A Short Story - The Best and Biggest College Presentation

Jamie

I am as shit as a freshly dropped out horse manure. I am not barefooted, but my feet have never felt more intimate with the ground since I tried to run away from the pigs, Jeremi and Jay. My funny-looking short hair, though with the reliance of a bull under the blistering sun, never fails to stroke my eyes with its pony. I can’t complain since without it, others would be tremendously amazed  as how much water my body can contain. Some of its drops have even crawled their way into my fingertips. With well-watered hands I can’t help but grabbing either my father’s belt that I had worn or the weird-looking name tag that made my name all the more miraculous. I wish I had never worn glasses, because without question, the well-dressed popular girl whom I couldn’t help but staring at certainly don’t like me staring at her. Some good life I will lead. 

As requested, I brought a large backpack filled with things that I will find myself throw out as soon as it’s all over. The large, conspicuous backpack that I carried around has lost any meaning of weight. In the morning it was as hard as a rock, in the day, it was as bearable as a foal, but now it has become almost weightless as if it’s been spending all the time meditating. To be sure, by this stage, a ten-minute walk would feel like a thousand-minute walk. 

The torturous walk certainly ends with a destination, but then I have to sit for 5 hours or more for a seemingly endless talk show. Then I walk, sit, and in the end of the day, drag my way to my bedroom.

Amanda

You are the best, brightest star in the entire sky. Yes, you are. No one stands in the way of your perfect score, and this is only the beginning. Your feet suddenly grow warm at the thought of becoming the next Maudy Ayunda, embracing the ground as your stage and you its solo performer. The everflowing bodily fluid emanating from your skin only makes the walk and the talk all the more admirable and sexy. Your perfectly curled hair is set for an astonished and admiring bunch of people, despite the ensemble contributes to the near dehydration. Then again, there is no winning to the hair argument. The same goes for the little touches you’ve made on the clothes so that people will see you better. Nothing too outrageous, of course, but just enough to keep ‘em coming and going. The recently-bought H&M bag, the newest Manolo Blahnik shoes, the slightly conspicuous nail polish, all for a good cause. Yeah, some life I will lead.

Years of worming books, sleeping with one eye, and back-and-forth academic consultations have prepared you for this moment. When this is all over, you will be more center and front than you can ever possibly imagine. Since you are also quite popular among everybody, everybody now wants you to be their face and voice. But not too popular as to make everyone think they’re my best friends, of course. 

In Campus

It is in the middle of orientation event, and some students practically dragged themselves to be on time lest they receive intense glares and big, opera-huge voices telling them to walk like a duck all the way to their seat. It is yet again another talk, and many of them have become restless as they frequently shift their butts. Some of them listen with a book in hand, whereas some others snore loudly for all their friends to hear. With the final words spoken by the host along with the collectible relief of its audience, they are welcomed to the big field to recreate a well-timed, Asturo-flipping videos. Suddenly, from the corner of the road, comes a group consisting of 6 military-looking people on the back of a well-groomed gentleman. Their walking paces are as serious as Death coming to take the students’ poor souls away.

The students, gathered at the big field, barely register what happen. Some puzzling looks the event organizers and lecturers have as to what transpires. Though visibly stunned, whispers are still heard across the sea of people, “Is it the Kopassus?”, “Somebody are really going to jail,”, “There goes my lunch for the day,”. After a medium-length talk, it turns out, the contingent wants to pick up a student with short hair by the name of Jamie Simorangkir. In a short time they fumble to see which Jamie Simorangkir they spoke of. By the time they figure out the person, confusion arises. “How is that poor looking person got involved in something nasty?”, one person audibly comments. But then, as soon as Jamie reached the podium, the entire group give him a solemn bow.

Somewhere in the crowd, a well-groomed student is visibly distressed.

A Short Story - Good Evening, Michael Corleone

It is a place of happy endings. I can’t think anyone who would not feel so. It is a place I like to go first to let go of everything before I sleep. When I come inside, I always look at the walls. They are like chocolate, the color of my eyes. In the corner, I always see flowers inside a jar. Hmm, they always smell nice and my boss lady likes to change it whenever I come inside. In the window, I  always see the candles, the same candles that I want to throw in the trash because I can’t light it. She would always say, “For a special occasion, dear,”. Am I not special? I once poked the candles with a stick, and she was angry with me for so long. But then I realize, there is no one else better than her, so I stopped and I said sorry. Sometimes, when I become a good boy, she would give me a good lollipop. 

A Short Story - The Last Night on the Face of the Earth

Inspiring Person - Helen Keller

No long time no see! Why, you ask? Because I’m now making another post just after my previous post. Don’t worry, It’s not like I’m having a postarrhea. I just had a delightful coincident when my previous task/post must clashes with the thing I’m about to tell you. Practically saying, I’m squeezing my head off for two consecutive posts right now. Great, just great.

Now, putting aside the love of my life, I deliver to you this post. It’s quite special, so, I’m about to mind my language a little bit. This is it: the person of my inspiration.

What would pop in your head when you thought of an inspiring person? Humanitarians? Scientists? Rights activists? Or maybe –and don’t be ashamed- pop stars? Don’t prejudice first. Those bunch of people, even pop stars truly worth to be inspiration, because their roads to success were never simple, and the fact they reached the peak means they’ve braved themselves to the extent they would’ve never imagine of themselves. And so, I’m taking just one example out of thousands of those and what I know, to be one of the most encouraging person ever lived.

From her birth she was just a simple little girl. And, to her fortune, she had a loving and supporting family. Everyone had already pictured her future to be brightful and full of blessings. But then, in a rush, the fate intervened. Just nineteen months after seeing the world for the first time, the innocent little girl caught illness. And it was no ordinary. The disease caught her by the eyes and ears. How unfortunate, for her who was trying to learn the world, suddenly God forbid her to? From that moment, they knew: Helen Keller is doomed.

 

Source : http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Helen_KellerA.jpg

But, as you know it, hope is always there, even at the most difficult situation. And in Helen’s case, it came in the name of Anne Sullivan. She’s the toughest, most stubborn teacher Helen would’ve known. She patiently taught her slowly with the most comprehendable methods as possible. She would’ve done things normal people wouldn’t in order to make Helen understand. Day by day she struggled all the way. And finally, enlightenment stormed Helen by the word of ‘water’.

Afterwards, she was the most curious person on the earth. She pushes her physic limits and make way for the glory an able person would rarely reach. Impossible doesn’t seem to be in Helen’s dictionary, for she accomplished many great feats and left behind a brilliant legacy.

I think, what we should take from Helen’s life as the foundation of our lives is her confidence and firm-willed nature. Trust me, nothing good for us will ever come when we’re shy and feeling helpless. Confidence is believe what you believe is right. Even Helen, whose sight and hearings are stolen from her, still owned a confidence to live in this world. That should put the suicidal able people to shame.

When you do, the next thing that comes is firm-willed. You can’t focus to accomplish something when you have a thing for something else. You will never even be deemed trustful if you can’t be faithful on something. To make you understand, what if Helen doesn’t own the firm-willed nature from the first place? Of course she would’ve never known the meaning of ‘water’ and she would certainly never did so many accomplishments. You may call it the other way as principles. You must have good principles for you to live a good live.

To put it simple, I chose her to be my inspiration because she’s the true symbol of confidence and good will. Why, you ask? Because we can now see that the power of confidence and hope could still motivate even the most unable person in the world. So, what about you? Who’s your inspiration?

Amazing Places on Earth : Kaaba

Long time no see! No words could describe my happiness for my newly-refurbished, the honor of everything I had in the world: my laptop. And I mean it. Do you know how long it took for me to think of other way to enjoy myself besides playing computers? Watching movies. Sorry, I’m not serious about the question. But I did feel, I could never even be separated for a day with my laptop. We’re like soulmates. Although, I must admit, it felt like hell when I can’t practically work on the ‘mountain of homework’ that us students were given.

Again, sorry for the spills of my life. After all, it’s a blog. I must at least pour my heart in this blog, so just bear with it. Now, on this post, I shall elaborate to you –and I’m sure it’s worth to- what I know to be one of the most amazing places in the world and what I believe to be the most, the Kaaba.

 

Source :http://muslimvoices.org/wpcontent/uploads/2009/11/0kaaba_transposition_2119107921.jpg

This magical cube of approximately 13 m in length is a building that unites every Moslems in the world. In our Islamic teachings, we must at least do every prayers and good deeds while facing the Kaaba. We also must, if we’re able both physically and financially, at least have a hajj or umrah (what you would call ‘pilgrimage’) for at least once in our lifetime.

Then, you would’ve wondered, it’s no different from any huge, massive ‘praying place’, so why would I put it one of the amazing places in the world? It’s not that architecturally beautiful, and it’s not like it was a crowdy playground. I’ll tell you what. Firstly, I must state this: no one would deny that Islam is one of the major religions on the planet. And, in our teachings, the Five Pillars of Islam concludes hajj as one of them. So, automatically, going to Kaaba will be on the top list of things we want to do before we die. It’s practically every Moslems’ dream. So, combining this and the first statement: it’s one of the most wanted places on earth. And, as the result, you would hardly see a day where the surroundings of Kaaba is empty! Nah, don’t even mention the place would never be empty. From what I saw from every Kaaba pictures, it maybe could hardly afford a place! Now, that’s a rare thing, because, I would hardly see a place constantly visited with people and it would always packed up all the time!

And one other thing, and it’s what I heard frequently. The building is also a life-altering cube. You would pray anything good for you and your family, and whush! It came true. Even some parts of it are designated to be wishful. Believe it or not, it’s up to you. But, I didn’t mean it only by magically. The cube can also affect someone else’s wealth and spirit logically. Even the will of going there boosts Moslems to work harder, and as the result, they’re getting more blessed with fortunes. And of course, after visiting Kaaba, no one’s life will be the same as the ones they had in the past. Its experience alone can shatter your old spiritual world completely and change it with a fresh, cleaner, and bolder heart and faith for Islam.

By those facts, how can I not put it not only personally but also by joint considerations that Kaaba is one of the most amazing places in the world? Think about it.

Journal - DEWA ATHENA Opening Ceremony

Sashiburi! It’s Japanese of long time no see. Well, it is actually not quite a long time, and don’t mind me, I’m learning Japanese and its characters right now, which, you know, a little confusing. And the most of it is the kanji characters, that are even more incomprehendable than the hiragana or katakana characters.

Enough about my life. Now, In this post, what I’m about to tell you is my view of my school’s senior-junior championship known as DEWA ATHENA. Literally means ‘God Athena’, which you might find it confusing because, of course, some of you aware that Athena is a goddess. It’s a championship where the eleventh grade students compete against the tenth grade for sport. There are many kinds of sport, and I don’t really remember every sport, but I believe it includes relay race, basketball, football, badminton, tug-of-war, and, maybe so on.

So, the question that might pop in your head is whether I joined the championship, and the answer is no. I don’t really believe my body could be that athletic to join a sport championship. Although we did or didn’t join it, my teacher asked everyone in class to report the opening ceremony in the blog.

As you can expect very well, especially those of you who are Indonesians, although we were promised to start the opening ceremony at 7.30 a.m., I’d dare to wager (as I didn’t really remember the time) that it finally started at 8 a.m. It was a simple ceremony, but I was suprised when the principal himself, Mr. Encang came all the way there. I was quite touched by that. Of course, in the beginning, some words were given by the head of the event committee and, of course the headmaster himself. Then, after the symbolic opening of litting a big torch (just like what they do at Olympics), they finally start the games. The first game I saw was a match among the women football club. Since some of the players were my classmates, me and my other classmates cheered for them (not the ‘elaborate’ way).

After that, there was another football match. The men from two classes are giving their best shots. Unfortunately, I didn’t become overwhelmingly energized to see other matches that are not our own, and I also didn’t want to wait to 2.55 p.m. to see my class’ relay race, knowing I had much better things to do. So, after a half of the second game of the day, I was off to visit my classmate’s house near to school to have some fun and finally went home.

Explanation - Midnight Sun

Nice to see you again! So, following my obligation as a student, I must do my task, which, in this case, English task, to post every task I’ve done in class in this blog, as I did previously before.

In the English class, I explained this phenomenal phenomenon known as ‘midnight sun’.Its name literally means the phenomenon, which is sun appearing in midnight. Pretty crazy, huh? How can we even see the sun in midnight, whereas it sets earlier than midnight?

 Source : http://anotherphotogallery.com/europe/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/midnight-sun.jpg

As a matter of fact, we don’t. Let me finish, what I meant by that is that we, who lived somewhere outside the Arctic Circle or Antartic Circle can never experience this phenomenon. Why? It happens thanks to the earth’s tilt of 23.5° and the sun’s apparent movement. To understand more of how it happens, you can watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUsWUiVCq5U.

To those of you who’re lazy enough or having connection problems, the video contains experiment of the phenomenon. A tilted globe (represents Earth) is shone by a giant flashlight (represents Sun). When we rotate, and at the same time, observe the Arctic Circle region, believe it or not, we can see the ‘sunlight’ is endless, meaning you can always see the sun in the Arctic Circle.

Okay, I must fix what I stated before ‘You can always see the sun in the Arctic Circle’. Well, you don’t always see the sun in the Arctic Circle, since it happened during summer. As some of us believe, God is always fair and just. You see, the phenomenon also has a black twin, (and I mean it literally) which is polar night. Polar night is a phenomenon when we don’t see sun no matter what time it was of the day. It happened during winter, so you may put it like this in what I’d reckon ‘the poetic way’: as the cold keeps us shivering, the sun is nowhere to be seen!

I think it’s pretty interesting for me, you know, as a ‘tropical’ being who’s tired of getting sunlight all year. Maybe sometimes, when I’m capable, I’d very much like to see for myself that amazing scenery.