Biography of Darmi

Darmi is a woman who works for the social service company in Surabaya. She works in one of the branches which is in Villa Kalijudan Surabaya.  Darmi was born on June 1971. She did not want to tell me the date of her birth. She was born in Jombang, East Java.  Darmi was not born in a wealthy family, just average and normal one. She recalled she did not have any certain unforgettable childhood memory.  She was a normal happy kid like the most of kids. Her family was a very loving one, they supported her and taught her so many things.

She started her education at the age of 6 like the usual kids would do.  Her parents had to work hard to pay her needs and school fees. Darmi appreciated that a lot. She would help her mother doing the chores whenever she got back from school of even in her free time. She was such a good and nice kid. After completing her elementary, she went to a public secondary school in Jombang. Civic was her most favourite subject at that time. For her, it was a really good subject that it taught people how to respect the others and so many morals. In her school, she liked to help whoever needed help. She would help with her best.  When the secondary was finished, she went to another public high school which luckily she thought she could pass within 3 years.

After her education was completed, she decided not to continue her higher education. She wanted to work instead. However, she met a man and fell in love with him. They got married and had their first born child in 1996. It was a baby girl. Darmi realized that taking care of a child and working at the same time was hard. Hence, she decided to stay at home and took care of her child. Her husband was the one who worked full time and she thought it was enough for that time. She kept a thing in mind that eventually she would have to work but not until her child was ready to be left alone or atleast could take care of her self. For her, family was everything. Family meant the very important thing and firt priority in life.

Once her kid was finally ready and old enough.  Darmi decided to start working. She applied in one factory as a labor. As a worker, she knew that she had to work hard full time. It was totally new for her. She had to leave early morning and came back late evening, even sometimes she had to stay the night when their work was too much. She admitted that working there was not bad and she enjoyed it. However, there was this time that she had to quit due to her family moving out to another town which was Surabaya. She was actually felt a bit glad because she said that working ina  factory as a labor was very tiring and took much of time.  

In Surabaya, she decided to look for a new job. Knowing Surabaya is a big city, she knew it was hard to get a proper job there. It was all until a friend told her about one vacancy to be a worker mostly like a nanny in one social service house. She doubted it at first but she was willing to try because she had no options that time. In this service house, she was expected to be the nanny of disable kids. This social service house had so many orphan disable kids who were abandoned by their parents and family. Many of them were found in the street so they were brought there to be taken care of properly and given attention. Finally, she took the job in 2011.

On the first two weeks working there, she did not feel okay with everything. She was only allowed to go home at the weekend so it was hard for her not to get to meet her family in the weekdays. Taking care of disable kids was not easy for her. There was 25 of them who were girls and had to be taken care of everyday. Darmi worked with a partner who was also new there and she felt the same way. However, they tried to cope up with all of that.

            

           As the time flies, she was getting used to everything there. She felt really bad watching all the kids who were disabled and yet abandoned by their families. She could not bear with that and did not want to do the same thing like their family did. That was why she decided to stay and take care of them. Darmi had to bath them everyday, prepared all their foods, played with them, taught them things, even calmed some of them down if they cried or sad. She slept in the same room with them. One big room consisted of 6 kids and there were around 5 room.

Now, she admitted she loves the kids just like she loves her own kids. She is so patient with them. For her, they are still the same human beings like everyone else, it is just that they are a bit different and need special treatment. It is such a wonderful feeling to see them growing and laughing. They are now part of her family. Darmi says that family does not always have to involve the same blood, people do not need to be biological to be a family. She is now enjoying her job so much as she can help others and all. She even goes on holiday with them because the house takes them to a holiday once in 3 months. Her own daughter has now grown up and studying her college education in STIKES. She is so proud of her.

Darmi is really grateful of her life. She said that it gave you another special feeling if you could help others in needs and make them happy. For her, happines has a simple meaning which is being able to help others and be loved is happiness. Now that she has been staying in the social service house for 5 years, the kids do not want to be left by her. They would cry whenever Darmi had to go home for the weekend to visit her family. It broke her heart to see that because they were all get used to be with her all the time. Hence, she decided to stay and will not leave them because she already feels comfortable enough and love them all equally like her own children.

Journal Four

     It has been 20 days since I posted my third journal. I still can not believe that I am approaching the end of the semester already. It is my last week of school which means that it is my last meeting in the writing class in this second semester as well. I will be sitting for my final writing exam in less than two weeks. That would be my very last writing assignment in this semester. However, my journey will not end there. I have harder and higher levels of writing class awaiting in the next semester.

     Things had not actually changed so much since my third journal was written. In learning something, I ought to keep recalling things that have been taught to me over and over again. This method applies for everything. There are a lot of rules which are required in order to make such a good passage. Every little and simple things have to be paid attention of really carefully. Therefore, the usage of the punctuation marks, dividing paragraphs, making text in such chronological order are so important. I keep those things in mind whenever I am going to write something.

     My previous assignment right after the autobiography was to make a narrative text. I learnt that a narrative text is a kind of story passage. It is usually an imagination and aimed to entertain the readers. It tells story in again a chronological order. The first paragraph is the orientation which tells the readers about what the story is about. The climax, problem, or any conflicts of the story will be in the second part which called the complication. The third part is the resolution part which is going to explain all the solution of the problems in the story. This explains whether the story will be a sad ending or a happy ending story. There is one more part which is optional. It is called re-orientation. Re-orientation tells us about the closing of the story and the message that wanted to be told to the readers. Those all are the structure of the narrative text.

      I ended up making a romance fantasy themed narrative text. It was a fiction about a love story of a prince and a princess. I knew I had to make the story in a good chronological order with a right structure just like the one that had been taught to me. I tried my best to did so. I posted the first part which was the orientation which meant to tell the readers what my story was about. I continued with writing the complication, resolution, and finally the re-orientation. I learnt a lot from this. In this assignment, I was expected to use all of my imagination and all. However, I made a small mistake when I posted my first post. I did not add any dialogues at all. It was all plain texts in a third person point of view. My lecturer commented on my post and suggested me to add some dialogues. I had not known that we could add dialogues in a narrative text. It did not even cross my mind. Hence, I edited it and add some dialogues there. I learnt something new.

      My next and last assignment is making a biography of some people that give inspiration for me. We are to interview the person and ask them about their life and some changes that brought them into their lives now. It is another new thing because the only biography I had made was autobiography which was biography of my self. I will try to write and make a good one this time according to all the things and rules that had been taught to me.

     In the end I had learnt so many things and am still learning things. I need to remember all the new things and rules such as adding dialogues in narrative and make it always in a good structure. I found that everything that I learnt are important and useful for me. I still have a long journey and higher levels awaiting. Therefore, I got to improve and keep everything I had learnt in mind so that I will not repeat such a same mistakes. I hope I will be better in the next upcoming semester and not to forget, I will do my best completing and doing my final exam of this second semester. Wish me luck!

The Reverse-Spell Stick - Chapter 3

“ But Father... How can I live on my own there ? Why are you doing this to me ?” asked Prince Morden with surprise.

“ Because you are not worth it. I can not let people know that I have such a bad looking son.  Do not ask me anymore questions. Just go!” roared King Heneli ignoring the please from his wife.

            After that argument, Prince Morden was brought by some of the castle’s bodyguard to the Vadrov Island. He was left in one small house in the middle of the island. He cried and was scared because he had no idea how to live on his own eventhough that his mom had taught him a lot of things. He just wanted his mom and came back to the castle. However, there was no way. He had to stay there forever.

            10 years gone by and Prince Morden had survived living on his own. He was indeed lonely. He spent his days hunting and trying to discover new things. Once he thought of leaving the island and visit his mother or back to the country. However he did not have the courage and worried if his father would find out.

            Back to the Zildez Castle, Princess Cataleya had grown up to be a beautiful smart Princess. She was admired by a lot of people. King George was so strict to her and did not let her go anywhere alone by her self. She always had guards who followed her everywhere. King George even homeschooled her and gave a strict rule that she could not have  boyfriend. The Princess was getting fed up with all of that. One day, she wandered off and ran away out from the castle. It was late night and thankfully no one had noticed her as everyone were asleep. She kept running and running until she reached the Vadrov Island.

            Not knowing anything, Princess Cataleya kept running until she got into the wood. Prince Morden who was sitting under the tree enjoying the night life heard some foot steps and noises came approaching his side.

THUMP! Suddenly Princess Cataleya stumbled into something and fell down. It was Prince Morden’s leg. “Ouch! My leg!” screamed the Princess clutching her leg in agony.

“Oh my god. I am so sorry. Let me see it.” rushed Prince Morden coming to check Princess’ leg. He carried her to his house and laid her on the bed.

“ Thank you, but.. who.. who are you?” stuttered Princess Cataleya.

“ My name is Morden, what about you? And not to be rude but what are you doing here in my island ?” asked Prince Morden curiously as he sat beside her.

“ I am Cataleya. I am from the Zildez Castle. I ran away because my father has never let me gone anywhere by my self. I was curious, I kept running and I got into this island. I will leave soon. I did not mean to bother you.” answered the Princess still scared if Prince Morden would hurt her.

“ Oh no it is okay, you can stay here until your leg is healed. I will not hurt you.” said Prince Morden as he smiled at her.

            Princess Catelaya stayed there for weeks. They both got closer and closer each day. They started to have feelings for each other. She knew that her parents must be worried to death but she decided to stay. She had been trying to convince Prince Morden to come with her to the castle. She wanted to introduce him to her parents. However, Prince Morden refused to go and explained that he should not go out from the island. Princess Cataleya decided to stay there. She just wanted to be with him.

Meanwhile in the Zildez Castle, Queen Lorsa had been crying everyday asking for her Princess. King George had told everyone to look for their Princess and promised to give them a big gift if they could find her but no one could.

“ I can not take this anymore. She is gone George. Please give her back to me. I want my princess back.” cried Queen Lorsa clutching on her daughter’s dress.

King George hugged her and whispered to her ear “Do not worry honey, we will find her. I will find her soon. Just be patient.” told him trying to make his wife calm.

            One day, there came an old grumpy witch named Debra. Debra had nowhere to go until she found the Vadrov Island.  She knew that the island was owned by the couple, Prince Morden and Princess Cataleya. However, she wanted to have it for her self by trying to make them go away. If her magic stick was not broken, she would have cursed them and expelled them somewhere. Unfortunately, it was broken and she was fixing it.

            She had been working for it for days and it finally got fixed. She realized something was wrong because she knew that her stick would not last longer. It could be used only for three times. Hence, she tried it first on a frog.

“ Makadee-Boolaboom..Laceeta Cat!” she cursed the frog to be a cat but surprisingly the frog turned into a lion instead. She was confused and surprised. Then, she found that the stick had to be used in reverse. To curse something to be a cat, she had to use another word for the spell like kitten instead of cat.

            She got an idea of how to expell the couple. She was going to curse Prince Morden to be worse and uglier so that Princess Cataleya would leave him and she could finally kill the Prince easily. Before going with her plan, she decided to use her second chance to try to curse something else. She wanted to curse a butterfly back into a cocoon.

“ Makadee-Boolaboom..Laceeta Caterpillar!” she cursed the butterfly and it regressed turning into a cocoon. She was so happy that she made it. So she went directly to Prince Morden house and was going to curse him right in front of Princess Cataleya.

“ Hey! Who are you? What are you doing here ? Get out!” yelled Prince Morden when he saw Debra getting in her house.

“ You both soon are leaving this island and it will be mine. Makadee-Boolaboom..Laceeta Ugly!” she cursed the Prince and was laughing happily.

Her laugh suddenly stopped when she saw Prince Morden turned into a handsome muscular man. His birth mark had gone. She realized that she had said the wrong spell. She should have said ugly instead of handsome.

“ Oh noooooo... I hate my life! It was my last chance!” yelled Debra angrily as she left the couple alone in their house. She had given up and ran away.

            The couple were surprised of the thing that just happened. They hugged each other and could not believe the miracle. They talked and Prince Morden finally spoke up.

“ I am actually a Prince. My name is Morden Heneli and I am the Prince of Zeeta. I was kicked out at the age of 10 because my father did not want to have an ugly son. I had to stay here my whole life. ” explained Prince Morden as he hugged his girlfriend tightly.

“ I can not believe this. The Zeetas are my father’s collegues. Does it mean that we can leave this island and go back to the country?” asked the Princess in tears.

“ I think so honey, I am going to visit my mother too. I have missed her so much.” answered Prince Morden.

            Finally, they both left the island and showed up to the country. King George and Queen Lorsa were surprised and hugged their Princess for the dear life. Her father apologized for the way he treated her before and he could accept the fact that his Princess was now growing up and dating a guy.

Prince Morden went to the Zeeta Castle and straightly hugged his mother. Queen Bev cried happy tears. King Heneli was surprised to see his son back and was completely changed. He felt very sorry that he treated him horribly. Prince Morden forgave him. He was finally back and the following three months he proposed Princess Cataleya. They finally married and lived happily ever after.

~ THE END ~