JCP FEATURES: FROM HOME

“School is not only about the knowledge”

It’s weird that I didn’t get to see the “Back to School” advertising a lot this year. The pandemic has totally made the world goes crazy. Summer holidays and school days are pretty much similar these days since students still stay at home for school. The excitement of getting back to school couldn’t be seen. No new school bag or pencil case, new books that should be covered (I think this is an Indonesian thing to cover your school books), the excitement to write your name in your new book, meeting with new friends (Indonesian school shuffle the class attendance list every new school year). Ah, how I miss going to school!

Well, I’m not a student anymore, but looking at my little cousins, the school was so boring and it broke my heart that they have to do online schooling. I’m truly sorry that they can’t experience the fun of seeing friends at school and doing school projects with them, waiting for a break-time when the class was so boring, the excitement when it is PE, music, and art class that we can express our inner feeling and be creative and many more.

Once again, the pandemic made me realize that I’m so grateful for the things I had before. The opportunity to go to school and met the friends I have now, the nervousness during exam week, and to grew my social skills. As I got older, I realized that school should not be taken for granted. It was a privilege that I’m able to go to school. Well, we got to learn about it after we experienced it. (That’s why on the job training was such an important thing, guys).

Please note that what I’m discussing here is based on the situation in Indonesia. After seeing my little cousins go for online-schooling, one thing pop out of my head, “is it effective?”.

Even before the pandemic strikes, not everyone can go to school. Our education system was not fully established for everyone. And now, the pandemic makes it worse. Not everyone got access to the internet and their parents are not all are tech-savvy. I just wish the suburb residents or even villagers are free from COVID-19 so they don’t need to have these online classes.

Our Education Minister wanted to change the school work model to online-schooling. But, Sir, have you prepared the infrastructure? How are you going to evaluate the study? Kids in school sometimes lack concentration at school, and I don’t think it’s going to be better at home either. There are no restrictions and not all parents can be strict with their kids, so I don’t think they will learn how society works. It also applied to adults that go to work from home. I hear a lot of my friends that don't enjoy WFH and get lazy and fatter during the time. Well, even an adult like me, I don’t think I’m confident in doing WFH. I’m totally going to mess-up the schedules and deadlines (even at work, I still suck with this). As you might notice, I couldn’t even post my blog or video regularly even though I’m unemployed before. There are just too many distractions. And now, they want the little kids to organize their own study at home? It’s a crazy idea, actually. My boss always said,” people nowadays keep losing their focus. (pointing to the smartphone) This is what makes you out of focus. You need to more focus on work”. What he said got hit me hard. It is true that those notifications on your phone, the urge to open your social media, and many other distractions that come from that small thing. Students in most of the school in Indonesia (up until grade 10) are not allowed to bring their phone to school. That’s why they could be trained to focus at school, but at home obviously, there’s no restriction like this, unless the parents keep the school rules applied at home. But, I believe that’s not the case since every parent are also busy finding the way to survive during this pandemic.

Infrastructure is one thing; the other thing is online-schooling is so monotone. I’m terribly sorry for them seeing their friends through the screen only, maybe. And as far as I know, most of them like to turn off the camera. I don’t know how they develop relationships and bonds through this online-school thing. It’s like you had an LDR but you didn’t have a deep connection and strong trust as your base. Eventually, you’ll feel you don’t belong to each other. There is no emotional development for the new generation of kids. Thinking of it makes my heart break into pieces. Since the program is new and sudden, there is not enough preparation for both the educators and students. That’s might be the root of the boring online school program. To fully enjoy online school programs, there’s should be more thorough planning & curriculum as well as preparing the media for the students, parents, and school.

Internet infrastructure is not for everyone yet in Indonesia. The house condition (read: economic status) to execute this online-school is very important. The online-school makes the privileged-house to learn and grow, but not applied for the unfortunate. This will cause an extreme economic gap and it might result in social jealousy.

What I learned from going to school is not only about the knowledge from books, but how I adapt to different types of personality and way of thinking. I’ve forgotten how to solve physics problems or what are types of molecules out there. It is some basic knowledge for an educated person, but it’s not the most important thing. How to be a well-mannered person is. And I think school is the first place where you will learn this skill.

Online-school is not bad, but we need a more thorough plan and how we are going to spread this for everyone no matter where they are and how is their economic status. The reason I write this feature is I just want to share my thoughts for the new generation of kids about what are they are going to go through and how cool and exciting school was. I don’t want to be a “kkonde” type of person, who likes to compare my old days to today, but just to let you know that every generation has its’ own good and bad side.

I’m terribly sorry for the late post, but I think this topic is still relevant for the “new normal”. It’s true and right that we need a new standard of normal since what’s we thought it’s normal, it’s not. Once again, the pandemic taught us to not take things for granted. Things don’t last forever, so let’s make it worth it. And also, on November 25, it is Teacher’s Day in Indonesia. I wanted to use this post that teacher is an important figure. A teacher is not only what we call our teacher at school, but a mentor or a friend is also a teacher. We can learn from everyone, not only an official teacher. Happy Teacher’s Day, you are a true hero and the best supporters out there!

If any parents happened to read this post, held your head high, because you are not alone. Take this as the chance how you are going to educate your kids in the way you’ve been dreaming of when you were in school. Don’t take it too hard, because eventually your kids will grow up and they can make their own decision and principles.

Whoever you are, thank you for reading this post. I’m not sure if this post helps, but I just want to do some sharing. This is what I think about the online-school system. How about you? Are you more on the modern or traditional type of school?

I’ll see you soon on my next post very soon.

I’ll work hard to finish all the pending posts before 2020 ended.

*crossed fingers*

JCP FEATURES: LOVE LETTER

“I hope these tears will stop running someday. 
Someday after this darkness clear up. 
I hope the warm sunshine dries these tears.” 
- Someday by IU

March oh march. The least favorite month of the year. And again, this year something dreadful happened in March. Finally, the COVID-19 has reached Indonesia apparently. The virus epidemic has changed to a pandemic and at first, Indonesia took it lightly. As a developing country, we always look up to developed countries (read the USA) and I guess it was a wrong move. Apparently with Trump as the President of the USA. We were “educated” to not use a mask if we are not sick (to prevent mask shortage), as what WHO published. While in South Korea, everyone must use a mask. Whether you are sick or not. Turns out, South Korean’s move was the right one.

When the first outbreak in Wuhan happened, we were still having a good time spending Chinese New Year with family. Then the next month, we were still freely moving around and ditching the “use mask whenever you go out” rules and the next month sanitizer all around the buildings, not only in the hospital, and body temperature checking before heading inside a building. Then more death cases occurred and then the government took an action to limit moving on a large scale (called PSBB). That’s a relief that we took the action faster than the USA to semi-lockdown the city, especially the big cities in Indonesia. The more work-from-home policy applied and limiting operational hours. What’s more, is, fortunately, our President is saner, for not instructing to inject disinfectant.

It’s a stressful period both for the government and medical teams everywhere in the world. And what’s more, is there are lots of stubborn people that don’t care about all of these issues (and there is one in my house). Even though I can’t relate to those stubborn people, but I know it feels suffocating to stay inside the house when you are used to doing your activities outside. I missed the sea and the excitement of traveling. But, since I’m also a home-buddy person, so I don’t really have a problem with staying inside the house. All I can do is praying to let this pass as soon as possible.

We are the World

A few weeks ago, I watched a Korean variety show called “77 Million Love”. They were discussing COVID-19 and this program’s panels came from different countries. You can see it as a mini global summit format. It is a fun and fascinating variety show. Anyways, there are a few highlights that I got from the show, which are:

1. People around the world are the same. 
No matter where you came from, which nationality you have, all are the same. The good example is the panic-buying. There are lots of cases in every part of the country that did this action. Indonesia also has few cases, but it was under control now, because the mart has made quantity limitations. There is one Italian elder, that has been through World War II and this time is more severe than WW II. He couldn’t buy anything since people were panic-buying. When I watched this, I laughed finding it outrageous and no matter your race, skin color, and nationality, a human is human.

2. We should ask “why it could happen”, not “who is to blame”. 
There is a good comment from Tyler Rasch, a representative from the USA, he has been living in South Korea for around 8 years (and his Korean skill is amazing). They were debating whether the virus came from the USA or China before. He said, “I think we have to straighten things out. What we should be asking is why they made the virus in the first place?”. I think this is a good question to be solved. We have been busy blaming this country and that country that makes this happened, without thinking about how we can revive from this pandemic as soon as possible. I think that is also human nature. We tend to blame others first, without thinking what is the root problem and find a way to fix it first.

Hibernating

There are lots of news about the virus and more thorough articles out there. But, I wanted you to stop reading about that and took time to reflect. Reflect on what have you done for the last time? And what are you going to do after the pandemic period ends? So, let’s look on the brighter side of this period and change it as an opportunity to change. I wanted to share the bright side of this period.

Cleaner air
This is one of the best positive impacts of the virus outbreak. Since people are forced to WFH and most of the factories in the world are forced to stop, the air visibility is improving. We can see the drastic change in China since that is where factories mostly located. Well, you can say China is the center of the world economy activities that took place in the 21^st century. China has a lot of environmental problems before, but since the outbreak happened and they had to lock down the country, they finally got a real clean air. Not only that, but we were also "forced" to buy local products since no exported goods are available. It means less carbon footprint. Hopefully, when the economic activities are back to normal, this achievement stays this way. I wish all companies in the world took this time to look back about how they run business and the impact on the environment. Please.

Got more downtime
Since technology advancement, the human race is forced to work hard, nonstop. Just with an internet connection, we can work anywhere, anytime, 24/7. Some people might not feel this, but actually, we are working 24/7 all this time. I think most people are experiencing the same way toward the quarantine. At first, we feel happy and joyful. Because we can stay at home all the time. Then in the next two weeks, we are starting to run out of ideas to fill in the day. Especially, when there is no school, meeting schedule, or work. But, I saw a few positive habits in my social media that families form during this hard situation, such as more bonding times with their kids, creativity activities at home, etc. Also, we got the time to organize things, maybe cleaning the house, rearranging the plans, and many more activities that we used to ignore. For me, this period made me be more organized since I had to watch TV at the designated time. I know it’s weird, but it was a good habit, so I don't mind. I hope you have a good downtime for yourself and form new good habits too.

Self-development and rediscovering you 
During this period, we’ve got lots of time to spent and many people use to self-develop themselves. Either it's, cooking, baking, learning music, art, and many more. We are given the chance to use and train our creativity skills. Well, TikTok is part of it. With #passthebrushchallenge or #dalgonacoffeemaking and many more things to upload on TikTok, I believe it is part of self-development. I didn’t jump on that wagon though, but I started a new hobby. I started to strum my dusty old guitar again. I started to watch guitar lesson videos online and learn how to change the C and G chords on time every day. Not only about having a new hobby or train your interest more, but this time also allows you to reflect on what kind of person are you. The fast tempo of our past days sometimes made us forget who we are. What kind of person we are? We tend to choose other’s thoughts rather than our values. I finally understand what I’m good at and not, what is my dream, and what I cherish the most in life.

Dreaming
All-day and night. There is a countless dream that came across to my mind since I got more time to watch TV and scrolling down my social media page. Mostly I daydream about traveling the world as soon as this ended. Because I feel like that there is a limited time left to achieve it. Also, I daydream to meet my favorite screen friends (read my heart-robs; Park Seojun, Park Bogum, Yoo Yeonseok, Ong Seongwoo, Lee Jaewook, and many more). I also daydream to be more like IU. HAHA. That’s the reason why I started the guitar. I came across a guitar lesson of IU’s song and then it brought my memories of her when I saw her on ‘Saebakwi’ show performing her guitar skill and also the time she sang ‘Someday’ with a guitar in ‘Dream High’. It’s been a long time since I have this push factor to achieve something. While learning guitar, I had a huge regret why I didn’t learn guitar properly at school back then. Maybe if I did I can be like IU? Lol. Just kidding. The aftereffect of watching too much K-drama and music shows made me having lots of fantasy on my head. But, that’s a good one though. It’s better to be happy about your crazy fantasies rather than feel mourn and depressed.

Sharing
In hard times, people tend to be more caring for others. Which is good, because it means there is humanity inside of us. It means love does exist. Thankfully, the delivery system is getting better nowadays, so, we can easily order food for our loved one in exchange we cannot see them in the time being. I hope this kind of affection does not stop until the pandemic over, but continuously happen in the future.

See, we can always find positive things in every situation.

I don’t know exactly why, but lately, I always post seriously long posts both here (it’s 7 pages long in MS Word! I even didn’t write this much for my school report) and on my Instagram. But, I hope it gives you enlightenment during the hardships and I need to put out things I have inside my head anyway before it gets rot. Also, the muscles on my brain didn’t work as hard as before, so I need to exercise it, at least.

BONUS!
I love to add some bonus features inside these features. So, I found this interesting post on Instagram and thought it would be nice to share it here. It's from Greenpeace Southeast Asia's page and the post they shared is about the new normal way of thinking we should have after the pandemic ended. We shall reflect our actions and choose what is right for the nearest future. Let's not make the same mistake, okay?

View this post on Instagram

"There is a lot of talk about returning to normal. We need to remind people that we were in a crisis before this crisis. Normal is a crisis." This is a time of much grief and also many opportunities for climate activists to reconnect, care, and strategise. In such crises, it uncovers social injustices that existed in "normal" times that we have the chance to fix. We need to come out of this crisis in better shape than we were before. Via @theweirdandwild

A post shared by Greenpeace Southeast Asia (@greenpeacesea) on Apr 26, 2020 at 11:00pm PDT

(I couldn't find a way to make this embed Instagram post to center, so pardon for the inconsistent layout)

Thank you for joining me again on these features. 
I hope we can all save the world together hand-in-hand. 
See you soon!