Gratitude for those who responded my question :)

Hello guys. Thank you for responding my questions. I just wanna say Hello to each of you. Hope the world gets connected easily by this way. I received comments from people all around the world, i.e. Canada, USA, Indonesia, so on and so forth.
The basic idea of this question is that we can learn history from other people without reading boring thick books. Maybe there are some people thinking that it's just my way to get readership. That isn't necessarily wrong but there is a lot more behind it. What can i say? People have different opinion.
Thanks for Mark Thomas who had this idea. Take care, y'all :)

If you could meet any person in history...

Simple question:
If you could meet any person in history, who would it be and why?
Cheers..

Another hero comes along

Few hours ago, one of the best Indonesian boxers, Chrisjon, succesfully retained his title, which is WBA Featherweight world champion. He defeated Tommy Browne in Sydney, Australia. I was wondering whether Chris will get any decent ovation from Indonesian people when he comes back. As I recall, when he got the title, there was no Indonesian news station at all which broadcasted his fight. Hopefully, this time, Indonesian people would respect their heroes more than the other nation do. Bravo, Chrisjon! We're proud of you.
pic: www.dnet.net.id

Saturday a.k.a Sabtu a.k.a Sabado

Oh it's so nice to be on Saturday again. Saturday means chillin' time ;) It also means not doing anything related to study. The sad thing is that i don't have anything exciting to do besides weekly shopping (food shopping :)
So being couch potato is not a bad thing :) I know it sounds lazy but after rough weekdays, I think I deserve some leisure time.
By the way, some time in this week, I read news in the Internet that South Korean researchers successfully cloned a dog. After tadpole, sheep, goat, cow, mice, pig, cat, rabbit, gaur, and now a dog, do you think the researchers will clone human successfully? Next question is whether human cloning is ethical. Some people argue that cloning can be used in efforts of finding cure for rare disease. From the other standpoint, it is unethical because it threatens human individuality, deliberately saddling the clone with the genetic makeup of a person who has already lived (www.nrlc.org/news/2002/NRL03/ex.html). What's your opinion about it?
pic: bioteach.ubc.ca

If you were.....

Maybe you have a thought about this :)

If you were a ruler of a country, what would be the first thing from it you want to change?

If you are confused, you might want to borrow the thinking cap for a while ^_^

pic: www.mysterynet.mb.ca

Half way through

These past four days would probably be the busiest days in Summer. I am taking class on the 4th block of Summer session. It only lasts for 2 weeks. Apparently it's not a 2-weeks-class, instead of 8-days-class. Can you imagine how to finish a class within 8 days? It's not easy for the students as well as the teacher. We have case studies everyday. In the end of the class, there will be group cases and individual cases to be presented infront of class.
Despite the density, this class doesn't have any exams. Yippi !!! Still, I want to finish it as good as I could do. Hang on there, Andhyka. It's 4 days left and you'll be done this summer. Colorado, here I come :)

Unpopular hero

Have you ever heard this name, Agung Etti Hendrawati? Maybe few of us heard of her but I am sure not too many people know her. She is one of the marvelous athletes that Indonesia ever have. Etti recently just set a new WORLD record of Speed Rock Climbing in Italy in 2005. What made it more astonishing is that the old world record was also HERS.
I know that rock climbing is not a popular sport in Indonesia. Soccer and badminton are the most dominant sport played. Many people are so into those sports. Unfortunately, our national soccer and badminton atlhetes are not in their best form these recent years. That condition creates an image of the fall of Indonesian sports. Eventually it leads to the declining of confidence of the athletes in particular, the nation in general.
Nonetheless, there are still some athletes that makes remarkable achievements. Thus, in lieu of complaining about our soccer national team's weakness, why don't we support or at least pay attention to other athletes, for instance Etti, Chrisjon, so on and so forth?
Personally, I still believe that our national atheletes will again make great achievements. I could be wrong. But if there is no one supports them, how can we expect them to win and make us proud? It won't happen if we always complain about them without any solution. Viva Indonesian athletes...!
pic: www.theage.com.au

One of the historical coins

This coin was very popular in 1995 (if I'm not mistaken). Actually it's just an ordinary coin but rumours about this coin was so incredible. At that time, it was believed that 100 Rupiah coin made in 1991 contained valuable metal. Some people changed it into a ring. Believe it or not, they sold the ring with way up high price (much more than Rp.100). Unbelievable.....
Some of you probably would say I just made the story. Nope, this is true.

This is even cooler....:)

Do you know what the postcard looked like in the late 1800's? The pic above is a postcard sent from Yokohama, Japan to Buitenzorg, Indonesia. Buitenzorg now is called Bogor a.k.a the "Rain City."

Have you ever seen these? (cont'd)

Have you ever seen these?

These are Indonesian Rupiah bills used in 1964. An American, Ronnie Oldham residing in Texas, is the owner of these extraordinary collections. Respectively, they are 25-cent, 10-cent, and 1-cent bills.

Religious Calculator

When I was surfing from blog to blog for getting references, I found this very interesting online quiz. It's called the Religious Calculator. It is trying to find out how your principles fit the religions' tenets. To use it is very easy. Just try to answer 20 questions provided. Here are my results:

1. Islam (100%)
2. Orthodox Judaism (100%)
3. Sikhism (79%)
4. Bahá'í Faith (79%)
5. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (75%)
6. Reform Judaism (74%)
7. Mainline - Conservative Christian Protestant (70%)
8. Jehovah's Witness (70%)
9. Orthodox Quaker (70%)
10.Jainism (62%)
11.Seventh Day Adventist (60%)
12.Eastern Orthodox (58%)
13.Roman Catholic (58%)
14.Liberal Quakers (56%)
15.Hinduism (46%)
16.Unitarian Universalism (46%)
17.Mainline - Liberal Christian Protestants (44%)
18.Mahayana Buddhism (42%)
19.Scientology (35%)
20.Theravada Buddhism (34%)
21.Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (32%)
22.Neo-Pagan (32%)
23.New Thought (30%)
24.New Age (29%)
25.Secular Humanism (20%)
26.Non-theist (20%)
27.Taoism (16%)

Based on the results above, I have no complaint about the calculator. What about you? Try and find out the truth about you :)

A glimpse about geography

pic: maps.google.com/

God, please make 'em useful (sigh....)

Again and again, our House of Representatives members dissapoint people of Indonesia. They keep making the same mistake every year. Do you know what it is? I bet you already know what I'm talking about. Yes, it is the so-called comparative study a.k.a travelling abroad. This year they go to US, France, and Netherlands. FYI, if they go to Netherlands, they won't see any HoR members there coz they're on recess now. So what's the point of the comparative study? Does it benefit people of Indonesia? If so, why haven't we improved our country? What do they learn from the study actually? Big question mark.
God, please knock at their hearts. I know they're not mean. It's their greed and selfishness which have driven them into ignorant people. Can't they see what's happening now in Indonesia, our beloved country? Fuel crisis, Energy crisis, Avian flu, Poverty, Famine, Low currency exchange rate, so on and so forth. How many problems are we gonna have just to make them realize that something has to be done? Does Indonesia have to be such a very miserable country so that they don't have any money to go abroad?
Please....please......please.....this is not a new story but why do they still do that? They are well-educated people. Make 'em useful, God. Stop them from being waste.
pic: www.tempointeraktif.com

Living in an apartment can be annoying sometimes

New neighbors just came in today. They live upstairs. Boy, there are so much noise they make. I know that moving stuffs isn't a simple thing to do. But please! They keep walking and the floor is squeaking all day long. I cannot take a nap peacefully. Even I don't think I will sleep tight tonight. Maybe you will say, "why don't you help them?" My answer to that will be "Na a. Not tonight :)"
By the way, I got not-too-good news tonight. It's personal problem. One thing that I hate is that I can't do nothing to help solving the problem. It's beyond my control. All I can do is sending my prayer. May it'll be over soon......

Final.....final.....final

Final....final....final.... wish me luck, guys. Thank you very much. God bless you all.....
pic: www.math.niu.edu

Idle hands are devil's playground

What a shocking quote, isn't it? I just heard about it today. When I worked in my office today, I met Ms. Anne Lech and Ms. Nancy Hardee. We talked about this busy summer class. Finally we ended up with that quote. After thinking about it, it does make sense. If someone does not have anything to do, he or she tends to get bored. In boredom, people can do something that they never do. It tends to be negative though. So, maybe that's where the quote comes from. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
pic: schools.sd68.bc.ca

Every cloud has a silver lining (Quote of the week)

Every cloud has a silver lining means that you should never feel hopeless because difficult times always lead to better days. Difficult times are like dark clouds that pass overhead and block the sun. When we look more closely at the edges of every cloud we can see the sun shining there like a silver lining. Every cloud has a silver lining means that the sun shining at the edges of every cloud reminds us that every difficult situation has a bright side.
Source: www.goenglish.com
pic: www.cs.utah.edu

Why does time fly so fast?

Sometimes we never realize that time flies so fast. Just like me today. I woke up this morning and read my mails. Few minutes later, I made breakfast and took a shower. It was really refreshing. Taking shower in weekends is so different from in weekdays. On weekdays, I usually do it only within 10 minutes. Indonesian people call it "Duck or chicken shower." LOL. Don't blame me for not having more time. Weekdays are busy days.
After taking shower, I got some work to do related to my job. Then, I watched TV. Soon, I just realized that I did not do many things today and it's already 4 pm.
Oh well, I'd better start thinking what I'm gonna do later. Otherwise, today will just go like that.
pic: reslife.missouri.edu

Quibbling over semantics

Meeting different people with different backgrounds like culture, language, etc., is interesting. When people communicate, they will talk in their own way. At certain points, there must be some differences that they cannot cope with. One of the them is language difference. For example, "mangkuk" means bowl and "cincin" means ring in Indonesian (Bahasa). Meanwhile, in Japan, if you say those two words, people will think that you do not speak politely. Apparently, the first word means female genital and the latter means male genital. LOL!
More example, "ayan" means epilepsy. In India, it is a name. What a difference! Last example is OK. If I'm not mistaken, OK in Bahasa means good. After living in the States for 7 months, I just noticed that OK means so-so.
Above all, the differences, particularly, make the world more colorful and more interesting :)
pic: www.krysstal.com