My country, my family and myself

I think it's a good idea if we can use this blog to share a little bit about ourselves.

Let me start. Well, I come from Indonesia. I was born in a big island called 'Sumatra'. And after high school I moved into another island called 'Java'.
Indonesia is a very unique country. It is a tropical and exotic country. It is a very popular tourist destination. (You must know Bali, right?) Indonesia has 17,508 islands, more than 700 languags and dialects and more than 300 ethnic groups. It is a very diverse country, so many different cultures. We have 247 million people there, which makes us the 4th biggest country in the world in terms of population (after China, India, and the US).

There are many kinds of food in Indonesia. Most of the food is spicy. We produce spices. This region of the world used to be called 'The Spices Islands', or "the Dutch East Indies". Right now Indonesia is on the spot of the world news for a number of reasons. For instance, we are the country with the biggest Muslim population (85% of the total population), although Indonesia is a secular state since its independance. The other religions are Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Buddhism, Confusiusm and other belief systems. The other reason is because there have been many disasters in Indonesia. Everybody must remember the tragic Tsunami at the end of 2004, right? More than 150,000 Indonesian people were killed. Others incidents are earthquakes, volcano eruption, flood, landslide, and also transportation accidents (planes, ferries, etc). It is sad for us, but we know we will rise again as a nation. These events will make us stronger and hopefully we will be able to transform many areas in our country so we can be more prosperous like other modern countries.

Back to myself,
I spent my undergraduate, graduate and work life in a city called 'Bandung'. I took International Relations as my major I undergraduate, but later I found teaching and education are my strongest passion. So, since I finished my undergraduate study I have been working as a teacher (mainly EFL), education consultant and teacher trainer.

I am married to a lovely woman named Xanty. She is my high school sweetheart. We have been together for 14 years now. =) We have a cute little angel. Her name is Sasha. She is going to be 5 years old next month. She likes reading, running, soccer and watching movies.

Now I am studying at Teachers College, pursuing Master's degree in Education. My major is in curriculum and teaching, but my passion is more onto education policy and teacher education.

Enough about me, how about you guys? Please share with all of us.

PS. I took all of the pictures posted here. You can ask me about any of them. There are interesting stories about them. ;-)