Angie versus Mia

Angie means my Lovely Star—Dzikrina Angie Pitaloka; while Mia is the nickname of Mia Thermopolis, the narrator of teen-lit novel entitled Princess Diaries written by Meg Cabot.
I bought the first serial of Princess Diaries in 2003, four years ago, when Angie was twelve years ago. In the first book, Mia was fourteen years old. As far as I remember Princess Diaries is the first teen-lit novel Angie read. At first, she complained why I bought here such a book, “Mia is fourteen while I am only twelve,” she said.
“Well honey, only two years difference, that’s not a big deal of course. I do hope you can get a good lesson from this novel.” I reasoned four years ago.
And my guess was right: Angie loved it. And sometimes she even was so absorbed that she saw herself as a “princess to be”. LOL. I assume she mixed it with Cinderella story (with its Cinderella complex!!!) (Un)luckily, in the first serial, Meg Cabot didn’t illustrate Mia as a feminist, only her mother: as a feminist who often did weird things with her weird feminist friends. It was similar to Angie and me: Angie didn’t know much about feminism, and perhaps she also saw me as weirdo: a feminist who was much different from her friends’ mothers, or our female neighbors who seemed to enjoy being full housewives. Unfortunately, in the first series of Princess Diaries, the relationship between Mia and her mother was not as open as my relationship with Angie since Mia seemed not to like her mother’s “weird” things many feminists (probably) do: such as not marrying Mia’s father, although she already got a baby from the man: Mia. One thing I remember (though I don’t remember in which serial Cabot wrote about it): when Mia’s mother offered her to talk about sexuality openly by coming to Mia’s room and encouraging her to talk about it heart to heart: instead of having a lively and comfortable talk with her feminist mother, Mia rejected it, saying to herself: “Sex? Oh no, my mom must be insane thinking that I am already interested in sex.” Well, I don’t remember how old Mia was when Cabot narrated that part. (FYI, I have the complete serials of Princess Diaries, only Angie doesn’t collect them in one bookshelf. Perhaps some books are borrowed by her friends. 
Realizing that as a teenager, Angie is still undergoing unstable mental progress, frankly speaking I often feel worried that Angie will blatantly follow her “role models” in some teen-lit novels she reads, including Princess Diaries. (The era when I bought her some religious collection short stories has been over! It is because in those stories the narration is clearly only between black and white, good and bad, no character is in grey area. In the reality, life is not just black and white like that, oftentimes we are surrounded by “grey things”, moreover I raise Angie as a secular, which in my opinion is often related to grey area.) Mostly after reading some teen-lit novels or watching movies/soap operas on television about teenagers, I wait for Angie to ask me about what she has read/watched, and discuss it together. She seldom does that, though.
In the last serial of Princess Diaries (the title is “Princess in the Brink” if I am not mistaken), Mia was narrated to be thinking of doing lovemaking for the first time with Michael. I assumed, no matter what, Cabot wouldn’t let it happen. (Honestly, as a feminist living in Indonesia, an area called “the Eastern” part of the globe, thinking of Angie will do it before getting married—moreover in a very young age, just like Mia who was still sixteen years old, the same age as Angie at the moment—really scared me, although I DO REALIZE that doing sex is everybody’s right.)
I must admit that there was a relief feeling in me when coming to the part that Mia didn’t do that with Michael. (silly of me! LOL.) Surprisingly, Cabot then wrote the “intimate scene” between Mia and her mother, because Mia needed to confide in someone, and she chose her mother as the first person to release her disappointment knowing that in fact Michael was no longer virgin. 
After reading that, I noticed that recently, Angie loved to be intimate with me on the bed before both of us fell asleep: one thing she used to love doing as a kid, but she seldom did that after she reached teenage.
Two nights ago, while lying on the bed in the dark, Angie was very close to me, kissing my right ears, and whispered, “You smell nice Mama. Will I still smell good like you after I become a mother?” LOL.
As what always happens to anybody else, kids will always be kid, won’t they? Anyway, I still love when Angie does things like what she used to do to me when she was a small kid.  A mother will always be a mother? LOL. LOL.
PT56 15.30 151207

My Intermediate 4 Class

My Intermediate 4 class, scheduled on Monday - Wednesday at 17-19 is the naughtiest class of mine this term. The naughtiest here can be meant the noisiest, the craziest, as well as (sometimes) the most annoying class. LOL.
This class consists of 19 students, only one of them is college student, one is a junior high school student, and the other 17 students are senior high school students. You can guess their age ranges from fifteen to nineteen years. The senior high school students go to four different schools, one to SMA N 7, I must say not a favorite school in Semarang, LOL, three to SMA N 1 Kendal, a little town in the west of Semarang, perhaps the most favorite school there, LOL, three go to SMA N 5, quite favorite school in Semarang, LOL, and the rest go to the same school with my Lovely Star, Angie, SMA N 3 Semarang, the most favorite state school in my hometown. Therefore, most of them know Angie, and they know that I am Angie’s mother. I don’t know whether due to this relationship, they feel so comfortable in my class, so that they do anything without feeling worried that I would get annoyed.
I must say that there is one troublemaker in this class, a student going to SMA N 5. I am not sure about his capability in mastering the material, but he is very capable to attract his classmates’ attention. He out of the blue loves humming in the classroom; he seems that he doesn’t realize how ugly his voice is. LOL. No one will enjoy listening to his hum, I believe. LOL. But since he is mostly successful to joke around, makes his classmates laugh with his foolish act (such as flirting a girl, by touching her fingers/hand, then kissing his own hand after that, while closing his eyes. Very annoying to me, but very amusing to his classmates!)
I am not always angry with him though when he intentionally does foolish acts to attract his mates’ attention and to make them laugh.
There is another student who goes to SMA N 3, the same batch with Angie. He is the one who asked me to write something about his class in my blog. LOL. Well, his name is Rian (he asked me to write his real name here!) with nickname “Pussy”. LOL. (Gosh, doesn’t ‘pussy’ belong to girls? LOL. LOL.) He is quite good-looking, and he claimed that one day when he went sightseeing with some friends—Angie was there too—an agent of one teenage magazine from Jakarta offered him, “Wanna be a model for ANEKA YES?” I in fact didn’t want to believe in him. LOL. Unfortunately (or fortunately), when I asked Angie about it, she said, “Yes, Mama, someone out of the blue offered him like that when we went sightseeing at the mall.” Nah lo. LOL.
Btw, Rian is having a crush on Angie’s best friend, Nana. Several days ago, he asked me if I had her picture, so I encouraged him to visit Angie’s blog and download Nana’s picture by himself. At the same time, I promoted this blog to my students. LOL.
So, Rian, this article was especially written for you. :)
LL 16.45 131207

Dream is (not always) reality

Angie in 2007

 

Sekolah Angie sedang heboh!!!

Pasalnya beberapa hari yang lalu, well let’s say around a week ago, seorang anak kelas XI IA 9, yang mengaku mimpinya sering menjadi kenyataan, bermimpi dalam perjalanan study tour ke Bali, dua bus mengalami kecelakaan, satu bus terbakar, kemudian meledak, sedangkan bus yang satu lagi—yang konon dinaiki kelas IS (dulu disebut IPS)—ditabrak kereta api. Angie sempat bercerita tentang hal ini kepadaku, namun aku tidak menanggapinya dengan serius, yah ... aku anggap sebagai cara seorang anak mencari sensasi. 

Hari Sabtu kemarin, beberapa siswaku berbincang tentang hal ini dengan ribut di dalam kelas, sebelum aku memulai pelajaran. Aku sendiri sudah lupa dengan cerita Angie tentang seorang teman yang tidak dia kenal secara langsung yang bermimpi tentang kecelakaan tersebut. Yang aku tangkap dari perbincangan beberapa siswaku itu adalah dia tidak diperbolehkan ikut study tour ke Bali yang akan diselenggarakan awal bulan Januari 2008.

“Your parents do not let you join the study tour to Bali?” I asked her.

“In fact the problem is not as simple as that, Miss. Tapi ada seorang anak kelas XI IA 9 yang mengaku bermimpi rombongan sekolah mengalami kecelakaan. Dan anak itu mengaku mimpinya sering menjadi kenyataan.”

Aku langsung ingat cerita Angie beberapa hari lalu. 

“Have your teachers known about this?” tanyaku.

“Well, some yes, Miss. Our religion teacher said, “Just wait and see.” We wanted the principal to postpone the study tour several months, not in January but he did not agree. Kalau kecelakaan itu benar-benar terjadi gimana dong?”

“Do you believe if God has destined us to die, we cannot postpone it? not even any single minute?” tanyaku lagi.

“Yang penting kan kita sudah berusaha Miss?” kata salah satu dari mereka.

Aku kemudian bercerita pengalaman seorang rekan guru sekitar satu tahun yang lalu. Satu hari anaknya minta ijin untuk ikut rombongan teman-temannya yang akan pergi ke Jogja untuk mengikuti sebuah kompetisi. Sang ayah—rekan guruku itu—bilang,

“Nak, sebentar lagi kamu akan pergi study tour ke Bali bersama teman-temanmu. Kalau ada apa-apa dalam perjalanan ke Jogja, yang menyebabkan kamu tidak bisa ikut ke Bali, kamu akan sangat menyesalinya nanti.”

Sang anak yang termasuk penurut ini pun menuruti saran sang ayah, dia tidak jadi ikut teman-temannya ke Jogja. Pada hari yang sama dia bermain sepak bola bersama teman-teman yang lain, di halaman sekolah, seusai pelajaran hari itu. Di tengah-tengah permainan, karena tendangan bola yang sangat keras menimpanya, dia pun terjatuh. Entah bagaimana ceritanya, namun salah satu tangannya (aku lupa kiri atau kanan) patah, yang menyebabkannya tidak bisa masuk sekolah selama beberapa hari setelah itu, karena harus mengikuti terapi penyembuhan. Temanku membawanya ke ‘sangkal putung’ yang secara ajaib mengobati patah tulang tanpa melalui operasi. 

Akibat lain? Dia tidak jadi ikut study tour ke Bali.

Mendengar ceritaku, para siswaku yang semula ribut memperbincangkan tentang mimpi aneh itu, pun terdiam. Seorang siswa lain, dari sekolah yang lain menyelutuk,

“Biasanya sih mimpi yang diceritakan kepada pihak lain justru tidak jadi kenyataan. Sekarang kan seluruh sekolah tahu mimpi itu. So, just relax!!!”

Pada saat yang sama aku teringat salah satu cerita dalam AKAR, Guru Liong yang telah memimpikan berulang kali bahwa dia akan menemukan seorang bayi di bawah pohon asam yang terletak tak jauh dari vihara tempat dia tinggal dan mengabdikan dirinya kepada Buddha. Dan mimpi itupun menjadi nyata. Setelah beberapa bulan memimpikan hal tersebut, satu hari di waktu pagi, Guru Liong menemukan seorang bayi. Sang bayi diberi nama BODHI, karena kalau diberi nama ASAM sesuai nama pohon yang menaunginya tatkala dia ditemukan, akan terdengar janggal bagi telinga orang Indonesia. LOL. 

Aku percaya orang-orang tertentu diberi kelebihan oleh Sang Maha Kuasa untuk dapat ‘meneropong’ masa depan, yang mungkin saja melalui mimpi-mimpi yang hadir di tengah tidurnya. Dan sulit bagi kita untuk membedakan—at least for me—yang manakah yang memang diberi kelebihan ataukah hanya sekedar ‘beruntung’ apa yang dia impikan menjadi kenyataan.

Aku ingat di kelas yang sama, sekitar satu bulan yang lalu, kita membahas ‘dream’ yang dimaksudkan ‘keinginan’, namun beberapa siswa tidak bisa membedakan ‘dream’ yang datang dalam tidur sebagai penghias tidur malam, ataukah ‘dream’ yang merupakan harapan atau keinginan untuk masa depan kita. I asked my students, “Have you ever dreamt of something that you thought impossible for you to reach? But after some time, you got that.”

A student—the same student who was forbidden by her parents to follow the study tour to Bali next January due to the weird dream coming to a student—said, 

“Several months ago I dreamed of entering Social major. The following morning, when my father took the report at school, the report told me that my dream came true.”

“Did you really want to major in Social before that?” I inquired.

“No Miss. I wanted to major in Science of course.”

PT56 15.40 021207