Cerita Umi Bakrie

Being a big Land Rover’s fan, one of the first things that Nano did upon our arrival in Bogor is to hunt for one. Less than 3 months since we arrived, we got a green 1983’s Land Rover. Yes, it is a monstrous thing but it did come handy if I need to go to some inaccessible place to do my survey. Unfortunately, last year the petrol prices soar to almost double. Since the LR loves to drink a lot of petrol, we bought (actually I insist) another car for everyday use. This time a Daihatsu TAFT Hiline, which is more efficient but Nano grumble that “ … it is not too powerful as the LR”. We still have the LR but use it rarely. Nowadays, half of Nano’s energy goes to farming. We rent a land near our place. Previously he had hundreds of home range chicken, but after the chicken got stolen little by little (it started with 5 chickens, and several weeks later 20 missing) he decided to sold almost all to the market during last Idul Fitri. He still got several chicken though, plus 4 fishponds. So I ...

It's breeding time! Of course, I did not refer to the famous ulama in Bandung, Aa Gym who choose polygamy (much to the dismay of lots of Indonesian moslem communities), which as my friend dr. Mangatas pointed out is a wrong term. It should be bigamy, or maybe if Aa Gym decides to have more than 2 wives he can then use the word Polygamy afterward...... Anyway, here is breeding season in the world of frogs. Although it is known that most of tropical frogs breed all the time, but we have seen that for some species breeding occurs only during rainy season. This year we have a very long dry spell, even for West Java especially Bogor where we don't usually have dry season (what we have is a heavy rainy season and a light rainy season). So it's been a while since we found a pair of breeding Rhacophorus reindwartdii . Even though rainy season began early November, we did not hear any male calls in our Faculty of Forestry's arboretum. We have a population of about 20 individ...

Have you ever felt that "something wrong is going to happen, soon ..." Well, it was certainly one of the things that tingling in my head yesterday. It was actually one of those days. I was busy right from the beginning of the day, teaching in the morning and in the afternoon (and blast .. the electricity down .. so I have to cut 1/2 hour of student's presentation ... so typical of PLN), sandwiches between them a department's meeting and a line of students waiting to discuss their projects ... so... in the end you just want to go home on schedule, relax with a cup of hot tea, chats with the children and have a good night sleep. Dark lining already dotted the clouds, so I know for sure that fiery rain will soon come. Fortunately, the university's bus is not really full so I can get a decent seat in front near the driver. Soon, however, thunders crashed and wind howled so fiery ... I was really reluctant to get off from the bus. Still, I get off in front of Jl. Paj...

Hari ini ramai sekali per-sms-an. Selain karena ada teman yang masuk RS, tapi juga karena anak saya yang paling tua dapat hasil UAN SMP. Salah satu sms berbunyi demikian “ Gimana Benz (nama anak saya)? Lulus dengan gemilang nggak?” Saya yang baca jadi langsung senyam-senyum. Baru setelah kembali ke Indonesia setahun ini, saya jadi ikut pusing dan stress dengan sekolah anak-anak. Kepusingan terutama menghadapi anak-anak yang kudu beradaptasi dengan pelajaran di Indonesia. Ada 3 mata ajaran yang diujikan di UAN: matematika, bahasa Indonesia dan bahasa Inggris. Untuk pelajaran bahasa Indonesia, saya memaksa Benz untuk baca KOMPAS setiap hari. Untuk mengeceknya apakah dia baca headlines doang atau plus isinya maka setiap saat saya tanya hal-hal yang berhubungan dengan berita terkini atau artikel yang ada di koran. Untuk bahasa Inggris, terus terang saya memang agak cuek. Pikir saya, dia sudah kenyang 4 tahun sekolah di Australia! Selain itu walaupun penggemar komik manga, tapi Benz jug...

Beberapa waktu yang lalu acara akbar reuni 54 tahun SMA gue (sekarang namanya SMU kali ya?) digelar. Kalau penasaran: dulu saya anak SMA -4 yang letaknya di Jalan Batu, Gambir. Konon dulu jaman dulu termasuk salah satu SMA terbaik di Jakarta dan kini (dengan penuh keluh kesah) nyungsep jadi nomor ke 200an lah. Pikir-pikir memangnya ada berapa sih SMA di Jakarta? Kalau ada 2000, lumayan lah masih masuk 10% ha..ha…. Yang gawat kalau memang cuma ada 200 itu doang. Nah, kembali ke reuni, semua angkatan ngumpul deh, mulai yang seumuran penulis sampai yang seumuran anak . Pokoknya tumplek blek. Ada bagusnya juga kumpul semua angkatan, karena kalau reuni per angkatan nggak ketemu deh kita-kita sama angkatan lain yang barangkali dulu kita kecengin atau sebaliknya … gitu lho! Kaget juga pas denger komentar beberapa temen yang ternyata rajin menyimak blog ini. Padahal, kalau dari per-bloggers-an, saya jelas payah. Blog kagak disebarluaskan, kalau inget aja bilang-bilang ke temen itupun lewat...