A Little Giving for A Better Changing (For my beloved hometown: the quiet town)

My hometown is Pacitan, a small town in the east of Java.  Pacitan is a town with small  number of people. It is arounded by mountains, and the capital town is a lowland. If we see the capital town, it like a land that arounded by the mountains, because the area that call as sub district.  When we see the capital town from the subdistrict called Pringkuku subdistrict, we can get the same view in Bukit Bintang, Gunungkidul, Yogyakarta. The capital town is the center of the local government.  

As a small town, we can not see a lot there and it can not be compare with the big town like Yogyakarta and the others. Pacitan is a quiet town because of some points:

·         It is a small town with small area

·         It has small number of people, the young people prefer to go to the other cities to continue their study or work in other cities

·         There are not many motor vehicles, especially in the villages, the people still prefer on foot to go the other place. The owner of motor vehicles are also limited, because the people love to use public transport

·         There are not many shopping center. The shopping center just can be found in capital town, in sub districts we just have traditional market and shops.

·         There are not many education center, especially university. Pacitan has some local universities, but the young generation think that the universities are not good and don’t have future prospec, so young generation go to the other cities

I have ever invited some friends from Yogyakarta, and they had same opinion, that Pacitan is a quiet town!!! It is ordinary that they said like that, because they used to the crowded and the rush of Yogyakarta.

But, Pacitan has an excellence in the other side. This small city has a potencial natural sources that can be tourism objects. Pacitan has many caves, beaches, mountains, and warm water bath. A kind of natural sources that become an icon in Pacitan is cave,  even this town is also famous as “1001 caves city” because in this town there are many beautiful caves there. We can mention the name of the caves: Gong cave, Tabuhan cave, Luweng Jaran cave, Kalak cave and the others. In beaches, Pacitan also has many beautiful beaches that not less beautiful than Tanah Lot beach in Bali. They are Telengria, Klayar, Srau, Watukarung, Buyutan and the others. The mountains also can be beautiful tourism objects. And the last is warm water bath that contain sulfur to remove skin disease and good for the health of the skin.

The problem is the potencial tourism objects in Pacitan are unpublished well. Beside the government don’t sensitive to the issue. They don’t build the infrastructure that can invite the tourism go to the that potencial tourism objects. In fact, the tourism objects are beautiful and can grow the local revenue, also can empower communities that live around the potencial tourism object.

Ippho “Right” Santosa, a young creative entrepreneur and also the expert in right brain explained in his book “13 Wasiat Terlarang” that there are four pillars to publish tourism objects to the public, they are: enjoyable tourism objects, visitable infrastructure, comfortable environment, and sociable community/ people (Santosa, 2010: 86). In this context, Pacitan just has the first pillar, that is enjoyable tourism objects without the other pillars. So, in this opportunity, I want to give a simple changing, especially in tourism policies of Pacitan. From the knowledge that I learn from Public Administration may give a valuable contribution to my hometown, Pacitan. When someday I become a famous policy expert, I will explain to the government to build the infrastructure, environment and empower the people in order the tourism objects in Pacitan can publish well and there are many visitors from the other cities or also from the foreign countries, so it can make Pacitan as popular tourism city in Indonesia, beside Yogyakarta and Bali. Not just popular, but it will bring the welfare to the Pacitan society because it will grow the local revenue that can be used to develop the quiet town.

That big dreams will not reachable if I do that alone, so I need many patners to build Pacitan. The way is by collecting the friends from Pacitan that also be a student college and have the same mission to develop Pacitan. We’ll complete each others with various experts to build Pacitan from many aspects. So, this time when I still be a student in a college I will write everything about Pacitan that can publish Pacitan to the world and send it to mass media, so public when read about the beauty of Pacitan’s tourism objects. I’ll study hard to be young generation that can useful for the hometown. A little giving from now, for a better changing in the future.

Being Harmony Between Technology and Culture

Harmony is a good concept for human life, where every activity can be done without disturb the other activities. This concept can be implemented in school’s activities. We know the reality that today, the students from all of countries prefer to use computer as the solution of their problems. We can not  deny that computer bring many advantages for us. Computer also make easy to do our activities.  In school activities we can mention the advantages of computer, they are:

-          make a presentation by using Microsoft Power Point. Computer provides  many facilities, one of them is Microsoft power point, it can make easy the teacher to explain their materials to the students. For students, Microsoft power point also can make them easy to present their assignment.

-          Writing using Microsoft word. Everyone do their task by using Microsoft word in computer because it is an effective method to save our energy and time. By using computer, writing activities can be done as fast as we want and don’t need much energy because we just pust the keyboard on the computer.

-          Computer also provides a lot advantages, they are games, musics, videos and many others.

From that advantages of computer, it is an ordinary fact that we use computer for our school activities. The benefit can be felt by everyone, not only students but also the teachers. There is a relationship between us and computer, make we are very dependent to the computer.

Seeing the fact, that students are too dependent to the computer, may it can make the teachers worry about that. Because of computer, the students begin to leave reading and writing culture. In fact,  reading and writing are the academic’s culture, so reading and writing are the part of school’s activities. Reading and writing are the important activities because they can make the students know and understand about the lessons deeply.

But, by seeing that fact, the teachers don’t  need to  take a reactive activity by avoid using computers and back to basic study skill of students, just reading, writing and hearing.  I don’t agree if the teachers take the policy, because it will make the students trapped in boring activities. Computer is a kind of technology, and if the teachers make the students become far from computer, it means that the teacher also make far the technology from the students. In fact, today is globalization era and everyone have to compete in this globalization and in order can compete with the other countries, we have to be master in technology. So, don’t avoid the use of computer for the students. We can back to the harmony concept. Being harmony  between technology (computer) and culture (reading and writing). Because of harmony, we can not separate between technology and culture,  something that we have to do is mix technology and culture. If we have done it, it means that our country, begin from the students, can be a master in knowledge and technology, and then after that, we will have a bargaining position in the world. We can grow to be a developed country that can compete with other countries in the world.