yes. the answer for the noon activity is take a selfie. Our laoshi who is very kindhearted bring us to the field and play snow together. We did snow war with chinese student before,kind of exhausted because they have more mass than us. Cmiww.

In the winter, the afternoon is very short. You will sleep more and eat more. Finally i get a hype for a perfect body weight in this winter, 49kg's is awesome huh :))

Disclaimer : there is a friend from Laos (Laotian) in the pictures. Find him!

sangat kenyang, gomawo. we had quality chit chat, my nano nano friends.
diluar masih winter, angin malemnya nusuk bgt dingginnya. jgn coba coba ga pake jaket. -15 degrees.

cheers, vanessa

Many people think that the conventional banking and sharia banking have no difference. Some people even muslim also think that concept of sharia is blur because it's still owned by conventional banking and so on. A lot of people arguing and questioning what's the benefit i get if i moved to sharia banking. Expensive? higher rate than conventional? they said YES. So what's strong reason to move? Because pious and orthopraxy only become supporting reason and did not reflect into the spirit of business which is wealth.
Let us calculate cost benefit between the customer(source of fund), creditor(intermediary), and debtor. This is the simple real world comparison to analyze the difference with $10,000 in hand.

So what conventional bank can do with this $10,000? find credit and lend at 5% interest and find other borrower at 10% and then lend to street vendors at 25%. The bank is not particularly concern about what happen in this money other than gets repaid. Conventional bank has no conditional option, so what will happen if the debtor business crash or bankrupt? the unpaid loans and lender woes are in one package, set the domino effect to people at the same time.  And we can't blame the power of compound interest. In fact, the interest do not need the actual cash/money so the original $10,000 can be pumped out until $100,000 artificial money.With the interest, we succeed to turn our $10,000 into much more and gain incredible profit for the bank. Imagine the number of repaid loans by business or world bank loan which reach more than $1 billion loan. How much they should payback by compound interest? We are all desperate by monetizing the debt.


So what sharia banking can do with $10,000. All transactions of Sharia banking always tight only play in actual assets and services (such as buy the machine, invest in business or lease the cars). The essential is, we can't compound the asset and service. The revenue sharing concept/interest on the other hand, allow cash to circulate and grow into the normal of SUM. Sharia banking is all about buying and selling something real with bank as intermediary. Rather than borrowing and lending something fleeting (conventional concept). Sharia reject the concept of time value of money by Adam Smith.

We witnesses the most dramatic financial problem in decades such as sub prime mortgage 2008 which impact to global financial meltdown. What the conventional bank can not do in this condition is that first, the ability to sell money when there is no money. To sell asset before they have underlying asset (asset exist). Allow debt to grow unchecked which make the borrower more desperate.
Interest creates artificial supply and not backed by the real assets which result into the high inflation, heightened volatility (measurement for variation of price of financial instrument over time derived from market price of a market traded derivative), and economic disparity.

As said by Obasanjo (Ex Nigeria President - developing country) in GA Summit Okinawa 2010 :
"All that we had borrowed up to 1985 or 1986 was around $5 billion and we have paid about $16 billion yet we are still being told that we owe $28 billion. That $28 billion came about because of the injustice in the foreign creditor's interest rates. If you ask me what is the worst thing in the world, i will say it is compound interest."
Developing countries start off relatively with small loan but saddled with growing debt for the next generations. Another example is our country (Asian collapse - 1997), Indonesia's foreign debt reach over 60% of its GDP.
Back to Nigeria, How $5 billion become $44 billion ($28 billion +$16 billion) between 1985 to 2000? Is it high interest rate? NOPE, it is only 15.6%. It does not sounds exorbitant, unfair, nor illegal. But in fact, we personally know if the bank charge high risk credit upwards of 30% of interest rates.


So how sharia serves better economic order?
we are business institution which run religion value. Not the religion institution which run the business value. So, gain the profit is a need and common in a business. But there are several aspects we protect in the business practice for the whole parties. Conventional creates capitalism and make the circulation of money serves only for certain people (from affluent to high network people). Sharia want to erase this by establishing win win solution and healthy business practice.

These are 3 values that we reject from the practice of conventional banking business :

1. Maisir (gambling) : Maisir is prohibited by Islamic law on the grounds that the agreement between participants is based on immoral inducement provided by entirely wishful hopes in the participants' minds that they will gain by mere chance, with no consideration for the possibility of loss.

2.Gharar

Al Baqarah 275 explain the content of how harm usury is, pioneer reason to build better economic practice through sharia banking.








By : Vanessa Alexandra
Source : Youtube, Cornell University Journal, Bank of Syariah Mandiri, wikipedia, quran.com.

Udah lama banget ga denger ceramah, dan akhir akhir ini lagi dengerin ceramah lagi.. bukan karena iseng2 nyari atau habit gue cari berita islami. bukan. tapi karena Allah tempatkan aku di lingkungan yang baik. Alhamdulillah.

Jujur sebelum di lingkungan ini, obsesi karir itu di FMCG, dan memang dinyatakan lolos utk jadi MT disana. Udah usaha ngewujudinnya, tp takdir berkata lain. Mungkin karena doaku dulu, kalo aku ingin bekerja dengan beribadah. Dan Allah bener2 tunjukin jalannya di persimpangan keputusan hidupku kemarin ketika memilih kerja. Benar2 hal tersulit untuk mengikhlaskan ambisi yang udah di depan mata dan bahkan udah dipegang di tangan sendiri, seriously.

Butuh beberapa hari buat ngembaliin semangat dan mengganti cita2 yang udah pernah tertulis. Butuh perenungan yang amat dahsyat, biar bagaimana caranya hamba yang tak berdaya ini ikhlas tanpa meremehkan Tuhannya. Karena aku bukan malaikat, jadi sikap negatif itu selalu ada dalam setiap ketidak ikhlasan hidup atas ketentuan yang ditetapkanNya. PRnya ialah seberapa cepat hamba ini kembali bersyukur, bukan hanya menggerutu.

Bukan hanya masalah karir, ternyata. Perenungan ini pun berlanjut pada masalah hati. Bukannya mau dianggap sok suci, tapi emang gue ga bisa nampik kalo ada hal yang benar. Tapi yang gue takutin itu satu, kalo gue gak istiqamah. Ya istiqamah. Satu kata yang pernah diucapin slh satu temen pas pertama kali pake kerudung, dan begonya gue gak tau kata ini maknanya apa saat itu. Maklum bukan anak pesantren, pencarian ilmu agama hambaMu ini cuma sekadar di sekolah negeri.

Gegara ustadz sipit twitter yang kritisnya minta ampun.. gue penasaran gugling doi di youtube. Ga ada angin ga ada hujan tuh, yang tadinya mau tidur pas balik outbond malah merenung dengerin tausiahnya sampe jam 2 pagi. Ketagihan dan ngena banget. Ada keputusan besar dibalik momen ini. Saya merasa jadi manusia lebih baik di 31 Januari 2015 karena menerima satu kebenaran lagi, yang dulu saya fikir gak sanggup untuk ngelaksanainnya. Semoga seterusnya.

PS : ustadz ini juga pernah jelasin bidang astronomi dalam salah satu ceramahnya. Astronomi itu bener2 cool buat nambah suatu keimanan. Dijelaskan bagaimana tak berdayanya manusia di alam semesta ini, milyaran bintang yang lbh besar dari matahari dan planet yang tidak pernah bertabrakan satu sama lain, menunjukkan adanya Dzat yang maha mengatur segalanya. Berdasarkan computational scientific by Roger Penrose ahli matematika UK, dia pernah melakukan research seberapa besar probability bahwa tuhan itu tidak ada/ seberapa besar alam semesta ini terbentuk secara kebetulan ialah 1/10 pangkat 10 pangkat 123 (10 to the power of 123 to 1) which is unlimited NOL, more than impossible if God does not exist. Subhanallah.