By looking at the title above, you presumably assume that what I am going to write here is something ‘heavy’ or very academic matter. But I should tell you that it’s not so. Here I just wanna share my recent routine during a month: Comprehensive exam preparation.

Before graduating in my univ, every student should pass this compre exam minimal with C grade. Yet do not think that C is easily obtained. You need to extra-power to learn every night. Maybe you need to sleep while reading those tight text-books. Based on experience, on average student take this exams twice or more to pass it. Doesn’t it sound so horrible? Hihhihihihi (ketawa ala Mak Lampir)

What I am doing right now in my preparation is maybe like the others who already join this test. Every day, every hour, and every night I always strive to read the books. Sampe eneg nih baca bukunya terus!!! Even I always have a dream about compre exam. Really!!!

I always try to understand every concept in accounting, to answer the previous exam questions, and to expand my knowledge about accounting. It really makes me stressful somehow. Fortunately there is facebook that sometime I open when I lose my mood to read the books.

Yup, facebook is fairly helpful. I can sight in my status that I am stressed or overload information. Even my friend deliberately put her rote (hapalan) in her facebook status..kwkwkwkw :D (Herni kuwi!!) I don’t what what’s happening exactly; maybe it’s just kind of stressful expression upon compre exam. Hehehhe… Also in facebook, I always put comment or chat with my friend by writing “What is Auditing??” it’s classical question and classical effect of compre exam. LoL

Another routine is compre study club. I always study together with my friends (Yusna, Rendha, Herni, Chika, Mb Sandra) who will take the exam this month together with me. Exactly studying while curhat, sharing all the fears and bad imaginations. Thank to Titi for supervising me when we had dinner (dinner while cerdas cermat, hahahaha).

Now, 12 days to go. Though the exact date hasn’t announced yet, but it may be on November 20, 2009. Closer to the exam date, more nervous that I feel, and more lazy I am. Honestly, I am bored to read it all again and again every day. My brain seems very full and in a minute will explode (sedikit lebay).

And all kind of imaginations are created in my mind. I imagine Mr.HK says “no..no…it’s not the answer. Don’t make a story!!” I imagine that I will get killer examiners which are Mr. AB, Mr. SH, etc….(I hope not) but it's oke if it so as long as I pass the exam though.

Huuuuufff ampuun DJ….all fear into one!

Sumpah Pemuda

Today Indonesia commemorate The 1928 Youth Pledge day, the day where Indonesian youth before Indonesian independence gathered and declared the pledge. As stated above, the pledge stated that Indonesian youth acknowledge one motherland, one nation, and respect the language of unity, Indonesia.

I proudly say that I am really proud being an Indonesian - trillion of reasons if you want to know why. However, recently some friends of mine question my nationalism as Indonesian. They assume that I am not proud being Indonesian since I always write my facebook status in English and I also have blog with all English articles.

Here I would like to spell out that using English with nationalism is not related to each other. Nationalism cannot be seen only from one perspective. It’s not justifiable if people judge me not nationalist just because I write down my facebook status in English or just because I put English article on my blog. That’s not fair at all I bet.

I write my status in English since I also have non-Indonesian friends who are interested to comment my status and I note down my blog articles in English as I want to improve my writing skill in English. By using English in my blog, it means that I will let everybody know about my idea in my article, not only my Indonesian friends. English is global language that must be understandable for all people.

So does it matter when I write in English? Since I was elementary school at four grades, my teacher already taught me English and nowadays, I have to deal with English in my univ for whole days in my classes.

Though I use English, I still remember Bahasa Indonesia well and even can speak it well in my daily life. Though I write my status on facebook in English, yet it means “I am proud to be an Indonesian”. Though I write this article in English, yet I write more article using Bahasa Indonesia. And though I always sing English songs, but I can still sing well Indonesian anthem, Indonesia Raya. You wanna listen?

Frankly saying, I am not that proud if I can speak or write English article. I am more proud if I can speak my traditional language –Bugis and Makassar language. I am more proud to my friends who still speak Javanese in their daily life. At present, English is something usual or common. Almost all the people can understand it.

If the people still judge me so, how can they judge my teachers and lecturers who teach me English? I do hope they don’t judge them not nationalist just because they teach Indonesian youth English.

Bravo Indonesia, Bravo Indonesian Youth, and Have Youth Pledge day.

Once you’ve read the title above, you might think that I am in love to someone (though you will question, boy or girl?) LoL xD

What I am going to tell you here is my accidental love to photography. Before, I used to be captured by someone’s camera (bo’ong bangeeet!!) but now I like to snap somebody else with my mini pocket camera.

Actually I like all kinds of art; painting, song, dance, photography, etc. I bet I have art soul, flow with my blood in my body. I will not say that I am good in arts, yet I will say that I can make beautiful arts; including in photography (at least it’s good in my point of view).

The accident was begun in Sultan Palace Jogjakarta when I went there with my ex-schoolmate in Makassar. His name is Abadi Riangga. For many times I took his picture as if I were a professional photographer. Probably because he is good in modeling, so the accident happened smoothly. Also, he was quite cooperative to act as I wanted. I really felt that I am photographer though I only used my pocket camera, yet the results are not disappointed. You can judge them below:

After the accident, I myself realized that I am in love with photography. But I am not sure whether it is eternal love or just temporary love. Sometime I find myself as “hot-hot chicken shit” (panas2 tahi ayam, LoL), just like something for a while.

Now I dream of a sophisticated camera, like DSLR camera. I think it will make snapshoot better than just relay on photoshop old version. It’s a bit ashamed when I go to somewhere to take a picture and I spend much time just to have good photograph in one spot with different style to get nice angle with my pocket camera while the other people use DSLR camera. It looks excessive or lebay, doesn’t it? Occasionally, I find other people was snickering behind my back :P

However, to have DSLR camera I need to make efficiency in my monthly budget. Yet first, let’s see later whether this love will be everlasting or not.

This short story below was submitted for a short story competition in 2007/2008 about Climate Change.

After working for environmental project, we moved to our project with children in prostitution area. Everything was different, not only the theme of the project, but also the campsite (of course), the circumstance, the weather, and the experience.

I take those three words in the title to describe the second project in this work camp; children, prostitutes, and animal.

I put children in the first order is because our project mainly focus on children in prostitution area. Almost every day we do activity with children. One of the aims of this project is to give a space for children in prostitution area to play with their fellow children and to shift their mind for a while from their original environment to their real environment. The children in that area are living in the prostitution area with the condition where a lot of things that they are not supposed to see. For instance: alcohol, sexy prostitutes with beer and cigarette, sex transaction, etc. That is why we came there to play with them, gave them education through games, and taught them making handicraft. Besides, we also made badminton competition to encourage them to sharpen their brilliant skill in badminton.

Frankly saying, the children there are a bit naughty and “wild”. It was so hard to organize them. We had to prepare layers of plans since our first plan sometime did not work due to their very active reactions. However, it was really nice, somehow, to see their smile and laugh when they run and mess up our program. They seemed very free and found their real childhood with their friends. So nice!

Prostitution can also depict this second project since we were working in the prostitution area though we did not really get in touch with them. However, we had one activity with them which was aerobic. Aerobic is actually their regular activity held in every Friday morning. Fortunately at that time we had occasion to do aerobic with them. In the first very beginning we also led the aerobic before the real aerobics instructor came.

Nearby our campsite, approximately 2 km from the prostitution area, we had very active village youngster. They are used to ask us to involve in their activity in that village. Therefore, some days we could realize some activities with the local youth, such as campaign on drugs, cooking exchange (again we cooked hutspot), self defense training, jogging in the morning, etc. It was very interesting to work with them.

Other story from our campsite is about animal. Why do I say so? It is because during our stay there, we found a lot of animal which made the Dutch volunteers very surprised. Actually it was not that much though!!!

First, in our home we had a cat, but in early in the morning there were two cats. Second, we had a little bird of Momo that is found by our host (and finally it flew away) Third, we had two little ducks of Toto that he bought in the traditional market. And the last we had a very big spider behind the cupboard that surprised everybody in the night before we sleep.

The cats used to fighting early in the morning on the roof and suddenly one day they were falling down to the room where Anja, Selmar, Jorine, and Madelon sleeping. Unexpectedly, one of these cats scratched Anja’s finger on her foot. Abruptly, it became very worry day since she was afraid of rabies virus brought by the cat.

The spider also gives us another hectic story. We were supposed to sleep at that night. However there was a big spider under the cupboard in the place where Indonesian volunteers sleeping. Everybody was very curious to see the spider therefore everybody was awake and gathered in Indonesian corner to witness the spider. Anja was the hero at that night. She finally could catch that spider though she failed before.

Somehow, it gives new experience for Indonesian too to deal with that kind of animal even though we get use to it actually. But it was fun, anyway, to be surprised of animals, and to be hectic with the children!!

“Clean the world; make a better place for you and for me and the entire human race. There are people littering. If you care enough for environment, make a better place for you and for me….”

Awareness of Indonesian people to throw the rubbish into the garbage bin is still too low. A view of abundance of rubbish in a certain place is common here. That’s ashamed indeed!

That is why the idea of organizing a work camp in Gedong Songo Temple was raised; moreover Gedong Songo Temple is one of famous touristic places in Central Java.

The first project of BWC IIWC and SIW took place in that area with the project of environment. We, twenty one volunteers from Holland and Indonesia, worked together to make betterment in that area.

What we did maybe is not something sophisticated. We just had awareness, care, and willingness. People may see our project as a simple plan, yet actually it contributes more that they think.

In the beginning of our work there, we started to clean the area of the temple by taking the rubbish and put it in the plastic bag. To attract more attention of the visitors, we put environmental signs written on the paper on our body. It was quite effective since the Dutch volunteers did not need to speak Bahasa Indonesia to warn the visitors to clean the environment. Most of the visitor just smiled or laughed when they saw us. Even some people asked to take picture together with us (not us…just Dutch volunteers, haahw)

Having cleaning the temple area, painting and placing the garbage bins was the next agenda. We painted about 25 garbage bins with our own design. It did not really look nice though!!!! But the function is more than its pattern, so it’s OK! Then, we put them in surrounding the temple by using cement.

Besides physical work, we also had done campaign about environment. We visited the elementary school to disseminate the idea of environmental sustainability, to plant trees together, and to hold drawing competition regarding environment.

The other activities are meeting with local government, market day, and cooking with local mother. Meeting with local governments was held in Balai Dusun (village office). As usual, we met a lot of leaders and listened to their long speech that contains welcoming speech, apologize, and bla-bla-bla…. D

Afterwards, we had occasion to visit the traditional market. We went there by opened-cap car (is It correct spelling?) while sang loudly. For me it seemed like a parade of football champion, yeyeyey :D

In closing, we held environmental campaign on the stage in the Gedong Songo Temple. We performed drama about environment in Bahasa Indonesia with the actors: Mark as Paijo, Sander as a garbage, Lovi as an angle, Bas and Toto as the devils, and Dwi as a narrator. Also, we had environmental dancing (Jourine, Gangga, Janine, Tabitha, Madelon, and Floor who supposed to be there). Apart from that all we presented fashion show and song. We made our own costume from plastic, paper, and other recycle materials. Through this fashion garbage show, we’d like to demonstrate that garbage is not merely useless, but it also has plus point if it can be recycled.

***

Staying in Gedong Songo is so peaceful and enjoyable. You will feel like you are bestead by such beautiful nature ad scenery. When you are there, you’ll find yourself standing as high as other volcanoes and mountains. As if you can reach the sky. Also, you’ll ascertain cold fresh air, cold water, cool people, and large multifunction public bathroom where you can find out half-naked mothers and really naked old men taking a bath. Freezing in the night with loud snore as a melody to sleep used to convoy us to sleep. Small narrow home really make us close to each other :D