Christmas: Us and The Magi

This Christmas is the first Christmas I spent alone and far from home. An urgent reason made me not able to fly back to home. I said “Oh God, it is so sad that I had to be far away from Dad, Mom, and my lil’ bro”. No special food. No friends. I felt terrible.

To stop from crying and feeling alone, then I decided to read again the story about the birth of Jesus. There was one passage that was appealed to me: Matthew 2:1-12. It is about the Magi visit the Messiah. They brought best things to welcomed Jesus.

“On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh“

Christmas is always identic with gifts. Unfortunately, most people think the gifts is for them, not for the Lord. Yes, it is for us. When God sent His only Child to this world, it is the greatest gift for all of us. Then, what do we give to greet Jesus? It is His birthday, isn’t it? 🙂

Just like the Magi, let us always bring the best to Jesus who was born and died for us.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

May God bless you

With Christmas love,

Margaretha 🙂

Love Behind A “Thank You”

Hi there! 🙂

How do you say “Thank You” in your mother language? Gracias? Xie xie? Dhanyavaad?

In Indonesian language, it is “Terima Kasih”. The title of this writing (Love Behind A “Thank You”) is related to “Terima Kasih”.

“Terima Kasih” consists of two words “Terima” and “Kasih”. “Terima” means to receive, and “Kasih” means love. So, if you translate any “Thank You” into Indonesiann language, it will be meant “to receive love / receiving love”.

I found “Terima Kasih” is unique. How anyone who say “terima kasih” must realize that someone is doing an action of love toward them, so they should thank for it.

Have you say “thank you” to anybody who already done any action of love toward you? 🙂

The Pistol: Have Faith. Nothing is Impossible

He is short, but he dreamed to be a pro basket player. Could it be possible?

Pete Maravich was not a popular kid at his school. He always wanted to join the team, but no one cared to him. However, this situation can’t make him down. He didn’t let anyone and anything let him down.

His father, was the one who transferred abundant support to him. When people say bad words about Pete, his father will come and say the truth. Saying that Pete is the talented kid. He can reach his dreams, whatever the world is doubted about.

“It’s tough being a kid, chasing a grown-up dream. Through the pain and tears and confusion, I knew I had to keep pursuing my dream—for Pop and for me, whether or not anyone else ever understood what was happening inside. And the emotion and pressure would overcome me, I lost myself in drills Pop had taught me.”

picture source: http://fuckyeahpistolpete.tumblr.com/

He knew that reaching dreams will need sacrifice; will need a willingness to be mocked by people, to be said crazy. But he kept stand on his ground. He had faith.

The pictures above are from an inspirational movie titled The Pistol, which was released in 1991. This film is dedicated to the memory of “Pistol” Pete Maravich (June 22, 1947 – January 5, 1988). Press Maravich (Pete’s dad) play an important role in Pete’s life. Press Maravich gave an legacy to his son and to children everywhere that:

“Love never fails, character never quits, and with patience and persistence, dreams do come true.”

Pete was mocked as “hot dog” by some of his school mates. It also can’t extinguish his spirit.

“I must admit I never really understood why people wanted autographs in the first place; I guess people looked to me as a hero. Webster defines a hero as a man noted for his special achievements. Hero is also defined as a long sandwhich. Since a lot of people called me a hot dog during my career, either definition may have been the reason people wanted my autograph.”

– Pete Maravich, Heir to a Dream

After watching this film, it is guaranteed that we will learn much about hope, passion, persistence, faith, and the most important things self-image. Whoever you are, whatever you look like, remember one thing: you are precious. God didn’t create you as a mistake. Wake up and reach your dreams! 🙂

PS:

Do not forget to use the original copy ya 🙂

Happy watching,

Cheers,

Etha

Campus Today: Internship is COMING !

When everybody started to talk about “Christmas is coming”, I’d rather talk about internship. It does not mean that Christmas is less important, but internship thingy attracts me too much! 🙂 hehe

FYI, in the last year in President University, all students have to do internship for maximal eight months. In the previous post, I shared about Industry Insight Panel, an event held by ICC (Internship Career Center) President University to prepare the students for their internship. In this writings, I would like to share about my internship story.

I have done my Cover Letter (CL) and CV in the end of October. I would like to say thank you for Mr. I Nyoman Musiasa, MAMC. He is one of my lecturers and he helped me checking grammar errors in my CV and CL. Thanks very much, Sir! 🙂

After the CV and CL done, I prayed for it and started to send to several companies. Hoping that I’ll be interning in a good company. “Good” in here means, the company would let me work and explore my potential. Remembering some of my seniors felt disappointed with their companies because the companies did not let them to work, and they spent their days useless, I’m afraid if the company I’ll intern later will apply the same thing.

Well, someday, in November, a company called me for an interview. Wooh!! Really nervous! 🙂

PT. Intermatrix Indonesia is the company in where I had my interview. The interview goes well. Little bit nervous, but I covered it with smiling. For me, smiling is really helpful to calm down myself whenever I get nervous. You may try it out. Hope it also works for you 🙂

Can’t tell you how happy I am when the interviewer said “Yes, you can intern here!”. It feels like drinking cold water in a desert when the sun shines so bright! Hehehe. It was my needs and dream, and it came true! Thanks God! 🙂

I read some blogs about internship in Intermatrix, and none of the writers (who obviously had their intern in Intermatrix) feel disappoint with it. Instead, they sounded very grateful.

So, in short, starting from January 3^rd, 2012, I’ll be interning in Intermatrix. Wish me luck! Really really, can’t wait for the time to come faster.

Ouh, I wanted to share a picture of me. It was taken in the day I had my interview. Because the interview went with miraculous (hehehe) and the interviewer accepted me, so I celebrated it by watching Ra One in 3D version at Blitz Megaplex Grand Indonesia 🙂 ouh, lovee my “career looks” 🙂

hey, do you have any internship experience? Please kindly share 🙂 Will love to hear bout it 🙂

See you in the next post. Have a good time!

Cheers,

Etha (@etha_maggie)

Lady in Waiting: Be Sincere

A couple days ago, I and Ross, my friend, went to the mall together. It was a good time for us to spend bestfriend’s quality time. One topic that we shared was about a book titled Lady in Waiting, authored by Jackie Kendall & Debbie Jones.

Ross said that this book is very good to be read by single ladies like us J hehehe. Ross did not share a lot, but the thing she told the most was about sincerity.

“If we can’t be sincere to everyone, we are not ready to be in a relationship”, Ross said it excitedly.  “We need to check our motivation when we are helping someone. Do we do “better” when helping our boy friends; or we always do our best when helping either boy friends or girl friends.”

It makes sense, doesn’t it? This is what I think, when we help our boy friends “better” than our girl friends, I believe we have hidden agenda for it. One possible hidden agenda might be to get special attention from the boy friends we help. In the other hand, if we are balance in helping boy friends and girl friends; we always try to do our best when helping; I believe this is a true sincerity. I mean, girl doesn’t interest to get “special” attention from the other girls, rite? And when they do the same to their boy friends, it obviously shows that they also do not purpose to get “special” attention from their boy friends. They do it because they are willing to do it.

I am now looking for the book. Kinda curious to find out why we must be sincere to everyone before we go to a relationship. Do you think the same?

See you in the next posting. If you have read Lady in Waiting, kindly share to us ya 🙂

 

Cheers,

Etha (@etha_maggie)

Campus Today: Industry Insights Panel

Industry Insights Panel is an annual event held by Internship Career Center of President University. The theme for this year is “How Do I Fit with My Company’s Corporate Culture? Tips and Strategy for New Graduates”. This event is a close event for President University students only.

This year, ICC PU invited speakers from three companies to share about their company: L’oréal, Triputra Group, and Nissan.  I did not write much in my notebook while listening to the presentation, but I have somethings to share here.

First, is about the company culture. I conclude some points mentioned by the speakers.

Those companies put Integrity, Respect, Transparency, Encourage, Competitive, and Excellence as their companies’ value. It is interesting to see these three companies have similar value to each other. Mr. Felix Abednego, from Nissan, said that everyone in the company should have the same value. Value is like the antibody for the company. If someone enters the company and bring different value, well, then no one will be willing to be with him because they detect this different-valued-person as a stranger. As the antibody, it will directly kick strange thing out.

“What character of a person do your companies assess?” a question came from a student.

“According to your company, which one do you prefer: hiring a person with high educational skill with low of interpersonal communication skill; or hiring a person with standard (not high, not low either) educational skill with high interpersonal communication skill?” a similar question followed.

Each company gave different answers to each question. I noted two answers that might fit those questions.

First answer came from Mr. Felix. According to his company culture, everybody in it, is willing to work hard even until late at night. For him, Nissan needs people with that willingness (to work hard and to work smart). “Are you willing to work extra mile to achieve something as the goal?”, he added.

Completing Mr. Felix’s answer, Ms. Restu Widiati added that in L’oréal, they prefer to someone with CEO characteristic. This CEO stands for “Creative, Entrepreneur, and Open-minded”.

The question and answer session ran enthusiastically and everyone who attends this event seemed satisfied with what the speakers have delivered.

President University is very concern about their students’ skill for internship. They prepare well their students with seminar, courses, consultations, and professional guiding. There are still some events later on in December. I will post useful information here. Stay tune!

Cheers,

Etha (@etha_maggie)

quote :)

“My Dad was right, if you don’t believe your wife is precious, you won’t cherish her. If you don’t believe love is best when it’s pure and new, you won’t wait patiently for it. If you don’t believe the baby in the womb is the living handiwork of God, you’ll do nothing to protect him. What do you believe?” – Caleb in Come What May 🙂