake again (gosh, I hope I won’t), because right now I feel I am walking on the right path. After all, I’ve never regretted that I’ve taken math as my major. How could one regret to pursue the thing that (s)he loves? Well, no pain no gain….. God has given me something that I treasure for every year in my life, and God is wise enough to get me a less brain than all those gifted ones, because else I might turn to be a jerk….  Haha…. Well, it’s because I have a habit to lose up everything I have, to go after everything I don’t have… *sigh*.

So in the end, this is my math, this is me…. And who am I? I’m just a worker, an inferior, working for God’s company in math department…. ^_^

Lia Andriyani.

The dawn is breaking
A light shining through
You’re barely waking
And I’m tangled up in you
Yeah

I’m open, you’re closed
Where I follow, you’ll go
I worry I won’t see your face
Light up again

Worries…. Everyday in our minds. Human for reasons or no reason always feels worried. Worried to be alone, worried to be left by people who are important in their lives. Today we might see the faces we love, but who knows what would happen tomorrow. As we see new faces everyday, we might as well lose the sight of those old faces. And that is not the only reason. I’d rather see no faces than to see one in their gloomy days. Every time I see one with tears, I felt broken. The feel of belonging, to a community, to someone else’s life dragged me to view myself as someone whose task is to protect, to comfort, and to make sure that everything’s on their side. I started to look at myself as someone who doesn’t own its life. Like an inferior who always serves the master. Like those servant whose life was paid by the master.

Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to rhyme
Out of the doubt that fills my mind
I somehow find
You and I collide

Yet it doesn’t matter how well we design everything, even though it might seem perfect from outside, it does sometimes fall into parts. And when it happens, it would probably hurt the most. On the other hand, thing to which we look at as such an ugly representation might crush our lives with its strength and wonder. Men searches for meaning, they look for it too hard until they started to lose their sight. So after all, what they’ve searched for is not a meaning, but an apology, an excuse to make their lives worth something.

I’m quiet you know
You make a first impression
I’ve found I’m scared to know I’m always on your mind

I’ve always wondered how God created human for the first time. How God shaped Adam’s personalities and then the way He thought about matching Adam’s with Eve’s. or perhaps, in the essence of human being, we can always mix and match our behaviors with others…. When one is striving hard to be able to adapt with someone else’s style, what is actually on his/her mind? Is that based on purely curiosity or becoming a part of other people’s lives? And often we feel after we finally fit the hole, we started to hate it. We started to feel scared that we can’t get out from whatever we get ourselves into. Is that based on human self-oriented behavior? Or it’s just that everything gets so boring after we look at things from the hole itself?

Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the stars refuse to shine
Out of the back you fall in time
I somehow find
You and I collide

Don’t stop here
I’ve lost my place
I’m close behind

Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to rhyme
Out of the doubt that fills your mind
You finally find
You and I collide

You finally find
You and I collide
You finally find
You and I collide

artist: Howie Day