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.

Summary of Abu Nawas : A Bet to Butt The King

So, in the additional English class of mine, I told the class about this amazing yet quite uneducational story. It was called “Abu Nuwas : A Bet to Butt the King” or in Indonesian “Abu Nawas : Taruhan Memantati Raja”. To this day, Abu Nuwas can never stop to amaze us with his intelligent wit. And in this post, I’m going to give you a short version of this story.

Once upon a night, Abu Nuwas was having a get-together with his friends. Abu Nuwas back then was so renowned of his mind capability to brought down the King to his knees. And he was also the most celebrated courtier the King had ever had. Knowing this, his friends wanted to test his worth and his incredible brain to outwit everything. So that night, one of his friends said, “Abu Nuwas, you are truly a man of intelligence. But we bet, no matter how intelligent you are, you can’t even try to butt the King and make Him laugh for it.”. Seeing this as a challenge, Abu Nuwas then replied, “There is nothing impossible in this world.”. His friends were suprised, but then finally confirmed, “Oh really? Then, would you like to share most of your fortune?”. Abu Nuwas answered without dilly-dally, “Deal.”

The next day, Abu Nuwas got invited into a banquet hosted by the King. Every nobles and courtiers had arrived, but there was no news of Abu Nuwas. This concerned the king, but he finally at peace seeing Abu Nuwas arrived in a rush. “Where have you been, dear Sir? Have a seat.” said the king. Abu Nuwas then took a seat, but this suprised the king as he was sitting on the floor, rather than the luxurious carpet the king had preserved for him. The king then asked with curiosity, “My exalted courtier, why would you sit down on cold floor while I had preserved you a warm, carpet seat next to me?” Abu Nuwas then replied, “If it’s a matter of advisability, then it doesn’t matter. If it’s a matter of my own convenience, it doesn’t matter either. I have on me already a warm, proper seat, of which it also wasn’t a form of disgrace intended to you, sire.” The king grew curioser than ever as he asked, “What is this magical warm and proper seat that you had on you?”. Abu Nuwas then satisfy the king’s curiosity. The king then laugh, “My, my, what an ingenious idea! A portable carpet seat on your buttocks! Truly brilliant!”

One of the friends Abu Nuwas made bet to was also invited to the party, so, in the end, you pretty much knew: although the banquet was over, it could never stop the smile on Abu Nuwas’ face while collecting the money as his friends sadly got themselves on the line.