(to) bargain

in indonesia (and maybe other countries), it is common to bargain the price of something that we will buy. maybe we think that the price is so expensive that we should bargain it. of course, the bargaining only happens on certain markets (especially traditional markets).

well, i should say that i am very bad in bargaining the price. every time i told to buy something cheaper, i never did is succesfully.

there are many tricks to bargain the price. sometimes we can start it from the half, or even 10% of the full price. it really depends on the stuff. but the main trick is: never feel guilty to bargain!! (that’s the hardest point for me)

my worst experience in bargaining happened when i was in junior high school. there was a vacation to bali. because i knew that i am very bad in bargaining, i didn’t buy kind of stuffs. but i saw interesting keychains. i was interested to buy it. the price is 5000rupiah each. i think, it’s ok. than i bought 10 keychains. after reaching the bus and meeting the friends, they asked me about the keychains. than they all laughed for me. because they bought it only for 1000rupiah for each.

that’s why, i prefer buying in a department store (we can’t bargain in it) to buying in traditional market. it’s really hard for me to bargain the price.

job description

as lecturer,

the main job descriptions are to teach, to research, and to serve (to the society). those are the ideal condition. but in my country, it is not easy to do that job description.

i will give you a simple in research. to do research, lecturers have to find the fund by themselves. sometimes the focus of lecturers is not: how to do the research well. the lecturers have to think: how to get the fund. how to make the “proper” financial reports.

the word “research” is also absurd here. sometimes what we call research is a project with big amount of money. lecturers just need to do a “low level” research to get big amount of money. the one who think that money is much more important than the research itself, will find another project like this.

i have also involved in a project like this. and honestly, it always strikes my head. it is far away from the lecturers’ main job description. and you know, the project itself hasn’t ended yet! it has been 6 months.

but this morning, the head of the department call me to his room. and he told me about the finalization of the project (it made me pleased). and he told me also to prepare the materials for his lectures (with my pleasure), and help him to write a text book (yap, i will).

always strive to go back to main job description. even still need to learn a lot.

welcome

welcome to my new personal blog.

this is my another blog (my previous blog is written in bahasa indonesia). i just try to express my thoughts and ideas here in english. i hope that you can enjoy it.

thank you.