(S)he Is Beautiful

This Monday, the day of creative writing class, was the second time of Mbak Abmi to substitute Mas Dalih, my lecturer who was absent because of having an important thing to do in Bali. Watching “Bag It” movie and reviewing it were what we had to do on the previous meeting with her. This Sunday, she brought appearing-like-a-lady guest with long hair, pointed nose, and proportional body. Her strange appearence, made our doubts came up while she was sitting at the corner. Then, we were asked to interview her by five topics from Mbak Abmi in team. In addition, our doubt revealed when Mbak Abmi called her ‘HE’. Yup, it may be queer but it’s real that she is waria, a man appearing as a woman. That made me change my mind to call him as ‘SHE’ no more but as ‘HE’.

Olivia Sonya Aresta, kindly called as Sonya, was originally from Klaten and now he has been living in Jogja since he was in vocational school (D3). Being a waria does not relieve his will to still exist in Perkumpulan Keluarga Berencana Indonesia (PKBI), run his business as an online seller, make-up bride, and beauty consultant.

He has been doing his best to find his identity since the rejection from his mother as a teacher, who is regarded by people around as a good figure. That’s what she has to do to get a confession and acceptance from his family. 

Living here in Jogja for continuing his study in vocational school, brought a funny memory for him to remember about the first causes leading him to be like what he is now. His parents allowed him to play with girls rather than boys because they might hurt him. It made him like to make-up, play doll, and dress like a girl. Even as he was in junior high school, he was feeling afraid no more to go outside for hanging out in the night and it countinued until senior high school. One day when he went to a mall and wore skirt, he met his friends there and automatically they got surprised by looking him dressing like a woman.  Because of feeling shocked by their notice, he threw his shoes and ran away. This made him getting mocked and had to hide from his friend. Went out from Klaten and lived in Jogja were his choice to avoid their mockings, but it still did not make him live in peace, because people knew his rejection and throwing done by his family. However, he refused their assumption because he really wanted to restrain the inconvenience from his family of his decision to be a waria.   

Jogja is a pleasant place for her with Its fascinating atmosphere which madeit different from other place he had ever visited, like Solo, Bandung, Jakarta and even Bali. In addition, he found both lessons and his confidence here when he became a volunteer for earthquake in Bantul. Here, he also finds his true friends who care with him, looked after him when he was hospitalized and always by her side. He feels that his friends have made him meaningful, so he wants to made her life more meaningful by being a volunteer in PKBI not only for one or two months but forever. He wants to help people, especially waria to fight against HIV AIDS and to defend their identity to be admitted as an equal resident who have similar rights as others. I think It is very best for me for considering her as a beautiful one, from her inner that has inspired me a lot. Thank You..      

     

Continue

Port Stephen, Sydney

This incredible picture – amazing yachts with shiny sky back there – was made by Kim Yee Seul, an English Department student of 2010. This picture was taken in Port Stephen, Sydney when she was having her holiday there. She loves painting with acrylic but she only paints what she likes. She likes yacht, car, and people in sporty style, that's what I see from her paintings on Kim Yee Seul's blog. Her painting of yacht is the one that I like most, because I can see her really dream to go to new place. Port is a place where will bring you to a new place that you want with the ships there similar to what airport does with the airplanes there. She added beautiful and cheerful sky on the back of the yachts which represents her truly desire to visit new isle.

Continue

“Plastic Bags in Bushes, in River, in Canal, and Everywhere!”

That’s what the three old men said to Jeb Berrier, the host of ‘Bag It’ documentary, when they were talking about the spread of plastic.

In this movie, Jeb told about the bad effects of using plastics for environments, people’s health, especially for pregnancy because it can cause premature birth and it can decrease anogenital distance for newborn babies. Plastic also causes many healthy problems, such as authism for children, diabetes, obesity, asthma, allergies and people will not guess that plastic could give negative effects for woman and man’s vital organ and the increasing of their functions, such as low sperm counts, decreased sperm motility, premature breast development, and even smaller penis size. He opened people’s eyes and minds, including me, not to use more plastics because everything has been made by plastic, household products and even electronics. 1 million plastic cups used on U.S. airlines flights every 6 hours and 2 million plastic bottles consumed in U.S. every 5 minutes. So would we make it again more? Me, and almost everybody I guess, have already known since along time ago about dangerous effects of using plastic for our lives especially for the environment, but people still do not stop using it, and plastic still can be found in almost all department stores for packing the purchase. It’s much cheaper, simpler, practice and easy to use. That’s the reason why many supermarkets still use it.

In ‘Bag It’ movie, when Jeb was going to buy vegetables and other household needs, he brought his purchase without any plastic. He did not want the cashier to give him plastics. He literally brought the purchases by his two hands.      

By watching this movie, I suddenly realized that plastics are everywhere, even when we are walking, we may see flying plastic, when we are visiting beach, we could see also many floating plastics there. In North Pacific Subtropical Gyre has been found a Great Pacific Garbage Patch  sized as Texas land. Algalita Marine Research Foundation found much more plastic than plankton to eat with 40:1 for the comparation there.

By many negative effects given from plastic, Jeb gave us advices in the end of the movie :

1         1. Less packaging

2         2. Bring your own market bag

3         3. Only buy what you need

4         4. Don’t drink bottled water

5         5. Reduce single-use

6         6. Reduce, reuse, then recycle

By following what written above, you have cleaned-up your life and this earth.

  

Continue