Islamic Boarding School toward Students

            After graduating from Junior High School, I was sent by my parents to an Islamic boarding school to be the student there while I thought that home was the only place for me to live and grow. However, I couldn’t reject my parents’ want and I finally lived there. In that place, I had to obey several rules. There were some activities that had to be followed. Also, I had to live and share with 7 other students because we were placed in one room. At first, I went through hard time. Then after several years of living there, I got something that I never knew before. I found out that Living in an Islamic boarding school brings positive and negative effects toward students’ life

To start with, living in an Islamic boarding school can make students independent. When they stay at an Islamic boarding school, it means that they do not live with their parents. So, they do not depend on their parents and they will grow to be unspoiled students. Also, living without parents means that they have to take care of themselves and manage all their needs. They have to be wise in managing time because they not only need to fulfill their daily or private needs such as cooking food and washing clothes, but also have to deal with obliged activities in the Islamic boarding school such as pengajian (religion study), jama’ah (together) prayer, ro’an (cleaning together), and so on. They will be accustomed to organizing their lives and they are eventually good at managing their lives. In addition to being good at life management, they will be able to manage their financial well because they have to consider the income and the outcome so that they will make do with the money given by their parents.

Talking about living in an Islamic boarding school is also talking about living together with many friends from diverse backgrounds of custom, knowledge and personality. Therefore, the students will be able to socialize with friends of theirs for sure. Because they live with different people with different characteristics, it makes them understand differences among others. Likewise, living together makes them share and help each other. For instance, when one of them is visited and brought some food by his family, he cannot be stingy and he has to share the food with his friends. Furthermore, if they can socialize well with their friends, there can appear a good friendship among them for good.

            On the other hand, students can easily get stressed and frustrated when living in Islamic boarding school. There, several students are placed in one room in which they gather, do their activities together and share spaces with others so that their privacies are limited. Because of that condition, stress and frustration can be what they suffer from. Besides, living together definitely makes them lose their me-time. They cannot do everything they want because they do not live alone. In Islamic boarding school, moreover, there are some strict rules that must be obeyed.  If the students do not follow the rules, they will get a punishment. This can press and limit the students unless they can adapt with the rules.

Another negative effect of living in an Islamic boarding school is that the students are vulnerably fazed with bad things by other students. Bad behaviors easily spread from one student to others because they interact and communicate every day so that they will influence each other. For example, if one student often curses or says impolite words, others will tend to do the same because they often hear the curse, get used to it and think that it is okay to do the same. Also, diseases are the things that can easily spread from one to another because they live in the same place and use the same bathroom. They both are the media which spreads germs and viruses among the students. Another thing that can spread among the students is a hedonist lifestyle. This can occur because they live together and there is usually a trending stuff. If some students have the same or similar stuff, other ones will feel that they have to posses that stuff as well. They will do anything to afford the stuff. They might lie to their parents that they need additional money for their studies or, moreover, steal their friends’ money to buy the trending stuff.

Living in an Islamic boarding school can really affect students’ lives. It can be in forms of either positive or negative effects. Therefore, students who are going to stay at an Islamic boarding school should consider both positive and negative effects and be ready to undergo life changes.
                                                                                          
                                                                 (written together with Luluk Khoiriyah)

Things You Should Do Before Performing a Song

Are you going to sing a song on the stage but you do not know what you should prepare for that? It is not really complicated, actually. You only need to do several things that will  build up your singing performance.

First of all, you should choose a right song for you. A right song here means a song that suits your timbre or your tone color. Choose a song that you can adjust your timbre to the song easily without straining your vocal cord so that the song will sound good and natural. For example, if you have a thin and quite weak voice, choose an easy-listening song that will not make you sing with a powerful voice so that you don’t need to strain your vocal cord. You also need to choose a song that suits your feeling or mood. Since singing is conveying a message, choose a song that you think you can both sing and deliver the message. Don’t try to sing a happy song when you are terribly gloomy because you will break the soul of that song. In addition, sometimes you are asked to sing in a themed stage, party or ceremony. So, you have to select a song that can suit the wanted atmosphere. It will be ridiculous if you sing a welcoming song in a farewell party or a jealousy song in a wedding party.

After picking out a right song, you should practice singing that song. In this section, you may need a vocal coach or someone that has a good sense of music because you need to find several things here. The most important thing of all is to find the key of the song that suits your comfort zone. Comfort zone here means the note area or range of the song that is the same as your vocal range. If you think that the key of the song is too high for you, make it lower and vice versa. Singing too low notes will make your voice sink in the music and singing too high notes will strain your vocal cord or, moreover, you will crack your voice. Another thing that you should do in the practicing ortraining section is to nail the song which means that you have to sing it perfectly and give the soul to the song. When you are practicing singing, try to feel the meaning of the song and then try to deliver that meaning through your body language and facial expression. Likewise, you should try to make an improvisation to the song. Find some notes that you can change and improve to make themsound different from the original version so that the song will be like your own song. It will be amazing if you can sing better than its original singer. But be careful. Don’t do improvisation too much because the song will lose its beauty and soul if you change many parts of the song.

After training to sing the song, it is time to do rehearsal on the stage. It will help you perform the song well if you know the stage. While rehearsing, you can check the sound system whether it is good or not. You may ask the soundman to equalize the sound system so that its sound will suit your voice. The performance of the sound system will influence the output of your sound that is really vital. Never skip the rehearsal if you want the sound system to improve your voice quality. For instance, if your voice is weak and edgy, you can ask the the soundman to add the bass in the sound system so that your voice will sound stronger. If your voice is husky and you want to make it sound smooth, you can ask the soundman to give an echo effect to the sound system. Another use of rehearsing is to help you get used to the stage. If you know the stage, you can take possession of it so that you will be able to perform your song like a profesional.

Another thing that will support your singing performance is your outfit. Choose an outfit that suits your body shape and your skin color. You should look the best of you. Also, the right outfit will help you to deliver the song. If you are going to sing a song with an upbeat tempo, use a sporty outfit because it will ease you to move and follow the groove of the song. Don’t wear something that will give you a problem moving. If you are going to sing a ballad song, use a tuxedo for male or a gawn or another beautiful outfit for female because ballad songs really uphold the beauty of music so that the beautiful outfit will help you to deliver the beauty of music in a complete package of both sound and look.

The last thing that you should do is vocal warming-up right before performing the song on the stage. You have to do this to improve the quality of your voice and to prevent voice injury. According to Cari Cole, a celebrity vocal coach and artist development expert, the first vocal warm up that you can do is lip trills. Just simply create a sound by loosely placing your lips together or you can try to voice some note by this way. This helps you to relax your lips and warm up your voice. Then, you can do the next vocal warming-up called humming. You can just simply hum. Hum from the low note then go higher and higher. Humming help relax your vocal cord as well as warm-up your voice. The last step that you can do is warming up with an arpeggio. Try to voice the sound [a] in the notes of do mi sol do! sol mi do. Repeat for many times and make the notes become one-note higher in each repetition. This helps you to expand your vocal range and complete your vocal warming-up.

Those are several things that you should do to be able to perform and nail the song on the stage. If those things are done well, your performance will be able to be listened well as well as be watched. Show the world that you can sing like a professional!

Can Mariah Beat Celine?

The first time I listened to Celine Dion, I instantly fell in love with her beautiful voice. It was when I was a kid and my brother showed me a performance of Celine Dion singing “A New Day Has Come” on TV. She was singing as if she had been talking. Several years passed, I unintentionally listened to a song entitled “Hero” and I was wondering who the singer was. I thought it was Celine Dion but then I figured out that it was Mariah Carey. As what I felt about Celine, I was instantly crazy about Mariah, too. Since then, I argued with myself about who was better between them. After years of listening to their music and comparing their vocal skills, I can now say that Mariah Carey is better than Celine Dion at some reasons.

 First of all, Mariah’s vocal range is much wider than that of Celine. Mariah’s lowest note is G#2 that she showed in an interview. Celine’s lowest note is B2. Moving to the highest note, Mariah’s highest ever note is G#7 that she sang in the improvisation part of “Emotions” song at Video Music Award in 1991 while Celine’s highest note is E6 that she exclaimed in a show at TV5. It can be calculated that Mariah’s vocal range is 5 octaves while Celine’s is 3 octaves and 5 notes. It means that Mariah has a wider vocal range.

Listening to their timbres, Mariah can produce voices better than what Celine can do. Mariah’s lower notes sound stronger compared to Celine’s. According to www.divadevotee.com, a website that discusses about vocal skills of well-known singers all over the world, the lower range of Mariah is heavy. It sounds like a man voice. Meanwhile, Celine’s lower range sounds quite weak and slightly raspy. Also, Celine’s midrange is thick, whereas Mariah’s midrange can be either thick or slight. Besides, Mariah can make her midrange sound airy as if whispering. When singing in upper range, Mariah’s belting voice sounds pure and bright yet Celine’s sounds nasal and quite whizzing. Moreover, Mariah can utilize whistle voice, the vocal technique used to hit very high notes and it is the rarest vocal skill mastered only by a few singers in the world, yet Celine has nothing to do with it.

Furthermore, improvisation is something which Mariah always amazingly does when singing and Celine, by contrast, sings with less improvisation. Mariah’s live performance can sound far different from her studio version. For instance, the performance of “Hero” during her Daydream World Tour totally differs from the studio version. She beautified the song with many high notes which cannot be found in the studio version. On the other hand, Celine’s live performance sounds nearly the same as the studio version. The best thing about Mariah is that she can hit a high note and elastically jump to another high note to create an improvisation while Celine tends to sing lifelessly because of less improvisation.

After comparing those aspects, Mariah can be considered better than Celine. Mariah beats Celine in terms of vocal range, vocal production and improvisation. People now or in the future may often compare any singers to Mariah and make her a standard of a good female singer.

Studying Life in Poetry Class

English poetry is one of several subjects which I am taking in this semester. It is a subject that discusses about some aspects that build English poetry. Before taking the class, I thought that it would be the same as Indonesian poetry. However, I found things different and they are, of course, obviously more complicated than Indonesian Poetry. Actually, I never thought that I would take this subject since I decided at the first semester that I would focus on Linguistics subject. However, the fact that I had to do was different from what I had planned. The guidance book showed that English poetry was subject that I had to take in the fourth semester. Therefore, when I register for classes, I forcedly clicked English poetry to be my study schedule. I just thought that I had to do whatever it took. On the other hand, I found many things in English poetry class that I can take as lesson in my life.

The first meeting, it was the introduction, as always, to what we would study in this semester. The lecturer told us many things but I forgot what they were because there was something that really disturbed my mind. It was like pulling teeth. This happened when the lecturer gave the students and I a poem that he asked us to read and understand. The poem was about someone giving a rose to someone else. It was also explained in the poem that red meant desire and passion meanwhile white meant pure and sweet. Then the one in the poem gave a creamy rose with a flush on its tip. The lecturer asked us to interpret the meaning of the poem. A student said that she believed that desire would destroy love. She also said that desire would hurt the love itself so that she suggested all of us to push aside our desire and passion from love. This opinion was also agreed by another student. He said that desire and passion was something to avoid and ban. On the other hand, I really disagree with what they were saying. I just thought that the one in the poem only tried to be honest. He gave a creamy rose, not a white rose, with a flush on its tip. This meant that he was actually honest about what he felt. He knew that he was a human being who felt both love and desire as humans were born with them. I thought that it was too hypocritical to say that we humans had to push aside our desire and passion from our love. It was too goody to say that desire and passion would just only hurt the love meanwhile they did not know that actually desire was the base of love. Why do men fall in love with women and vice versa? Why gay men fall in love with men? Why can’t straight men fall in love with men? Why can’t gay men fall in love with women? It is because of desire which is the base of love. They denied this and said that desire would just hurt out love. At the time, I really wanted to ask them “Do you want to have a wife or a husband who is always saying ‘I love you’ but always letting you sleep alone in a cold night?” But I did not speak my mind. Finally, I just study that to understand something, I need to look at its very basic aspect so that I do not simply make a wrong judgment.

The next meeting, I studied about rhythm and meter. The lecturer gave us a poem and then he asked us to segment every single word based on its syllable. After that, we had to try to identify every single syllable whether it was pronounced stressed or unstressed. After doing this way, we could know identify and know the rhythm and meter of the poem. However, something came to my mind. I was really questioning whether doing this kind of activity was important or not. I asked myself, “Is it important? Why would I do this? Can this improve my knowledge? Will it be useful for my study?” Many questions came hard to my mind like cats and dogs. I then tried to suit myself and think deeply. After a while, I figured out that rhythm and meter were something building the beauty of a poem. I understood that poems actually presented the beauty that was composed of a particular aspect. From this way, I can understand that there is actually a cause and effect in life. To reach a great result, a big effort need to be done just like a complicated way is done to create a beautiful poem.

Another meeting, the topic was about concrete poetry. The lecturer showed us a poem which its arrangement of words reflected a picture. I simply thought that it was ridiculous. Why did the poet do such a complicated way just to write a poem? I tried to think and then I found out that actually the reflected picture was related the meaning that was conveyed. The picture was made to deliver the meaning that was brought by the poem. Then, I realize that I also need to do the same in life. To successfully deliver a message, I need to do several ways that will make my message more understandable so that people will not misinterpret what I mean.

I have got several life lessons in my poetry class. I realize that there is always a lesson behind everything even though it is something that I think it is ridiculous. However, to find out the lesson is not easy. A deep thinking needs to be done to discover a precious lesson behind something. 

Poem: Since The First Time I Saw You

Still I remember that night

When I first saw you

Your face shone as the moon

Felt I was imprinted to you

It took me long

To take over myself back

And that I found

My heart was going on

It started the night

To put you on my dreams

And that your name

Was the only I recited

And as the morning came

The sun would not rise

‘Cause you’d replaced its light

Now you’re my sun

Which shines to my days

You are the moon

Which lights to my nights

Your face is an art

Which beautifies my sight

Your voice is a song

Which comforts my ears

Your existence is a soul

Which fills my empty life

But,

When I once knocked your heart

And entered to ever see

I just figured out

That you’d been with somebody

All was left is the wounds

That give an endless pain

The longer since the time

The more they hurt me

They seem never to heal

My feeling is crying

To know you’re my impossibility

My soul is dying

To know you won’t be any

My heart is bleeding

To know you never see

Still my feeling goes endlessly

Still my soul burns unfailingly

Still my heart waits you to see

Poem: Whenever You Need Me

When you’re at the horn

Feeling so numb

Call me to count

In sincere I come

When you’re blinded

The darkness is all true

Just take me in it

I’ll shine you through

When you’re trapped in sea

Troubled by water

Just put your faith at me

I’ll bridge you over

Whenever you need me

I’ll give my faith

Even trouble is all you see

I won’t let you be afraid

Whenever you need me

Sure I’ll be there

Even pain is all will be

I’ll dedicate my care

When you taste the bitter

I’ll be your sugar

When you’re in suffer

I’ll be your savior

When you want laughter

I’ll be your joker

When you need a holder

I’ll be your soldier

I’m always here

So never fear

I’ll be your cope

So keep your hope

I’ll be your hand

Don’t ever end

I’ll take your role

Don’t lose your goal

Whenever you need me
anything I will be 

Poem: God’s Art

As the run rises

God colors it yellow

Brushing it to shine

As the sun glows

He erases the dew

Wiping the leaves to dry

And putting the green on them

He gives the notes to birds

Conducting them to sing

The song to fill the air

Directing it to dance the wind

As the midday

He blends the red

To the yellow sun

Painting clouds

Hanging them on wind

To decorate the sky

Some leaves are burned to brown

Then He blows some to ground

Or spreads them to walk with wind

He splits a mirror into water

To make it reflect things

As the evening begins

He tints the sun to be orange

Slowly removing the daylight

Sinking the sun to the west

He pours the black to the world as night

Covering it with the dark

He powders the sky with blinking stars

Hanging up the moon as the lamp

Turning it on to glisten

He turns down the sound into dump

Folding His creatures to slumber

He is the universe’s beautician

Who prettifies the state of time