What Mobile Phones have Become

I am 16 years old this year and i can still remember clearly what the Motorola my dad owns about twelve years ago look like. It was black, with the conventional 12 buttons keypad under the ridiculously huge flip. The black and white screen could only project 5 x 20 pixels supported by dim yellow LED with a "Pro-XL" plus small battery and signal indicator on top of it. The insanely huge and heavy black plastic case with the addition of a weak 2 hour talk-time li-ion battery made the early model of mobile phone look unproportional, not to mention the shame of having a huge bulge on the pants. Nevertheless, my whole family would boast on how they can make a call from anywhere anytime and the fact that they could send messages ( unlike pagers ) and receive them in one "small" handheld. If I look back at what we had years ago, I can not but be marveled by the advancement of mobile phone technology in the last 10 years.
Compared to the early huge and hulking phones, we can be proud by the drastic evolution of mobile phones in the last decade. Nowadays, 2 phones can be placed in the pocket and still be confidently walking on streets. Screen technology has developed from 2 color into 6 million colors, battery life multiplied its lifetime into 5 hours with the size shrunk into a fraction of its early model. Organizers, calendar, radio, video players, games and even applications such as bible can be inserted into the small hand held gadget. Cameras and video recorder are now an integral part of the phone since the invention of digital cameras and camcorders, and these image capturing phones are not jsut ordinary ones, they can take still images like standard digital cameras. As mobile phones shrink in size and increase in its usage, its price also fluctuate to both low and high end prices. Many giant phone producers such as Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson have created a lot of very affordable phones and the community seem to respond very well to the decreasing price. Now, more people from more economic backgrounds can afford to buy a phone, unlike what happened a decade ago where phones have the same price as a motorcycle. These money-friendly phones also have all the standard requirement such as messaging, calling, and contacts. While on the other end of the innovation, high end phones that cost a ton of money are also created. The difference is that they have way more features in it. Some of the more expensive phones would have very sharp cameras, large memories, huge display, wireless connection ( bluetooth, infrared, etc ), and music players intergrated in it. These few features have been the most demanded and innovated technology in the phone development and companies are racing to improve on these few areas. These expensive phones could only be bought by fortunate people, but now middle class citizens can also own a phone with music players and cameras in it. While on the extreme, some models are just indulging the consumers with its elegant design and ridiculous materials with nearly unimaginable prices such as Vertu and some Nokia, LG, and Motorola models. Interestingly, some still manage to buy it.
Looking at these facts, we can see that the development of hand phones have been rapid. With the decreasing costs of service providers, hand phone have become a trend rather than communication media. Yes, modern trend is what mobile phones have become.

James A2 SL

Language Problem - Thompson III

Language, the tool of communication between one thing to another. Language are useful to communicate your share of idea to another one. Without language there will no community. This tool is very significant for humans and several animals used it too.

I realized that I have a problem in my language. Whether in Bahasa Indonesia nor in English. I started to realize this when I came to SPH which my grade for English and Bahasa Indonesia is very low.

My frustration is that I could not write very well... Grammars, sentence structure, etc. This weakness will drag me down, especially for my academic scores. Most subject are really required to have a good language, in order to have a good mark. This happened because teachers check to know our understanding of our subject... which is using language, if we could not express it good, the teacher would not understand thus assuming that we do not understand the subject it clearly.

As you can see, I have a major language problem, when you are reading this post, you would probably see many errors in this writing perhaps even this sentence might have error(s) in it. This problem is one of the top priority that needed to be fix! I could not stand it when I tried to share my though and ideas where I could not communicate clearly that people do not understand me.

Thus by writing this blog, I hope that i could improve my writing in this English language where most humans uses.

You know what, math is the most common language that human used, not English and I'm not good at them both...

I just hope that this problem will fix A.S.A.P
I'll pray to God for it.

This is an old post that I forgot to put my name on it, sorry

-Thompson

school sucks ! !

In my 2nd entry, I chose to talk about school. I know it's probably a boring subject, but yea, I 'm not even sure myself why i chose this topic. In fact, maybe it's because a lot of tests and work coming up. I've got economics test and TOK essay next week, and another economics test, math test, biology test and biology practical. Other than that, there's still other tons of things that i have to do, aside from school work. Basically, in the next two weeks, i can't seem to enjoy school anymore. It's like living in the worst place that i could've think of. Just imagine... my birthday is coming up soon, and that school is killing me softly with all the homeworks that's piling up! Dang! I officially hate school right now! Not really, but kind of. =P

Other than school homeworks that's piling up, I am annoyed with other things. Like how the basketball game today is canceled (even though its going to be changed to Monday), and the fact that some people (not mentioning any names) can't just appreciate what others do. I mean, when those 'others' are trying so hard to get better when doing something, in a way they just don't get noticed. But when the good ones do better, they're noticed. How unfair is that? Even though some people might not be as good as some others, but at least they tried (maybe even harder) !! I get so angry when people just can't appreciate what others do. =(

Overall, i hope that in the next two weeks, at least there's not going to be as much homework as i have right now. =) I also hope that we can win the friendly game on Monday and Tuesday. My feelings are so messy right now, so i think i have to stop the blog now. I know I'm not suppose to act like that, but I'm just so confused with the things that is happening around me right now that i don't even know what else to write when there is a lot of things that i can share with you guys.

-S-

FastNet. Good or Bad? - Frederick

As we know, lately there is a super fast Internet that you can get with only small amount of money. The Internet provider is called first media, and it is the one that we usually call with the term kabelvision. First media releases this service of Internet with a very low price and with the quality that is above the standard of Indonesian Internet. No, I should say waaaaaay above the standard. This Internet is called the FastNet.

You may wonder about the title and what I just say. It looks very different. Well, it is. In that first paragraph I only tell you what is my positive comment about it. Monday, 2 September 2007, 16:14. I told my dad to change my Internet from Telkom Speedy to this FastNet service. My dad has not told the customer service after I told that. Yet. Still on the same day, on 21:00 sharp my Internet went off. I asked by friend, Edward, he says that he has the same problem with me. I thought it was just a usual power off. Then I choose the option ‘wait’.

Tuesday, 3 September 2007. For one day my Internet was not active. I start panicking a little since Thursday is the time that I should write my blog. What if the Internet still off and I could not post my blog entry? Miss Jess would be mad at me for sure. I called my dad’s computer technician; he tried his best during that day to fix this problem. He said that he never seen this problem before. 4 hours until 22.45 he tried his best. And at the end we gave up. I asked my friend Edward again, he said that his Internet also has not up yet. Then I choose the option ‘wait’ again.

Wednesday, 5 September 2007. I tried to call the customer service of this first media company. I asked about many things and all of the questions are referred to this FastNet Internet. I started wondering, why would he refer me to this FastNet thingy? I just asked him about the power-off. That’s all. 16:07, I pissed off. Finally I cannot choose another option other than to switch to this FastNet media. When I check this Internet service in my hand phone, I found out that the kabelvision group makes this Internet service, which is the provider of FastNet. I am so pissed at them. Before I went to sleep I asked Edward again, he said that his Internet have not up yet also. I have no choice left. I waited again.

Finally, until today, my Internet is still not working. I should make this blog entry in my Microsoft word and post it later in the library. I think the one who causes other Internet to stop working is from the modem itself. Oh, I abhor them. To the one that make this happen, please think again for what you are doing. Many students suffer about this issue. I just want to tell this for a critique. Not as an offensive statement to all of their staffs. So, I guess I can put this into my blog since it should be a good critique to the people there. Last words: FastNet, Good or Bad? J

PS: THIS IS ONLY SOMETHING THAT’S ON MY MIND. IT IS NOT THE TRUTH BECAUSE I HAVE NOT PROVEN THIS STATEMENTS. WELL, MAYBE IT IS A TRUTH, BUT I WOULD NOT SAY THAT THIS COMPANY IS FILLED WITH BAD PEOPLE. MAYBE IT IS ONLY ME WHO FILLED IN ANGER AND CONCLUDED ALL THINGS FASTLY. AGAIN, SORRY FOR ALL THE CRITIQUES I HAVE MADE.

-Frederick

a hero who serves God

In the dictionary, hero means a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities. That’s true. Sometimes we see heroes in TV series, or movies; simply like Batman, Superman, etc. Of course we know who our everlasting hero is: Jesus. But do you ever consider yourself as a hero? Do you notice a hero in your society? My perspective for a hero is “an ordinary person doing extraordinary things.” Everyone can be a hero to others; they can do things that influence other people’s lives. Sometimes we didn’t recognize our self as a hero, and sometimes we didn’t recognize the hero right next to us. To be honest, I sometimes do consider myself as a hero, also a villain at a same time. How to be a hero? It’s simple. You can take a look situation around you and analyze yourself what to do. Don’t limit yourself in doing extraordinary things, because even though there are problems, you know God will help you. Do your part, and God will do the rest.

One of the things to be a hero is helping the poor. I experienced being a hero one day. I joined a youth group called Youth For Christ (YFC) which taught me this thing: to be a hero. We were having this concert called GK concert (Gerakan Kepedulian) that the purpose was to support and helped one of the poor sites in Indonesia which was Dumpit (located near Tangerang). As a youth, we support the concert by doing some dance performances that takes 7 weeks of practicing. For me, that’s a hard work, to get to the place for practicing, keeping up with my school works, and to perform in front of lots of people. But it is my privilege to served God by this. During those 7 weeks, I experienced LOVE by reaching out to the teenagers from the Dumpit site and Joglo site that was called SIGA (Serving In God’s Army). I found out that they also love dancing and they were all talented people. I cherished my days with a lot of happiness, smile, laughter, and joy. We hang out with the SIGA and I felt as if I am a hero to them. We dance with them, chat; share stories, even play with them made us felt that we are one. To see them smile and laugh, gave me the feeling of heroism and what I hope is that the smile on their faces never fades away. Just after the concert, the feelings of overwhelmed joy and pride of serving God by doing this. Serving is really a privilege, and faith without service is a dead faith.

This year of 2007, there was YFC concert that was being held this August. It’s a concert for the young generation to get to know God and to worship Him. Again, the youth performed some dances to support the concert, created a worship team; and made this concert happened. And I felt the same way as before, and also experienced FRIENDSHIP; got a lot of new friends. I really love to continue serving HIM through much other stuff and also to continue being a HERO, not a villain.

-adela.rinadi

SPH Basketball Boys

In the recent years, our school has gradually improved. Several changes have been made to the school facilities. Computer labs have gone through screen changes and hardware evolutions, while the library was intergrated with wireless internet, and of course the classes which get flooded including the auditoriums are all fixed and improved with new floors.
These may already seem a lot but the sports department have the most significant changes in the recent years from my point of view. Improvements ranging from personel to facilities and to programs have evolved to a higher standard. Since Coach Jason joined us again in our big SPH family, now in the PE department, and Pak Andi with his new role in teaching seniors, SPH basketball teams have also undergo a lot of changes.
The selection of the team has been raised to a different standard. Individual skills and physical condition stayed as one of the most important aspect in the selection, but beside that; personal engagement, school works, discipline, commitment and teamwork have been included in the selection criteria. Many new faces have been enthusiastically joining the try-out; though not everyone "survived" the hard competition and practices during the selection, but those who have been chosen to be in the team were proven to have strong character and physical condition. Practices have also undergo a lot of changes. Lunch time work out sessions are now a part of the commitment each players have to fulfill. Weight lifting room has grew more usefull not just for the team but also for the other students. It helps the players to gain more strength so they can have more physical presence in a game. New strategies such as basic offence, heat press, diamond press break, etc have also been intergrated in the team's plan. These tactics have been proven effective and brought the team to the SPH SMP cup trophy.
Each year, the number and the quality of players increased. Seniors players have improved and helped freshmens to play the game. They have developed not just basketball skills but also leadership and initiative both on and off court. New comers also proved their value in the team and those who worked their butt off showed significant improvements and got a place in the first team as the season went on. This have proved that each year, the Eagles basketball team are always going in higher level, both physically and mentally.
In conclusion, Eagles Sporting team have improved a lot in these few years. They have developed strong characteristics and skills. I am just hoping to see more of the strong-willed people to play better and improve each pracitce.

James A2 SL

Upsss... - Thompson II

Ups, I forgot to write my schedule blog Monday... Uhm...
Uhm... Just recently I just left badminton activity, I have been doing playing badminton for a year.
I find myself badminton is full of competition and many people joined it. It is so many that we have to take turns to play.

I still remembered that the badminton supervisor told me that "your grips is a tennis grip". I know that I have a tennis grip because when I was 5 I started to play tennis with my mom. I played tennis for 3 years, at the age of 8 I stop playing it, the reason is unclear, I could not recall the reason why I stop playing it.

After that, I rarely do any sports at all... I probably play soccer but only occasionally. When I'm grade 10 I started to play badminton, even though I'm not good at it I still plays though. I don't play badminton outside school though. Those who are very good at it probably did play outside from school. Which I can't really do.

After 8 years of absence playing tennis, I started to play again in SPH. I saw a lot of opportunity there... If it is tennis I could play outside school, and my mom still plays tennis. I saw a greater opportunity there, also there are few people that actually plays tennis at SPH, so I could fully utilize my time rather than just sits and queue for other people to finish playing. I hope i could fully utilize this opportunity.

I don't really know what future holds but... I know that "the most dependable thing about the future is its uncertainty" -FFIX.

-Thompson