taman bermain

beberapa hari yang lalu, gue baru aja baca (lagi) tulisan pak rhenald khasali tentang anak beliau yang sekolah di amerika, dan betapa bedanya orientasi pendidikan disana.

walaupun belum sempat ke amerika, hari ini gue ngerti apa maksud beliau.

sejak semester lalu gue ngambil dua kelas dari dosen amerika disini, prof. mike di internasional relations dan prof. frank di public relations planning. keduanya udah sepuh.

semester lalu, prof. mike ngasih kita paper, gue lupa, mungkin waktu itu tentang analisis politik timur tengah. oh bukan deng, tentang dampak teknologi blablabla. gue kirim lah paper gue via email. dan ajaibnya, beliau ngebales. dengan jawaban yang cuma beda dikit panjangnya sama paper gue.

begitu masuk kelas, tiba2 prof. mike ngedeketin gue. ‘are you the indonesian girl ? I can’t remember your name, ali something is it ?’

gue cengo doang ngangguk, tegang. jangan2 ketauan kemarin2 gue titip absen HAHA. eh taunya beliau malah bilang ‘I really like your paper. you did a great job.’ jengjeng. gue kaget dong. gue bukan anak HI dan gue tau betul dibanding anak2 HI beneran, paper gue pasti biasa aja. tapi beliau dengan baik hatinya masih muji aja.

minggu lalu, saat gue lagi down karena ngerasa bego setelah kelamaan main dua bulan (-_-) gue ketemu lagi sama prof. mike di subway, dan beliau masih aja nyapa ‘oh, you’re the girl who wrote a good essay in my IR class !’ gue akan lebih seneng kalo beliau bisa inget nama gue sih, but I guess I can’t complain haha. lalu kita pun cerita curhat2 summer kemarin.

lain lagi sama prof. frank, dosen yang kelasnya gue ambil semester ini. beliau baru sampe ke korea dan mungkin masih shock sama betapa pasifnya murid2 disini (macem indonesia lah). entah karena kelasnya bahasa inggris, atau memang anaknya pemalu. gue yang bego ini pede aja ngasih jawaban yang seringkali ga nyambung (maklum baru sekali ngambil kelas PR). tapi habis kelas pagi ini, beliau manggil gue. lagi2 gue tegang karena kebetulan hari ini gue telat masuk. pas gue tanya kenapa manggil gue, eh beliau cuma senyum sambil bilang, ‘I just want to compliment you for being active in the class. I really appreciate it. if there’s anything I can help you with, just let me know. I would be happy to help someone as interested as you are.’

gue terharu berat. dan karena ucapan dosen ini, gue tiba2 jadi pengen rajin belajar kelas ini karena gue ga pengen beliau kecewa. dan langsunglah gue minta tolong beliau bantuin nyari buku HAHA murid durhaka.

di indonesia, mau kerja seberat apa juga, dosen gue di kampus jaraang banget ngasih pujian. boro2 muji, kadang kita presentasi aja ga diperhatiin. dosen2 ini, setiap paper diperiksa seksama, dan setelahnya dikasih komentar yang encouraging. bukan main sepet ala dosen indonesia.

‘gini nih kalo bikin paper semalem jadi.’

‘masa udah tingkat 2 logikanya masih ga masuk sih.’

dueng. mana ada murid yang nafsu denger beginian. bisa jadi emang mahasiswanya yang males, tapi kalaupun ada yang bagus, dosen2 rata2 ‘seiklasnya’ doang muji. seumur2 cuma beberapa kali gue ketemu guru atau dosen yang muji dengan tulus. malah pernah gue ketemu dosen yang bilang IQ muridnya jongkok.

mungkin orang sering bilang, orang indonesia kalo ga dipecut ga maju. lah dari jaman belanda udah dipecut mulu, dielus juga belum pernah dicoba.

semoga tulisan sekedarnya ini kebaca sama temen2 yang akan jadi pengajar di kemudian hari. bukan deng, orang tua di kemudian hari. karena temen2 akan bertanggung jawab atas pendidikan calon pemimpin bangsa kita juga.

waktu kita udah gede nanti, ayo coba pendidikan model encouraging kayak gini, instead of model ngehukum kayak sekarang. semoga kita ga tergoda untuk kita malah balas dendam. amin.

here’s the bomb: I went on a trip to Gangwon-do, Chungcheon-do, and Daegu last week, on my own ! wohooo how cool is that !

I started the trip waking up late and missed my first train leaving from Seoul already. ah well, there’s always the second one.

on the train, I met this really cute kid. He’s 7 and just about to go to school. soon as he discovered I speak a bit of Korean, he started talking so much.

nuna, you’re so pretty. do you have a boyfriend ? do you want to be my girlfriend ?

man, I wish all guys would just be straightforward like that (eh). anyway he gave me a kiss on my cheek and he made a love sign with his hands before he got off at taebaek city. kids these days watch too much dramas (suddenly feel old)

I made it to Dogye, 4 and a half hours away from home. It’s a really small city even my Koreans friends don’t even know where it is. The station gave me one night free room for buying the train pass there. when I asked them is there any jjimjilbang (sauna) where I can sleep in for tomorrow night nearby, the guy in charge just checked his list, and gave me another free night away since no one is there ! yay. 5 minutes later, one of the old guy at the station bought me dinner and took me to the market. god, everyone is just so nice here. i fell in love with the city straight away.

after dinner, I took a walk from the station just to neighborhood nearby (which I assume is their downtown) and met some ladies at the park. we started talking and suddenly they gave me food, worrying cause I’m traveling alone, and gave me a ride back to the station.

and so the journey began. that night I was in the same room with 3 funny girls. the partied the night away, drinking and talking. that was fun.

the next day, i was ready to explore the famous Gangwon-do province. after fighting with Jae-Myeong Samchun, the guy in charge (I was trying to go alone, but he was so worried and wouldn’t let me go on my own), one of the other old guys in the station gave me a ride to the cave. he said it was on his way back home to Donghae so I didn’t feel really bad and accepted the free ride happily.

I took the monorail to get to the cave.

and the Huakseon-gul cave, was just.. awesome. it’s SUPER big. it’s not even funny how big it is. I went there alone at first, then came out again since it was just way too scary. I went in again with a Korean women from Ulsan. Yay, more friends !

now I kinda wish I have a better camera.

I left the cold cave and ready to hit the hot beach in Samcheok for snorkeling. After getting off at two wrong stops, a really nice guy (again) gave me a ride to the place. the beach was beautiful, but the snorkeling place was crap. there’s nothing you can see there compared to karimun jawa (tsah). the only highlight was just the Gangwon-do University Students who are doing summer job there. they’re hot. just so you know, I am a normal woman.

came home all tanned and exhausted, I met another girl in the room. she’s on a trip with her boyfriend and turned out she was heading to the same city as I was the next day. yay !

before taking the train to Gyeongju with her and her boyfriend, I managed to take a look at Gangwon-do Museum which is really huge, and.. weird. you can see a dinosaur model between rock collections, and one of the person in charged asked me to take a look at Indonesian collection and help them confirm if everything is in the right place. and of course, there was a Thai statue next to our wayang. It’s a good thing I came there.

oh and anyway I almost bought this thing on my way to the museum (thought it was water, turns out it’s a bloody soju !)

and found this alay korean writing attached to one of the statues in the museum

at two, Me, Dongyong Eonni, and her boyfriend, Juyoung, took a train to Gyeongju. We spent the 4 hours trip playing games, talking, and most of the time, craving for food. yeah, there was no cafe in the train. sad.

soon as we get there, the couple treated me a nice dinner and helped me find my guesthouse. I had a really good Hemul Sundubu Chige. I promised I’m gonna take them to noodle box and buy them a good portion of mie goreng or nasi goreng there, once we’re back to Seoul.

I didn’t waste any time and hit Anapji Pond that’s supposed to be really pretty with my new two korean roommates soon after I arrived in the guesthouse. that place. was. amazing. I really really really regret not having a good camera nor a boyfriend that time.

the next day, I started my forth day of the trip visiting the royal tomb. it was kinda boring, but I could see the inside part of the tomb so it was worth it. having busy schedule, I went to Bulguksa, the 1000-year old temple straight away.

beautiful, isn’t it ? it was designated as world heritage, along with seokguram; the cool buddha statue on top of the mountain which I can’t take picture of. and it was raining so hard I couldn’t even see anything from the peak because of the fog.

anyway, I hurried back home and took a train to Daegu to meet teh Ayas and the rest of Jabar PON Taekwondo team in Yeongcheon. The place is just so ridiculously far, but it was worth the pain. I got to see my old friends and made new ones ! and speak indonesian ! and saw them getting tortured during training the next day.

I was going to attend Harheem Eonni’s cousin wedding party on the last day, but I came late so I ended up shopping with Teh Ayas and the girls (well, with Kak Nana too). I caught a train back to Seoul, only to go clubbing for the first time in my life with mai see and chee la before they return to US. sad. I was so tired but ah well. I spent the dawn waiting for the subway to run with Jess, along with hundreds of young club goers at Hongdae.

wow I managed to write all that ! and of course it’s 4 in the morning already. crap.

write to you soon !

love, lifa

in every investment class, there will always be tons of boys looking excited. and some girls, looking bored to death. I was one of the girls, but I kinda love the class so I guess you can say I’m a boy after all.

I went out with two of my friends from that class with whom I always have lunch after class with, julian, an exchange student from Paraguay, and keunwon oppa, Korean guy. we went to explore Jamsil, oppa’s neighborhood. which is also one of the richest part of the town. we went to the folk museum (well, I kinda forced them to be fair ha ha)

us being sucked by the dinosaur

tired of learning the history of korea, we went to the olympic park. it was huge. we went biking for an hour and julian spent most of the time flirting with every girl on the street, while oppa and I were busy covering our faces, too embarrassed. tsk.

and it turns out these really muscular guys are just guys after all. we got really tired and spent the rest of the day sleeping (well, at least I did) and talking near a lake. the guys were talking about true love and stuff (yucks). oppa just went on a blind date last week and it looked like he really like the girl. oh, they do talk about cars too, of course. they’re not weirdo.

and we found some dandelions as well here ! suddenly reminded me of ninis. oppa made me do this pose and he called the photo ‘the cute side of lifa’. ew.

we called it a night after sitting by the river, again, talking, and daydreaming for a while. well night-dreaming to be exact. for 20s, we had such an old way to spend a nice day ! :>