Autumn 2010
Since both my parents grew up in Indonesia, I too was raised in an Indonesian-speaking household despite being born in America. However, I never learned to speak "proper" Indonesian (bahasa buku) - the type used by books, radio broadcasters, and television anchors. Thus, in my first quarter at UW I thought it would be really interesting to formally learn my native language. Jumping into the second-level Indonesian class - taught by Professor "Bu" Pauli Sandjaja and with only five students total - I had to overcome the habits I had formed speaking the "street" form of Indonesian (bahasa pasar) at home. My final presentation in the class addressed a topic that I hold very close to my heart: why I continue to pursue music despite my hard sciences degree focus.
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Winter 2011
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I continued my study of formal Indonesian with Bu Pauli in the winter, this time with only three students in the class! It was as close as I could get to private lessons within the university. By the end of the quarter I was able to understand Indonesian radio, TV, and Catholic mass, something I was unable to do previously. My final presentation was inspired by my sister - studying fisheries and oceanography at the time - who helped me do some additional research into the International Pacific Halibut Commssion (IPHC), one of the most successful, cooperative, sustainable fisheries in the world co-managed by both Canada and the United States. Many of the terms involved in creating this presentation were unfamiliar to me, as the scientific lexicon is a little more atypical to my everyday Indonesian vocabulary.
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I also discovered MUSEN 381 this quarter, a one-credit class that allowed groups of chamber musicians to receive feedback and coachings from a music professor at the UW. I was very excited to discover this class, as previously I had been scared that being a science major would limit my ability to pursue my musical passion. Here, you can hear my group consisting of myself, Irene Chen on piano, and Sam Dougherty on clarinet, playing the 3rd movement of Khachaturian's Trio for Piano, Violin, and Clarinet. I had actually played first movement in high school with one of my best friends and won at the Regional Solo-Ensemble competition with it, so continuing the faster movement in college was somewhat of a throwback.
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spring 2011
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A BIG turning point in my life happened this Spring quarter. Out of curiosity I took CSE 142, the introductory programming class for the computer science department; I had previously taken a Java class during a high school summer but had not enjoyed it. I had no plans to major in CSE.
Then one afternoon, I found myself sitting in the Ocean Sciences building, coding for a part of an assignment that was worth zero points, just because I wanted to. I came up with something that was a lot more complex than anything the specification asked for, and spent around 2 or 3 hours just having fun doing homework. There, in the dusty rays of late April sunshine streaming through the glass, I decided that if I could have fun doing homework in an area, that might be a healthy hint into what I should major in. |