Cr: Google

Merangin, Ciaobloggers.com – The latest trend of ornamental plants is now spreading in Indonesia, including in Jambi, especially Merangin.

In the midst of the current Corona pandemic, people seem to have a new hobby by collecting various types of plants such as Aglonema, Sri Rejeki, orchids, and currently the most popular plant is Calathea.

Calathea is an ornamental plant that comes from the rainforests of South America and it is becoming an ornamental plant that is gaining popularity among the community. Many people are attracted to Calathea because of the beauty of the variety of leaves and the colors on the leaves.

Recently, many flower lovers have been looking for Calathea, one of which is Mardesi, a resident of Btn Griya Bangko Asri Sei Ulak, Bangko City who collects Calathea in her house. The house that Mardesi lives in is decorated with dozens of pots filled with flowers, and makes her house more colorful. Since long time ago, this housewife has admitted that she loves and has a hobby of collecting flowers. From Aglonema, Bromelia, Sansevieria, cactus and currently her favorite flower is Calathea.

     

 

"At first, I became interested in Calathea when I visited my friend's house, my friend also has a hobby of collecting flowers, then I saw one of the flowers in her house turned out to be Calathea, apparently she has a lot of these plants, then I asked for a sprig of Calathea," she said.

The reason she chose Calathea because this plant has its own uniqueness. With a variety of leaf shapes and beautiful colors, it makes her decided to collect Calathea. In addition, Mardesi also revealed that maintaining Calathea does not require a lot of money and also does not need special care. So it is perfect for people who do not want to be difficult in taking care of plants.

      

 

"This Calathea has its own uniqueness, the color of the leaves is various and with different shapes. Calathea also does not need special care like Aglonema, we only need to provide planting media such as pots and soil to maintain this flower. You do not need to spend a lot of money, so it is suitable for “emak-emak” who do not want to spend a lot of money, hahaha, ” She said with a laugh.

So far, Mardesi also admitted that she did not pay anything to buy this flower, because when it was still not a trend, Calathea did not have many fans so people just gave it for free when someone asked for it. For several months hunting Calathea to the house of her friends who have the same hobby, Mardesi has been able to collect 10 types of Calathea at her house.

According to Mardesi, Calathea is no less beautiful than Aglonema. Calathea is perfect for lazy people. This is because Calathea only needs to be watered once a day. Calathea prices are also quite expensive for certain types. Prices range from Rp. 50,000 to hundreds or even millions of rupiah. Like one of the flower that is famous for its high price today, namely Janda Bolong.

Not only used as decoration, but if this plant is cultivated diligently, this plant can become money. Mardesi said that since the outbreak of "flower fever", a lot of people are competing to sell flowers, and even some people are willing to go into the forest just to look for ornamental plants. Not only that, some are willing to spend hundreds to millions of rupiah just to buy ornamental plants at this time.

"Yes, so far people have started doing business selling ornamental plants. When it was not yet a trend, people did not seem to care about ornamental plants and even these ornamental plants were not cared properly and were just thrown away by people. But, now people are even willing to buy flowers at high prices, " She said.

At the moment, Mardesi is focusing on caring for her flowers so they can reproduce properly. She plans that when the flowers start to grow, she will sell them. Until now, many people have asked whether her flowers can be sold, but her flowers still cannot be sold because she only has one pot of each type for now.

By: Siti Maharani Salsabilla 

(A1B218074)

Book details:

·      Book title: The Female Brain

·      Genre: psychology

·      The author: Louann Brizendine, M.D

·      Translator: Meda Satrio

·      Publisher: Ufuk Press

·      Publication Year: 2007

·      Number of pages: 352 pages

·      Language: Indonesia

·      Price: Rp. 45.000

·      Published edition number: ISBN 979-1238-27-8

“You work on logic, she works on emotion”

People say, especially men, it is difficult to get to know women well because women are complicated and difficult to understand creatures. For some men, understanding women is a difficult thing, even more difficult than doing math exam. In addition, if we hear a book that discusses about the brain, especially the female brain, the first thing that comes to our mind is something that is very complicated, complex, and maybe boring for some people, but not with the explanation inside this book.

The Female Brain is a book released in 2006 written by American neurologist Louann Brizendine, M.D, a pioneer of neuropsychiatry and director of the Women's and Teen Girls' Mood and Hormone Clinic (the first clinic in the United States to specifically research and think  female brain function).  In words that don’t use rigid scientific language, which are easy to understand, and with examples drawn from everyday experience, she reveals the latest findings that show how unique the structure of the female brain is that determines how women think, the things that women think is important, how they communicate, and who they will love.

Louann Brinzendine

This book explains the life cycle of women from fetus to the elderly by taking a medical approach.  Brinzendine writes that every time a woman enters a phase of her life, each time there are changes in hormonal levels that can affect physical development, and what is more emphasized in this book is the emotional changes of women that greatly affect the way they socialize, communicate, make decisions,  negotiations, facing conflicts, to matters of love.

This book is very clear in explaining these emotional changes and how women deal with them, as well as some advice on how we should respond to them. From this book we can also find out some of the reasons why women talk more than men, why women remember details of quarrels that men cannot remember at all, why young girls are so obsessed with their appearance, why women are more sensitive than men, etc. All of this we can find the answer in this book. Louann Brizendine has conducted this research for 20 years, so that she is able to convey all of these things in a language style that is easy to understand and accompanied by examples of real events in everyday life making it easier for us to understand every information presented in this book.

As someone who really likes things related to psychology, this book has become one of my favorite book lists after Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus. This is because I think by reading psychology books I can understand what is going on in me, besides that I can also better understand how a person's character is. The interesting part in this book is the explanation of how the female brain in the phase of sexual maturity experiences changes from puberty where it occurs in increased sensitivity, growth of stress circuits, verbal, emotions that make women in this phase experience changes in the circuit of making decision and control emotions ripen early. It is not surprising that women are able to control their emotions earlier than men.

Not only understanding hormones in women, this book is also highly recommended for women who are still single and for couples who are getting married. Because this book is equipped with real cases in a family, the problems after marriage are very real and are fully explained with their hormonal causes and how to overcome them. For women who often experience stress, especially myself who feel it, emotional problems with a partner and so on, will also get a clear explanation regarding what happens to the real female brain.

Even after reading this book as a woman we will know how to react in case of disturbances that can make bad changes to our brain circuits. What I can conclude from this book is that hormones are very influential on changes in the female brain region. This book is perfect for young people to adults who are eager to know why a woman can behave unexpectedly and act differently at each stage. Especially for men, you must read this book so that you don't get caught up in dealing with women. 😄

Reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louann_Brizendine 

By: Siti Maharani Salsabilla 

(A1B218074)

Book details:

·      Book title: Of Mice and Men

·      The author: John Steinbeck

·      Translator: Ariyantri E. Tarman

·      Publisher: PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama

·      Publication Year: 2017

·      Number of pages: 144 pages

·      Language: Indonesia

·      Published edition number: ISBN 978-602-03-3781-4

“I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that’s why.”

The quote above may illustrate the essence of the story that is presented in this book. After reading this book, it occurred in my mind, 'are we not allowed to have dreams?  Even just to dream we are not sure? ”. The tragic reality about the struggle for human life who strives to achieve dreams among so many limitations. A novella written by America's greatest poet, John Steinbeck, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.

John Steinbeck

The novella Of Mice and Men was first published in 1937. The setting of this novella is California during the United States economic depression. This novella is a depiction of working class life which tells about the friendship of two men named George Milton and Lennie Small. George has a small body with a smart brain while Lennie is a big man but has mental retardation so that Lennie can't chose what is good and what is bad and even Lennie is unable to control his emotions. Not only that, Lenny has extraordinary physical strength, therefore Lennie often brings them both into trouble.

 The novella with a third person point of view tells the story of two human beings who complement each other's shortcomings and protect each other. They two have dreams that are very difficult to achieve it. Covered by a farm setting and strong labor nuances, with other worker figures, namely Candy the worker who has a work accident and only gets a cleaning job, Crooks the negro who is exiled because of his different skin color. Then Slim the foreman, a typical worker who is quite above the other workers. Then there is the son of the owner of the farm, Curley, who is known for his arrogance and his seductive wife.

George, Lennie and their friends are people who can only work their whole life to survive, without any guarantee that their life will get better. Even to have dreams they don't dare because there are too many of them, the lower class people who have to live with the reality that dreams will still be dreams. George and Lennie often wished they would have a house in the future, where they would be free, work for no one else and could do whatever they wanted without having to ask anyone's permission.  Lennie who loves gagging, he loved it when George told his that Lennie could raise rabbits and puppies when they had their own house later.

Through this novella, we will feel George's inner turmoil, between his empathy for Lennie because of mental retardation and also his troubles in taking care of Lennie. He must be willing to be able to resist his own desire to live the way he wants, but with Lennie he must give up on that. In this novella John Steinbeck is also very outspoken in raising issues that occurred at that time. We can see this from the very thick social differences such as the views of black and white color, the social status of bosses and workers, even for people with physical and mental disabilities who are told very straightforwardly.

Of Mice and Men movie

The story told in this novella is actually very simple, but the writer is able to bring the reader to feel the things experienced by the characters. The plot is designed so well that the story is light, but very meaningful. Not only with its good plot, but the characterization of the characters is built with great care. The story from this novella has also been adapted into a movie and I have also watched the movie from the story of this novella. The ending of George and Lennie's story was so unexpected, and it is made me cry at the end. I can take many lessons from each character and story. From this story we can get the message conveyed that a situation can force someone to do things unexpectedly. From the references I have read, this book is also included in the list of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, and I hereby dare to say that this book is highly recommended for those of you who like to read novels. Read this novella and try to get into the imagination of each storyline in this novel and feel the sensation. One more thing, I suggest you don't forget to provide tissue before reading because the story from this novella really makes our hearts touched. 😥💔

Reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck  

By: Siti Maharani Salsabilla

(A1B218074)

        “Dear God, if he isn’t my son, please let him have a save journey. But if he is not, I cursed him to become a stone!” she prayed to the God. In the quite sea, suddenly the wind blew so hard and a thunderstorm came.

Who has ever heard or read the sentence above, let's raise your hand!  Yaps, the sentence is very familiar to us because the sentence fragment comes from a legendary story of Indonesian society which is well known and very attached to this day, namely Malin Kundang.

Air Manis Beach or in Minang language called “Aia Manih” beach is a tourist area located in Padang or to be precise in kecamatan Padang selatan, Kota Padang. This beach is one of the popular tourist destinations which is always crowded with people, especially during the holiday season or Eid.  Besides having an exotic panorama, this beach is also known as the Malin Kundang Stone beach. The combination of nature and the legendary stories of the Padang people is a special attraction for this beach. Many tourists are curious about the original Malin Kundang stone, naturally this area is made as a tourist icon for the city of Padang.

I’m very grateful to have the opportunity to visit this beach. A little story, at first I didn't expect that I could finally arrive at this beach because at first my goal to Padang city was to accompany my cousin to take the entrance test to a university in Padang. On July 18, 2019, my family and I went to Padang. We were in Padang for five days and stayed at two different hotels in Padang.

After arriving  in Padang, we decided to stay at a hotel in the center of Padang, namely the Ion Hotel. The reason we chose this hotel is because the location of this hotel is not that far from my cousin's test location. On this first day in Padang, I did not immediately visit Air Manis Beach, but I visited my grandmother's house in Lubuk Basung. My mother and I and some of my family also went to Lubuk Basung, but my cousin was taking the test and his parents were still in Padang to accompany my cousin.

After two days in Padang and my cousin had also finished taking the test, unexpectedly my auntie suddenly suggested that we visit Air Manis beach, she said it would be a pity if we were already in Padang but did not visit the beach  with this very famous legend. Finally, on that day we checked out of the hotel and looked for another hotel that was closer to Air Manis beach. 

                

The next day, we immediately went to Air Manis beach. Along the road to get there, I still feel comfortable because I can see the beautiful city of Padang. When I arrived there, I was greeted by the touch of the soft beach breeze and the sound of the waves from a distance. I was amazed at the scenery I saw, the beach with a wide coastline, sloping contours, and white brown sand. This beach is also known for its small waves and has a beautiful panorama on the north side.

Malin Kundang Stone

At the north end of this beach we can see the mounds of Mount Padang from a distance. In addition, there are two small islands, namely small banana islands (Pisang ketek) and large banana (pisang gadang) which are not far from the beach. On the south side of this beach we can see a rock that resembles a person prostrating. This stone is believed by the community as Malin Kundang who was cursed by his mother to become a stone. On the sides of the beach we can also find people selling food and even clothes. On this beach there is also a vehicle that is quite unique, namely 'ojek pantai' to take visitors along the beach. On this beach, ATV motorbikes and boats are also provided for visitors who want to cross to the island on the beach.

Me with my cousins

However, it is very unfortunate that I can’t visit the island on the beach because I don't have much time. At least, I still had time to try to ride an ATV to get around on the beach.  I’m very happy and proud to be able to ride this ATV.  Because this is my first experience and at first I wasn't sure if I could ride this ATV, as a result I could and I felt WOW!

The charm of this beach can’t be doubted by its beauty. The beautiful panorama and the inherent legend make this beach very worth visiting. This is the first impression I felt after arriving at this beach. I hope that later I can visit this beach again.  Eh!  Not only me, I hope me, you, us can visit this beach. ASAP😁