Thursday, August 16, 2012

Happy Birthday Indonesia !!!!!

  I, as a proud citizen of Indonesia, am here to congratulate my beloved country on its 67th birthday. 67 years ago, we fought for our independence, seeking for freedom and to stand on our own. Through blood, sweat, and a planned kidnapping of our first president and his vice, we earned our freedom.
  67 years ago, our first president stood in front of his house and read the proclamation of our independence. The proclamation was a declaration, a decleration of  Indonesia's freedom. It was also a promise to our citizens. It promised that we would no longer be under the hand of other countries. We will be independent, standing alone yet together.
  Years and years we thirst for our independence. 67 years ago finally got it. The people back then had fought just for us, the future generations, so that we can enjoy Indonesia as an independent country. But independence is not the end of it, our country needs to grow and develop. Our people must unite, just like our motto ; Bhineka Tunggal Ika. It means that even though we are all different, we are one. Are we, the future generations, ready to carry on the legacy of our country? Have we citizens apply Pancasila in our lives? I am still very young and still short of knowledge, but I strongly believe that we have not.
 Our first principle, Believe in the one and only God. To me, this principle also means that we must appreciate other people's religion that are different from ours. We must not force people that has different beliefs to believe in the God that we trust. And yet, many church in Indonesia are still burned down by people who held different religions. Many people are still discriminated because they hold different beliefs.
  Our second principle; Just and civilized humanity. Our citizens violated this principle almost every time. As a child from a middle-class family, I lived peacefully and did not get to experience the harsh side of this country (thankfully), yet I've heard and read about poor people not getting rights they deserve because they don't have the money. For example, crime department in this country seldom bother to catch the killers of the poor people in this country who died because of murder. Learning this fact about my country made me realize how cruel this country could be. I've always thought of our crime department are like those seen in movies, trying their best to catch the killers of the murdered victims in their country. But in reality, our crime department ain't Horatio and his crew.
 Our third principle, The unity of Indonesia. This principle is clearly written down and read to us during flag ceremonies, yet sometimes we completely ignore it. We still diffrentiate people by their race, their skin color, their culture, and many other "criterias". People held wars just because of this issue. Like for example Perang Sampit. Citizens of Indonesia in Kalimantan killed each other because of their different ethnicity. They chopped off the heads of their enemies and lay them out on their front yard with pride, forgetting that those severed heads belong to their own brothers and sisters. Is that what we call unity?
    These are only a bit of deeds that had violated Pancasila, and believe me, there's so much more. I conclude that citizens of Indonesia knows the principles of Pancasila, but they don't bother applying them in their daily lives. I hope that in Indo's future's birthdays, our citizens will try their best to apply Pancasila's principles. Nevertheless, I am still proud of my beloved country, and I would like to congratulate her on her 67th birthday. I love you Indonesia :) MERDEKA!

Just Something I Wanna Share

      On August 15, my school's student council had a meeting held in school. The plan was to discuss about a proposal (not a marriage proposal that is). Well something occurred and we couldn't get into the student council office, so we called Ms Ira (our adviser and my former biology teacher) to unlock the room. Long story short, she opened the door and *voila*, the office was in a huge mess. Everything was scattered around the petite room, and we found things that shouldn't belong there like clothes, toys, books, and a lightsaber. Ms.Ira was not pleased (I mean, who would?) by the mess, and she asked us to clean the place up and organize the things. Ms.Ira said that the stuff would be going for donation. We lifted box after box outside and collected the scattered items. That's when Joan, Putrie, Nadia, and I "discovered" the hidden truth; most of the stuff we found aren't bad at all..
 cute bags Joan and I found.
 Sorry for the inappropriate language ^^"
 Too bad it's not my size :P
   whatever this item is, i like it :)

Oh I almost forgot! Outside the office, we found a weird green monster puppet, and Joan said that it looks like Putrie.
    
the green puppet-like thing. I didn't see the resemblance, back then..
now i see it :'D

As we organized the jumbled mess, we found more and more adorable stuff. These stuff we add to our wish list.

 This is definitely going in joan's wish list
 some cute tops we found..
hehehehhhee..
     Most of the clothes we found were shared among us, taking turns using it and paying a quarter of the price that it should have been. It was all a good bargain and we were very satisfied.

 Nevertheless, they were second-handed items and not all of them are nice. Some of them are horrible, and to the donation box they will go!
 we found this weird power-puff girls apron-like thing.Ms.Ira told us that those stuff are beach outfits.
 Not all of them are bad, joan's keeping the suspenders and i liked the vest..

           This made my dad laughed so hard, but spending much time with ravelto made me immune  to his hilarious-ness.

We found clothes in a hopeless place~

Conclusion: Project get awesome second-handed stuff with a good bargain accomplished.

Don't Look Back part 2

  My hurting legs wouldn't bear it anymore. My knees were weak, my shoulders sagged and I sank to the ground, my pale green eyes lifeless. I kneeled on a puddle of mud,my brand new pale gray jeans soaking up the brown liquid. The wind howled, and I felt my spine tingle as the wind blew past my frail kneeling body. I curled my body up, seeking warmth from what's left of my cold flesh. I curled there, immobile, and I took the time to observe my appearance. My black peacoat was damp and splattered with mud. My brown leather boots were scraped and also covered in mud. My hands were scraped and blood was escaping from my pale skin. I quickly covered the scar with my scarf, and I pushed back strands of my ice blond hair away from my face. My brain ordered my hands to retie my hair into a ponytail, but my bony fingers wouldn't do as it was told. I was still in shock, and now all my energy had been drained away from my body. In thirteen years of my existence, I had never been this tired.
    It was the first time I noticed my surroundings. The maple trees that surrounds the scenery were starting to change the colors of their leaves, making the trees looked candy-coated. An empty bench sat next to an old maple tree, its armrests rusty but still strong. There was an empty playground that was surrounded by more trees. A sign next to a lamp post said "Hunchberry Park".
    I knew this park well. I used to go there with my father when I was young. I grimaced at the thought, but found that I couldn't resist thinking about it. I remembered my father, his strong features and kind ocean blue eyes, his strong hands pushing my back gently, rocking the swing I was sitting at. I was 3 at that time, and it was in the middle of spring. It was a lovely day, the sun was high up in the sky, white fluffy clouds drifting in the caribbean blue sky. I giggled as the swing flew high up in the warm air, and I could also hear my father laughing with me. It seemed like minutes, although we had been playing in the park for hours, and the blue sky started to change its hue. My dad told me that it's time to go home, but I objected so we played again for an hour. We both laid down on the picnic mat my dad had laid out and watched the the clouds drifting in the pink sky.
"Addie, what does that look like to you?" asked my dad, pointing to a cloud. "Addie" was a nickname he made for me. My real name was Astrid, and I still wonder how he got the name "Addie".
"Bird," I answered in my laconic toddler language. He brushed back my smooth baby hair away from my chubby face and smiled at me, his eyes twinkling.
"Yes, that's right," he said, tweaking my chin. He locked his eyes with mine, and I remembered with perfect clarity the traces of sadness in his eyes. I didn't understand why he looked sad, so I asked him.
"Daddy, why are you sad?" I asked. He smiled, smoothing his short dark brown hair.
"Why would I be sad? I have you don't I?" he said, as he rised up from the ground, towering over me. He lifted me up with his arm, and lifted the basket and mat with the other. My father was a tall and sturdy man, but a very kind man inside.
"Yes. I have you too, and I'm happy," I replied cheerily, encircling my chubby arms around his neck. I fell asleep during the long drive back home. I didn't understand back then, but now as I grew older I learned that the reason behind his sadness that day was because of my mother. I never knew my mother, and my father barely told me anything about her. I assumed that she must have died when I was born, a typical cause of death. But I always wonder who my mother was. All I knew was that her name was Melissa Hood and she was 2 years younger than dad.
  My father and I lived alone in 23rd Street. My father never hired a nanny for me. Instead, we have Jane Aramis, our neighbour, who would gladly take care of me without payment. Jane was a young and lovely woman with locks of coffee colored hair and gray eyes, and she was married to a young lawyer named Kevin. They did not have children even though they desperately wanted one.
  I never knew anything about my father's occupation, and whenever I brought the topic up he would divert the conversation. It was curious, but I never seemed to mind. Until today, early in the morning when the fire ruined everything, including my father. Now I wished to know everything that my father hides.




Tuesday, August 14, 2012

my alphabet..

A is for Avengers

B is for bitch, please!

C is for Coldplay

D is for Dexter

E is for Eddie Murphy

F is for friendship


G is for graffiti

H is for Hunger Games and Harry Shum Jr

I is for Iron Man

J is for jell-o


K is for Kinder Bueno

L is for Lorax


M is for music and mysterious benedict society

N is for Nigahiga

O is for Oreos

P is for Plaid

Q is for quotes

R is for rainy days



S is for Strawberry Swing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb9X5jMofEo and sherlock holmes

T is for totoro

U is for umbrellas

V is for vintage

W is for World Scholar's Cup :)

X is for Xmen

Y is for YLANEV (joan, vena, cheryl )

Z is for baZinga




Thursday, August 2, 2012

Just another dream..

Dreams. Dreams are confusing, and most of the time whimsical. Some dreams you forget, some just sticks in your head.
  I had a dream. I was walking in the garden of my old house, when suddenly the earth beneath my feet cracked open and it literally swallowed me whole. I fell down, down, down into the gap. But the peculiar thing was; I was falling slowly. As I fall down I heard a tune. A tune so familiar yet unrecognizable. 
  I fell to the earthen floor with a thud. I looked around, and found nothing. The ceiling suddenly changed its color from dark brown to caribbean blue. What once was a ceiling became a large group of tiny bluebirds, flying towards me in an orderly manner. It carried me, high up into the hazy pink afternoon sky. 
  I heard the tune again, but this time, it sounded like it's coming from a music box. The bluebirds seemed to explode into a burst of colorful confettis, decorating the sky. And yet again I fell down, and out of nowhere an umbrella appeared in my hand. I opened it, and I floated in the sky, and gently dropped down to the ground below. I found myself in a beautiful yet whimsical garden. The grass was a soft shade of magenta and the trees were peppered with what looked like vermillion watering cans. Under the shade of a brightly colored turquoise tree was a simple wooden swing hung to the branches with ropes. Grape vines grew around the rope, twisting and circling around it. I approached the swing. As I did, the tune grew louder and clearer, and when I sat on the swing, the tune turned back into a hushed lullaby. Curious, I started to look around to find the source of this tune. I walked and walked, until I found a gigantic bird's nest. I seemed to have lost my conscience for I idiotically climbed into the ominous looking nest. The tune grew louder, and I finally found the source of the music. A lady, with ice blond hair that was tied into an ornate hairdo, eyes blue and sparkling under the afternoon sun, and very light porcelain skin in a dainty baby blue satin dress was carrying an orb made out of clear glass. She seemed to be floating down in a pink tuft of cloud, carrying the orb which was the source of the tune. 
    It was strange that I did not feel scared, even though in reality if a strange woman floating on a cloud approach me I would probably freak out and throw my shoe at her. Instead I felt relaxed, as if I was floating on a cloud myself. The lullaby soothed me as it traveled from the orb into my ears. It encircled me, and it seemed to lift me up into the air. Up into the moon I went, climbing up the satellites as if they were a staircase to the moon. I stepped on the moon.  It was very different from the moon that really exists. Its surface was glowing a soft shade of yellow. Its surface was smooth and polished. Slowly, deliberately, I walked around the moon. I found an oddly shaped chair made out of wood, and I sat on it as I watched the universe beyond. I spotted a sailing ship which seemed to be floating in the starlit sky. There were two occupants of the ship, and one of them waved at me. I waved back, and the shipped sailed towards me. As the ship came closer, I found that the occupants were a boy and an old man. They offered me a ride so I took it, and we sailed into the mysterious yet lovely sky of the universe. The tune came again. It faded as the ship and sky  do so as well. Then I woke up, and the dream was over. The lullaby. It sounded so familiar, and I knew that if I look hard enough  I might find it. So I did, and this was the lullaby:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&list=PL48B6249F2707D5FF&v=O84CCjrcmR8

close your eyes as you listen to this, and empty your mind. 
Dream away, no one's stopping you..
  

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

WSC!! Jakarta oh Jakarta.. Part 1

     It stands for the World's Scholar's cup. Believe it or not folks, i joined this competition even though I have the brain capacity of half an actual scholar. The World Scholar's Cup is an international tournament consisting of three rounds; the regional rounds, the global rounds, and the final rounds. It all begins when a certain english teacher named Mr Jim came to 7B (my homeroom class), and talked to me about the tournament. He brought a brochure with him, and as I flip through the glossy pages of the brochure, I could only think of two things; 1,"what's with all the pictures of alpacas printed in this brochure?", and the second thought was; wow, I'm not qualified for this. My bestfriend Amanda, was of course, more than qualified to join this tournament. "Wow, that sounds fun. A scholar's bowl, a multiple choice test, debate rounds, and a writing competition all in one," Amanda said as she flipped through the brochure. I, on the other hand, was trying to slip away and buy some food in the cafeteria, but Mr.Jim kept on insisting my consideration. "Of course I'll consider it! It sounds so exciting," I said, faking the excitement.
    Yea, maybe I'll tell my parents about it, I thought, but me joining a tournament for scholars? I doubted it. Despite what they say about asians, I am not a genius despite my chinese blood. Nevertheless, I told my parents about the tournament and they said I should join if I want to. The next day, Amanda asked me about the competition. "What did your parents say, Cher?" she asked. "um.. They approved, but only if I want to," I replied half-heartedly. Amanda persuaded me to join the tournament, and she was very persuasive and in the end we did join, and so did another handfull of junior highschool students.
     We were all divided into groups of three, and I was in a team with Amanda and Michelle from grade 8. Mr Jim provided us with training sessions after school every day. "Guys, you should check out their website, there you can find materials for the tournament," Mr Jim informed us. I was surprised. I didn't know that we should study from materials given by the tournament. "You should divide tasks between your group members so that you can cover more area. If I'm not mistaken, there's a science resource, a history resource, a literature, music, art,film, and poetry resource," Mr Jim continued. My jaw literally dropped. "Mr, don't forget the current affairs resource and special area resource," said Gregory, an incredibly smart student from grade 7A. I looked at his backpack. It was full of resources that he already printed. I was amazed. Gregory was really serious about the tournament. After the afterschool session (we did some debate practice), Amanda asked me about the resources I would like to cover.
   "Art! I answered spontantly. As you might have known, I really like art, and I thought "How difficult can a material about art be?" At home I downloaded the art resource from the website and I might as well bang my head really hard unto my desk. The art resource, consisting of 60 something pages was nothing like how I imagined it. It was full of paintings I didn't recognize, and some stuff about art connoisseurs. I bit my lip as I scrolled down the resource. "Huh, the Scream. I know that. The Automat, Edward Hopper. That looks familiar. Well at least I recognize a few," I thought. I decided to read the rest of the resource that night, but I am nothing but a master procrastinator, so I spent the night watching season 4 of Chuck.
  We only had 1 week to prepare ourselves for the tournament, which was held on Sinarmas World Academy BSD. Time seemed to pass by very quickly, and before I knew it, the tournament day came. It was Saturday (I forgot the date), and my stomach felt very queasy. The night before I was considering whether to come or not. The day before during the usual after school rehearsal, a competitor from grade 8 decided to forfeit because he strongly believed that we were not ready yet. I didn't blame him. He was right, we were not ready. Our time was too little, and most of us (including me) hadn't read most of the resources. I felt that I wasn't ready. I was afraid that I might lose and the fee to join this tournament might go to waste. But I had to come, at least for the sake of my teammates. I dressed in my usual school uniform (Mr Jim told us to dress formally) and my parents drove me to the school. There I met competitors from my school. We sat and read some of the resources that we had not covered. I observed my surroundings. The lounge room where we were sitting at was filled with students from lots of different schools, dressing formally, and re-reading their resources. They looked very professional, as if they had been doing this for years and years. My stomach lurched." If I were to compete against these people, I'm gonna lose. Bad," I thought to myself.
  At about 9 am or so, we competitors were escorted to the school auditorium. Unlike the auditorium in my school (actually it is not actually an auditorium. It is a gymnasium, but it does the trick, so we just use what we got), the auditorium in Sinarmas was air-conditioned, brightly lit, had lovely maroon seat covering, and a massive stage and podium. Us competitors from Laurensia sat next to each other, and from where I was sitting I could see men running around. One person caught my eye, a guy with dreadlocks in a purple shirt and trousers. I couldn't keep my eyes off his dreadlocks. They were a light shade of brown, and they resembled a somewhat bedraggled mop. What really got my attention was how he fitted a pen and a list of some sort inside his dreadlocks. He also managed to fashion an ornate hairdo by using his dreadlocks as a hair band to keep his mop of hair away from his eyes.
  We waited for a while, until finally the man with the dreadlocks came to the podium and said some stuff about a great assistant who won't be joining next year. I learnt that the man in the dreadlocks is named Zac. Then the founder of the tournament showed up. He was pretty tall, his brown hair was perfectly coiffed, and he was dressed very neatly in a tuxedo. He was way younger than how I imagined he would be, and he approached the podium. He produced a fluffy white thing from his pocket and clung it around the microphone. Moments later it was revealed that the object was in fact an alpaca doll. The man introduced himself. He said that his name was Daniel something. I couldn't remember at that time, all that I remembered was that it started with the letter B (in my defense it was a very difficult surname, and his surname is actually Berdichevsky)"Welcome, scholars!" he said. He had a surprisingly low voice, and I strongly believed that he was not a full-blood American despite his American accent and western looks. The founder welcomed us warmly and told us that the tournament is not a competition, it is a festival of learning. Zac kept on speed-walking back and forth from the stage to the backstage, taking alpaca plushies from the backstage and putting them under the podium on the stage.
    "As Zac and I and the team traveled around the globe, we collect alpaca plushies from almost every country we visited," Daniel said. He pulled a camel plushie from the podium. "The Egyptian alpaca," he said. Some of us started giggling. "The Taiwanese alpaca," he said as he pulled a fluffy pink alpaca-looking plushie from the podium. He continued this for a while and it was hilarious so I started to giggle along with the crowd. "And last but not least, the Japanese alpaca!" Daniel exclaimed as he pulled a Totoro plushie. Everybody laughed. The plushie was adorable, and to this day it is still my favorite kind of alpaca. Then Zac informed us about that day's schedule and the technical stuff.
   After that we were sent off to our first round; the collaborative writing. It was held in the air-conditioned gymnasium. I was pretty excited because I like writing. We sat in our groups and they gave us a booklet each. In our groups, we were to choose a topic to write about from several options in the booklet. After a long moment of consideration, I finally settled with a topic which was "Wall-E knows what love is."
  "Who needs pencils?" a blond girl in a sherlock holmes-ish ghetto asked loudly. "If you need them, please raise your hands up in the air," she continued. "Please raise your hands higher, or I'm gonna cry!" she announced. Some of us laughed, and she started to run back and forth to distribute the pencils. "I'm starting to like this girl," I thought. I saw her when I was in the auditorium, and back then I thought she was one of the competitors. She was actually a member of the WSC team. The girl introduced herself before the writing started. We learnt that her name was Bunnie. It was an adorable name. We were given 50 minutes to write our essay. When time was up, I finished my writing and was quite satisfied with it. After the writing round, we were given 30 minutes for bathroom break and snack break, and we were to return to the gymnasium afterwards for the scholar's challenge. During the break, us competitors from Laurensia asked each other about what we wrote about and how did it went. We went to the lobby to grab some snacks, and found Mr Jim and Mr Chris, both our coaches from Laurensia. We told them about the round, and they told us to just have fun. 30 minutes were up, and we returned to our seats in the gymnasium.
 The scholar's challenge, consisting of 125 multiple choice questions, was very difficult. I didn't read most of the resources, so I needed to rely on my sense of logic. My palms were sweating, and in my head I could clearly hear the ticking of the watch that the competitor in front of me wore. The questions which I could answer with absolute confidence could be counted with fingers. There was something about narcolepsy in the science section, and the only thing that popped into my head was none other than Mr. Benedict, a fictional character from my favorite book, The Mysterious Benedict Society. At least it helped in some way. The book taught me a lot about narcolepsy. Time passed by ever so quickly, and in what seemed like 15 minutes, Bunnie gave us the 25 minute warning. My heart seemed to leap out of my chest. I had only reached question 86, and I had like 30 something questions left to answer. So I took a deep breath and rushed to finish them all in time. "5, 4, 3, 2, 1! AND TIME," Bunnie counted down. I finished circling the last number when time was up. I breathed a sigh of relief when the papers were collected. I looked at Amanda, and she gave me an uncertain look. It must have been difficult for her too,I thought. I looked at a frustrated Gregory. "How was it?" I mouthed to Gregory.
"I only knew 70% of the answers," Gregory mouthed.
I was not surprised, I knew that Gregory was incredibly smart. Well I've got nothing to lose, I thought. I didn't expect to win, so I won't be upset if I didn't.

   The Challenge was over, and that could only mean one thing; the debate rounds are coming. There were 3 debate rounds. We were given a list of rooms where each debate round would take place, and also the side we would be debating (either affirmative or negative). Amanda, Michelle, and I headed to our room. My hands were sweating, and there was a nauseating feeling inside my stomach. My mouth became pasty and dry. I dreaded the debate rounds. I did so badly during the practice the day before, and I am far from confident to debate against another school. I knew that I would do badly, and knowing that I found it hard to breathe. I was scared, and I could only hope for the best as I took deep and slow breaths.


   
 competitors from Santa Laurensia Junior Highschool
 Sinarmas World Academy. Yep, this is a school.
 daniel and the japanese alpaca.
zac and his dreadlocks.