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.