Pelajaran DariMu

Pelajaran DariMu

Kakiku bergetar tertiup derap serdadu angin
Kunang mata itu enggan terbang menuju kebahagiaan
PanggilanMu menuntun alunan simphoni tubuh dalam harmoni hati
Tanpa keluh yang meluruh
Peluh ini pun tak mampu mengeja setiap huruf dalam sesal
Bahkan mentari tak pernah iri melihat bulan bertahta dalam malam
Awan mendung pun berarak dalam kuasa angin
Bahagia dirimu dalam batinNya
Bukan kau yang meminta dibahagiakan
Bahkan ketika daun itu pun tertiup, ia tak marah pada angin
Dini hari, 241011

Nafas Gelap Untuk Benderang

Nafas Gelap Untuk Benderang

MencintaiMu tak pernah sama
Kadang berbalas senyum penuh makna
Bahagiakah? Sedihkah? Senangkah? MARAHkah?
Rasanya otak ini sudah lupa arti MARAH
Tubuh ini selalu gagal mendeskripsikan MARAH
Mulut ini tergagap mengucap MARAH
Hela nafasku memburu dan tak keliru
Aku tak terburu namun membelenggu
Hembusan angis laksana setan pelita amarah
Awan malam perlahan menutup pancaran purnama
Menyindir datang gulita yang mendekat pada bulan merah jambu
Namun, Ketulusan itu memudarkan gelap itu
TerangMu harus selalu benderang
Itu bagiku hutang
Maka...
Izinkan aku MARAH padaMu ketika waktu membiarkanku mampu mengucapkan MARAH
Waktu Isya, 271011

Cinta DariMu

Cinta DariMu

CintaMu tak indah dalam kata cinta
Tak seharum mawar pun, tak semanis anggur pun, tak seelok pelangi pun, tak sesegar mata air pun, tak sesejuk hawa gunung pun, tak seputih awan pun, tak sekokoh karang pun, itu cintaMu
Perihnya cintaMu tak layak berbalas sesal
Meskipun kadang termangu menggiring diri
Kau tepis setiap ragu dengan eloknya pancaran bias cinta dalam curahan kasihMu
Kemarin saat tertunduk, kau belai diriku untuk dapat mengangkat kepala ini seperti mereka
Tadi saat tengok keraguan berkecamuk, kau tunjukan arah itu
Kini saat ku hendak melangkah, kau mengiringi setiap pijakan hingga tempat bahagia menanti
Itu cintaMu
Dini hari, 241011

Have you been a good writer?

Have you been a good writer?

Writing is one of the important skills in English course, and at least we had got this course when we were in senior high school. We had been known that the common text in English are descriptive, recount, report, narrative, procedure and our teacher in senior high school had been informed about the definition, structure, purpose and language features that made the texts become different. But we have to aware of our ability that what we had got in senior high school still not sufficient to make a good writing paper, we still need more knowledge about writing skills to be a good writer.
In the University, especially for the newest students, they are going to get some language skill courses (listening, writing, reading, and speaking) in general communication. They are basic for us to communicate with other people in English. Especially for writing, it will make us know how to make a good writing and make us be a good writer.
When we study about writing in the university, we will face with another method of the lecturer. The lecturer will give us a lot of things that we never found when we were in senior high school. We will be forced to make the texts which are different and more challenging than before. For example: in senior high school, when we want to make descriptive text. We will make the description of the people who have been known, but now we have to make an interview and make description of the stranger people. Because of that, when we try to make the texts that we did not do when we were in senior high school, of course we will get a lot of new vocabularies. It is a very challenging task, can improve our writing skill and broke open our paradigm about the texts. The benefit of this method is the students can get an improvement score, because the students always give their best effort when they do the tasks which are felt as a new thing.
Besides, we are trained to be more sensitive with mechanical terms of writing. When we are writing, first step that we have to do is thinking. It means that we have to pay attention to the structure, idea and language that we use, make sure that the reader will not confuse with the purpose of the text.
Based on the fact and data mentioning above, what we had got all this time is not sufficient and we get more knowledge in this course. We get a lot of benefits from writing general communication course as our basic that can make us be a good writer in the future.

Redefining Multicultural Education

The article has title “Redefining Multicultural Education”, it is an interesting and informative article because the author has tried to show us the difficult problem that our country face nowadays in different way, he explains all things about pluralism as our power and the way to increase our sensitivity to cultural pluralism. The article talks about Indonesia are a multicultural, multilingual, and multi religious society, it would be a boomerang for us, and pluralistic society will have problems and conflicts. Education is a method to solve the problems and conflicts which happen now, we can be aware of our pluralistic society through the right education policy.
I think actually the content of the article is about the sins of Suharto’s regime that have destroyed all part of our life and make us forget our identity as a plural country. We were forced to submit to a higher authority and make all things are one, we did not respect to diversity (culture, opinion, etc). I am very interested in the statement of the author that said social justice for all Indonesians (one of the fifth principle of Pancasila) was not understood by the past government (Suharto’s regime). I think that is the reason of all problems that happen, there is no justice and make the citizen be antipathy each other. Education and politic are a central part of our government to increase the prosperity unfortunately have many complex problems. I am going to try to elaborate my opinion about these are as follows.
Education as a means to educate the citizen has many problems that can make the goal of education cannot be realized, let us see from the education policy “local content” as the government’s attempt to accommodate the tradition of the people but I think it will make us do not understand about cultural beliefs, values and attitudes of different ethnic groups in our country. Our pluralistic awareness will fade and probably can make us lose our identity as a nation that has catchword “unity in diversity”, that is why there are many conflicts inter ethnic groups. The problems can be solved through multicultural education because education has function as nurturing and practicing pluralistic thoughts.
Because of Suharto’s regime, I think the big destruction of national character has attacked violently on our bureaucracy and governance. Nowadays, there is degradation morality of our governance that would have been public mistrust of the government, and suspicion of the armed forces. The bureaucracy did not realize that people’s conscience, self esteem and pride were hurt, resulting in a loss of trust in the government, they just think about how they get a lot of money from the project of government. Multicultural education can use to change and come up their character, when multicultural education has been their mind. The government will think to realize the prosperity and respect each other, do not see from the cultural or ethnic background.
As said before, through the multicultural education we can change the condition of communicating and interacting each other and widely for the government can grow our awareness to respect to all Indonesians, we have to know that we are standing under one motherland “Indonesia” and pluralistic society is uniting the Indonesian’s differences.

Education to Develop Social Awareness

The title of the article is “Education to Develop Social Awareness”, this article is an explanation about social problem that can be solved with education. When I read this article for the first time, I am very interested because the author try to combain the social problems of our country with the two theories beyond them that have contradiction among them but they can help the government to solve the problems. The theory which is explained is about the dichotomy of social sciences versus non-social sciences, and I do agree that be they social scientists or non-social scientists, have two kinds of responsibility, namely academic responsibility and social responsibility.
And after I read this article, I have different opinion with the author. Social problems such as corruption, collusion, nepotism, pornography, street children, and unemployment may have been our country’s face and they are never solved during 66 years after independence and 6 presidents can not alleviate them.
When our country has many social problems, we need to discover what the solution is. And the social scientists have capability to do that because they are agents to offer new principles built up through transparent discussions, polemics, open debate and dialogs, after that they can do academic analysis to solve and find new lenses to approach the problems which are anomalous, strange, or even nonsensical.
The scientists can make the public reconsider and reformulate their focus on the issues, and the public will have same paradigm with the scientists and may have different paradigm with the bureaucrats and even will be social chaos and upheavals among them.
Although the scientists have function to control natural phenomena but we have to know that the government has power that could directly control social problems in his way. All analysis, ideas, vision, and alternative solutions will collide with the government policy. There is nothing that we can do, and the alternative solutions that we offer will be a trash which is not needed and the fate of our country will never change and we will let the society struggle to the utmost for prosperity by them.
I think the bureaucrats and the intellectual critics are not wrong, even though a theory said that the conflicts between them are due to the fact that bureaucrats fail to share the body of knowledge essential for understanding the metaphors used by the critics. I see from the other side that the critics might not have capability to bring into reality what they say, because there are many factors and defiance’s which can make they change the prow, we now that there are many personage who are very audacious to oppose with the government but when he is in part of the government, what he said before can not be realized.
Because of that, I think social awareness is not the only one important thing to change our country but our awareness has to be gone along with our effort to realize, because success is not on your mind but in reality, no matter how good your solutions are, they will be unworthwhile if you do not do.

Does literacy have influence on literature?

Does literacy have influence on literature?

Basicaly, literature comes from a great comprehension and application of literacy skills. When somebody has capable to explore his/her skills, he/she will make a great literary text. As we know that almost literature is poured in text, so literacy skill has influence on literature.
Literature is writing valued as works of art, especialy novels, plays, and poems. The keyword of the definition are writing and works of art, writing is part of literacy skill and when we can use it in right way, we can make an art work.
Literature is made firstly as a record of real event. It recorded in a literary works, in the words with elaboration of literacy skills, literature can bring you to read the world in the word. Due to this statement, literacy is not only talked in reading and writing skills but also the ability to understand the world.
Reading the literature has tendency as read a work of art, where we have to enjoy the works. When somebody has felt interested in literary text, he/she will get easy to understand it and of course this can make a habit and develop his/her literacy level.
I conclude that there will never be literature without literacy skill, literacy skill is important to expand the literature product. Literacy has an important influence on literature, because literacy is a sinergetic collection of discrete skills, all those skills that give one automatic facility with the written word: reading, writing, spelling, grammar, vocabulary, and mechanics.

Kreativitas Intelektual Anak Bangsa

The title of the article is “Kreativitas Intelektual Anak Bangsa”. It is an informative article and gives the reader motivation to expand their creativity. The author explains many data to support his thesis and emphasize that creativity level of the Indonesian children who are 10 years old is low than other children with same age in different country -The Philippines, USA, England, Germany, India, People’s Republic of China, Cameroon, Zulu, Indonesia- (Jellen and Urban). Actually, the contents of the article tease us as mahasiswa by insinuation and allusion. He says that intellect refers to human’s ability to use their logical reasoning but practically it is often forgotten and not developed with the result that the existence is vague and make the people are not intellect (people who have critical thinking). Why I can say that the article teases us? In Indonesia, mahasiswa have high level in society and have many sobriquets say for example agent of change, young intellectual, etc but the condition of our country is same, still poor, irregularity, unemployment, careless, corrupt, unfair, etc. We can assume that we as a mahasiswa do not have intellectuality to produce the critical thinking to wake up our country into prosperity.
Mahasiswa have been forced to use their critical thinking when they write minithesis to obtain dokterandus degree and the result of this activity is mahasiswa can mix they critical thinking with creativity to produce a fresh concept of something. The methods to reach critical thinking are formulating an issue, looking for the reason, showing the exact source, relevant with main idea, looking for the alternative solving problem, having opened minded. The sixth are implicated in education life in university. The article focuses on creativity of mahasiswa in modern era because there are many accusations that say mahasiswa in this era are low creativity, and creativity in this context is creativity in literacy. Because, if we want to make Indonesia be an advance country, we have to increase our reading fondness and produce or publish book, newspaper, magazine, etc.
Regarding critical thinking and creativity in literacy, we can use writing as a means to train our critical thinking and creativity. Because when we are writing, we will be forced to make application of what our ideas are into connecting sentence structure in our writing. We used our critical thinking to see a problem and find out the problem solving and use our creativity to pour them into the text.
As a mahasiswa who have intellectuality, we have responsibility to ourselves to be queath our ideas about science, technology for the sake of prosperity. And if we do it, it is not less creative, monumental, heroic, and patriotic than proclamation. We have to prove that we have awareness to our country.
I do agree with the author’s argument in this article. Hopefully, this article can whip us as a young generation to be creative and productive especially in literacy in order to chase a way stupidity and poverty in Indonesia. Mahasiswa have to give their best effort into everything they do in their major and do not let your county down because the future of Indonesia depends on you “mahasiswa”, it depends on what your contribution to your country.

Intellectuals lack writing skills

“Intellectuals lack writing skills” is the title of the article that I have read. I think it is an informative and also enlightening article about how very dilapidated the education system is, they just give us receptive skills (listening and reading) and this system has consequence for the students with the result that do not have productive skills (speaking and writing). Ironically, in this country the people who have high academic title (masters, doctors, professors) are also good consumer, they just read many books which are written by foreigners in English as their bibliography in their own master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation. On the other hand, they should apply their ability to think and understand things, especially for the complicated ideas in their writing. I think there is a cause-effect connection in this case, intellectuals are not able to produce or publish their writing because of they are not equipped with writing skills when they were in school. Why I can say like that? My interpretation is going to be elaborated as follows.
Education as a means to educate people is a method to increase the standard intelligence of a nation, and it can influence on the way of the nation to take care of the citizenries and take along the nation to the bright future as a cultured or civilized nation. A nation can be called as a cultured or civilized nation when the citizenries have awareness to keep their civilization, and the history said that the present people are like now because of many texts that the past people had written; the texts are about ideas, dreams, curiosity, etc. The intellectuals wrote their esoteric knowledge based on their major education and everything in their mind which were not realized at that time, and the texts are the great legacy for us to develop our live into modernity right now.
Writing text is one of the important ways to keep the civilization, and when the author of the article says that the intellectuals of our country lack writing skill it means that the present education system in Indonesia has failed to provide students with writing skills and surely our civilization will face the blockage or perhaps it will stop. Indonesia has been renowned as a consumptive country, we import a large number of cars, motorcycles, hand phones, televisions from another country, and now we are also consumptive in textbook writing, and so what can we produce? From the article we know that in Indonesia, textbook writing is not a lucrative endeavour, it is the publisher and the bookstores rather than the writer that benefit financially.
We are going to see this problem from education system first, every single one of us has ever done national examination or another examination and we will always see the questions are multiple choice or filling in the blanks, it is quite common to see the questions which are like that. Indirectly, the students have been restricted because of that. They are only forced to find what the right is and actually they can find out the right answer there. They are not accustomed to expand their perspective or argument about anything because the important thing is the right question not the comprehension, but actually the case is important as a basic of writing. It will be taken along as long as they are in school, they will be hard to answer non multiple choice question even thought they have many ideas in their mind but they cannot put forward them into their answer or writing.
Like I say before that writing is a method to keep the civilization, so we have to grow up our awareness to write everything for the first time and try to write based on our major education. When we write, we can get many things such as improving our mind, giving information for people, and changing our status from consumptive into productive.
I am with the author’s point of view to see this problem; all of us are pioneer of innovation. And to do innovation, we have to change our academic system to make the students can have critical and creative thinking which is fundamental to developing an academic culture and we have to keep our awareness as an Indonesian, we have to put our best effort into everything we do to change Indonesia and make our nation be cultured, and one of the method is writing.

Corpus Planning

The title of the article is “Rekayasa Bahasa dan Perubahan Sosial Budaya”. This article gives us an analysis about how language can change many things, such as social, culture, and perhaps language would be a thing that can be used to promote our country in global era. When I read this article for the first time, I think it is hard to understand what the purpose is because the author uses very scientific language to identify and elaborate the terms and I think that is on purpose because the target of this article are academicians, linguists, and all people who want to know about language more deeply.
Based on my reading and my interpretation about every term that I have read, I am very interested in some of terms of the article and of course I do agree because I think these are the important issue and the terms have connection with all problems that we face nowadays. The terms are corpus planning can change our way to see a problem because it makes the meaning of the words be vaguely and when Bahasa Indonesia wants to go international as a preparation when all things of other countries come to Indonesia.
Corpus planning (Euphemism) actually does not change the meaning of the world, but I think it can change our way to approach and catch the meaning of the word directly. According to Cambridge Learner’s Dictionary, it said that euphemism is a word or phrase used to avoid saying an unpleasant or offensive word. When the meaning of the word is vaguely, we will be forced to have many interpretations of the word and I have strong belief that it will change our perspective to see a problem. For examples, in Bahasa Indonesia “Corruption” or Korupsi (Bahasa Indonesia) has changed to “Komersialisasi Jabatan” and “Starvation” or Kelaparan (Bahasa Indonesia) has changed to “Rawan Pangan”. We are going to see the alteration meaning of these words:
1. Corruption Korupsi Komersialisasi Jabatan
In the past, when we heard “corruption”, our mind will fly to all kind of irregularity in the accounts and all people can do that. Now when corruption has changed to “Komersialisasi Jabatan”, we will think that corruption happens only in government because they have strategic position to do that. Yes, I concede the point but I think all people can do corruption for everything and everywhere. Say for example; when we join in such a regular social gathering whose members contribute to and take turns at winning an aggregate sum of money (Arisan) but suddenly the management flee with all members’ money without confirmation, should we say it as corruption or not?.
2. Starvation Kelaparan Rawan Pangan
Starvation is a big calamity. When it happens, it means that our country has failed to serve prosperity for the citizen, as we know that prosperity is a prime goal when our country was built and it had put in our constitution by the founding father of this country. And now, it has changed to “rawan” that means we
just have to prepare and try to avoid the starvation, so when it has been happening, can we still call it as “rawan pangan”? I think two examples above are the examples of using euphemism which is over and out of control.
In global era, language is very important thing to communicate with other people from overseas. We have known that English is international language which is used to communicate with all people in the world, but most of people in Indonesia cannot speak English and it will be a big problem for our country to compete with other country in global era in all sectors. The way that can we use is making Bahasa Indonesia becomes a global language, we know that there are more 15 countries which enter bahasa Indonesia in curriculum of their school, and definitely we are proud of this achievement. And when we want to make bahasa Indonesia be universal, we have to use it in right way and have capability to keep and to perpetuate the language as our culture or identity and has to be gone along with the attitude when we use it, in order to there is no misunderstanding there and the people from other country will be respect.
So, through this content, I consider that all kind of language planning has influenced social, culture and our perspective to see a meaning beyond the words but it has been over and out of control now and we have to solve this problem in order to make bahasa Indonesia go international. Over all, I agree with these terms of the article.

Should the use of internet be limited?

Should the use of internet be limited?

Internet has developed rapidly; the user of it has been multiplied every time. At this time, access for internet is very easy. There are many providers for internet that can make us be easy to connect with internet by cable or noncable and almost all handphones which are sold now, have application to connect with internet in easy way. In this era, internet is not only to find out information but there are many websites to make social network such as facebook, twitter, friendster, my space, etc. Because of that, internet has been life style for modern people. Their activities always use internet in long time (to get information, to build social network, etc), and internet has bad influence on the users behaviour especially for adolescents if they use internet too much and too long and it can be solved with the use of internet be limited.
Internet has many bad impacts for us, if we use it too much we are in jeopardy. Pornography is popular issue when we are talking about internet because pornography has been the first popular business in the internet. When we want to get access for pornography website, it is not hard to do. Moreover, the websites of pornography can come to your PC, laptop, and handphone by e-mail or pop-up screen unexpectedly. What will happen when the user is a kid or adolescent? When they open the website for the first time, it can destroy their brain nerve and make them do that again and again. They know that what they do is wrong but they are afraid to say it. In quite apprehensive condition, it can rack their brains 2.5 times faster than normally. Because of that, their brains can be shrunken physically with the result that their brains fail to well-develop. The situation like that can deprave their future and can destroy their mind, because their memory have full of bad picture and it is hard to be lost in long time.
Besides that, internet can be like drug. The user can be addicted to browsing, playing game, chatting, building social network, etc. When somebody is addicted to internet, he/she will lean to unwilling to communicate with other people and will be an introvert and reclusive. Those facts can make the user has trouble to build socialization in real life. Will we have the next leader of our nation is like that? The impacts of internet will broke the future of the user, the user will never know at this time but he/she will regret in the end.
Internet has to be limited if we don’t want to shatter the future of our nation. The future of our nation is too precious to exchange with contentment of entertainment from the internet. There are many problems of our nation that have been vague because of the internet, the adolescents never put their best effort into everything they do to change our nation, and they are only busy to look for happiness in the internet. So, when the use of internet is limited, we have limited the destruction of our nation.

Should plagiarists be put behind the bar?

Should plagiarists be put behind the bar?
Plagiarism happens when somebody or an author uses another person’s work without declare owe a debt of gratitude to somebody. Plagiarism can be intentional or not (because he/she doesn’t understand about the rule). Plagiarism is the same as robbery. Both plagiarism and robbery are criminal, because the plagiarist has taken idea, work, words, and etc from another person without permission. As we know that everything which is related to criminal has rewards, they are money paid as a punishment for breaking the law and be put behind the bar. Because of it, plagiarists be put behind the bar is reasonable.
Why plagiarism is criminal? Based on oxford advanced learner’s dictionary, plagiarism is a noun form of plagiarize that means, “Copy another person’s work, words, ideas, etc and pretend that they are your own”. If we see from Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (KBBI) 4th Edition, the meaning of plagiarism is “Copy another person’s work which break the Laws of Copyright”. The keywords of two definitions are copy another person’s work and break the laws of copyright. Regarding break the laws of copyright, our government has had many regulations about that. One of them is law of the Republic of Indonesia no. 20, 2003 about punishment for plagiarists. The regulation said that university graduates who are his/her academic writing is used to get academic title, profession, or vocation which is known the result of plagiarism, it has consequences are:
1. The academic title will be lost (article 25 clauses 2).
2. Will be put behind the bar at least two years and/or have to pay 200 millions rupiah (article 70).
Plagiarism gives many bad impacts for the doer, but the doer don’t realize of them. Because, when somebody do plagiarism for the first time, he/she will not realize that his/her brain nerve has been destroyed with opinion that what he/she has done is commonplace now and there is no wrong. But actually the case is not simple like that, there are law consequences behind. Besides that, other bad impacts of plagiarism are lazy, not creative, and rely on other people. As a student, we always have assignment to make an academic writing, and in this era we always use internet as our primary source. There is no bad thing from internet as our primary source but our way is wrong. We usually take the whole article in the internet and say it as our work, and we don’t realize that what we always do is part of plagiarism and we have broken the law.
If we see from the impact in the future, we can imagine what will happen if the student who will be the leader of nation have been accustomed to do plagiarism. The leader will not have ability to compose a good program for prosperity or give dedication to society because they always take other person’s idea as them when they were a student in elementary until university. It’s an example for us that plagiarism is serious thing.
The regulations have arranged very clear that all of type of plagiarism will get punishment. So, there is no question for us. Jail is the right place for plagiarist, before our next leader are destroyed with instant ways to get something, we have to make the plagiarists cure of their habit with put them behind the bar.