Hi Again: My Story

It's been a while since my last post. Recently there are lots of things to do since I have a new role at work. Now my post is at the secretariat of SEAMEO QITEP in Science, an institution under the Organization of Ministers of Education in Southeast Asia. Therefore the scope is pretty wider than before.

Actually I was in this office before as a temporary staff, but when the permanent staff was determined I could not be included because I had to continue my study. Now after graduating from the Indonesia University of Education, granted me a Master degree, here I am behind the desk of the secretariat.

Being a secretary is not something new for me. I was the secretary of the Director of PPPPTK IPA for six years. I afterward had worked in the evaluation section for a couple of months but then made that quick movement to Qitep in Science. All and still, anywhere the boss places me, I am ready!

Back to my years in campus. I started the class in 2010 and graduated in 2013, two and half years: not so bright yeah. I took English education as my major. During the days on campus, there were lots of things to remember, the lectures, the lecturers, friends, assignments and so many other things.

Started from the lecture. Functional Grammar and Pragmatics were my favourites. They were just new for me. IMO, the Functional Grammar subject gives a new sight of English grammar. It sees grammar in different ways. Basically, as my lecturer says, talking about FG we will talk about its basic notions; text, context, intertextuality, and metafunctions. I will try to talk about these notions later. Then the Pragmatics, it is a very interesting topic to learn. Learning about how language is used and how meaning is conveyed. There are presupposition, speech act, implicature, explicature, politeness, and so on and so forth. Very interesting since I didn't get such lectures at undergraduate studies.

Let's move to the lecturers. First thing first, Dr. Emi Emilia. Almost every single student from the postgraduate studies knows her very well. She is the head of English program. She's smart, bookaholic (my own term, meaning a book lover), she's funny and she's so Sundanese (she's from Garut indeed). There was a time when she taught the FG in my class when she used Sundanese throughout the lesson and my Javanese classmates could only be dazed. Her favourite lines were "boloho" and "Baca! Baca! Baca!". Amazing. Next is Prof. Aminuddin Aziz, the Pragmatics Ranger as he calls himself that way. I heard that he earned his professorship at a quite younger age compare to others (not so many could earns a professorship at 40 or less). What words to use to describe the Professor? hmm... smart? absolutely! assertive? hmmm... but one thing for sure, he has a charming aura; that's what my friends told me and I agree. Last but not least, Dr. Iwa Lukmana. Actually he didn't have the chance to teach me in the class because he taught the other two classes. But, I chose him as my supervisor when writing my final paper. He's quite unique, lots of fun, and I feel he's so much helpful. Thank you Sir. There are so many others but I just can't tell them here one by one. All in All, thank you very much for the knowledge and everything.

Prof. Aminuddin and the Rangers. (left to right: Yani, Rina, Wiji, Mufi, Fat, Prof. Amin, Wawan, Ida and Shanti. Where is me?)

The Rangers. Yup, we call our class as the Rangers. How can we come up with this name? You might be able to guess. Yup, It firstly came up in Prof. Amin's class. When he runs his slides, his first slide showed "Welcome to Pragmatics World with Pragmatics Ranger". All of the sudden, my friends and I looked at each other and giggled. Ranger... Then we agreed to name our class after Prof. Amin's idea, the Rangers. Then I just found out that the other two classes also gave their class a nickname. Class A called themselves as The Awesomers and class B had The Plan B as their nickname.

The Rangers reached their madness at the third semester. We did lots of fun activities and our favourite was going to Karaoke. Come on guys, let's rock the NAV! Besides, we also loved hiking. Our favourite track was of course Dago Pakar - Maribaya. What a lovely day, my friends.

Maribaya

One day we might be able to share the laughter, pals.

The last thing you might remember for a quite long time when you take postgraduate studies in UPI is the assignments. Ok, all postgraduate students must be ready for assignments but in my program study, it's WOW! "sesuatu banget". You will find a research-based paper for every subject, but I think that is a good thing to train the students to write a research-based report. Alhamdulillah, those years has gone by.

Now is the time for me to implement what I've got and be a better staff, better person for a better future, as Jack Dawson said in Titanic, "to make each day count".