This is Dafferianto’s blog!

Time surely ticks by so fast (if not too fast), and my blog is now 1 year old. A bit unfortunate that I couldn’t update this blog on a regular basis, but nevertheless, it has helped me in leaving footmarks on the internet of my important activities throughout 1 year which otherwise will be left unnoticed even by myself for years to come.

The look and feel of this blog is still about the same as a year ago and I haven’t planned to change for sometimes ahead. What has been changed is the tagline (the text below the blog title). The initial tagline was “fly away up high, chasing the sun….” which at that time I chose with my burning youth spirit And not long ago (I forgot the exact date), I changed it to “may there be peace in our hearts….“. See, I’ve become wiser And today I decide to change it once again to “don’t be afraid to be weak…. don’t be too proud to be strong….“. This sentence is taken from the lyric of an old song by Enigma, Return to Innocence. The clip can be seen below.

And this is a log of my trip to (the beautiful) Venezia. Though I was a bit under pressure of the seamlessly unending incoming streams of project milestone deadlines, I managed to have some times off of the crazy days with a wonderful trip to Venezia It was on Saturday, 12th April 2008, around 7 a.m. when I, Wenjing, and mr. Liu left Borino to Piazza Dante (Trento’s train station). There we met with Mu and departed to Venezia by the Regionale train (which cost us only around €5 each ). I can’t quite remember, but the journey was approximately 3 hours.

Venezia - in front of basilica di San Marco

I found Venezia very beautiful even from the first steps out of the train station. Water everywhere! Even the taxis are boats So we went to Piazza San Marco and there Mu bought a €1 corn package to feed the pigeons. So many pigeons in the square, and I tried feeding them too

Venezia - feeding pigeons is not a crime

Venezia - the taxis of Venezia

Then we went to the tower at Piazza San Marco and enjoyed the beautiful scenery of Venezia.

Venezia - Campanile, Piazza San Marco

Venezia - a view from the tower

And the next enjoying event was: the gondola ride At first I asked the tourist information center somewhere near Piazza San Marco about the price of gondola ride. They said the normal price was €80. But when I asked several gondolianers, they offered the prices varying from €100 to €120. I told them I would pay only for €70 (tried to bargain a bit ), and they said no. OK, I left them. Then after walking about 30 meters, one of them came and asked for €80 and no less. So, we took the offer (since I knew the standard price was €80 from the information office ).

Venezia - about to start a gondola ride

Venezia - O sole mio…..

In the evening of the same day, we went back to Trento using another Regionale train. All in all, I might say Venezia is a romantic city. Highly recommended for couples especially for the gondola ride But there will be another trip chapter there (I hope) since we didn’t go to the glass island. At the same day later in the evening I got a bad news: my Gramma passed away (which I posted several posts before this).

Venezia - from Venezia with love

An EuMI workshop was held on 4-6 April 2008 in Trento. A bunch of guys came from Aachen/Bonn and Edinburgh (apart from the ones living currently in Trento) including the ‘big guys’ The event itself I saw it as a means for communication among alumni and students of the EuMI programme. This is the first time I made a full use of my handycam for a documentation

Trento - the crowd of EuMI students and alumni

The first day started with some introductions to the programme by the ‘big guys’ including the rector of the University of Trento, Prof. Davide Bassi. In the afternoon there were 2 sessions of discussions held concurrently, the first one dealing with education, curriculum, and degree issues, and the second one dealing mainly with mobility and services. I attended the first discussion since it attracted me so much, especially with the Net-centric/Media Informatics of Aachen/Bonn-Trento mobility issues The conclusion didn’t satisfy me, so I won’t reveal it here

Trento - several guys with Aachen/Bonn mobility

The second day was more interesting to me. We went together for an excursion to the Buonconsiglio castle located near the city center of Trento. Well, I love castles and traveling. So no arguments In the evening of the second day (well, it was night to be more precise :-D) a party was held at the meeting venue. But I decided not to attend it since it was very late at night and no more cable car going down to the city center from the meeting venue.

Trento - excursion to Buonconsiglio castle

The third day? I didn’t attend it. I couldn’t get up But I heard from some guys there was nothing on the third day.

The funny thing about this meeting was that I always had lunch together in 1 table with some of the big guys of EuMI. The advantage of this was that I could ask many questions concerning the programme in a more casual way. And the disadvantage was (of course) I couldn’t really express my eating style after being starved during the sessions haha….

Trento - lunch with some of the ‘big guys’ of EuMI

And I still owe a promise of giving my videocam recording to Mr. Luca Valenzin, the officer of the EuMI programme form the Univ. of Trento, since I was the only one making a video documentation. I’ll do it soon (I hope ).

This post is just to document that I bought a new video camera which will play the role of my travel companion. As usual, due to the packed schedule for project deadlines, I make a log of this a bit late. It’s a Sony Handycam DCR-HC51E, (another) low-end video camera from Sony, and it uses a miniDV tape as the recording medium. I bought it in MediaWorld Trento on 20th March 2008. In fact I’m not really satisfied with miniDV tapes, especially concerning the transferring-to-PC method that consumes quite a lot of time. But since the price was fairly cheap, I shouldn’t really complain about it In addition, it’s a Sony Handycam

the Dafferianus [HANDYCAMus]

Since I bought this video camera using the monthly stipend of the Erasmus Mundus scholarship just like its predecessor, I decided to name it Dafferianus [HANDYCAMus] The idea behind the purchase of this product is that I would like to make dynamic documentations of events I’m going through. Of course my digital camera is still used for taking pictures, but additional documentations that incorporate motions will give a better ‘look & feel’ of the events. Prior to this purchase, one of my Chinese friend, Mu (another EuMI guy), purchased a video camera as well. But his main purpose was to record a Milan match in San Siro (which we will do it this Sunday). I’m not that specific, I just wanna create live documentations of anything

It was around 23:36 when an SMS arrived in my cellphone’s message inbox. A message from my parents containing a bad news: my Gramma had just passed away. I was inside a bus going back to Borino from the train station (I had just arrived in Trento from Venezia) when reading the unexpected news. It’s very sad since I can’t even see her at the very last moment of her presence in this world. All memories of her suddenly filling my head: those moments we shared for 5 years in Yogyakarta during my study of final year high school and early stages of bachelor degree study. I remember the times when I played some classical songs in Ngadisuryan: Caro Mio Ben, Rondo Alla Turca, Haydn’s Sonata C Dur, Chopin’s Valse (can’t remember the opus #), Bach’s Preludium (Ave Maria), the self-improvisation of Canon in D major and several other songs, and she sat in the sofa listening (though I’m not sure whether she could distinguish the different type of songs played), and soon after she went to the kitchen and back with a bunch of cookies saying “ayo disambi maem karo di-ombe wedange“. I remember that she always cares about serving food to every family member in the house, and in fact her cooking was great. She was 83 at that time but yet still managed to cook very well — and more admirably: she cooked manually from scratch! My last day with her was around August when I said the farewell message for my departure to Europe. I was and have been hoping that one day I can see her again in Ngadisuryan proudly bringing my master degree certificate from Europe, showing her and take pictures together like I did after my bachelor graduation. But the road seems to have been built in a different path and as a human being I can’t do anything to alter it.

At this moment I would just like to thank her for the memories that have been created in my mind. She has been one of my inspiration to live this life by serving others. Goodbye Gramma… Have a peaceful journey to eternity…. If one day my road yet has to end, I’m hoping we may end up having a feast together in a table of delicious food of eternity.

Caro Mio Ben

Ngadisuryan, Yogyakarta - with Gramma and my parents after my bachelor graduation

Ngadisuryan, Yogyakarta - playing some songs after my bachelor graduation

Tomorrow (30th March 200 will be the first day of the so-called Daylight Saving Time (DST) for 2008, which means the clock will be fast-forwarded 1 hour. In other words, it will be GMT+2 here in Trento, Italy (currently it’s GMT+1). Or in a more precise term: “Less sleep” Only for tonight though

Last night I had a chat with Melissa, my senior at the B-IT, and she informed me that she had just fetched her Convergent Networks seminar certificate as well as mine. I was very surprised when she informed me my grade: 1.0. So cool

This seminar subject really made me pay so much time and attention throughout the entire winter semester (last semester). It’s only 4 ECTS, but I felt like doing a 10 ECTS-course. I read around 15 RFCs (RFC 793 was a real pain for me ) and several papers related to TCP congestion control mechanisms, and I spent around 15 hours a week to focus on it. But I enjoyed it and finally the hardship is paid off

This result reminds me Wenjing’s words several weeks ago. She said something like: “When we get a good grade to a particular course, it doesn’t always mean that we are smart. It means we’ve spent much time and attention to it”. I guess she’s right

This afternoon around 16:50 (GMT+2 GMT+1) one of Indonesian EuMI students (my senior), Tizar Rizano, conducted his master thesis defense presentation and soon after being granted the double master degree: Laurea Specialistica in Informatica (Univ. of Trento) and Master of Science in Informatics (RWTH Aachen Univ.). Congratulations! I hope I can manage to follow you soon

Trento - me and Tizar Rizano

Trento, 23rd March 2008

I, Dafferianto, would like to wish:

• Selamat Paskah!
• Frohe Ostern!
• Buona Pasqua!
• Happy Easter!

for those who celebrate it.

This morning I went to Duomo for the Easter mass. It was in Italian so I could hardly understand anything. But at least I knew the Gospel reading was taken from John (since the priest said something like “Giovanni” ).

Initially I was plannning to go alone, but in the last minute Mr. Liu (my flatmate) and another Chinese exchange student  girl, Shu (I dunno how to pronunce it), joined me. Surprisingly it’s snowing today (by the time I’m writing this the snow hasn’t stopped pouring the land of Trento).

Trento - Snow upon Easter day (taken from my flat’s balcony)

Ciao Tutti!!! (sorry but that’s the only phrase I know so far.. haha…).

The journey from Bonn to Trento was very tiring! We were 5: Elda, Ifeoma, Mu, Wenjing, and myself, took the train from Bonn to München and took another train from München to Trento with lots of gigantic luggages… goshhh…. I remember during the trip from Bonn to München we weren’t able to put our luggages inside our compartment, so we put them along the walking-path which (of course) somehow blocked the way. And very unluckily one of the ticket guys realized this and forced us to put our luggages inside the compartment in any way So we tried hard to arrange everything and finally managed to make things in order.

Mu looked tired after arranging the luggages (and so did I )

A bit of snack was relieving (Wenjing, Mu, Elda, Ifeoma => where???)

We went directly to a youth hostel nearby Trento’s train station upon our arrival. We were all sleeping in a big shared-room (different beds of course ), and I made a record to be the first guy to sleep that night… haha…

The next day (Friday), we went to the Welcome Office to meet Ms. Daniela for our apartments’ keys and moved the luggages to our flats (I, Elda, Wenjing in Borino, Ifeoma and Mu in St. Bartolomeo). Mu hadn’t been given his room key yet, so he stayed in my room for a night using Wenjing’s sleeping bag. Not only because the single bed in my room wouldn’t fit both of us, but also I didn’t want to take a risk of being called “so gay” by Tanin Everything is fine with my flat in Borino except for the unavailability of internet connection. But I shared a connection temporarily with a guy on the first floor (my flat is on the 3rd floor) with the help of Ms. Yusi and Mr. Tizar (Indonesian students living in the same building). Thanks for the help Now I’m waiting for the technical guy(s) from Telecom Italia to setup the internet connection in my flat. My flat building and room can be seen below:

Trento - Via Borino 63, Trento 38100, Italy

Trento - My current room

My room looks a bit messy as always I just realized that the standard for electric plugs in Italy are different from Germany so I needed to buy a connector for my laptop adapter (as well for other electronic devices I brought. e.g. battery charger, handphone charger) .

Trento - The Italian standard electric plug converter

The story of the first days stay won’t be enough without the introduction to the local dish And since I’m a student, as usual the mensa is the best place to have a local taste food. Yeah, pasta everydayyyyyyy

Trento - A dinner at the mensa (city center)

Trento in general is a beautiful city. Small, but pretty. It is (as far as my eyes can observe) surrounded by mountains. One day I should climb one of them

Trento - A mountain view from the Faculty of Science’s bus stop

This day I got an email from Dr. Rohs informing that the DIS grades had been revealed. The result? Very dissapointing for me! I got 1.0 for the assignments, and 1.0 for the project. But my final grade is 2.0. Damn!!!! The final exam ruined everything!!!!! But I’m sure there’s a good reason behind this The good news is that I have a new iBT TOEFL score which is above than expected… I won’t reveal it here, but it’s 1xx hehehe….. WishMeLuck for my next efforts! Since I missed around 3 weeks of courses here in Trento, I should catch up really fast…..