My Hometown

I was born in a local hospital located in a pretty much an outcast village, part of Magetan Regency. At that time, I thought Magetan was a nice-good looking, full of peace and of course a wonderful place. The air was actually suitable for the living things. In fact, there were many trees surrounded, organized like soldiers who were about to march for a ceremony in a war and forever standing with roots full of muscles from west to east of the Regency. These trees were what make the air more suitable for us to live, especially these trees were planted and put aside with such colorful farms plants and fancy-traditional construction of houses. Tons of colorful flowers, many kind of trees were planted with such flavour smell. The stream of river on the side roads, roared but gently flew following the miles, between the farms and houses made the perfect combination of natural environment with the modern construction of houses and roads. These were what made the air very fresh, the pollution were invisible by the beauty and the "Angelness" sight-seeing in the regency of my hometown, Magetan.


M. AFIF AMIRUL MUKMININ

How to Make Fried Rice

Almost all people certainly have known what fried rice is. Many of them also like to eat fried rice. But not at all know how to make a delicious fried rice. You will get a different sensation if you try to cook it by yourself. A special food certainly is made from a special ingredient too. For making a special fried rice, you have to prepare the ingredients. The ingredients are two carrots, ½ an onion, celery, 3 eggs, beet bullion, black pepper, garlic powder, ground ginger, soy sauce, butter, vegetables oil, and shrimp or chicken (optional). After you already have all of them, you can start to make it. First, put about 6 cups of rice into your rice cooker. Let it steam until it is already cooked. Second, wash the vegetables, then dice the carrots and onions into small pieces. Set them aside for the next step. Third, add oil and heat up to 100 degrees. Fourth, toss the vegetables into the pan for about 3 minutes. Then toss in the carrots and onions for 3 minutes with the vegetables. After that add 1 teaspoon of salt into the pan. Fifth, boil the chicken or shrimp with the rest of the ingredients (optional). Sixth, put a bit more oil into the frying pan. And then toss the rice in carefully. Seventh, add an egg and mix it with the other ingredients. After that add approximately 2 to 3 tablespoons of soy sauce while frying. And for the last, put fried rice on a dish and it is ready to serve!

INDRA YUDIANTO

How to Take Wudhu

Purifying ourselves from “hadast” and “najis” are some of requisites in a “Saalat”. It is very important for Muslims to have wudhu before they do Saalat. If you are a Muslim, you should have known how to do wudlu well like our prophet, Muhammad SAW did. First, make sure the place is clean. Then make “Niyyah” before you start wudhu by saying, “Nawaituu Wudlu'a Lirof 'il Hadastil Asghori Fardlu Lillahita'ala". Then wash both of hands up to the wrist three times and make sure that water has reached all fingers. Second, take a lot of water onto both of your palms and then rinse your mouth thoroughly three times. Third, clean your nose by sniffing water into it and extract the water from it. You just sniff, be careful not to sniff the water all the way. Repeat the step 3 times. Fourth, wash your face three times from right ear to left ear and from forehead to throat. Fifth, wash your right arm and then your left arm thoroughly, until you reach the elbow three times. Sixth, move the wet fingers and palms over your head from the top of forehead all the way to the back of the head, and back from the back of head to the forehead. Seventh, pass the wet tips of your index fingers into the grooves and holes of both ears and also pass the wet thumbs behind the ears (three times). Finally, wash both feet to the ankles (preferably to the knees). Make sure that water has reached between the toes and back of the feet. It’s preferable to say, "Ash-hadu An Lailahaillah Wa Ash-hadu Anna Muhammadan 'Abduhu Wa Rasulluh".


INDRA YUDIANTO

Bromo Mountain

Bromo Mountain is a heaven of the world, one of the most beautiful places. It is located in Ngadasari village, Sukapura Subdistrict, Probolinggo Regency. It is still very natural. There is no pollution in most areas. The air is still clean and you can feel the air is cool when it comes into your nose, your throat, and your lungs. It is certainly good for us to breathe. We can also see many kinds of vegetables planted by natives, such as cabbage, carrot, potato, corn and many more. Even we can also find many strawberry gardens which are owned by natives on the way to go to Bromo mountain. We can harvest it right away or just buy and take it home. It can make us feel like in our dream land. From Pananjakan we can see sunrise and it is one of the best places in the world for being able to see sunrise. The scenery is certainly very amazing. You can feel like you are in the clouds. There are many visitors going there, willing to feel a cold, awaking in the early morning and taking journey to Pananjakan just to see the wonderful scenery from the top of it. It also has a unique event called Kasada on Kasada month 14-15 (the 10^Th month according on Javanese calendar), which is celebrated by natives (Tengger ethnic) to give thanks to God for their harvest by putting many kinds of their harvests on Bromo's crater. It is very exciting event. I think it is rather difficult to find the thanks giving event like Kasada, because it is only held in Bromo. All of those are very interesting and entertaining to refresh our mind from any kind of life problems. That is why it is not wrong for us to call Bromo as a heaven of the world, one of the most beautiful places which is exciting to visit.

INDRA YUDIANTO

My Best Friend

We may be able to have a hundred or a thousand friends, or even more. But there is only one friend who really has loyalty on you if you really think about it, that is best friend. My best friend is my best partner for living my life. His name is Sugeng Gunawan, and I used to call him Sugeng. He is someone who really knows me deeply. He knows the characteristic of me, from the outside and even inside of me. Someone who is able to feel my mood. He knows when I feel happy and when I feel very sad. He is also sad when I look sad, and he is also happy when I feel happy. Someone who knows how to respond any kind of my mood, he knows how to comfort me. Someone who is always there for me. He is there when I am happy and he is also there when I feel facing failure.  Someone who is able to understand me the most. There is no relative between us, but there are many similarities in our characteristics. He is like myself and I am also like himself. The similar characteristics have given an ease for us to be able to understand each other. He is someone who is faithful and always taking care of me. He is a nice person, a friend who is able to share each other, in joy and sorrow. Someone who is always there and always supporting me for reaching what I want. Someone who is able to make me feel comfort if I take life with him and feel easy to fight any kind of life problems. But it is different if I am alone without him, everything seems too difficult to fight. He is my best friend, someone who is able to balance my life. As if he was someone who had been sent by God for completing my life to live.

INDRA YUDIANTO

Variousity in Comics

Everybody loves comic. Children, teenagers, or adults love reading it. But do we know the types ofcomic we read? In general, comic is divided into two groups. The simple one iscomic sheet and the other one is comic book. The comic sheet has only one page. This type usually tells about humor, editorial, or politics. The pictures are always in cartoon or caricature. Usually it contains 3-6 panels or more. Comic sheet commonly found in newspapers or magazines. How about comic book? Comic book is calles as a short story comic. Sometimes it has 32 pages or more. It contains pictures, advertisements, and stories. Comic book is divided into two small groups. The first one is an ordinary comic book. This comis is not too big and not too wide, made of good-quality paper, and the appearance is good. The second is a magazine comic book. It is wider and bigger than the previous one. It contains 48-64 pages or more. In other words, the magazine comic book has longer story than the ordinary comic book. So, since comics are various,we should know well about comics we usually read.

Rifqy Baharudin

Fashion

Since years, fashion has been a part of lifestyle. People tend to follow the latest fashion trend in order to mingle with society. Even sometimes an individual is judged from their fashion taste, or simply we say, their style. A style represent what kind of person one is and in what kind of group they belong to. How? Well, we can say that someone belongs to the edgy group or others, by looking at their outfits; their shoes, their dress, their hairpiece and so on. For example, if we see someone wearing a pencil skirt, a stripped shirt, a bold belt and a pointed high-heels, we can conclude that the person is a determined person and a perfectionist, and belongs to the career-woman group. Another example, when we see someone wearing layers-by-layers outfit and putting shocking colors on some of their outfits, we can say that the person in an expressive person and loves to do experiments in their style and belongs to Korean fashion style mixed with Japanese style. From those two examples we surely can see that different styles represent different kind of persons and groups.

Masithoh Azzahro Lutfiasari