IntRoducTioN

Welcome 2009

Following essays are argumentative one-side essays based on my observations and opinions; most of which were initially written within 25-minutes duration. Hence, there must be flaws and errors that are unseen to me but are so obvious to you, my dear readers. So please drop either praise, critics, or comments  on this site.

 

 

 

 

-Writer-

 

 

Julian–>http://jueri.wordpress.com/

Victor –> http://thorzz91.wordpress.com/

Icin –> http://ignatiacindy.wordpress.com/

TJ –>http://gryphon85.wordpress.com/

Jojoshi –>http://jojoshi.blogs.friendster.com/

Novandi –> http://idnavon.wordpress.com/

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Not an Essay (1)

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Bukan Cinta Biasa (Not an Ordinary Love)

When I listened to this song for the first time, I immediately fell in love with it. Bukan Cinta Biasa (Not an Ordinary Love) brings us both a smooth voice of Afgan and sweet, touching lyrics. It also has a “hook” that somehow drives its listener to tighten their ears until the song finishes. Another characteristic of BCB (Bukan Cinta Biasa / Not an Ordinary Love) that differs it (in a attractive way) from other Afgan’s songs is that it is overtuned from one part to the others. (Apparently makes our ears indulged, but hence it makes the song almost impossible to sing by ordinary people like me LOL).

My friends were questioning when I preferred to watch BCB (the song has its own movie) to Angels&Demons (currently a box office at that time). I always makes my choice most at action movies rather than drama movies such as BCB. But for this movie, difference happenned. And I’m telling you now, I wasn’t disappointed at all.

Talking without providing proofs is useless. Below is the link to download the song.

http://www.4shared.com/file/89970201/f62bb533/AFGAN_-_BUKAN_CINTA_BIASA.html?s=1

^^ Cheer up, Indonesian music lovers! Our music world is in a hurry to advance.!

 

Bukan Cinta Biasa (Not an Ordinary Love)

—————————————————————————————–

This time I realise

I’ve been falling in love

From the deepest of my heart.

Really, I love you really.

Chorus :

My love is not an ordinary love

When it belongs to you

And it’s you who stay with me for the rest of my life…

………………..

Accept my confessions, please

Believe in me

All of this, I do

Because you are meant for me

(Repeat chorus)

Ending :

Accept my confessions, please..

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Education “Incorrectness”

Just today I underwent SIMAK UI – Seleksi Masuk (Entrance Examination) to the University of Indonesia – , and have wondered if those examinations are fit and approriate to become main measurement of the university’s enrollment. My concerns is that many students, excluding myself, have paid not-cheap fees for SIMAK UI preparation courses and bought expensive preparation books. They practiced extensively and vigorously, working through numerous questions day by day until today in order to increase their chance of getting into the number 1 university in Indonesia. However, their efforts in dealing with those more-than-1000 of Biology, Physics, Math, etc. stuffs are only translated by the office of admission as exactly worth as 20 questions in each subject. 

For me it isn’t fair. Perhaps a student who practiced regularly for 3 months – accidentally – encountered perfectly different problems in the exams while another student who didn’t practice at all – accidentally – met several question exacly same as his UN/US Try Outs’. The outcome of these two will be definitely unfair.

From the above paragraphs I’ve just mentioned prospective students with high determination but bad luck. How about Indonesia’s prospective students who don’t have enough money to pay any books/courses? I’m mentioning students with high IQ and good EQ who unfortunately live in poor sub-urban areas. Of course they are worse in doing SIMAK than are average students who live in well-off families that support them with courses, books, and good high-school education. They are the most unfortunate of all. Ironically this case occurs frequently in large cities such as Jakarta and hasn’t been given much concern by the central government.

Therefore, an education system employing a single exam to become the only significant point for the enrollment cannot be longer applied into our multi-cultural and diverse people. The more appropriate enrollment system is to appraise applicants’ full profiles first, and then the results of the SIMAK. Applicants also have to write an essay reflecting his thought and potencies. Non-academic achievements and mental test must be given more concern because they play bigger role in someone’s ability to go into society than academic and intelligence level do.

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SAT

I looked at my watch as my heart began to beat faster. It’s already 5.05 p.m WIB. My SAT scores was already out! 

I sacrificed my whole energy and time to do well on my SATs. I took this Jan’s SAT with a great confidence and conviction of better scores. I worked on Math sections thoroughly and completely, and did Writing and Critical Reading sections wholeheartedly. After the test, I was assured that the score would rise. 

However, as the date of score announcement approached, I began to lose my confidence. This Jan’s SAT was the last chance for me to show to universities my capability to undergo college-level assesments (SAT). I thought that if I failed, I would lose my chance, my future. Confidence was replaced by anxiousness. This condition affected and distracted my other activities. Schools, for example. I could not study for and do exams well because fear of getting low scores filled up my usually positive minds. 

But it was almost over. 

5.05 p.m. I rechecked my watch to reassure the time. Then I turned on my mobile phone and opened the application “Opera Mini” (web browser application designed for mobile phones). I surfed through collegeboard.com until I found the label “Your January scores are in”. At that time I thought I would prefer eviscerating.

Due to the slow connection speed of the browser, images and texts in websites appeared one by one. The first one that appeared : Critical Reading section. 5**. Not good. At that moment I thought I would not continue looking. Then the magic numbers appeared. My Math and Writing scores are, respectively, 7** and 7**. And that was success. Although 2400 scorers may not even bother to look at this not-so-high scores, I was satisfied : my target had been reached. My hardwork was finally paid. My SAT scores have sparked hope and dismissed cynicism and anxiousness I had been with since the first time I took an SAT.

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7 reasons why this Jan’s SAT should be good

1. I have spent money for buying the books and paying the courses.

2. I have used all the time of my two most recent holidays to study SAT.

3. I have wasted my energy worrying about the score I was going to get, 6 times.

4. I have used the time when I must study for school.

5. Because of no.4, my average points on school subjects decline.

6. Because of no.4 and 5, I must study harder to recover the decline, and

7. Because it’s important for university applications!

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A personal account on agnostic theism

Just a while ago I discovered that I am an agnostic theism - someone who believes in any G/god but does not put much its doctrines into his life. As a teenager who was in a phase of searching for identity, I was surprised to find out at wikipedia.org that the definition of agnostic theism matched my very personality. Not only did it contradict what I previously thought to be the foundation of my living, but it also sparked a desire to trace when I exactly became agnostic theism.

I was born as a Catholic, a religion where humanity and kindness are consecrated and on which Europe lied its foundation of advancement for centuries; also I thank my parents for introducing and nurturing me such a beautiful religion. However, as I grew older and experienced more hardship and failures than did I at my childhood, I learned that simply being subservient to everything Bible says is sometimes illogical.

For years I was always taught that unless I obey and depend on God completely and wholeheartedly, I fail; further discoveries suggested not. I have studied the history of human beings and found a trivial conclusive fact :  that humans have been progressing so fascinatingly that a commonly used device now may be not ever dreamed of by 1950’s scholars. Often, intentions that drove to those advancements are purely scientific or purely financial, independent from any bound of religions. I then questioned : why those attempts to progress succeeded if there was no obedience and dependence on God? What made them succeeded?  What prevented them from failing?

The answer is likely humans, and only humans themselves. It is the combination of unrelenting determination, sociable sense to cooperate, and extraordinary strains of talent that have produced wastefulness of Newcomen pump to the efficiency of solar energy.

Don’t get me wrong, I strongly reject the silly New Age Movement – an ideology that suggests man is god as well as the center of the universe. Man is not flawless, in fact he is full of mistake. Unlike God who is naturally powerful and divine, man will still develop through inventions and revolutions which are still happening until the moment I type this essay. Man will never reach perfection, because his capability has asymptote. He is still a creature of God.

 

You probably ask, if I believe humans are the primary reason of their progress – not God – but also believe in supernatural powers that sponsor the birth of humans, what is my point?

 

Revelation of Bible says God is the alpha and the omega, which is very true. God planned the creation and the apocalypse of humans since the beginning. God chose the weather on Earth, whether it is sunny or rainy during World Cup and Obama’s inauguration, since the beginning. God knows and has planned everything in detail : today’s weather, today’s president, today’s victims, today’s murderers. His creations are a system that runs according to His plan.

 Bible also says He is flawless, He never mistakes, He is perfect. I believe this part is correct; and if it’s true, now is the time to face the reality. I and you are of His plan and will undergo this life according to His plan. You can worship Him as frequent and as ubiquitous as you can, but you have been destined since the beginning. My belief is not just simply a matter of ambivalence, it’s consciousness.

 

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The Gettysburg Address

The Gettysburg Address was a famous speech delivered by Abe Lincoln to remind Americans – then in the middle of the Civil War – that the war, although necessary, was not to be consecrated. The most prominent advocate of slavery abolitionism, Abe Lincoln did not seek to humiliate the South, rather offered hand to together renew America.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

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The extinction of L.O.V.E

To mention challenges of love seems endless : hatred, vengeance, selfishness, indifference, callousness, munificence, haughtiness, impudence, irreverence. Today love is almost extinct: relationships are often made because of potential reciprocality, not because of consciousness to socialize. Friends befriend their buddies temporarily and insincerely, many instances attest to this fact, for friends today can appear to be tommorow enemies. Ironically, the extinction of love is a common aspect in modern lifestyle.

A prominent cause of the extinction of love is the decline of humanity values. It is the globalisation, which modernists assiduously worship, that is responsible for the decline. The ultimate weapon globalisation has is the tremendous invasion of ideologies. The star on the stage, Capitalism, is widely preached and instilled in every infant soul despite the curse it brought. Capitalism has effected individuality and competition, while strong sense of co-operation in Socialism deliberately disappears. There is no way to resist the invasion, because it is intangible. Even in Communist countries such as Cuba and North Korea already exist MTV, Cartoon Network, CNBC and Bloomberg TV station.

MTV. This dick plays a major role in fabricating love. MTV exposes and espouses justification and action of pornography and violence. This dumb, sanctimonious stupid station belies its poor contents with programmes which it claims as “cool” stuffs – things that are actually idiot and useless, such as Real World or Engaged & Underage. Stupid fools.

But love, at least a small part of it, hasn’t disappear at all. To recall the history of love, that love already existed exactly during the beginning of the Creation, means to appreciate aspect that shapes and sustain our reason, our feelings, even our action. Love has gone through many sacrifices and battles against mundane ambition, pride, and prejudice; it succeeded because of the promptness of our conscience and our very heart, conceived by the longing for the aspect that human beings began to miss. We are not to forget, that love has friends too :  conscience, amicability, faith, and hope.

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Words for consciousness

People of late 20th and 21st century tend to have higher level of stress and much more problems to contemplate with than do people of earlier civilisation, but truly no reason to decry this lifestyle. Even with a cursory evaluation, people of our era are much more fortunate than the people of Medieval Europe, for example. Most of Medieval Europe countrymen had their social structures divided into two yet conspicuous classes : masters and their working men, both are below the order of the nobles. In the system, these masters, although were allowed to own their business and working men, were restrained from expanding them. The system required the masters to build equal business and even allocated same kind of materials needed for each business, resulting in no quality difference between products; so citizens had hardly any choices of where to shop. These rescinded no social gap between masters and working class since there was no differences in revenues. Hardly poors and richies, hardly envies, hardly crimes.

So what do ya’ think now? Do you think live such a simple life would mean more fun? Wrong. Medieval Europeans did not have what we have now : self-consciousness. As aforementioned, people of Medieval Ages could hardly improve their lives, they tended to remain in their classes. All their belongings based on quota, they lacked of multifarious opinions and selves. Even worse, Medieval Europeans were not allowed to achieve education, not to mention the civil privileges of female citizens. They were not willing to appear critical at any regulations made by nobles, probably because they were afraid it would be considered effrontery. They recognised themselves a part of a society that controlled and surrounded them, not as individuals. Luckily, we now have what so-called self-consciousness. We realise, understand, and comprehend that we – despite our identity as social creatures – can come up as individuals who have own ambitions as well as own pursuits. Now we are free to have and develop different methods to enhance our businesses, or to devise new way of studying so that we can get better grades; all are possible and permitted as long as our actions do not harm others. 

However, it’s true that this change has long brought us fierce competitions in our path to succeeding, resulting in such poverties and excessive capitalism; but the benefits it caused – development in technology and most aspects of human beings – apparently overcome the bad effects. Survivors of those competitions are apparently the best in their areas, most eloquent orators, genius scholars, or most innovative inventors. Undoubtedly they will gain fame and contribute something to the world that can’t be done by pedestrians. For example, from approximately 1 million students who take SAT annually, there may be about 0.5% (or 5000)  of the students getting 2400, and from those 2400’s the 5% will enter the top programmes of Ivy College that are – to be mentioned –  path to success.

So thanks to the liberally educated people who openly advocated human’s rights and uniques in front of public. Thanks to experts in social as well as political fields who endeavoured to pioneering those rights, which suggest that every human is created equally but differently. Above all, to live complicated life of this 21st century is to appreciate the evolution and revolution made in human history.

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Tradition of communicating

This paragraph serves as a response to a short-reading passage in Kaplan’s SAT Critical Reading 2008 page 83

 

The history of communication is a chronicle of prophecies as well as of inventions. The appearance of each new medium has provoked the pronouncement that its predecessor is now obsolete. Yet such forebodings often proved inaccurate. There are still high numbers of usage of  ”old-fashioned” communication tools; quintessences are the firm of radio over television, and the resistance of conventional letter or fax against domination of email. Such historical facts should repudiate a continuous dull prediction that computers will soon replace books. Whole libariers may be available on a single DVD-room. However, there remains the deep-seated irreplaceably sensory pleasure of taking down a volume from the shelves or spreading out on a beach blanket with a page-turner.

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