Drenched in Memories

So I went to this Founders' Trophy last week.

Broke 8th, quarterfinalist, did all of the drama stuffs, and I'm done with my highschool debate career (at least that's what my parents thought). It was fun. Watching these stellar debaters (and didn't understand what some of the were saying) debate, getting frustrated, not knowing the definition of the motion, you know- all those debate stuffs.

Something felt different though.

I must say that I'm sooo against that "I-want-to-be-in-the-same-team-with-this-particular-person-blablabla" kind of thing. Like really, I think that's DUMB. I dont' like relying too much on other. And you can't expect yourself to be in the same team with people you like throughout your debate career. Like seriously. I personally can debate with and against anybody (my coach does NOT included in the definition of "anyone"). I have no problem with team so far. At least that's what I thought.

Now, there is this woman called Marsha Faradina.

My 1st speaker, my all-time debate teammate, one of my "Trio Macan" partner, a person that I can share my arguments with just by looking at her eyes and vice versa.

You can say I've never really been in a debate competition without her.

I debated on FT with Hugo, another SMAN 3 senior. He was good, I'm not saying that he was bad or something. The problem was just... Marsha wasn't there. It felt like something's not right.

I miss those frantic-ness we used to share during casebuilding.

So, teammate is an essential point for your debate, no?

Trio macan reunion on Phyxius 2009. Took this picture after making an evil plan for Mr. Coach's birthday surprise.

I miss those old moments, ALSA UI 2 years ago in particular.

Marintong, good luck for your UM UGM. And Marsha, wait for me. I'll catch up. I love you guys :)

Like It or Not, It's Our Senior Year

Way to 2010, seniors.

Recordando

It’s been 3 months since I came back from the USA.

Three months that I learned to accept the truth that I’m no longer an exchange student, that I’m no longer as “special” as I was.

Three months of re-adjusting, struggling at school, looking for new friends.

Three months of not going to marching field and touching marimba.

Three months of not having row dinner and going to Noodles and Co.

Three months of not seeing my American family and friends.

I’m not sure why, but I was fine, at least before I knew that there is another exchange student coming to Scioto this year. I feel so jealous of her, but I was still fine. But now, when I learn the truth that she’s now a member of Scioto marching band, I can’t help but crying.

Don’t get me wrong, I know Melon is a really nice exchange student and I really hope that she enjoys her stay in Ohio. I know she will, because no other school that can make you feel grateful that you’re an exchange student but Dublin Scioto.

Yet this burning jealousy in me has already on its limit that I need to do something to get it the hell out of me.

Last year, I tried my best to do everything I wanted to do, so when I get back home to Indonesia, I won’t regret anything. And I DID. I did basically everything.

But the regret is stilll here.

I regret the fact that I’m no longer there.

Yes once again, I AM super spoiled. I envy Melon for being there and having fun with them while I’m not.

E Pod, Band room, Marching field, footbal games, competition, the pit, row dinner.

I miss those all things.

I even miss Mr. Gray’s “Shut up, Egalita, I hate you”s. I miss my Music Theory class. I miss the percussion closet in E3. I miss those freezing moments during football games.

In case you haven’t notice, yes I AM a band geek and I’m proud of it. I rotate around the band and bandies and that’s my life.

If only I could go there right now, I’d hug them all and tell them how much I love them and they are a family to me.

“Gapapa Ga, taun depan juga dia (si exchange student baru) bakal kangen sama US dan isinya, ama aja kaya lu sekarang. Terus yang lu iriin apa?”

BJ (Thanks Je, it actually helps)

Grumbling

It's SMAN 3 Bandung, not Dublin Scioto High School.

IT'S INDONESIA, NOT THE UNITED STATES.

Hmm. Yes I know that’s the fact.

It's been several months since I came back here to Indonesia. I re-adjusted well (at least that's what I think) but then still, sometimes everything feels weird.

(HAHA akhirnya setelah sekian lama gw ngeblog lagi. Abis diprotes si Marsha nihh)

Anyways, as you can see from the title, this is just me grumbling so if you don’t feel like reading to a student complaining about stuffs, just don’t waste your time.

I AM a liberalist, that's one thing to begin with. I'm not particularly a democrats, but once again, I value liberalism although there are some points in liberalism that i don't agree with, but whatever. But the thing is, I hate being restricted from doing what I can do just because of some stupid unreasonable rules.

I know freedom of speech and freedom of choice in Indonesia is not as widely accepted as they are in the States. Well we do democracy as well over here, but it's still different. There are some “limits” of those freedoms in indonesia. For example, we Indonesian students can't choose our classes at school. Yes I know the curriculum is different from the United States', but for me, being trained to think and decide for your own needs since you’re young is a good thing, and I don’t understand why don’t we do it here?

From what I see, our current Indonesian school system doesn’t really work. Well it DOES work but not as efficient. First, we students are forced to take all assigned class. We can only choose whether we want to take IPA (Natural Science) Class or IPS (Social Studies) Class. When we decide to take IPA, the school will force us to study all of the subjects; physics, chemistry, and biology for ALL YEARS, added with math, Indonesian Government, Indonesian and World History, English, Islamic Study, Computer, Gym, and Islamic Study. For IPS, they have to take Geography, Ecomomics, Sociology etc.

Those all classes are compulsary, with so may stuffs going on in every subjects. Not all students like these all classes nor they need all of them for college. But everyone is forced – obliged – compelled to study this subjects and meet the standard the school made. Thus the students feel so much burdened and frustrated. We DON’T choose our classes so we DON’T feel responsible to study for them. We’re (me in particular) lazy – slothful – sluggish, yea whatever you wish to call us. We study hard JUST to graduate a.k.a. get out of the freaking school and go to college, then we’re done. Of course there are some students out there who love studying from their heart (which obviously is NOT me), and I respect them for it.

“Ketuhanan Yang Maha Esa” is the first point in Pancasila. In other word, you can’t be an Indonesian and an atheist in the same time. Why?

At school, all moslems have to take Islamic Study class, which I personally think is good. But the problem is, the school which I go to is a public school, not a private Islamic school. I know that the majority of Indonesians are moslem –so am I-, but then how about our friends who are not a moslem? What they do when we’re on this Islamic Study class is just go outside the class, idk what they do, like, wasting time?

According to egalitarianism, everyone should be treated equally. In this case, no matter you’re a moslem or not, you should be considered the same no matter where you are. In my school, Christians or Catholics have their own religion classes, but not inside the school time, a.k.a. they need to take those classes after school or something like that – I’m not sure. I personally don’t think this is justifiable as in, when we moslems study our religion at class, non-moslems should be studying their religion as well –in other classroom. THAT’s fair. Although we moslems are the majority, it doesn’t mean we can just kick the non moslems out of the class when we gotta study Islam. Actually, it’s not just the school, it’s also the government. Indonesian government acknowledges only Islam, Christian, Catholics, Buddhist and Hindu. How about others; Shinto, Atheist, Yehovah, etc? What makes the government mutually exclusive that they can decide which religions should be accepted and which are not?

Now, the teachers.

Dedication is what they’re laking of. Like, seriously, this one teacher likes to come to class like, 15 minutes before the bell rings. Dude, I’m a freaking senior and I WANT to graduate and you KNOW it’s NOT easy! It’s hard to pass the tests already so teachers, you guys don’t have to make it even harder for us. Other teacher clearly doesn’t seem to be wanting to teach. Blahh. My Islamic study likes to give us what I call doctrines; something like “Kalian ga usah blang selamat natal ke orang-orang yang merayakannya”. Why? Who are you, my mom? How dare you tell me what to say? It’d probably better if he elaborate the whole thing with AREL (assertion, reasoning, evidence and link back) but he didn’t, and I held myself back, not saying anything, just because I don’t want him to fail my grade. Huh.

There ARE some teachers who teach really well and I appreciate that. But PLEASE, for SMAN3 Bandung - MY school - why do these kind of teachers exist?

Maybe this is one form of my continued reverse-culture-shock. MAYBE. Or these things around me is just wrong.

Well, thanks for the “welcome back”s.

-ME grumbling in the frustration of the mid-semester exam-

Reverse-Homesick

One thing: it SUCKS.

My Life Back Home

First, it SUCKS.

I hate Indonesian school!!!!!

Well, I’d blame myself for taking neither chem, bio, and physics in the US but IT STILL SUCKS!!! I definitely need to catch up with my “new” friends! I’m now in class 3 IPA 3, with underclassmen-used-to-be. That wasn’t my problem, because I do have friends now, but school SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m totally frustrated.

When I got better on physics, chem got screwed!!!!

And I met my 2009 friends, and it was fun J

Thir first reaction would be : “EGA??? OH MY GOD!!! I miss you!!!” And then they’d glare at my school uniform and laugh.

Haha, not that I care. I went to the US and they didn’t :p Well, they’re already accepted in colleges now. BLAHH.

Yesterday I stucked in the teachers’ room, they forced me to tell stories on America. BLAHH. I spent almost an hour there.

Another day, my old English teacher saw me skipping my physics class with my friends and she yelled at me. I thought I’d be in trouble but she dragged me to a junior class and FORCED me to tell them about AFS and the US. Another BLAHH.

My name wasn’t on the class list, so I came to the teacher and told her that I AM now a member of the class.

“What’s your name?”

“Ega.”

“Oh. EGALITA IRFAN??”

“Y-yea. How do you know?”

“Well, I teached this class last year too and everytime I call your name, you were never there. So how was America?”

BLAH BLAH BLAH.

Yayaya, I should get over it. I really SHOULD.

But friends comment on my wall on facebook and their emails made me cry still.

I MISS THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Iknow what’s this called.

Because I felt the same way on my first week in USA.

It was called HOMESICK.

But this time I’m homesick of the host country a.k.a. America so it’s not really a “homesick” but hell, I don’t care what’s it called.

I WANT TO GO BACK THERE.

The End of the Stay

IT’S INDONESIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lalalaaa :)

This post is kinda late but who cares anyway? I’ve been home since July 5^thish. We left the States on July 3^rd afternoon, after spending the 3 previous days in Washington DC for re-orientation. I met other Indonesian exchange students there as well as my other exchange student buddies from India, Turkey, Thailand, Malaysia, Germany etc. We had some (boring) sessions at Hilton but we also wend to Capitol Hill to “talk” to the Congressmen but most of hem weren’t there. It was still fun!!!

At Capitol Hill :)

I was really glad to realize that I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO GAIN WEIGHT DURING MY STAY IN THE US!! Lol yayayaay!!! And oh, we also went to Indonesian Embassy in DC and ATE INDONESIAN FOOD!!!! ;)

The inside part of Indonesian Embassy

Bandung exchange students, still in Indonesian Embassy

One night before we left, every country had to perform some sort of talent show. We Indonesians sang and danced Janger and Yamko Rambe Yamko and of course, we were awesome ;)

We left the States from Dulles International Airport. It was A LOT of drama!! We had a totally mixed feelings about going home. We’re SAAAAAAAAAAAADDD to leave the States but we were excited (and scared too) to go back to our own country and meet our family!!

Stuffs I needed to bring home. A LOT of work…

LEAVING ON A JETPLANE

All my bags are packed, i'm ready to go
I'm standing here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye

But the dawn is breaking, it's early morn'
The taxi's waiting, he's blowing his horn
Already i'm so lonesome i could die


So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
'cause i'm leaving on a jet plane
I don't know when i'll be back again
Oh babe, i hate to go


There's so many times i've let you down
So many times i've played around
But tell him that they don't mean a thing

Every place i go i think of you
Every song i sing i'll sing for you
When i come back, i'll wear your wedding ring


Now the time has come to leave you
One more time, oh let me kiss you
And close your eyes and i'll be on my way

Dream about the days to come
When i won't have to leave alone
By the times that i won't have to say

We stopped in Frankfurt and Malaysia. Our plane got delayed for 5 freaking hours in Malaysia!! It was really tiring but we were alive when we got to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport at Jakarta, Indonesia. When the plane just landed and touched the ground, we 87 exchange students screamed “INDONESIA!!!!” a thousand times. Lol. Kind of embarassing but I think other passangers understood (I really hope so :p). And then we still had to wait to get our suitcases, and then we walked out in line and we saw this huge banner held by people we knew –returnees and the exchange program committees-. It said “WELCOME BACK, INDONESIAN EXCHANGE STUDENTS TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2008-2009!!!!”

And then…

I SAW MY FAMILY.

My dad looked just the same, my mom look skinnier –prolly thinking about her daughter too much-, my sister looked a little bit fatter and taller, and my brother definitely got really tall!!! Almost as tall as I am. I miss miss MISS them so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ugh, unfortunately, we still had to attend mandatory national re-orientation for another 3 days and THEN we can go back to our home. So I saw my family for like 15 minutes and then I gotta go. That sucks so bad!! Uh well.

Re-orientation was fine. It was really tiring because we were still jetlag and we needed some sleep. But we all survived!! On the last day we were really sad because we gotta leave and say goodbye. We exchange students came from different provinces and islands so we don’t know when we’ll have everyone gathered again L We have facebook though, so we can still contact each other!!

I met my relatives on he 7^th, right when I got out of the re-orientation camp. I was really happy to see them!!

But deep inside, I couldn’t deny the sadness.

I MISS MY AMERICAN FAMILY AND FRIENDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, you can never have everything, can you? L((((((((((

To AFS and Youth Exchange and Study Program and the US government,

Thank you SO MUCH you have no idea how grateful I am. I’m really glad I went to the US. I learned A LOT from my stay. I now understand that people are different and I respect our difference. The AFS experience change my perspective about the US and a lot of other things. Now I appreciate my family even more, and I have so many American friends whom I know I can always rely on and talk to J Thank you so much.

And I’m officially an ex-exchange student.

Egalita Irfan

RETURNEE

AFS/YES (Youth Exchange and Study) Program 2008-2009

Hosted in Dublin, OH, USA

Dublin Scioto High School

Youth Exchange and Study Program (YES)

Youth Exchange and Study Program (YES)

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Over

Youngs will turn to olds,

green leaves will turn to brown,

seeds will grow to become flowers,

any living thing in the world will eventually all die.

Everything that starts has an end,

no matter you like it or not.

Tears, however, need to be shed,

pains must be borne,

constraint has to be endured,

humans have to grow wiser.

Everything that starts has an end.

Yes, you probably need to say goodbye.

But it doesn't mean that  you can't start something new.

-Egalita Irfan-

Mourning over her last day of school in the US ever.

Music Theory Project : DONE

FINALLY.

Today we performed our song that we've been working since approximately a month ago! I was really scared, and excited :) 

First, they performed Jojo's song for String Quartet. It was AMAZING. I mean, DUH, it's Jojo. Mr Gray told us that she's been working on this piece since last fall so it's not fair if you compare yourself to Miss Jojo (yaya because obviously our songs sound horrible compared to hers). He also said that she's been taking composing lessons with Mr Gray wayyyy before we started so yea, honestly it eliminates my inferioroty feeling, just a little bit.

Now,

My piece is just called Clarinet Quintet in C Minor Op. 1 by Egalita Irfan. It has exactly 100 measures, with a 7th fermata fff for cello in the last measure (lol. This is supposed to be a joke for Nikita). Yayaya. I should prolly change the name to "Mr. Gray is a Bully" or "Shut up, Mr Gray, I hate you". I REALLY should. lol. I told Mr Gray about this and all he did is laugh and tell me that it's my own piece, therfore I get to pick a name. But I obviously didn't put any of those titles on my music :p

Honestly, it was better than I thought. The piece. My freaking song. I eventually enjoyed it. Thanks to my amazing performers who made my song sounds 100x better :)

Bb Clarinet: Katasha Ross

Violin I : Yang Liu

Violin II: Rebekah Lee

Viola: Jolyn Tsai a.k.a. Jojo

Violincello: Nikita Annenkov

It makes me relieved to realize that I'M SOOO DONE WITH MY PROJECT! finally!! after those freaky sessions about conterpoint 1st-4th species, chord progression, phrases, cadences, HARMONIZATION, whatever stuffs we've learned from Music Theory, finally I can rest my right brain!! Lalalala string and percussions are awesome (I dont know where do these come from :p).

Composing your own song is frustrating, but believe it or not, it's a lot of fun!! During this summer i'm gonna work on my next piece, prolly it'll be a trio for piano-violin-cello but i don't know yet.

Other student's song were good too :) Being the only percussionist in the class, I played marimba part for David's and Mike's song. haha.

I had fun with those music theory people today. This is gonna be the last time I can see them all together. uh well.

And tonight: Jojo's senior recital at 7!! I'm gonna meet Sravanti and Melissa before it starts. I'm excited! Jojo's gonna play Beethoven's Pathetique! Yayyy!!