Cantor's Giant Softshell Turtle

The Cantor's giant softshell turtle (also known as Asian giant softshell turtle) is a fresh water turtle that used to inhabit India, Bangladesh, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Sumatra, Borneo, and western Java. However, for the past decade, sightings have only reported in Laos. It was last seen in the Cambodian wild in 2003.

The species inhabits slow-moving fresh water streams and rivers. There are indications that its range may extend to coastal areas, as well.

This strange looking turtle is named after Theodore Edward Cantor (1809–1860), a Danish physician, zoologist and botanist. 

Description

It has a broad head, with small eyes near the tip of the snout. Individuals can reach a maximum length of about 2 meters (6 feet). Adults have a smooth and olive colored carapace, while juveniles may have dark-spotted carapaces and heads, with yellow around the carapace. Contrary to most turtles, the Cantor’s giant softshell turtle has no exterior shell, although the ribs do form a protective plating over its back, covered by rubbery skin. Individuals may have sharp scales on the underside of the forelimbs.

California Institute of Technology

Motto:

The Truth shall make you free

California Institute of Technology is a private institution that was founded in 1891. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 977, its setting is suburban, and the campus size is 124 acres. It utilizes a quarter-based academic calendar. California Institute of Technology's ranking in the 2015 edition of Best Colleges is National Universities, 10. Its tuition and fees are $43,362 (2014-15).

Caltech, which focuses on science and engineering, is located in Pasadena, California, approximately 11 miles northeast of Los Angeles. Social and academic life at Caltech centers on the eight student houses, which the school describes as "self-governing living groups." Student houses incorporate an admired Caltech tradition: dinners served by student waiters. Only freshmen are required to live on campus, but around 80 percent of students remain in their house for all four years. The Caltech Beavers have a number of NCAA Division III teams that compete in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Integral to student life is the Honor Code, which dictates that "No member of the Caltech community shall take unfair advantage of any other member of the Caltech community."

In addition to its undergraduate studies, Caltech offers top graduate programs in engineering, biology, chemistry, computer science, earth sciences, mathematics and physics. Caltech participates in a significant amount of research, receiving grants from institutions such as NASA, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Health and Human Services, among others. Caltech maintains a strong tradition of pranking with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, another top-ranked science and technology university. Companies such as Intel, Compaq and Hotmail were founded by Caltech alumni. Famous film director Frank Capra also graduated from Caltech.

Campus

The tallest building on campus, the Millikan Library

Caltech's 124-acre (50 ha) primary campus is located in Pasadena, California, approximately 11 miles (18 km) northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is within walking distance of Old Town Pasadena and the Pasadena Playhouse District and therefore the two locations are frequent getaways for Caltech students.

New additions to the campus include the Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics and the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Center for Information Science and Technology, which opened in 2009, and the Warren and Katherine Schlinger Laboratory for Chemistry and Chemical Engineering followed in March 2010. The Institute also concluded an upgrading of the south houses in 2006. In late 2010, Caltech completed a 1.3 MW solar array projected to produce approximately 1.6 GWh in 2011.

Academic Life

The student-faculty ratio at California Institute of Technology is 3:1, and the school has 62.7 percent of its classes with fewer than 20 students. The most popular majors at California Institute of Technology include: Engineering; Physical Sciences; Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services; Mathematics and Statistics; and Biological and Biomedical Sciences. The average freshman retention rate, an indicator of student satisfaction, is 97.3 percent.

Student Life

Caltech's Mascot, the Beavers

California Institute of Technology has a total undergraduate enrollment of 977, with a gender distribution of 63.4 percent male students and 36.6 percent female students. At this school, 84 percent of the students live in college-owned, -operated, or -affiliated housing and 16 percent of students live off campus. California Institute of Technology is part of the NCAA III athletic conference.

• Pranks
  
  Caltech students have been known for the many pranks.
  
  
  
  The two most famous in recent history are the changing of the Hollywood Sign to read "Caltech", by judiciously covering up certain parts of the letters, and the changing of the scoreboard to read Caltech 38, MIT 9 during the 1984 Rose Bowl Game. But the most famous of all occurred during the 1961 Rose Bowl Game, where Caltech students altered the flip-cards that were raised by the stadium attendees to display "Caltech", and several other "unintended" messages. This event is now referred to as the Great Rose Bowl Hoax.
  
  In recent years, pranking has been officially encouraged by Tom Mannion, Caltech's Assistant VP for Student Affairs and Campus Life. "The grand old days of pranking have gone away at Caltech, and that's what we are trying to bring back," reported the Boston Globe.
  
  In December 2011, Caltech students went to New York and pulled a prank on Manhattan's Greenwich Village. The prank involved making The Cube sculpture look like the Aperture Science Weighted Companion Cube from the video game Portal.
  
  Caltech pranks have been documented in three Legends of Caltech books, the most recent of which was edited by alumni Autumn Looijen '99 and Mason A. Porter '98 and published in May 2007.
  

Alumni

Stephen Wolfram, PhD 1979, creator of Mathematica and Wolfram Alpha; one of the first MacArthur Fellows in 1981

Stanislav Smirnov, PhD 1996, 2010 Fields Medal winner for his work on the mathematical foundations of statistical physics, particularly finite lattice models

My Holiday

It was the New Year Holiday, me and my family went to Jakarta to visit my grandparents and my aunt. First, me and my brother went to Jakarta with Cipaganti Travel, just the two of us. Our parent's not going to Jakarta with us because they had some work to do in Bandung.

So, we used Cipaganti Travel to go there. It was 7 o'clock when we got there, and we were picked up by our grandparents. Then, we went to our grandparents house and we were taken to our old room. It was cleaned by the maid of the house. So we changed our cloths and got ready to dinner. And after dinner, we went to bed.

We woke up at 6 o'clock in the morning. We got ready to go to a church because it was Sunday. And after that we went to our aunt's house to meet with our cousins. In the night, we stayed at our aunt's house because our cousins ask us to.

In the morning, we went to supermarket to buy some things for the night. As night came, my parents and all my relatives came to my aunt's house to celebrate christmast. First we prayed together, and then we (me, my brother, and my cousins) gave presents to everyone in our family. After that, we went to restaurant to eat together. And then we went back to my grandparents' house to rest because tomorrow we're going to go home.

Bakti Desa

Bakti Desa is a SMAN 3 annual program. In this program, we go to a village for three days and help the people there. The purpose of this program is so that we could know the feeling of the people who work hard everyday just so that they can eat. It was held at Thursday, 23rd of October, 2014 until Saturday, 25th of October. The village we're going to visited is called Resmitinggal Village.

So, on Thursday, 23rd of October, we gathered in SMAN 3 at 6 pm. And then we went there at 8 pm and we arrived at 10. When we arrived, we were told to go to the Village Hall to present at Mr. Encang, our headmaster, and the mayor of the village speech. And then, we had lunch in Balai Desa. After lunch, we went to our house in each district. Me and my friends in XI IPA 9 went to Joglo District. It's a really nice place. I lived in Mr. Ahmad's house, with my other friends. In the morning, Mr. Ahmad went to his farm to harvest or plant some vegetable. In the afternoon, he rested and took a nap or went to his farm to flush his vegetables. In the night, he went to a market at 11 am to sell the vegetable he had harvested in the morning. So, in the first day, we went to Mr. Ahmad's farm to flush his farm. In the meantime, we also took some carrot and eat it raw. Mr. Ahmad said that it's healthier to eat it raw than the cooked one. And then, we went back to our house and Mr. Ahmad said that we have to get rest so we could go with Mr. Ahmad to the market later at night, to sell some vegetables. But, we went with our other friends to explore Joglo district. And then we went back to home and have a dinner. Then, we went to sleep so we won't be tired later. And, in the morning, we got up and realise that we weren't awoken by Mr. Ahmad. Next, we knew that Mr. Ahmad wanted to wake us up but he wasn't able to because our face looks like a really exhausted face. So, in the morning, we followed other family to farm and then we started to harvest a lot of carrot. After we finished, we go back to our house and took a bath. Then, in the afternoon, we went with Mr. Ahmad to take some tomato from one of his partner. And then we went back to our house, again. And it seems that we couldn't go with Mr. Ahmad to market later, because tomorrow morning we have to get ready to went back to Resmitinggal's Village Hall and went back home. And later night, there's a parade to celebrate Muharram New Year. We joined the parade and we walk really far until we arrived at Village Hall. The student's from SMAN 3 mustn't continued the parade because in the morning we're going to go back home. But then, there's a problem. My class, XI IPA 9, didn't get any vehicle to get back to our district, Joglo. So, we stayed in the teacher's house until the vehicle that going to take us back come. So, we went back home and quickly fast asleep because we're tired after the parade.
In the third day, we had a recitation with the villagers in Joglo district. After that, we went back home and repacking our stuff. And we said goodbye and apologize to Mr. Ahmad because all the trouble we cause to him. And he gave us some present to take back to Bandung. We're really happy. And after that all of us XI IPA 9 went to Resmitinggal's Village Hall. And then we went back home.

It was a really nice and fun experience. I hope that SMAN 3 will continue their Bakdes's program.

Matswapati

Hi. I'm going to tell you about one of my school's event, Matswapati.
So, Matswapati is a West Java culture festival. It's held at September, 27th 2014 in Bali Street field, near my school. This culture festival is the first culture festival SMAN 3 ever made after 7 years of vacuum.

Matswapati was opened at 10 pm, with an opening ceremony by our mayor, Ridwan Kamil.

And after that, a traditional musical instrument called Calung started to play. Calung is a traditional Sundanese musical instrument. It's also a prototype of musical instrument we called "Angklung". After that, there's another traditional performance, like Benjang, Degung, Reog. And then, there's Musik Klasik 3. Musik Klasik 3 is one of the extracurricular from SMAN 3, which performed a song with an orchestra. After that, there's Pencak Silat, and Tiloe's Theatre, another SMAN 3 extracurricular. They perfomed some kind of a drama, in a theatre. And then Keluarga Paduan Angklung 3, another SMAN 3 extracurricular again. It's an extracurricular that play songs with angklung, a traditional musical instrument from Java. And after that, there's Sambasunda Junior, Wayang Golek Giriharja, and the famous Saung Angklung Udjo, and Indonesian Bamboo Community. And then there's Barsena with Kelompok Vokal 3, an extracurricular from SMAN 3. And there's Indonesian famous singer, Glenn Fredly. Then the event was closed by a performance called Debus. It's a traditional magic performance that allowed the Debus player to do a lot of dangerous things, such ass eat glasses, walk on fire, etc.

It's a really nice event. I hope SMAN 3 will continue to represent their appreciation of West Java culture with a culture festival like Matswapati.

Inspiring Person

I'm going to tell you about the person that have inspired me the most. 
It's my father. Why? I'm going to tell you why.
So. now my father lives in Bandung. He's born in Pekanbaru. Years ago, the government system in Indonesia was still in chaos.Back then, the president of Indonesia was Soeharto. My father born in a mediocre family. So, when my father was still in Senior High School, he's called a warrior. Well, not really a warrior, but it's just he's really really strong back then, and a lot of people respect him. There's a time when my father told me that back then, there's some guy in his school that wanted to fight with him. But, my father knows that fighting will not make things better. So, he used his way of fighting. His way was, to give the guy a chance to punch my father at the stomach as hard as the guy can. So, the guy hit him, and nothing happened! My father didn't even flinched! This was really surprising, and scary of course. And then, the guy fear and respect him because my father can sustain the damage the guy give to his stomach.
And, after my father graduate from Senior High School, he went to Bandung to search for a good college, all by himself. That time, my father wanted to be a doctor. Well, in the end he became a priest. So, when my father have arrived in Bandung, he went to one of his family members, so he can stay in their house. And then, my father went to STTT college. I have forgotten about what kind of study that he chose. One thing that I know is that he failed his test, so he chose another study.
And then, he met my mother, at some kind of event. In that event, my father played guitar, and my mother played keyboard. And they have something in common, playing music. And how my father fell in love to my mother.
My father and my mother married in 1998, and then, I came in 1999.
In the past, they used to played together in some event, but now, my mother and my father is busy with their job.
Well, back to the past. Back then, my father worked in a tax company. And because his past at Senior High School, he could became really mean when he ask of tax. But then, he quit the tax company and he built his own company. It's an engineering company. It's because my mother's job is civil engineer. So that they could work together.
Then, on August 2007, I think, my father had an accident. It's really a bad accident, and it nearly brought my father closer to God. But, he survived. Only the bad thing was that his left leg would be crippled for a long time. Well, now his leg already been healed a little, although his left leg still can't walk normally for a long time, but at least I still have my father around, right?

Well, to answer the question above, why my father is the one that inspired me the most, it's because he's really wise. All his words and his advice really helped me living my daily life. You're a great father, dad.

Bullying

So, what is bullying?

• According to wikipedia, bullying is the use of force, threat or coercion to abuse, intimidate, or aggresively dominate others.
• And another source says that bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. 

I think, bullying is a behaviour that makes the person that being bullied feel afraid or uncomfortable. Bullying happens when there is someone who thinks that he/she is higher that the person that being bullied and then tried to scares or hurts the person on purpose and the person that being bullied has a hard time defending themselves.

Do you know the effects of getting bullied? It makes people upset. Bullying can make the person who are being bullied feel lonely, frightened, etc. It can even make them sick!
And, if the bullying isn't stopped, it could also effect the bystanders. Bystanders will afraid that they can be the next victim. And they will avoid getting involved in order to protect themselves.

Why do I know this? Because I had experienced it when I was in junior high school. It's a verbal bullying.
Oh, I forgot to tell you the four most common type of bullying :

1. Verbal bullying : it's a bullying that use name-calling, sarcasm, spreading rumours, teasing, threatening, etc.
2. Social bullying : it's a bullying that humiliate others in public, excluding others from a group, etc.
3. Physical bullying : Well, it's already clear that physical bullying involves hitting, chasing, shoving, destroying or stealing belongings, etc
4. And cyber bullying : it's a bullying that using gadget to intimidate, spread rumours or making fun of someone.

So, from those 4 type of bullying, I was bullied with verbal bullying and social bullying. Maybe it was because back then, I'm some kind of a nerd. But now, i have changed. Although there's still some verbal bullying going around me, but it's not as bad as when I was in junior high school. I still can handle it.

But, not everyone can fight and stand up for themselves. And that's why, we have to help them. We have to create peace around us, and in the community where we stand. We have to respect others and we have to be brave to stand up for people that being bullied.

And for the people who get bullied, be brave! Don't be afraid of bullying, try to stand up for yourself. And the most important thing, make friends.