17th of August: Dirgahayu RI

Today, remark our beloved country 76 years of Independence. I would like to remind myself that we still have lots of works to be done as our country is developing. Back then, prior to our independence, our people fight for their freedom. Countless sacrifices were done. People who sacrificed their lives, people who left their family to join the fight against our invaders, people who spent their wealth to support the fight for our independence. Hundreds of thousands patriots whose name were unknown fought so that our generation can be free from the shackles that bound them for more than 3 centuries. Those nameless people who won’t be remembered by the future generations fought for independence. Everyone had different reason, for our motherland, for their family, for the future generations, and other reasons I couldn’t state one by one. We, as the current generation, have a moral obligation to continue their fight.

We got to enjoy this privilege thanks to those people who fought hard back then. Our fight is honestly much more challenging than theirs. They had common enemies back then but nowadays our enemies are not that tangible. Economics, globalization, environmental destructions, internal conflicts, market competition, local morality perturbation are few example of challenges we will face.

People at every age can join this fight, we already won the fight for independences, now we are entering a fight to make our countries better, for our people in overall. People at every age could join this fight. Those who are under 18 years old, can build up their skill. Most people in this category are usually students. As a student, we can learn and teach ourselves how to have the crucial skills for the future. Literacy skill and numeracy skill are 2 most important skills a student can have. Of course others skill such as Critical Thinking, Creativity, Collaboration and Communications need to be learned as well. However, the basic foundation to have those 4C is literacy and numeracy skills. Unfortunately, number of students who really try to improve themselves, to arm themselves for the future fight they will have, need to be increased. Our youngsters nowadays prefer to playing games, streaming and watching uneducated content, hanging out and wasting their time. And it’s our roles as adults, to guide them. Parents, teachers and communities need to work together to guide our youngster.

People above 18 years old are varied. Some people already got jobs, some still pursue their higher education, some even started being entrepreneurs. People in this group usually are more mature, now they can start tackling the challenges that we are facing.

Globalization, if they equip themselves with the right weapon they won’t be easily sway by fierce competition caused by globalization, thus they could give contribution to our countries.

Environmental destructions, some might have some aspiration and raise awareness about global warming and how our environments got destroyed due to capitalism such as burning forest to make new plantation, throwing industrial wastes to river/sea or landfill. Again, in this fight it would not be easy because they will face resistances from quite strong opponents. As current generations, some will take this role to raise awareness of people about our impediment if we don’t take action to prevent further devastation. Some might got incarcerated, even killed, their family might get threatened, but didn’t that happen when our predecessor fight for independence? Numbers of people who had fallen for this fight against environmental destruction are unknown. We already have nameless heroes who didn’t get exposed to mass media.

Internal conflict, an occurrence that always happened since human exist. Being good communicators and convincing talkers could prevent internal conflict to get worse. There are always people who would sabotage our peace for personal gains. This is another fight we can’t escape from. The enemies might be our neighbors, or worse, our own families. Nowadays, we can talk and discuss about issues at hand, most of the time. Again, our fight is quite similar with our predecessor, we just need to adjust with current era or the best approach possibly.

Local morality, we have different moral values compared to western world. However, advancement of internet and technology made it really easy for anyone with device and internet to got exposed to foreign cultural values. Back then, our predecessor didn’t have internet or google. So what they learn came from their predecessor, and books they read. When they were kids, they learned from their families, teachers and their community, whose held quite similar values with each others. The know what is immoral according to their standard and what is not. Most of them held the same values. However, nowadays, that’s not the case anymore. Kids can learn foreign cultural values which might contradict with our predecessor values, in a bad way. Now, we might be in a vicious cycle. In which parents already have some value shift, and their children values’ shift even further. And in the long run, in some areas, especially big cities, our cultural and moral values will slowly fade away. In somewhere in the future it might be lost. Something we hold taboo back then, might be a normal occurrence in the near future. This is another difficult fight we have to enter to. If we left it alone they would be like an insidious enemy for our country’s future. Once again, current adults need to guide the future generation so that we could get out from vicious cycle we might be already in. Honestly, this will be onerous one to win.

Sometimes, I wonder what would our country be like 10-30 years from now? Today is a reminder for me, that our fight is different to our predecessors’. Our fight are more arduous, more complex and more forbidding. Regardless, we should move forward and keep doing our best, for whatever noble reasons every one of us have.

Happy 76 years old my precious country.

In 2018

After COVID19, lot of changes has taken place. Car free day is one of them. Seeing this kind of view would be quite rare nowadays. I miss this kind of vibe a lot.

Car Free Day on Sunday 2018
Walking freely without masker
Live Performance (Religious Music)
Live Performance (Traditional Dance)

Strolling around from Bundaran HI to Monas. Enjoying street vendor with their various goods to sell. Every month, at least once, I went to this place. Just wandering aimlessly, I saw people jogging, cycling, walking, eating, enjoying live music, and shopping here. When would we be able to do this kind of thing again?

Life was that good huh. We don’t realize the value of something, most of the time, until we lost it. Now, we, or at least I, know how valuable these little things are.

MOOCS

Advancement in technologies has bring lots of changes in many societies. There are barely any field that haven’t been affected by technologies, nowadays. Education is one of many fields that got disrupted with the advancement in technologies. With the help of MOOCS, online learning is more preferrable than going to college to get your degrees.

Firstly, online learning gives students more flexibility on their learning experience. Students can learn at their own pace. Another advantage of online learning is students can learn from anywhere as long as they got internet access and gadget to watch lectures and materials. Unlike going to college, in which students have a set schedule in which they required to visit their campus and stayed there for a certain amount time, online learning gives students more freedom. And at the same time, they can learn to manage their time more wisely.

Secondly, online learning is not as expensive as going to college. There are lots of platform that can be used to learn materials that are taught in college. Coursera, Udemy, Edx, and Skillshare are some examples. By spending less money, students can obtain college-like lectures and materials. Of course, this is possible since those universities and colleges already well established. Furthermore, online learning has less buildings and other infrastructures that need maintenance as normal colleges do.

Lastly, online learning provides more variety of options for students. Students might have a wide range of interests in other fields, besides their main major. In college settings, the number of courses that can be taken from other departments within 4 years education in college are quite limited. That’s not the case for online learning. Students can finish tens or even hundreds of courses that are not related with their major in online learning.

In conclusion, online learning has more advantages nowadays compared to going to college. Not only it gives students more freedom in their education, online learning also cost less and provide more options for students to choose from.

Note: Of course for some fields, such as engineering and medical department, it is better to earn your degree by going to college. MOOCS have its own limitation, but I don’t see why, 5 or 10 years in the future, MOOCS won’t dominate the Education Industry. This is one of the assignments I has to submit to pass a course in Coursera.

Picture taken from: https://www.diygenius.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/ultimate-mooc-guide.jpg

Slow Sunday

I planned to visit my grandma’s house today. She lives in Jakarta while I stay in South Tangerang. I have been living in this city for 6 years already and I haven’t got myself a motorcycle, the most convenient way to transport around Jabodetabek. I usually travel by public transport such as Busway, KRL (Commuter Line), or MRT.

Today, I woke up around 6:30 A.M, and after taking a bath I got ready to go to my grandma’s house. I took angkot (it’s another transportation we have) around 7 A.M and arrive in Lebak Bulus, a point center where I can choose either to ride on Busway or MRT, 30 minutes later. Little did I know that the new regulation during PPKM (a government program to limit people’s movement as to prevent COVID19 from spreading) require travelers who will get into Busway to have a certain letter. Unfortunately, I didn’t have that kind of letter with me. Disappointed, I waited for another angkot to go back to my resident.

PPKM has already run almost for 1 month, the number of cases is steadily decreasing. The number of deaths was still above 1k yesterday. It’s been one month as well since the last time I visited my family in Jakarta. I just stayed in my house all the time in this past 1 month. I haven’t gone to anywhere, not to the mountain, to another city, not even to shopping center around here. I feel stifled, and so that thousands of Indonesian. I miss having a dinner in restaurants, hanging out with my colleagues, traveling with strangers, spending times with my families.

Today, I failed to visit my family, but next time I will make sure I have all the documents required to travel. I need a recharge, and spending my time with my family is one way to boost my already low mood.

Angkot

Picture taken from:

https://awsimages.detik.net.id/customthumb/2014/12/23/10/112519_angkotmonster2.jpg?w=700&q=90

Waerebo

Amidst hectic schedule
I find comfort
In looking at old photographs
Being in a hut

There were not many people
In this traditional village
They called it Waerebo
An authentic place

Resplendent scenery
Unsullied air
Tranquil environment
Gregarious neighbors

Not to mention
2 hours walk
we had to go through
to reach this place

A muddy track
Worn out travelers
All in all
It’s all worth it

Waerebo, January 2021

Sopot

I walk alone
In an unfamiliar place
People I don’t know
Language that’s alien to me

I walk alone
Observing people
As they passed me
And I wonder

A man with smile,
Old man and his bicycle,
A couple,
Students

You got to see
Different people
Unmasked, no health protocol
I miss those

When I walk alone

Photo taken in Sopot, Poland 2015