graduation

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yes, i've been finally graduated from uni now at last! (｡･･｡)

my journey through uni has been a really memorable tale of various highs and lows (then again it's ITB that we're talking about here) and i had this post below written on my personal Facebook profile on late July (shortly after i completed my thesis defence presentation) before to reflect on my journey, but since i only had my graduation ceremony earlier today i thought i'll share this story here on a more public space with you all as well.

happy reading, and may you all be blessed :)

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(...a reflection?)

oh, hey, at last -- i did it. i finally did it. (〃ー〃)

i know (and can very much understand) what some of you have in mind though : "but Niva, i thought you've had a rather bright track as a college student all this time! your grades are excellent, you've had your own legacies every here and there, and even you've been crowned as a national champion in IUGC! what took you so long to finish your undergraduate studies then?" -- well...

...in short, i got into a battle with severe depression and was losing against it.

yes, you read that right. i haven't told this to everyone bar a certain people in the past for some obvious reasons, but yes -- i was at a complete loss of motivation as a human being back then.

there was a period (for around more than a year or so) where i literally gave up on life so hard to the point that i made myself "disappear" from my real life contacts or so; i deliberately deleted my presence by never replying to any message, never showing up on every invitation that i had received, and the likes of it. at these times i just wanted to disconnect from the world due to my inner dark thoughts -- to some extent you could even say that back then i made it so that "my real self has never existed in the first place".

it may sound weird but my genuine wish back then was not to be cared by anyone, really... after all at that time i felt like i've been turning into way too much of a disappointment (even for my own self) and that i have nothing else meaningful to pursue. it came to my surprise though that no matter how hard i try to hide people were still coming back to me, asking how i've been, and ultimately telling me that they cared about me very much despise my sickly condition and would love to see me triumph on the top and fulfill all of my potentials... nonetheless, i found myself very welcomed when i finally decided to come back to finish where i left off after my one or a half year or so of disappearance. thank you guys very much for accepting me and allowing me to recover my long-lost confidence.

oh btw i'm not saying that i've been fully recovered from this depression by any means (i can still feel my inner loss of motivation coming at times) but i'm getting much better and i'm alright now, though. really. c:)

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i've addressed most of my thanks in the thesis that i wrote for sure, but in this occasion i would like to deliver some more of my thanks to these following names and entities that has been incredibly meaningful to me in my journey thus far :

- osu! and the entire osu!community at large, especially the osu!mapping community, for reinstalling osu! out of boredom and getting back into the mapping scene in late 2017 was -- hands down -- the BEST decision i've ever done with my life. that was the point in my life where i realized that i -do- have what it takes in myself to achieve a respectable success (i finally got myself a long-delayed dream of getting myself a badge through my Featured Artist mapping contributions!) and that i always have all the amazing people from all over the world that i could connect and relate myself with.

- my dear and beloved girlfriend, for she has been such a meaningful partner for me in all these years. we might not be able to meet each other often due to our distance but she has been a caring and loving personality for more than two years now throughout despite knowing all these fight i had with myself. i really meant it heartfelt when i said my thanks to her for being such an understanding dear for me.

- and you! (*^-^)

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in the end, i'm simply thankful that i was given the trust and another chance to recover myself and to finish what i left off in a very positive remark. i genuinely can't stress my gratitude enough.

here's to the next chapter as always.

love,

~ n

live/living/lively

A short story with a dark setting. Reader's discretion is advised.

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why is death so appealing?

a convoluted world. gazing apart with a sinister aura. within the silver halls souls are streamlining apart, fighting fire with fire, not realizing they're driving the so-called "insanity" more and more beyond its limit. when selfish desire owns the heart, the light fades away. it's ever so easy to focus on the problem, yet it's seemingly so hard to focus on the solution - a solution that benefits all the most, that is.

why? why does it always have to be us? why was I born into this "us" being in the first place? taking the moment away an entity was born all pure, yet the shambolic hierarchy of the swirling storm forcefully taught it to part away from the sacred blessing. a magnificent, once fearless, now trapped inside an illusory cage that was created by a mutual worldly ardor it wasn't deserve to belong.

many have pondered, and they who see through the glass will soon enough realize that divination only reveals itself to selected existences who vie passionately for the warm star. as the mist sways the spirits away, the star will soon reveal to the dedicated that the penultimate purpose for every sanity is to give, not to take. unfortunately for many, they prefer not to embark upon the uncharted skies, and having been overshadowed the scream of the disharmonious symphony they resort to the option that is ever so promising :

death.

the lost. the desperate. the ones that feel that his or her living no longer serves tangible purpose. the ones that were already tired of the injustice and hypocrisy that drove their simple happiness away. for them, indeed death is a tempting company.

in retrospect, i think death's charm lies in what it has to offer
a chance to escape it all and experience the life after.
where one's identity were torn apart;
where what he do, not who he is, matters most;
and where the true wisdom lies alongside its faithful companion:
a mere, eternal, and ever peaceful
silence.

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*image derived upon the artwork available on this site.

caudicia

A short story.

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out of winter, but not out of snow.

nocturne is seemingly eternal. flocks of fletches haunting anround the sky, flapping their wings to the echoes of the grave silence. heavens above, the clouds begin to sunder, as your own shadow is the only thing that drives you away from your insanity. never before you'd thought that seeing own's reflection would be this delightful, although you very much know the twilight of the grieving can't fully be relied upon.

fate's watching you playing a game against yourself, and it understands very well that whoever lost their patience first would be forced to submit their defeat. its pawns are your senses, and its chessboard is no other than your head. not even your everlasting desperation could help you out - the devastation's permanent, or so it is told. there is a lifeline however - heed my advice, and understand that the only escape route can only be carved by changing the playing field that is your own self.

you've took your first move right by realizing that your shadow's not as it is. ether flames abound, grab the dying light fragments and break all the illusion within that fortunes have forgotten. its warmth are your safety, and its glow are your repelling salvation. march forth, crave your pathway, and break all the semblances that have enveloped your vision all the time.

i'll be waiting on the other side.

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welcome. congratulations for breaking the illusory box that is your mind's own tormenting "mental block". ah, feel free to take a good look around. hmm? what's with that frowning disappointment? yes, this place has indeed always as dark as your previous room, if not darker.

if you're confused, then i'll let you ponder upon my following questions. how was it like being trapped for years in desolation only to be given a meticulous insight by the ghastilest of oracles? have you been so desperate of breaking away from your previous cage, only not to notice the immolating lilies on your exit path? have you been so lost in translation to the point that you've forgotten that in the world of trickery not a single articulation is trustworthy without prior and further investigation?

feeling afraid now? well, you should. welcome to my world - the world of your mind's everlasting paranoias, where analysis by paralysis is your own ruination. and unlike your past realm, i've ensured that there will be no possible escape route. you're destined to be here forever, you're mine forever, and i'll also be yours forever. the feeling's mutual, as i have always been living inside you all the time.

magna ostium

(My) inner thoughts and speeches have been always such curious beings. Often they wandered by theirselves to ethereal places whose limits and boundaries are imagination's end. Often it came back to their hub with a seed that acts as a catalytic fractal to the fruition for the mastermind - more often they came back empty handed. As questions were raised with dignified regards deep inside, one should nobly realize that their own reflections are the key to summon the whimsical wisdom as it is - and has always been - a perpetual cycle that one cannot help but to embrace and empower in order to soar the guiding light.

Below are some of my inner musings I first materialized in my personal LINE account amongst other private medias. Many of the writings have its own context, and some others have not - but for personal reasons I'm refraining myself from explaining further as I prefer to keep the true meaning hidden to people other than the intended recipient.

Have a great day.

~ n

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"A tree to a forest is a tower to a city. What is perceived as reality is never absolute as a whole, just as a starry night equals a sunny day to the residents in its counterpart.

To master the universe's grand scheme of things is to understand that everything evolves alongside how one's perception is evolving, with time being just one of the universe's many enigmatic facets."

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Night's paramountly stelliform. Been in an exhaustion of overdealing with word processors somehow, but here's a cup of bliss I'd like to confer to all - a pinch of governing light which sways soothe amidst the zephyr, a sneak peek of what's shortly coming up from the sleeve of buoyant imagineers.

With love, may we inspire.

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Seek, for the secrets are hidden beneath--
In your blinks, in your thoughts, in your speeches.

Stay true to the frequencies of the universe,
as what you see at first might just not what you meant to see

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For once,
atop firm branches I stood,
gazing upon the vast blue stars.

For now,
within the nobility I brood,
afar witnessing the faint glace of happiness.

PS : quite a good amount of things in this world were meant to be taken literally.

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 here, there, and everywhere;
in a living being is a trace to bear.

a prowess to adhere, on a shadow to spare;
such knowledge of it is too tempting not to share.

take caution of the eyes you may not see lurking.

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Have you ever felt lost just by looking at your own shadow?
What's haunting deep inside your mind might just be more menacing than you'd expect.

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 Loyalty stands where the hearts are interconnected.
A queen is a servant to her king, as a king is a servant to his queen.
One should pierce through the light and see the magic alongside the devoted.

Will you be my queen?

Trivia Bot Database

-- http://pastebin.com/1GTUR6xj (updated 27/6/17) --

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Say... Back then I was asked to make this by a certain people, so here it is~

The link above leads to an Indonesian language trivia database for Discord bots in which me and my friend Luthfi (Yukaa-#9493) created based on NadekoBot's open-source code (http://github.com/kwoth/nadekobot). The database itself is specifically tailored for custom-made bots based on NadekoBot's code - if you already have the bot self-compiled and integrated to your own Discord server, save the pastebin above as .json at the folder (your bot name)/src/NadekoBot/data in order for the questions to be able to show up in-server. The database itself is filed under Creative Commons Licence, Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA), and for the ones who are interested in modifying it the usage of http://jsoneditoronline.org/ or another .json-specific editor is recommended.

As for now the database itself isn't tenaciously big (yet) but as for now it holds 100+ questions and 4200+ words already, which is hopefully plentiful enough to provide rounds of fun for many. As the bot gives out a set of letters after few seconds without a correct guess, the difficulty level of questions are intentionally made somewhat high so that the answers are not that guessable at the first glance (and so that the letters be the saving grace for many players) - however, we're giving our best to ensure that (hopefully) there are no question(s) being too esoteric to a certain group of people in the database, so everyone should be able to get a good grip in this strife of general knowledge ^^

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Expect the database to be updated every now and then in the future (if we're not lazy or anything orz hehe). Have fun~