Rulihapsari's Blog

Ampera Bridge, The Landmark of Palembang

Snowy — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 04:54:03 +0000

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 the lifting towers measures 63 meters tall with the distance between the two is 75 meters. They had pendulums, weighing about 500 tons each. When the middle share of the bridge was lifted, a wide ship of 60 meters wide and a maximum of 44.50 meters tall could pass to ford of Musi River. And when the middle share of this bridge was not lifted, maximum height of a ship that could pass under the bridge was only nine meters above the water level. Unfortunately, at present, the bridge cannot be lifted for safety reasons.
I used to cross the bridge every time I went to and back to school when I was a schoolgirl for it connects two areas separated by Musi River, Seberang Ulu dan Seberang Ilir. I lived in Seberang Ulu district, while my schools (junior and senior high school) were in Seberang Ilir district. So, you can imagine that the bridge has never rested, until Mama Lauren the late – the most celebrated fortune-teller in Indonesia, used to portend the collapse of the bridge. Thanks God, it did not happen. Even it erects still now. However, I have got the allegedly latest photograph from http://dhesak.blogspot.com/ showing terrible traffic jam (I have already lived in Yogyakarta). I suppose the prediction of Mama Lauren the late might possibly come true due to the sign.

Current Photograph taken from http://dhesak.blogspot.com/

A Child Called ”it”

Snowy — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 04:19:46 +0000

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 until I read the third book of Dave Pelzer entitled A Man Named Dave. However, once I read an essay by Aya Nakao (1999) from Aoyama Gakuin University, there, it is stated on the main causes of child abuse. Stress situations, basic personality, mental disturbances, deviant personality, social learning and family structures can be the main causes that lead to child abuse. If the abuser grew up in a family without enough love or care, they would probably treat their children the same as how they were being treated in their own childhood. I reckon it is in line with a popular poem by Dorothy Law Nolte (1924 – 2005) that says “If children live with hostility, they learn to fight. If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive. If children live with acceptance, they learn to love. If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and in those about them.”
The book uses “I” statement, so the readers would be able to feel as Dave feels. It is a highly-recommended book for those who want to enhance sensitivity towards child abuse. So, stop child abuse!

Pempek, Many Variants but One Dough

Snowy — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:13:15 +0000

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 can be made into various shapes and forms with additional ingredients. For example, Submarine contains chicken egg inside; Skin pempek is primarily made from minced fish skin; Curly pempek is in the form of clumps of worm-like long sticks. Thus, all are from the same dough. My husband then drew a conclusion “So there is no distinctiveness, because the food just has many variants but it is from one dough only.” I argued it of course, but he still defended his conclusion.
The opinion defense I made was just like I am originally from the city where the delicacy originates. No……. I just grew up there, in Palembang, the capital city of South Sumatra. I moved to the city when I was four. Then I went to schools there until I reached 18. So how long I had lived in the city? 14 years. It is a sufficient time to make my tongue get used to all local foods and have made Pempek (local language) or fishcake delicacy as one of my favourite foods.
Here are the appearances of each variant.

Submarine pempek (picture taken from http://pempekkecik.blogspot.com/)

Cylindrical pempek (picture taken from http://nugraha-corporation.blogspot.com)

Fish Skin pempek (picture taken from http://aneka-resep.info/pempek-kulit/)

Curly pempek (picture taken from http://pempek161cabangcitra2ext.blogspot.com/)

If you want to know more on the dish, you can visit Wikipedia.org which provides ample information.

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

Snowy — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 02:47:14 +0000

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.
A couple of weeks later, when I asked my students to write a recension on the book, I got a new information from one of my students. He wrote in his simple recension that the book has become a guide book for MLM people. A ”holy book”, my fellow lecturer said. Then I asked my student and my fellow the reason of MLM people has taken the book as their guide. No satisfied answers they made.
Until one day, in the mid of January of 2011, I had an opportunity to attend a meeting – MLM meeting. In the meeting, I was firstly displayed with the diagram of cashflow quadrant. A talkactive presenter explained that some people work harder in small business and some other people work smarter in big business. What is the difference? The answer is the system. There are various examples of systems – franchising, networking, setting up a new business, etc. Either franchising or setting up a new business definitely require big capital, while networking require only small capital but can earn more. This is the very point that become the key idea of MLM and that is why the book of Cashflow Quadrant is their “holy book” to attract people to join their networks.
However, I like the book, apart from it is related to MLM or not. Definitely I don’t belong to any kind of this networking. ^_^

Songket

Snowy — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 08:33:46 +0000

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; metallic-wrapped (gold or silver) thread, bast (a type of plant-based fiber), silk, polyester, rayon, and mylar plastic (Rodgers and Summerfield,2007:47). The type I am wearing made use of metallic-wrapped silver thread and the most affordable one. The price for a Songket, including a shoulder cloth (selendang) ranges from thousands to millions Rupiah. Do not get shocked, if you encounter a Songket costs Rp 20 million in one of Palembang’s outstanding Songket outlets.
Since at least the late 1700, Songkets have been used in several regions of the Muslim malay world as shimmering luxury wear. The Songket-wrapped body has long denoted economic privilege and high social status in places such as Trengganu, Malaysia and western, central and southern Sumatran kingdoms. However, everybody nowadays can have songket as the complement of clothing collection. Even, it is always widely found that Songket can be worn not only for special events, such as wedding reception, but also for upscale receptions held in business or national government context and graduation day. It can be displayed on living room walls as well.
For the comprehensive knowledge, you may get the following reference.
Reference:
Rodgers, Susan and Anne Summerfield, John Summerfield. (2007). Gold Cloths of Sumatra; Indonesia’s Songket from Ceremony to Commodity. Netherland:KITLV Press.

Pay It Forward

Snowy — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 08:19:05 +0000

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

Snowy — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 07:34:46 +0000

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

Snowy — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 07:20:39 +0000

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.
In the new school, things got worse at the beginning. The teachers, who were known conventional, always scolded Ishaan in class – “duffer, idiot, lazy, crazy, failure, king of the morons”. Poor Ishaan struggled in his very loneliness, failure, and fear. Until he met a wonderful art teacher, Ram Shankar Nikumbh, starring by Aamir Khan. The teacher studied Ishaan, till he found that the kid was gifted. He identified that Ishaan was suffering from dyslexia, as he experienced the same difficulty when he was younger.
What Nikumbh did indeed stunned me and probably all the watchers, he provided extra tutoring to help Ishaan enhance the study performance that Ishaan got his confidence back to paint. What an extraordinary patience. This is what I name the ideal portrayal of a teacher and I have been learning it. Another fabulous act I felt astounded was when Ishaan looked at Nikumbh’s canvas – his portrait was painted by his beloved teacher. I viewed this as how Nikumbh motivated Ishaan, as he could feel how the kid felt – a dyslexic alike. And this scene highly touched my emotion, made me cry in happiness.
Some famous people were mentioned in the film by Nikumbh, like Albert Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Alva Edison, Pablo Picasso, Walt Disney. Frankly speaking, I have just known that these people had difficulty in reading and writing, so I searched them in internet to study further. And I found out more famous people with dyslexia, such as Tom Cruise, Whoopi Goldberg, Keanu Reeves, etc, in http://www.dyslexia.com/famous.htm.
At last, cinematographically, the movie has a beautiful closing scene – where Ishaan was getting into the car to leave with his parents, he turned around and run toward Nikumbh and when Nikumbh fetched Ishaan and lifted him up high. The motion froze then accompanied by music of joyful mood. So, if you are educationists, teachers, parents, or people having friends/relatives with dyslexia, this movie is highly recommended. And here are the download links for you.
PART 1: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?znjdi4cepbt
PART 2: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?4lz0g4fie3n
PART 3: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?yilt2vklrzj
PART 4: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?moyxydbmpwl
PART 5: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mn9nwvwobyd
Password : urgrove.com
Subtle inggris http://www.4shared.com/document/QbI1Rymf/Taare_Zameen_Par_DVD_-eng.html

The Nearly Lost Motorbike

Snowy — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 07:06:10 +0000

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.
There was still a hope and hoped it would soon end her current feeling disorder, reported it to the parking attendant. She met one but he unfortunately didn’t know about a motorbike with a key sticking in ignition. The man said to her “motorbike stealing is currently rampant, miss. Lately, there were two motorbikes stolen. They belonged to students. The cases were just the same, leaving the key sticking in ignition. We, as the parking attendants, are unable to be responsible for this, if the students are that careless.” She just listened to what the man said with her great regret. The man then initiated to ask his parking attendant fellows about the lost motorbike and asked her to sit on a bench nearby to wait. As she waited, she was thinking about telling her mother. She took out the cell phone from her bag, but no numbers were dialed. She was too afraid of being reprimanded by her mother. ‘I can get killed’, she thought. Then she just hoped from her waiting, hoped the parking attendant would emerge with her motorbike.
Not far from where she sat, she noticed a motorbike which looked like the one she owned, being parked separated from the parking area. She just observed it from a distance. Ere long, the parking attendant came up. She enthusiastically informed him about the features of her motorbike. “My motorbike nearly looks like the one being parked over there, sir.” The man’s eyes sought the motorbike she pointed. “Come. Follow me” She asked the man to follow her toward the motorbike she meant. “This one, sir. My motorbike just looks like this one” She said to the parking attendant confidently. All of a sudden, she got shocked that it was her very motorbike which was missing. The key even was still stuck in ignition. “Oh my God! This is my bloody ride, sir. How could it reach here?”, The man then said calmly “You told me that you had lost your motorbike. The fact is you just forgot where you parked it. And above all, this space is not for parking, miss”.
Not far from the spot, she noticed some parking attendants, the man’s fellows, were watching ‘her show’ while giggling. She came to realize that the man and his fellows played a trick on her. It was they who had made her motorbike ended up here because she knew well that two hours ago she parked her ride at the very parking area, not at where it was now. She was very grateful to the man who had saved her motorbike but couldn’t hide her shame. As she was leaving the spot, she really wished she could vanish from their presence. “Bloody shameful!”, she cursed.
After the event, she planned the way how to stop her bad habit. She found one. The motorbike key was tied to a plastic necklace, so the key seemed to be the pendulum. It was then tied to her wrist when riding. So, every time she parked the motorbike and in case she just left it with irresponsibility, the key pendulum necklace would tug her hand and pull back her body. 

Eating A Firefly

Snowy — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 07:02:02 +0000

This is a true story of my finest mate. When he was a school boy, he was eager to be capable of riding a motorbike. He wanted to learn how to ride a motorbike but unfortunately nobody had a spare time to teach him. Then he just decided to start to learn. He initiated to take advantage of his father’s 70’s motorbike. He did the learning early in the morning at 5 am when his father hadn’t set off to work and there weren’t still many vehicles crowded the road.
He was equipped with a helmet and hadn’t got any driver’s license with him. By riding the skinny motorbike, he was full of himself when he successfully ran it for 100 metres. As he was riding in first gear, he felt the running wasn’t smooth. He shifted the gear, and it was apparently better. Until the last gear, it was much smoother. He was really full of himself, proud of himself. He grinned as he was riding at 40 km/hour.
All of a sudden, he started choking. An insect which was thought to be a firefly had accidentally entered his mouth when he grinned. He tried to spit, but it had already gotten stuck in his throat. He halted immediately, and tried to clear his throat but it didn’t work. He turned around to get home and he found a food stall. He had to find a first aid, a bottle of water. As he thought that the poor insect couldn’t manage to get out of his throat and made him hard to breathe, he had to push it down into his stomach by drinking. Ough….it must have been disgusting to imagine, but no other choice to do, he said to himself.
After paying for the mineral water, he drank half of it by making sure that it had passed through the throat. “Poor firefly, it had to end up in my stomach. It must have been the one which was flying enjoying the fresh morning” he thought. After the incident, he decided to go home soon. As soon as he arrived at home, his father invited him to eat breakfast together. ‘I did eat a thing for breakfast’, he said to himself. Hahahaha….