The Colloquium Project

Seperti yang sudah saya ceritain di posting sebelum ini, salah satu mata kuliah yang saya ambil adalah Colloquium II for ESE. Cuma 1 Credit alias 1 sks, but somehow, it takes a lot of time. But in one way and another, it was actually fun.

Jadi ceritanya, di semester ini, untuk kolokium, kami disuruh memilih salah satu tema tertentu, and then we have to set up a creative project to work on throughout the semester. Sebenernya sih saya agak-agak clueless yaaa… for ‘creativity’ is definitely not my middle name. But yeah, sometimes we just have to do what we got to do!

Untuk semester ini, kami disuruh milih salah satu di antara beberapa tema berikut: Water Resources, Human rights, Biodiversity, Sustainable community, and Food security.

Saya pilih Water resources. Karena kebetulan itu memang minat saya, dan research project saya akan berkutat di kualitas air sih. And this is a team project, so I have three other ESE students as my team mates: Will, Sanoar, and Chris. Iya, saya paling cantik cewek sendiri.

First steps of the project is determining the main issues of our topic. And because the environment is a complex system, we also have to consider how our topic is related to other topics. Jadi salah satu hasil brain storming kami adalah poster sederhana ini. I guess we did quite a nice job, huh :D?

Next, menentukan proyek kami itu apa. Ini nih yang agak sulit. Because when we talk about water, it’s such a HUGE topic. We can talk about the limited availability, poor management, water and human rights, there are so many things that we can talk about water.

But then, we got to a point where we’re all agreed, that despite of the limited availability of water, some people might not really well-informed about how water is used. Not many people understand about the concept of water footprint. Well, we maybe well aware of how much water that we consume directly. Kita sadar aja sih, berapa banyak air yang kita gunakan untuk kita minum secara langsung, atau untuk keperluan lainnya. Then again, have we ever really think about the indirect water consumption? For example, not many people aware that it takes more than 100 litres of water to produce a cup of coffee. Or that one single portion of a beef steak will take 4650 litres of water. Yeah, it is quite shocking to see the amount of water needed to produce things that we consume daily. Here’s an article that gives you an informative graphic of how much water is actually required by our daily consumed stuffs.

We think it would be cool if we create a menu, that not just showing the meal, but also showing the amount of water needed to produce the meal. And be it. That’s the theme of our semester project of the semester: “How much water is your food using?”.

To work on this project is quite challenging. We like the topic, but then again, with our schedule of classes, sometimes it’s just so hard to arrange time to meet up to work on this. And really, Will has been such a great team mate. He always stays positive, and tries to accommodate our opinions. I am just so grateful to have him in my group.

We had to make a proposal about the project, and then present it in front of three faculty members. Besides the presentation, we also had to make a poster, and the posters were displayed when we had a social meetings for ESE students.

One of the things that I really enjoyed about this project, I learned new things. Seriously, before this project, I didn’t really realize about indirect water consumption. Now that I know about it, it changes my perspective.

Oh, dan tentu sajaaaa… si mentor. MHUAHAHAHAHAHA…. Jadi untuk setiap kelompok, dapet Peer-to-peer mentor, alias senior yang dianggap capable untuk membimbing tiap kelompok dalam menyusun proyek yang dikerjain. Daaannnn…. We got Garret as our mentor. WOOOHOOO…

Sumpah si Garett ini asli ganteng banget. Saya sebenernya udah pernah liat dia pas diundang dinner di tempatnya Heather tahun lalu, tapi terus lupa aja sama dia karena gak pernah ketemu lagi. Dan waktu diumumkan bahwa tiap kelompok akan dapat mentor, and then he came to our table and introduced himself…saya….langsung bengong. Aaaaaahhh…..

Anyway, mungkin saking takjubnya saya, pas dia menyebutkan namanya, entah kenapa saya kok denger namanya itu Greg ya, bukannya Garett. Jadi waktu ketemuan lagi sama kelompok saya, dan mereka ngomong soal sending our work to Garett to have his feedback, saya dengan polosnya ngomong, “What? His name is Garett? I thought his name was Greg.”. Dan lucunya, habis itu kita mulai nyebut dia dengan berbagai macam nama berawalan G: Gerald, Gerard, George, Gavin, Gab, Glenn, etc. Sampai akhirnya kita end up by calling him : “G-Man”.

Dan tentu saja saya dengan ke-ratudramaan- saya, jadi langsung salting sendiri kalo si Garett ini lagi ketemuan sama kita. Tiba-tiba aja saya jadi pendiem. Mehehehehehe… sampe-sampe pernah Chris nanya, “Are you okay? You’ve been so quiet today…”.

Sekali-kalinya saya emosional di depan Garett, adalah waktu kami lagi kerja kelompok di kantornya Sanoar, dan saya sambil ngikutin pertandingan antara Chelsea vs Atletico Madrid lewat Twitter. Chelsea lost the game, Dan saya jadi galak ke semua orang. Halah.

Waktu poster presentation, we had a group picture (minus Chris who had to work on that day). Dan lihatlah betapa sumringahnya senyum saya di foto ituuuu… :D.

Garett - saya - Will - Sanoar

Anyway, it was such a pleasure to work with you guys :).