And This is My Friend.

They say I’m a loner, but the fact is that I often get too shy to speak. Or maybe lacking the topics to talk about, there is no difference anyway. Point is, I am not that good at socializing. So I considered it to be quite a privilege when I was assigned to interview my partner about herself and her daily life. At least I could get to know her better without having to feel the anxiety and embarrassment when I have to do it myself — well, to be honest, at first the interview itself felt slightly awkward, but luckily the ice broke soon and we just laughed it out. Without much ado, let’s get this started.

Her full name is Alya Afifah Baktiar. I prefer to call her Alya, but it seems that my other classmates kind of disagree with me. For some reasons, lately they started to call her by this silly nickname that for her own sake, I am not going to tell you what it is, but it cracks me up every time someone call her by that nickname. She was born on April 11, 2000, which is very astonishing since she looks and behaves more maturely than other people her age. She resides at Panorama block C5, Arcamanik district, and her previous school is 7 Junior High School Bandung. Alya told me that both her mum and dad are both working, and she has an 11-year-old brother that rumour has it likes to commence a swearing-filled conversation with her. Funny and odd at the same time, it is.

Now here is the most amazing thing about her. Usually when someone asks us what our hobbies are, we tend to give answer with the light, fun activities we like to do regularly in our spare time. Normal people would say things like, “I like playing games, watching TVs or movies, reading books, etc.” but instead how this works for the universe that Alya lives in is that all of those are less interesting than doing maths. With the jumbling numbers, stumbling symbols, and everything. And she can, sometimes literally, do the questions in a blink. Since the day I figured this out, I’m always in the dilemma between feeling proud of having such an intelligent chair mate, and miserable because I want to be like her, but I find it difficult to love maths more than I love chocolate cookies. But do not be alarmed, aside from her unusual hobby, Alya also likes to kill her time with reading novels. I can say that her interests in literary is quite sophisticated, with classic novels as one of her favourite preferences in reading. One novel in particular that is her favourite is “The Beginning of Everything” by Robyn Schneider. Maybe one day I should look the novel up and try to read it, because I have never heard it before. Alya’s music taste is rather more girly than mine. With Taylor Swift being her favourite singer, the genre she chooses is, predictably, pop music, and also classical and instrumental music. For the latter I think we can agree on together.

Moving on from her interests, Alya wants to be a surgeon in the future. She targets for a scholarship in medical school in Dusseldorf, Germany, and hopes for an easier accommodation because her cousin lives in there as well. The reason why she chases a scholarship because she feels that the medical education and the chances of having a proper career path in Indonesia is quite difficult. For a plan B, Alya chooses to take the information science techniques in Institut Teknologi Bandung. I think her backup plan is affected by her idol figure to some extent, which is Steve Jobs. She said she likes him for his achievement for magnanimous success despite not having a proper education, which reflects such a hard worker he is.

Well, frankly there are some other cool facts about Alya, but before this turns into a profiling article like the ones they make in the TV series “Criminal Minds”, so I decide to finish this description here. Especially to Alya, forgive me if there are some unpleasant terms or erroneous facts that I inputted here, for this being my chance to add yet another person in my best friend list. I hope that you, the readers, did not doze off while reading this post and enjoy it as much as I am writing it. Thanks!