The main goal of this education house is to improve the literacy and education quality of the surrounding community while also aiming to reduce the negative impacts of online lending, online gambling, and other societal issues in the long run.

While trying to fulfill the requirement ourselves, we are also open to external support, such as CSR funding or donating personal collections like books, magazines, Al-Quran, prayer mats, portable tables, sports equipment, etc.

Please reach out to me via direct message to discuss about your support. I’ll be there on this Friday and Saturday, so if any of you would like to visit this project, please let me know.

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Here are the tips:

1. Prepare raised beds or land area. The raised bed’s width is about 1 meter, and the length can be adjusted. Sizes like 1 x 2 meters or 1 x 3 meters are adequate. The edges of the raised bed can be made using bricks, lightweight concrete, or concrete blocks.
2. Ensure that the raised beds receive direct sunlight. Spinach and water spinach need direct sunlight to grow well.
3. Hoe the inside of the raised bed to a depth of 20-30 cm. If you prefer not to hoe, ensure the planting media is sufficient for the spinach roots and water spinach.
4. Fill the planting media with soil, fermented manure (matured and not hot), and burnt rice husks. The ratio can be 1:1:1.
5. For optimal growth, spray the raised beds with a solution of liquid fertilizer such as bioboost or EM4 agricultural with a dosage of 10 ml per 1 liter of water, then cover with a thin layer of soil and let it sit for three days.
6. Spread the spinach/water spinach seeds. You can create rows to keep them organized or spread them evenly. Cover the seeds with kitchen ash or ash from burning (which is cold and old). Besides covering the seeds during germination, kitchen ash also serves as a fungicide and natural fertilizer.
7. If there’s no kitchen ash, you can also sprinkle cocopeat or other fine media on top. Just sprinkle thinly so that the seeds can grow without being weighed down.
8. Water and fertilize periodically. Water with a watering can or sprinkler to prevent damage to spinach or water spinach from watering. Since spinach and water spinach are leafy vegetables, use leaf fertilizers such as urea mixed according to the dosage. For a 1 x 2 or 1 x 3 meter plot, only a few spoonfuls of urea are needed until harvest.

Spinach and water spinach can generally be harvested within one month. They are suitable for planting in the yard to meet the family’s vegetable needs, as a sideline activity, hobby, and for family health.

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Can you guess what kind of banana for these photos?

The photo on the left is of Barangan bananas. I bought the seedlings from a certified supplier in Medan, North Sumatra, in the form of tissue culture seedlings. I purchased 100 seedlings shipped in a styrofoam box using inter-island bus delivery services.

The photo on the right is of Raja banana seedlings. I’m not entirely sure which variety of Raja is, but it tastes similar to Raja Bulu bananas. I got the seedlings from a family living in Brebes.

Initially, I planted them just for fun, but the plants grew vigorously and have been harvested several times. My initial intention was just for family consumption, but it turns out we had too many, so eventually, I could earn extra income by selling the harvest.

While crops like rice, melons, or watermelons require new seedlings after each harvest, bananas can grow new shoots and new seedlings. The second harvest also comes quicker because the age gap between the shoots isn’t too significant.

Bananas are an example of a plant that, when cared for properly, teaches us how to prepare offspring so they don’t become a sandwich generation and can be self-sufficient and provide for themselves.

Want to give it a try, planting once and harvesting multiple times?

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In my data science class, Dr. Budi Rahardjo assigned us to watch the movie Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt. Despite being an older film, it provided valuable insights into using data to support decision-making.
Until then, I mainly relied on intuition and rough estimates when conducting business or expanding operations. While I knew that my actions might yield profits, I needed to be made aware of the extent of the effort and impact involved.

These two courses taught me that decisions shouldn’t solely rely on intuition but should be based on calculations and data. This is crucial to avoid biased perspectives. In the real world, for instance, if I were to establish a watermelon farm or a melon greenhouse, I would need to make detailed calculations to ensure the desired outcomes and prevent potential losses. I could measure the ratio between the expenses incurred and the possible profits generated. Doing so makes me accustomed to conducting thorough calculations whenever I make a business decision.

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I’ve come to realize two negative effects of this habit. Firstly, I didn’t value the content of these books as I should have. The lack of a financial budget made me enthusiastic about collecting books, yet I rarely read them. Had I purchased these books, I would have felt compelled to read them thoroughly to justify the expense. Secondly, I was participating in something I morally shouldn’t have. Although my downloads were for personal use and not for commercial purposes, I was still undermining copyright, essentially unfair to the authors by opting for unofficial copies. I realized owning a vast collection of unread, dust-gathering books was pointless.

This realization extends to how I view money. In times of scarcity, the pursuit of cash seemed essential. Once basic needs were met, the desire for more money grew, often leading to a relentless chase that made me forget how to rest and be mindful. Without careful balance, having more money can negatively impact oneself and one’s surroundings. If our basic needs are met, we should balance earning and enjoying money, and we need to value creativity and respect the copyright. You know that we need to do this even if we are still pursuing our basic needs but as sometimes we realize it after all the past year, being late than never is better to do in my opinion.

This Ramadhan presents an excellent opportunity for introspection and review whether our actions align with our expectations. It’s a time to consider the books that lie abandoned on our shelves and the financial obligations we’ve yet to fulfill. Let’s not become so engrossed in our work that we forget how to find joy and satisfaction in life.

Note: Image by superjhs from Pixabay

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Driven by this aspiration, I set out to create my own version of Blomkvist’s cabin. My search for cabin designs revealed that American-style log cabins were prevalent, yet such designs were uncommon in Indonesia. Determined to bring my vision to life, I decided to construct a wooden cabin. I found affordable land near rice fields and a river in Karawang Batujaya and ordered a knock-down wooden house from Palembang. The process was lengthy, but eventually, my humble and modest cabin was realized, allowing me the freedom to enjoy weekends away, engage in fishing, barbecues, gardening, and fruit tree cultivation—mirroring the experiences once enjoyed by Blomkvist.

Reflecting on this journey, I’ve realized that often we might feel unworthy of our desires or hindered by financial constraints, leading to inaction and future regrets. However, changing our mindset towards pursuing our dreams, regardless of financial limitations, can be transformative. Starting with small investments can eventually lead to the realization of our goals. Looking back at the creation of my cabin, now named Zeze Zahra Excellent Farm, I’m amazed at how it gradually came together, step by step, according to what I could afford at the time. This experience underscores the importance of maintaining hope and persistently working towards our dreams, showing that with time and effort, aspirations can indeed become reality.

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But Noom didn’t give up easily. Its machine learning algorithm and big data kept sending me notifications to try again, which I still ignored until one day when I was relaxed, I decided to give it another go.

So, Noom is a kind of diet app, but it focuses more on the psychological side, daily tracking (weight, food intake, drinks, etc.), and mindset change. It might suit me since I enjoy reading and improving my mindset.

During the initial registration session, I provided my target weight of 70 kg. Noom then calculated and estimated that I could achieve it by early June 2023.

How can I reach that goal? That’s one of the benefits offered by Noom.

Every day, Noom provides short readings on mindset, knowledge, and useful things about food intake, workouts, eating patterns, and our daily behaviors. For example, Noom provides insights into calorie-dense food categories with healthy nutrients. In the Noom concept, food is divided into three categories: Green, Yellow, and Orange.

Green food is a category of food that has low-calorie density and high healthy nutrients. Usually, this type is green food, vegetables, raw food, fresh fruits, and so on.

Yellow food has relatively high-calorie density and fewer healthy nutrients, such as garlic, low-fat cream cheese, low-fat yogurt, orange juice, rice, noodles, and so on. Yellow food can be consumed in moderate portions, so try to have small portions.

Finally, orange food is food with high-calorie density and low healthy nutrients, such as red meat and desserts or snacks like cakes, frozen food, processed food, and so on. Noom does not forbid consuming the above foods, but balancing their portions is recommended. Don’t eat too much of the orange food type.

In addition to the above, there are three benefits of Noom that I have experienced so far, namely:

1. Recording food and drink intake. This way, I can know the portion of each category and what I should add or reduce. I can also record how many glasses of water I drink compared to my initial target. Every day, I make a target of drinking 10 glasses per day or about 2.5 to 3 liters of water.
2. Recording the number of steps or walking. There is a daily target, usually starting from 2,000 steps per day until eventually reaching a target of 10,000 steps per day. Noom synchronizes with other health apps, such as in my case, Noom synchronizes with the Fitness and Abs Workout app. Currently, my average steps/walks are only around 3,000.
   
   To increase the number of steps, I replaced the habit of riding a motorcycle or bicycle with walking when picking up my car in the garage, which is located away from home. Then I also park a little far from my daughter’s school, so I can walk from the parking lot to the mosque and vice versa.
   
   I even plan to eventually place Bumblebee at the Excellent Premier Serenity headquarters and then walk to the Aktiva Danita headquarters for daily work. By doing this, the daily walking target can be fulfilled.

3. Recording health indicators every day. For example, weight, blood pressure, oxygen levels, and others, as a form of early detection and getting used to knowing the progress of activities. Luckily, I have been routinely recording them every day, so the process can run smoothly without feeling burdened.

The process is still ongoing, but my knowledge has increased a little, and I can better understand the health patterns that should be applied.

The post Chasing Health Targets with Noom’s Help appeared first on Vavai's Personal Notes.

أين الحمام

And I remembered a story from a few years ago, precisely in 2017.

At that time, my family and I were performing Umrah. Zeze Vavai was 11 years old, and Vivian Aulia Zahra was 7 years old. We landed in Medina and, after some time, departed for Mecca.

During the Tawaf, the Mutawwif (Umrah guide, the literal meaning is actually someone who performs Tawaf) warned us not to feel the urge to pee. Because if you feel the urge to pee, you have to leave the line, find a toilet that is quite far away and then return to continue Tawaf.

Since we never knew when we would want to pee, plus the cold air and cool air conditioning, we temporarily didn’t drink, hehehe… Rather than getting confused later, it’s better to perform Tawaf together. Although now I think it’s okay to do Tawaf alone, it might hinder the group’s schedule later.

Thank God, the Tawaf process went smoothly. The problem occurred during the Sa’i, the small run between Safa and Marwah.

After only 2 rounds of walking and running, Zeze Vavai suddenly felt the urge. I asked if he could hold it until we finished, but he said he couldn’t.

So, in the end, Zeze Vavai and I separated from the group and went to find a restroom.

We asked the askar (Saudi Arabian police/military) who was guarding the area, “I’m sorry sir, where is the toilet?”

The askar looked at us with a puzzled expression. “Toilet sir, restroom…” I repeated, but the askar remained confused. He called his friend over, and they both spoke while shaking their heads.

Finally, I tried to demonstrate what I meant, as if I needed to pee, hehehe…

Finally, the askar understood. He pointed in a direction and said something like, “You’ll see a sign there. Turn left and then right, follow the direction, and you’ll see many people peeing there.”

Hahaha, Zeze Vavai and I thanked him and rushed to the restroom he had pointed to. As the askar had said, we had to wander around a bit before we found the sign for the toilet.

After finishing and performing wudhu, Zeze Vavai and I returned to the Sa’i area and resumed the Sa’i that had been delayed.

Alhamdulillah, the Umrah pilgrimage went smoothly. When we were leaving the Masjid al-Haram for our hotel, we were approached by some Pakistanis who offered, “Let’s shave your head, 5 riyals, 10 riyals…”

Seriously, these Pakistani people offered their services to shave our heads with that phrase, perhaps because many Indonesians are their targets for shaving their heads bald and also for tidying up our hair during the Tahalul phase. We just needed to tell them how many centimeters of hair we wanted left.

Years later, I learned that when asking for the restroom, I just needed to say:

أين الحمام

Now my vocabulary has expanded a bit. If only I had intended to learn Arabic and could at least have basic conversations, maybe I could chat a bit more and ask:

من أين أنت

Instead of asking, “Where are you from?” as I always did to the pilgrims on my left or right side.

Note : Image by ekrem from Pixabay

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The first consideration is to align with my memorization process. Currently, I have a project to memorize the Qur’an in installments while understanding its meaning and interpretation. I can guess some of the meanings of the verses of the Qur’an because they are like poetry and have some recurring words. I also once attended a madrasa and received initial learning about word formation in Arabic (e.g., the words يتعلم and تعلُّم, which mean learning), where there are changes in form if the position is in the middle or at the end (predicate or object) and if the subject is أنا (I) or أنت (you) or هو (he) or نحن (we), so I can learn a little bit about it.

By learning Arabic regularly, routinely, and on a scheduled basis, I hope to better understand the meaning and interpretation and facilitate my memorization process.

The second consideration is that I consider English to be an obligation. So, Indonesian and English are mandatory things that should be mastered, and I want to learn other languages to be useful for both communication and learning.

The third consideration is that Arabic is one of the official languages of the United Nations, spoken by hundreds of millions of people in the Middle East and Africa. If I can reach a certain level in Arabic, I can move on to other languages such as Chinese, Spanish, French, Russian, and even others like Thai, Japanese, Vietnamese. I also want to learn regional languages such as Javanese, Sundanese, and others to understand their respective cultures and learn from the original literature in those languages.

The problem is, I only started enjoying the pleasure of learning languages after I reached my 40s, haha… I don’t know why in my teens or in my 20s and 30s, I didn’t think about learning languages. Maybe it’s just my fate to be like this, just like why I only thought about continuing my master’s degree and memorizing the Qur’an in installments at this age.

I use the Mondly app to learn Arabic. I have used Babbel, Rosetta Stone, Duolingo, LetMeSpeak, and some other apps, but eventually, I chose Mondly for Arabic after comparing the processes.

I use English as the setting in Mondly. So, the learning explanations are in English to learn Arabic. In this way, I can also get used to thinking in English to learn other languages.

To maintain a regular schedule, I create a learning schedule in Asana project management, with a minimum study time of 10 minutes daily and a minimum score of 100.

Isn’t that too little? Well, I have to balance it with my daily work too. The concept is similar to the atomic habits principle, a 1% improvement done consistently will eventually lead to significant impact in the long run.

Later, I will try to share my progress after a few months, whether it’s good or not. So far, I’m enjoying the process and hope to be able to read news or stories and understand YouTube videos in Arabic a few months after learning. I’m not ruling out the possibility of taking an intensive Arabic course after completing the lessons in my app.

The post Learning Arabic (and Thai, Spanish, Chinese) Through Mondly appeared first on Vavai's Personal Notes.

This is a continuation of that writing.

If we intend to make changes or improvements in our lives, our habits, and our routines, we should set moderate targets. Moderate in the sense that they are not too high but also not too low.

One of the staff members at PT Aktiva Kreasi Investama (a SaaS company where I work besides Excellent) told me that he wants to focus on working as an application tester because he feels incapable of being a front-end developer.

One should not force themselves to do something one doesn’t like. Nor should they be held back by work they don’t want to do.

However, we should not underestimate our own abilities. If we undervalue ourselves, we may set targets that are too low.

If we are young, we should not extinguish our spirit to progress. We should not be satisfied with the minimalistic life we have. We should strive to learn and work harder to achieve a better standard of living. We should not be content with the knowledge we currently possess. Our minds should be open, and we should be willing to learn new things that are beneficial to ourselves, our families, and society as a whole.

We should not feel satisfied because we believe we are experts in a certain field. We should not complain about obstacles. We should try our best to overcome them.

We should not stop learning just because we think we are not capable. We should find out the reasons for our reluctance to learn. Try to make learning a regular habit so that the thought of learning becomes part of our lifestyle and not just a means to achieve a target.

It is true that we start with something small, something little, and something simple. But we should not be satisfied with that alone. There should be gradual improvements, moving towards the level of our desired goals.

For example, start exercising for 5 minutes. But don’t be satisfied with just 5 minutes. Gradually increase the target every week so that we can achieve two benefits at once: a foundation for a regular habit and a gradual improvement.

Try learning a foreign language, don’t just be satisfied with your native language. Don’t just be satisfied with English. There is nothing stopping us from learning various languages ​​in the world. We can start learning the official languages ​​of the UN, then move on to other languages.

Some colleagues say, “It’s easy once you get used to it. The problem is, how to get used to it?”

Yes, how do we get used to it? The answer will be recursive, so it repeats. How do we get used to it? Yes, we must get used to it. Hehehe…

Yes, the answer is that we must get used to it.

For example, I am learning Arabic and Spanish. I set aside at least 10 minutes every day to study. I installed Mondly for learning Arabic and Babbel for learning Spanish. Every day, I have a target to learn new vocabulary.

Because Mondly uses a scoring system, I have a minimum target of 100 scores per day.

Can learning a language through applications like Mondly and Babbel make us immediately communicate fluently? It depends on each individual, but one thing I believe in is the concept of atomic habits:

“Real change comes from the compound effect of hundreds of small decisions or habits that accumulate into remarkable results over time.”

“Improving by just 1% is not always noticeable but can be extremely significant in the long run. The overall concept is that if you can become 1% better every day for 1 year, you’ll end up 37 times better than you were at the beginning of the year.”

I may not be able to communicate fluently in the language I’m learning immediately, but I believe that within the next month, my level of mastery in that language will be different.

I just started intensively learning Arabic a week ago. From only a few vocabulary words at first, I’m confident that I can dramatically improve my knowledge and vocabulary related to the Arabic language within the next month.

If just one month can make a difference, let alone if I continue to learn for 6 months or a year consistently, the result may be extremely significant.

If I learn IT-related materials such as DevOps or cloud material to support my work, I believe that I will become a different person in a few weeks if I continue to learn consistently.

I don’t want to be satisfied with just one point or level. Not because I don’t want to be grateful but because we must use the gift of ability that the Almighty has given us. I share this thinking with the Excellent, Aktiva, and Zeze Zahra teams that we must continue to improve the quality of our lives, not just be satisfied with a target that is too low.

Image by hakan yıldırım from Pixabay

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