Unpleasant Morning

Thursday, 27 May 2010
It's kinda bit hard to start the writing in a happy puppy story since what i had his morning was terrible. My Philippine friend asked me to accompany her to the immigration office. Okay, we went there and ghiiii so crowded. I already imagined unfriendly service form the officer since my friend, the philippino told me that she didn't get good explanation and good service. By brought me there she's expected to get more detail information. The officers, some of them, they don't speak good English and give so little unclear information.
My friend wanted to get her ITAS (temporary stay permit), and she was assigned to come today. So, we went to the locket where we suppose to get as what the lady have told her. But then she asked us to go to the other locket. All right, we went there and she's not there. Her friends told us that she went out to the canteen. Gosh!! At 8:15 in the morning when she's supposed to work?
After waiting for several times, she came back, we handed the receipe and she complained in a high tone of voice that we're late. She would need lot of time and blah blah blah in a very unpleasant way of speaking.
I asked her what time we should get it back. She said that it needs to be stamped by the boss and the boss might be away and blah blah blah she needs to do this that those these. Well i just asked her what time, it's enough to say at about 3, please come tomorrow coz it might take longer time, i'll notify you or something better, shorter, understandable.
We left her and went back to the previous locket with the younger lady officer. i told her that the "annoying lady" needed more time, then what should we do, should we wait or we just came again in the afternoon. She then asked my friends' phone number so she could give a notification if the ITAS has already finished.
So, lesson for today is:
1. Government officer paid by the people's money but they don't serve the people well.
2. Pegawai Negeri Sipil is a government officer or civil servant in English translation, it means they have to serve the people not yelling and complaining about their hard job (well you are paid!!!)
3. There should be an evaluation on the service quality of all department in this country.
4. If the Indonesian police (in Surabaya) has started to hear all the complain of Surabayanese about the "unpleasant service" of their department, regularly twice or three times a month during the day in a public park, why can't other department be so responsive as the police does?--> this is not the real lesson but question actually

May the future will be better

Talkative, Qualitative Research, and Love

25 May 2010,
Today's lesson is about woman, love and qualitative research. What a strange combination..but let see how it goes..
I called my boyfriend this afternoon and doing the bla bla bla on the phone. he is in another island right now. Then i was talking about Anas Urbaningrum, the new leader of a political party in Indonesia. He was one of my former univ alumni. i kept saying blah blah blah till i heard my boyfriend murmured and grumbled he said in a pathetic voice, "i was going to tell you something but you keep talking so forget about it." i knew he was upset because of my talkative way of speaking. then he lost his mood to talk with me, either do i. i planned to hang up the phone but then after almost ten seconds i heard his lazy voice telling something. Then i said bye and he said bye in a very unpleasant voice..overall he was upset and it was not the first time we fought for my talkative way of speaking.
i dropped some tears..i was upset. he knows well i'm talkative..instead of just be patient he directly showed his dislike on my speaking. i switched off my mobile (for recharging actually). and i cried...i was having my period so ..easily become so emotional...that's nature.
Then i remember what my lecturer question,"Why women talk more than men?"
It is because naturally, woman are nurturer. She nurtures her children, she prepares, and guides, and teaches her children to do many things..and those things done by talking to her children.By talking not by doing the body language. Woman sings more than man as she tries to make her children feel comfortable in their bed to sleep. Woman asks the children to do this and that as a life-learning process...
So men, why are so grumbling about how talkative your partner is. If it's not the talking about somebody else talkativeness, criticizing all the time talkativeness, prejudice talkativeness, discriminative talkativeness..then why bother?
Sometimes i have too many words to say in my mind..it's just..naturally woman talks more than man.
****
In the evening when i had my class, it was the qualitative research class, we were on a discussion about ethnography. ethnography is about find out more about people's behavior. We try to investigate to search certain kind of behavior of a specific things. In educational research, an example of ethnography study is when i know what makes the students noisy during the English class. i observe their behavior in the classroom. i try to find the meaningthat's the simple thing.
A qualitative research is about finding "the meaning." this is a good example for my lecturer Prof. Ngadiman, if you're in a relationship you want to know whether your boyfriend is really in love with you or not. you can not just see it. it is something intangible. you can not measure it by touching or seeing. you can measure it, you can assess it by get the meaning of whatever your boyfriend does. you try to know what does it mean when he gives you some presents for instance. This is an exploration to know the real him. to really know what love is. to really know whether he loves you or not. this is a qualitative research. you need to get the meanings upon some actions.
The most important thing, it won't take days or months...even years..or the rest of your life... A qualitative research takes longer time compare to quantitative research. you'll find out whether your partner really loves you during your dating time, then even after a marriage you'll find out whether he still loves you or not. If after 10 years he cheated you..you'll know that he doesn't really loves you. Then when will the "research" of his true love stop? Till death do both of you apart.
What a nice thing to correlate qualitative research to basic life matter..and it's just wonderful for me to know that the searching of true love will end when we die.
So lessons for today are:
1. I am talkative
2. Woman talks more than man because naturally she has been given nurture skill by God to raise, guide and protect her children.
3. Ethnography emphasis on people's behavior.
4. If you're a teacher try to find out what does the "noisy class" mean.
5. Qualitative research focus on the process not the product, it's about meaning
6. The real application of qualitative research is our romance journey.

Giving = Happiness

Monday 24 May 2010
Today's lesson is about happiness. i used to think that happiness is something that i should search for, and i used to believe that it will come when i push myself to find it. it has to be created, if i was unhappy so there wasn't any happiness around.That is what i believed, but now i believe on "other happiness".
I listened to my radio (cellphone's radio) and i listened to my fav station, Suara Surabaya FM 100 (check this one, recommended). There's a feature called "Titik Nol" where a speaker, usually well-known people of many different field of expertise, talks in a wise nobble voise about good motivational things, mostly are inspirational ones. What i heard today from a man whose name is already forgotten by me is that "Kita hidup dari apa yang kita dapatkan tetapi kita bahagia dari apa yang kita berikan." "We live by what we earn but we are happy by what we give" he quote this from Churchill.
This is the first time in my life someone told me that happiness is not something that you can find, but you get it by what you give to others. When we're driving in rush but we stop our car to let the pedestrian crosses the street, this is an example of what the speakers told me on the radio, this is happiness. OK, it should be happiness when i let a pedestrian to cross the street, i give him/her something...
Allright then, so happiness is a matter of giving. When we give then we should be so happy, happier than when we don't give any,
And today thought me something. When i wanted to go out to buy some meals for my breakfast i saw an old lady sitting in front of my boarding house's gate. i was bit surprised since no one ever sit on the ground in front of the gate before. i thought the lady was exhausted and need to rest for a while because her appearance look fine though i know she's not wealthy enough. i decided to wait for her for a few minutes, while waiting i looked at her from the window. I can see that's she's so old and skinny, she was sitting while counted her money. i saw several thousand of rupiahs, she tried to fix the wrinkled paper money. Then she tried to search in her other small fabric bag. She drooped some coins. At that time i realized she's a beggar. Then she was sitting and drank a cup of water.
I went inside my boarding house to get some money to buy the food. Coz i was so hungry i intended to asked the lady to move a bit because i couldn't open the gate. Then i asked her in my very polite way, in a simple javanese sentence "Ma'am.." she didn't hear anythiong till i repeated three times. "Ma'am, excuse me i need to go out."
She was a bit surprised and when she looked at me, i looked at her directly in her eyes and i saw a very old lady in misery. It might be my own interpretation since i don't know how miserable she is. But from her eyes i just took a pity on her.
I thought about my 5000 rupiah in my hand but i thought i would give her later after i bought the meal. She suddenly got up and she dropped two coins. i just walked and passed her and closed the gate.
When i was in a warung to get the meal i realized how cruel i was. I had almost 15000 in my hand and i was going to spent them for meal while the old lady i met might be starving and she must be so tired walking and begging. But i also quite sure that she might have been gone when i got back to my boarding house. And, i was right..she's not there. i knew it coz i just felt that she might think she's been asked to move away coz she's blocking the gate.
I don't know why but i felt so guilty. i supposed to help her. Don't care whether begging is not good, but i just remember the way she looked at me..i would never forget her eyes...i was so so stupid. I felt my throat chocked and i wanna cry when i re,ember her eyes, even now when i'm typing this.
There are 3 lessons i learned today:
1. You don't looking for happiness, happiness is out there no need to find it.
2. Get the happiness as many as you can by giving others.
3. If you wanna help someone never think twice, just never think twice