#11 Extraordinary things only happen to extraordinary people

Including meeting extraordinary people that affects our lives.

Jun 29, 2020

Hello welcome back! Our #10 Salmon Mentai edition was about inspiring leader characters from Meiska’s favorite anime and Elsa’s experience to Museum of Broken Relationships. You can read it back here.

It’s Monday for a #SalMonday! Meet Sisca, she was a basketball partner of Meiska back in undergraduate and now Elsa’s roommate in Dublin! The world is smaller than you think.

Her topic for today’s #SalMonday is interesting:

“Mention 3 people who influence your life the most, and how they contribute to make you the way you are”

Wow *brb retrospecting*

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Meiska

Sisca was the captain of female basketball teams from my class, major, and faculty! So I was always in the same team with her since sophomore year. Since we competed in many competition, I forgot did we ever win first place together? Haha anyway, this year will the 9th anniversary since I enrolled to my college. Time flies! Sisca is not only a great basketball player, but also one of the top students in my class, and sings too!

When Elsa chose this topic (initially Sisca proposed two themes), it’s really hard to recall. I began to sort some of my close people and bosses I have worked with before but it didn’t really help. So I hope these selections (including fictional) people are acceptable haha.

Marsal Masita

Pak Marsal was my first boss and the one who interviewed me in person at my current workplace. Previously as a Deputy of Commercial, he believed that Indonesian football can be as potential as other countries with great football enthusiasts. If you knew and realized a lot of companies signed partnerships with my office before, we opened our own flagship store, managed to take chances to host international tournaments, he was one of the men behind it! Apart from it, he was always there to support us and pushed us forward. He made me believe that I was capable to be in charge of AFC U-19 Championship 2018 hospitality arrangement, and other challenging projects. I wouldn’t come this far if he didn’t trust me enough to take the chances. You made me believe that I have the guts!

Newt Scamander

I didn’t read JK Rowling’s Original Screenplay of Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them because it was sold after the movie was released. The only thing I knew of him since Harry Potter books and movies only limited to that he wrote the Fantastic Beasts study book. The moment I watched the movie I was deeply moved. Newt Scamander (main protagonist) was not a charming character, he rather looked complicated, a bit messy yet organized. He was smart even though he was a Hogwarts drop out and didn’t have reliable educational background. Putting it aside, I’m amazed how passionate and hard-working Newt was in collecting informations of the beasts that one day became useful to study. He also protected and took a good care of his beasts collection that taught me compassion come across creatures.

Japan Football Association

This didn’t come in one person, but I was lucky enough to work with their U-19 National Team. In March 2018, I was assigned to become coordinator and liaison officer of their training camp programme in Jakarta for two weeks, before the AFC U-19 Championship 2018 began in October. The first thing I remember the team manager gave me their plans and questions of price from some logistics to support their training camp such as ice, mineral water, and local transportations. They were all punctual! Every day the team manager sent me their updated schedule from the wake up, breakfast, until dinner —it was all started and finished at the exact schedule! Even the players and coaches walked from the hotel to the training site! It taught me that skills from players may vary, but discipline, punctuality and preparation were the key factors to have a great team. In result, Japan qualified to Semifinal during AFC U-19 Championship 2018 that made them qualified for FIFA World Cup U20 2019 in Poland.

Elsa

Do you know what the complacent part to be single in life? To talk about ex with guilt free!

Hendra (2009-2011)
Put in a context of a high school 9 years ago with Mxit and Blackberry Messenger technology, I was lost to decide which university I should apply. There was no abundance information about the campuses compared to what generation-X has now.
The ‘SNMPTN tertulis’ (public university admission test) was the last and the only affordable shot I had in order to continue to bachelor’s degree, otherwise my parents could not afford it. With my average grade in high school, I should be realistic not to choose top three universities my friends did (ITB, UI, UGM as always), so IPB University was the answer. Yet, I had no idea which department I should choose in IPB (I have no idea what IPB was)! Hendra was a freshman in UGM, he helped me to decide.
So here comes the fact, Food Science and Technology of IPB was from his advice that has changed all my path now. It was a life bet but turned out it became the best decision I ever took. I never regret about it.
Diandra (2011-2017)
Diandra had supported me to strive to all my ambitions in university. Without him, I could not be a person to go to Jakarta from never-ending-traffic-jam Dramaga (Gojek or Grabbike or online taxi motorbike was not born on earth yet) for youth conference monthly. All that I had in my LinkedIn profile would not be happened without staring onto laptop till midnight to study at campus with him every day.
He was a person who helped me to deal with my dire anxiety prior any presentations that I had. If you know me, I am pretty awful on presentation (even until now!). Strange for me that he never had been nervous to speak before people. I wish I could be like him to present anything smoothly without unconscious ‘eeee’ sound while thinking on a stage. Every time I need to do any presentation, I would always try to remember all things he had taught me.
Andra (2017-2019)
Meeting Andra had changed my boring serious personality into fun myself now. I started back to do my hobby in music, arts, museum, and coffee, thanks to this cool kid. The 17 Spotify playlists I made (check my playlists here!) had been influenced by his indie music, Japanese city pop, hiphop and rap, smooth jazz, Brazilian pop, fusion, nostalgic 70-00 Indonesia classics taste. I was introduced to read books as a leisure and it was fun to read in silence at the café or by the shore together.
The most important thing he taught me on decision-wise was to use not only my extreme thinking-logic side, but also my emotion. I forgot that I would work with diverse people (not only with a thinker person like me), so to stand in someone’s shoes would help me to understand the big picture of a problem better.

My three ex boyfriends have influenced my path formidably and I am grateful to have them in my life. Without them, I would not be myself now. I might not be creative enough to find partners (Hendra-Diandra-Andra, what is happening with this rhyme exactly??), but they were the best partners I had in life.

Who changed your life into who you are now? We would like to hear your stories by leaving a comment below!

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