The Effects of Traffic Jam

            Traffic jam is a situation in which vehicles jammed together or otherwise unable to move except slowly. Nowadays, traffic jam is becoming a big problem in many big cities in Indonesia, especially which does not have a good public transportation system. The number of the people in the city is inclined to make a traffic problem as well. People tend to use their own vehicles rather than public transportations which are not satisfying in order to go to schools, to go to work, to go shopping, and so on. In the morning when people start to do their daily life, for example studying, working, or shopping, or when they go back to their houses in the evening, they will make a lot of jams on the road because they use their vehicles at the same time and make the number of vehicles increasing. In addition, there are a lot of illegal parking areas which usually found on the sidewalks is making the jams get worse. Moreover, a lot of people do not pay attention to the rules on the road as well. Those situations are the cause of the traffic jam that will create some effects.

            There are two effects of traffic jam that I want to tell. The first is the effect to the environment. One of the most harmful effects of the traffic jam is the effect to the environment. What I mean in this case is about the pollution that is created by the traffic jam itself. Each vehicles produces emission of carbon that will create air pollution. This is related to global warming that will give more serious problems to the world. Besides contributing to global warming, this emission can cause localized problem such as smog and increased respiratory problems in community, due to the poor air quality.

            The next effect is about the impact to the human. For the human effects, there are several points. The first is about the physical effect because of sound and air pollution. Ailments, common flu, cough, cold to cancer and permanent ailments are experienced. The second point is about the mental effect or in the traffic jam we can say as road rage. Road rage is also a big problem on the road. Road rage is a senseless reaction to traffic that is common in the traffic jam areas. Some people that have a lot of problems will get more stress because of the jam. It also happened to people who are already late to go to somewhere. They want to drive faster and they may not think about others. They may not be able to control their emotions on the road. The drivers may assault others by giving an excessive honking and so on. Moreover, if someone who is impatient may be likely to drive aggressively and dangerously that will cause some accidents on the road. The third point is about the personal lose or the delay. During the morning commute there is an additional stress because the traffic jam can make people late. In the end of the day, the afternoon rush hours is a frustrating time as well. It because the workday is end and most of people want to go home to relax, but the traffic is preventing.

Finally, I conclude that traffic jam is a serious problem in many big cities in Indonesia. This problem can cause some harmful effects as well. The effects of this traffic jam are divided into the effects to the environment and the effects to the human. Dealing with this problem, the government should make an amelioration about the public transportation system to solve the traffic jam problems as well.

Problems in Learning English

            English is an international language that is used to communicate with other people in the world. In this modern era, it is important to learn English because it connects people all around the world. Learning English for some people is not easy. There are some problems dealing with learning English which is their foreign language.

The first problem is that people do not have a lot of vocabularies. In this case, you have to improve and increase your vocabularies. You can solve this problem by reading habit or watching or listening to native speakers of English when they are talking. After you find some new words, usually there will be a new problem that is hard to remember the vocabularies. Sometimes when you find some new words, you will look for the meaning on the dictionary, but after you find out the meaning, for some times later you will forget about it. Finally, when you meet the word again, you just forget and you have to use the dictionary as well. The solution for this problem is that you have to write down the new words that you find on your note and try to use those new words in your writing or your daily conversation. It helps not you forget the words easily. If you always use the word, you will be accustomed to that word so that you will always remember it.

The second problem is about the accuracy. This problem is dealing with the rules in English, for example the grammar and tenses. Some people think that this is hard to learn because the rules in English are different from the rules in their own language. The solution dealing with this problem is that you have to comprehend and understand, not to memorize. Actually, memorizing the rules is used too, but the point is to understand. You may easily forget about the rules if you are just memorizing it. To solve this problem, you can learn the grammar and tenses by doing some exercises about the grammar to test your understanding about it as well.

The next problem is that there are no exposures. This problem also will make some new problems, for example about the fluency in speaking English. Learners of English which is their foreign language, tend to give more attention to the grammar. They will lose their confident when they speak because they afraid of making error. They tend to much thinking in grammar that will make them lack of the fluency. You can solve this problem by finding and making some exposures. Watching some movies in English, listening to music in English or forming the habit of speaking English with your friends can be the solutions. Moreover, from the habit of watching English movies and listening to their conversation, you will learn more about their cultures, the idioms that they used and the pronunciation as well.

Again, English is not easy to learn for some people. But, when you keep thinking that learning English is difficult, you will definitely hard to learn it. You have to try to create some positive thinking that learning English is easy. Of course, there are some problems, but there are always the solutions beside. All you need is just finding and solving those problems and you will think that learning English is fun.

The Improvement of my Writing Competencies

Writing is an important subject in learning English. To be a person who learns second language, we have to learn not only how to speak the language but also how to write a good text using that language. In English Education Department, there are some subjects that used to learn writing such as Writing I, Writing II, Writing III, and Writing IV. In those subjects, we can learn how to make a good writing with paying attention to all of the rules in it.  I had learned Writing I in semester I and Writing II in semester II. There are so many things that I have learned in those subjects. In Writing I, students are introduced to writing itself. The lecturer taught about how to make a good writing. First, students had learned to make a good sentence such as how to make a proper question, a topic sentence, a conclusion sentence and so on. Then, students had to make some paragraphs about descriptive, narrative and recount. Students also had to make some simple writing about a paragraph every week as an assignment.  In Writing II, there are some improvements in learning writing. The levels of the materials are higher than Writing I. Students had to learn a step ahead about descriptive, narrative and recount paragraphs. Besides, students also had learned about procedure and process analysis. Both Writing I and Writing II give some improvements in my writing skill.

In semester three, I have to learn Writing III. I learn a lot of things dealing with making a good proper writing. There are some aspects I get that I did not have in Writing I and Writing II. The materials are not about simple paragraphs anymore. Students have to learn about formal writing to prepare writing a thesis. After nine meetings there are some improvements in my writing skill. The improvements can be categorized in three aspects. They are cognitive aspect, affective aspect and psychomotor aspect.

1.      Cognitive

Cognitive is defined as something which is of or something which relates to being in a state of conscious intellectual activity. Such activities as thinking, reasoning, remembering, imagining or learning words are collectively referred to as to cognitive activities or conscious intellectual activities. In Writing III, there are some improvements in my writing skill dealing with cognitive aspect. From the first meeting, my lecturer wanted the students to write about the profile of Writing I and Writing II. I wrote all that I remembered about them and I learned how to analyze them. In this activity, I could know how much improvement that I get from Writing I and Writing II so I can learn more things in Writing III. In the next meeting, I wrote about my weaknesses in writing. This assignment made me explored about my own ability in writing. It made me aware about my weaknesses and things that I still do not understand. From this assignment, I started to think about improvement to be better. There are some aspects that I have to learn to cover my weaknesses.

The other improvement that I get from Writing III is that about using thesaurus and dictionary. Previously, I really did not know anything about thesaurus. From this meeting, I know about the function and the benefits of using thesaurus and also how to use it. I can get so many synonyms of one word from thesaurus. I also found a lot of new words from that so it can increase my vocabularies. Now, I realize that there are so many benefits to use thesaurus and dictionary. The next improvement is about making some ideas. Making an idea is one of students’ weaknesses included me. From this issue, my lecturer gave us tips to dig some ideas. The one that I have learned to solve this weakness is primary association. I have to write 50 words that related to one word and I have to make sentences from the words. I can get some ideas easily from this way. Besides, I also have learned about correcting others’ writing. The assignment to analysis others’ writing also gives me some improvements in my writing ability. From this activity, I can learn so many things from others’ weaknesses so I can improve more about my skill. My other weakness in writing is about grammar. In Writing III I get some improvements dealing with this weakness. My lecturer taught about the “Rumus 33” and I have to remember all of the formulas. This way is really helping because it answers my weakness about grammar. The next thing is about writing a formal paper. I had to explore a website about academic integrity and wrote my comment about it. This assignment taught me all about academic integrity and plagiarism. From this activity I started to avoid plagiarism.

2.      Affective

Affective is value based. It is concerned with the beliefs, feelings and attitudes of students. In this Writing III, there are some improvements dealing with affective aspect. From nine meetings that I have been learning, I find out that I have a lot of weaknesses in learning English especially in writing. I started to force myself to learn and study more hardly to improve my academic ability. The most affective improvement since I have Writing III is that I started to love writing. Previously, writing is a subject which frightened me because I did not have much ability in writing. In this Writing III, my lecturer tried to help me to solve my weaknesses. He also made me aware that writing is an important thing in learning English. It is a must to make writing a habit in our daily life. The last activity in Writing III there are also some affective improvements I got. It is about academic integrity and plagiarism. Since I have learned it, I started to avoid plagiarism and started to make a proper writing with my original work.

3.      Psychomotor

The psychomotor aspect includes physical and motor (or muscular) skills. This means much more than the gaining of skills in games and physical education. Every act has a psychomotor component. Writing is also psychomotor skill. The psychomotor improvement I get from Writing III is that I can write faster than before since I had an assignment to write all words related to one word in limited time.

From all contents that I wrote above, it can conclude that after I attended the nine meetings in Writing III this semester, I got so many improvements in writing. The improvements can be categorized in three aspects. They are cognitive aspect, affective aspect and psychomotor aspect. The cognitive aspect is defined as something which is of or something which relates to being in a state of conscious intellectual activity while the affective is value based which is concerned with the beliefs, feelings and attitudes of students and The psychomotor aspect includes physical and motor (or muscular) skills. All of the improvements in Writing III that I get make me want to learn more about English and to improve more about my ability.

Seven Years of Love

Kita bersama selama tujuh tahun. Menjalin hubungan persahabatan yang bahkan lebih berarti daripada hubungan sepasang kekasih sekalipun. Melewati duka, bahagia, berdua. Kebersamaan kita, bagiku tak mungkin dapat tergantikan oleh apapun. Kedekatan kita, kecocokan kita, tak akan pernah ada yang menyangka bahwa kita akan berpisah dengan begitu mudahnya seperti ini, saling mengucapkan kata selamat tinggal. Dan perpisahan ini seakan membuat semua kenangan yang telah kita bangun sejak lama kini lenyap, hilang dan pergi begitu saja. Ingatanku menerawang saat kita masih muda, saat kita tak sengaja bertemu dan aku bahkan tak ingat bagaimana detailnya. Susah bagi kita untuk mengatur dan mengendalikan perubahan yang ada pada diri kita. Mereka bilang kata “selamat tinggal” sangatlah menyakitkan. Namun, aku bahkan tidak sempat untuk memikirkan hal itu. Keadaan yang memaksanya seperti ini. Aku berfikir bahwa ini hanyalah bagian dari permainan takdir, menuju sebuah kedewasaan. Mencoba berfikir positif dan tenang. Tapi tak kusangka air mataku mengalir deras.

Waktu berlalu begitu saja, membawaku menuju pertambahan usia. Berbeda dengan cara kerja otakku, hatiku merindukanmu, memikirkanmu. Awalnya sebagai seorang teman, kemudian sebagai seorang kucinta. Aku bahkan tak tau sejak kapan perasaan ini tumbuh dan berkembang.

Kita sepakat untuk tetap menjalin persahabatan, sebagai sahabat, walaupun kita kini terpisah. Selama tiga tahun kemudian, kuhabiskan waktu sendirian. Kadang kita masih saling menghubungi sekedar bertanya kabar, bercerita tentang kehidupan sehari-hari, berkeluh kesah. Meskipun aku bertemu dengan teman baru, meskipun aku bertemu dengan cinta baru, kapanpun aku merasa sedih kaulah yang pertama kali aku hubungi. Tanpa sepatah katapun terucap, hanya air mata yang menetes. Kadang aku berkata “kau harus menemukan orang yang baik untukmu”, walaupun sebenarnya hatiku tak bermaksud untuk mengatakannya. Aku selalu dan masih berfikir “mungkin kau juga mencintaiku”. Dan berharap itulah kenyataannya, berharap suatu saat kau akan mengatakannya.

Aku tau. Kita mempunyai perasaan yang tulus. Entah apa. Namun kita bersahabat, kita menyimpannya dalam-dalam ke dalam memori kita. Kadang, aku merasakan sikap dingin darimu. Entah bagaimana. Namun kemudian aku sadar bahwa aku tak bisa berbuat apapun.

“Aku akan segera menikah”, itu yang kau katakan padaku.  Kemudian untuk beberapa saat aku tak bisa berkata apapun. Kemudian aku menangis. Itulah kalimat terakhir yang kau ucapkan padaku, walaupun sebenarnya kalimat yang hanya ingin aku dengar darimu adalah bahwa kau mencintaiku.

ps. ini bukan curhat lhoh yaaa...

terinspirasi dari lagunya Kyuhyun yang udah aku modifikasi hihihi xD