Britzone Wednesday Discussion

Yesterday I went to Britzone Wednesday discussion. I just got little bored at work so I decided to go there to relieve it ;)

Surprisingly, we had a native speaker. His name is Mathew, an Australian. He resembles Tobey Maguire, do you know Petter Parker? the main character in Spiderman 4 Movie??. yeahh…, Tobey Maguire is the actor who played as Peter Parker, Quite handsome rite?? ;). He’s been in Jakarta for 3 months. The way he spoke is actually really like Australian dialect, you know how actually Australian speak?. It’s worse than Americans do. They have so many slang words that are not British’s or American’s. But yesterday, because he spoke with us, who are not English native, even still in learning stage, he spoke slowly and clearly, therefore we could understand any single words he uttered.

After introducing himself, he let us to raise questions. Actually I had pile of questions in my mind, but I only got a chance to question him, as my friends also responded him enthusiastically. At that chance I asked him, about Indonesian work culture according to his point of view, because he works with many Indonesian. He answered in ‘chit chat’ way, like Indonesians do ;) that Indonesian is nice, but something that make me take a notice, is he told us when someday he went to an Indonesian government institution, he was surprised when he found there’s a TV set on the office. He told us that it’s not common in Australia to work while watching TV. He also told us that the work ethic is a principle in Christian teaching, the religion adhered by the most Australian. This statement quite shamed me. You know that Islam is more strictly teach us about the work ethic but we can see, just few of us (Indonesian Muslims) practice it, rite??

Some of my friends questioned him, some political matters made by Australian government, such as the support to the separatist group in Papua, also some Australian government policies toward Indonesian employees in Australia. But he seemed so awkward to answer such matters, because he is not Australian government employee. but he gave us a brief explanation that Australia is a Free nation, where everyone may express their idea freely, liberalism really finds its peak, and sometimes in the name of Human Right they legalize their actions against other’s sovereignty. There’s a funny thing when one of my friends asked him about Australian National Anthem and he couldn’t answer, he even didn’t know his national anthem (??) What a ‘nationalist’. ;)

We ‘interrogate’ him for around an hour; I like the way he spoke like any natives do. And I just got inspiration to work for foreign company, with foreign boss or foreign co-workers from whom I can learn their language and their positive culture. May be some other time ;)

World Financial Crisis

Nowadays, US is struck by severe Financial Crisis which is caused by the paralysis in credit market translated into intense turmoil in the stock markets. But some sources said that the crisis is actually caused by a huge demand of fund to cost the war declared by US leader, Such as war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Lebanon.

US President George W Bush invited all countries specially the most influential countries in ruling World dynamics of economy, to do everything possible to halt the biggest market disruption since the great depression.“In an interconnected world, no nation will gain by driving down the fortunes of another," Bush said. "We are in this together. We will come through it together."

Above words seem to be funny when it’s yelled by Bush, if we remember his ‘independent opinion’ to invaded Iraq or other countries that wasn’t in line with his Ideology. Had he listened to the world and not gone alone to Iraq, Afghanistan or Lebanon?

Unfortunately the crisis is spreading out all around the world, including Indonesia. Rupiah has weakened since the last Friday where our president ordered to suspend Indonesia Stock Market and it lasted three days. Today $US 1 is still equal to more than IDR 10.000.

However, our government calmed down us by saying that we shouldn’t be panic because the crisis is still under control and it is definitely different to 1997 severe monetary crisis.We hope that the Crisis will not strike our country any longer. If it happens to Bush’s ‘house’, it may teach Bush to taken down a peg. ;)

Britzone 2

The sun was shining and it was a lovely day when I attended the second meeting of My English Speaking Club. I came to the class when Farhan and Pras were explaining a game before the members. Quite at loss in a second, to get involve in the class activity coz of my lateness, but in another second I had followed the Instructors’ advice to do a simple game given that asked us to choose 5 pictures and discussed them with our partner. Yanti was my partner that day, and it was a kind of ice breaking session which just took a minute.

In the second session we jumped to a psychological test to know our willingness to study English. It was quite interesting however, from my score of the test an interpretation said that I actually love English but haven’t really struggle for it yet, so I need to make a strategy and an intensive study if I want to be a good learner. Hmm…a good advice for such a ‘jumping-bug’ learner like me (hehe)

Then we went to the third session. We were divided into 3 groups comprising of 6-8 persons. We got 5 pieces of pictures that must be arranged into a story. It was a little bit wasting time when dealing with the theme of the story, because each of us in the group had different Ideas about the story going to be created. We also found difficulties coz there was no similar face in the pictures given. Finally we decided that the most important were the theme and the plot, nothing to do with the different faces for each character. Then, our group made a story about Juvenile delinquency - Drug Abuse - and luckily, we could make the story flowing succinct and didn’t raise any criticism.

Then it was a rather alluring session when we heard stories from other groups. Ali’s Group picked “Tukul Presidential Campaign” as their Theme. Even though we could create a story in ‘a dreaming country’, anyway the story stimulated me to criticize the theme. I said that promoting Tukul to be a president didn’t make sense at all related to his background, and experience. They came no surprise on my criticism and finally I could grasp the Idea that it’s a cynical story made to satirizing the political condition today when many actors or actresses turn to be Politicians.

Then the third groups told the story about Brad Pitt’s Advertisement Company which cooperates with the tobacco manufacturing to make odd but beautiful ads for their products. They came to an end by making a curly haired woman with improper-smoked cigarette between her lips to be their fabulous Ads, and this theme also attracted, many criticisms related to the prevailing law regarding Cigarette Ads, locally and internationally. Then we ‘wandered’ in law sphere discussion for a while.

we arrived to the closing part, and quite surprised by an impressive agenda for next Saturday, that we will have an English native speaker – Mr. Brian – as our keynote speaker, for an ‘under confirmation’ theme.

Strategy or Strategies??

[BritZone Discussion]

Wikipedia says:

Strategy is differentiated from tactics or immediate actions with resources at hand by its nature of being extensively premeditated, and often practically rehearsed. Strategies are used to make the problem easier to understand and solve.

I also found the sentences like this in web: Institue for global Inviromental strategies,(www.strategies.org), research startegies for..., problem solving strategies, etc.

So I think Strategy is a set of plains to tackle with a problem or to reach something. It can be singular or plural.

strategy can be classified by 'its way', for example to be the winner in a Football competition needs various strategies. Such as:

1st strategy: Regular Exercise of each player (Physical Exercise like jogging, running, push up, etc)

2nd strategy: draw a tactic in placement or replacement of players (right man for right place), etc

but it's just an opinion, I am not sure it's the right-one :)

911 Conspiracy

[BritZone Discussion]

a variety of conspiracy theories raised after the tragedy of 9/11. The theories question the accuracy of the official report of the event. The theories also assert that the report made officially by Bush Regime is not sufficiently forthright, or truthful. Up today many scientists opposed what Bush Said about the tragedy according to their understanding and their scientific fact or data. (you can ask uncle google about this issue)

eramuslim digest magazine 2nd Edition have once discussed it in the article entitled “the dark side of 911” they included scientific fact and data too.

but I remember a book I found in my Office Library. The book is translation edition of Naom Chomsky’s entitled “Mengungkap Terorisme International”. I just read several pages (as I have to finish the previous book I borrowed). Naom Chomsky stated in his theory the correlation between Language and mind. I can’t explain in detail but from my short reading I grab the idea that the language can influence one’s pattern of thought. for example when you hear someone says “he is a bad guy”. if you just hear it once or twice you will be so curious and keep asking, “is he a bad guy?” or “what make him be a bad guy?”, and so on. but if the sentence is uttered repeatedly, every day, every time, automatically it will form a belief in your mind that he is a bad guy .

I think that’s what happen today, the term of terrorist was built after the tragedy of 9/11, and up today many events alike happen around the world (like bombings, hijackings, etc) is always correlated with terrorist, and often it’s attached with the word ‘Islam’, before or after the word of terrorist.

Many sources stated that the first term of terrorist which is given to Osama bin Laden is only a political trick, to smoothen the way to take over the Middle East.

I am Back

Dear Fellow,


You know, today I just remember that I’m the owner of this blog? ;). I usually open my Beloved blog (www.zriesphere.blogspot.com) every morning, from there I see who visited me, sometimes I take blog visit back to the visitors. This morning I find this blog from my friend of mine’s blog who posts my multiply (where this blog is listed) on her blog roll.

Since that, I just though to empower this blog to be my English site, where I can learn to write or store ideas in English. I think, it’s a brilliant brainstorming today, but I am not sure if I will hold my commitment to write in English, and post it in this blog. coz I am not only a jumping-bug reader, but also a jumping – bug writer ;). what a habit..huh??

let’s see ;)