WHEN YOU DON'T KNOW BUT BELIEVE

I started my journey to US since some months ago, time flies as we are having fun. Am i having fun here? Anyway. I applied for one semester only, and they put me in the seat for two semesters. I thought,  it was fine for me since my dream would come true to be in the US. New friends, new culture, new places, it seems fun for a while. Later, i start to really miss my own bed, my favorite foods which i couldn't find here. Above all, i miss the personal moments with Christ, my LORD. When one of my close friends as i remembered as my brilliant sister came here to visit me yesterday, i feel like, i WANT TO GO HOME. I said : LORD, i know YOU have a plan for me, but if i have an option to back, i will take that. I think one semester is more than just enough for me to stay here. Some students tried to get two semesters, i didn't even try and think about that, but i get it. I haven't seen anything really precious for me so far which will answer my question, why should i stay here for two semesters? I DON'T know now. But i believe, one day at the time, i will say thank YOU JESUS for this opportunity. When i still  asked, that question, Holy Spirit reminded me about my story with introduction of diplomacy class.  I got "E" for that class. I did every task and did all the test, do i deserve that E? I asked myself. But the LORD calmed my heart, and i believe that something must be planed by HIM. Anyway, i got Bonus for another trip to Berlin for an International Conference. ^_^. Mrs. Iva,one of my favorite lecturers,said in her class:

you'll never know what is going on in your life is bad luck or good luck.  

and I believe, when i walk with JESUS, there will never be a bad luck in my life. Jeremiah 29:11 "for i know the thoughts that i think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

LOVELY CULTURE SHOCK

Culture shock is a condition when people experience a new custom outside of of their own custom. It happens when they visit a new place somewhere. As an exchange student of US Department of State, i get a very Blessed opportunity to have my class in American University. Nazareth College in Rochester-New-York is my destination for education here. I had a very shocking day at the very first time i arrived at the airport of Rochester at 08:30 PM and guess what? everything was still bright, i could still see the sunshine. seriously? yes it happens in summer season. Well my life schedule was mess up. It didn't seem normal to me to see sunlight until 8:30 PM, it should be dark. Anyway i tried to enjoy it.        

          The another story which i really like as a part of my culture shock is the Drivers. Everytime when i go to the Pitsford Plaza to buy anything that i needed when i cross the street, the cars always wait for me and friends to walk first. Even it's not our turn to walk and we keep walking, they just let us reach the sidewalk and they start to go with their cars. WOW, it is something that never happen in the country where i lived. what a lovely drivers. Not only me that impressed by the drivers here but also most of my international friends felt the same way. I wish one day all the drivers in the developing countries can respect the pedestrian that way. I LOVE THE DRIVERS IN AMERICA.

LEARNING METHOD

Learning is process how our brain analyst all the things around us. Brain as the center of human coordination, it controls all the activities such as breathing, blinking, memorizing, gathering all the informations around us and many more. This learning process already started since embryo. That is why the experts say that the right time to building the human system function is when the mother still pregnant in order to helping the process of brain shaping and other of human organs. The success of shaping baby organs such as eyes, ears and brain are very useful  to helping the advancement of baby sense, when he/she turns to be child and mature to absorbing the informations around. 

When humans start to  learning anything, they have varied way of learning. Some people think that the best way is by listening the music, some people think that  the best way to learning is by drawing and many more.  For me personally the best way to learning is to listening and speaking.  My way to memorizing the new word in english is saying and listening the word itself. 

Sometimes i must make a sample in sentence. I just got new word this morning. "Underdog". I try to make a sample in sentence to help me keep in mind. "The government policy is not helping to solve the problem of underdog society". Sometimes the best way for me is trying to make a picture. Drawing the the things like a "curtain" word is helping me so much to memorizing the word. In the classroom, i love the way, we learn by game. It is not boring and stimulates us, the students, to maximizing our brain function. 

SCREAM OUT FROM THE PRISON

Activist Michael Anti furious he lost facebook account-while Zuckerberg’s dog has own page,  it is the title of article that Louis my lecturer gave to us.  Oh my gosh,  what the China government did to this person? That was I thinking about. The article said that: Beijing-Chinese blogger and activist Michael anti wants to know why he is less worthy of a Facebook account than a company founder Mark Zuckerberg’s dog. Dog?? (Maybe the pet lovers agree with that). 

Democracy is the way how People, Particularly   the citizen, can express their opinion freely. It is more than just a political system, it is more than just how to shaping the policy as a rule. More than that, it is the way how we are dealing with each other equally without threat them. I do agree that, sometimes it is good to eagle eye some people, if it has something to do with the public safety.  I do understand, why the government of china is limiting the Michael anti. I go back with my memories, when I was at class with my dear lecturer Mrs. June.  We had the class about China international relations, it is about the historical background of china. "The forbidden kingdom" is the way how I remembered the history about them. They do believe that their position is in the middle and other positions are in periphery, or almost at the edge. The kingdom of Emperor is acting like a GOD of the world. What he say is the voice of heaven. Even citizens musn't see the emperor's face when he talked with them. The power of the kingdom of emperor over the nation is what they want to keep so far and maintaining its power, as circle of political life. 

    "My journalistic work and academic work is more real than a dog", Michael Anti said. Zhao Jing is his official name. In his inbox (message from the FB company), he found out that, "facebook company has a strict policy against Pseudonyms and that he must use the name issued on his government ID". I believe that this  situation is not only happen for the China bloggers, but also all the activists anywhere who would like to scream out their voice against the prison of policy which limits their movements. 

Last two paragraph of the article, I do believe these are core reasons, why the protection for his rights is very important: anti said “there is long tradition in china for writers and journalists to take pen names, partly as a protection from retaliation from authorities. If facebook requires the use of real names that could potentially put Chinese citizens in danger”.

There is hilarious title given by Michael Anti for china government. He started explanations with words: China is complicated …………………….., (keep explaining). So basically china is a SICK BRIC country. Sick means Syria, Iran,China & North Korea. Brick means Brazil, Russia, India, China. Can you imagine that?? ^_^, GBY  

source of my information : 

Michael Anti: Behind the Great Firewall of China. ( July 2012 ) retrieved august 10th 2012 ,  from

http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_anti_behind_the_great_firewall_of_china.html

LITTLE REFLECTION OF MY LIFE IN NAZARETH COLLEGE

The first time I arrived here was a full of questions and many things in my mind. When I started my summer class some weeks ago and there are few things for me that make me must do a little reflection of my life. Such a reflection helps me to understand myself about my first goal, when I was applying for the Ugrad Program, since I was Yogyakarta. Being a student in a developing or third world country is something tough. Especially when my arriving here and see many and much differences among everything. I said to myself “I need to learning everything more and more”.

My main goal still the same and it is not change even just for a while. I want to increase my ability in leadership. I come from really one of rural areas, in my home sweet home papua island. And everything started from my dream to have a such experience outside of my home place. Being here make me realize that we need to start from the little things, need to maximize myself. In technologies of information, let me say that I am quite good but not really good. In the grammar class, I need more learning cause I have a bad grammar of English. Why a leadership is very important to me? When I want to change the world, it must start from the people around me, and when I want to change them I need to be more and more in anything. That is why I need to keep learning, in order to be success to delivering the message of what I want to tell. My family is a big family, they are very happy during my staying here. they  support me as always, and always remind me that I must try to do my best. And off course I will always try to do my best. When I say I want to be an ambassador or such a leader, it means that, there is a price that I must pay. I must do more and more. What I learn here is more than just a grammar or class stuff. I learn many things about life itself and it teaches me to stay as who I am and not to forget about, where I come from and what should I do for my own future and my people future. Inspired by a American technologies and the culture itself and the way how American people treating each other and respecting each other, so much different with my people. And I must take what I need to take and reject what I need to reject.  In the developing countries, especially, the education is very poor, in almost every sectors. So being here as student in USA teach me something that I want to help people especially children with no access to education to have a same chance in education by providing such access to them, such as a financial supporting or I teach them by myself. 

Last but not least , here in the USA there are a lot of beautiful places that I can visit during my stay here. I remembered one of my lecturer when I was in Kualalumpur-Malaysia , he said that you must have a balance life. Don’t  use all your time to study or read books, people need to be relax. And don’t  waste your time to playing around cause you need to keep learning and studying. Thank you for everyone who support me so far. I love you with the love of LORD

A LESSON FROM AFRICA

                       A SMILE FROM AFRICA FOR THE UNKNOWN 

Today in Louise's class on Thursday-August 2nd 2012 is one of my beautiful momentS in my life. She gave us ,her students, papers to read and video to watch about a beautiful professor from Nigeria. A beautiful woman who taught a lot of students in conference hall, I am not  really sure where was it, but I think it was in UK. her accent is a combination of British and African I guess.

she did teach about her personal life when she was in Nigeria. the title of her presentation is the "DANGER OF SINGLE STORY". by the way her name is Chimamanda Adichie. She described her life journey, when she was still a child, live in middle class family in Nigeria and drawing a lot of pictures with blue and white characters based on her old book written in foreign language. She started to found something different about life itself. What people call STEREOTYPE. She realized that what she read and heard it didn't representative the whole story about something. She went to USA to continue her education here. Her roommate was guessing that she couldn't speak english at all and her roommate was so shocked because she spoke english very well. her roommate did think she only hear tribal  music and again her roommate was shocked as she taped mariah carey's songs. (LAUGH)

shortly i got one of my important lessons about what she called about the stereotype. It  is something which is not representative whole story about human's life "And the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story".  She remembered and started to said that, “I recently spoke at a university where a student told me that it was such shame that Nigerian men were physical abusers like the father character in my novel. I told him that I had just read a novel called American Psyco”. hehehehehe all the classmate laughing. LOL. continue her words: “Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive  story of the person. The palestinian poet mourid barghouti writes that if you want to dispossess a people , the simplest way to do it is to tell their story and to start with,"secondly". start the story with the arrows of the native americans, and not with the arrival of the british, and you have an entirely different story. Start the story with the failure of the african states and not with the colonial creation of the african states and you have an  entirely different story,  .”.  

Thank you for my lecturer Louise, you showed us one of the best and important things for me in my life not to live my life in a stereotype world. living in our own world, is something common, but being able to see millions of possibilities of other characters of country, people, or culture is an extraordinary mindset that we could achieve not only through education but also people to people contact or what I learn as People Diplomacy, to widen the firmament by simply start asking how are you doing and where are you coming from? tell me about your life there?. This great life's lesson is like a special kind of smile showing by an African to welcome the negativity of the unknown as She stated as "Stereotype", with a positive smile that all is good in its essence.  

    Eston Zera Ronsumbre Saba,

 Nazareth College August 22, 2012

eston zera

july/21st/2012

                                                        Niagara Falls

after hard time learning in the american classess then on saturday , all the international students in Nazareth college went to Niagara falls, guess what? it was wonderful; one of the seven wonders. first time i arrived there, first thing i was thinking about how to jump in into the water and feel it. but it was too strong with the flow, i wish to had a experience with the boat and could see the waterfall in front of my face but i thought i could do that later , beside i need to walking with my  Myanmar friend and he didn't want to go there.  it was okai and we had a such wonderful time, i wish i could go back with all of my families and have a photo with them directly in front of the Niagara falls ^_^ .