Complains in Bali

Did we have complaints in Bali? A lot actually, but I’m not going to whine and rant about it here. Actually there’s more enjoyment than complaints in Bali.

On our first day, we arrive to our hotel the first time. Our hotel is pretty good, but the distance between my room and the lobby is around 40-50 rooms, and you can guess, I’m not happy about it. There is a swimming pool, but I get to that later.

On the 22^nd, which is the 2^nd day, we went rafting and went to laka leke. This day is really exhausting, and the food don’t replenish our stamina enough. After rafting, which I enjoy the most, we went to laka leke. Laka leke is a nice place, with rice paddies, and gazebos. We made kites and do egg painting. Dinner is not too good, the portion was too little for me. After dinner, we do the kecak dance, and that is really beautiful.  We then went back to the hotel. In the hotel, all of the boys order food at the hotel, and that’s really expensive.

On the third day, we went planting rice in sawah indah, I enjoy this activity a lot, the last time I did this is around grade 2, and there is no these girls that yells at you when a little mud is splashed. Really interesting experience, well for me. Before lunch, we  have ample time, and we go fishing. Not really interesting. Small fishes, lot’s of them, so no. lunch, wait we should eat a lot right? I mean, we done a lot of activities, and that is exhausting. Sadly, no. my friend only ate little, because that’s what is left. Then, we go to GWK, good place, kind of a recreation park with Balinese design, and Balinese food. We went back to the hotel after the kecak performance. Some of us swim, and eat again.

The fourth day, we went cycling. the cycling is not really enjoyable. I mean, the bikes are really bad. The timing of this tour is something i would like to object. It's really hot in Bali during this time of the year. What's worse? Cycling during 9 AM into around 11 AM, in a temperature that was hot. Poor timing, really poor timing. Still, there is still enjoyment. We went to a coffee and tea plantation. interesting, the way they process the coffee. Everything is still natural, no machines. This made a more aromatic scent in the coffee. I didn't bought anything though, i don't think i regretted that. After cycling, we visited the bird park.This is one of the most enjoyable moment of this trip, well for me. The bird park is large, and full of interesting things. There's alot of  rare birds, and interesting birds. Lunch is horrible. Chicken again. After the bird park, we went to Balerung to study Gamelan. Gamelan is a traditional musical instrument, and is fun and interesting to play. After Balerung, we went to GWK to watch a Kecak Dance performance, and ate dinner. After dinner, which is chicken again, we watched the performance. After the performance, we went back to the hotel, and make use of the hotel's facility.

On our last day, nothing much happened, only we go to Kresna to buy souvenirs, and nothing else. Lunch is eaten at the bus, WHICH IS CHICKEN AGAIN. We then go to the airport, and went back to Jakarta.

Thats it for our trip to Bali. An enjoyable trip i say, but there's many room for improvements.


( By: Rambo - Robin )

CSW Bali 2014

             Sekolah Mentari Grand Surya held CSW in Bali on the 21st April, 2014. CSW, also known as Community Study Week is an event that is held for students to learn the culture of the place they visit. The Grade 7 students participate in this CSW. 

The Grade 7 students went to the airport at 4.30 A.M. There were also 3 teachers who joined the CSW. Their plane to Bali was at 6.00 A.M. They arrived in Bali at 9.00 A.M. Bali time. After arriving, they directly went to Tanah Lot. After that, they went to Renon restaurant and had lunch there before going to the hotel.

                On the second day, the Grade 7 students went rafting at Sobek. At first, the guide told us about rafting. Then, the Grade 7 students went down the stairs to start rafting. The Mentari Cipete students were also there. The distance of the lake was about 12 km. After the rafting, the Grade 7 students ate lunch. After that, the Grade 7 students went to Laka Leke. The Grade 7 students learned on how to paint kite and egg. After painting, the Grade 7 students’ tour guide, Pak Dwi told the Grade 7 students about Balinese culture. We learned the Balinese culture while waiting for the Mentari Cipete students to come to Laka Leke. After the Mentari Cipete students came, the Mentari Grand Surya Grade 7 students and Mentari Cipete Grade 7 students learned the Kecak dance. At night, they performed the Kecak dance with some of the Kecak dancers.

                On the third day, the Mentari Grand Surya Grade 7 students went to Sawah Indah. There, they learned on how to harvest rice. After that, the Grade 7 students went to Gunung Kawi. Gunung Kawi was a sacral place. There were reliefs of King Udayana and his family. There was also a place for meditation. After Gunung Kawi, the Grade 7 students went to Garuda Wisnu Kencana. At Garuda Wisnu Kencana, there were statues of Garuda and Wisnu. There were also Garuda and Wisnu histories. The Grade 7 students then watched the Kecak Dance. On the Kecak Dance, there was a story of Ramayana and Shinta. At around 7.00 P.M, the Grade 7 students went back to the hotel. After that, some of the Grade 7 students went swimming.

                On the fourth day, the Grade 7 students went cycling. Then, they went to Agro Wisata and Balinese House. After that, the Grade 7 students went to Bird Park. They watched some of the bird show. They only watched half of the show because it's raining. After watching the bird show, the Grade 7 students went to Balerung. There, they learned on how to play musical instruments and some dance. After that, the Grade 7 students went back to the hotel. Then, the Grade 7 students went to Sanur beach for the farewell party. There were also Mentari Cipete students there. At around 7.00 P.M, the BBQ party started. At around 8.00 P.M, the Mentari Grand Surya students went back to the hotel.

                On the fifth day, the Grade 7 students went to Krisna. Krisna was a place where peoples can buy gifts like clothes, foods and others. After that, the Grade 7 students went to the airport. Their plane to Jakarta was at 2.00 P.M. It was then postponed because there was news that Virgin Australia plane that landed on Bali's airport was hijacked. Their plane to Jakarta was postponed until 4.00 P.M. The Grade 7 students arrived at Jakarta at around 5.00 P.M. in Jakarta's time.

                The CSW to Bali ran smoothly. All of the Grade 7 students and teachers were happy. Sekolah Mentari Grand Surya Middle School Principal, Mr. Hari, hopes that the CSW to Bali could help the Grade 7 students to learn more about Balinese culture.

( By: Grace - Kyubi )

Insights on Bali

I went to Bali with 24 of my classmates along with 3 teachers on 21^st April 2014. I arrived around 4:20 a.m. at the airport, and there was still only a few of us that had already arrived at the airport. Around 5:30 a.m., our group was only waiting for Visyka to arrive and check-in our luggage.

We had 3 groups in the airport, Pak Hari’s, Ms. Vilma’s, and Sir Josh’s group. I was in Sir Josh’s group at  airport, but later I will be in Pak Hari’s when we arrive in Bali.  After the last group, Sir Josh’s group checked-in, we hurried up to the second floor to the waiting room. It was almost time for boarding, so we had to go to the boarding gate already. Me and Grace were already walking down the aisle of the boarding gate, when we saw the sunrise, but kept walking down. Then, we rode a bus for a few minutes, and boarded the plane.  The flight duration was 1 hour and 45 minutes, after  the plane landed, we entered Ngurah Rai airport to take our luggage.

When we got out of the building, we met our tour guide, and went around to  buy food and beverages, and we were given around 30 minutes to do that. After, we entered the bus, our tour guide introduced himself, and his name was Pak Dwi. Then, he explained about the types of  temples in Bali, there were three, which are village temple, family temple, and functional temple. And he also told us the three main gods in Hinduism. They are: Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. After we arrived at Tanah Lot, we were given 30 minutes to explore the place and take pictures for our scrapbook too, if we needed it for our scrapbook. Me and Grace went to a nearby cliff too take pictures of the crashing waves. It was really amazing. Later, all of us gathered in a nearby spot and left the place. We were stuck on traffic for about two hours until we arrived at Restaurant Renon. After we ate lunch, we went to the hotel and checked-in.

At 5 p.m. in Bali time, we went to Restaurant Kemangi to eat dinner as well as watching Legong dance performance. Me,Grace, and Thea sat with the boys and talked game until food was served. Then, we ate our dinner and watched the Legong dance. It was so spectacular! In the end, Grace, Visyka, Grecia, and I were dragged onto the stage by the dancers. Later, all of us took pictures with the dancers and Pak Dwi took the pictures. Then, we went back to the hotel and wrote our journals in Anabelle and Jennyfer's room and went back to prepare our things for tomorrow. after everything was prepared, we changed our clothes and rested for the night.           

Next day, we went to the water rafting area by bus, and continued to the place by riding a smaller car. We met the Cipete there as well. Then, all of us were shown the correct ways and rules in rafting, and after, we are told to make groups consisting of 4 to 5 people per group. After the trainers went to my group, which consists of me, Grace, Thea, Bryan, and Daylen. We went down to get our rafting equipment and walked down around 500 steps to the river.

After, we were in the river, the currents are quite strong, but we still had fun! We even managed to prank people and have races with other raft boats. Later, before the last rapid, Pak Hari was taking pictures of us, and then we swan to the shore of the river, and had lunch in the nearby restaurant. After all of us ate lunch, we climbed up again and changed our clothes. After everyone from Grand Surya has gathered in the bus, we set out to Laka Leke. There, at Laka Leke, all of us were taught how to paint kites and eggs. And after waiting for the Cipete to arrive, we practiced the Kecak Dance so that we can perform on the evening. Later, we had dinner and then put on our dancing clothes, and performed. After performing, we went back to the hotel to rest.

On Day 3, we went to Sawah Indah, Pura Gunung Kawi, and GWK. At Sawah Indah, we were taught how to plant rice paddy and plot the field. I didin't know what Pura Gunung Kawi was like since i didn't enter the shrine. And at GWK, we saw a performance of Ramayana in kecak. It was amazing, but not as good as the previous one I had saw.

On Day 4, we went to Bali Bird Park. It was so cool! The birds there varies and many are exotic. I even saw a white peacock which is rare to find nowadays. We also went biking to Subak orientation rice paddies,  Balinese Traditional House, and also a place to produce herb drinks. On the afternoon, we went to Sanur Beach to swim and have a barberque dinner and went back to the hotel to rest for tomorrow and pack up to go home back to Jakarta.

On Day 5, we had breakfast at the hotel and checked out later on. Then, we went to Krisna to buy souvenirs to give our families and friends back in Jakarta. After, we left and departed to the airport. But, in the airport, our flight which was supposed to be in the afternoon became delayed due to the hijack of Virgin Airways. But eventually, we went home in 6 p.m. in the evening, and went to our perspective homes.  
  
( By: Banshee - Elvira )

Best Things Come in Speaking Up

Making the speech is exhausting, in  some ways. I made a huge revamp on my speech halfway. I didn’t really memorize it though. I chose ‘Teenage Smoking’ as my topic maybe because my lungs are allergic to smoke and many other things. As I made my speech, I learned a couple of things about cigarettes. I actually enjoyed making the speech.

Preparing for the fest is gruesome, tiring, and exhausting. Insert any word and that will do. Halfway, I revamped my speech, and some people were not happy about it. Of course, my effort was not useless. Ms Vilma actually liked the speech. What displayed here on the blog is an archetype. What I used for the speech is different.

On the D-day, I was nervous - really really nervous. My body was shaking. My mind was fuzzy. But, I still spoke. I couldnt fail now.  I think I did a good enough, but not satisfactory. In events like this, I still needed to do better. It’s still a good experience anyway.

My speech was already good enough, but I didn’t speak good enough. This is my weakness. I still need to train harder.

Based on the result, around 40% liked the way we spoke because it’s clear. They also liked the way we emphasized things. The topics also made a big impact, and they learned alot of things from our speeches. Someone also said that we spoke like professionals.

Mr. Josh, our EFL Teacher made a power-point presentation of our speech. That captured the attention of the audience, and some people may also liked that.

We chose our topics mostly from the concerns of the society like smoking, drugs, pop icon, and preserving our tradition, etc. The audience said that we chose good topics, and they learned a lot of things from us.  The topics are really informative, and it made me happy to see that we may change somebody’s life by doing this speech.

Not only the audience, we also learn new things. I found out new things about cigarettes when I researched about my topic.

Nobody commented on our appearance, but I don’t think we looked ridiculous. The audience also liked our confidence. Of course, we trained really hard for this.

Of course, not all of us did good. Some people didn’t live up to the expectation.



( By : Rambo - Robin )

Speech-Fest 2014 : The Beginning

We got many positive comments from this year’s speech-fest. Some critiqued, some suggested, and even a few gave trivial comments. Many suggested about bravery, more training, confidence, loudness and clarity.

Everyone had their own opinions. To them, some people did a good speech, and some did not in their opinion. Some showed bias to the speakers. Even so,  a very few speakers did not memorize their speeches, did some mistakes, or probably spoke too soft or loud, or did not speak clearly during their speech. This might be the source of the comments saying like; some talked too fast, some have to overcome their stage fright, some have to speak clearly, some have to improve their hand gestures and voice, some have to be more active, etc. Well, it might be true that some people did a few mistakes in the audience’s eyes. But to the speakers, they are already doing their best to overcome their stage fright to deliver their speech.

On the other hand, some positive thoughts were given. Having all these critics and positive comments will surely make the speakers try to improve themselves. Those comments like; good job, nicely done, very good, the speakers were good and their voices were good, etc. These will motivate them for sure. One student even commented that she wants the speakers to do better on next year’s speech-fest, and this is a boost for the confidence of students. This proves that the speakers have done a really good job on this year’s speech-fest, and there might be more positive comments later. We just hope that next year, there will be another successful speech-fest! 


( By : Banshee - Elvira )       

EFL Initiates the First Sekolah Mentari Speech-Fest

 Friday, 4 April 2014. Sekolah Mentari Grand Surya held its first “Speech Fest”. This is an activity which helps us develop our confidence by talking in front of a big crowd. Speech Fest’s contestants were from the Grade 7, but not all of them joined. Only 14 of the lucky ones were chosen, the rest were hoped to do in another venue.

All of the EFL students were picked. However 1 student from the EFL was not able to join and the rest 7 contestants were form the ESL. The grade 7 had to wear formal clothes to school. The activity started from 08.30 am -9.30 am in our school auditorium. The theme of this year’s was “The Voice of the Youth is the Echo of Tomorrow”. The judges were the audience and were composed of Grade 4, Grade 5 and Grade 6.

The judges were given evaluation sheets where they had to vote. They gad to vote their top 5 contestants, top 5 topics, reasons and their comments. The EFL have work very hard to count those cotes and came out with the results and the top 5 contestant were Vianca, Bastian, Elvira, Gaby and Robin. Vianca got the highest vote, 59 votes out of 74 papers that were counted. She was also the first one to perform. The 2^nd highest with just a 2-vote difference was Bastian who got 57 votes. The 3^rd had a very important wake up call to the youth, it’s Elvira with 47 votes. Next one was Gaby, with her “confidence topic” getting 39 votes. The last but not the least, was Robin was Robin with 26 votes.

Aside from the top 5, we also had our bottom 5. This will make them improve their speech and public speaking. The person who had the lowest score was Regine, 5 votes only. The second to the last was Angela who got very interesting topic but she only got 8 votes. Next were Grecia and Tamara, they got a total of 12 votes. In the 8^th position, we got Thea, with 17 votes. With 18 votes, we have Jennyfer with her cellphone topic.

This activity had brought everyone joy. Not only the students were, satisfied but also the principals and teachers. Like our principal said, Pak Hari, “This activity is really good and I personally support the kids of the future class to do this next year. For this year’s speech fest, the students have performed their best and have chosen good topics related to the youth. Even though 1 of the 14 had difficulties, it’s all good.” It’s his closing remarks for the 2014 “Speech Fest”


( By : T-Rex - Vianca )

Sekolah Mentari Holds Speech-Fest 2014

            Friday, April 4th 2014. The very first Speech-Fest was held at Sekolah Mentari Grand Surya. It was held from 8.30 A.M – 9.30 A.M. Some Grade 7 students participated as the speakers on the Speech-Fest. There were 14 speakers, 7 from the EFL and 7 from the ESL. The judges were also the audience who were Grade 4 – Grade 6 students. Each of them was given an evaluation paper to evaluate the speakers.

            The top 5 topics are “Drugs” by Bastian who won the first place with 43 votes, “Bullying” by Reynaldi and “Choosing the Right Pop Icon” by Vianca who won the second place with 39 votes, “Teenage Smoking” by Robin who won the third place with 30 votes, “Preserve Our Tradition” by Elvira and “The Importance of Self Esteem” by Gaby who won the fourth place with 28 votes, “Flood, Sweat and Tear” by Tamara and “Eradicate Child Labor” by Grace who won the fifth place with 27 votes.

The bottom 5 topics are “The Dangerous of Sugar” by Grecia and “Teenage Using Cellphone” by Jennyfer with 24 votes, “The Issue of Teenage Pregnancy” by Regine with 20 votes, “Fighting Corruption” by Thea with 16 votes, “TV Censorship” by Angela with 10 votes and “Racism” by Kenneth with 4 votes.

            Most students chose “Drugs” as the best interesting topic because nowadays, many peoples from adults to kids used drug. Drugs are really dangerous and it can cause death. Students also chose “Choosing the Right Pop Icon” as one of the best topics. Most of the reasons were because the topic was about Miley Cyrus and Miley Cyrus is infamous. “Bullying” was also chosen as one of the best topics because, bullying often happens at schools and it can cause the victim to commit suicide. Students know much about these topics.

            Speech-Fest 2014 ran smoothly. All the speakers spoke clearly. The topics that they chose were all good. Sekolah Mentari Grand Surya Middle School Principal, Mr. Hari, hopes that the speakers and all students of Sekolah Mentari Grand Surya can truly improve in public speaking.



( By : Kyuubi - Grace )