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Darma

Arrrghh, I got bored with all daily routines. Works, class, homeworks. Better to take a break I guess :D

Last Sunday I had lunch with a few friends in my advisor's home, who has a 6 years old son called Darma. No different from other kids, Darma seemed quiet and shy when we first met, then changed into an energic boy with many funny stories to tell us.

One of the interesting story he told us is about his school project to grow a pet from an egg. He showed us his pets, a couple of frogs placed inside a glass box similar to aquarium. With great enthusiasm, he also told us about the other pet that he had for his project: the project to grow bugs.

"The bug's egg consists of two parts, orange and black. Those two parts always come together. I don't know why, but probably the one is female and the other is male."

Amazed, I couldn't take my eyes off Darma. I remember my uncle's grand-son backhome in Jakarta. His name is Rezon, but I usually call him Adek. Darma and Adek are about the same age. Both have unique characters and talents, but when I see Darma, I find something that I couldn't find in Adek and most children in Indonesia. The ability to tell stories and make simple analysis.

In my opinion, children in Indonesia do not have enough opportunity to explore things in details and to do a story telling. They do have good capabilities to solve mathematical problems, unfortunatelly they don't have enough capability to present their capability to other people in a communicative way. I try to look what creative experiences I had during my elementary school. Humm, almost nothing. There is no writing contest, no story telling contest, no experiment. I can't even remember a math contest. Only THE USELESS P4. Poor us, eh :) ?

When I came to Pittsburgh, it was even more clear that I don't have enough communication skills. My presentation is poor, my writing is terrible, the bottom line, I can't sell my ideas in a good wrap.

Oh well, at least I know my weakness so I can try to fix it. But I do do HOPE, that education system and environment in Indonesia changes to accomodate better learning experience for the children, so, my future children will have a better education than me. I do hope that they will be bright Indonesian children who can communicate their ideas well through writing, presenting, not like me :)

Comments

Anonymous said…
bener Mit, gw juga selalu ngerasa gitu.. kemampuan gw mengkomunikasikan ide tuh rendah banget. tapi kalo kemampuan cela2an ama temen dan ngomongin temen, gede banget. Indonesia banget yaaa..
Anonymous said…
Mita, I think you are improving your communication skill already by writing this blog. And you writing skill is definitely not terrible. Not many people can write the way you do (I have to admit I covet this skill :p).
P4 may seem useless, but it was FUN and memorable ..hey you remember it very well, don't you. (Hem...unless if we are talking about different P4).

Cheers..

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