About Me

I was born on 5 October 2002 in East Jakarta, but my mother and I moved to Bandar Lampung eight months later. I stayed there through kindergarten and the first two years of elementary school, but family problems forced us to move to a secluded village in Pringsewu. I was not accustomed to the terrible living conditions in the area and fell terribly ill, so we moved back to Bandar Lampung within two years. We did not stay in Bandar Lampung for long either, as circumstances brought us to Bali, where I finished my elementary school close to where I lived at the time.

My mother sent me to a Catholic junior high school in Denpasar which required a 2-hour bus commute every day, dangerously crossing the 6-lane motorway every day to catch the bus stop back home. I was fortunate to not have been hit, but there were many close calls. We compromised and chose a Catholic high school within the Ngurah Rai Airport area, and fortunately I got along better with the students there and we graduated together on June 2019. A few months prior, I had been aiming for the MEXT scholarship and made the proper application. I participated in the written test with only one other contestant, but fortunately I made it through to the interview at the Japanese Embassy in Central Jakarta. I met several contestants from other areas of the country, all with the same mission, and we quickly became friends.

As the scholarship announcement will be later in December, I continued with my university studies as a Mathematics major at Yogyakarta National University in Yogyakarta. I did not stay there for long since I received that fateful announcement in December, and I dropped out of YNU in favor of the scholarship. We were supposed to attend a send-off ceremony at the Japanese Embassy the following February, but unfortunately COVID-19 reared its ugly head and wreaked havoc on any and all plans. The send-off ceremony was cancelled, and the scheduled departure to Japan in late March was suspended until further notice. I spent the accidental gap year studying and swimming in the nearby pool until my departure arrangement was set on 11 September 2020.

I arrived at the barren Narita Airport the following morning, and after an arduous immigration process we were headed to the nearby hotel to quarantine for two weeks. After the quarantine period, we headed towards our language school in Shinjuku, as we continued where we left off from the online studies held since April 2020. We stayed there for half a year, as we were assigned to various National Institute of Technology Colleges. I was assigned to the Hakodate College in Hokkaido where I live and study now.