Semester 1 CAS journals

CAS soccer Sept-November

Desember 4: -coaching soccer practice

It's a week before the second tournament we are joining. We have committed to improve our skills and teamwork. All the members came to this practice though it was raining heavily. We took off our soccer boots, and we practiced in the indoor field. The first 5 minutes were used to do short exercise and stretching for warm up. In the next 15-20 minutes, i divided the teams into two, then asked them to do simulation for game. In this short match, i observed the way they played. I noted down some of their potentials and weaknesses.

After the game ended, we continued to do skill training. With the help of my Physical Education teacher, we learned to master some individual skills like dribbling and controlling the ball. It's not that easy after all, but it is a must in order to master the match. In total, we mastered about 10 basic dribbling and controlling tactics. Some players still need to sharpen their skills.

The last program was re-doing the match, but in this match i also re-arranged the players. I rearranged the players based on the note that I took throughout the practice. No big difference with the previous formation, but it seems that the first team did really good job with this formation. The rain was over, the girls were excited to play in the green field. We moved there, and had a fun match. But there was an accident in the last minutes of the Match, our Captain, Asti, was injured. She could not continue the practice. When I wrote this CAS journal, we had known that Asti could not join in the tournament. This forces me to re-arrange the team formation. Hopefully, the team can adjust the new formation. We still have one practice session, so i'm optimistic that we could overcome this problem.

November 21, 2009

It's a week after the first tournament. As expected,they all came to the practice. In this practice, we had a chance to have match with a soccer team from Bogor. I did make a little change on the formation, like mixing the seniors and juniors. Take players on and off. Just to see whether or not they are capable on the position assigned. I saw talents from the young players, they were skillful and high motivated. There was also one new girl which joined our team, her name is Mada. She was so good in dribbling and shooting the ball to the goal, but she did not seem to be used to play in soccer field. This will be my homework for the next practice, motivate her even more. I can not wait to see more talents unfolded in the next practice..

November 14, 2009

This is the very first tournament, we (the girls soccer team) joined. So many things we learned as a team from this tournament. We learned more about sportsmanship, about overcoming our nervousness during the match and so on. The games were amazing, we put everything we got into these games. We gave the best of us. But unfortunately, we had to be satisfied to be the second winners. We lost by the penalty shootouts, we did repress the sharp attack from the home team in the final, we also had strong midfielders which made us to be able to make deadly counter attacks. We did not lose, i think. We just did not have enough times to score more goals. That's exactly what I said to the players during our lunch after the game.

We are not ashamed nor disappointed. We knew that we would come back to that tournament and bring the victory home.

November 7, 2009

October 30

No Cas

October 22

Soccer Practice; coaching PYP

A usual practice, I taught them how to dribble ball, short pass, long pass, etc. I learn how to motivate those kids who did not feel like playing soccer.. It's hard. I usually can not concentrate when I feel physically tired. It's hard to be their clown when I dont feel like doing it. May be in the next practice, I could have a better attitude to coach them. Wish me luck.

October 15: Tournament in Karawaci.

A very heavy rain we had today. I come here as a manager for the senior soccer team and a coach for the junior soccer team. We came home as the second winners. We did not lose. We did not even come to the final. As the rain did not stop,the tournament committee decided to postpone the final. It is not a professional decision. It's embarrassing to do this in a tournament this big. We could not come to the final because the players which live in dorm would have to attend another events next weekend. We could not re-arrange the schedule and we decided not to come to the final. Irritating, it is. But what can we do ? May be another time.

October 9-11, 2009

This weekend I was invited to my friend's birthday in Bali. It's a name of an island besides Java, famous for its tourism. She's such as a generous person, she invited her friends from Jakarta and accommodated us throughout the weekend. Yesterday before we took off from Jakarta, I had a short talk with her about the current disaster in Padang. We talked about how bad the earthquake in Padang was, and she said that she had a calling to help them out. She asked me because she knew that I had an non-profit social organization called ARK at school. She said whether or not she could use ARK as a media to allocate the donation to Padang. She planned to make a donation box on her birthday tomorrow. I wasnt sure, I said "Well, I'm not sure, but we could try to find another organization to allocate your money. But for sure, you could store the donation in our organization. We then will combine your donations with other donations so that we can raise an even bigger amount of money" She agreed.

She asked me to make a short presentation on her birthday to explain our organization's profile and our mission. After having a preparation, i came forward and delivered the vision of mission of our organization. Then I invited the guests to also fill the donation box. I'm happy to see people excited to raise money for the earthquake victims. Though the money does not belong to me, nor to the organization, but I'm thankful to witness how caring these people are. They still showed their caring for others even in an leisure occasions.

On Monday, I shared this experience to the class. They were happy to hear this news, we also made plan to also raise another donation to help the Padang's earthquake. I'm hoping that students in this school are also aware for this issue. I'm also hoping that those victims can be strengthened in their days.

September 23

Today, there is a one big meeting. It's the last meeting for the student council academic year 2008-2009. We stay after-school. Tomorrow is a holiday, so we do not worry about homework and tests. We opened the meeting with prayer.

After that, we had a general discussion about our performance throughout the year. I heard positive feedbacks from the student council's members and from the teachers who came to the meeting. Then after that, we discussed the activities we did one by one. I helped Yosua, our President, to conduct the meeting. I asked each of the chairperson of the related event, to speak first about the event followed by the members of the committee. In student council, we learn to make a small committee whenever we have events. This method has been proven as an effective method and gives better efficiency. In fact, sometimes the student council could even hold two events at the same moments.

I also had my time to speak regarding the evaluation for my "Internal Soccer Tournament". All the members said that it was run smoothly, gave new spirit for the students and helped the students to get close with others. Even though this is our last meeting, but we have not lost our motivation. We keep the meeting professional. The meeting is ended at 06:00 pm.

Then we had a devotion time. I'm touched when I realize how much God has assisted us throughout the year. We are asked by our student council supervisor to make encouragements or testimonies of our partners, we then need to put them in a envelopes provided. I realize that throughout the year, I have made great connections with people, I'm glad to see them personally. The testimonies that I received were touching, some of them say that I have shown a good leadership, a figure that they see as a role-model. This gives a new spirit for me to go through my days. I feel like in a family when we have meetings.

September

Still remember our "Kampoeng Indonesia" event ? We do it one more time, but now the Yearbook committee does not collaborate. We use the same event structure and it works perfectly fine. Before we re-do it, we throw a survey for the whole school. We are so lucky to have school emails which enables us to communicate for the whole school. I made the survey online, so that everyone could take it. The survey was about which food they liked and their suggestions to improve our service.

We provide the food that most of the students ask, we also provided some new foods. I can still feel the excitement even though it's the second time we have this event. This event was a complementary event for our Indonesian day program, so every one was wearing unique Indonesian costumes.The decoration was even more beautiful, school helped us even more. They helped us by providing the materials for decoration, like woods for making the booth, etc. I think it's because the administrators liked the first "Kampoeng Indonesia". I'm happy that this event can make everyone happy, teachers, students and the food sellers. We raised IDR 1.750.000 from this event. That's almost the same amount with the first kampoeng Indonesia. I hope that this money can support our A.R.K program. We plan to make small library for the unfortunates, etc. Hope we alway be blessings for people whenever and wherever we are in.

September first and second week:

Bazaar Kasih

As we all may be aware of, in the next two weeks, the majority of Indonesia Citizens will be celebrating "Lebaran". It will be celebrated by about 250 millions people in Indonesia. The rich, the poor, those beggers in the street as long as they have Moslem Belief will join the celebration. But do they celebrate Lebaran in the same ways ? I guess not. For example, the variety of food will depend on what economy level they are in. The filthy rich people may afford nice and juicy kurma with premium quality imported from San Fransisco. While those in middle class will most likely to only afford the standard quality kurma from the Middle East. But what about those who are already in struggle with life ? For example those street musicians who only earn 40,000 IDR per day ( about 3.5 dollar ) ? Can they also have the same privilege to celebrate "Lebaran" ?

Yes, they do. This question is being answered by a visible action which was done by my church (Yeremia Javanese Church ). Even though, we are a christian organization, but we do realize that it is still our responsible to help others who need. We try to be the extension of God's hands to reach those who are in need. We help them by selling goods ( oil, butter, sugar, eggs, cookies, etc ) in low costs 2 weeks before they celebrate Lebaran.

Far before the even was held, every one in my church gathered money in a special box Then this money were used to subsidy the goods (which will be sold). Another committee searched for the goods (they bought them as whole sale, so they got cheaper prices ), another prepared the equipments (tent, microphone, etc ), other also gave minor contributions, such as preparing the coupons ( i did this ), preparing the meals for committee and etc.

My knowledge about how this system worked, was gained as I often joined the commitee meeting. My mom was a committee as well. The meeting sometimes also took place in my house. So i could also share my ideas with these dedicated people in the commitee. It felt so good as I could serve God by a real impactive action.

On the d-day, initially my role was to be the photographer. But somehow, this job did not let me have the real interaction with our targets. So after i thought i got enough pictures to share with the whole church, i re-assigned myself to help other committee selling the goods. I joined in my friend's booth that sold syrup. She was alone there, it was difficult to do those jobs alone. I helped her to take the syrup boxes from the storage room, open the syrup boxes, and also re-package them. Even though it seems an ordinary selling jobs, but it feels different. I saw smiles on almost every face that came to my booth. The customers were glad because here they could afford the goods for their Lebaran’s preparation. There is a deep excitement in me, when I say "Happy preparing Lebaran to them". I think this is what Jesus means as the joy when giving to someone else.

This event has helped me for new skills (such as running the organization), help me to sharpen my awareness to the surrounding, and even helped me to fulfill my spiritual needs. I'm happy to see people happy.

August 3-20

During this two weeks, I was doing my job as a fundraising team for our beloved non-profit social organization, ARK. My plan was to make an event at school which could raise money from other students. But thats not the single aim in this project. I wanted something more that are useful for the others.

In welcoming our independence day, i think it will be very unique if we have a traditional food festival at school. This project requires a lot of energy, hardwork and solid teamwork from the fundraising division. As the Fundraising coordinator and also the chairperson of the event, I allocated the jobs for all the members. The jobs are "making proposal for the school's administrator, gathering the traditional food sellers, decorating the canteen for the venue and doing the recap for the money circulation.

I was contacted from the yearbook committee about whether or not they could join this event to raise money. I said, sure we could collaborate. So the proposal was made under the names of two different committees. This event I name it as "Kampoeng Indonesia" or if translated in English, it means "Indonesian Village". My idea was to make a indonesian food festival, complete with the indonesian village atmosphere. The proposal was approved smoothly, I came to the administrators office to explain them of what our objectives are.

The objectives were; to raise money for both of the organizations, to promote the beauty of indonesian food and to spread the spirit of nationalism. The administrators liked my idea. After that, we then started to gather the food sellers. We spent our weekend to search for the sellers in Bogor, offered them to collaborate with the festival. Many of them were afraid to have loss, but also many who are optimist to gain profit. It was tiring day because we needed to go down to the road and basically walked to search the traditional food. The food needs to be healty, that's what the school's doctor suggests me. Gathering these sellers is not that easy. Really. It's hard.

The decorating/creative division did a really good job, they changed the whole atmosphere of the canteen to be so uniquely beautiful. I could feel the nationalism spirit as we also played Indonesian patriotic songs in the canteen. The students are excited to taste each of the foods, there is a great excitement in the air. People bought the foods more than once.

After 03:00 pm, we ended the festival. Asti, whom I chose to be the finance manager, gathered the coupons (we used coupon for transaction). As the money has been liquidated, I asked the sellers to come for a meeting one by one. There, with Asti, I showed him how much they sold, how much we as the organizer got for commissions and how much they could get. One question that I asked for each of them; "have they got enough profit to bring home ?". I think this one is so important. We need to make sure that they could ho home with smiles on their faces. Few of them said that they needed more, most of the reason is that they spent too much for the long distance transportation. That makes sense and I value their effort to come to our school which is far away, up in the hill. I gave them more. It's totally fine with us.

What makes me touched is that, when I get home, one of the sellers sent sms to me: "Jerry, I'm happy to be able to help you all raise money. You know that I don't have much money to give big donations though I want to, but by doing this, I feel like I have helped people out there. Please contact me whenever you want. I'm ready to help you again"

I'm touched. I can feel tears on the edge of my eyes. When I look into our data, I see that this seller receives the least amount of money, and yet he did not ask for more. I learn a lot from this young men. I learn that we need to give with our hearts, not only with our hands. No matter how big your donation is, but your willingness is the one that is being valued. Because, like the bible says, Jesus looks into your hearts..

August 1 Walk-a-Thon

It's a beautiful Sunday, really. I drove my car early in the morning from my home to the town. As I entered the area of center Jakarta, i could already feel the excitement from people passing by. These people would attend the same event i was attending, Walk-a-thon campaign.

This campaign is to commemorate the education day in Indonesia. It's such a huge events. Thousands of people were joining to campaign, going down to the road. We did not do it brutally, we did it as civilized human beings. The campaign was smooth and well-organized. We walked for at least 5 kilometers, we spent about one and half hour to finish it. I was happy to be able to also celebrate this day. I'm a student and I put so much faith for the improvement for our education. I hope that children around the world, especially in Indonesia could have a proper education like what i had.

I drove back my car with a new spirit. I didnt know what exactly i felt that moment. But I'm happy to see enthusiasm from thousands of people longing for better future.