Fun Holiday On Smaller Budget

W[Published in The Jakarta Post-Youthspeak, 08 August 2011] Where did you go for your vacation? Sanur beach, Tangkuban Perahu or Vinius? Holiday is fun if it's well planed. But if uou're not going anywhere and still don't know how to spend the rest of the holiday, here are some tips to spend it well with almost zero expenses. You can even earn some money from them!

Online Reseling
Do you still have those popular comic series you've already read twice? How about the blazer your mother bought you, but now you're two sizes bigger? You can sell them online. You can also be a middleman. If you see good stuff that you think people would love to buy, take a picture of them and upload them. Ask the would be buyer to send you the money first. But you have to be very prudent in this kind of trading.

Take a walk and take some pictures
Are you fed up with the hustle and bustle of the city? Get out to the nearest theme park or resort area, just to relax. Don't forget to bring your camera and capture whatever interesting things you see. You know what, if you think you have taken some good picture, you might sell them to your friends. Not for green thumbs only
If you have extra space in your backyard, try planting some trees. You can also grow what you eat, like water spinach, chili peppers or tomato in pots you made from recycle cans or used plastic bottles.

Spring cleaning comes early
You can start cleaning your house from your own bedroom. When you finish you can move on to clean the storage room. Besides making it looks tidier and cleaner, if you're lucky it could be a fun treasure hunt. You might just stumble upon some things that still can be used out of all the junk. Just the other day I found a violin which was little bit broken. I had it fixed and practiced with it.

Little chef
Actually you dint need to be a chef to make good food. All you need is a lot of practice. Trying cooking with your sister or your mother with be a great idea.

Get them published
Use your spare time to write an article short story or poems and try sending them to newspaper and magazines. You can earn some money from that, the amount depends on the value of your work.

Sharing and gathering
For those of you who like to get together with friends, make a study group. Pick a purpose for the club, such as book discussion, sharing music knowledge, Physics Olympics preparation, etc.

Painting and designing
It's time to give your room a face lift. Paint a fresh color or draw a mural on the wall. There will be expensive of course, but it would be much cheaper and more rewarding than going out of town for vacation.

Up-cycling
Don't throw away your ole CDs just yet. You can made them into edgy fridge curtains. You can also make pencil cases and unique necklace from your old shirts, and baskets from old newspapers. they are easy to make one you get the hang of it.

Take keywords to have a fun but less expensive holiday is well-planned and creativity. Have a fun holiday my friends, hope my tips helps!

First Month in My 98 Senior High School

(Interviewed by Tatas Dwi Utama, Radar local newspaper Banjarmasin), for The Asia Pacific Environmental Youth Forum, 8-12 August 2011, Gyeonggi - Korea

Radar Banjarmasin, 26 Juli 2011http://www.radarbanjarmasin.co.id/berita/detail/14232.html

Your School should get credit first

[Published in The Jakarta Post Oktober 17, 2010] The National Final Exams will be conducted in the next seven months. As a student of Grade 9, I have to prepare myself as early as possible for it. As the exams get closer, Bimbingan Belajar or Private Tuition centers to prepare for the exams are mushrooming. The short form of Bimbingan Belajar is ‘Bimbel’.

For many of my 9^th Grade friends, the latest fad is to discuss which is the best ‘Bimbel’ to choose!

Having attended a free trial of one such center, I have to admit that ‘Bimbel’ is quite helpful. The trainer gave the students a few tips and tricks to solve examination questions, which are normally not given in school. It is no wonder therefore, that almost all the students in my school are joining ‘Bimbel’, even though the school has already allocated extra hours for intensive preparation.

What is my chief concern now is that many students do not have the confidence to face the national exams without joining ‘Bimbel’ – even if they have been doing well enough at school!

This could be because they place too much faith in the claims made by some centers. These centers say that most of the students who performed well in the national exams owed their success to ‘Bimbel’. These students too, when they passed the exam, gave their thanks and credit to ‘Bimbel’ first, and not to their school.

Somehow I feel there’s something wrong in this. Don’t you think it should be the other way around? No doubt ‘Bimbel’ is a great place to help you prepare, but shouldn’t we give credit first and foremost to our schools for training us? We should be proud of our schools and thank them for enriching our lives.

I myself am not joining ‘Bimbel’ because of its high tuition fee, which is unaffordable for me. However, if for some reason I can afford to join it later, I think I would give my first thanks to my school for my three years of learning there. Only after that would I acknowledge the help of ‘Bimbel’ for equipping me with lot of tricks to help me pass the National Final Exams!

Connector

The Climate Project Indonesia (TCP ID) telah memilih Anda sebagai satu diantara 250 peseta dari 1500 peminat untuk mengikuti Pelatihan tentang Perubahan Iklim - Grand Connector Training. Pada Sabtu, 24 April 2010 di Hotel Sari Pan Pacific. (Photos courtesy of Ibnu Nadjib and My mom)

Pertama membaca undangannya, dilema juga, karena pada hari itu, kelasku, kelas VIII-5 akan mengadakan field trip ke kOta tua. Dari dulu aku sudah pingin jalan bareng dengan teman-teman ku, Azca, Denin, Desi, Alysha, Indi, Cindy (walaupun ternyata akhirnya kita sama-sama ga ikut ya), Gerhana, Emil, Raka, Fajrin, Alvin juga yang lain. Tapi ikut acara ini...tentu akan menambah pengalaman dan pengetahuan baru buat ku.


Dan ternyata acaranya memang seru banget, mas Ariseno Ridhwan dari Metro TV yang jadi MC membawakan acara dengan seru... asik... Materi yang diberikan semua tentang Perubahan Iklim, mulai dari Penyebab, Solusi, Kesepakatan Internasional juga menghadapi para penentang dan tan kupa tentunya Overview tentang apa itu TCP ID (The Climate Project Indonesia) dan Connector. TCP didirikan tahun 2006 oleh The Hon. Al Gore, MAntan Wakil Presiden Amerika Serikat dan Pemenang Hadiah Nobel Perdamaian.

Yang seru, di dalam ballroom itu, jumlah 250 orang tidak terasa banyak, apalagi ketika kami dibagi perkelompok, masing-masing terdiri dari 10 orang. Di kelompok ku aku jadi bisa belajar banyak, ada ani Mardiastuti (pengajar IPB), Dwi Yani SM (travel Writter), Eriza Triono (staff Marketing), Fajar Yasmin (editir in chief iklimcarbon), Gracia Emerentiana (konsultan), Sabela Gayo (lawyer) Transtoto Handadhari (Ketua Umum Yayasan GreenNETWORK Ind) dan Wijiyatmi (LSM Gita Pertiwi Solo).... seru deh... aku juga dapet teman baru dari smp .... , ada mbak Nita Murjani pengajar BPK Penabur Bogor, .... dan Puteri Indonesia, wow... membuat acara jadi semakin meriah....

Nah, inilah catatan kecilku dari acara Sabtu kemarin....Setelah ini, sebagai Connector, aku harus bisa memahami akan pentingnya krisis iklim dan merubah sikap, perilaku agar menjadi bagian dari solusi, lalu aku harus mempromosikannya pada teman-teman, keluarga dan siapa saja yang peduli dengan lingkungan.

My inspiring teacher

Akhirnya Jum'at, 23 Oktober 2009 tiba, saat penyerahan The Muse Award dari The Jakarta Post. Banyak banget pengalaman yang bisa kupetik, apalagi karena aku penerima award satu-satunya dari SMP Negeri. Para pemenang lain adalah dari International School, baik dari Jakarta juga dari Salatiga.

Selain itu, aku juga jadi mengenal lebih dekat dengan wali kelasku, Ibu Wastio, yang ternyata baik, baik dan baik banget...

Selama acara berlangsung, bertemu dengan The Jakarta Post Community, juga sepanjang perjalanan ulangalik Rambutan-Palmerah dengan Bu Wastio, Bu Uly dan Bapak, menyadarkan ku bahwa bagaimanapun juga english adalah mutlak.

Semoga aku bisa terus diingatkan.

The youngest winner

Tanggal 1 September 2009, tepatnya di Wisma Bumi PuteraLt.22 Pengumuman Resmi Pemenang Lomba Penulisan Cerpen dan Esai Asuransi Jiwa Bersama Bumiputera di umumkan, ( yang ini pengumuman versi Om Jo yang ini dari fb Tante Ana), yang ini dari Kompas.

Senang, jadi tambah pengalaman baru lagi. Bertemu dengan Dewan Direksi AJB Bumi Putera, tim panitia penyelenggara, mbak-mba dan mas-mas sesama pemenang dan juga para sastrawan penggiat Paguyuban Sastra Rabu Malam (PaSar MaLam) Bulungan, Jakarta. Om Johanes, Om Kurnia Efendi dan beberapa lain yang nyentrik-nyentrik, suka deh liatnya...

Yang lebih seru lagi ketika ternyata, dari tulisanku itu aku adalah The Youngest Winner!! Wah.... bangganya....

(buat Tante Ana dan Om Bamby, fotonya better than my mom's, boleh ku pake ya Tan, Om..., tq..)