About TOFINA

Kalau yang sudah nyimak blog ini (entah ngerti atau enggak, abisan bahasanya labil) tentu sedikit-sedikit menemukan kata "physics quarantine" atau apalah yang saya tulis di masa lalu... (sudah lupa, dasar pikun)

Intinya, saya memang sudah mengikuti masa karantina selama kurang lebih delapan bulan di daerah Tangerang sekitar dua tahun lalu, dimulai dari Bulan September 2009 hingga Agustus 2010 (minus dua bulan pulang dulu)... dan mungkin kalian cukup menyimak (walau kemungkinannya kecil) kalau saya banyak mengeluh di blog ini selama menjalani pelatihan tersebut. Sekarang saya ingin sedikit berbagi tentang TOFINA... Karena saya bukan memperkenalkan atau mempresentasikan sistem ini secara formal, saya akan menceritakan berdasarkan apa yang saya ketahui.

Tim yang saya ikuti dinamai TOFINA, kepanjangan dari Tim Olimpiade Fisika Pertamina. Pada dasarnya, Tofina ini adalah sebuah tim olimpiade fisika (duh) yang anggotanya berasal dari daerah-daerah yang terdapat kilang minyak Pertamina. Kenapa Pertamina? Sebab, tim olimpiade ini diatur untuk dibimbing oleh Yohannes Surya Institute yang notabene pembiayaan akomodasi dan bimbingannya tidak sedikit. Khusus Tofina, hal-hal materi semacam ini ditangani oleh pihak Pertamina, karena itu tim ini menyandang embel-embel "Pertamina".

Daerah-daerah "berkilang" yang menjadi target pencarian bibit-bibit unggul di bidang yang telah banyak berkontribusi dalam mempermudah kehidupan manusia ini (tsahhh) antara lain Balikpapan, Sorong, Palembang, Bontang, Bekasi, Merauke, Cilacap, dan Indramayu. Yups. Ada 8 daerah, otomatis menghasilkan 8 hasil pencarian, seperti yang sebelum-sebelumnya pernah saya singgung di blog ini.

Tim Tofina ini pada awalnya 'didesain' untuk dibimbing secara intensif selama setahun itu untuk langsung mewakili Indonesia mengikuti APhO tahun 2010. Normalnya yang akan mewakili Indonesia adalah mereka yang memenangkan Olimpiade Sains Nasional dan terpilih masuk TOFI (Tim Olimpiade Fisika Indonesia), tim yang lebih 'resmi' hehe. Tetapi setelah beberapa bulan pelatihan Tofina dimulai, ternyata karena beberapa sebab, diputuskan bahwa kami harus juga mengikuti OSK, OSP, dan OSN berturut-turut sebelum akhirnya lulus seleksi untuk mewakili Indonesia menuju APhO 2010.

Jadi, singkatnya, Tofina ini Tim Olimpiade Fisika yang dibiayai oleh Pertamina seluruhnya. Jadi akomodasi kami di Tangerang, duit makan, honor tutornya, serta biaya institusinya semuanya ditanggung oleh perusahaan minyak ini (aseeeek). Tim kami belajar di semacam "sekolah" setiap hari Senin-Jumat mulai dari jam 8 pagi hingga jam 4 sore (dengan istirahat 1 jam dan dua sesi snack time :D) dan kami juga harus belajar malam mulai pukul 7 hingga 10 di semacam "asrama".

Sebenarnya dibilang asrama juga kurang tepat, karena sistemnya lebih seperti kos-kosan, hanya saja lebih luxury hehe. Makan pagi, siang dan malam katering, laundry juga dikerjakan orang, kamar mandinya pake air hangat, kamarnya ber-AC... Wuidih pokok'e mantep (promosi tempat wisata apa? -__-)

Sedangkan di setiap hari Sabtu diadakan tes di rumah, lembar soal dipegang oleh koordinator kami Kak Novi. Sabtu selalu menjadi nervous breakdown bagi kami. Keseluruhan perkembangan hasil tes itu menjadi evaluasi apakah program ini berhasil dan perlu dilanjutkan. Yah, Tofina ini adalah tim pertama... dan (sepertinya) terakhir yang dibuat dengan mengadakan kerjasama antara Yohannes Surya Institute dengan Pertamina.

----

Sekian sekilas info tentang Tofina. Tiba-tiba saja saya jadi kangen masa-masa pelatihan di sana, karena itu saya menulis mengenai ini. Mungkin nanti juga saya akan berbagi cerita lebih banyak, lebih ke pengalamannya :)

Embrace The Days

Current State:
Mood : Melancholy
Music : Fort Minor - The Hard Way
Survival Rate : 43%

---
"I'm still the same person, why doesn't anybody listen..." - The Hard Way (Fort Minor)
---
Nothing special occurred this week... except big mess I've just put through alone and make me a victim of myself. Disaster of the week began with my plan to stay up until morning with no sleep after a pass-midnite study task. I didn't target to stay for the whole week, I just wanted to try for once for how it'd feel. But the plan was totally messed up. I failed at my first try on Sunday night.
"Who cares? It's a stupid idea to work on anyway." that might be what you think. It apparently influenced my bedtime habit. Because I stayed up late until 4 the Monday morning and got slept afterwards, I got up LATE! I woke at 7! Thus I had to rush to catch up the schoolbus and became so sleepy in the class. The same happened the next day. Worse, I woke at half to 8! WTF!? Despise, I still tried continuously to stay up with help of coffee and internet browsing (i downloaded tons of songs! at past midnight, the connection was quite fast!) but no use, either. I never managed to success. Was it all because I've been sleeping in Anna & Jill's room? Nah, no way. In my actual room, my roommate often turned the AC on a really cold temperature and THAT is what made me even more sleepy.

And thanks to the bad sleeping habit, I got so sensitive for the entire week. Especially to my crush Steve. In case you haven't known (well, nobody has), Steve was a high-schooler, older than me, artsie-minded just like me, and the only one to respond to my farewell text message before we all went home. Strangely, he hadn't been so artsie-minded lately, not like the first impression he gave me. Perhaps all these physics things influenced him to a nerdie state. Well, Steve always wanted to discuss technical stuffs with Jill. Besides, he seemed to always get so cheerful around her. I witnessed many times when all of us joined together, he looked so carefree, but when Jill went away to take something she left or else, he became so serious with what he was doing. Hnng. I was freaking jealous. You know that jealously kills. Especially if a sensitive-stated teen experienced it. I've thrown Jill my "please-hand-over-Steve's-question-to-me" look but she responded with nothing or the non-deliberate worst "you-are-a-frontal-disturbing-bitch" look. Not that we were rivals or something. She was so careless and rather insensitive for a girl standard. The look she threw was what I felt it was like. Back to topic.

As if it couldn't get worse, this week we got into 4new topic of physics: static electricity. The tutor admits himself that it was one hell of lesson to learn for all the advanced math like vector calculus and curls.
Oh yeah, this tutor is one thing that spiced up my week. He was a tutor with casual character, funny physical appearance and rather childish, but globally oriented and open-minded. When he tutored our class, there are only 2 probabilities of what might happen: 1. he would only supervise us doing the textbook problems and joke around or 2. he would inspire us with his simply-said impressive thoughts. Point 2 would only occurred when we stepped into a new material or when he finished checking our test result (which are always a big zero). It happened seldom, but he told us things we never knew. He saw a concept in a brand new point of view, an easier one to understand. He always asked us our view of problem-solving ways. Shortly, he treated us not like the people who had to eat all the lesson he gave us, but as the people who he could discuss problems with. I liked that kind of teaching style. Moreover, this week he mentioned about 'sense'. A sense to solve most of physics problems. A sense to detect our mistake on the solving progress. He told us that THAT sense is critically important, and it doesn't limited in physics solving only. A sense we hadn't had, that differed us from the ultimate national physics team. "With me still standing here teaching all of you, it indicates your total failure." was one of the sentence he said that week. He tried to imply that physics needed no tutor. Physics needed logic and sense he mentioned before, and other than that, a tutor's role was just a company to discuss things over.
Those words he spoke had caught us really deep. True, he was one tutor to go. Unfortunately, his childish personality still couldn't be replaced even with statement that deep. He was a slob, he was lazy, he admitted it himself. But his laziness drove him to solve problems in more practical ways... and those worked. He also said that "because of laziness, physics develops. It's learned so people don't have to get so bothered to do lots of heavy works." I found it totally right.
TOO BAD, his laziness made us hanging off this morning. Normally, we had unsupervised test at 8 every Saturday, but whenever he was the one who should made the test, the question sheet was ALWAYS late. Like today, we waited for the tutor to deliver the test while chatting over and studied a little this morning. However, he was nowhere in sight and couldn't be contacted at all. So today we had no test, but I'm scared if it'd be delayed for tomorrow or Monday. His tests were all unbelievably difficult, and I hated to do the test in front of his sight. It always gave me the creep. =S
So right now I'm in a hesitation to study or not. I'm afraid we had to do the test on Sunday, thus NO WEEKEND. If it was to held on Monday, then he had to be supervising us. Like I wrote, I HATED it.
-------------

Maturity Progress

*Tidak ada unsur kemesuman apapun dalam judul di atas!*

Beberapa waktu ini hari-hari terasa berat. Otak nge-blank, emosi meluap-luap, ngapain aja suntuk, bawaannya marah-marah mulu. Apa ada yang pernah merasa seperti itu? Asumsiku sih ini yang namanya titik jenuh tertinggi. Apalagi buat seseorang yang tidak menyenangi kegiatan belajar-mengajar seintensif ini. Ibaratnya titik jenuh itu seperti termometer dengan batas tertentu, dimana setiap hari suhu terus-menerus naik. Nah, kalau misalnya rekan-rekanku di sini batasan ukurannya sekitar 100 derajat celcius, batasanku hanya berkisar antara 60-75 derajat. Lah, otomatis paling cepet bosan yak?

Terlebih lagi, di sini tidak banyak kegiatan menyenangkan yang bisa dikerjakan. From the previous post, speech-ku bilang kalau anak2 di sini cukup baik. Iya, baik, tapi membosankan. Baiklah, daripada aku mati kebosanan di hari libur ini tanpa ada aktivitas berarti yang dapat men-distract kejenuhan totalku ini, bagaimana kalau aku ceritakan tentang rekan-rekanku di sini? :)

Tim kami terdiri dari 8 orang yang masing-masing berbeda *yaiyalah*. 4 ladies, 3 men and 1 incompetently gendered *me :)*
The ladies are consisted of 2 pairs of roomates. One pair of real ladies, they're up with mall hangouts, shopping, boys, and quite the lady. well, you know what i meant. Another girl pair is.. well, not exactly girls because they act slob. Let's just call the lady pair W.E. and the slob lady pair I.O. I don't get along with the ladies too well, but they're so into each other when hanging together.
The 2 boys- one's still not here yet- are quite nice. One of them is a real plain nerd, while another is a likely artsie just like me whose I have a crush on *kidding, but not a true lie*. They often help me on technical problem, and simply humorous.

That's some short story of fella I have rite now. How about one story for each of them? After lunch, maybe? :) gtg, bye buddies.

Entri 15 Januari 2010

Sore ini langit Tangerang cukup cerah. Aneh, sejak siang saya menanti-nanti gerhana matahari cincin yang dikabarkan akan occur mulai pukul 14.33 WIB hingga 16.00 WIB namun tidak ada tanda-tanda akan terjadi. Yah, mungkin memang bukan nasib, ya. :-/

Saat itu kegiatan belajar-mengajar di sekolah pelatihan telah usai. Kami sekelas segera beranjak dari sekolah dan menaiki mobil jemputan. Selama perjalanan, saya melihat-lihat pemandangan melalui jendela mobil. Hiruk-pikuk perkotaan sangat tampak di Tangerang. Tidak seperti di Balikpapan, di sini banyak terjadi kemacetan, polusi udara kelas berat, dan orang-orang yang lalu-lalang menampakkan tampang lesu. Persis seperti keadaan teman-teman kelas saya saat itu. Tired, exhausted, and sleepy. Wajah mereka semua mencerminkan beban. Padahal hari ini kami belajar setengah hari.

Hidup saya di sini memang cukup berat secara batin anak SMP seumuran saya. Walaupun kami diberi fasilitas yang cukup, kami digembleng untuk belajar fisika untuk menghadapi OSN setiap hari. Dan saya sendiri adalah individu yang terlewat santai. Ditambah lagi, saya tidak bisa berteman baik dengan fisika.
Saya tidak pernah menyukai fisika.
Dan sampai hari ini, saya sadar. Seberat apapun pelatihan ini, harus saya jalani. Saya tidak mungkin mangkir. Apa kata orangtua saya nanti? Apa yang akan teman-teman saya katakan? Apa yang akan guru-guru SMP saya rasakan nantinya?

Memang mimpi saya untuk menjadi jurnalis masih melekat erat di hati saya. Saya hampir saja memutuskan untuk mundur karena berpikir bahwa ini adalah jalan yang salah untuk menjadi seorang jurnalis. Tetapi setelah diwanti-wanti oleh sang ibu, saya tidak lagi putus asa. Menjadi jurnalis bukan berarti harus menyerahkan semua untuk jurusan literatur, bukan? Dengan pelatihan ini, saya harap saya akan bisa lebih baik tidak hanya dalam fisika, namun juga secara batin dan kepribadian.

Dan saya pikir, kalau memang bidang saya tulis-menulis, apa salahnya saya menyisihkan sedikit waktu saya dalam pelatihan ini untuk berkarya sastra?
Atau mungkin dengan sedikit blogging, dan menulis artikel iseng mungkin? Untuk sekadar mengasah kemampuan bahasa. :)

===========================

Semoga inspiring, hehe. *PD amat*

One Piece 570 terbit di OneManga hari ini, jadi saya curi-curi kesempatan membuka laptop dan sekaligus blogging. Tadinya sempat ingin menulis artikel tentang Linkin Park dengan bahasa sendiri dan pengetahuan secukupnya, tapi rasanya kurang info. Hehe.

Happy January, everybody! :)

Seabrek buku pelatihan fisika

Life as a nerd is no fricking easy. So is life as a goth that has destinied to live as a nerd. :(
I used to be a rocker. Goth. Dark clothes, loneliness, weeps, heavy rock, and rap. Well, maybe I was more into a rocker style. But still...
Before i can even learn how to play guitar, fate called me. She said that i have to go.. Out of hometown to do a physics lesson quarantine... That's so not me. But what can i do? The deal was too hard to refuse. One thing i could only think was: this is a chance to be an easy-prepared traveler. Well, i do love travels but this is ridiculous.