Jaberwocky

Ketika melihat Courier-Mail edisi selasa 25 October di Common Room Ritchie Building UQ, ada sesuatu yang eye catching di halaman depan walopun tulisannya gak terlalu besar: "Female Chauvinist Pigs". Head line yang paling menarik dan memancing untuk membaca artikelnya dibanding general vacancies yang selalu jadi favorite. Alex Murdoch sedikit me-review buku tersebut yang judul lengkapnya Female Chauvinist Pigs, Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture oleh Ariel Levy, dengan head line Flashy becomes Trashy. Dipampang gambar-gambar rada seksi: Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, dan Cameron Diaz lagi nunggingin pantatnya dan satu lagi Jenna Jameson (penulis How to Make Love Like a Porn Star) seorang porn star juga. Di paling bawah artikel ini ada tulisan kecil tentang informasi kalo Levy datang ke Brisbane Jumat 28 October di toko buku "Avid Reader" di west End. Penasaran, seperti apa sich ketemu sama author dan minta autograph-nya ditulisin dibukunya yang kita beli? Kebetulan  judul bukunya juga menarik dan memancing keingintahuan ya kayaknya wajib datang.

Karena penasaran tadi, jadi semuanya musti disiapin buat datang walopun jadwalnya bertepatan dengan buka puasa dan les Inggris yang harus keluar lebih awal demi mengejar si Ariel. Lara juga ikut, gak papa lah, ini juga bagian dari pendidikan secara tak langsung untuk mencintai buku dan kegiatan di toko buku. Mana ada di Indo kegiatan seperti ini, walopun ada pasti at least yang lokal. Ini adalah kali pertama mengikuti kegiatan seperti ini. Waktu itu  udah maghrib, pas dilihat waktunya, ternyata mulainya jam 6.30. Audience yang datang semua bule, gak ada orang Indo sama sekali, rada-rada gal pede nich, tapi cuek aja, mereka appreciate kok. Kursi-kursi sudah disiapkan dan di row paling depan disediakan tiket gratis nonton film terbaru dari Mexico biar orang-orang mau duduk di depan kali ya. Semua tertib sambil nunggu Ariel levy

Ariel Levy datang setelah hampir semua audience duduk, dengan berpenampilan rapi, tanpa make up dan modest. Dia berbicara blak-blakan tanpa sensor yang membuat ketawa banyak orang. Dia adalah seorang Jurnalis dari New York yang menulis buku ini tentang ide-idenya yang cukup revolusioner di duni per-feminism-an. Sepertinya pengaruh orang tuanya cukup berkontribusi sehingga dia bisa menulis buku seperti ini. Ibunya penggemar setia women’s conciousness-raising group selama 24 tahun dan ayahnya adalah konsultan untuk planned parenthood.

Dengan buku ini ditulis, bermunculanlah ide-ide baru tentang konsep feminism. Dia bilang buku ini bukan untuk menghakimi para feminist yang gagal mengibarkan benderanya tapi supaya perempuan berfikir. Katanya "The whole concept of failing is part of the reason I think so many young women decided to rebel against feminism in this way and decided to embrace raunch culture. Because it just seemed free-wheeling and fun … and they did’nt want to worry if they were behaving in a way that’s politically correct." Feminism selalu dijadikan konsep sebagai equality, seperti dalam buku ini, perempuan ingin menyamakan dengan laki-laki dalam hal penikmatan sex gaya laki-laki, contohnya perempuan sendiri yang menikmati exposur-exposur pornography. Parahnya lagi, ketika laki-laki hanya menikmati pornography, perempuan tidak hanya menikmati tetapi meniru baik itu dari penampilan dengan baju-baju minim atau prilaku yang bitchy. Bagaimana tidak, dengan begini perempuan menuju titik terendah martabatnya. Dia menggunakan kata Female chauvinist pigs karena dia melihat kecenderungan chauvinist pigs ini sekarang dilakukan kaum perempuan demi menyamakan ‘derajat’ dengan laki-laki. Sebenarnya yang dikatakan chauvinist pigs itu adalah laki-laki yang menganggap perempuan tidak lebih dari seonggok daging tanpa jiwa. Sekarang, menurut dia, perempuan pun sama-sama menganggap makhluk sejenisnya seperti para chauvinist pigs. Ketika ada audience yang bertanya kenapa yang dipakai kata chauvinist pigs  dalam bukunya? dan tidak pula dibahas secara detail tentang phrase ini. Levy menjawab "It was like a joke" karena memang ‘chauvinist pigs’ refer to laki-laki. Mana ada perempuan yang chauvinist pigs? katanya. Saya ingin menuliskan quote dari bukunya "Raunch provides a special oportunity for a woman who wnat to prove her mettle. It’s in fashion and it is something that has traditionally appealed exclusively to men and actively offended to women, so producing it or participating in it is a way both to flaunt your coolness and to mark yourself as different, tougher, looser, funnier — a new sort of loophole woman who is "not like other women," who instead "like a man." Or more precisely, like a Female Chauvinist Pig."

Dalam konsep barat, perempuan dianggap liberating dan memperjuangkan bendra feminism kalo mereka bisa menyamai semua tindak-tanduk laki-laki yang tidak bisa dilakukan perempuan - termasuk menikmati perempuan juga. Perempuan ingin dipersepsikan powerful kalo bisa melakukan apa yang dilakukan laki-laki.

I miss writing in my blog, I constantly can’t catch up my time to even write a single thing. Being busy is the thing I always wanted like in the last few weeks. Preparing a small party is not quite easy for my daughter’s birthday party but that’s what all mothers want, make the child happy. It was quite unusual party which some of our close friends celebrated as well. It was just like a together-we-celebrate our birthday when all of them celebrating it in a quite shared forthnight. I believe everybody was happy particularly my daughter with her new toys as her birthday present.

Lara, my dear, happy birthday. Your momy’s prayer always be with you. Be the happiest little girl in the world.

She is four now and now becoming a pride of her mum. She was really an amazing miracle for me. Many funny things unexpectedly come out of her little mouth, those english words she now speaks is so fluent. She sings a lot with all brand new song she sing from school. She’s simply a sweet little fella with a nice manner - as her teacher said. She is different, boldly expressing her feeling to anybody she likes or she hate without being censored. When she grows she will keep it that way and speak out loud for the truth.

Nulis pake bahasa Indo aja, biar kaya kata Rendra kemarin ada rasa semangat kebangsaan. Meski, Rendra juga diantipati-in dan dicekal sama rejim-rejim Indonesia terdahulu. Rendra ke Brisbane keliatannya adalah propaganda positive untuk membangun image masing-masing (Indo -Aussy) yang selama ini misleading sehubungan dengan banyaknya teror. Hari Kamis kemarin dia buka public lecture di Queensland Art Gallery, Southbank, saya lupa judul pastinya tapi kira-kira sekitar Indonesia’ Future. Baru kali ini saya menyaksikan Rendra ‘live’ walopun bukan recital puisi. Ceramahnya asyik seputar pelurusan image orang Indo misal: banyak disebut Indo adalah negara Islam terbesar, dalam artian jumlah statistik umat yang (mengaku saja) beragama Islam paling banyak. Dia katakan sebaliknya kalo Indonesia bukan negara Islam dan memang tidak secara sistem pemerintahan pun. Dia pun menyentuh tentang humanity dan pengajaran anak-di Indo yang ditriger oleh pertanyaan audience. Yang menariknya ya itu, karena ada yang nanya ‘kok bisa ya ada salah satu sekolah primary di Brisbane (Sunshine Coast-kalo gak salah) yang bisa kasi performance budaya Indo dari Sabang sampe Merauke. Jawaban Renda bagus banget bahwa anak di Indo yang terlalu banyak materi pelajaran yang harus dipelajari anak kalo menurt saya yang kurang signifikan dengan kehidupan nyata anak-anak, jadi katanya lagi gak ada waktu untuk mempelajari hal-hal ‘intangible’ seperti itu (lucu, sambil dia susah sekali mencari kata itu). Saya berani bilang kalo pelajaran anak di Indo terlalu abstrak, sama sekali tidak bersentuhan dengan kehidupan anak yang senyatanya.

Sekarang saya lagi bingung menyusun urutan-urutan materi buat ngajar agama di Ironside, it’s sound noble huh? Saya niatkan untuk membantu anak-anak Islam di Ironside dengan ikhlas walopun kemampuan agama saya diragukan tapi dengan saya mengajar, akan semakin banyak yang akan saya pelajari untuk menambah ilmu agama saya. Sementara, sekarang ini belom dapet Blue Card jadi saya maen  backstage dulu aja soalnya materi selama ini tercecer dan seolah materi diberikan menurut ‘occasion based material’ maksudnya kalo lagi ramadhan yang dikasiin ya materi puasa. Tapi memang harus maklum soalnya yang ngajar dulu-dulu student yang super sibuk jadi ya bisa ad-lib.

Balik lagi ke Rendra, dari dulu sebenarnya saya sebel ngeliat bahan ajar anak-anak di Indo khususnya SD yang bgitu bejibun dan loadnya terlalu berat. Saya bisa lebih yakin lagi setalh datang ke Australia yang ngeliat cara belajar dan materi anak-anak yang sungguh-sungguh menapak, nggak ngawang-ngawang kaya di Indo.

to be continued soalnya my little princess lara mau maen Disney Princess game, internetnya berebut, yaaa gimana lagi.

sok mangga neng,

Instead of expressing grudge to a girlfriend who finnaly gossiping I’d rather my blog loading my curhat. It’s been quite a long time I try to avoid gossiping (talking s.o behind their back) as I express it in my posts. It works though I am still gossiping with my blog - but you don’t know the third person so it’s not a kind of gossiping, ei?

Since I was caught red-handed getting another job, ‘monalisa smile’ was surpised enough how could it be so easy to find one. Time after time she was uneasy talking to me and many times played some jokes about me, about getting more hours and beat around her bush to say I envy you - in fact you’re really a green eyed monster. Don’t worry my dear friend about I’m getting rich too soon, if God is not willing it won’t happen anyway.  I know you are jealous but willy nilly you can no more hide your jealousy. My dear friend monalisa smile, you said you’re more likely focusing on your family but you slipped you tounge when you asked you hubby about getting more job - Unfortunately my dear friend the anwer was BIG NO NO.  No no no no don’t funk with my heart ….

And please my dear friend, do NOT judge me or even pretend to care about me by entering some comments about MY LIFE. As your hoby is gossiping,  I won’t stop you, please just keep going, I don’t mind to be your topic of the month. I’m getting more pupolar then.

I can see clearly from your facial expression and say some ‘wise words’ and put some metaphore about me when you know what was my daughter did. Are you satisfied enough my dear friend? But I DO NOT EVER care about your bull-shitted concern.

Hey you (my dear friend), mind your own bussiness and keep away from commenting my family and myself. I know what I am doing. when God says GO, I’ll GO but When God says STOP I’ll STOP.

a little wise words for you: if you really care, show that you really care. I don’t wanna ruin the relation we’ve been thru so far.

One more thing: It was really immature whispering with your friend while I am around.

Just one or two days ago, I feel so Ge-eR ama Yang Diatas when I was so fulfilled. Writing my last post was a way of describing of my fulfilment. Indeed, it’s part of my gratitude to Him. I reach my self satisfaction when I got so busy enough and things organised as my time is worthwile. When I have only a few activities I got so bored and became the great food-loader. I could be a sumo women if I keep it that way. Putting on weight is one of the result of indulgence. Then until one day I found the key words: Losing weight by Earning More. That’s the perfect match. I put this ideas into action and it works very well. I lost four kilos and earning more (from 56 became 52). Isn’t it cool? It’s a big deal for me.

Beyond this excitement, suddenly God rang the bell of warning. I percieved that He want to save me from my excitement. The story of the warning was:

It happend in Ramadhan day 7. On Tuesday 11/10/05 I’d been working for 10 hours - from 6 p.m. to 10p.m. then the show must go on from 12 a.m. to 6 a.m. - (read: it’s not really a show it’s a coolie work-sorry I’m not a stipper). During my first time shift, I got a call from my daughter that she wanted to see me and it was okay cos I could go home shortly. Arriving at home at 10.20, she was very excited to see me and she said "I miss you mommy". She sat on my leap and since I didn’t have a proper iftar for the long waited fasting during the day I had my dinner with her on my leap. We shared the food and fed her. I had to be in hurry to catch my next session which need a little blink between 11 to 11.30 as my energy recovery. I had a shower and prayed. By the time I went to bed, she was just playing the Disney Princess computer game. Until my alarm clock rang for my next time shift, I rushed to prepare some food to have sahr at my work place but she then asked me where I was going again. Of course I had to go to work but as it was unexpected she was madly crying and angry. She held my body and my hand thightly and urged me not to go and said " Why mommy working again? I miss you." She was crying like crazy, taking my work uniform and run around to hide it away. We had an argument but still she was crying even worse. Negotiation made her a little bit easy by sending me to work and seeing my boss. My husband drove to my work with her. I felt so funny taking a very young kid in the middle of the night around the campus. I kept laughing with my boss and collagues. It was so touchy and funny. Finally after she talked to my boss (she called her teacher) she could stop crying and went home with daddy. She avoided my kiss when she left, she was so angry with me. It was so … so … hick … hick. Lara my darling princess, forgive me, I would never leave you again for a quite long time. I miss you too my baby pumpkin. Of course you are my most precious.

Refering to poem in my last post, now God says "STOP press" since my idea is not the best for her though might be pretty good for me. Okay, I have to be sensitive enough for this sign. It is really a significant memorandum. I believe God plans the best thing for me a my family. Alhamdulillahirabil’alamiin.

God Always Answer Our Prayer

When the idea is not right, God says "NO"

"NO" - When the idea is not the best

"NO" - When the idea is absolutely wrong

"NO" - When although it may help you it could create problems for others

When the time is not right, God says, "SLOW"

What catastrophe it would be if God answeres every prayer at the snap of your finger.

Do you know what would happend? God would become your servant, not your master.

Suddenly God would be working for you instead of you working for God.

Remember: God’s delay is not God’s denial, God’s timing is perfect

Patience is what we need in prayer

When you are not right, God says "GROW"

The selfish person must grow in unselfishness

The cautious person must grow in courage

The timid person must grow in confident

The dominating person must grow in sensitivity

The critical person must grow in tolerance

The pleasure-seeking person must grow in compassion for suffering people

When everything is all right, God says "GO"

The miracles happen

The dreams come true

The pessimists become optimists

The doubters become the believer

Diseased tissue respond to treatment, healing begins

The door to your dream suddenly swings open

And there stands God saying, "GO"

In the past three years, God said all those words above to me. In the first years in Australia God said "No" to my dream. In the second year God said "Afi, slow down, be patient!" and right now in the trhird year, God says " Go for it Afi!. Enjoy your life. Thank God, I finnaly realise everything is the best for me.

Talking about enjoying my life, mine can not be predicted by others. Nobody can says ‘you are not enjoying your life becuse you work too hard’. No, it is totally different point of view. We can have different view but not judging other’s view wrong. Everybody has different way of enjoying their life. To some people, indulging themselves is part of enjoying themselves. Enjoying ourselves means reaching self satisfaction. To me, successfully made an a single tiny achievement for one day is my self satisfaction. The achievement can be anything worthwile for myself or family or others or three of them. The achievement can not only be in terms of material but also spiritual.

to be continued, I’ve gotta pick up my princess from school.

Membaca iisb mailinglist dengan judul Akulah Cermin Engkaulah Matahari oleh Nadirsyah Hosen, saya jadi teringat posting saya sebelumnya tentang image. Cermin sangat erat hubungannya dengan image. Mungkin dalam bahasa Inggris bayangan cermin yang nampak disebut image. Dalam tulisan di mailing list tsb, dikatakan kalo manusia sebagai cermin yang bisa mematulkan cahaya Illahi (buat saya, topik ini terlalu berat karena sangat filosofis apalagi dikaitkan dengan sufism). Tapi yang terbayang oleh saya dengan level pemikiran yang sederhana, cermin ini adalah sekitar image yang diciptakan orang lain terhadap kita baik dengan melihat ‘judge the book from its cover’ ataupun mendalam dan juga ada hubungannya dengan self image (how you see yourself in the relation to others like how you see yourself about the idea you have for yourself).

Cermin dalam tulisannya mempunyai dua arah yaitu habluminalloh dan habluminanas. Bila dilihat dari sisi habluminanas saja kita bisa memperkirakan image kita dari sudut pandang seseorang. Tetapi image yang dibangun seseorang tentang kita akan sangat relatif dan bisa berubah dengan melihat lebih dalam. Kedua hal yang dilakukan cermin ini sangatlah sulit baik menerima cahaya maupun memantulkannya. Biasanya kita lebih suka menerima dari pada memberi, demikian halnya memantulkan akan sangat lebih rumit mungkin dibanding dengan menyerap cahaya. Tapi cermin yang sempurna dan bening akan dengan mudah melakukan keduanya. Kesempurnaan tidak dimiliki semua cermin. Ketika cermin hanya bisa menyerap cahaya Illahi dan tidak bisa memantulkannya maka image akan lenyap.

kalo tidak menatulkan cahaya namanya kaca, walopun bagaimana cermin itu akan tetap menampakkan image tergantung cahayanya terang atau redup atau bisa saja orang yang melihat pantulan cahaya cermin itu visually impaired.

Satu hal yang paling nggak kuat menahan ketika puasa adalah "kalam". Lapar dan dahaga itu sich enteng bisa ditahan insyaAlloh berhari-hari. Saya pernah dengar ada orang yang shaum kalam, yaitu menahan ucapan yang sia-sia padahal dia tidak sedang berpuasa (makan-minum), apalagi ramadhan. Dalam waktu sebentar aja pas kita lagi kebetulan ketemu temen-temen atau lagi bareng-bareng, nggak disadarin kita udah berbual sampai bebusa mulutnya. Ada yang sia-sia, menyinggung perasaan orang, menyindir, nyepet (ledekin orang sambil joking), dan gossip, ngomongin kejelekan orang. Sayangnya, hal kaya-kaya gini sering terjadi menimpa perempuan (perempuan lagi yang selalu jadi objek perugi). Saya pun sebagai perempuan, nggak bisa ngerti kenapa yang namanya mulut itu susah sekali mengekangnya. Mulut tentu saja bukan hanya sekedar mulut tapi yang keluar dari mulut berasal dari pikiran dan hati. InsyaAlloh kalo hati kita bersih dan tidak ada unsur ingin menyudutkan orang lain, atau menghina dan mengejek pasti yang keluarpun akan bersih tanpa ada intrik-intrik menggelitik.

Ramadhan kali ini godaannya memang lumayan, baru dua hari aja udah kerasa, terutama itu tuch, kalam. Baik kalam yang kita keluarkan dengan sengaja maupun tidak. Atau ucapan-ucapan orang yang mentriger hati kita untuk merusak value puasa kita hari ini. Bagai mana mungkin, bila seseorang didera dengan sindirin dan ejekan dia bisa bertahan mempertahankan fasting value-nya. Dengan terpaksa dia harus menelan mentah-mentah walaupun pada akhirnya penelanan itu akan dimuntahkan juga berupa ucapan-ucapan perusak ibadah shaum. Ada satu hal yang mungkin, yaitu bersyukur dengan mimiliki blog  sebagai latihan pemuntahan ucapan-ucapan tercela dengan cara yang sangat elegan - menulis blog adalah cara terbaik mengungkap keresahan hati, meredam kedengkian dan mencegah rusaknya nilai puasa kita dengan cara yang positif. Sudah menjadi kebiasaan, prosesi curhat adalah mengurangi keresahan hati tapi dengan curhat itu lah kita terjebak lagi dalam lingkaran setan yang menjerumuskan ke dalam bahaya LIDAH dan menjadi Ghibah.

Celakanya adalah partner komunikasi kita adalah orang non-muslim atau yang sedang tak puasa. Mereka nggakpunya beban sama sekali dengan hal ini. Mereka cuek aja, toh nothing to lose. Mereka nothing to lose but I don’t wanna be a BIG LOSER. Kalo kita mencoba untuk bijak bisa saja masalahnya adalah kita, let’s see the reflection of our image towards other. Dengan ucapan-ucapan orang sekitar apakah kita easily iritated atau memang ada something wrong with them about our image. Image bisa benar atau salah maksudnya apakah image kita sesuai pesanan kita atau cacat. Image kita bisa terbentuk dengan torehan sendiri atau dengan intervensi orang lain baik sengaja atau nggak sengaja. Kadang kita jaim (jaga image) untuk mempertahankan jati diri dan image itu sendiri. Jaim tidak berarti OK malah suka sebel kalo ada orang jaim banget. Tapi Image biarlah image, ada instant image yang bisa diciptakan instantly by judging the book from the cover ada image yang dibuat denga self-exposing dengan secara tidak langsung mengatakan "I am superior you know!" dan ada juga image yang dibangun dengan waktu yang sangat lama walaupun pasang surut image baik dan buruk saling berkejaran. Pada akhirnya satu image yang akan muncul bahwa orang akan menilai setelah tahu betul apa inti dalem-daleman sesorang itu tanpa diungkap secara pribadi oleh orang tersebut. Go to hell with the image anyway, it is very okay even if our image was trully impaired on the eye of the beholder. However, don’t worry, time will tell who the hell do you think you are and who the hell does she think she is and I know who I am. God knows everything about me than you do.

Buat sahabatku yang aku nggak mau kamu jadi musuh dalam selimut.

I had a look at islam.com about the perfect timing of Ramadhan this year. I searched by measuring longitude and latitude for Brisbane with sun’s angle of depression at fajr on 18 degrees. I was not quite sure when my friend called me in the very early morning to tell me that the Ramadhan is coming today on Tuesday based on Arab’s time. Then I come into thinking when the Arabians are breaking their fast, should I do the same thing while here in Brisbane is in the middle of the summer hot day? I tried to confirm by calling my mum in Bandung about it and she told me that Indonesian will have fasting tomorrow on Wednesday 5 october 2005. So far I collected all the facts and reconfirm everywhere, I decide to have fasting tomorrow. And here is the fact I got from Islam.com:

We had a very special guest on Saturday afternoon. She came to Brisbane on the occasion of English Australia Conference as her capacities in TEFLIN. As a dumbed-down, I just overheard what my husband and her talking about the new up coming curriculum. Recently, she said there’s been a kind of fever among the curriculum celebrities to reach the best decision for English teaching-learning. I can see some sort of misunderstanding in the curriculum transformation from the Communicative Aapproach to Genre Based Curriculum. The real horor is that not everybody knows what the hell the Genre Based Curriculum is, I myself once got a sort of hi-school Genre Based Curriculum just for brousing. This system will be applied to most of the English teaching-learning in Indonesia while the modest teachers do not even know what it is. She even told me how worse it was when she gave some tests to the English teacher in one of the Bandung’s favorite Hi-school. They nearly get acquinted with the type of text. As one of their understanding about this, they teach the theory about this curriculum to the kids. Imagine, are they prepared to get the language skill or to get the theory of Genre?

The dispute then raised among those who care about kids and those who care about their career as a prestigiously-decision-maker. On one hand, they persisted on the last system they use to get a long with i.e., the communicative approach and on the other hand some might still want to win the new system to be applied in our education. No matter how disputable it is, no matter how cool is the next curriculum will be, I see there will be no more breakthrough about putting upwards our kids. The reason why we can’t find special improvement and the proper system is that those decision makers had never really touch the bottom of the real education on the grass root. Do they really know the needs of our kids while they are learning? How could they know if they never teach and understand the kids’ needs?

I remember when I was working with some Norwegian pofessors. They are Ph.Ds, professors but they teach primary or secondary school to find out what exactly the kids need to learn. And when the time is coming to develop new curriculum, they bring all their finding about the real world. Not only about the kids but also about the teachers as their colleagues. Consequently, the decision maker fully understand about the their battle field and make their decision right.

The cliché for Indonesian excuses is normally MONEY. Teaching in the lower level of education is not so provitable. It is true for the lower level of educator but it is not true for the professors who has already gone around the world, paid up by any institutions, got the grant for research and many more wealth coming easily. So please, get down and see the real world.