Crying in the Early Pregnancy

image taken from http://the-lotus-flower.com

This is my first pregnancy. My doctor said, the end of July 2011 was the very initial pregnancy, because it was started on the first day of my last period. However, I still didn’t notice it, because in August, exactly it was fasting month; I did fasting for the whole month (Alhamdulillah…..), and things were fine. Then, when we celebrated Eid-ul-Fitr, I just realized that I had conceived. I did a pregnancy test at home and     it was positive. Several days later, I went to the doctor to make it sure. After the doctor’s confirmation – doing the same test again in hospital, I came to be certain, very certain. So, it means I was 1 month pregnant. We – my husband and I, were very happy. Since then, we have tried to be more careful, starting from selecting nutritious foods, what foods, things and activities to avoid during pregnancy. All relatives suggested me to not work so hard, for the sake of the baby. Even my own husband was very protective, so he promised me to help with house chores, especially doing laundry. (lovely husband…. )
Unfortunately, the first three months of my pregnancy was difficult for me.

Ampera Bridge, The Landmark of Palembang

Palembang, a beautiful city which is renowned with Pempek city – pempek is a local typical food, has various landmarks. One of outstanding landmarks in this city is Ampera Bridge which has a history of its own. The history began in 1962. The bridge was constructed under the reign of President Soekarno, which served as the pay from Japan to Indonesia over Japanese colonization. In 1965 it was officially opened. At first, the bridge was named after the president’s name – Bung Karno Bridge but it did not last long. In 1966, anti-Soekarno movement was stronger, the bridge was renamed to Ampera Bridge – Ampera stands for Amanat Penderitaan Rakyat (Message of the People’s Suffering).
The old photograph shows that the bridge used to be able to lift up and down. A written source says that

A Child Called ”it”

The Book Cover in Indonesian Version

Can you imagine when a person is not referred to “he” or “she”, but “It”?  Here in the book A Child Called It, the pronoun “It” is used by a mother to refer to her own son. The book is all about the son named Dave Pelzer. It starts with the rescue, in 1973, where a school nurse found bruises, cuts, wound on the child’s body until he was finally sent to a foster care.
In the beginning of Dave’s life, there were the “good years” – full of family picnics, holiday frivolity, and his mother’s wonderful cooking. By the age of 4, these happy times turned to misery – fear, starvation and cold dark basement. His alcoholic mother abused him by forcing him to eat his own vomit, swallow soap, burning him on the stove and locking him in a bathroom with terrible fumes of Clorox and ammonia.
This is one of the worst child abuse cases in California’s history which came to an end on March 5, 1973.  The great true story of child abuse by Dave Pelzer is easy to read, but difficult to comprehend how a mother could treat her child this way. I myself couldn’t figure out her motivation, even

Pempek, Many Variants but One Dough

Pempek : fishcake delicacy

The title actually has been inspired by my husband, exactly by his criticism. Approximately in 2009, when we were in a Pempek restaurant, my husband asked distinctive names of special dishes from Palembang (South Sumatra) called Pempek. Many names it has, such as Submarine pempek, Cylindrical pempek, Curly pempek, Skin pempek, etc.
“So it has plenty variants?”, he asked.
“Yes”, I replied.
What differentiates one variant to other variants?”
Then I explained him that pempek is made from basic dough which consists of minced fish and tapioca. The dough then

Kiyosaki’s Cashflow Quadrant:The Holy Book of MLM People?

In October 2010, I was introduced with a book entitled ”Cashflow Quadrant written by Robert Kiyosaki. It began when I had students bring their own favourite book and tell the class about it. Most of them brought fiction books. Only few of them liked to read non fiction books. One of them was The Cashflow Quadrant.
I was interested in the story that my student retold. It was about two people with different actions – a person who still kept working to carry buckets of water from water source to a small village and his fellow was away for six months and got back to village to build pipelines from water source to the village. Starting from this, I made the book as one of two must-read books in my class.

Songket

This picture was taken in 2008 when I still lived in Palembang and were about to leave for Yogyakarta.

The cloth I am wearing is called Songket. Indonesian people must be familiar with this typical cloth.  Songket is a type of golden cloth made in Indonesia and Malaysia, a ceremonial textile made of metal wrapped threads that course across a ground of silk or cotton, forming intricate decorative patterns (Rodgers and Summerfield,2007:1). Songket’s origins probably lie in the 15th or 16th century, but more textile researchers see a much earlier date for this type of cloth.
The materials used to weave Songkets are seven different types of thread or yarn;

Pay It Forward

picture taken from http://www.dieselsc.com/

Can we change the world? ’Yes, we can’, I answer with confidence. We can change the world even with little good deeds. I then become more confident after watching the movie entitled Pay It Foward.
In the movie I noticed a teacher character named Eugene Simonet (Kevin Spacey).        I was really stunned by this social studies teacher, Mr. Simonet. He introduced some difficult words and asked difficult question – difficult for children age.
“What does the world mean to you?  What does the world expect of you?”.
None could answer the question but Trevor (Haley Joel Osment). ”Nothing” the kid answered.
”What if the world is just a big disappointment?”
”We are screwed”, another boy replied.
”Unless…..unless you take the things that you don’t like about this world and you flip them upside down right on their ass” Mr. Simonet explained.
I figured out that he is such an unconventional teacher. He  prepared his students to face life. So he offered them an extra-credit project – “Think of an idea to change our world – and put it into action.” Skeptical! This was the very reaction from the entire class. However, a couple days later when the day of presentation came, Trevor came up with an idea – someone does you a favour, then rather than pay it back, you pay it forward to three others, who in turn pay it forward to three more and so on. This idea is similar to the pyramid of multi-level marketing where each person will help three other people to change something that they cannot do on their own; each person of these three people then help other three people and so on. He applied his idea which the teacher thought a utopia. But then he did changed the world.
I would like to quote this movie review from www.plume-noire.com that the pyramid idea presented in the movie is closely related to the most unhealthy aspect of capitalism. However, the film has succeeded in turning it around and swapping greediness to generosity.
This movie is one of highly-recommended ones. And here is the download link.

http://www.indowebster.com/Pay_it_forward_subtitle.html

http://www.indowebster.com/Pay_it_Forward.html

Dead Poet Society

picture taken from http://mindtechnology.com/

A teacher stands on a desk before the class. I have found it in the movie entitled ”Dead Poet Society” (and in ”The Great Debaters”) – a movie that inspiries me much in teaching. In ”dead Poet Society”, it is Prof. Keating (Robbin Williams) whom I find an unconventional teacher in an orthodox school.   He had the students on his desk in order to look at the world in a different way. It was just the way how he illustrated that one should see things not only from one angle. I view this illustration similar to the story of blind men and en elephant that we cannot rely on one perspective only to reach truth or whole information. Another lesson from this illustration is one should respect for different perspectives.
Another activity he conducted in the school is when he had an outside class. He had students find their own walk. Again, it was just an illustation of the point of corformity that one should trust one’s beliefs are uniqe. Even though others may think them odd, unpopular or bad. Swim against the stream, he said to the students.
Carpe Diem is the well-known encouraging quote during this movie. It is a phrase from a Latin poem by Horace. The phrase is popularly translated as “seize the day”. “Make your lives extraordinary!” said Prof. Keating. Why we should seize our day? Because we are food for worms. Each of us is one day going to die.
Seize the day and the following download link is yours. 

http://www.indowebster.com/Dead_Poets_Society.html

http://www.indowebster.com/Dead_Poets_Society_Sub.html

Taree Zamen Par

picture taken from http://www.planetbollywood.com/

Dyslexia. My students (in speaking class) have just known the term after watching this movie, so they learned about it. It is not only dyslexia as the only knowledge we have obtained from the movie, but also lessons of care and patience in getting to know more the world of children, especially in dealing with a dyslexic child.
The movie showed an eight-year old boy, named Ishaan Awasthi, who was unable to read, spell, count, follow quick instruction and had bad handwriting. Because of these, he received a poor academic report. The teachers at school complained to his parents. ‘His handwriting resembles Russian,’ the lady teacher said. Ishaan’s parents were frustrated, tired of complaints, and decided to send him to a boarding school in the hope that things to be better.

The Nearly Lost Motorbike

This is a true story of my best friend. She is a motorbike rider and the story tells about her carelessness as well as her motorbike. When she was a college student, she used to park her motorbike at campus’ parking area. One day, she rushed to campus by riding her lovely motorbike for she saw her watch and class schedule mistakenly. After arriving at campus, she just parked it that way. She rushed to the class as wishing the lecturer hadn’t come sooner than she. Entering the classroom she felt relieved since the lecturer wasn’t present yet, late as he used to be.
After the class, she stepped toward the parking area calmly. As soon as she reached the spot, she found her motorbike was not at the space as it should be there. ‘It should’ve been here, the parking attendant must have replaced it’, she thought. Then she checked each row of motorbikes, hoped she would find it but none was found. She checked again each row by walking to and fro but still she found a failure.    She started to panic as she realized that her motorbike was missing. All of a sudden, she remembered that she left the key stuck in ignition. She was freaking out. ‘Yes, I obviously lost my beloved ride’, she said to herself.