Pendidikan LN atau DN?

Beberapa waktu yang lalu, masyarakat Indonesia dikejutkan dengan berita tentang mahasiswa Indonesia, David Hartanto Widjaja (21) mahasiswa Nanyang Technology University, yang tewas terjatuh dari lantai 4 gedung universitasnya. Dalam berbagai forum yang saya baca di internet (baik di surat kabar, blogging, dll) masyarakat Indonesia banyak yang menyayangkan kejadian itu dan menuntut penyelesaian kasus tersebut sampai tuntas. Selama beberapa saat banyak spekulasi yang berkembang mengenai peristiwa menggemparkan itu. Pada akhirnya topik berkembang pada perbincangan mengenai perbandingan pendidikan di luar negeri dan di dalam negeri.

Pendidikan, mulai dari TK sampai S1, saya tempuh di Indonesia. Saya bangga akan pendidikan yang telah saya tempuh dan bisa membentuk saya sampai saat ini. Walaupun tidak dapat dipungkiri bahwa saya tidaklah pandai benar dalam semua pelajaran yang telah saya tempuh. Saya merasa pendidikan di Indonesia tidak kalah dengan pendidikan luar negeri. Buktinya, banyak anak Indonesia yang bisa memenangkan berbagai penghargaan di taraf international (bukan hanya dalam lomba Olimpiade Sains saja, namun juga penghargaan-penghargaan yang lain. Memang hal itu juga didukung oleh kualitas kecerdasan siswa-siswa yang menjadi juara. Namun yang tidak boleh dilupakan adalah pendidikan selalu mencakup dua pihak: pihak pendonor dan resipien ilmu. Jadi, bukan hanya karena sang siswa saja.
Saya tidak bisa membandingkan mengenai pola atau sistem pendidikan di luar negeri, yang nota bene berbeda-beda di tiap negara, karena saya belum pernah mendapatkan pendidikan di luar negeri. Namun, suatu ketika saya pernah mendapatkan kesempatan untuk menjadi vissitting student di salah satu Universitas di Jepang. Pertama kali berdiskusi dengan teman-teman mahasiswa di laboratorium saya merasa berkecil hati karena ilmu mereka jauh lebih hebat [menurut saya] dari pada saya. Banyak pengetahuan-pengetahuan baru yang saya peroleh. Mereka begitu mendalami apa yang mereka pelajari. Namun ternyata pada akhirnya saya bisa agak berbesar hati karena pengetahuan umum saya lebih luas. Banyak sekali hal-hal umum yang sepertinya luput dari perhatian, atau memang teman-teman mahasiswa tersebut tidak mengetahuinya. Hal yang dapat saya simpulkan [sementara] adalah bahwa orang-orang di Jepang [karena yang saya tahu hanya itu] sudah fokus ke bidang yang digelutinya semenjak masuk pertama kali di bangku kuliah. Mereka mempelajari setiap detail dari pengetahuan mengenai bidang yang ditekuni, dan mungkin itulah yang membuat mereka seolah-olah melupakan dunia di luar bidangnya. Hampir di seluruh Universitas di Jepang, rata-rata setiap mahasiswa S1 dibimbing oleh S2, S2 dibimbing S3, S3 oleh Postdoc. Bimbingan di sini adalah seperti saat kita membuat kelompok belajar dengan mentor seorang guru les. Mentor menjadi tempat bertanya dan berdiskusi. Jadi, belum tentu S2 atau S3 tersebut adalah dosennya. Hal ini berbeda jauh dengan apa yang saya alami ketika kuliah. Saya baru "masuk" ke lab setelah saya mengerjakan penelitian untuk seminar saya. Di sana tidak ada 'siapa-siapa' selain teman-teman S1 yang lain, laboran dan dosen. Jadi setiap kali ada masalah penelitian harus mencari dosen terlebih dahulu. Padahal dosen tidak selalu ada di tempat [pastilah sebelumnya sudah didiskusikan ke orang lain-teman atau kakak angkatan].

Banyak orang berkata bahwa pendidikan bukan hanya dari sekolah saja. Ya, menurut saya pendidikan selalu berlangsung di sekitar seseorang, entah itu di rumah/keluarga, di tempat dia bermain, dll. Oleh karena itu saya percaya bahwa lingkungan di sekitar kita adalah secondary womb, rahim kedua. Dalam rahim kedua inilah kita akan dilahirkan menjadi manusia yang lebih dewasa. Dalam rahim kedua ini watak, karakter, pribadi kita dibentuk. Jadi saya kurang setuju apabila banyak orang mempermasalahkan pemerintah karena adanya 'ketidaksuksesan' pendidikan. Walaupun, memang pendidikan di Indonesia masih banyak kekurangannya. Kenapa kita tidak mencoba membuat 'rahim' yang baik bagi kita sendiri, orang lain dan terutama anak cucu kita. Orang tua idak menuntut anaknya menjadi apa yang dicita-citakan, guru-guru tidak main kasar dengan anak didiknya, Pak RT dan para tetangga menjaga lingkungan yang kondusif bagi pelajar-pelajar di lingkungannya, dll.

NB:
Bagi yang sudah mengenyam pendidikan di luar negeri, jangan lupa pulang untuk membangun negara kita bersama-sama. Kalaupun tidak pulang, jangan lupa untuk memberikan sumbanganmu bagi bangsa dan negara ini: secondary womb... Indonesia tanah air beta...

Periplaneta americana Extract

I just want to share an information, please judge by yourself

The information was given this morning by my lab-mate, Mbak Eva. Yesterday she decided to go to a hypermarket. She needed to buy some dairies and toiletries. Then she searched for hair losses treatment shampoo. Her eyes dropped at a brand new shampoo product. How it was put next to other branded shampoo products, made her thought it was a good product also. Mbak Eva then was so curious with this product, and she read about the ingredients. She found that the main ingredient was Periplaneta americana. She was little bit confused with the species. What is that. Then after little time trying to remember it, she was so surprised. She read the producer: Hongkong. Carefully, she put it down.

Periplaneta americana is latin or species name for cockroach. Yes, it was. Just take a look at wikipedia if you still don't know what it is, hehehehehehehe ^^

After listening to the information, I tried to search about this product. And I found on alibaba.com a company named PA EXTRA MEDICAL CO LTD which sell Pa extract as raw material to pharmaceutical company mainly in china, also to the company which manufacture health food supplement, hair and skin product etc.They sell it since 2002 with Southeast Asia (absolutely including Indonesia) as main market.

I don't know wether it (Pa extract) has better effect on hair or skin. I don't know why they choose them as the main material. Well, but I do know that cockroaches will still be shiny without taking bath as long as they live.... hehehehehehe. So, probably both your skin and hair will remain still be shiny when you not take bath or shampoo for a while ^^

Well, I didn't put the brand of the shampoo Mbak Eva found. Because I don't have any bad intension in my writing. Please, judge and decide by yourself about it. And if you have any information about the benefit of Pa extract for hair and skin (toiletries) please don't be hesitate to tell me. Because I'm still so curious about it.

Be shiny, be yourself!
^^

Long Week End with Fishes

Mbak Carla with Indonesian basil. Look at the gazebo and the grass...What a beautiful garden!

After longing for long week end, finally we had one. Me and my friend had planned having barbecue party in one of our senior, Mrs Puspita Deswina ^^
Four of us: Mbak Yeni, Mbak Neng, Mbak Carla and Me, went to her house at Pondok Rajeg. Mrs Deswina - Mr Ricky house is really cool. They have pretty garden with gazebo and green green grass. Wow... it was so quiet, serene and fresh. Hearing how the wind breezed the bamboo leaves, the bird chirped... It was great! It made me remember about my home town (hiks, miss it sooo much).

Before the sun setted we had the fishes done. Then we sat on the grass to start our party. We chatted about our plan to have this party once in a month. We chatted about our hometown, worklife, etc. We enjoyed that party, until the end.

One nice site of the garden... look at our snacks: Kusuka and Superman Wafer ^^

Thank you Bu Des, Pak Ricky... we had a beautiful week end. Don't forget to invite us next month!

Carla & Chef Candidate

It is a story of my cooking experience. I'm not a good cook. Then, I found that cooking can be practiced easily as long as you have cooking book.

These couple days, my roommate [mbak Carla] visit our room. She usually spends her day at Ciomas, miles away from Cibinong, but for 2 days in a week she stays with me. We share a room. She loves to eat spicy food, but hates cooking. Well, not hate-just lazy to cook. Then she persuaded me to cook. She suceed. For these couple days I cooked for her! What a shock!
First day we, well- I, cooked fish ala woku [yellow spices]. At the day, we wanted to fry some tofu actually. But mbak Carla wanted to eat something spicy [without need to cook it, absolutely]. We had some tofu already. I found some nice tofu recipes in my cooking book. Mbak Carla had been enchanted with the woku tofu. Because we lacked of candlenut, Mbak Carla offered herself to buy them some. Got back from the stall, she handed also fishes. Busyet! I didn't know what to do. Well, tofu was just fine for a cook beginner like me, but not the fishes. I was afraid if I would ruin the food later, hehehehe. Hoping the miracle I sliced the fishes into some fillet, put little lemon juice on it and put them into the pan [with tofu and spices]. Voila... the woku was greatly tasted!!! Well done!

Second day, came Mbak Yeni [another labmate of me]. She bought some salted mini-squid and pete!!! I helped her in the kitchen. We cooked them and put a lot of pepper. Ssshhhhhhh.... it's hot and spicy!!! But it was another delicioso....

A day latter we didn't cook anything because we had a party in the laboratory, hehehehe.

This morning, I cooked chicken claw [cakar] stew. I put some crushed garlic and black pepper into the pan and added some soybean ketchup.... woohooooo.... yummy yummy. We're still keeping the broth and some claws for a bowl of soup tomorrow. Hhmm, just can't hardly wait the soup!!!

This evening we plan to have a barbeque party... well we'll roast some fishes actually. Let's see how it will be?! I'll tell you latter.

hm, just considering to be a chef candidate (at least in my dormitory) beside as a researcher candidate... hehehehe

Kristophorus Abhimata Danujati

Hey, it's been a long time for me not writing on this blog. Well, at this time i want to introduce my new-baby-born nephew. He born this January 7, 2009. He is my big brother's first son. My brother gave him a beautiful name: Kristophorus Abhimata Danujati. A very javanese name. Actually his name comes from 'kawi' language, old javanese languange. His name Kristphorus is a baptist name referring to St. Christopher, a Catholic Saint. 'Abhimata' means love and hope, while 'Danu' means light, shine and 'jati' means true, forever.
It has been a javanese tradition to give their children a meaningful name. We do not seem really care about Shakespeare said about, "What a name is!" For us, the javanese, the children's name is the symbolization of parents hope. The sincere prays of the parents for their children are statued in their children names.
Well, Little Kristo... we hope that you will always spread your love and hope forever...