Sanya

His name is Alexander and he's called Sanya. He is another friend from Russia.

What I remember about Sanya is his first facebook profile picture. In that picture he stands with his cat on his shoulders.

Outside, Sanya can be a good example of genius (hey Sanya, I compliment you). He's smart at school, he cares about political issue, he can speak German, and he read Das Capital. I include reading Das Capital as genius to-do-list simply because I haven't ever read it and Sanya had already read it when he was 15. 

Inside, Sanya is, I may say, caring. He often goes out with his little cousin. He even celebrate his grandmother's birthday (for people who doesn't really care about birthday like me, celebrating birthday can be a sign of caring, sometimes).

Sanya doesn't like snow, unlike me. I always want to see snow because I live in a tropical country. Talking about tropical country, I remember when he commented on my facebook photos. He said that lotus (or water lily, sorry, I can't differ them) was unusual nature phenomenon and he was amazed of the dark green leaves in my country. "Green in Russia is not that dark," he said.

By the way, as I have said that Sanya cares about political issue, at first I thought he would study politics in university but he is studying physics in Moscow State University (MSU) instead. He said that he knew he would study in MSU since he was in first grade (good job, Sanya!). Now, Sanya is fighting with calculus and physic experiments. He has to do experiments then handle the results with, he said, ugly formulas, and answer the instructor.  However, despite his difficult subject (when I look at photos of his textbook, suddenly medical seems easy for me), he said, "I don't steal sleep time from myself."  Well, I have to ask him to teach me time management.

Maria

Catholics pray, "Ave Maria, gratia plena". Or in English, it's "Hail Mary, full of grace." However, I won't write about that Maria. This Maria I'm going to write is my friend. She's not full of grace. She's Maria full of case (to tell you the truth, I had difficulty finding word that rhymes with grace).

Gadukimo
"It's sunny in Moscow and St. Petersburg but it rains in Gadukimo," she wrote to me one day. "What's Gadukimo?" She said, "It's a fictional place where everything is bad." Maria is from Yoshkar-Ola, Mari El, Russia, the city which she said as bad as Gadukimo. However, when she showed me some photos of her hometown, I thought Yoshkar-Ola is not that bad.

Maria and Masha
Maria taught me about about nicknames in Russia which I consider unique. For example, Alexei is called Lesha. I used to call Alexei, my Russian friend Alex and she said, "It's fine. We know Western more than they know us." Other examples are Alexander is called Sanya, Ekaterina is called Katya, and Nadezhda is called Nadya. Then how do you call Maria? Maria is called Masha.

Since she's called Masha, I always remember her when I watch "Masha and the Bear" on TV and then I realize Maria is not so cute as that Masha. She's sweet actually, in different way which I can't describe.

I still have a lot of stories about Maria but I'll write again next time when I have idea how to write it (she's kind of difficult to be explained in writing). 



   

Some Names

I just want to mention some names: Alexei, Josh, Andrzej, Peiyu, Maria, and Sanya. Who are they? They are my friends whom I first met in internet and until now I've never met even one of them.

I had a lot of internet friends actually but the names I mention above are  my friends whom I'm going to write in my upcoming posts (hopefully, when my mood is right). Why them? I don't know, I just want to write about them.

If you ask why I don't write about my friends in real life. I just feel that since I don't show my clear identity and photos in this blog, I won't show my real friends' identity either. But you write your internet friends' names? Some (or maybe all) of that names are fake names. Who knows?

Bekerja Sama Menanam Pohon

Salah satu cara menunda pemanasan global dengan menanam pohon. Aku mau cerita nih. Dulu waktu SMA, OSIS sekolahku bekerja sama dengan Dinas Kehutanan untuk melakukan penghijauan. Aku bukan panitia penyelenggara tapi aku senang bisa berpartisipasi dalam acara itu.

Kalian juga bisa melakukannya. Ajak organisasi atau komunitasmu, hubungi dinas kehutanan, dan lakukan penghijauan. Mengapa harus dengan dinas kehutanan? Emang gak bisa sendiri? Sebenarnya penghijauan bisa kita lakukan sendiri tetapi kalau bekerja sama dengan dinas kehutanan, kita akan diberi pengarahan tempat mana yang perlu dihijaukan, cara menanam, dan lain-lain.

Tulisan ini dalam rangka event #30DaysSaveEarth yang di selenggarakan oleh @jungjawa dan @unidzalika

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Kado Ramah Lingkungan

Berikan temanmu kado berupa bibit pohon, bunga (bunga yang masih punya akar, bukan buket), kaktus, atau tanaman lainnya. Dengan begini, kamu bisa sekalian mengajak temanmu merawat tanaman dan menyelamatkan lingkungan.

Tulisan ini dalam rangka event #30DaysSaveEarth yang di selenggarakan oleh @jungjawa dan @unidzalika 

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Koreksi Sebelum Mencetak = Hemat Kertas

Pernahkah kalian mencetak dokumen dan setelah dokumen tercetak kalian baru menyadari ada kesalahan lalu kalian harus mencetak lagi? Lalu, dokumen yang salah cetak itu diapakan? Dibuang? Dipakai lagi untuk corat-coret?

Sebaiknya sebelum mencetak, koreksilah dulu supaya tidak terjadi kesalahan dan tidak boros kertas.  Ini hanya satu langkah kecil untuk mengurangi sampah.

Tulisan ini dalam rangka event #30DaysSaveEarth yang di selenggarakan oleh @jungjawa dan @unidzalika 

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Kurangi Sampah Plastik

“Gak usah diplastik, Mbak,” kata itu sering kukatakan bila hanya membeli sedikit barang di supermarket. Biasanya bila hanya beli sedikit, aku memasukkan barang di saku celana, keranjang sepeda (kalau kebetulan naik sepeda), atau tas. Mengapa aku melakukannya? Ya untuk mengurangi sampah plastik karena plastik dapat mencemari tanah. 

Plastik itu non-biodegradable, maksudnya plastik sulit terurai oleh mikroorganisme dalam tanah. Karena plastik perlu waktu lama untuk terurai, bahan yang terdapat dalam plastik dapat mengubah komposisi dan mengurangi kesuburan tanah.

Tulisan ini dalam rangka event #30DaysSaveEarth yang di selenggarakan oleh @jungjawa dan @unidzalika 

 Anda juga bisa berpartisipasi dengan membaca ketentuan ini terlebih dahulu.

Here is the Lesson

After you read my previous post, you may ask, “What is lesson of failure? Did you fail to cure your patients?”

I didn’t mean that kind of failure. I’m still a student, not a doctor yet. What I meant with lesson of failure is simply failure on tests, like other students from any school by the way.

Here in medical school we have OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) and written test. OSCE is an exam where student acts as a doctor and faces simulated patients.

I remember when I had my first OSCE. I thought it would be easy. I have to admit I didn’t practice a lot because I thought I had understood the concept and how to do it. Then I got the result... I failed on three of five exams. It was such a shame for me. I mean, 3 of 5! I failed more than I passed. I failed on medical record, basic physical examination, and communication. I didn’t even believe that I failed in communication. Let me explain, in communication exam I had to communicate with my patient and gain information from her condition. It sounds easy, doesn’t it? However, I wasn’t the only one who failed.

Lesson #1: never underestimate any subject.

I then had a remedial tests for the tests I failed. The result is, I passed medical record and basic physical examination but again, I failed on communication so that I have to take remedial test in my third term. What’s wrong with my communication? I later found out the cause in my second term.

In my first OSCE, after I asked the patient about her condition, I told her I would do an exam. I didn’t do actual exam anyway. I just said it. After that, I pretended to give medicine and told her to take the medicine three times in a day (just like usual medicine, right?). 

In my second term, I got a lecture about communication again because we would have communication OSCE in second term, too. The lecturer talked about first-term communication OSCE. The objective of first-term communication OSCE is to build a good doctor-patient relationship. So, after we gain enough information, we should close it like, “Baik, saya rasa sudah cukup tanya-jawabnya. Terima kasih atas kerja samanya. Sekarang saya akan melakukan pemeriksaan. Apakah anda bersedia? - Okay, I think it’s enough. Thank you for your cooperation. Now, I’m going to do some examination. Do you agree?” Sorry, if my English word choice isn’t correct. I didn’t speak English in OSCE anyway so I don’t know how doctors say it in English. Back to the OSCE. So, you can see my fault, don’t you? I shouldn’t prescribe or give any medicine in first-term OSCE. 

Lesson #2: pay attention to the learning objective, you have to understand why you study the lesson.

What about my written tests? Well, I will explain sometime.

I Learned to Fail

One of the best lessons I get in medical school is lesson of failure. This lesson is never taught but we have to experience it ourselves. 

Of course there are a few students who don’t get this lesson often. They’re too smart to get this. At first I pitied myself and envied them. I thought, “Why couldn’t I be smart like them? Why couldn’t I be so smart as myself when I was in high school?”

However, I then learned to accept my failure, to forgive myself. And because of that, I’m kind of “immune” to the stress caused by failure. It doesn’t mean that I don’t try to gain success. It’s just that I try to gain success but if I fail, I will not whine. I will try again.