Project #5, Biography

                 I interviewed my cousin Fiona Wiraatmadja because I think that she’s unique. Interviewing your own parents sounds common, don’t you think? Well, cousin Fiona lives on a glamorous lane of life after going through so many things and making decisions on her own. I think of her past jobs and talents, and presumed that she’s the perfect person to be interviewed. Born on October 21, 1986, Jakarta, meant she reached such high accomplishments &n succeeded to make her goals in such a young age.

                “I have 2 siblings,” Fiona said. “I’m the eldest of 3 siblings.” Her brother Ivan is a year & a half younger than her. He’s now starting to step into his dad’s shoes, for he had started working with him as a business partner. Her sister Andrea and herself are 9 years apart, but love never fails to fill such extensive gap. “The most important people in my life are my family. Because without their support I wouldn’t have been where I am today.”

                 The young Fiona is just an ordinary teen with big dreams and fascinating talents. Like what Thomas Edison said, success is made of 1% inspiration and 99% expiration. It figures, she may not be the genius, but she’s never off the top 10 of every grade. She graduated from university on 2007 with a summa cum laude, after completing her double degree in accounting & finance in 3 years, which made her the youngest graduate with such an award. She also came first in the national young pianist competition at the age of 10 and was fortunate enough to have held a few recitals as a young musician. “Fiona is brilliant and very well educated, she works hard to accomplish her goals and is very responsible,” My father, from the perspective of a business partner. “She also has an ability for dealing with stress.”

After graduating from university, Fiona found a job in Merril Lynch bank of London. But due to the recent financial crisis she had to re-evaluate her priorities and decided to leave her job in finance industry to further pursue her passion in culinary arts (2009). “Leaving my job was the most significant and hard experience,” Fiona reported.”It lets me experience and realize that one should never stop believing in his or herself.”

From each of her past workplaces she learned something valuable. Currently, her occupation is as a food writer for Travel & Gourmet magazine. “I write about culinary trends, review restaurants, & anything in between,” the girl explained. “It’s an exciting job as it gives me insight about the industry from different ends of spectrum.” But between her busy schedule, she still makes time and tries to spend more of her life with her family and friends. “My sister’s thoughtful, for she always think about me wherever she goes and ask me whether I need anything all the time, and she’s also bizarrely crazy, because of her wild and loud behavior. She could laugh on her own sometimes, which is funny!” her sister Andrea speaks out. “She’s also lovable because that’s just the way she is.” This proves on how much Fiona loves and cares about her family & tries to spend time with them. So now if I say that she’s a good and sophisticated role model, you know why. A patisserie, a consultant chef, a jewelry line designer, a food writer, and a businesswoman. How cool can she get?




1. I learned how to write well and use more complicated, sophisticated and vivid words. I also learned how to arrange my words & sentences in a logical order. This project also helped me to learn more about my cousin, know her more and stuff. I also learned to write paragraphs with language features.

Project #4 - Alphabiography

B stands for Breathe Again

Breathe Again is a song by Sara Bareilles that I love so much, it’s unforgettable. It reminds me about a forced split, the long sleepless night spent with tears on my covers. It reminds me of how hard I tried to move on after a break up, and how my heart aches, how I tried to let go and get over the pain & sadness that never last. Breathe Again reminds me of a past story that is forgotten already.

C is for Camping

I once had my first & last camping 2 years ago, and it was an awesome experience. Imagine sleeping inside this cold tent while it rains outside, walking in the rain without any umbrellas, not showering for 3 days, wearing my hair in a ponytail that I didn’t untie for 3 whole days, sharing a water bottle with 5 people. Falling into mud, slipping on the rocks when hiking a waterfall, was fun. But only if you did it with Livia, Nadya, Nadia, Grace, and Ashley (:

D stands for Driftwood

The 3 of us were in Reichel’s pink bedroom when she decided to lend me some of her Cathy Cassidy’s books. After she brought some of them Nadia squealed, ”Aha! The girl in this book must be Cherry!” while holding the book Cherry Crush & Scarlett. “And this one must be Scarlett.” And with that, we started to play the guessing the character’s name. “This must be Drift!” Nadia said, holding the book Driftwood. “Or Wood. Ohh I like the name. I think I’m going to write a love story of a girl with the name Drift!” “Nadia, the girl’s name isn’t Drift. Or Wood.” Reichel corrected.

H is for Halloween

Halloween, I must confess, is my second favorite holiday after Christmas. Everyone’s always up to it. Dressing up, trick-or-treating, scaring kids.. The atmosphere is crazy! I do not actually have any traditions of dressing up to go trick-or-treating, but I did, a few times ago. This is a thing that I’ve always longed to try. I had an idea of dressing up as a cat in a hat by Dr Seuss, of Alice in the Wonderland. Ha!

K stands for Kelsey

Kelsey ‘s my best friend, she is glorious, wonderful, fun, lovable, indescribable. We like to watch the Fashion Police together, especially Guess Me from Behind and Starlet or Streetwalker. It’s always fun playing with her, because she got the answers wrong most of the time. And there’s this time when she was telling me a story & was acting a scene, when she pretended to smile to a boy and stared at him. Well the boy happens to look at her that exact moment and smiled back at her! Kelsey was so embarrassed her whole face turned red. Oh I love her so much J

L is for London

Have I ever mentioned how much I love the city of London? Well, boy, do I adore it. I’ve always loved everything about it though I’ve never been there. There’s just something about everything there. The Big Ben, the London Eye, the London Bridge, the double-decker bus, the sidewalk, the phone booths, the Palace, Harrods, the atmosphere. Oh, and the BRITISH ACCENT. I pretty much love everything about London.

M stands for Makeover

I’ve always wanted a makeover. That’s why I had one about last year, when I’m going to seventh grade. I cut my hair shoulder length and perm it. I didn’t dye it, but it looks like I did dye it brown. I took my braces off, so I have rows of neat pearly little white teeth. I also swam, ate, and exercise a lot which made my body look better. I gained weight, height, and confidence.

O is for One Direction

1D is the most epic boyband ever. And they have British accent, which boosts up their hotness. My favorite is Liam Payne, then Niall Horan and Zayn Malik. And I love their songs! Once Kelsey & I went to Marks & Spencer in Senayan City, and One Thing was on. We went crazy, danced, and sang in the middle of the store. Then everyone started to stare, someone even threw a 2000 rupiah money at us. But before we put on our finale the security guard asked us to stop and go.

R stands for Red Velvet Cupcakes

I once had baked red velvet cupcakes with my little sister. It was really fun baking it, though it was very late and we were getting very sleepy. The cupcakes turned out looking like chocolate cupcakes, with deep brown color and we had a hard time explaining to our parents. Well, at least they liked it.

S is for Selena Gomez

Ever imagine anything more important than her? I am such a fangirl every time it comes to her. But seriously, I love her to death. When I was in my elementary school, my nickname was Selena Gomez. People say I look like her or something. I don't really mind being called that. Why should I? They don't call me that anymore in junior high school, but still, my heart belongs to Selena.

T stands for The Clique

This is my favorite movie/book series of all time, written by Lisi Harrison. It's about this group of girls that ruled the school, with lives full of drama. I adore this book. I have been in this situation when I was bullied & I wrote stuff about The Clique in the things I want to learn, and they took it & I ended up being questioned about it. My insides laughed so hard because they actually took it seriously & thought it was real, but I was half scared to death too. So it was kind of a difficult but funny situation.

V is for Vogue

My favorite magazine of all time! ( Well, Teen Vogue, literally ) I've always loved this. Always have, always will. When I grow up, I wanna be a fashion editor of Vogue ( other than hosting the Fashion Police or designing my own fashion line ) so I could go to fashion shows, meet designers, be known, oh the joy. Vogue is a part of one of my biggest dreams.

1. First I wrote a list of all the alphabets and listed all the words that reminded me of something in my life on each letter. Then I circled the most important ones, and wrote a paragraph according to it. I enjoy writing every paragraph I've written, and trust me, all of them are real. At first I wrote long paragraphs, but after I reread them, I took some parts away that exposed too much of my personal things.

2. The 3 objective details I have are about my looks that I've written about in the M paragraph. It's objective because I've written how I changed my appearance and now you could see how I look, and it's what happened after I had the makeover. The 2nd objective detail I had is in the L paragraph about London. It is objective because I described it according to the real details. The 3rd objective detail that I have is in the H paragraph because things like I listed in that paragraph does happen in real life. Now, moving on to the 3 subjective details. The 1st subjective detail I have is in the D paragraph, because you don't know exactly what happened. The 2nd subjective detail I had written is on the K paragraph, when I said all the good things about my best friend it doesn't mean that they're all true, some people might have other opinions. The 3rd subjective detail I have is on the V paragraph. Not all fashion editors in Vogue magazine do all the stuff I listed.

3. I think I did really well in expressing my feelings in writing, and developing characters. I did very bad in answering question number 2. I think the hardest thing was to explain what happened in short sentences, and using rich vocabulary.

Project #3, Bible Story

Genesis 6-7

People down the road look at me like I’m crazy. Well, I don’t blame them. What I’m doing is actually kind of crazy, to be honest. I’m building an ark. Yes, I know it sounds crazy. But whatever God told me to do, I do. No matter how crazy it sounded. “Hey crazy man,” a lady down there yelled at me. “Where’s the rain?” Another asked and both cracked up. I ignored them. I ignored the crowd, everyone who yelled, mocked, or pointed at me when I’m building the ark. At first, my sons thought that I’m crazy too. But after I told them about the whole story, they shut their mouths & helped their father.

Today, were adding finishing touches to the ark, and tomorrow we’re gathering animals to sail them. Sweat dribbled down my chin as I hammered the dented parts of the ark. I watched as people stop & stare at my ark on the top of the mountain. I kept quiet & continued to work.

The day when I had to gather animals come. My wife lent me a hand to gather live stocks and reptiles while my sons gather wild animals with their wives. We went to the forest, the farm, & other places just to gather everything. We took the animals in, just to make themselves feel comfortable. It didn’t take long for them to feel comfortable because my son found a sleeping lion & lioness in a corner. As the rest of the animals get cozy, my family & I started packing the food my wife & daughter-in-laws had prepared for the ark. Barrels of fruits, vegetables, and water have been moved inside.

As we walked through the crowds pushing a cart full of barrels filled with food, people laughed & called us names. One of my daughter in laws’ lower lip trembled & her nose turned pink, her eyes started to fill with tears. I approached her & tapped her shoulder gently, trying to comfort her. “Don’t let a tear fall,” I sad. “You’re doing this because God asked you to do it.” She nodded & gave me a faint smile, and I continued on pushing the cart.

Weeks passed since God asked me to build an ark. People now liked to come closer & take a more detailed look of my ark, then mock me. “Noah, why are you so stupid?” A man asked. “Hey Noah where’s the rain?!” One of the youngsters yelled sarcastically. I can’t help but wonder too, where IS the rain? But I kept calm & answered them, “It’s coming”. And it did. It only drizzled at first, but then the rain got harder and harder, then turning into a storm. “Quick, everyone!” I shouted to my family. “To the ark!” we climbed to the ark with the rest of the animals, then God shut the door for us. I see citizens running out of their house, trying to save themselves from the big flood. Some climbed up the palm trees, some climbed up to the roof, and some just run around screaming. “God! Help me!” they cried, sobbing. An unfamiliar face swam close to my ark, yelling at me, pleading to open the gate. But it was too late, the water washed the person away.

And now we’re here, safe and sound, away from all the danger. We know that God is with us, and He has been keeping us safe. I sat down and watched my family mingling with the animals, teaching the animals funny gestures and feeding them. I feel warmth wrapping my heart and peace in my mind. And that’s when I close my eyes and thank God one more time for everything He gave me.

1. I picked the story of Noah's ark because this is my family's favorite story. I think it's one of the most important story in the bible too, so everyone needs to know this story. I decided to take out the beggining of the story and the end, when they finally found land because I think by taking away sections of the story it will make the audience want to open the bible, find the interesting story and finish reading it.
2. The most difficult thing I need to do was giving the details and stick to the story, because my mind's always wandering and adding untrue things to the story. Like I was going to write that Noah almost opened the door for the person calling him but a giraffe was in the way. Things like these sometimes get in the way of creating a true story.
3. I enjoy writing the story from the character's perspective. This is a fun way of writing the story & understanding it better. Being in the character's shoes instead of ours made us study the story more and feel it deeper.