Kenangan-Kenangan Indah Selama Bersekolah di SMP-ku Tercinta..........................

Tak terasa, 15 tahun sudah aku menjalani hidup ini..................
dan tak terasa pula, sudah hampir 3 tahun aku sekolah di SMP tercinta ini..........
SMP-ku tercinta, SMP Negeri 1 Singosari..............

LULUS Ujian Nasional di tahun ini dengan nilai yang memuaskan.............
yah, itulah yang menjadi sasaran & tujuan utama-ku kali ini.........
Aku ingin supaya bisa menjadi yang terbaik dan bisa MEMBAHAGIAKAN keluarga. Dengan terus menuntut ilmu setinggi mungkin, hingga aku bisa melanjutkan sekolah sampai ke prguruan tinggi........

Banyak pengalaman yang telah aku dapat selama 3 tahun menuntut ilmu di sekolah ini........
Guru-guru yang senantiasa sabar membimbingku & rela setulus hati membagikan ilmunya kepadaku........
sehingga, aku pun bisa menjadi sesosok RAFLIE ADRIAN yang sampai seperti sekarang ini......

Selain itu, banyak juga teman-teman yang aku dapatkan di sekolah ini. Mereka semua yang selalu menemani setiap langkahku selama menuntut ilmu disekolah ini........
Merekalah teman-teman yang selalu mendorong semangatku dalam bersekolah....
Sungguh pengalaman yang sangat berkesan ketika aku bersama teman-teman berbagi keceriaan, suka, canda, maupun tawa.........

Selama aku bersekolah.......
Banyak sekali suka maupun duka yang pernah aku alami.
Semuanya itu bercampur menjadi satu kesatuan rasa yang sulit untuk diungkapkan.......
namun demikian, semuanya aku jalani dengan penuh semangat..........
sebab, MOTIVASI terbesar & tujuan hidupku adalah "TAK MUDAH MENYERAH & BERPUTUS ASA WALAUPUN BERIBU RINTANGAN YANG AKU HADAPI"

yah, itulah beberapa pesan dari "NENEK' yang menjadi sumber inspirasi dan sumber MOTIVASI terbesarku dalam menjalani hidup ini.......
Setiap saat aku mempunyai masalah, ku selalu curahkan pada beliau....
SUNGGUH........................
Tak ada kata lain yang pantas selain "MY HERO" untuknya.........
Nenek, ya aku sangat berterimakasih padamu yang senantiasa memberikan dorongan & semangatku........
AKU SAYANG NENEK & SEMUA KELUARGA.....
TERIMA KASIH BANYAK.......

Sebelum aku tutup, aku ingin menulis beberapa bait lagu favoritku dan YANG menjadi SUMBER MOTIVASI-KU, Sehingga aku tetap bersemangat dalam menjalani hidup ini........
yeah, I HAVE A DREAM BY WESTLIFE..........


I have a dream, a song to sing
To help me cope with anything
If you see the wonder (wonder) of a fairy tale
You can take the future even if you fail
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
I'll cross the stream - I have a dream


Oh yeah
I have a dream (have a dream), a fantasy (fantasy)
To help me through (help me through) reality (reality)
And my destination (destination) makes it worth the while
Pushing through the darkness
pushing through the darkness baby)
Still another mile


I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
everything I see yeah)
I believe in angels
I believe in angels )
When I know the time is right for me
time is right for me)
I'll cross the stream - I have a dream

I have a dream (oh yeah), a song to sing(song to sing)
To help me cope with anything
If you see the wonder (if you see the wonder) of a fairy tale (of a fairy tale)
You can take the future even if you fail (yeah yeah yeah yeah)
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see (everything)
I believe in angels (yeah)
When I know the time is right for me (right for me)
I'll cross the stream (cross the stream) - I have a dream (have a dream)
I'll cross the stream (cross the stream) - I have a dream

Westlife - I Need You

GONG XI FAT CHOI..............HAPPY CHINA'S NEW YEAR......

Two days before Imlek (Chinese New Year), businesses in the Chinatown area in Jakarta ran out of stocks for their red lanterns and ‘Shanghai’ costumes. Imlek is a time for colourful parades featuring dances of the lion and other puppets, and performances of Chinese folk rituals on the streets and in Chinese temples. Imlek is also celebrated at Sunday mass in a Catholic church with performances of Chinese songs and dances. The church is decorated in lucky colour red from its carpet to its candles, including the priests’ robes.
Decorations and ornaments in the lucky colour red, representing Chineseness, together with Chinese cultural performances like the dragon and lion dances have become products of mass consumption in post-Suharto Indonesia. Major shopping malls decorate their interior with red lanterns and gigantic angpao, the red envelopes used for gifts of money. TV shows adopt Imlek themes, ranging from game shows where audiences dress in traditional Chinese costumes to talk shows featuring Chinese feng shui and fortune telling.

TV shows adopt Imlek themes, ranging from game shows where audiences dress in traditional Chinese costumes to talk shows featuring Chinese feng shui and fortune telling

Many assimilated Chinese-Indonesians find these new cultural expressions unfamiliar, if not foreign. But, notwithstanding their lack of knowledge about the rituals and practices carried out in the festival, they have embraced Imlek. To them, it is both an acknowledgement of their long suppressed identity and a symbol of new opportunities for freedom of expression.

A contested festival

Around the world, Chinese New Year is a cultural celebration. However, in Indonesia, Imlek has been much contested. This is partly because Confucians in Indonesia celebrate Imlek as a sacred day that commemorates the birth of Confucius, just as Christians celebrate Christmas to remember the birth of Jesus Christ.
While Confucianism is generally understood by Chinese elsewhere as a set of ethical rules or a moral philosophy, in Indonesia it has been an institutionalised religion since the beginning of the twentieth century. Under the New Order, Confucianism’s status as a religion was revoked, and expressions of Chinese ethnicity and culture outlawed. But after the fall of Suharto in 1998, the Supreme Council for the Confucian Religion in Indonesia (MATAKIN), which claims to represent up to a million Indonesians, asked that the government recognise Imlek as a national holiday. Other Chinese organisations in Jakarta welcomed this proposal, and supported it by lobbying the government.
The Confucians justified the designation of the Imlek year on the basis of Confucius’ birth year as comparable to the remembrance of Anno Domini in the Western calendar as the year of Christ, and the Muslim Hijrah calendar which calculates its year from the year Prophet Muhammad made the pilgrimage from Mecca to Medina. In order to maintain this ‘tradition’, Chinese organisations and Chinese-Indonesian cultural observers have to re-create a version of ancient Chinese history which shows that this calculation of the year of Imlek was practised in ancient China. They use a version of the Chinese calendar, obsolete even in China, according to which the year of Imlek is marked from the year of Confucius’ birth in 551 BC. This is one of the elements adopted by Confucians in Indonesia to legitimise Confucianism as an institutional religion. Another is their canonisation of Confucius as a Prophet, who obtained from Heaven the decree to spread the ‘gospel’ among the Chinese, along with their treatment of the Confucian texts (The Four Books and Five Classics) as a religious Holy Book.
In 2000, President Abdurrahman Wahid declared Imlek an optional national holiday. Two months later the Minster for Home Affairs abolished the 1978 Ministerial Instruction on Confucianism and in doing so restored it as Indonesia’s sixth officially-recognised religion. Since 2000, MATAKIN has organised formal annual Imlek celebrations to which national leaders, such as the President, and prominent Chinese are invited to attend. These annual celebrations hold significant meaning for the Chinese, as they are seen as a renewal of government commitment to Chinese religion and culture in Indonesia. To remind ethnic Chinese of the ‘origin’ on Imlek, organisations like MATAKIN publish articles in newspapers and magazines a few days before Imlek. Ironically, none of MAKATIN’s articles are published in Chinese, and none of the Chinese publications in Indonesia mention such ‘tradition’. The Chinese-educated ‘totok’, who maintain their Chineseness through Chinese culture and language and transnational ties with China and other Chinese overseas, appear to find such ‘tradition’ irrelevant and/or unnecessary.
Chinese-Indonesians who do not embrace Confucianism challenge the appropriateness of its status as a religion and argue that Imlek is a purely ethnic/cultural festival. In fact, ethnic Chinese Christians, Catholics and even Muslims have celebrated Imlek as an ethnic and cultural festival. They feel excluded when the Confucians claim Imlek as a religious celebration. To them, Imlek only became a Confucianist festival due to strategic need in order to be recognised as an official holiday, like other religious holidays; not because it is historically a religious holiday.  

Quandaries around identity

The politics of Imlek do not stop at the debate about whether it is a religious or cultural festival. As Imlek has become increasingly commercialised, some argue that the cultural symbols for Imlek have become part of popular culture, learned and performed not only by Chinese Indonesians, but also Indonesians of other ethnic backgrounds. Other ethnic Chinese have strategically appropriated these symbols, aggressively commodifying them in order to demonstrate government recognition of Chinese identity and equal status.
However, the increased visibility of Chinese cultural products – and the consumption of them by non-Chinese Indonesians – should not be naïvely read as heralding a new acceptance of the ethnic Chinese. The New Order’s assimilationist rhetoric still has a strong influence in Indonesia. New Order ideologues constructed a singular identity, which meant that the more Chinese a person was, the less Indonesian he/she became, and vice versa. The re-emergence of symbols of Chineseness could be interpreted as a return to an essentialist notion of Chineseness, substantiating the popular myth, ‘once a Chinese, always a Chinese’. Politically, this may mean that Chinese-Indonesians’ loyalty is increasingly questionable as they have now become ‘more Chinese’ and thus ‘less Indonesian’. Meanwhile, pressing issues faced by the Chinese are still left largely unattended.

The New Order’s assimilationist rhetoric still has a strong influence in Indonesia

 As a result, some Chinese-Indonesians are justifiably cautious about the exuberant celebration of Imlek. For instance, in early 2004 a prominent Catholic Chinese, Harry Tjan Silalahi, was quoted expressing his concern that the celebration of Imlek might have gone ‘over the limit’, as it could ‘disturb’ the feelings of Indonesians living in poverty. Underlying this concern is a fear that anti-Chinese sentiment or worse may be triggered as a result of social jealousy. Anti-Chinese sentiment is alive and well in Indonesia, and easily set off by a range of issues. This is exemplified in the case of Imlek in Pontianak.
The Chinese are the third largest ethnic group in Pontianak, after the Dayak and Malays. But the Imlek celebration there in 2008 was low-profile. Two days before Imlek the mayor of Pontianak issued Decision No.12/2008, which prohibited the display of fireworks and public performances of dragon and lion dances during the festival. The decision was made in response to the demands of the United Malay Front Movement (Gerakan Barisan Melayu Bersatu), which had taken a hardline anti-Chinese stance, calling for a ban on Chinese language and characters in public places, and rallied for Malay nationalism. The leader of the Movement, Erwan Irawan, believes that lion and dragon dance performances should not be allowed anywhere in Pontianak because they are not part of the ‘Indonesian culture’. This incident again shows the narrowly defined notion of ‘Indonesianness’ and the continuing vulnerability of Chinese-Indonesians.
Silalahi’s statement regarding the celebration of Imlek as ‘over the limit’ raises questions about the ‘limit’ for the expression of Chineseness. Where is the limit? Who decides where the limit is? Should the government dictate or draw the line to set a limit for cultural expression? Or should the Chinese-Indonesians themselves exercise discretion? These questions are not exclusively for the Chinese-Indonesians to answer, but they epitomise the problems that need to be addressed.     ii
Chang-Yau Hoon (cyhoon@smu.edu.sg) is Assistant Professor of Asian Studies at Singapore Management University. 

OH NO....Stop of our wold from GLOBAL WARMING

The planet is warming, from North Pole to South Pole, and everywhere in between. Globally, the mercury is already up more than 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.8 degree Celsius), and even more in sensitive polar regions. And the effects of rising temperatures aren’t waiting for some far-flung future. They’re happening right now. Signs are appearing all over, and some of them are surprising. The heat is not only melting glaciers and sea ice, it’s also shifting precipitation patterns and setting animals on the move.
Some impacts from increasing temperatures are already happening.

• Ice is melting worldwide, especially at the Earth’s poles. This includes mountain glaciers, ice sheets covering West Antarctica and Greenland, and Arctic sea ice.
• Researcher Bill Fraser has tracked the decline of the Adélie penguins on Antarctica, where their numbers have fallen from 32,000 breeding pairs to 11,000 in 30 years.
• Sea level rise became faster over the last century.
• Some butterflies, foxes, and alpine plants have moved farther north or to higher, cooler areas.
• Precipitation (rain and snowfall) has increased across the globe, on average.
• Spruce bark beetles have boomed in Alaska thanks to 20 years of warm summers. The insects have chewed up 4 million acres of spruce trees.

Other effects could happen later this century, if warming continues.

• Sea levels are expected to rise between 7 and 23 inches (18 and 59 centimeters) by the end of the century, and continued melting at the poles could add between 4 and 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters).
• Hurricanes and other storms are likely to become stronger.
• Species that depend on one another may become out of sync. For example, plants could bloom earlier than their pollinating insects become active.
• Floods and droughts will become more common. Rainfall in Ethiopia, where droughts are already common, could decline by 10 percent over the next 50 years.
• Less fresh water will be available. If the Quelccaya ice cap in Peru continues to melt at its current rate, it will be gone by 2100, leaving thousands of people who rely on it for drinking water and electricity without a source of either.
• Some diseases will spread, such as malaria carried by mosquitoes.
• Ecosystems will change—some species will move farther north or become more successful; others won’t be able to move and could become extinct. Wildlife research scientist Martyn Obbard has found that since the mid-1980s, with less ice on which to live and fish for food, polar bears have gotten considerably skinnier.  Polar bear biologist Ian Stirling has found a similar pattern in Hudson Bay.  He fears that if sea ice disappears, the polar bears will as well.

Source for climate information: IPCC, 2007

View this video 

The Numbers of Tropical Rain Forest in The World Become Smaller

Section 1:
 

Tropical rainforests are a world like none other; and their importance to the global ecosystem and human existence is paramount. Unparalleled in terms of their biological diversity, tropical rainforests are a natural reservoir of genetic diversity which offers a rich source of medicinal plants, high-yield foods, and a myriad of other useful forest products. They are an important habitat for migratory animals and sustain as much as 50 percent of the species on Earth, as well as a number of diverse and unique indigenous cultures. Tropical rainforests play an elemental role in regulating global weather in addition to maintaining regular rainfall, while buffering against floods, droughts, and erosion. They store vast quantities of carbon, while producing a significant amount of the world's oxygen.


Despite their monumental role, tropical forests are restricted to the small land area between the latitudes 22.5° North and 22.5° South of the equator, or in other words between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer. Since the majority of Earth's land is located north of the tropics, rainforests are naturally limited to a relatively small area.


Tropical rainforests, like so many other natural places, are a scarce resource in the 21st century. The vast swaths of forest, swamp, desert, and savanna that carpeted Earth's land surface a mere five generations ago have been reduced to scattered fragments; today, more than two-thirds of the world's tropical rainforests exist as fragmented remnants. Just a few thousand years ago, tropical rainforests covered as much as 12 percent of the Earth's land surface, or about 6 million square miles (15.5 million square km), but today less than 5 percent of Earth's land is covered with these forests (about 2.41 million square miles or 625 million hectares). The largest unbroken stretch of rainforest is found in the Amazon river basin of South America. Over half of this forest lies in Brazil, which holds about one-third of the world's remaining tropical rainforests. Another 20 percent of the world's remaining rainforest exists in Indonesia and Congo Basin, while the balance of the world's rainforests are scattered around the globe in tropical regions.


The global distribution of tropical rainforests can be broken up into four biogeographical realms based roughly on four forested continental regions: the Ethiopian or Afrotropical, the Australiasian or Australian, the Oriental or Indomalayan/Asian, and the Neotropical.


Rainforest cover by biogeographical realm

Realm	Percent share of world rainforest cover	Million square miles	Million hectares
Ethiopian/Afrotropical	30.0%	0.72	187.5
Australasian	9.0%	0.22	56.3
Oriental or Indomalayan	16.0%	0.39	100.0
Neotropical	45.0%	1.08	281.2
Total		2.41	625.0

Review questions:

• Where are rainforests located?
• How much land area rainforests do cover?
• What percentage of Earth is covered by rainforests?
• How many rainforest biogeographical realms are there?
• What biogeographical realm has the most rainforest?
• True or false - less than 5% of Earth's land is covered with rainforests.

AGNES MONICA

Agnes Monica Muljoto (lahir di Jakarta, 1 Juli 1986; umur 24 tahun) adalah seorang penyanyi dan artis berkebangsaan Indonesia. Ia memulai kariernya di industri hiburan pada usia enam tahun sebagai seorang penyanyi cilik. Agnes telah merilis tiga album anak-anak, yaitu Si Meong, Yess!, dan Bala-Bala, yang berhasil mengantarkan namanya ke deretan penyanyi cilik terpopuler di era 1990-an. Selain bernyanyi, Agnes kemudian juga menjadi presenter di beberapa acara televisi anak-anak. Saat menginjak usia remaja, Agnes mulai terjun ke dunia seni peran. Perannya di sinetron Pernikahan Dini (2001) berhasil melambungkan namanya. Agnes kemudian terjun membintangi banyak judul sinetron yang menjadikannya artis remaja dengan bayaran termahal saat itu.
Pada tahun 2003, Agnes merilis album dewasa pertamanya yang berjudul ..And The Story Goes....., yang kembali melejitkan namanya di industri musik Indonesia. Kesuksesannya di tanah air mendorong Agnes memasang target untuk bisa berkarier di kancah internasional. Pada album keduanya yang dirilis di tahun 2005, Whaddup A'..?!, ia menggandeng penyanyi asal Amerika Serikat Keith Martin untuk berkolaborasi. Agnes juga terlibat dalam syuting dua serial drama Asia, The Hospital dan Romance In the White House di Taiwan.
Agnes berhasil meriah penghargaan dua tahun berturut-turut atas penampilannya di ajang Asia Song Festival di Seoul, Korea Selatan, di tahun 2008 dan 2009. Pada album ketiganya, Sacredly Agnezious (2009), Agnes mulai terlibat sebagai produser dan penulis lagu. Pada tahun 2010, ia diangkat sebagai salah satu juri pada ajang pencarian bakat Indonesian Idol. Agnes menjadi salah satu pemandu acara pada karpet merah pegelaran American Music Awards 2010 di Los Angeles, Amerika Serikat.
Seiring dengan melesatnya Agnes ke puncak popularitas, penampilan dan gaya berbusananya menjadi tren di kalangan anak muda. Selain sukses secara komersial, Agnes juga telah dianugerahi banyak penghargaan, termasuk di antaranya sembilan Anugerah Musik Indonesia, tujuh Panasonic Awards, dan empat MTV Indonesia Awards. Ia juga telah dipercaya menjadi duta anti narkoba se-Asia serta duta MTV EXIT dalam memberantas perdagangan manusia.