Update November

If I had not blogged for quite a long time, it was because I was tremendously busy with works and other stuffts . The two newest ones were on last Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday, I was invited to give a presentation about Indonesia to elementary school students in Shinden, Uji City. That was an event of introducing global culture to students in Japan. 18 nationalities participated there. Each of us was given 15 minutes time for presentation and 5 minutes for discussion to each group of students. A group consisted 5 students. I introduced education in Indonesia, (unique) foods, (unique) transportation and beautiful places. The presentation is on the following link. (I am sorry the presentation does not perform the in a sequence because flickr does not allow me to do so! But I have made the slide title/number for each slide so that you can still refer to).

When I presented about the education, I gave one example about how difficult it is for high school students to enter the public universities in Indonesia. About only 10% of chairs is available out of 400 thousand students who are taking the national entrance exam. One participant of Saturday’s presentation asked me: “What if the students failed in the exam?”. I said: “Well, there are 3 chances in three years for you to try or else you can be enrolled in private university which generally costs more expensive”. “It was very difficult then,” he shouted. Then I told about transportation modes in Indonesia which are different with those in Japan, such as: “Bajaj, Becak, Ojek”. Have a look the detailed information here!

Anyway, I gave presentation to three groups. It was really nice to have an event like this. This kind of event helps junior high school students to understand better about other countries. When the presentation over those students gave me Indonesian Flad painted on small papers with crayon.  

Yesterday, I joined a disaster practice in Enmachi area, Kyoto. The community’s name is Syuhachi community. This community was previously used for a case study area of my friend in writing his dissertation. So yesterday our laboratory joined the program held by this community. We participated by explaining the process of soil liquefaction. In Niigata earthquake in 2004, liquefaction happened as was shown by man holes raised to the soil surface about one meter. The effect of this is very negative to the infrastructure. So, one of the lectures yesterday was about this issue. We provided simple illustration how liquefaction took place. The tool is easy. What you need is only a pet bottle, sand, water and pins. I will example this later in other posting (soon I will post!). We also gave simple illustration the effects of earthquake to buildings for different heights and building materials.

Other news is that my supervisor has agreed for my fieldwork time to Indonesia. It has been postponed for a couple of times. Last three weeks we had fruitful meetings and finally my fieldwork trip  and the time is supported. Another trip is coming but this will be very important as it is for my data collection. Some contacts in the field have been willing to help me during the data collection. Additionally I have got some data provided by them through mail and online contacts.

Last but not the least (even the most news I am waiting for) is the birth of our first baby. Last week, the doctor said it was going to be within these three weeks. It has been 10 days since the doctor said that. Therefore we’re waiting for the next 11 days to come. Hopefully everything is going to be alright .