Snacks Time

What is the first thing come to your mine when somebody says “snacks”? It can be candies, or cookies. There are so many kinds of snacks such as ice cream, chocolate, soda, doughnut, and many more. For me, snacks are really helpful. It helps me relieve my stress. I will always bring some snacks during my study in home. It truly avoids the boredom that usually comes when you study.

            Snacks are easy to find. Especially in Indonesia, you can easily find it in the street side. Or usually, people buy them in supermarket or minimarket. You can find them easier in supermarket since in supermarket there are more various kinds of snacks. Sometime in my spare time, if I do not have anything else to do, I prefer to make my own snacks. I often make it together with my little sister. One of snacks I usually make is Cheesy Spice Cookies.

            To make Cheesy Spice Cookies is easy. First of all, like every people do, we have to prepare the ingredients. The things you need to make these cookies are 200 g plain flour, 30 g corn flour, 30 g milk powder, 1 teaspoon mixed spices, and ½ teaspoon baking powder. That is for the foundation. Then we still need 50 g corn flakes which is finely crushed, 50 g grated cheese, 200 g butter, 50 g caster sugar, 2 egg yolks, 1 egg yolk for glazing, and finally some sliced almonds.

            After you have all the ingredients, you can start to work on it. So, how to make it? It is simple. Firstly, sift together the ingredients for the foundation that I have mentioned above, then stir in the corn flakes and grated cheese. You have to mix it well then you set it aside for a moment while we go to the next step. Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. After that, add the egg yolks and beat them well. Next, fold in flour mixture and mix it well until soft dough forms.

            After soft dough formed, roll it into about 1 cm thick and cut with desired cookie cutter. Then place them on lightly greased baking trays and do not forget to allow room for the cookies to spread. And glaze with beaten egg yolk and decorate with sliced almonds. For sliced almonds, you can change it with other things you prefer. If you finish, bake the cookies in preheated oven at 180^o C for about fifteen to twenty minutes. Then remove it from oven and let it stand for 20 minutes. Now the Cheesy Spice Cookies are ready to be served. It is easy, isn’t it?

Floods Back to Haunt

Floods come back again. That word is echoing inside our head recently. It is so pathetic considering floods always come every year and seems to be a usual thing. Floods sound like a trivial thing to some people, whereas their effects are so dangerous if it continues all the time. Government has made a lot of ways to prevent floods, but it is not easy as turning your hand. The proof of this, we can find many indifferent people who ignore the environment whereas they are involved in preventing floods.

            It is called flood, when a big number of water stagnates an area. It can be caused by many things. Nature can be one of them, and so do indiscriminate human activities. Natural phenomena such as high rainfall will influence the condition. Heavy rain which comes every day plus a pile of garbage will make water in the drains stacked while the water in river is getting overflow. Besides, we often throw garbage everywhere. Whereas, if today each of us can stand not to throw any garbage, there will be no thousand of trash in the street.

            On the other hand, the construction of houses in river side, and illegal logging leave only a little space for tree to grow. This is a big problem because if there are not enough places for trees, so water infiltration is getting hard to find. And the area which is lack of water infiltration will be easier to be flooded. Of course we cannot just stay and do nothing for our environment.

            Being careful does not mean we do nothing. When floods are about to come, we should have made many preparation. Start from food, clothes, medicine, or else. We do not need to be panic to face the floods.

            In summary, flood can be caused by nature or human. But it can be prevented if we make a lot of preparation and keep preserving the environment. Sense of awareness and sense of belonging are the main things to keep in mind. It will help us to prevent the floods which come back to haunt.

Finding Solution for Energy Crisis

Nowadays, our world is facing many serious problems, especially environmental problems. One of the environmental problems is energy crisis. Energy crisis happens in a condition when people depend on fossil fuel as their energy source. Fossil fuel is decreasing but the price of it is increasing. Energy crisis becomes everybody’s attention in this entire world because all of them feel the suffering. Indonesia experiences this pathetic condition.

            Indonesia used to be a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), but ironically, Indonesia is becoming a net crude-oil importer after the domestic production fell sharply. That is the reason why Indonesia left OPEC a few years ago. Karishma Vaswani, BBC’s Asia Business Correspondent said, “It may be necessary to leave OPEC because of the economic and political conditions the country is facing right now.” As the citizen of Indonesia, it can be concluded that energy crisis is attacking Indonesia. Indonesia usually uses gasoline and coal as its energy sources. Many years ago, Indonesian people stay calm that they will not be lack of fossil fuel, but if we take a good look to the reality, we will find that the fossil fuel is decreasing now. This situation must be solved as soon as possible.

            The dependency on fossil fuel should be stopped since we have realized that energy crisis makes us hard to get cheaper gasoline, oil, or coal. People cannot ignore this situation. Gasoline and coal are energies that cannot be renewed. Can you imagine how the situation is going if the world goes without them?

            Since we are modern human, we must think fast and react automatically in facing any problems. If there are such nonrenewable energies, there must be the renewable energies. Wind, water, sunlight, and many more are renewable energies. We have them around us. Now, the thing is how we can make them beneficial for us.

            Wind, for example, is used by the fishermen for sailing. Fishermen in Indonesia usually use boats with sails. In this case, they do not need any gasoline to make their boats move.

            That was only an example of avoiding energy crisis. It will be better for us to start use the right thing that not gave us the bad impact.

Developing English Skills to Compete in Worldwide Challenges

I will tell you a story about my organization, UKM Bahasa-FLAT (Foreign Languages Association). We were once invited by State Islamic University Sunan Gunung Djati Bandung to join the event they made. They wanted us to be the participants in a competition they have held in order to celebrate eleventh SAEED (Student Association of English Education Department) anniversary. The name of the event was 1^st Annual SAEED National Competition (ASNC), and the theme was Developing Peoples English Capability to Compete in Worldwide Challenges. The competitions they held were divided into some kinds of competitions. They were Writing Competition, News Reading Contest, Speech Contest, and English Debate Competition.

            FLAT, cooperate with some students from Faculty of Dirasat Islamiya, went there as a representative from State Islamic University Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta. Faculty of Dirasat Islamiya sent one team for the English Debate Competition. FLAT sent 2 people for Writing Competition, 4 people for News Reading Contest, 2 people for Speech Contest, and 1 team for English Debate Competition.

Firstly, FLAT sent Nesya and one of my senior for Writing Competition. But then, my senior was hard to contact so suddenly, when only a day left before the competition, FLAT decided to send me instead of my senior to be the participant. Thinking that I did not even know what topics to write, I directly refused it. I have no preparation at all. I really did not have any idea. But Ka Aqin, chief of FLAT that time, encouraged me. He told me to do it. It does not matter whether I won or not. For me, I would get new experiences. So, I said yes.

Then we went there, to Bandung, on Sunday. And my turn would come on Monday which means tomorrow. I have just a very short time to prepare myself to face it. I made my outline for each topic on the way there, in the car. Can you imagine that?

Well, it came. I was sitting in the room, write anything came to my mind on the paper. All representatives from my college came to support me and Nesya. We were the star of the day. I chose Social Culture as my writing theme that day. I cannot remember what I have written that time, but I think it was not that bad for me as beginner.

News Reading Contest was held the next day, Speech Contest was on Wednesday, and English Debate Competition was on Tuesday and Friday. The result was great, I think. Such a big satisfaction we got. Even though I and Nesya did not succeed to be the winner, but from about 20 participants on Writing Competition we were in the 6^th and the 8^th place. Meanwhile, we got the 1^st place for News Reading Contest, the 3^rd place for Speech Contest, and the team from Faculty of Dirasat Islamiya got the 3^rd place for English Debate Competition. What a very valuable experience I have ever got.

Galileo Galilei

A very well-known scientist, and I am sure you know him, was born in Tuscany, near Pisa, Italy on February 15, 1564. His father, Vincenzio Galilei, give the baby his grandfather’s name, Galileo. Then it becomes Galileo Galilei. Galileo’s father wants Galileo to be a great and famous doctor just like his grandfather, Galileo Buonaiuti, that’s why he gives him his grandfather’s name. Galileo’s family was not rich but well respected. His father is a successful teacher and a musician at the same time. He teaches Galileo to play flute since his child. Galileo is a very likeable person. His character impressed me.

He was a man who makes friends easily. Yes, he has many enemies but he also has many friends who always help him. Especially The Medici family. Galileo has a very good relation with them. Since he was studying in Catholic Church, he also has some friends from the Catholic Church. Prince Federico Cesi (the founder of the Lyncean Scientific academy in Rome), Ascanio Piccolomini (The Archbishop of Siena) are just a few name of his friends.

Galileo was clever. Not just at his school lessons but also in finding out how the things around him worked. He also loved making many new useful things. In 1597, he made a weird thing called a “Geometric and Millitary Compass”. This was made up of two folding rulers with scales. When opened out, they could be used to make calculations. Not only that contraption thing, Galileo also made a telescope. Galileo’s telescope made us possible to see the moon, planets, and stars clearly. And in about two months, December 1609 to January 1610, Galileo made more discoveries that changed the world than anyone has ever made before. Galileo was too pushy and too full of shocking new ideas. Not only clever, he also a multi talent person. He learned about many different subjects, from science and art, to poetry and music. He also studied Latin and Greek.

The most impressed thing from him is that he is an opinionated man. He was sure that all objects fell to the ground at the same speed. It means that the object will hit the ground at the same time. He did a simple experiment to prove this idea. He believes that, same as Copernicus, the Sun is the center of the world and it is immovable, and the Earth is not the center and moves. This belief was rejected by so many people in that day. This belief made Galileo got many enemies. He struggled to preserve this idea. He wrote a book, “Dialogue of The Two Principal Systems of The World, in 1624, but published in 1632. He made the book showed both sides of the argument fairly. And the truth – as it so often does – came out in the end. 

We can see that Galileo was a very great person. He was a man who always tried hard and uneasy to give up, especially in his own opinion. We can try to be like him in order to get a better future.

Wondering about Whales

Each of you, I am sure, has already known what whales are. They are animals, especially kind of mammals, who are living in the sea. Nowadays, there some bio acousticians or acoustic biology are having research about whales. Bio acousticians are scientists who are studying animal sounds. In this case we talk about whales sounds. They are seeking what those sounds mean and how exactly they use it to communicate each other.

            A doctor, named Clark, is researching how whales use their sounds to communicate, navigate, or even survive in the ocean. There are many different kinds of sounds that whales make. It can be low rumbling, or high squeaks. Some species sounds almost like birds.

There are also some amazing facts about whales’ sounds. Male humpback whales can sing songs that can last thirty minutes. What a very long time. Each year, humpback in the same group sings the same songs. And then next year, somewhat the songs have changed into another one, but still all the whales in the group sing it. There are also bowhead whales. They can imitate sounds such as ice cracking.

Dr. Clark found that male whales sing a song to attract females while intimidate other males. Dr. Clark also uses his knowledge about whales’ sounds to count how many they are. Also he can tell what species a whale is only by looking at the spectrograms.

Whales themselves use sounds not only to communicate each other but also to find out about their environment just like bats do.

Unfortunately, with all this knowledge and all of this high technology, Dr. Clark still does not know how exactly whales make sounds. How the sounds are created is just one of the many questions that need to be answered about whales.

From the explanation above, I realize what a very clever creature human is. They can create such technology to find anything they are wondering about. I also realize how amazing God’s creatures are. However, not all of the secrets of nature are that easy to find. Still, there are many things to find out.

FLAT Anniversary

Since February comes, I and my friends in my organization, UKM Bahasa-FLAT (Foreign Languages Association), become very busy all the time. We must prepare something. We have a thing to do. We were doing this to welcome the birthday of UKM Bahasa-FLAT. We held an event, precisely a big event. And this was going to be our biggest event this year. The name of the event is FLAT Anniversary. After debating for a long time, then we chose “Empowering Potential, Preserving Our Culture” as our theme of our event. That was all about culture, competition, and celebration.

            The event would be divided into two parts. They are competitions, and celebration. Since my organization focused on learning foreign languages, we held some language competitions. There were Speech Contest and Debate Competition. We are students of State Islamic University Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta. In our university, we focused on two foreign languages, English and Arabic. For that reason, we divided the Speech Contest into two parts. They were English Speech Contest and Arabic Speech Contest. We did also the same thing to Debate Competition. It became English Debate Competition and Arabic Debate Competition. All of those competitions were held for empowering our potential, as the theme said, especially in our language skill.

            And then what we were going to do for representing the “Preserving Our Culture”? We held also a competition that related to culture. That time, we chose Saman Dance to be contested. We held Saman Dance competition.

            The competitions were held in one week. It started on May 9, 2011. And it ended on May 16, 2011 with Saman Dance competition as a closing of the sequence of the competitions.

Honeybeat

            After succeeded in holding the competitions, we prepared ourselves to face the celebration day. There were so many things to do that we all got tired, even some of us got sick. But it was not knock our spirit down. In this celebration, we planned to show the audience some of cultural performances and also the closing ceremony. That time, the cultural performances are Jaipong Dance, Saman Dance from the first winner of Saman Dance Competition, Jali-Jali Dance, and many more. We also invited Honeybeat as our guest star that day. Honeybeat is an indie band, and they are Japanese lovers. They sang us their own songs which the lyrics were in Japanese language. In the end of the event, before we closed it, there was giving prizes ceremony to the winners of the competitions. And as a closing we were doing bonodori, Japanese traditional dance, together with all the people there.

            Those were very tiring. That was our very big event and we happy because it runs well. That will become our pride.

My Lovely Bahasa Indonesia

Mastering English, and the world will be in your hand. That sounds interesting. That sounds very enchanting. Nowadays, mastering English becomes an important thing for all people in the world. We have already known that English language is internationally used as a language to communicate in many parts of the world. The importance of mastering English makes some schools, even kindergarten, build a bilingual system in their school for their curriculum. They teach English to the children from the earlier age. But for me, speaks English all the time is not too important or not too necessary for we are not an English native. We have our own culture here in Indonesia and we have Bahasa Indonesia as our language. Besides, not all people here can understand English language.

            It is not that you are not allowed to speak in English because you have Bahasa Indonesia. It is just we do not have to speak in English all the time. Speak as Indonesian person, Indonesia has its own cultures, its own customs or characteristics, and as we all know Indonesia is a very rich country. We have so many languages here such as Javanese, Sundanese, Minang and many more. We have to keep it exist.

            We must proud with our own language. It will bring us some benefits. With our pride on our own language, we can understand each other. There will be no misunderstanding. And also, with our pride on our own language, we can bring it internationally. Maybe Bahasa Indonesia could be replacing English language as an international language. For example, the people in French are really proud with their language. They will always use their language as long as they are in their own country. If foreigner talks to them with a foreign language, they still will answer it with their language.

            So, to make it clear once again, it is not that you are not allowed to speak in English. It is just it does not have to be all the time. Be proud with our own Bahasa Indonesia.

My Sweetest Memories

As far as I remember my childhood was full of fun memories. Maybe it is because as a child, of course I did not have many things to think about. All I can do is just playing, studying, and following any of my parents want.

            When I was a student in one of elementary school in Jakarta, I was really good in my academic. I was always in the first place in my class from the first grade until the sixth grade. That really is my pride, until now. And of course, my parents were very proud of me. But when I entered junior high school, I was not in the first place again. It is not that my capability was decreasing, but it is because there are some people who are smarter and more genius than me. Furthermore, in senior high school, I never imagined to get the first place even only in my dream. For your information, my senior high school is the best senior high school in Jakarta, for sure. The students there are they who have the highest graduation score from their junior high school.

            During my time in elementary school, I joined many competitions. I should say many kinds of competitions. Often I joined in competitions such as painting, fashion show, singing, and else. I did these competitions in almost every week. My mother always accompanied me in every competition. And usually we went together with my best friend and her mother. You can say that I was an expert in painting, not drawing. I succeeded to be the winner in almost every competition I joined. I managed to get the trophy though it was not always in the first place. I joined the singing competition twice and I made it. Both the competitions I joined bring me to be the winner. Since I joined many competitions, now I have so many trophies in my house. My mother made me a special shelf for all my trophies.

            Now, in this age, I never join that kind of competitions again. I do not have my childhood confidence anymore.

The Great Killer

Smoker is a killer, for himself and everybody around him. All people in all over the world have known already that smoking is not a good thing to do. The disadvantages of smoking outweigh its advantages. For me, avoid smoking is much better because it is not only healthier but also it surely helps you to save your money for better reasons.

            Truly, smoking is not good for one’s health. It is not only bad for the smokers but also bad for non-smokers (passive smokers) around them. The active smokers will risk themselves to get many diseases such as heart attack and lung cancer. If it is a woman, she can get troubles with her pregnant. The non-smokers around also will get some troubles. Even some experts said that the non-smokers have the bigger risk to get their health bad. Some researches prove that the smoke from the cigarettes that was inhaled by the non-smokers can cause blind and also deaf for them. For that reason, I ensure you that smoking is really bad for our health.

            In addition, use your money to buy some cigarettes are really useless thing to do. Some students prefer to buy cigarettes to buy meal for themselves. Whereas, they can smoke even until more than one package of cigarettes per day. To think about that, they can just not buy the cigarettes and save their money for better reasons.

            The smokers usually said that with smoke cigarettes they can relieve their stress. That is really a strange reason, I think. Such a non-sense since there are so many other ways in relieving your stress, anyway. For example, some people usually try to listen to the music to throw away their stress. And the rest choose to make themselves get some sleep. Your body is taking some rest when you sleep. Sleep will make you relax and feel refresh.

            You can see, the disadvantages of smoking outweigh the advantages of it. Even, I can say that there are no any advantages you can take from smoking. So, for the smokers, if you do not want to be considered as a killer, I suggest you to not smoke anymore. Stop smoking start from now. Just live a healthy life.