A Letter to God

Dear God,

I am absolutely feeling blue. You said there would be many ways to achieve what you want, as long as you keep fighting, never give up. I do, I did, and I have done it. I always underline it in my mind, that I have to struggle for something that I want, especially things that will be beneficial for others, not only me.

I have knocked many different doors, hoping that they will let me in, getting closer to my huge dream. But, I fall. Yeah, they did let me enter the room, but after I set up my expectation, I got dump. I know trying once won't be enough. So, I try many, a lot. See, those doors kicked me to a very minus start, again and again.

I am sure it sounds more like complaining, but somehow in certain conditions, I just want to surrender. All those wise words I have built in my minds can't barely help. Now, it's like no more energy or braveness to start.

Hmm,

Me

Sail Tomini: A School Visit

There is always a 'sail ...' event passing the island I am living in. This year is Sail Tomini, I am sure it is somewhere around east of Indonesia, like Wakatobi or Raja Ampat.

A little bit different from years before, there is a formal school visit this year. Last year, I only met two sailors ( can I say sailor anyway?). Well, all these foreigners live in the sea, simply reminds me to a book of Ernest Hemingway which unluckily still unfinished read status, yet. They were american and they were spouses, so we just shared one another in a small group of students.

Today was awesome because everyone could get involved. Some of them came to our school, to observe the school, look around I bet. We were well-prepared as a result of an order to do so. So, there were many performances from our cool students. I am thinking to open an art school, like Dream High thing, because my students are great artists.

We welcomed them with poetry, "pantun" that made them a bit confused, hoho..it won't be easy to understand. Then Beripat Dance, Campak Dance, and Antu Bubu. I guess everybody was having fun, I hope so.

 

Scientific Approach in Learning

Here is one of hottest issue recently. It has emerged as result of the launch of new curriculum. This approach focuses on how teaching material and process become more scientific, using empirical fact, logic phenomenon, or rational value.

I am trying to simplifize this for my own interest. Reading some articles, books, and technical clues rather makes me spinning around. To break it into some pieces, I would like to concern on the process of learning would be done applying this approach. The process goes to three focuses, indeed, those three stuffs are important, attitude (know why), knowledge (know what?), and skill (know how).

By looking at these three objects, the teacher is supposed to create a productive, innovative, creative, and affective learning. Still, the aim of this is to produce students who are balanced both in soft and hard skills.

It has some steps need to be done in teaching and learning process which are: observing, questioning, associating, experimenting, and networking. Actually, I have read some previous approaches that let students to think critically or involved in a problem-solving. In short, this is also aimed to make students can identify, compare, analyze, evaluate and understand a topic clearly. Furthermore, students can apply their knowledge, use it in their daily life. See, today there are a lot of people who know how something should be but prefer to avoid their knowledge.   

There are three methods which support scientific approach: discovery learning, project based learning, and problem based learning. These methods

Knowledge	Skill
	Abstrak	Konkrit
Faktual	Discovery Learning	Discovery Learning
Konseptual	Discovery Learning	Discovery Learning
Prosedural	Discovery Learning Problem Based Learning	Discovery Learning Problem Based Learning
Metakognitif	Discovery Learning Project Based Learning Problem Based Learning	Discovery Learning Project Based Learning Problem Based Learning

Grand Final Bujang Dayang 2014

Here I am, sitting among the juries of Bujang Dayang Belitung Timur. I told you, this is a new contest to be watched this close.

Ask me how do I feel? Nervous... :D How come? Well, this is a late night show while I should watch all the things carefully, not being relax... Like staying in my room, watching in my casual costume :)

So, yeah I am here looking for the best couple on stage. Let me dhow you some interesting pictures

This lavish program is sponsored by East Belitung Tourism Office. The judgement has been done since the first time all these finalists entered the quarantine. Tonight they are scored by looking some aspects, grooming, public speaking, and knowledge.

I find it is so serious at first, but fun at the end. Glad to know that all the candidates are nervous so some of them answered the questions incorrectly. I see them as teens then. But, u know everyone is nervous and anxious when it comes to show themselves in front of public. I m not the exception anyway.

It's done already. The winners have been decided. It's decided by looking at the first glance and one question only. Actually I have preferred many better questions...*sigh. If you ask me which do I prefer from my recent activities? I love being a speaker, that's more challenging.

Bujang Dayang Beltim: A Presentation

I was quite shocked when a friend of mine called me to be the speaker for this kind of contest. Well, i have become the juries of debate, story telling or speech, but for beauty contest, that's something new.

Today was the first step. I was a bit nervous at first, thinking what should i say in such occasion. Well, since the class isn't about beauty itself, so I made it. Preparing materials by reopening many books. Hello, I've been too long sticking with the same books, or let's say I am just so picky recently, reading similar genre for the purpose is only entertaining myself.

Let's go back. I made the presentation only in a shiny afternoon, around three hours focus. See, it's not that hard actually. Then, yeah I need to practise somehow. Isn't it making a lot of differences? So, as I said before I read for digging more information about the content of my presentation.

I arrived at the hotel exactly at 3.30. The committee asked to come at that time. But the previous speaker was still there, so I needed to wait for a half an hour. I found those finalist of the contest. The two of them will be the ambassador of tourism for this island. As you know, they are all young, beautiful, tall, and smart. Love to see them :) 

 

So, at 4 I started my part, asking them to learn English in a fun way. Having fun is mostly my priority in delivering my idea :p. I thought it would be though, but what a relief they are more than better. Some of them are actively involved while some are listening, I hope that means they get what I meant. Two hours is not enough, we need more but the day is almost over. I wish they can follow the idea when they come to the final night :)

*Thanks for the pointer my lovely husband, I could move everywhere I wanted ({})

Who is gonna be a leader?

Monday, September 30, 2013 at 3.30 p.m.

As I said, I have been waiting for the pictures and videos taken by Bayu, but I am sure they are still staying safe in Bayu's camera somewhere in his house :) I only have two pictures of you which is not exactly represented our activities on that day...ugh

Here is the story of EC third meeting. We were about to choose the leader, a kind of simple structure for this small and newborn organization. Tri, Thea, and some other students were absent, I wish it won't happen again.

Before voting, we were doing sort of campaign flyer, everyone made his own campaign for somebody s/he trusted to be responsible to manage and lead this club. Well, yeah, that was quite amazing since most of them chose the one who was not in that class. They believed that their candidates could run this club better and survive.

Alright, then came the result. The voting pointed Thea as the leader, Tri as the secretary, Erlinda as the treasure and others who are still being arranged by Thea. There was no speech from those who won bacause they were not there. So, we agreed to discuss a little bit about what are we going to share and do here.

The topic of our discussion was "If I am a leader of EC, I will..."
I asked everyone to think about ideas that we can do together. I was surprised for the ideas were great and somewhat unbelievable. I still remember when Herfendi said he wanted to bring snacks for other members, or hold cooking show or something like that. And most groups agreed to travel outside, to refresh our mind once a month or more. Let see the atmosphere later. Can't wait for the other meeting :)

SMANSA English Club

Hip hip horray, senang sekali bisa membidani lahirnya SMANSA English Club (Mungkin nanti akan ada namanya), It was last week actually on September 16, 2013.

Well, bermula dari nama saya yang entah apa sebabnya berada didalam kertas bertuliskan pembina English Club trus bingung, again, bingung adalah hobi yang terlestarikan. Akhirnya demi kecintaan pada negara dan pada diri sendiri tentu saja, saya nyari informasi tentang makanan jenis apakah ini...upppzz.. apakah sudah ada sebelumnya? atau apa saja yang dilakukan? siapa saja yang pernah ikutan? And, at last, yang saya temukan adalah gelengan kepala, berarti harus didirikan, dibangun dengan penuh cinta biar yang terdaftar adalah para survivor sejati. Selalu, saya garis bawahi, anggotanya boleh siapa saja asal MINAT BANGET dengan bahasa Inggris atau cukup suka sampai dengan tergila-gila akut. Pokoknya tidak perlu banyak nama, tapi juga banyak alasan, misal pas jadwal bilangnya mau ini dulu, atau nanti dulu... No way, indeed, I need survivors, orang-orang yang bertahan, tahan malu, tahan salah kalau lagi ngomong, tahan menertawakan diri, dan tahan banting untuk terus jatuh cinta pada sebuah nama "Bahasa Inggris".

Tidak ada yang mudah, entahkah itu mengumpulkan anak-anak yang super sibuk, atau mencari tahu apa yang harus dilakukan. Berbekal sebungkus pengalaman menjadi tutor EC sana sini, akhirnya EC terbentuk minggu lalu. Belum punya pengurus, belum punya program kerja (masih di laptop dan jarang tersentuh) tapi punya visi yang jelas untuk mencerdaskan anak bangsa (ehm) dalam menggunakan bahasa tercinta ini.

Tidak berlebihan, tidak pula banyak kurangnya, fokus utama adalah speaking. Bukan berarti mengabaikan tiga aspek bahasa lainnya, ketiganya tetap terpakai kok meski tidak terlalu disoroti. Kenapa speaking? Karena banyak sekali ditemukan anak-anak yang skill pasifnya luar biasa, bisa jawab soal dengan baik tapi ketika disuruh berbicara sedikit saja langsung bingung dan mati kutu. Itulah kenapa fokus EC ini lebih ke mengajak anak-anak berbicara tanpa rasa grogi (yang tentu saja masih sangat terlihat), tanpa rasa malu (karena banyak kakak kelas katanya? :D), dan tanpa rasa-rasa aneh lainnya.

Hari ini baru pertemuan kedua, jika minggu lalu diawali dengan perkenalan yang tidak terlalu panjang tapi cukup membuat kami semua pulang beberapa menit sebelum magrib, hari ini waktu sudah cukup terkontrol meski kesempatan untuk semua menyampaikan pendapat sangat terbatas. Okay, ini cerita pertemuan Ec hari ini:

Today was my second EC meeting. I was a little bit scared since some students couldn't come because they had to attend other important meeting. You know what? Sometimes, these students make me really nervous about their coming. I always have such a bad experience with this kind of English meeting. Students seems to be lazy to come at the end. But, thanks God, they were here. I only lost 2 of them without any information.

I prepared some topics in a piece of paper then made a group of three. These group chose the topic then discuss what would they present in front. They had to say any important thing about the topic. Let see some that I still remember, there were Love, dream, music, book, etc. Students talked in their small group then decided who would be the representative of their group.

Wow, I am always amazed by my students. They surprised me sometimes by their good writing or spontaneous talk or well-arranged one. They are actually great. All groups could present their best, they also could ask and answer questions from others pretty well. The discussion ran smoothly. I wish it will be better and better :) Fighting.

Presenting in English

I was accidentally invited to attend a short workshop last week in Tanjungpandan.

The topic is how to present in English using easy ways, of course I was curious about what it would be.

Well, after listening carefully to Ms. Murni, the head of English Department in one private university in Indonesia, I could say "Oh, God, this material is familiar, but where is it being saved in my mind, my memory?" I said before, the more you are lazy to learn then to apply your knowledge, the faster it will leave you.

Let me share the material here. It's such an easy one, since it's only conveyed not more than one hour.
She called that easy way as a "Presentation Building Block", then divide it into seven points, which are:

1. Greeting
2. Name and position
3. Subject
4. Objective
5. Main parts/ outline
6. Ground Rules
7. Link to start

I am sure it was one of my Speaking class material long long time ago. Yeah nowadays SMA students need to learn how to present something in English since some universities make this as their requirements. Let's learn together :)