21 hari tanpa kata

ku buka dan ku pandangi

kumpulan kertas bersampul hijau itu

kata demi kata, kalimat demi kalimat ku lafalkan

tak sampai di ujung asa aku terhenti

tertegun terpukau dan terpaku

tak mengerti dengan coretan tintamu

aduh, prof.

apa yang ingin engkau sampaikan

apa maksudnya, aku tak paham.

pintamu mudah dan ringkas:

komentari dan pendapati.

itu sulit buatku, prof.

sepuluh halaman, lima belas halaman

serasa satu buku penuh bagiku.

waktu kian melawanku

dia berlari terlalu kencang

berputar begitu cepat

tak mengerti akan kesulitanku

sebentar lagi harus kuserahkan,

namun satu huruf pun belum kutuliskan

satu kata pun tak terfikirkan

21 hari tak cukup, prof.

21 hari tanpa kata

21 hari aku tersiksa

21 hari yang membuat otakku menciut

seperti baju di pagi hari yang hendak dijemur; diperas.

tapi itulah resikonya

resiko yang (mungkin) mencerdaskanku

resiko yang melatihku...

ah... aku capai prof.

aku tidur.

29 Dec 2011

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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".

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Serba Serbi S2

Melanjutkan pendidikan ke tingkat yang lebih tinggi merupakan impian banyak orang. hampir setiap orang ingin sekolah tinggi, tentu dengan berbagai harapan. Begitupun saya. Alhamdulillah, saya dapat melanjutkan sekolah ke tingkat magister di sebuah Universitas di kota Bandung. Alhamdulillahnya lagi, kantor saya yang baik hati bersedia membiayai semua keperluan kuliah. Baik banget tuh kantor.

Kuliah di pascasarjana, tentu saja berbeda dengan kuliah ketika sarjana dulu. Secara usia, rata-rata mahasiswanya sudah bekerja semua. Saya sih menyebutnya, kelas dewasa. Dari segi materi, tentu saja bobotnya lebih, pun begitu dengan metode mengajar para dosennya. Seringkali kita harus mencari sendiri maksud sebenarnya dari materi yang diajarkan. Sang dosen biasanya hanya mengantarkan ke pintu gerbangnya, sisanya kita harus berusaha sendiri untuk mencari tahu.

Satu lagi hal yang unik adalah masalah kehadiran. Oke, di sarjana pun aturan ini ada, setiap mahasiswa harus memenuhi persyaratan 80% kehadiran untuk bisa ikut ujian akhir. Nah, di pasca ternyata aturan yang begitu juga ada (di Universitas saya lho ya, di tempat lain, entahlah...). Saya kira, kuliah di pasca tidak mementingkan yang begituan, yang penting kita mengerti dan memahami mengenai materi kuliah yang kita ambil. Berhubung dosen di pasca sebagian besar sudah 'professor', tentu jadwal mereka sangat padat. Sehingga, seringkali mereka absen dari kelas. Dengan alasan sedang keluar kota, ada kerjaan lain yang penting ataupun sedang ada rapat. Nah, kalau begini bisa diartikan kuliah S2 sama dengan kuliah sangat mandiri. Asupan dari sang profesor sangat minim, sementara mahasiswa dengan pengetahuan yang dimilikinya dituntut untuk dapat memahami hal yang sesungguhnya sulit mereka pahami. Lalu, buat apa bayar kuliah mahal kalau memang semuanya harus dicari sendiri? kita juga butuh penjelasan lebih lanjut dari ahlinya.

Kembali ke masalah absen. Jika hal ini terjadi pada sang profesor, misalnya dari 8 pertemuan, beliau hanya sanggup hadir 4 kali (hanya 50% saja), apakah ada konsekuensi khusus??? misalnya, mahasiswa dapat nilai cuma-cuma B- tanpa harus berusaha, yang berusaha dapat lebih. Atau konsekuensi lainnya. Nyatanya tidak! Yang ada paling make up class, itupun klu dosennya niat. Kalau tidak, ya gone with the wind deh...

Nah, saat ini saya sedang duduk di lantai dua Universitas yang (akan mungkin) saya cintai ini, datang kepagian karena memang seharusnya ada kuliah, namun sayang beribu sayang, sang dosen tiada datang. Jam selanjutnya saya ada kuliah lagi. Grammar. Buat saya, grammar sama dengan Kalkulusnya orang matematika. Ribet tapi menyenangkan. Tapi, jauh-jauh hari sang dosen sudah menyatakan ketidaksanggupannya untuk menghadiri kelas hari ini. Gosip yang beredar, hanya sang asdos yang akan mengawal kita buat progress test. Lalu setelah jumatan, ada kuliah lagi (seharusnya), tapi kembali kabar burung yang terpercaya menyatakan sang professor tidak akan hadir.

Lalu buat apa saya datang??? Ya buat memastikan bahwa gosip dan kabar burung itu bohong! tapi saya percaya, kabar itu BENAR. ono-ono ae...

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