Personal Thought di Awal Tahun

*Dalam Bahasa Indonesia, karena ini masalah yang ada di dalam kepala & hatiku, gerundelanku.

Sudah lama aku bertanya-tanya, mengapa teman-temanku yang kukenal, juga saudara-saudaraku ada banyak sekali yang bisa punya waktu luang.
Mereka bisa pergi main, berkali-kali "reuni", ketemuan (you name it) dengan teman-teman lama. Dari tingkat SD, SMP, SMA, bangku kuliah, teman bekas satu kost, sekota dst. Aku baru sekali ikutan, dan tidak bisa hadir untuk belasan lainnya. Ada yang sinis menuduh aku sombong, tidak mau meluangkan waktu untuk teman-teman lama dst. Well...
Kalau misalnya pada waktu ada acara ketemuan dengan teman-teman lama, pada saat itu anak kalian pas jamnya audisi di suatu tempat, mana yang akan kalian pilih? Kalau aku dan suami jelas pilihannya: anak kami.
Ada pula banyak pertemuan model lain, pertemuan dengan orangtua bekas teman-teman sekelas Donna. Dengan judul "anak-anak ingin ketemu, kangen". Iyakah? Itupun kami tidak bisa ikut.
Juga ketemuan dan acara-acara untuk Anak Berkebutuhan Khusus. Sudah belasan tahun kami absen.
Ada pula beberapa family gathering, atau kondangan, baik ulang tahun maupun kawinan. Banyak sekali yang kami tidak bisa datang.
Media sosial? Tidak terlalu aktif. Makanya aku berusaha menolak kalau diajak masuk grup-grup di MedSos, apalagi yang tujuannya tidak jelas. Tanpa bermaksud menyerang siapapun, pernah aku dimasukkan grup yang isinya OMG, banyak sampahnya daripada isinya. Dalam hal ini aku sangat selektif.
Jujur, aku tidak tahu lagi bagaimana memadatkan jadwal yang sudah padat ini. Bahkan seringkali kesehatanku sampai terganggu karena kekurangan waktu istirahat (baca: tidur) saking banyaknya hal dan urusan yang harus kukerjakan. Mulai dari urusan rumah tangga tanpa asisten totally. Homeschool Liza, supporting Homeschool Donna, dan kerjaan sebagai freelance illustrator. Senin sampai Minggu. Nonstop. Dan walau begitupun aku masih berusaha selalu untuk belajar, berusaha meng-up grade diri, sekecil apapun.
Pernah juga saking lelahnya aku tertidur ketika sedang nyetir di tengah kemacetan, dengan hasil nubruk mobil di depanku :(  Serem sekali karena aku bawa anak-anak.

Untungnya hubunganku, suami dan anak-anak sangat dekat. Setiap ada waktu, yang aku inginkan hanya menikmati dan berkegiatan bersama mereka. Bukan dengan lainnya. Nyaris ke mana aku pergi, mereka ada bersamaku.
Jadi kesimpulanku, semua orang memiliki waktu yang sama, 24 jam sehari. Pemakaian dan pembagian waktu tergantung pilihan individu. Berjejaring dan berkawan tanpa pandang bulu memang penting. Tapi di atas itu semua, tetap First Thing First. Dan bagiku itu berarti keluargaku, dengan satu anak berkebutuhan khusus dan satu anak lagi yang as busy as a bumble bee.

First Semester Review for Donna

We almost finish our first semester for the end of the year is nigh. From all of things we've done in our 'school year' I try to make a simple summary:
- Donna's schedule is as full as when she was a student in a school, but the quality of her life rises higher. She is healthier and happier.
- Some of her subjects were a bit left behind, not on schedule (especially Math). But for me that's ok as long as the reason was the time taken for learning (almost all by herself) compare to the 'spoon-fed' version that she got from her old school. And I know that her understanding becomes much much better now. But for the other reason, distraction, she still has to learn how to manage her time better.
- Donna is an independent learner. She starts with the text book by herself, no one stands in front of her teaching the subject. For Math subject, she examine her understanding by doing some exercise from the work book. The work book comes with key-answer and she can check her answers by herself. And if she found some differences from the answer key she'd come to me or her father to ask. Some caused by her careless counting, some caused by her lack of understanding (and weak math foundation during her old school), and some from the answer key itself (human error).
For other work books that come without any key-answer, she used the internet sources and her parents as 'key-answer'.
- German language class that starts at the last week of last October so far so good, supported by  Duolingo as a daily practice apps.
- For Music: her piano achievement is the same as last year (ABRSM certificate, Gloriamus  Music School 1st winner for midyear internal competition, 1st rank for Gloriamus Music School grade 4 practical exam), and her Flute is just start so there's no special achievement.
- Online Course: She's taking 3 online courses right now, 2 new ones ( "Think Again: How to Reason and Argue" from Coursera and "A Christmas Carol by Dickens BerkeleyX Book Club" from edX) and the other one is the old one Dino 101 Dinosaur Paleobiology from Coursera. She's been taking this course three times or four maybe for she like it :D
- Time management:
She's just got her cellular phone a few months ago. We made an oral agreement, inspired by this post by Rumah Inspirasi. At first she was addicted to an online game and then unstoppable chat with some friends. Those activities really time consuming. I don't want to take her cellphone away as our final agreement for the consequence. I prefer if she then manage her time and catch up all of her left behind subjects. This ability in time management and self control is really important in her future life, she has to master it.  It's not proven yet. It's just a start.
Not only by her cellphone, sometimes distraction also comes from her "extended break time" (reading a page or two only for a couple of minutes became all of the pages of the book), or internet searching that "carried her away".

Time management is the biggest issue for her now. We all have to work hard to solve it without changing our homeschool style into "school at home". It's not what we want.

Assignment for Coursera's LHTL: Learn By Teaching Others How To Learn

These are 3 concepts/ideas from the course Learning How to Learn that impressed me, and that's why I want to share with others:
A. Sleep
B. Procrastination
C. How to be a better learner

Sleep
It seems like such a waste of time, but actually these are the facts behind it:
- it's your brain's way keeping itself clean and healthy
- tidies up ideas & concepts
- erases less important parts of memories and strengthen areas you need/want to remember
- deactivates pre-frontal cortex helps other areas of your brain to communicate more easily
- helps your brain form new synapses (neural connections)

Procrastination
Usually happens by diverting your attention to something less painful. How to minimise this procrastination?
- keep a planner journal
- commit yourself to certain routines and tasks each day
- delay rewards until you finish the task
- watch for procrastination cues
- gain trust in your new system
- have a back up plan for when you still procrastinate
- eat your frog first (do the hardest thing first)


How to be a Better Learner
- doing physical exercise (this activity also helps neurone survive) increases oxygen supply to your brain and increases brain neurotransmitters
- practice the matter you want to master, as well as train the brain
- learn new things because new neurones are born everyday

Coursera's Learning How to Learn

This what impressed me from week 2 of this MOOC's course "Learning How to Learn":

Addictive drugs artificially increase dopamine activity and fool your brain into thinking that something wonderful just happened. I fact, just the opposite has just happened. This leads to craving and dependence, which can hijack your free will and can motivate action that are harmful to you.
- Dr Terrence Sejnowski
Who is Dr Sejnowski?
He is pioneer researcher in neural networks and computational neural science.
He is a living legend, in the elite group of only ten living scientists to have been elected to all three of the national academies, in engineering, science, and medicine.
He is a leading father figure for the modern field of neuroscience.

And because I have to be realistic with my work loads, I have to un-enroll my third course ( Fantasy & Science Fiction) and put it in my watch list for later.

My online Course in October

This month I take 3 courses from Coursera: Grammar and Punctuation, Learning How to Learn, and Fantasy & Science Fiction. A bit too ambitious among zillion things to do :/
Luckily, I passed the first one before the deadline, Grammar and Punctuation.

I am having Learning How to Learn right now, just started yesterday and was surprised that the first week assignment will be closed in a few hours. 

And still don't know when I can start the third.

Ganbateh!

First Month: Review

First, we have to postpone Donna's German Class in Optimal Studia Bsd, because their administrator said that the amount of the students were not enough to make one class. The administrator said, they still don't know yet when the class would be opened. We've tried to ask Goethe Institute, for the age under 13 yo are restricted (and Donna is 11 yo now), by sending an email to them a few weeks ago.  I asked them to give Donna a try in their teenager class, for she was used to learn with 1-3 years older friends in her Primary classes with very good results in subjects she likes. She almost always be the youngest in every class and some competitions she joined. So I think it wouldn't be a problem for her, especially for this German language, where I saw her enthusiasm in her daily practise with Duolingo Apps. Well, I don't get any answer from them so far.

Second, Donna already starts her flute class since early August, and she looks enjoy the course. Especially when she has her own flute, a Yamaha 211 e mechanism one :)

It's not easy to support all of her passion, but surely her Father and I will do our best.