Agama dan Pemikiran

Segala sesuatu yang ada di dunia ini selalu hidup berdampingan. Ada kana nada kiri, ada siang ada malam, ada laki-laki ada perempuan, ada hidup ada mati, ada surge ada neraka, dan masih banyak lagi yang lainnya. Memang semua hal yang telah disebutkan itu bukanlah hal yang memiliki kesamaan antara yang satu dengan yang lain, melainkan yang memiliki perbedaan antara keduanya. Perbedaan itulah yang membuat mereka bias berjalan berdampingan.

Seperti halnya baris berbaris, apabila ada dua kategori barisan dalam satu upacara dimana barisan yang pertama adalah barisan bagi para guru sedangkan barisan kedua adalah barisan untuk para murid. Sehingga dalam pengaturannya guru dan murid dapat berdiri bersebelahan. Berbeda apabila kita mengambil contoh dimana benda atau hal yang satu adalah sama dengan benda atau hal yang kedua. Apabila diletakkan dalam konteks baris berbaris tadi maka benda yang satu akan membelakangi benda yang lain. Sehingga seolah-olah benda atau hal yang berada di depan adalah yang paling penting sehingga benda atau hal yang satu lagi harus selalu mengikutinya dari belakang.

Demikian pula hubungan antara kebutuhan material dan spiritual. Dimana kebutuhan material dapat dipenuhi dengan dimilikinya atau kecukupan akan barang kebutuhan manusia, sedangkan kebutuhan spiritual adalah kebutuhan yang dapat dipenuhi dari hal-hal yang bersifat lebih ke pada hati dan pikiran seperti agama atau keyakinan serta ilmu pengetahuan. Alas an saya mendampingkan antara agama dengan ilmu pengetahuan karena sebenarnya untuk memaknai sebuah agama itu dibutuhkan ilmu pengetahuan.

Hal ini bisa ada kaitannya dengan jenis-jenis kepercayaan manusia sejak zaman dahulu. Pada mulanya kita percaya bahwa manusia pertama adalah nabi Adam a.s yang mulanya tinggal di surge lalu kemudian diturunkan ke bumi. Walaupun ada juga ilmu pengetahuan yang mengatakan bahwa manusia itu adalah evolusi dari kera, akan tetapi disini saya hanya membahas apa yang saya yakini. Nabi Adam a.s adalah manusia pertama yang diciptakan oleh Allah swt sehingga beliau hanya tunduk kepada stu Tuhan yaitu Allah swt. Akan tetapi setelah beliau diturunkan ke bumi bersama dengan Hawa yang akhirnya bertemu dan hidup bersama sehingga menghasilkan banyak keturunan hingga membuat banyak manusia hidup tersebar di wilayah berbeda di seluruh belahan bumi ini.

Bila Nabi Adam a.s hanya meyakini satu tuhan, maka beliau adalah penganut monoteisme. Akan tetapi seiring berjalannya waktu mulai berkembangpula lah berbagai kepercayaan di tempat lain. Akan tetapi kepercayaan tersebut tidak hanya monoteisme melainkan da yang dinamisme ataupun animism. Para penganut animism dan dinamisme yang percaya bahwa ada roh-roh halus yang akhirnya mereka sembah dan dijadikan tuhan lama kelamaan seiring berkembangnya budaya akhirnya beralih menjadi politeisme karena mereka menemukan bahwa setiap bagian dari bumi ini seperti langit, laut, tanah, dan yang lainnya diatur oleh dewa yang berbeda. Kemudian seiring perkembangan ilmu pengetahuan manusia mulai menyadari bahwa segala sesuatu yang terjadi di alam ini memiliki proses yang dapat dijelaskan secara ilmiah sehingga merekamulai berpikir dan mulai menyadari bahwa sebenarnya hanya ada satu Tuhan di dunia ini yang mengatur segalanya. Sayangnya tidak hanya berhenti di situ, kini di mana era teknologi sangat mendominasi kehidupan manusia dimana segala sesuatunya menjadi mungkin dan lebih mudah maka beberapa dari mereka mulai berpikir bahwa sebenarnya segala sesuatu yang terjadi ini disebabkan oleh teknologi yang semakin berkembang. Hingga pada akhirnya timbullah aliran ateis dimana mereka tidak percaya akan adanya Tuhan.

            Menurut pendapat saya Tuhan itu tidak akan hilang dari pikiran manusia walaupun yang ateis sekalipun. Karena menurut saya penganut ateis itu menjadi ateis setelah mereka memikirkan keberadaan Tuhan itu sendiri di dalam hati dan pikiran mereka. Sehingga mereka tidak sepenuhnya menganggap bahwa Tuhan itu tidak ada. Hanya saja mereka tidak memiliki bukti yang cukup kuat dan kongkrit bagi diri mereka. Karena mereka berpikir bahwa segala sesuatunya itu memiliki proses dan hal itu dapat dijelaskan secara ilmiah, selain itu saat ini juga telah banyak teknologi yang dapat mewujudkan keinginan mereka secara cepat.

            Saya yakin bahwa perkembangan ilmu pengetahuan dan teknologi yang semakin berkembang saat ini sbenarnya semakin membuat kita dekat dengan banyak bukti bahwa Tuhan itu ada dan memiliki kekuasaan dalam mengatur segalanya di alam jagad raya ini. Akan tetapi mereka yang belum mengakui hal tersebut mungkin masih belum menyadarinya. Karena menurut saya sekeras apapun pikiran mereka menolak keberadaan Tuhan, hanya akan membuat kebutuhan jiwa mereka akanadanya Tuhan itu semakin kuat. Seperti halnya otot polos yang bekerja di luar perintah otak, maka jiwa spiritual yang menghubungkan kita dengan Tuhan tidak selamanya berjalan seiring dengan pikiran kita.

               

2in1: Language & Computer Laboratory

   Usually every school especially senior high school has computer laboratory and language laboratory which has different function of course. In language laboratory students usually use a headphone, look at the monitor and listen to the teacher and to the dialogue or story that played. In the other side in computer laboratory students can use the computer for studying about the programs that they learned, use the headphone and listening to the music, or maybe browsing if there is internet connection and it is not forbidden to be used for students.

            Then the question comes up, why don’t we choose one of them? It will spend a lot of money if the school has the language laboratory and computer laboratory at once. Both of those facilities use computers and it will take high school budget to pay the electricity. Well that question maybe can be asked in my college SSE, where there are three computer laboratories and all of them can be used and in good condition. So we can consider which one that will be more useful and more effective to help students in learning.

            In my opinion, I prefer to choose only the computer laboratory than both of computer and language laboratory. Because computer laboratory has more function than thee language laboratory. In computer laboratory we can study about computer programs in computer subject and also we can listen to the dialogue or story or the teacher if we are in language subject. What we have to provide is only a room, unit of computers, LCD, projector and the internet connection.

            in language subject, the students or the teachers will need programs which can support the language learning activity, especially in listening session. In the computer laboratory students can brows to open a website which provides material for listening session. It will be more fun I think for students in learn about listening session. Also in computer laboratory which provides projector and LCD students can watch video or movie and listen to it. It also can be useful for their learning processes. With all of those things I think we already can do the learning process of both of those subjects. Then it will be more effective and efficient, won’t it? Then we can name it as “Computer and Language Laboratory”

it is easy! Listening & Speaking

            In earning language we need to do these two important things. First is listening, second is speaking. As we can see a baby who can say a word ”mama” because she often hear her mother says “mama”. It also happens for other words. It means that people usually listen first so after that the sound of the word can recorded by our brain and it will put in our memory so we can produce the same word by saying it.

            Nowadays there are many tools which can help language learners in listening for the foreign language. it will help the learners to know how to produce the sound of the word. From the TLL class I got some websites which can be used for it. There are:

·         Interactive Audio - Picture English Lessons

·         John’s ESL Community – Listening Activities

In the other side, there are also students who can understand easily if they give responses to what they learn. Below there are websites which allow students to do the responses while listening so that they will more understand what they hear easily. Here they are

·         Live Action English Interactive

·         WII ( Game )

·         Learning Oral English

·         American English Pronunciation Practice

After they listen to the words then it is time to practice it by speaking. Below there are some websites which can be used to help teacher to do the speaking session in the class:

·         Kalinago.blogspot.com

·         ScMOOze University

·         Voice thread

By using those website, the teacher can make the learning process of speaking and listening become more fun and the students hopefully can learn easily too. Although the technologies are really help the students, the most important role still placed by the pedagogy because the technology will not created if there is nothing who need it.

My Personal Identity

               I was born in the Javanese family. My father is from Tulung Agung, East Java and my mother is from Banyumas, Central Java. Although my parents are Javanese but I still can’t speak Javanese fluently until now. I think it is because I never have conversation with Javanese language in my daily activities. My parents don’t use Javanese language as the main language while we are talking in our house but we only use Indonesian language everyday. Moreover I live in Tangerang, Banten which the people there mostly talk in Sundanese for many activities. My friends in my schools also use sundanese and Indonesian to communicate. So I more fluent speak in sundanese rather than in Javanese. Actually I can speak Javanese but not the polite language of Javanese. So sometimes I still confuse when someone who is older than me talk in Javanese with me. It’s not because I don’t know the meaning but I don’t know what polite words that suitable to answer them. So finally I more often answer them in Indonesian.

            Sometimes I feel confuse when someone ask where I come from. I f I say that I’m from Tangerang then they will judge me as a Sundanese people, then I will explain to his or her that I’m a Javanese. Then when they ask me where my birth place is, I answer them that I was born in Banjarmasin. So then they become more confuse and they make me don’t understand why they have to be confuse. Everyone might be born in somewhere that doesn’t have any related with their ethnic group and also same for their current house.

            Sometimes I feel confuse when I’m thinking about hometown. Actually I don’t know what the true meaning of hometown is. I only know that hometown is a place where many of our families live there. That’s what I know about hometown because I usually go to Banyumas or Tulung Agung when Idul fitri comes and many of my families live there. Although I also have another families whom live in other places and I often visit them too, but It can’t be said as “pulang kampung”. Maybe because the place is not in the village so they don’t call it as “kampung”. So it means that pulang kampung is only for place in village. How about someone who go to Semarang as his/her hometown? Does it called as kampong when we know that Semarang is a city?

            Actually I don’t know where my hometown is because the places which I come to there for many times are my parents’ hometown because they were born there but I also feel that Banjarmasin is not my hometown although I was born there and I also don’t really understand with the area in my parents’ hometown. I feel more comfort in my current house in Tangerang but I don’t really understand with the sundanese language there. So, how to answer what and where is my hometown?

The Transform of Communication Tools

                Have you ever use pager? Or have you ever the “old style” of mobile phone? Are you still listening music from radio tape? Well, as a digital native I’m sure that all of you have already known those things. Moreover now you have many communication technologies that more modern than the things that I mentioned above.

            Maybe for listening music, a few years ago we still use radio tape and cassette, but now we have mp3 player or even mp4 player which can save a lots of songs and video also for mp4 player and it is portable. We can save many songs that we like in our mp3 or mp4 player and we can replay the songs that we like again and again. The mp3 and mp4 players also can be used for learning languages. We can save the conversations or songs in English and we can replay it when we still can’t hear it clearly.

            In the other side there was also PDA. Well, although it doesn’t exist anymore now but we also can use it for learning languages. The PDA can open the pdf file although in little size. Honestly I don’t know well about the PDA because I never use it. But nowadays there is an iPad which is like computer but smaller and more stylish with the touch screen and we can zoon the screen and the screen size is wider than the PDA so we can read the file easier.

            About cell phone, there were many types of cell phones which have different functions. In the first era of cell phone the size is bigger than the cell phones now and it only can be used fro call. The next generation of cell phone can be used for send short message, and then it included the vga camera, radio fm, mp3 player, video player, voice recorder, internet, and also we can install many applications that we want in there. I’m sure that in the future we only need a mobile phone for doing our jobs because all function is in there. Even now there is.

            The mobile phone itself also can be used as the tool for learning language. we can download and install many applications about language like English-Indonesia dictionary, thesaurus dictionary, or even we can put not only English dictionary but also other languages dictionary inside. That’s why now to learn about language is easier. We don’t have to take much time for go to course and spend much money because there is the technology that make it more simple and easier.

               

Social Networks as Learning Tool

             Can you see how fast the technology of information is increasing now? Yes, it becomes very fast. Now we can find lots of information easily, and very fast. We only have to open the site, write the keyword and then with just one click you will find so many information that related to your keyword. In this era there are many social networks which can connect you to all of your friend or even to all of people in everywhere. For examples there are Friendster, facebook, skype, twitter, youtube, google talk, yahoo messager, hello, blog, and maybe there will be some new social network that will be exist in the future.

            Everybody now has already become so familiar with those social networks. Even social networks are not only for chat with friends but also it used for sell something, to promote something and also for studying.  Yes, for studying. The teacher and the students can use it for studying.

For example we can use facebook chat application to have a discussion with our callmates, or the teacher can ask the students to write something about the material and post it in facebook and then send the link to the teacher. Then the teacher and the other students can give feedback too through comment. We also can use youtube also as study tool for the teaching and learning activity. The teacher can download a video that has relation with the lesson and show it to the students in front of the class. The teacher and the students also can record a video about learning activities and upload it into youtube and the other students will give the comments about the video.

The other examples are skype and blog. The skype can help us to connect with the other people through video. So we still can talk face to face to each other even we are far apart with skype. So the teacher and students also can use it as video conference if the teacher can’t attend in the class. So there is no reason to be left behind about information. And with blog, we can use it to post and share our writing about the lesson that the students has already learned in the class and write their opinion or maybe their question about the lesson and the other students can help to give feedback or answer the question by write a comment there.

There are so many benefits that we can get from internet especially social network. But there are also the bad thing if we use internet to study because we can easily do plagiarism or cheat, and there are lots of bad content if we pen that. So the teacher can use those social networks in class but the teacher has to give the advice that the students is only able to open the site which has related to the material. Actually I still confuse how to make my students in future to not open the wrong site because as a teacher I can’t observe my students one by one. So how about the others? Do you have any suggestion how to make the students go in the right track?

The Secret of My Name

           Name is not only a word to call someone or something, but it must have the meaning behind that word. We can say that the name is equall with our pray, our expectation or to recall something. We choose a name for someone of course because we have some expectations that we want it to become real in someone’s life. That’s why we have to be carefull to choose a name for someone especially for our children.

            I’m one of many child in this world who feel so lucky to have my own name. I was born in Javanese family. My father is from Tulung Agung, East Java and my mother is from Banyumas, Central Java. Eventhough I’m a javanese but I wasn’t born in java island. I was born in borneo island. I tell about my birth place because it’s related to the history of my name.

this picture show that I like drawing

One day in the beautiful morning, I was borm in Ulun Hospital in Banjarmasin city, the capital of South Kalimantan. My father gave me name Nurul Briliani. At first my father wanted to give Berlian Al Banjari to me, but he said that it sounds like a boy name. At the first I curious why my name is Briliani. It’s quite difficult to spell because all of my childhood friends could not spell it correctly and it’s also unique for me when I was childhood because I never found someone with the same name like me. So I feel proud to have this name because my name is the unique one.

            I still felt curious with the meaning of my name, then I asked my father. He said that my name means The Bright Light or Diamond Light. He gave me this name because I was born in Banjarmasin and there is Martapura which is a famous diamond producing place in South Kalimantan. The other reason is he had wish that I wil be a smart woman. After I heard my father’s reasons about why he chose my name like this, I became more proud with myself. I knew that my parents love me so much that’s why they gave this name.

            I think my name which is my parents wish about me more less has already given an effect to myself. The God gave me the bright think and I m so grtaeful for this. Although I have some lacks but I still feel grateful and so thankful with this gift from God to me. I feel that my parents had made the right choice to give me this name and I wish I always can make them proud to me. So I will never change my name forever because it’s already sounds unique, awesome, meaningfull, and no one havs the same name with me but the most important reason is this name is the gift from my beloved parents. Thank you so much for my dad and mom. I’m so proud to be your daughter.