Building Civilizations on Primitive Planets
1. Zaynal Abideen's

I am Zaynal Abideen, a Physical Engineering Scientist, born in 1994 and now living almost a kara at Princeton University, America. I'm here on an adventure with my true friend Udin from Indonesia. The adventure that just became exciting, after my graduation and Udin from the S2 and S3 Program in Princeton, New Jersey.

My adventure began after my graduation from one of the high schools in my hometown of Palmyra, Syria in 2012. You guys just call me Zayn.

It was in late July 2012, months after demonstrations began to develop over the decades-long discontent of President Assad's family leadership, bringing my adventure began with a bold determination to take language courses for foreigners at one of the private universities in Indonesia in Malang and then the following year studying at strata S1 in the Department Engineering Physics at a campus in Surabaya. Oh yes, my education is completely free, I accessed KNB (Developing State Partnership) scholarship by applying with all the requirements at KBRI Damascus soon after my graduation from High School.

My adventure partner is Udin, you can get to know him better in the chapter after this. Udin was a big orphan in an orphanage in West Java. Both of his parents, whose origins are unclear, died in an accident in the village of Demon, Subang 2 months after his birth in 1995 and left him a kara.

I got to know Udin in 2013 because he was a landlady or a hostess in the same boarding house as me. Although it is still one campus with me, but he is a Chemical Engineering student. Udin is an Enthusiast Chemistry, maybe you could call him a geek in that field.

Why go to Princeton? When the Syrian crisis began to spill over into Palmyra in 2015 and the destruction of ISIS began at ancient sites in our city, my family began to flee to Turkey that same year. In early 2017 my mother's father and uncle's family were granted asylum to move to America, so I dreamt of continuing my studies to the best campus in America. Of course I invite Udin who is also still confused about his future.

You need to know, my late grandfather when it was easy to be a security at the American Embassy in Damascus so that his children and his family can get asylum to continue living and reaching the American Dream.

Afternoon in July my dark story began, on the way to Juanda Airport with Udin above an orange taxi that was still rife in Surabaya, I got a funeral call from Turkey. My entire family that was supposed to be going to America next month was systematically killed by ISIS, which was messing up in a refugee camp. They were killed for being perceived as American spies and minions. The second after the sad news made my life no longer mean the same thing and finally my life was just crazy about Physics and nothing else. But this is where it all started. An unexpected adventure with Udin gets lost to a distant planet with a primitive civilization.