Spending some years in an Islamic elementary school has taught me about the black, white, and even grey of a lie. “A lie is still a lie”, said my teacher in fourth grade, “hence, it’s a sin”. As the girls grew up and learned about the harrasment in public area, another teacher in school warned us, “you have to know how to save yourselves from strangers”.
A lie is still a lie. A mother told her girl that the syringe’s needle won’t hurt. A father told his son that the circumcistion process will only left a tingling sentation. They dream of their children becoming strong, yet they don’t let their offsprings to learn about pain.
A lie is still a lie. A woman discounts her recent achievement to avoid her man feels less worthy. A man hides his failure to lessen the risk of his woman perceives him vulnerable. The normalization of white lies gives people to become passive-aggressive instead of assertive.
This short piece is an entry for a writing challenge that I co-created with Qonita.
There’s no such color that could perfectly represent joy. To me, joy is such an immaculate feeling that is identic to a fearless and silly childhood. Adults are complex individuals with various sets of resources to do their own decisionmaking processes, yet ironically they fear of missing their shoots even if they would still land among the stars.
So, I’ll choose yellow. In the circumstances that I’ve spent my life with, I notice that yellow is often found in products that are targetted for children. Yellow is the color of a fictional bear who frequently enjoys honey for his daily treat. Yellow is the color of a square-shaped imaginary sea creature who befriends a starfish. And yellow is also the color of an infamous fastfood restaurant chain’s icon.
Sadly, most of the adults that I’ve met hate wearing yellow. “It makes me looked bigger than my actual size”, said a man. “I don’t like being easy to be noticed”, said a woman. Dealing with yellow, to some people, is equal to dealing with discomfort. Perhaps, that explains why more and more adults are starting to stack piles of grey and black in their wardrobes. To more they become invisible, the more they feel secure. Joy is not a number one anymore.
This short piece is an entry for a writing challenge that I co-created with Qonita.
“Have you read about Nessie yet?” a primary school friend once asked me about that infamous monster a day after our favorite magazine released its newest issue. The magazine’s cover was predominated with the hues of blue, showing the silhouette of a dinosaur-like creature.
“Yes, of course. So, is Nessie real?”
And the conversation of two school children continued. When we were that young, our awe for magical creatures sparked. Our curiosity drove us to question many things beyond the modules that were offered at school. Yet, as adults do we still believe in magic, or do we simply build a high wall that splits the reality and tales about unicorns and pixie dust?
Experts argue that the human’s belief about the monster from Loch Ness is hard to change despite of the scientific explanation about it. After genomist Neil Gemmell announced that there will be a team that conduct a scientific demonstration to test the DNA of organisms from the same lake as part of making scientific confirmation about the monster, he did realize that the team’s effort tend to not ensure of everybody’s idea about the (imaginary) existence of Nessie. This has something to do with the tendency of dealing withdiscomfort.
In other words, it doesn’t feel good to do something you don’t value or that contradicts your deeply held convictions. To deal with this kind of discomfort, people sometimes attempt to rationalize their beliefs and behavior.
As the years passed by, to some extent, I also perceive that the human’s relation to magical creatures, like Nessie, is an embodiment of the human’s desire to preserve nature, in which nature itself is positioned as an invaluable source. I forgot the detail about the a class in graduate school that discussed about this topic back then, but I vividly remember that some ethnic groups build a sacred linkage between the people and nature.
While scientific arguments are important to be introduced publicly, let’s keep wandering in our mind that there might be a hidden treasure deep inside or surrounding the lake, even though the treasure itself is only the beauty of the landscape.
This short piece is an entry for a writing challenge that I co-created with Qonita.
I had this much-deserved deep conversation with an old friend, whom I have known since we were teenagers, on my last few days in Bandung. At that time, I was juggling with the preparation of my thesis defense, while he had to attend a formal meeting that lasted for three days. During that night we talked a lot. Literally a lot, from our teenage days, college, until the early days as a college graduates that shaped the current us. I couldn’t not imagine the exact reason how we could maintain a conversation for nearly five hours straight.
But loving someone makes me feel good despite that I don’t know the exact reason.
I grinned my forehead after knowing that such words were most likely impossible to be heard from him. The years that we have spent together, far and close, were suddenly blur. He was no longer the most stubborn person that I’ve ever known. Growth is inevitable.
What would happen if we expected more than fine? What would happen if being satisfied didn’t mean your child was fine, but meant your child was great, and happy?
– Diane Tavenner
In Prepared, Diane Tavenner walked down her memory lane of being a teacher, a wife, a mother, and a leader that has brought her into her current role as the CEO of Summit Schools, an award-winning group of public charter high schools in the US. Prepared is more than just an autobiography. Instead, it is a well-document of lessons learned and notes to future educators and individuals who believe in the importance of a holistic education that is driven based on the children’s needs instead of the adults’ wants. To me, reading this book was a pleasing experience in which I had the chance to get to know about people who care for the improvement of the education system of the world’s biggest nation that is far from flawless.
the content, in a nutshell
In the first two chapters, learning was intended to be a romanticized experienced. Learning is expressed as an acvity that is supposed to bring joy, nurtures creativity, and builds resiliency in a softway. While walking down her memory lane, Diane invited the readers to gradually understand why she and her colleagues built Summit into that direction. From her early years as a teacher, she has learned that the school is supposed to be not a place where the sudents’ mind are shaped uniformly without knowing what they want to do in the future.
Interestingly, as I moved to the next chapters, the idea of learning itself shifted into a process of building blocks that will help the young talents to adapt with their future as working individuals. Since the early days of Summit, Diane has promised the parents of prospective students that Summit could bring their children successfully conquer the college application. In Diane’s mind, being ready for college is perceived as an important stage to transform a child’s life before entering the job market. In parallel, Diane also admitted that not every child could opt for college, either because of personal preference or lack of financial support. To be fair, Summit’s approach is not wrong at all, because at the end of the day, life could likely revolve around jobs.
Again, this is the book that reminds that raising a child is not only the work of one or two parents, but a community. Diane exhibited the urgency of parent-teacher collaboration. Or in other words, Diane was actually trying to point out that no matter how perfect the learning system at Summit is, it won’t be effective without a synchronous parenting at home and the world outside the school. In several paragraphs she conveyed her reflection about her position as an educator, a mother, and a wife. All these statuses are resembled on how she and her husband raised their only child, Rett. Rett has been given the space to learn independently by two adults and extended families who share mutual values.
what to expect from this book
As what I’ve stated above, this book is written in an autobiography format. Thus, it means that the story focuses on the trajectory of the main character’s life. For people who’re looking for serious yet comprehensive parenting books where instructions or tips are widely spread in a book, this book might not suit their preference. The practical contents were only inserted in the last few pages of this book. Other than that, Diane’s journey of building Summit emphasizes on education for teens, which is a very specific age group. Overall, I can say that Prepared is a good option if you’re looking up for a book that focuses on themes about education and parenting that are told through an individual’s point of view. Contrary, if you’re searching for an instant reference that can guide your parenting journey, well, this book doesn’t have to be on your shelf.
If you’re majoring in a social science-related program, I bet that you must have been familiar with conducting interviews. Back then, I perceived the interview as an easy-peasy method. It was supposed to be purely practical. Luckily, graduate school has changed that idea. Interview can be hard, especially if the interviewer is not familiar with the topic nor situation. In this post, I’ll share two essential lessons about preparing for an interview that I’ve learned so far.
understand the topic
This might be a redundant tip that you’ve read for a million times, but trust me, understanding the topic through reading still works fine until today. My favorite ways to prepare my brain from not getting freezed is to read published works that are relevant with my projects. The sources doesn’t have to be always books nor scientific articles (which we commonly refers as journal). Sometimes the practical way is to start with news from online newspapers or news portals and continue it with longform writings, such as essays, academic blogs, etc.
I usually take my time for an immersive reading experience with no rush. Besides enjoying reading as a hobby, I also consider this activity as a great opportunity to refresh my knowledge. When I was still working for the government, I prepared myself by taking notes of my learning materials on a small notebook or note-taking application that I can carry anywhere. Compared to what I did in grad school, this method is more applicable for those who have minimum time for preparation.
practice
In a graduate school, we had this kind of rehearsal session which I accidentaly named as “the hotseat”. The concept is one person has to interview one or two class mates with minimum prompts under the supervision of a lecture. My lecture often stopped my class mates and me whenever the flow of the interview wasn’t smooth. Based on my experience, an interview is considered smooth if the interviewee feels comfortable and responses clearly with minimum hesitation. As an interviewer, you can also sense the natural feeling of having an effortless yet fruitful conversation.
Wheter you work in a small group or individually, you can practice with your peers. I can’t recommend any ideal frequency of practice, since my practice was sometimes far from ideal unless we were under pressure. However, if you want to make it as a part of your daily life, you can start it with having a better conversation, either with your housemates, friends, or partner. Ask them to discuss particular topics, such as a recently-watched movie, news, or books. For a practical reference, I’d like to suggest you to watch or listen to podcasts that are hosted by people who love talking and listening with empathy, such as Ascend and How Did I Get Here.
This piece is a part of Research with Potato, a collective memory of my learning journey of pursuing a career in research. For further information about how this was initiated and short disclaimer, please read this post.
I find so much joy in annotating (if only I don’t have it under pressure) while reading books. Annotating encourages me to train most of my brain cells to travel any storage where I’ve saved my knowledge and random memories. Even though I was not really new to annotating, I didn’t do it seriously until I entered graduate school in January 2018. During my undergraduate days, I often highlighted my reading materials and wrote some small notes on it, with minimum effort to recall my existing knowledge. These days, I can proudly say that my annotating skill has improved significantly.
the mental preparation
Ideally, I would ask myself the purpose of reading. During graduate school, my lecturers often make a list of suggested reading materials as a complementary to the mandatory reading list. To avoid the overwhelmed feeling, I match the reading list with the syllabus. Having a structured goal has helped me to shape my reading goals. Nowadays, my purposes of reading are more likely for work (as a researcher who has to write papers), knowledge update, science communication, and self-entertainment. Actually, at the beginning of 2020 I made my own “reading goal”, but as time goes by, it seems that my achievement is growing a little bit out of the target.
For a general purpose, instead of focusing on a single bigger goal, I find myself more comfortable with having a flexible yet smaller target. This include limitting my reading goal(s) from a particular book. For instance, I decided to read From Eternity to Here to revisit my memory about physics as a subject that I used to dislike, as well as to understand the alternative storytellings of physics that might be far from most people’s lives. On the other days, I could read books about narratives of environmental policy to build a new stack of independent learning ideas.
the execution
While some of friends consider my annotating style as torturing act, I’d say the opposite. It’s a pleasing experience. Annotating doesn’t only let me interact with the text, but also to sync it with the puzzles of my existing knowledge. In other words, it feels like building database that connects one folder with others in a relatively slow pace.
When annotating, I put the plastic tabs and write some notes on the pages that I consider important. To know whether a page is important or not to be digged deeper, well, it depends on the situation. Lately, I’ve just realized that during casual reading (the ones that I do for leisure or voluntary activities), I mostly judge the level of attractiveness of a chapter or topic based the level of my epistemic emotion. Shortly, it’s either very interesting because I didn’t have any prior knowledge that are relevant with the discussion or because the content goes the opposite way of my personal stance. Hence, it explains why I can have an intense inner debate while reading.
After done with putting the plastic tabs and writing on the sticky notes, I often make a summary on my Notion’s page or analog notebook. The purpose of this process is to document my learning journey and train my mind by re-interpreting the author’s work. While the documenting part let met to feel secure because I’ve done something useful for myself, the summarizing activity is tend to be the brainy part.
write it out loud
Pramoedya Ananta Toer once said that writing was working for eternity. When I was so much younger, I found that quote so romantic! Then it turned out that working for eternity requires extra effort and consistency. To me, writing is not merely an exercise to maintain the skill that I need for profesional purposes, but also as an effort to measure my reading progress. I believe that reading is an essential element of personal growth, therefore I think the easiest way to track it is by producing book reviews that don’t have to be perfect. So far, I haven’t set up a strict rule for it. However, at a glance, I can say tell you that my book reviews don’t only discuss the ideas of the books but also how those readings remind me of other stuffs that I’ve experienced or learned before.
Since the beginning of this year, I’ve been trying to write as many book reviews as possible. Despite that not all drafts ended up with being published here (on my Medium page like this one) I still enjoy the process of doing it. For several times I wondered what if back then in high school or early years of university days I would wrote more the pondering thoughts about the books that I’ve read. I could imagine myself being in between happy and confused skimming through my reading journey.
One of the frequently asked questions that people addressed to me is about my decision to not work during graduate school. I often assume this question as an accumulation of what people thought about my circumstance as a student who pursued her second cycle of university-level education in Indonesia. Even though I rarely get annoyed yet don’t owe any comprehensive explanation, I think that I might interesting to simply elaborate on the background and consequence of my decision. Who knows that there might be people who want to consider taking this path?
As much as I’m grateful for having this opportunity, I will always acknowledge the privilege that I have. In this case, my graduate study was fully sponsored by my parents. Besides having the financial resource to secure a place in the university, both of my parents are putting their concern for my choice of career and general path of life. Other than that, my father and mother pursued post-graduate studies upon obtaining their bachelor’s degrees. I hope that those rationales make sense of why I never look really bothered with what I study.
the schedule
I attended the oldest engineering school in Bandung, Indonesia to study development. This program is administered under the same unit where architecture, urban planning, and public policy are taught. While there were plenty of choices for an urban and regional planning graduate, I opted for this program because it offered a broad range of courses that suit my personal values of being a generalist. After knowing that the development studies program was the one and only program offered in Indonesia, I started to put in my mind that a lot of risks as a future job seeker would come with it.
Even though my schedule varies from one semester to another, overall I can say that the curriculum was set to be attended on a full-time basis. By full-time, I meant that classes were held from morning to late afternoon, with extra sessions for fieldwork, studio, and attending elective tutorials in a small group. In a semester, the number of credits that I could take ranged from 12-16, but I ended up going a little bit extra. Because I wanted to finish the program in three semesters (which is one semester faster than the normal duration), I planned the following scenario: 12 credits for the first semester, 16 credits for the second semester, and 10 credits for the third semester. During the summer break, I joined a summer camp that my campus organized to gain 2 credits for a course that was registered under the program of the master’s degree in architecture. So, in total, I graduated with 38 out of 36 credits.
I had a low expectation about the first semester. For the first two weeks, I was just busy with my system dynamics weekly assignment. The other courses were less demanding at first, which led to me think about starting an internship in Bandung. Crap, I was totally wrong. Starting from the third week, a lot of assignments that required extra effort outside the scheduled classes began to bomb. There were two courses that required fieldwork in a group of three. My peers and I made the decision to study place attachment for our qualitative research and footwear business for our Inclusive Innovation course. To gather the data by using in-depth interviews, we had to commute to East Bandung and Cimahi. Most of our fieldwork was scheduled on weekdays with some weekends for non-participatory sessions of observation. On a hectic day, I could leave the boarding house at 6 am to finish my assignment, attended a morning and afternoon class, took a small break, went to a cafe or library for a study session, and arrived back at 11 pm.
The second semester was crazier because I had a studio type of course and starting to join two voluntary activities. Basically, a studio is a course where students were given the opportunity to work on real a study case. My cohort was assigned to make a policy analysis for poverty eradication in the Bandung regency. Our regular in-person teaching was held on Tuesdays and Fridays with two independent teamwork sessions on Mondays and Thursdays. The teamwork sessions were demanding enough not only because of the quantity (and quality) of the task but also the challenge of discussing and organizing people with distinctive ideas. A normal studio day started at 10 am and ended at 6 pm, while on less normal days we could go home only after 7 pm. By the end of the second semester, I looked like a deadpan who has successfully survived sixteen credits.
Moving on to the third semester, well, it was the most tiring semester. I started the third semester with plenty of energy that I have saved before during my very short break. In my last semester, I only had to attend two courses on Mondays for Sustainable Development and Fridays for Analysis and Evaluation of Public Policy. The schedule was such an irony though. In between the classes, I dedicated my sacred time to work on my thesis and wrote and counted a lot for those two courses. I interacted only with a limited number of people this semester because my peers’ schedules were already completely different. On the bright side, we still have dinner together after working so hard to finish our problem sets. Speaking about my daily routine, I normally spent only 1.5-2 hours in classes and the rest of my time was either writing (and figuring out my sanity) at the campus’ library, coffee shop, or study room of my boarding house. For six months my sleeping time was relatively short, ranging from 4-6 hours per day. To sum up the third semester and road to my graduation, I loved the individual assignments that leveraged my intellectual growth (such a buzzword, ew), but please, I didn’t want to repeat it because it made my face looked like a zombie.
Now you might ask whether this person forgot to have fun or not. The answer is obviously no. I still manage my time swimming, running, going to the cinema, and meeting up with friends over coffee. Sometimes I also went for a small trip with one or two friends who share the same passion for photography. Amongst the recreations that I had, one of my favorites moments was traveling to an elephant sanctuary in Way Kambas with two of my closest friends from undergraduate days.
finding opportunities
I couldn’t lie that deep inside I worry a lot about my future, too. With minimum experience, what could I offer to my future employers? To put it into context, the time I entered graduate school was just three months after I finished my bachelor’s degree in September 2017. Because going to graduate school was already in my plan since 2016, I made a kind of mitigation scenario to save my future as an urban planning graduate. My undergraduate major is perceived unpopular by society, hence I thought that it was totally legal to question my existence. In my mitigation plan, I always try to put my writing skill and social media activities on top since I enjoy doing them with or without much effort.
During my short gap time, I worked as a surveyor for an England-based startup and research intern for a Jakarta-based research institute. Both were paid fairly according to my standard. Through these opportunities, I have acquired meaningful experience in working ethics, introduction to the research field, building networks, and dealing with administrative matters. In particular, I have learned intensively about qualitative methods as well, which some parts of it weren’t a part of my undergraduate career. The adult version of me would definitely say that maturity in research is a result of practice instead of talent. Never would I thought that my gap time could become an important part of my job interviews in the near future.
On Twitter, I once mentioned my fond feeling of being a part of two activities on a voluntary basis. My intention of starting this kind of activity was driven to find a new comfort zone outside my bubble. Despite the different values of these organizations, the first-hand experiences that I gain from them contribute significantly to the people who I am today. I haven’t written any piece about my story of working on children’s issues in East Bandung. Meanwhile, I document my thoughts about becoming a part of Kolektif Agora in my newest post. I’m glad that my office appreciates this kind of activity that luckily tesselates with my hobby as well.
not a conclusion
With my small abundance of experience (which includes failures), so far I can say that I can feel enough. My education journey is still far from perfect yet full of invisible hands. Pro and con will always revolve inside my head as time goes by. Going to graduate school at a such young age might be cool, but it’s actually not that legit. My mitigation scenario works well with my first job as a regional development career who then shifted to the research field as what I’ve dreamed of. On the other hand, recently, I’ve been thinking that my path would be very different if I extended my gap time for full-time employment, either working for the government, consultation bureau, or non-governmental organizations. Perhaps, in a parallel universe, I was a person with a well-rounded understanding of the practical dimension. But, let’s keep it for another story.
Motivated by my own curiosity to understand a small part of my religion, I decided to read a book that tells the darkest period of war and God’s calling. After several small discussions with a friend, I ended up picking up “The Crusades through The Arab Eyes” which is written by a Lebanese-born French scholar named Amin Maalouf. So far, I can say that I enjoyed the book, despite that I needed to put extra attention during my reading time. This book was not originally written in English, instead, it was translated from French.
know your intention
I lost count of how many times the word “jihad” was mentioned in this book. In my circumstance, jihad is generally understood as a willingness to go the extra mile (e.g. participating in a war, studying, caretaking of orphans) in the name of God. Malouf presented the different embodiments of jihad in the context of war. At the beginning, jihad was used as a buzzword to gather masses. Slowly but sure, jihad has evolved into a value that was enforced to be internalized by the Arabs before and during participating in the war.
For many times, I’ve manifested internal ironic laughs every time I remembered the early celebrations. Personally, there’s nothing wrong with celebrating (small) wins, but in a war where every uncertainty matters, partying too hard could be counted equal to opening a mistery box (I avoid using the term “pandora box” after reading “A Brief History of Misogyny”). I want to curse here, but I don’t want to make more sin.
the culture or the religion
I had a long monologue with my inner-self during reading this book because the narration evoked how a certain cultural group can be actually discussed separately from religion. This book exposed the less censored version of the Arabs that are often portrayed by the Indonesian as a highly respected group due to their proximity to Islam. In my opinion, I think Maalouf was more than just brave to told the raw side of the Arabs. Scenes of partying or drinking to celebrate a victory were not censored.
Interestingly, the change of those haram sides is a depiction of the leader’s virtue. For instance, in part 4 you can find the way Nur ad-Din – the son of Zengi – made some restrictions, such as banning alcohol (since he decided to give up drinking earlier), music, and activities that displeased God. The ruler of the Syrian province also detached himself from a luxurious life, which reminds about zuhud as a way of living a moderate life.
As time goes by, I realize that the way I read become more complex. I do tracking and watch a bunch of videos on Youtube as well. Tracking my reading experience helped me a lot to gain a deeper understanding. I often implement this method to let myself fully immersed in the writings of historical books. To made the experience more enjoyable, I posted a thread on Twitter where I can effortlessly tweet to record my reaction of reading this book. If you’re unfamiliar with the discussion about the Crusades, I’d like to recommend you to watch videos by Extra Credits, Real Crusades History, and BBC Documentary.
As what I’ve promised earlier on Twitter, I’ll be starting to share notes about my research experience that I’ve gathered for years since my undergraduate career. Honestly, I have no genuine reason behind this decision. It all started with a feeling that I need to document my progress in reaching the research maturity as well as simply posting topics that are frequently asked to me regarding my experience. In addition, I also want to let people know that failure is a natural part of research, which actually can be minimized by having a mentor, recognizing the risk, etc. I’m sorry for not being altruistic, tho.
In terms of the articles’ style, I think I need to make an early disclaimer about the language, length of article, and writing style. So far, I have not decided yet whether I’ll be writing fully in English, Indonesian, or just naturally mixing both languages. My mother tongue is Indonesian, but my main language for work is English. I’m also comfortable with code-switching, just like what many of my peers do. As a believer of the importance of reading (especially reading longforms), I will set the length of my articles at 500-750 words with plenty of references that can be accessed by my readers. I expect that they are already familiar with the common keywords and activities in the arena of social science research, hence I hope that this reason makes sense. Shortly, do not use the upcoming articles as your references.
If you have any comment, idea, or critic about Research with Potato, feel free to send me a direct message on Twitter!
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