A Well-Laid Plan

In preparation of the speech tests, I've prepared the necessary texts. I fortunately got some inspirations out of nowhere, so it's done quite wonderfully.

For Bahasa Indonesia, I made a speech about why do we need to care about the impending doom caused by anthropogenic global warming. Actually, I somewhat recycled the materials from my XI grade Friday sermon, so I got half of the job done already. Then, decorate the speech here and there, concoct some great phrases/quotations, and voila, I'm ready. What I have to remember is to tie up my tongue and not let it slip. I have to make sure that I say "pemanasan global" instead of the more popular "global warming".

For English, I'm going to tell my unique/embarassing/strange/ridiculous experience in XI grade concerning the skeleton of a bird. It was a long story, but I ended up alone finding a ride home from school at 4 PM, with books in my backpack and a bird's skeleton on my hands, inappropriately wrapped in only a sheet of paper. If that's not unique, I don't know what is.

Some Random Trivias

Here are some random facts I compiled just for the sake of posting something without any apparent reason.

> Do you still think that being "one in a million" is special? With a population reaching around 1.3 billion, China has 1300 "one in a million"s

> Pi has been calculated to over 2,260,321,363 digits...now that's accuracy

> In movies, the Eiffel Tower can be seen from almost any window in Paris

> Also in movies, the martial arts hero doesn't have to worry about being outnumbered by his enemies. They will just circle him and dance around as one by one fights with the hero

> Only in Bollywood movies, every problem has a solution...you just have to dance for it. And by the time someone starts dancing, a gang of unknown dancers suddenly appear out of nowhere to dance along

> Do you know Barbara Millicent Roberts? You might also know her as Barbie the doll

> Bhutan govt's policy is based on Gross National Happiness

> When more than half of the world's population tunes in to Friends, go to McDonald's, and have a drink at Starbucks; who really gets culture shock?

> This one's for your vocabulary: an "aglet" is the plastic/metal sheath at the tip of shoelaces and this symbol "&" is called an "ampersand"

> The wingspan of Boeing 747 is longer than the Wright brothers' first flight

> Charlie Chaplin once won third place in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest

There are still tons of such trivias out there on the internet, but the time now is like midnight-ish. So, I'll hit the bed as soon as I turn my laptop off. Well, you might also enjoy Mariah Carey's newest single "Touch My Body". Apparently, Carey has less body to touch after she lost some weight (according to the E! Channel) And last trivia, the lyric of the song has the word YouTube in it:

...If there's a camera up in here then I'd best not catch this flick on YouTube...

Between Now and June 14

While enjoying a well-deserved holiday after Ujian Nasional, I couldn't help but think about what I'll be facing these days before the results are out on June 14 (or preferably earlier). There are still stuffs to come, so it's true that there's test, not rest, for the weary. Let me elaborate.

I have to prepare speeches for Bahasa Indonesia and English speaking tests. For Bahasa Indonesia, the theme of the speech is upon the student, for better or for worse; for English, we have to prepare either a personal recount or a hopefully funny spoof. There will also be writing tests for each of the subjects. Furthermore, IA students will have chemistry, biology, and physics experiments to do. Now, where did I put my lab coat?

Arts, PE, and religious ed will have tests too. It means that for the religious ed test I'll have to memorize and recite long verses of zikir and prayers in Arabic, a language that I don't really understand, with strictly no improvisations. I need to remind myself not to forget it. I guess the education system can't handle personal messages to God. And why do we even need to test someone whether he/she can pray or not? To start with, who can really set a standard on this stuff anyway? For God's sake, Indonesia's not Saudi Arabia. No one should impose a belief and religious practices to others.This kind of education will breed narrow-mindedness and misunderstanding of religion, which in turn, will destroy the religion itself and the freedom of belief.

Anyway, after all those wonderful acts, comes the school exam or Ujian Sekolah for subjects not included in Ujian Nasional. Let's see, there'll be citizenship ed, history, and written religious ed tests...including Qur'an-Arabic language for me. Blurgh. And after all the tests, we still have to wait until June 14. What a wonderful world! Hahaha...blurgh, again.

So, I guess I'll splurge on DVDs and books until the promised day. Grey's Anatomy S3 just finished on StarWorld and I'm going to buy the S2 DVD, along with others to murder time. I might also finish reading some books. Oh, speaking about books, remember Three Cups of Tea? Thanks to GoogleEarth, I visited the vilages talked about in the book. Skardu's there, so is the Braldu River but Korphe's satellite image is not so clear yet, I only got it by the placemark. Thanks a lot, Google!

PS. I'm posting Leona Lewis' excellent performance of "Bleeding Love" on American Idol. Enjoy!

It's Only the First Part

Twelfth-graders across the country, or in this case "we", can breath a little bit relaxed now. The Ujian Nasional is finally over, but it wasn't without complaints and criticism. The test is criticized by teachers and students as being too difficult and unstandardized. This billion-rupiahs project has apparently brought so much problem and burden to the students. Someone (read:Education Minister) needs to wake up, turn on what's left of his brain, and think hard. This annoying exam must be reevaluated with caution, seeing that it had only brought more negative impacts than positive ones.

In the end, we still have to wait for another month for the results. Why does it take so much time? Does it mean that the correctors will really do their job carefully? The latest news I hear is that the results will be out on June 14, I do hope that it will be earlier though. Less stress on us. In the mean time, we will again face a series of tests: speech, writing, PE, religious ed, etc and also the school exam for subjects not included in Ujian Nasional. I guess UN is only the first part...now, get to work!

Let's talk about something else. Obviously, yesterday was Thursday and Thursday is the sacred "let's-kick-someone-off-AmIdol day". The week's theme was songs by Andrew Lloyd Webber; consequently, I'm completely lost. I don't know any of the songs except for Jesus Christ Superstar by Carly Smithson. Sadly, it is also the week Carly got eliminated despite unanimous praise from the judges, including the Simon. After the fateful week of Kristy Lee Cook's elimination, Carly's elimination seemed so far away but it did happen, too bad. As a tribute to her performance, I'm posting it here.

I'm Really Living the Day

Whew, the first day of Ujian Nasional is over. Shot my way through Bahasa Indonesia, which gave me a serious panic attack; but fortunately, I fared much better in math. Tomorrow, it's English and chemistry's turn: I question myself for posting instead of studying. Gotta brush up my memory on the elements and biochemistry. I need all the blessing I can get, please God.

I was just thinking like "So this is the day we've been talking about for the last months or, maybe, year. This is the seemingly sacred day for every high-schoolers' destiny. Hey, I am living THE DAY." I'm going through the day with my own eyes and hands. I was filling in my very own name on the red answer sheet, received a set of questions titled "Ujian Nasional 2008", worked it out (correctly, amin), and I'm writing my very own history. This is a once in a life time experience.

Btw, April 22 is also EARTH DAY. Global warming is not hot, so take care of our one and only home.

170408 American Idol Postmortem

Simon couldn't say it any better. Kristy Lee Cook, your time is up. The bottom-three dweller finally got eliminated from the show today, leaving the Top 6 to compete next week. After last week's shocking elimination of Michael Johns, this one is welcomed and well-deserved. I don't want to say that she's a bad singer, she had her time too; but she didn't stand out among her peers, something that she had to do to stay in Idol.

Actually, I should've started the post with a review of the performances first; however, I have my priorities, thank you. Archangels may relax, the Chosen One is still safe after his wonderful rendition of When You Believe. David Cook is also on my "good" list for his own "Always Be My Baby". As for the girls, I still root mostly for Brooke White ("Hero"), whose performance last night was compared by Simon to a pattyless hamburger. Overall, I still say that all of the girls are excellent. By the way, Carly sang an English version of "Ken Lee" (If you have no idea of what I'm talking about, click on Ken Lee). The choice gets harder these days with wonderful contestants in the Top 6.

Remember Doolittle who did big? You might also remember one elimination night when she was asked to choose, between two groups of contestants, the one group that she thought was safe. Despite Ryan's push, she stayed neutral and instead, she sat down right there on the stage refusing to pass judgement. Well, Arch did that too. Ryan took the already-safe Archuleta, and divided the remaining into two groups of three. He was asked to choose, like Melinda, and he also chose to sit down on the stage rather than judging his fellow contestants.

That's all (that I can write right now) folks! We can only wait until next week and just watch the performances on YouTube until then.

Three Cups of Tea to Warm Your Days

With only a few days before the Ujian Nasional, I feel very grateful that a book saved me from the impending monotony and exhaustion. This lifesaver, which I got as a birthday gift, is titled Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David O Relin.

As you might guess from the three girls in the cover, it deals with something in somewhere in the muslim world. To be more exact, it tells the true-life story of mountain climber-cum-activist Greg Mortenson who, after his failure to summit K2, stumbled upon a small village in the Karakoram Ranges, Pakistan. The isolated village of Balti people welcomed the unlucky American with open arms, helping him recover despite their own poverty. In return, Mortenson promised the village chief that he will come back and build them a school for the children.

The first half of the book tells of Mortenson's struggle to fulfill his promise and to survive his own hardships in America. He slept in his old car, worked hours and hours, and wrote half a thousand letters to everyone he thought might help the purpose including celebrities (have I mentioned Oprah?) When his goodwill finally stood on stable funding, he finished the promised school.

Here, we drink three cups of tea to do business: the
first you are a stranger, the second you become a friend, and the third, you
join our family, and for our family we are prepared to do anything - even
die. Haji Ali, Korphe Village Chief

Realizing that there are even more people to help in the mountains of needs, Mortenson and his benefactors founded Central Asia Institute to provide similar education assistance to the area. He had to face thousands of obstacles, including a fatwa by a narrow-minded mullah against educating girls.

The story of an American who literally scales the mountains to help impoverished, uneducated Pakistani children is an inspiring story. An "infidel" risked his life educating the isolated people of the Karakoram, who had been deprived of the most basic facilities by their own government. The touching story is the strong point of the book. This humanitarianism shows that philanthropy transcends nationality, race, and even religion. The book is also an eye opener that somewhere, Islam is still being hijacked for totally un-Islamic purposes, shown by the mullah. Islam had been exploited to oppress the people. This is what Mortenson have fought to prevent.

The book itself is charmingly written. The story flowed from the glaciers of the Karakoram, to the many unmarked villages dotting them, and to the US of A, back and forth. At some points in the book, you will feel astonished that the earth-and-sky contrasting parts of the book had been the parts of the life of one man, and that you were taken on the journey half a world away. The book cherished Mortenson's relentless efforts of providing education to the population, showing every detail of his hard work.

I strongly recommend this book, and I hope that anyone will enjoy reading it as much as I did. This story of unrelenting goodwill and good work will do every heart a lot of good.

PS: I'll be writing an American Idol postmortem perhaps tomorrow. This week is Mariah Carey's week, and the performances are incredible.