Love is Cinto

Pondok Pesantren Tegalrejo, Magelang (NU) Mayor of Magelang

Today we started our day very early, 6 am in the morning. We directly went to the biggest Buddhist temple in Indonesia, Candi Borobudur, Magelang. I have been there many times, yet I still amazed on how beautiful the view from the top of the temple. Candi Borobudur was built in Syailendra Dynasti, Buddhism Mataram age. Before built this temple, they had built another temple not so far from Borobudur, that is Mendut temple. Later on, I’d explain how interesting our discussion was. Borobudur temple was included in 7 wonders in the world. It is surrounded by 3 big mountains: Mt. Merapi, Mt. Sumbing, and Mt. Sindoro. From there, we rode a horse-cart (dokar) through the nearby village. It was kinda uncovenient moment because our American partners (some or all, not sure) were animal lovers. Thus they could not bear to see the horse riding us back to the parking lot because the horse are phisically small.  I don’t want to debate on this matter. I personally think that before we judg...

“Radicalization and Deradicalization of Islamist Movement in Indonesia” was the theme for our lecture today with Pak Muhammad Najib Azca, the founder of Youth Studies Centre (YouSure) and the lecturer in Faculty of Political Sciences UGM. The presentation based on his book, After Jihad. Radicalization or deradicalization means become more/ less committed to radical. Radicalization may take in 3 levels: micro (personal), meso (group/network), and macro (society). He was also explaining that 3 things can be the reasoning of radicalization: moral shocks, cognitive opening, and radical action as an act of identity crysis. Furthermore, radicalism consists of 3 streams as below: -           Jihadi: focus on armed struggle, usually in order to form an Islamic state. This stream is the one that widely known as terrorist. -           Pious: focus on Islamic ethics and identity, more concern on their o...

Basically, today we had cultural activities all day long. First, we visited Kraton Yogyakarta and enjoy ed Karawitan there. I met this one Japanese granny, it helped me to releave my longing about Japanese thingy. We looked around inside the palace which consists of many rooms like pictures of Sultan, things that belong to him, and others.  The ruling Sultan and his royal family are still living in the white building inside the palace. Our guide said lights on the yard will only be turned on when the Sultan is home. Next, we had a lunch in Loving Hut, a vegan restaurant in nearby Malioboro. From there, we moved to have shopping at Mirota Batik. Mirota Batik is a shop where they sell many kind of Batik and Javanese souvenirs. It is located at Malioboro Street. My US friends, Shannon, Ellie, Theresa, and Angela, they bought many beatiful batiks in various forms ranging from pants, shirts, skirts, scarfs, etc. In simply words, they were overwhelmed with all Batik stuffs. Haha. ...

Starting the day at 8 am, we went to Singlar Village and met this one family named Pak Sakimin. He was one of the Merapi victim when it was erupted in October 2010. Basically, we discussed a lot about the disaster and post-disaster activities that actually happened in Singlar. He also showed us around the village that was, we can say, totally destroyed. Pak Sakimin told us like the whole story how it was happened and how the government and the other social organizations (NGOs) gave assistances in recovering the post-disaster condition. Next, we had a lunch in Raminten, a Javanese restaurant in Jalan Kaliurang. Later on, we continued to Ullen Sentalu. It's a Javanese Museum well known as Batik Museum in Yogyakarta. They have the coolest collections in there. Generally, as its name, they have pictures of Sultanate and Paku Alam along with the royal families in both cities, Yogyakarta and Surakarta. They have this one family tree which Paundra Kandra's name written on it too....

The journey of USIPP 2012 has just actually begun today. I and Shannon were woke up early this morning and had a nice conversation. I really appreciate that. We started the day at 7 am with breakfast then an hour later we took a campuss bus to UI's library. They have an impressive library, all in one. It is a new and the only library in UI. They have like 8 floors, the two-last floor are used occasionally for meeting or official event hold by the campuss. In the first floor, they have "times" bookstore, travel agency office, tupperware and kitchen stuffs, the cinema, the bank, music studio, and they also have starbucks!! Yes, they seems like having a mall inside of their library. Wow! Worth to be noted that they also have some old documents like the old testament which written in Old Ducth, Lontar (made from leaves and covered by two slices of wood) written in Balinese or Old Javanese about ceremonial thing in Bali, and the last one (that they showed us) was the copy bo...

USIPP 2012 is officially started today's evening with a delicious opening dinner at a restaurant in UI. I and Gita were picked up at the Soekarno-Hatta International airport by two student volunteers from Universitas Indonesia namely Arum (Psychology 2010) and Widya (English Literature 2008) at around 16.00 wib. Despite of some misunderstandings at pre-departure, everything was going pretty well today. They took us to Wisma Makara, inside the complex of Universitas Indonesia, Depok. We had an hour free time, well, actually more to prepare ourselves for the dinner. In this program, we will be paired with the US partners and live in the same room. One room for two. Really nice to get to know each other better. Mine is Shannon Cassidy, a sophomore of Social and Political Sciences from Lehigh University. Oh ya, I get to inform that for this year we have Universitas Indonesia (Ola and Ui), Universitas Gadjah Mada (Cindhi and Gita), and Lehigh University (Shannon, Ellie, Theresa, Angel...

Setelah sekian lama meradang rindu, akhirnya aku kembali ke kampung halaman tercinta. Tanah yang telah menghidupiku sejauh aku mampu mengingat. Entah berapa ratusan kali ku khianati belas kasihnya. Namun ia tetap setia menunggu di sini, nggak pindah- pindah (yaeyalah, plis deh). Tak ubahnya Malin Kundang yang durhaka, aku mulai terlena dengan kehidupan baruku sebagai mahasiswi maha(sok)sibuk. Dengan berdalih banyak tugas & kegiatan, aku bebas absen selama berbulan- bulan dari tradisi anak kuliahan:  mudik tiap minggu . Yah,abis bingung juga mau ngapain?? Secara ortu juga tinggal nun jauh di mato. Alhasil, Sragen, kota kecilku pun kehilangan daya tariknya. Ups, soriii darling. Hehehe Bisa dihitung berapa kali aku sudi menyempatkan diri untuk pulang kampung. Hanya demi bernostalgia dengan atmosfer kota masa kecilku ini atau sekedar bertegur sapa dengan sanak keluarga. Ku coba mengingat, ternyata tak lebih dari hitungan jari. Aku yang berdarah muda seakan jengah dengan ru...