Part of Me

This is me

First things first, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Gabriella. I am sure that you must wonder how short my name is. In fact, I do not have any last name, but that makes me unique. I am an Indonesian and I come from a city in East Java, called Malang. I will be 19 years old next month, exactly on April Fool’s Day. In spite of being born at the same time as that day, I hope that my life is not a mere silly trick. 

I go to Widya Mandala Catholic University, which is located in Surabaya. Therefore, I moved to Surabaya and I have been living here for almost a year. Now, I am in the second semester in the English Department of Teacher Training Faculty. In my opinion, learning English is difficult but very exciting. On the other hand, I’d better have sophisticated approach to become a qualified teacher. 

If I can finish my education on time, I will successfully become a tough girl and win over myself. In fact, it is hard to win over myself as sometimes I can be so pessimistic that I will be lying in my bed all day without doing anything. I can get distressed very easily because I often overthink things. However, I am able to overcome those things by giving my best effort and others’ help.

I have an effective way to help me relax from a lot of stressful assignments and my unpredictable life. I am really keen on listening to music. There is not a day without listening to my favorite songs and sometimes I even sing to complete my enjoyment. My favorite singers and bands are Owl City, The Script, Coldplay, Taylor Swift, Maroon5, etc. Recently, I have been listening to Troye Sivan’s songs, which are suggested by Widi, my classmate. The lyrics of his songs are completely mind-blowing because they are full of deep meanings. 

I am easily captivated by poetic lyrics, which are filled with rhymes and meaningful words encouraging individually interpretation. Because of those lyrics, now I start to read some poems and they are very complicated to comprehend, but I am challenged to find out the real meanings. I am interested to write a poem and prose as well in spite of its difficulties. 

In addition, I also enjoy reading some novels such as “The Chronicles of Narnia” by C. S. Lewis and the trilogy of “The Wolves of Mercy Falls” by Maggie Stiefvater. I once read an awesome novel, entitled “Neverwhere”, that was written by Neil Gaiman. I spent more than 6 months to finish that novel. I think it is the most difficult novel which I have read since the writer used complicated and advanced words in English.

Whenever I have a lot of leisure time, I am fond of watching Korean dramas. Some friends of mine have the same interest in Korean dramas, so we like sharing new dramas with each other and talking about Korean actors, actresses, and even singers. Although I like it very much, I still consider Hollywood movies as the best movies in the world. I suppose that those movies are worth watching because of their outstanding quality.

While I am watching my favorite movies, I love eating some snacks. I like eating savory food, for instance, lasagna, meatballs, and noodles. Most girls enjoy eating sour and spicy food such as rujak manis in Indonesia, but I cannot stand eating that sort of food. I also hate eating mango and starfruit. Most of all, I love my mother’s cuisine as she is the best cook for me.

I have some close friends in class. Their names are Pipit, Osa, Tina, and Ammy. We like eating our lunch together and telling stories about our daily life. They are not completely good friends because they can be so annoying once in a while. Despite that fact, I just feel comfortable when I am around them.

My Lovely Dog

This is Sensen, sitting on my mom's motorcycle.

My family loves dogs very much although sometimes they argue about who should take responsibilities upon our dogs. We have five dogs in our house in Malang. My father, mother, and little brother share chores of feeding the dogs, cleaning dogs’ cages, and walking the dogs. My mother does not allow me to help them to look after our dogs for some reasons, but I still can interact with them.

At first I was afraid of dogs, but my little brother, who likes animals so much, brought our first dog home. My father and mother had forbid my brother to adopt a dog, but eventually they changed their minds and started to take care of our first dog. Our first dog is a female and we call her Sensen. We have considered her as our family member for years. Now, I want to describe her because she is my favorite one as well. Please excuse me that I prefer using “she” to “it” when I describe about Sensen since for me she means more than a mere dog.

I suppose Sensen might be a beautiful girl if she were a person. I did not like dogs with dark fur as I once thought that all cute dogs had white fur. However, Sensen has proved to me that dogs with black fur have their own beauty which cannot be replaced. Her fur is very soft and shiny. Her fur is so long that looks almost like human hair. I like to stroke her fur whenever she is around. She does not have tall body, but her body is quite long. She has pointed muzzle and it is always wet. In fact, dogs’ muzzles are wet if they are healthy. She also has two big round dark brown eyes, but sometimes I cannot see her eyes because the color of her eyes is the same as the color of the fur on her face.

Sensen is a good dog. She is so smart that she recognizes her own name. Whenever we call her, she always comes to us. There is an armchair in front of our terlevision and she loves to sit on it. It is her favorite place in our house. If there is a person sitting on that chair, she will wait until that person leave the chair, and then she will jump onto the chair. Sensen is so close to my mother that she always follows my mother wherever she goes, especially when my mother brings some food. Sometimes, I also give my food to Sensen, except chocolate, bone, and spicy food as it can damage her digestive system and kill her. She is very energetic and she likes running around.

There are lots of things that make me love Sensen. She is a very cute and witty dog. She is also very faithful. Even if I rarely meet her lately, she still does remember me whenever I go home. That is all I think of Sensen, my lovely dog.

Malang: My City Is My home

Most people who live far away from their hometowns absolutely miss the towns where they were born once in a while. As every town is unique, people will always remember their hometowns wherever they go. I also live in Surabaya, which is far away from my hometown. I think about going home sometimes since my hometown, Malang, is a special city for me. Therefore, I am going to tell you why my hometown is so special.

Malang is a city which is located in the highlands. It is the second biggest city after Surabaya in East Java. Because of its geographical condition, the temperature there is lower than in Surabaya. People from other cities like to go to Malang, especially Batu, to spend their holidays and enjoy the fresh air there.

Malang is located near Batu, a small town full of popular tourist destinations. Batu is a beautiful town although it is less busy than Malang, except in the holiday. Batu is surrounded by green fields and hills. Batu has a lot of amusement parks, such as Secret Zoo, BNS, and Museum Angkut. There are also many cottages if we want to stay longer and enjoy the night life of Batu.

Besides Batu, Malang also catches tourists’ attention because of the beauty of its city and culture. Malang has some adorable parks in the city’s downtown. The architecture in Malang is unique and classic as some buildings are still in the European style. What’s more, Malang has interesting culture, for instance, topeng Malangan and some traditional dances. Once in a year, the government holds an event called Malang Tempo Dulu to remind people about Malang culture and history.

Over all, I like living in Malang because it is less crowded than Surabaya. I feel like living in peace since I don't need to stuck in a severe traffic jam, be in rush all the time, or even get annoyed by the flood. Malang is my home that I can never forget.

Funny Story

All of us must have some funny experiences which make each of us burst out laughing every time we remember it. I also have a funny memory about my grandmother and today I will tell you about that. I hope you will be amused with this story.

This story had happened before I started my course in the university last year. It was a usual day that my grandmother did her daily chores. After doing the dishes, she went to a market to buy some daily needs. Because the market was so close to her house, she went there on foot. 

She went to the market with her little sister, whose house was also near my grandmother's house. They arrived at the market and started to buy things. After buying all stuff, my grandmother abruptly wanted to call somebody. She took her cellphone out from her pocket and started to push the buttons on the cellphone. 

A few minutes later, my grandmother had not called anybody yet because she got some problems with her cellphone. She was a little bit annoyed. Her little sister approached her after buying some food and then asked her what was happening. My grandmother began to complain about her cellphone, but her little sister suddenly laughed out loud as she looked at the cellphone.

My grandmother was confused and wondering why her little sister laughed. Her little sister then pointed out that my grandmother's cellphone was actually TV remote. She looked at that thing once more and realized that it was indeed TV remote. She was surprised that she had brought TV remote instead of her own cellphone. My grandmother with her little sister ended up laughing so loud until they shed some tears. I was speechless and blankly looking at them. In the end, I joined them laughing.

That is one of the funniest experience in my life and I hope that I can always remember this story.

Netiquette: Basic Rules of Networking

The technology of information and communication has been developing so fast for a decade. These days, we depend on this technology to do our daily jobs, keep updating, or just have fun. Everyday we use our computers and smart phones to get information from the internet, send emails, and even post our photos. In fact, we have become cyber society. That is why we all need some etiquette to keep the civilization on the right track when we interact with others online.

Netiquette is network etiquette which is used as basic rules when we are online. According to the book Netiquette, there are ten rules about how we should behave online. However, we will not have all explained, we can see three important rules this time. These rules can help us to communicate well with strangers without cause any harm.

Firstly, Rule 4: Respect other people's time and bandwidth says "It's your responsibility to ensure that the time they spend reading your posting isn't wasted". This point makes me realize that sometimes most of us post unimportant things which waste other people's time, effort, and bandwidth without gaining any advantage from our writing. From this point, we need to rethink about what we are going to write and whether it will bring benefit or not.

Secondly, according to Rule 7: Help keep flame wars under control, we are not allowed to do flame wars continuously. It clearly states that people who cause the flame wars are an unfair monopolization of bandwidth. Flame wars are sequence of comments from two or three people which are used to attack others' comments. They contribute bad effect toward other people who do not involve in that flame wars or even ruin a particular group discussion.

Lastly, in Rule 10: Be forgiving of other people's mistakes, we are expected to forgive others' mistake. People sometimes give us some unnecessary questions and make annoying comments. These actions can easily make us irritated, but we have to be nice. We do not need to show their mistake in public. All we have to do is that contact them personally by sending email and in the good manner.

These three rules of Netiquette can add our knowledge about networking. By applying the etiquette, we are able to be modern people who can use or technology to give advantage for everyone and also ourselves. Happy Networking!

Source: http://www.albion.com/netiquette/rule10.html