I Was Voted

Jadi mari memulai postingan kali ini dengan mengingatkan one simple little fact about me, that I am a lecturer. Iya, saya ini dosen. Satu fakta yang kayaknya ibu saya juga masih agak gak percaya bahwa anaknya yang kalo udah di rumah ini cinta banget sama tempat tidur ini ternyata dosen.

It’s not that I don’t like my job. In fact, I really do like my job. I chose to be in this field. Mungkin karena sifat bawaan sebagai anak sulung yang penuh tanggung jawab dan menjadi suri tauladan yang baik, saya suka ngajar. Diawali dengan kelakuan yang agak bossy waktu SD dulu, I ended up here. Tapi bener, saya suka mengajar. Salah satu kebahagiaan saya adalah ngeliat tampang mahasiswa yang akhirnya terlihat cerah begitu mereka kelihatannya ngerti tentang suatu hal yang saya jelaskan. Plus wajah frustrasi mereka kalo liat soal UTS atau UAS yang saya berikan.

Anyway, sebagai seseorang yang gracefully mysterious, walopun suka mengajar, saya paling tidak suka kalo harus bicara di depan umum. I. just.dislike.doing public speaking. Tiap kali pertama kali ngajar, saya pasti yang dengan noraknya deg-degan dulu. Kemudian, kalo dibandingkan temen-temen yang lain, saya bisa dimasukkan sebagai golongan dosen paling khilaf. I have this short attention span, jadi yang suka tiba-tiba nyeletuk gak penting pas lagi ngasih kuliah. Atau ngasih komentar yang gak jelas apa hubungannya dengan materi kuliah. Atau dengan garingnya throwing out jokes at the class. Saya mungkin satu-satunya dosen yang moodnya sangat dipengaruhi hasil pertandingan bola. Yang wallpapernya bikin satu kelas pada ngeledekin. Yang dengan isengnya memasukkan soal tentang EURO waktu UAS.

To cut it short, I am not sure that I am a good lecturer. I am trying hard to be one, but I am not sure that I am even near to be a good lecturer.

Still, (seperti biasanya) Tuhan punya cara, untuk membuat semangat saya bangkit lagi. So, my faculty had this idea of having this polling on most favorite staff and most favorite lecturer. Waktu dapet form untuk nge-vote, saya ketawa. I already had some names that I would vote for as favorite lecturer, as there are some of my colleagues that I really have respect to. Formnya gak cuma dibagiin ke dosen sih, ke mahasiswa juga. But then, saya gak sempet kutan nge-vote, karena sakit cacar (iya, cacar. At this age. Don’t ask. Just…don’t ask…).

And so, the result were announced.

To my surprise, I got the second position.

Iya. Saya. Saya, si dosen khilaf yang ngepens sama Febri Idol. Yang eksis abis di Twitter. Yang fangirling over David Silva. Yang ngajar dengan wajah cerah ceria waktu Real Madrid menang El Clasico.

Some of the students actually voted for me as favorite lecturer. And the number of those who voted for me was enough to put me at the second position.

Can I cry now?

me and my stupid awkward smile waktu pembagian sertifikat.
Yang di kiri Pak Anwar yg Juara I Favorit, di  kanan Bu Thresye yg juara III Favorit

Alhamdulillah :”).

Saya gak pernah terbayang, apalagi berharap bahwa saya bakal dapet predikat semacam ini. Kalo dosen tercerewet atau terkejam atau ter-moody, mungkin masih wajar ya… *sadar diri*

So yeah. When I was told about the result, it took me about 10 minutes before the fact really sank to my sense. So I looked up to the sky and smiled and thank God. To show me, that maybe hey, I’m not so bad at all in doing this job.

Thank you my students. I never really tell you about this, but I love you all. And you are among the ultimate reason for me to hang on with the job.

The next thing about being nominated, was about me and my writings. As once I have said here, saya dengan isengnya nulis football fanfic. Not really sure whether it’s good enough or not. Hey, some of my stories got almos NO notes at all. But still, as I enjoyed writing the stories, I kept on writing them.

But then, this site was helding this award-thing.

And look what I found in my inbox a few days ago:

Haha. Yeah, that was my fics.

So the nominations were not assessed in the basis of how many people read them or voted them. There are a couple of people who actually read them and scored the stories based on some criteria. And so, my fics were not that bad after all that they got nominated.

The site also ran a polling about the fics. The last time they posted the polling result, “Like the Way it Should Be” was in the last place of the polling. But what came to my surprise was that there were some people voting for it. Like, seriously? There are people who actually read it and voted for it? Oh, wow. I thought that I would got no vote, or maybe 2-3 votes at best. So, even though it was still  at the last place, still, I had this excited feeling about it. And “The One that Feels Right” also was voted by some people. Again, WOW.

Haha. Maybe I am not that bad. And this gives me another reason to keep on practicing my writings :).

Thanks Shaira, to run the award. Thank you Mika and other girls, who let me submit my works on their site. Thank you to all those people who clicked the “like” button on the page of my stories. Thank you to all those readers. And thank you to those who voted.

You have no idea how much it means to me :)

Cheers!

= Ami =