Walk on Campus Campaign

A walk on campus campaign sign at the Indonesia University of Education campus. This campaign has been staged to encourage the campus community to use less cars (and previously motorcycles before their access was restricted) to move between different parts of the campus.

Indonesia University of Education campus at Setiabudi street in the north of Bandung is the largest campus in the city. It occupies an area of about 75 hectares (about 185 acres).

Rambu kampanye pembudayaan berjalan kaki di kampus Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (UPI), Bandung. Kampanye ini digalakkan untuk mendorong warga kampus mengurangi penggunaan mobil (dan sebelumnya juga sepeda motor) di dalam kampus. Sejak beberapa bulan yang lalu, akses sepeda motor telah dibatasi dengan pemusatan parkir di bagian utara kampus.

Dengan luas sekitar 75 hektar, kampus UPI di Jalan Dr Setiabudi saat ini adalah kampus terbesar di dalam kota Bandung.

Clay Limbs

I spotted these clay limbs at the corridor in front of the sculpture studio at the Department of Fine Arts of the Indonesia University of Education (UPI) Bandung. Although they did not look perfect yet, they way they were placed looked somewhat intriguing. I snapped this photo with they toy camera on my cell phone and present it as it is without any editing.

Lawn Trimmer

A worker trimming the lawn at the northern garden of Vila Isola or Bumi Siliwangi in the Indonesia University of Education (UPI) campus in the north of Bandung.

Vila Isola at Dusk

Some buildings are called an architectural heritage not for nothing. They are beautiful from whichever angle you see them, whatever the time of the day and whatever the season is. I think Vila Isola is such a building. I have photographically explored this building from many different angles and time of the day, and I never get bored with it.

I took this photo from the front gate of my office, which is located just across a small in-campus road from it, at dusk a couple of days ago just as I was getting out of the office. The the light of the early evening sky shining upon it gave me another photographic opportunity to marvel at its beauty. The silhouetted arch framing is that of the entrance columns (?) into my office building.

Since some of my friends and this blog visitors have sometimes asked me what camera(s) I use, I'd like to this opportunity to say once again that I don't usually use fancy or expensive cameras. I took this photo (and many others I have posted here) with a small, inexpensive pocket camera that I always have with me where ever I go. I'd rather not say what the brand is, but if you want to know you can email me.

This post is Bandung Daily Photo's participation in this weeks Skywatch Friday meme. See more sky-related photos from participating blogs from around the world here.

Villa Isola Fish Pond

A father with his daughters enjoying the fish pond at the southern garden of Vila Isola on a Sunday morning.

I have previously posted several photos and stories about this villa before. As you may remember from those posts, Vila Isola is one of Bandung's most iconic art-deco architectural heritage. Built as a private residence in the early 1930s for an Italian-Dutch media tycoon Dominique William Berretty, the founder of the Aneta press-agency in the Dutch East Indies, Vila Isola was turned into a hotel just after his death in 1934. Then it became the Bandung headquarters of Japanese occupational army in the early 1940s when Japanese Imperial Army occupied the Indonesian archipelago and an Indonesian resistance army militia headquarters during the wars for independence. After the Indonesian Independence, it was renovated and made as the central piece of the newly established Teachers' Education College or PTPG campus in 1954.

The name of the college in which this building stands has changed several times since then: Fakultas Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan (Faculty of Teacher Training and Pedagogy) or FKIP of the newly established Padjajaran University in 1958, Institut Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan (Institute of Teacher Training and Education Science) or IKIP Bandung in 1963, and Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (Indonesia University of Education) or UPI in 2004.

Since 2010, the building and its surrounding gardens have been renovated to revive its past grandeur. The renovation of the park that you can see at the background of the picture was completed this year and is now designated at Vila Isola Heritage Park.

Making Batik

These students of the Faculty of Language and Arts Education of the Indonesia University of Education (UPI) are learning to make batik. The tool they are holding in their hands is called canting.

Canting is an Indonesian batik-making traditional tool that is used to apply wax in fine dots and lines on a cloth. It has a brass wax container head with needle spout and a bamboo or wooden handle (see picture).

If you are interested in learning how to make batik, here is an excellent illustrated step by step article that you may want to read.

Indonesian batik was designated by the UNESCO as a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity on October 2, 2009.

Student Theatrical Performance, Part II

Continuing on yesterday's post, here are the photos from the second theatrical perfomance produced by my students from a different class of Exploring Drama. The title they picked was "The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Commedy for Serious People" by Oscar Wilde.

I took these picture in the near-dark of the theater stage without the aid of flash lights. To get these pictures, I was forced to use the highest ISO rating my digital camera would allow. At ISO 3200, the digital noise is very visible.

Student Theatrical Performance, Part I

Last week, my students from two different classes at the English Education Department of Indonesia University of Education (UPI Bandung) performed two theatrical performances for the final project of their exploring drama class that I taught.

The following pictures are from their performance of Our Town, an early twentieth century play written by an American playwright Thornton Wilder. I am posting these pictures in honor of their hard work.

Monsters and Aliens

Quite a few strange looking monsters and aliens have been lurking around the building of the Department of Fine Arts and Department of Music and Performance Arts of the Indonesia University of Education (UPI) for a couple of weeks now. Depending on how you see them (scary, funny, etc.), these brightly colored monsters and aliens have been "invited" or brought in by the students as part of their preparation for DJAMOE - an annual event where the students of the Fine Art and Music and Performance Arts Departments exhibit their works and creativity.

An Artsy Protest

This is how the fine art students at the Indonesia University of Education (UPI Bandung) voice their protest. The writings on the left and right sides of the painting read "It's not the bulding, but the persons."

The painting and the writings were placed in front of the location of a demolished old building where a new building will soon be erected.

Skywatch: A Classroom With A View

December is officially the rainy season in this city. But it doesn't mean we have showers all the time. We often have clear blue sky in the morning and heavy rain in the late afternoon or vice versa at this time of the year.

This is the view from one of my classes on the fifth floor of the Faculty of Language and Arts Education at UPI (Indonesia University of Education) in one those moments when we have clear blue sky in the morning this rainy season.

The blue green roof in the foreground is that of the old building of the Faculty of Social Science Education that is currently being renovated and the white buildings in the middle are the new student dormitories. In the far right hand corner of the photo is Mount Burangrang, one of the mountains that sorrounds Bandung.

To see other Skywatchers' blog posts, please go here.

The Voice of Free Speech

Last week, I walked to the Department of Fine Art studio building of the Indonesia University of Education, which is located just next to the Faculty of Language and Arts building where I work. There were quite a few things that attracted my attention. One of them was this poster that contains a sharp criticism to the the government and capitalism.

Here is what the poster says (my translation):
(On the picture)

Your leaders cannot save you. THEY CAN ONLY TERRORIZE YOU.

(The text)

Terrorism: Terror committed systematically, in the form of violence or intimidation, with the purpose of creataing fear. A technique used by the government to manipulate the views of the people with the goal of running an agenda.

And so on and so forth ...

The fear of terror is worse than terror itself. (Anonymous)

This poster is published by ...

KLANDESTIN
TOP SECRET COMMUNIQUE

Eleven years ago, we would not have been able to see this kind of posters anywhere. If any, the freedom of speech we had was very limited. It was unthinkable to criticize the government as directly and sharply as this. But all this changed in 1998 with the advent of Gerakan Reformasi (Reform Movement). Since then our Constitution has been amended four times, new democratic institutions instituted, and freedom of speech guaranteed.

But is the freedom of speech always good? Supposedly it is. But it all depends on what you believe in and how it is exercised.

Even Debris Speaks Art

Some creative minds and nimble hands have turned the debris of Pentagon Building at the campus of The Indonesia University of Education (UPI) Bandung into some sort of art work.

Pentagon Building was demolished as part of the campus rejuvenation program to make room for the university's new business center.

Choir

I was walking to my car one late afternoon when I heard beautiful chants coming from the basement of my office building. I walked over and found a group of students practicing choir. I found out later that they were the members of KMK (Catholic Students Union) of the Indonesia University of Education Chapter, Bandung.

To listen to the beautiful chants they were practicing, please visit Bandung Daily Photo's sister blog Bandung Daily Video.

Cooperative Learning

For a teacher like me, there is nothing more rewarding than seeing our students enthusiastically learn what they want and need to learn and become successful in life.

A variety of techniques, methods, and strategies are available to teachers. Cooperative learning is one of them. It is basically a teaching strategy where the teacher groups students of different levels of achievement in small teams and encourage them to engage in different kinds of learning activities to improve their mastery of a particular topic or subject. The objectives of the group activities are, as the name indicates, to encourage students to help each other (i.e. cooperate) to accoplish the task at hand.

Cooperative learning is good in that it usually creates an atmosphere of togetherness and common fate and that - like that of real life situations - an individual's success is made possible only with cooperation and helping one another.

City of People # 21: Music Students

I was heading to one of the university's canteens for lunch last Thursday when I saw this group of young men performing beautiful music and songs in front of one of the eating places. No, they are not ordinary street musicians, at least not in the ordinary sense of those performing on the streets for tips. These young men are the students of the Music and Performing Arts Department of the Indonesia University of Education (UPI), Bandung.

I don't know if their "street" performance was part of a course they were taking. The music and songs they performed were very fine and tasteful though. They performed a couple of jazz tunes and a popular Indonesian song before they left for another eating place on campus.

As I said in at least one of my previous posts, Bandung is home to quite a few top Art and Perfoming Art schools in the country. The Music and Performing Art Department of the Indonesia University of Education (UPI) is one of them.

Skywatch Friday Post: Sky of Gold

This is what Bandung's sunset looked like yesterday, painted in gold.

We've had glorious sunsets quite a few times this month, and at least twice this week. True, December is the rainy season here, but it doesn't mean that we don't have sunny days at all. It was sunny all day yesterday and was only a bit cloudy in the late afternoon. Perhaps because of this, the sunset was painted in gold.

This is what I know of the clouds and how they might have helped create this glorious illusion of light:

Clouds are formed by a process that's called condensation, a process by which gas and vapor are changed into liquid. Condensation takes place whenever warm air (which, by the way, is normally wetter because it contains more water vapor) meets with cold air. This explains why these clouds were forming - the warm sunny day evaporated a lot of water; the vapor going up then met with the cool air of the high altitude (where Bandung is located) and the cooler air from the surrounding areas.

Now, the clouds, which are virtually "a floating water container", acts like a giant mirror or reflector and prism that reflects the light of the evening sky and distorts it. Hence, the interesting colors of this sunset.

The shillouetted steel and concrete structures in the foreground of the photo, by the way, are what would be (now under construction) the new indoor tennis and badminton stadium of the Indonesia Univesity of Education (UPI).

This post is Bandung Daily Photo's participation in this week's Skywatch Friday meme. Please follow the link to see other participants photos.

UPI Students and Faculty Members Plan to Break The Indonesian Record of The Most Numerous Saman Dancers

These students of the Faculty of Language and Art Education of the Indonesia University of Education (UPI), Bandung, were gathering at the university's sports complex today to practice and rehearse for what is planned to be Indonesia's record breaking number of dancers performing Tari Saman (Saman Dance).

The current record was made on June 8 this year at the occasion of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Indonesia's national awakening at Gelora Bung Karno (Soekarno Sports Complex and Stadium) in Jakarta. 600 people performed the dance then. This time The Faculty of Language and Arts Education of UPI is trying to break that record by involving 700 of its students and faculty members to perform the dance.

Saman Dance is originally from the Indonesian province of Nangroe Aceh Darussalam (Aceh) in the northern tip of Sumatra Island. It is a very dynamic group dance with highly sinchronized choreography.

To see in motion what the rehearsal was like, please check this 30 second YouTube video streaming from Bandung Daily Photo's new sister, Bandung Daily Video.

Exam Time

These students of mine were doing their mid-term test. They look very serious, do they?

Written tests or exams are a common educational practice today, but it has not always been so. The first written tests known in history were conducted by the Chinese in the 6th century CE. In the West (read: Europe) tests used to be given orally and were conducted in Latin. According to historical records, the first written exams in Europe were conducted at Cambridge University, England, in 1792 (that's only slightly more than two hundred years ago).

I took this photo with my 2 megapixel camera phone, Nokia 5320 ExpressMusic, which I just bought about two weeks ago. I desatured the colors a bit in my image editor program, so the colors you see in this photo are not the original colors captured by the camera.

Bandung Architectural Heritage # 5: Villa Isola - The Western Facade

This is the western facade of Villa Isola (now Bumi Siliwangi and the rector's office the Indonesia University of Education or Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia) as seen from one of the classrooms of the Faculty of Language and Art Education building located west of it.

Villa Isola is located on the northern hills of Bandung on Jalan Dr. Setiabudhi 229.

I have posted three pictures and the stories about this building before: here, here, and here.