On Wednesday, we did not go to school. We went to museum and library in the city. First, we went to train station and bought the train ticket. The train trip took us around thirty minutes.
When arrived at the museum station, we walked outside to the Australian Museum. Before that, we saw a nice building. Miss Laura, my teacher, explained it was The ANZAC Memorial. We took the picture of it and learnt a bit about ANZAC. Then, we walked to Australian Museum. First, we paid the entry fee. After that, we walked and took a look around. We saw Australia’s animals like koala, kangaroo, owl, snake, possum, wallaby, etc. They were real but they were already dead. They were stuffed inside to have the animal-like figure.
Our future is on ourselves, our hands. One thing which can make me little disappointed is that there are many children who are still living under the bridge, still earning money only to give it to their big boss, then to get violence. They never want it! They never asked God to give them that kind of condition.
One of them died because of starving, poverty, no house. Oh, dear government. Have you really seen that? Do you even know about them? Have you heard their stories and their sadness? I bet you never did.
Now we’re going to another side of Indonesian children. They’re rich, studying in International schools, going around the world, and living happily. They get more and much better facilities, but what are the grown-ups doing? They spend their money to casino, drugs, drink, night club, etc.
All of you must have felt stuck somewhere in your school life, don’t you? Especially for you who have to choose majors in senior high school, like science or social. Even if you choose the major because you really like some lessons there, you doubt your decision because you’ll still have to face some lessons you don’t like, like you pick science because you like Biology and Chemistry but you hate Physics. Or you choose social class because of your interest in Sociology, but then you have to face Economy. This finally causes uncomforting situation when that lesson starts in the classroom. You just want to be out of the room or wish the clock tick faster. You feel stuck, confused in the world you don’t like.
It is a well known fact that language is very important nowadays. If we want to go international and connect with whole world, we must learn English as the first and major international language. Even the job interview is using English, right? So, it is a must to learn English and be fluent in speaking it. Many people said that learning English was a really hard thing to do. Then they gave up and did nothing to fix that. While in fact, learning English is so easy. We just have to find out the way and the best place to learn.
Let me recommend you a place to learn English. It is a village called Pare, located near Kediri, East Java. It takes four-hours train to go there from Surabaya. Pare is famous because it has many English courses (up to hundreds of courses). It is often called English Village or Kampoeng Inggris. The term of study has many variations. It starts from two-week program, one-month program, up to one-year program. There are many courses and programs available. For instance, courses like access-ES, Daffodil, Brata Institute, Mahesa, Smart, Global English, etc. Those courses are offering many programs, such as speaking, grammar, listening, reading, TOEFL and IELTS preparation and many more. At Pare, there are also a lot of dormitories where we can stay as long as our term of study. The price is various, started from IDR 50.000 until one million or even more. All depends on what program and where we take the program.
Besides being a perfect place for learning English, Pare also offers fun that we can fully enjoy. There are malls near Kediri, book stores, traditional markets, clothes stores, and many more. At clothes stores, we can easily find t-shirts and jackets with Pare styles. It has typography such as ‘Learning and Cycling in Pare’. They’re not too expensive; starts from 40.000 Rupiah or more. There are also mugs, pins, and many souvenirs that we can buy.
Almost all students at Pare rent a bicycle. We can use that bicycle whenever we want and wherever we want to go. We just have to pay 60.000 rupiahs for one month! Isn’t it really affordable? Usually in the weekends, almost all students in Pare go travelling to Kediri to visit malls and stores or shop at traditional markets. You can enjoy Gramedia bookstore, Hoka-Hoka Bento restaurant, and also there is bag stores which sells many variations of bag, like backpack for school and handbag for women. Looking for quality? There are also famous brands like Neosack and Exports.