Esai Sastra, Sebuah Studi Terhadap Bahasa Indonesia Kala Itu

Parafrase Puisi “Kenangan dan Kesepian” Karya Rendra menjadi sebuah prosa:   Terdapat rumah tua dengan pagar terbuat dari batu. Menjadi rumah kenangan dan penuh memori dari masa yang sudah lalu. Kenangan masa kecilku yang sudah lampau dan telah lama berlalu. Kira-kira 40 tahun lalu aku menghabiskan masa kecilku di rumah itu bersama kakek dan nenekku yang sangat menyayangiku. Ayah dan ibuku sibuk bekerja di ladang menanam padi di kala musim tanam. Selama ayah dan ibu bekerja dari pagi hingga sore, aku diasuh dan dijaga oleh kakek dan nenekku di rumah. Sesekali mereka pun mengajakku ke kebun di dekat rumah untuk mencari sayur-sayuran dan umbi-umbian sebagai bahan makanan sekeluarga. Langit di desa sungguh indah, warnanya biru dan udaranya bersih tak tercemar polusi. Juga banyak terhampar sawah yang berganti warna sesuai musimnya. Jika musim tanam datang, sawah akan berwarna hijau menyegarkan mata. Menjelang musim panen tiba, padi-padi yang merunduk, gemuk berisi akan memberikan warna kuning pada keseluruhan sawah. Jika musim panen telah usai, sawah akan terlihat cokelat karena sekam-sekam yang dibiarkan mengering layu. Pada akhirnya sawah mulai diairi kembali dan menjadi sangat becek berlumpur untuk musim tanam berikutnya. Juga jangan lupakan bambu-bambu yang sangat mudah tumbuh di sekitar sungai-sungai kecil dan di antara kebun-kebun tetangga. Sudah lama rasanya aku berkenalan dengan suasana sepi pedesaan hingga sampai pada kejemuan. Akhirnya semakin disandarkanlah perasaan ini ke dalam hati hingga aku beranjak dewasa. Jalan hidupku seperti usang dan berdebu, aku makin merasa seolah-seolah tak berhati. Lewat perjalanan nasib, aku mencoba menatapnya kembali. Kini aku telah dewasa, ayah dan ibuku telah tiada, apalagi kakek dan nenekku. Aku tak memiliki adik maupun kakak, pasangan hidup pun tidak. Cinta yang pernah datang dalam hidupku seperti burung tak tergenggam. Selain itu, ibarat batang baja waktu lengang di desa itu, seolah-olah dari belakang terus menikam ke dalam kosongnya hatiku. Maka dari itu rumah tua dan pagar batu kini telah aku tinggalkan. Aku pun pindah dari desa terpencil ini ke kota. Rasa sepi yang syahdu itu membuatku tak tahan lagi untuk terus berada di sini. Dibuat oleh: Intan Rastini.

Dibuat ketika saya masih berkuliah dan bekerja di kantor instansi desa; menjalani tutorial online dengan dosen pembimbing yang memberikan materi secara daring di Universitas Terbuka Indonesia.

Pertama Kali Buat Corn Dog

Pada bulan Mei tahun 2018 aku sempat minta Shannon, sebagai relawan mengajar asing yang datang dari Amerika Serikat untuk ngasi tau cara buat Corn Dog. Jadi Shannon bantu memberikan tutorial untuk membuat jajanan kaki lima ala Amerika Serikat gitu.

Cara buatnya gimana? Seinget aku agak ribet ya. Karena ini dikasi tau langsung oleh si orang Amrik jadi dia sebutin bahan-bahannya sesuai dengan yang dia tau saat dibuat di Amerika sana. Padahal di sini ya juga ada sih, tapi kita akalin pakai substitusinya dengan bahan yang tersedia secara lokal.

Ok, udah saking ngebetnya pengen tau jajanan a la Amerika Serikat yang terkenal, yaitu Hot Dog atau Corn Dog, maka kita buat saja Corn Dog.

Bahan:

1. Sosis
2. Susu Cair
3. Telur
4. Tepung terigu
5. Tepung Panir
6. Minyak goreng

Cara membuat:

1. Sebelumnya jika sosis masih beku, cairkan dulu. Jika sudah cair tusuk tiap sosis dengan tusuk sate.
2. Buat adonan telur kocok, tambah susu cair, beri tepung terigu secukupnya.
3. Lumuri sosis ke dalam adonan telur, susu cair dan tepung terigu. Lalu balurkan ke dalam tepung panir.
4. Ulangi proses yang sama untuk sosis yang lain hingga mendapat cukup Corn Dog untuk siap digoreng.
5. Panaskan wajan lalu beri minyak goreng yang cukup agar bisa membuat Corn Dog cukup terendam saat tergoreng.
6. Jika minyak sudah panas, masukkan Corn Dog hingga matang kuning-keemasan alias golden brown.
7. Tiriskan Corn Dog dan siap untuk dihidangkan.

Resepnya sederhana aja, bisa dimodifikasi dan ditakar sesuai selera. Aku juga suka masak dengan prinsip tanpa takaran pasti. Berbeda hal jika perlu konsistensi masakan untuk dijual, takaran itu harus ya, supaya makanan yang kita masak cita rasanya dan standarnya sama terus.

Malah Shannon bilang kalau Corn Dog itu bisa ditaburin dengan Corn Flakes cereal gitu. Widih biar makin crunchy, ya!

Cheers!

Initiate Something

28 March 2023. 7:45

Everytime I read, I was tempted to write again. I am currently reading Out of Africa by Karen Blixen. The adventurous story and a passionate memoirs about running a coffee farm in Africa.

Lately I have been watching a lot. Some movies and series that I had watched are: Wednesday, The Addams Family, KKN di Desa Penari, Pixar’s short animation: Forky, The Internships, Harry & Meghan, The Punisher. So I read one book versus watching a lot.

Well, I am still writing secretly wherever I want, on my private notebooks. Other than that, I write other stuffs, such as messages and lesson on the whiteboard. I haven’t tried vlog yet. Because no use. I always avoid the complexity of video editing. Writing is quiet. Less chatty, but you can let out the bubbly mind.

In communication I’d rather have it written down than said. Today I taught the students and I almost always had my tongue slipped. I was pronouncing something but my distracting mind was also think about something else. So, I said, “yef” instead of “yes”. My students were very noisy. That level of noise that divert my focus to whose face I should talk. The class situation was unruly.

Matching Vocab Words with Picture for Young English Learners

Last October I had a vocabulary game with my students. With the help of a volunteer from the Netherlands, Isabelle, we remade a kindergarten worksheet from Education.com into vocabulary cards. It was a Fun Matching List with Images Worksheet with twelve words and twelve pictures. The vocabulary list on the left side consisted of ‘cap’, ‘dig’, ‘hat’, ‘sun’, ‘web’, ‘lip’, ‘tub’, ‘ant’, ‘mop’, ‘jam’, ‘bat’, ‘fox’. While on the right side there were random pictures that depicted each vocabulary word. The kids shall match each word with the correct picture.

If we just used that printed worksheet, the kids could make a line to connect a word to the correct picture. Just as simple as that. However, we didn’t do like that. Isabelle helped me making twelve cards from the vocabulary words, she wrote the words on a piece of paper card with colorful pens. Next, she cut each picture from the worksheet and then every picture was attached on the blank cards. We had four sets of vocabulary list and four sets of pictures from four printed worksheets.

Photo by Isabelle Hey

Photo by Isabelle Hey

How we did it in the class was we split our young students into four groups consisted of 6-8 children. We had set the tables and chairs into four-group position so they could discuss together. After that, we gave each group with a set of cards that included a list of vocabulary and a list of pictures. Every group worked together as a team to match each vocab word with the correct pictures.

It was interesting to see how far my English students knew the vocabulary. My students were about 9-12 years old and they were learning English as a foreign language for beginner level. They made a few mistakes while matching the vocab with the picture, but their enthusiasm and teamwork were really valuable to see. It didn’t matter that they made some mistakes, they were still learning and they would make an improvement. It was getting easy as they remembered the meaning of the vocab words or remembered the pairs. When they finished a set, we scrambled the cards and they redid it again.

You can check more worksheets on Education.com for your children at home or for your students. My kindergarten sons, for instance, they like the maze worksheets and always enjoy solving different types of the maze (you can read the story here).

I also have tried giving my son with the word tracer worksheet but he wasn’t as interested as doing the maze worksheets. I thought that Crawlies Word Tracer would really suit my 5-year-old son to learn how to write alphabets. Still, he enjoyed the maze worksheets the most!

♡ Intan Rastini

Free Spirited American Volunteers

I always love to have volunteers from the United States of America because I adore the country, the freedom, and liberty. So when American volunteers come, it is very delightful to me to ask them about anything related to their country. The first American volunteer that I got at the learning center is Ian Alfaro from Hawai, but his family is from Mexico so he is also a Mexican. He is a surfer anyway and he brought his surfboard to our learning center, he did surf at Balian Beach.

Next, I met a couple from Washington, USA. They are Lisa Beck and Daniel Kirkpatrick. They are married with three children, their oldest son is in the same as me. I also asked them to be my American parents, and they said yes. They are very nice and kind. Once they asked me about teaching my sons English then I said that my sons had a speech delay, they cheered me up and Daniel told me a story about some different animal, for example, a rabbit, a snake, a chicken, a bird, a fish, a frog who are taught to swim, to fly and to walk. In the swimming lesson, none of them can swim except fish and frog. Next, in the flying lesson, none of them can fly except a bird, even the chicken is hardly fly. At last in the walking lesson, none of them can walk except a chicken, the rabbit jumps and the snake slithers.

He said that the moral story was every child has his own skill and ability timing, so I shouldn’t worry about the speech delay happen to my sons. It is a very heart-warming story that ever given to me to cheer me as a mom. In fact, Daniel and Lisa are education consultants. So they work to train people, to train students, to set or design a school program and so on. They also run an international school. Daniel also an Aikido practitioner, so he taught the kids and me about Aikido. It is totally a coincidence because I am truly interested in Aikido since a long time ago I watched an actor who practiced Aikido because it is the only martial art that is used to defend yourself not to “attack”. And yes it is true Aikido is the harmony of energy.

Although Daniel and Lisa are old and ugly (hahaha this was Daniel idea) but they are really fun and adventurous! Then after Daniel and Lisa, there was Shannon Breslin from Chicago. She works at California right now. She was just graduated from university when she came volunteering at our learning center. She has a cheerful and positive attitude. Shannon loves to play soccer, she is really sporty. Once I ran with her in the hills and she could keep going running uphill and downhill faster than me. I told her that she’s got log slim legs like a horse! Haha she is indeed tall. When we ran together she was afraid of the dogs barking at us and she used me to cover her LOL!

Thanks to Hannah Spencer from NZ who took this picture

After Shannon, there was an adult volunteer who works as a speech therapist and as a secondary school teacher (I think it a high school). She is not really American because she is a Russian who moved to the USA. Her name is Laura Kovalenko. She is a yoga enthusiast too! Like me. We have the same interest in exercise and workouts, the difference is just she can do difficult yoga poses while I still can’t hahaha. I have ever consulted about my son speech delay and she advised me very well. She is very open and friendly. The way she taught the kids make me learn how to teach better. I even invited her to come to the English lesson of my private student and we played continuing story with the dice. Laura lives in New York! Yeah, New York my dream city. I want to visit NYC someday, I will just call Laura to pick me up from Ellis Island. Laura said that the statue of Liberty is close to her home. Wow!

Who is going to be the next American volunteer that I would meet at the Learning Center Eka Chita Pradnyan? I don’t know, we’ll see. From them, I got many souvenirs. It is funny because Shannon and Laura gave me the same thing: bracelet. Shannon gave me a brown mosquito repellent bracelet while Laura gave me a white bracelet. And they almost look the same braided bracelet! Just in different colors. Daniel and Lisa gave me the most things that I really like: American Magazine! Besides that, they also gave me a foldable magnifying glass and mechanical flashlight (without battery but using our muscle to turn on the light) for an outdoor activity. Even more, Daniel wrote me a credit as an English teacher! Thanks a lot for the gifts, I will keep them and remember you always in my heart.

💕 Intan Rastini