[mightiness defense]

Lately, religiosity is being an important issue in daily life. Many things happen in the name of religions.

In my case, yes, I have a faith that I hold dearly. Yet, I could not say that I can not share few things that I do not like in the religion. Yes, I divide those into two different things. Most of the time, religion is the organization(s) which have responsibilities to ensure the faith keep going on track. That the followers would behave as expected. Sometimes, unfortunately, the organizations talk about marketing ideas too!

Many violences in the name of religion happen in the world. Many claim what they have done in the name of the Almighty. Many believe that they did the right things, no matter how many people suffer due to their acts. That what they did might cause negative images instead of positive as expected.

Humans' ideas: Division and subtraction (Frank & Ernest - April 07th, 2000)

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[ignored-unofficially]

None of us loved to be ignored. None of us would not want to be taken care of. As a being who has been blessed with feelings, we will always looking for comfort and safetiness. We will always seek for love.
We will always seek for affection. I believe this is the foundation in every kind of relationship. So basic.

Whenever we feel be loved, no matter how hard life could be, we will get the courage and strength. No matter how difficult the situation is, love remains. Indeed, the power of love might sounds so patethic. Yet, it so true.
That love can be the reason to live and to die. Love can be the source of laughter, but also the tears.
Double-edged sword.

So, what would happen if we have not feel that we are beloved while we are facing huge problems? What would we feel, think and do? Would we still have the strength to live? The spirit to keep on struggling and fighting? Would we still be sane?

Well, I might not.

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[‘cyber-exhibitionist’ symptom]

Last week, I chatted with a friend through an online messenger. One topic that we discussed was the impacts of the social networking sites on social relationships. In this discussion, we were particularly pointed on facebook.  The reason was simple, facebook has became a well-respected site in within a short period. After 5 years it has ‘born’, there were lots of communication companies which provide the services to get connect to facebook. Believe it or not, facebook creates a sense of urgency to have handsets with internet connectivity which actually has been invented for years earlier.

It is indeed, helping lots of people to get connected. It is not only being a good ‘facilitator’ of friends, long-lost friends but also for business partnerships. I, as a fan of technology, am far from any intention to knock it down. I am grateful for its existence. I can get in touch with my friends and former colleagues, no matter where we are. I have found those who I had lost contacts for years. I can share what I thought and read what they feel. I can see other parts of the world as my friends have seen through photographs. I can share videos or music that I love, and also listen and watch from others. And, lately, I like the games.

My objections are not to the inventors, nor to the inventions, but to those who use it. As I wrote in the [ask for a favor], I really do not like the way people congratulate others only through the wall of facebook. I have done it too, but only to those who I do not have their contact numbers. Yes, you can call it as my defense. But, that is how I see it. Yes, there might be other opinions. I would not argue with that, as I said, that is just the way I feel.

What is more important is the fact how I amazed with the ability of lots of people to share their identities.

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[gone too soon]

Born to amuse, to inspire, to delight. Here one day. Gone one night [from the song: Gone too soon].

I am not a big fan of him, but I am also not the big hater. I read and heard a lot of news about him, but could not say much about him. I even couldn’t really believe all the accusations that ever made toward him but I also could not say that the entertainment journalists were only focused on capital funds. I could not say anything…

As the child of 80s’, I grow up with his songs. His status as a megastar has been defined during my childhood, when I even didn’t understand that term. I was a nerd as I did not have good access on music. However, I have the Dangerous album and admire the “Heal the World” song. I heard that frequently until the cassette was broken. Years, I tried to find the album but could not find it. It was also because of my uncommitted intention.

And this morning.. The very first thing that I watched was the affirmation about his death. The death of Michael Jackson. For others, today is the King of Pop has died. For me, one of some figures of my life has died. As I mentioned before, I grow up with his songs.

Even when I was a little child, I can understand the spirit of “heal the world”*.

Think about the generation. Says we want to make a better place for children and the children’s children. And so that, they know that there is a better world for them. And think they can make it a better place. [A child in the song of Heal the World by Michael Jackson in the album of Dangerous].

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[the reading campaign]

Literacy is being an important thing amongst humankind for decades. It is being an indication of human civilization. You might still remember how the civilizations be divided into their artifacts including scripts and literatures. It is not only being a way to communicate with others but also to inherit the knowledge and wisdom to the descendants.

Currently, we do not need to carve the stones or to draw the images. We still can do those things, but we have other options. We have papers instead of stones or leaves. We have international [Latin] words which makes it possible to communicate across cultures. We even have computers to “transfer” the information to others electronically. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day we could do the telepathy.

Literacy consists of writing and reading. OEDC [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] even puts mathematical and scientific as additions to reading literacy on their PISA assessment. PISA is an assessment to “monitor the outcomes of education systems…within a common international framework” [OECD, 2006]. The full reports can be obtained if you click this PISA 2003 or the Education at a glance 2008. Or else, just browse the whole OECD’s website as you can find the datasets and analyze it further if you like.

Now, let’s talk about the reading literacy. Reading is one of some of my hobbies, my favorite one. Yet, after years, I realized that I did not give many efforts for it. I did not commit to read a little but everyday which at the end pushed me to keep on buying books without finished all that I’ve bought. I heard from a friend that a lecturer committed to himself to read at least 30 minutes a day. He puts it as a relaxing activity after unbelievable demanding responsibilities.

I also realized that I do not have endurance to read [too] thick books. I envy those who can read many history or philosophy books that usually have minimum line spacing and tiny font sizes. I adore people who can understand completely the poem books, as I don’t. My books are about daily life including psychological books as some were my text books. I love some philosophic books but not pure philosophy as it would be hard for me to understand. I love books with what I called intelligent criticisms as they will “open my eyes”. But, I love to read!

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[the meaning of language]

Lately, I’ve got information about my mother-tongue language: Bahasa Indonesia. Several weeks ago, I attended a free lunch that arranged by language exchange program in my university. In that occasion, I met Paul Thomas, a linguist. This semester he teaches some units about Bahasa Indonesia including the contemporary movies. He speaks many languages and as always, I envy him for this. Yes, I always envy people who can speak many languages fluently, including local languages. At least, I know that he speaks Italian and French, except English and Bahasa. And he is currently learning Dutch as he has a linguistic research about Australian language and a lot of the sources were written in Dutch.

He argued that Indonesian do not have sense of urgency to learn their own cultures, including Bahasa [notes: don’t you ever dare to think that he discriminates Indonesian]. He said that Chinese students in this university have high willingness to enroll in the units of Chinese language or culture as elective. But not for Indonesian students. There were a lot of Indonesian in this university as Indonesia was the third biggest source countries, after Malaysian and Chinese in this university. I argued that it might because of the socio-economic status of Indonesian people. I said that, language and culture studies were not considered as prospectus subjects. A lot of parents might not support their children whenever theirs want to pursue these areas. Even for social studies. There are people who still consider social studies as nonsense. That science is much more important and can give guarantee of prosperity. I talked about this in [social vs science].

Then, he argued further. It was not about financial condition or career plan. Chinese students did not take language and cultural studies as their majors. They took these units as electives. So, it means that they might share similar situation with what you argued. But, they took the electives. They know the language, they can speak and write in that language, they were native people. But they still took those units.

Indonesians get used to think that their language is easy. At this point, I smiled, as I am including the person who thinks this way.

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[self-promotion on 100709]

After months I posted what I’ve been thinking not into my DuckTale. I used the notes application in Facebook.

It was simply because I can tagged people into my notes. And somehow, they will get notifications and might drop by and type something there. And I wanted to edit the template in DuckTale but hadn’t find time to do that.  In addition, sometimes I got difficulties to edit the CSS there! And I decided to find another “house” for my mind. Hopefully, it creates more commitments to write regularly… A new and fresh space!

So, here it goes.

I tried to explore wordpress, as many of my bloggers’ friends use it. I couldn’t edit any CSS of the template! That’s what I don’t like with wordpress. But, I can add tabs in my page. And further, after I annoyed ebess with questions how to made partition of the posts, I understand how to do that. This option is great, as previously I had to paste the HTML code at every posts that I’ve made.

Why I chose DuckLounge? It wasn’t the first name that I chose. I changed it for at least three times! At first, I wanted to use the same name with my previous blog: DuckTale. But then, when I googled, there are a lot of DuckTale!! Instead of being a copycat, I tried to find other words.

At the end, I saw the caricature that I have. Ivano, an Australian caricaturist with Italian heritage  made it.  Well, I’ll talk about him later, at different post. In brief, the caricature shows me sitting in a comfy sofa, reading a book titled Ducks with two sneaking ducks. So, I remember that how much time I spent in front of my laptop, reading and writing a lot of things [chatt, email and blogging]. Yet, I will keep the Duck.

It would be strange if I use “DuckChair” or “DuckSofa” or “DuckBench”   🙂    Am I right?

So, the word “lounge” popped-up and I think it is quite nice.

The lounge usually has a comfy and cozy couches, musics that are not noisy like house musics [I hate that kind of music] with lots of food! Although, I couldn’t provide any foods and drinks, all of you have my permission to eat and drink as much as you want while you drop by here…

Talking about my banner, since I didn’t have any idea what to be my image and I am not a creative person… So I used what my brother gave me on my last birthday. I found it as a nice logo, although the duck seems to be a little bit upset. Well, some people said that I have tempestuous face   🙂   The real? Well, I’ll let that to you…

Last, please enjoy and come frequently where any dropped words will be appreciated…

*image was taken from peanuts.

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