The Risky Journal

 Every December 22, we Indonesians celebrate Mother’s Day (Hari Ibu). We honor our mother for everything what she did. In this day, Indonesians usually celebrate Mother’s Day by letting our mothers “free of their domestic duties”. In this day, mothers all across Indonesia have the privilege for not serving meals, washing dishes or just to clean out the house. However, frankly, I never knew why December 22 is decided as Mother’s Day. I never had a history class in which I learned as to why we celebrate Mother’s Day every December 22. A couple of months ago, I read a book entitled Gender, Islam and Democracy in Indonesia. After reading it , now I know that the true spirit of Mother’s Day is neglected for years. December 22 is chosen to honor the historic event of the very first all Indonesian Women’s Congress happening in 1928, several months after the historic Youth Congress. This information is something I never knew, and I think this piece of information needs to be expose...

It's not usual for me to give a review of a book. But let me try hahaha ... It's a novel! It is entitled The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. First of all, I would like to tell you as to how I come across this novel. I did not intentionally want to have this novel. It was given to me by an American woman sitting next to me when I flew from Japan to United States of America. She is a teacher, English teacher, at Korea. We had a nice conversations and she was excited to know that I was an American Studies student, a department that she once wanted to enroll in. In the middle of flight she asked whether I like reading or not, then I said 'yes i do'. She then gave a novel by Paulo Coelho entitled 'The Alchemist'. She completed reading the novel for its ninth time, so she said. She told me how good the novel was. Well, frankly I am not a fan of novel reading. But then, I started reading this novel a couple of months after I was done with all of my thesis and graduation ...

Diambil dari Berita8 Gegap gempita SEA GAMES yang baru saja diselenggarakan bulan lalu sepertinya sangat bertolak belakang dengan ASEAN PARAGAMES yang saat ini sedang diselenggarakan di Solo, Jawa Tengah. Bahkan mungkin, tidak semua orang tahu kalau ASEAN PARAGAMES sedang berlangsung karena publikasi yang tidak semasif acara pendahulunya. Namun, ada hal lain yang lebih memprihatinkan yaitu ketimpangan bonus pagi para pencetak medali di ajang ASEAN PARAGAMES. Mereka yang mendapat emas, perak dan perunggu akan mendapat bonus masing masing sebesar 40 juta, 15 juta dan 7,5 juta. Itupun setelah diprotes dan pada akhirnya dinaikkan. Bila kesemuanya ditotal, jumlahnya pun masih jauh dari jumlah bonus seorang peraih medali emas di ajang SEA GAMES yaitu 200 juta. Menyedihkan memang, tapi ini adalah realitas. Ketimpangan nominal para peraih medali ASEAN PARAGAMES dan SEA GAMES ini menunjukkan bahwa pemerintah masih menganaktirikan atlet – atlet PARAGAMES yang merupakan para ...

What a year! That is probably the best opening to start reviewing this year. This year is really like a roller coaster. There are ups and downs here and there throughout 2011. Well, I will not list all of the ups and downs in my life in this post, rather I will only point some events that I will never forget in my whole lifetime. Well below is a reversed list of the events. 5. Finishing Thesis MY HOLY SKRIPSI After one year of struggle, I finally finished my thesis by July 18, 2011. It never occurred in my mind that I would actually finished it this year. I saw my self surrounded by doubts that I could make it. These thoughts lingered in my head in the beginning of this year. What in my head was that I kept on writing this thesis, submitting to my supervisor every week, and doing my best. And somehow, it was just over! Well, to remember that I even wrote posting entitled " Skripsi .. Thesis or Whatsoever You May Call This !!" on May. Well, it is funny now reading th...

Hey you action movie lovers out there! Have you watched Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol ? Well, you BETTER watch it! Movie Poster from Flicks and Bits It all started with me canceling my plan to look for boarding house in Jakarta today hahaha… Instead, an old friend of mine and I just suddenly agreed to spend the day by hanging out to nowhere. Well, since we’re both moviegoers so we decided to check on the web about movie played in the city’s theater. Well, thanks God she agreed not to watch BREAKINGDOWN (sorry, capslock was activated accidentally). Our selection went to Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol . And it turned out that we did not regret our movie choice J . The movie opens with action scene in Budapest of an IMF agent being chased and eventually killed by an assassin. Then, it cuts to a man in a prison in Moscow who turns out to be Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise). Well, then the story builds up with the sudden explosion of Kremlin which leads to an increas...

A few days ago, I watched a movie entitled For Colored Girls. Well, although the title says "for colored girls", it does not mean that us, boys, are not allowed to watch this movie! So here is my review about the movie. For Colored Girls Movie Poster from  Rottentomatoes As a play-inspired movie, For Colored Girls  offer its viewers with the experience of watching plays in a movie. It can be felt once you watch it. In the opening of the movie, there are nine Black women having monologue but each monologue corresponds to each other. It is a great opening. The nine Black women deal with each individual conflict, probably as consequences of becoming woman in general and Black woman in particular, such as rape, abortion, love, infidelity, etc. The nine Black women have their own plot but each plot correlates. The characters are represented by a color: Jo/Red ( Janet Jackson ), Juanita/Green ( Loretta Devine ), Yasmine/Yellow ( Anika Noni Rose ), Tangie/Orange ( Thandi...

You probably wonder why my blog is decorated with snow flakes all over places... It's not that I celebrate Christmas (well Christmas is massively related to snow), but I admit that it has little thing to do with it. I watched latest Glee episode about Christmas and there is the scene that shows snows falling down from the sky. It was so beautiful that made me miss wandering around snow as I did earlier this year. Well I got the chance to enjoy my very first snow in my lifetime in United States. Thanks to US Department of State for granting me SUSI Scholarship. It was really cool when I watched, touched and felt snow for the very first time. It was cold, lol surely it is. A friend of mine even dared to eat it!! Lucky enough he did not get sick for eating it. Now, watching latest Glee episode entitled Extraordinary Merry Christmas brought me back to memorizing those joyful days of walking around the street when snows were falling down from sky, or even walking in the midst o...

I am sorry for neglecting this blog for ages. Some business in the past two months really kept me from updating this blog. Therefore, let me start by posting some lighter posting hahaha ... Well, the past two months were very hectic as I was involved in a recruitment process of becoming a journalist (a journalist to be precisely) in a very well known English newspaper in Indonesia. Thanks God, I was able to make it through. I am leaving Solo by the end of this month, sad, happy, excited, worried, oh well this feeling is indescribable ... Hahaha ... But surely I am going to walk through it. :) During the past two months, I traveled a lot, back and forth Jakarta and Solo (it will be fourteen time by the end of this month). Lucky me, I was still able to have vacation to Dieng Plateau, located in Central Java in October 2011. It was a great trip spent with my great friends. Well, below are some of great pictures taken by a very great photographer " Al Muwafiqi ". Lo...