About the Author

Hello! My name is Amalia. I am 24 years old — still young and very much motivated :) . I have been blogging since 2004 — one of the earliest Indonesian bloggers at that time :D . I currently live and study in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, pursuing Masters of Business Information System at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (TU/e).

Background

So far, I’ve lived in 5 different countries scattered in 3 different continents. I was born in the land of Pharaoh, Egypt, and lived there for about 5 years. My family and I then moved to Saudi Arabia just before the first Gulf War began. I grew up and lived in Jeddah, the city known as the Bride of the Red Sea, for more than 10 years. I decided to find some fresh air and be partially independent when I moved to Jakarta, Indonesia for my 3 years of high school. Just when I was about to get to know my home country a little better, I got out of my comfort zone and was literally thrown to Brisbane, Australia. I studied Information Technology at the University of Queensland. It was in Brisbane when I learnt the real meaning of life and slowly transformed from a girl to a woman. After graduating from the university, I decided to spread my wings and left for Europe. So, here I am now, still survived in the flat country which colonized my own home country for 3 centuries. Ooops! :)

Myself

I am a super enthusiastic person. I love to smile and boy, I feel delighted when friends come to me and tell me how my smile has made their day! Even strangers came to me and told me to keep smiling! :D I guess, that’s the simplest gift I could give to other people, right? I promise I’ll keep on doing it! I also love to laugh and I feel so comfortable to be around with people who can make me laugh — trust me, it’s not hard! :)

I’m not an optimistic person. I’ve never been optimistic, seriously. And that somehow makes me succeed. When I feel pessimistic, I tend to do everything much harder than I supposed to do. As a result, I get what I wanted. Most of the time.

One thing I really hate about myself is that: I’m not confident. No matter how many good/bad things people say about me, I still feel the same way. I may look like I’m very confident, but inside my head, there’s a tiny mind that says I’m not capable of doing it. Or I do the wrong thing. Or others are much better than me. And so on. I haven’t had a success in changing this, unfortunately. Or perhaps, I didn’t try that hard.

Interests

I really love traveling! Traveling eases my mind. It allows me to learn about new things in a matter of short time. It opens up my mind. It amazes me, basically. And of course, it’s about having fun and being free. Freedom energizes me.

I love reading books, especially non-fiction ones related to women’s rights, the Middle East & Indonesian affairs, and inspirational people. I admire Queen Rania and Randy Pausch, to name a few. Oh, and I love blogging too! How can I forget that!! :D

If you have any questions regarding anything, feel free to ask or email me.

And of course I want to give credits to the people who have allowed me to use their beautiful works for my blog design.

Other blogs:

  • Project 365 — my attempt in creating a one-post-per-day blog :)
  • Shouts — a collection of interesting quotes I found on the web
  • Geek — a blog about IT and technical related stuff. I barely update this blog, though.