If you watch netflix, you might be wondering “it’s a trend, that’s the reason why you read Fear Street because of that trilogy, right?” yes you are damn right! I personally have been a huge fan of R.L Stine’s works since I was a kid, I still had that torn Goosebumps book from my sister with the old cover from the 90s. So when I saw one of R.L Stine’s works is being adapted into a movie, I got super excited and nowsince I haven’t read all of the Fear Street trilogies, so this is my chance, especially when that trilogy is a success! It makes me wonder more about the stories surrounding Shadyside especially when the original fear street series have more than 50 books! I have a lot of books to read, I guess.
Title : Fear Street : Switched
Writer : R.L Stine
Year : 1995
Collation : 164 pages
I’ve written a short review about this book on openlibrary but now I’m going to cover all of it. As you may have already known, R.L. Stine is known for his light horror fictions, but as for Fear Street, it’s an exception. It has astonishing graphic and sexual depiction, though the sexual one is much lesser, the series covers up teenage life filled with either drama or another twisted genre spiced up with the terror atmosphere of cursed Shadyside or precisely is the Fear Street itself.
I think what makes this book seems so special is that it is taken from a fun cliché of switching bodies, which is my favorite kind of stuff to watch in movies. It creates a reality of nightmare and how to solve it, and why would you want to switch within just a decision made of one day? Lots of questions and speculations going on, at first, I have also been wondering ‘why this?’; ‘why that?’ but by the end of the book, I had it figured out myself. I don’t want to spoil it but I’d like to deliver what I think makes this book special, besides the common but fun cliché or I’d rather just say theme?
In many genre of entertainment, I think one of them is the mystical illusion it used within the mystic land of Shadyside, most movies I’ve watched (which were released years after this book of course) had the body switching came from a witch or a lesson from God, but the one that the Fear Street is using is from an artifact among the forest, a big wall where they switch with certain easy procedure. Not going to lie, I always get excited whenever I lay my hand on book just by its synopsis. I love cliché and dramas, moreover how the end of the synopsis opens up a new whole big question that sums up the purpose of the story (duh, obviously) let’s start with the synopsis :
“
Nicole always thought her friend Lucy’s life was so much better than hers. So when Lucy asked if she wanted to switch bodies, Nicole thought it sounded like a fun idea. Little did she know the switch would actually work… Or that Lucy’s life might not be so sweet after all…
“
Since I’m a part of the digital generation who loves to seek everything from an internet, especially when it’s free. I read it directly from Wikipedia this list of street book series, it makes me feel more tempted to read the book from “little did she know the switch would actually work… or that lucy’s life might not be so sweet after all” Which brings me some questions of ‘what?’ What’s that un-sweet part of her life that makes Nicole regrets everything? What is it? Well, this book doesn’t do much hesitation and goes straight up to the point.
So basically, this one paragraph is a whole spoiler, this started with Nicole who complains a lot about her strict life. Her parents are strict then on the very first day this book tells, her boyfriend broke up with her only through a weird reason “just can’t do this”, obviously what is it then? Well, I figured it out at the end eventually, now Nicole sees her best friend Lucy, a perfect cute blondie with smaller body frame than Nicole. Although, she doesn’t have a good life, but Nicole thinks hers is better.
Lucy’s parents fight a lot that they pretty much ignore her daily activities, therefore there are no restriction for her as a teenager to do anything, also Lucy’s sweet boyfriend, Kent, whom Nicole secretly had a crush on (maybe not but she wonders what is it like to date him). Anyway, they did it, they went to the Shadyside forest and found their destination of a simple artifact, a wall where they climbed up and jump, ta-da the switching works well and they promised not to tell anyone about it. Then they can always return to the wall in case they got bored and wanted their old life back.
Nicole goes on to walk home (Lucy’s) and found the wrecked gory bloody slashed bodies of Lucy’s parents, now that’s why I said this book brings no hesitation to just straight up tell “Lucy is a murderer, that’s why she wanted to switch and offer it first to Nicole”. Later, Nicole started to find Lucy but no luck, she found her friends and Lucy’s boyfriend, oddly here they all call her “Nicole”. I thought “oh maybe Nicole is Nicole but Lucy is just her imaginary friend, or like Lucy is dead because her friends weren’t going to explain where Lucy at” well I’m not wrong, by the end of the book through many findings of bodies (Nicole thought Lucy killed them all) Nicole finally ends up in Lucy’s Grandma’s house, where her actual parents showed up along with Lucy’s parents and with Kent too, whom she thought was dead.
It is explained that Nicole is mentally unstable, she sees things like dead people, slashed up bodies and suspecting people, also pretending to be Lucy. So, Lucy has been dead for three years due to an accident, that’s when Nicole started to see things and still act like Lucy is alive, even sometimes acting as she is Lucy herself. She wouldn’t accept her death well and couldn’t let her best friend go.
At the end, we all know why her boyfriend suddenly wanted to broke up with her. I don’t blame Nicole for what happens inside her head, it’s just not something all partners could deal with. So, it’s better if they let go earlier than going too far and hurt each other even more. But, I do appreciate more for partners that still accompanying their significant others with certain disturbance within their mental self. Many people had it worked out well in the end, so don’t lose hope if your partner is going through the same thing. But that’s not the point! R.L. Stine did not take this mental illness topic further, he only mentions it at the end as a whole explanation why it all happens, and I don’t mind it, I’m thinking it as a way to simplify whatever had happened and why Lucy killed them all’s questions right? Or to actually twist things up, my whole nightmare in every entertainment is that the end, the character is just alone and imagine things, so it’s all just a lie then? I feel betrayed by the whole plot and saddened by the concept of loneliness that the main character had to face.
Now why would I assume the ending involves mental illness from the beginning? Especially when Nicole’s friends were calling her by her real name, because this happens a lot in many stories I’ve known, usually from movies. Like that one movie that involves a sadistic ghost that terrors the residents of an asylum (I forgot the title), Fight Club, and many more. If things get weird by the middle part of the story like people surrounding the main character are starting to act confused, I had it figured out straight to such ending, it’s all just an Imagination as Spongebob would say.
But that doesn’t mean this is the boring kind of “common cliché”, I love the whole plot, especially when I told you about what makes this book different. R.L Stine is using that mystical frame of Shadyside so well that we (I specifically) believed that it was indeed the artifact that had done the switching part. It’s convincing enough especially if you had noticed about the whole background of Fear Street books is placed within the town of Shadyside where there was a possessed cheerleader, a cursed Fear Street that once resided by the Fier (later changed to Fear) family, a cult, and many more that I haven’t read yet.
I guess I already told you about the strength of the book, what about the weakness? Well, it’s predictable with such ending that I didn’t like, though I still didn’t mind it. It’s good of course to twist things up but it just feels like an escape to avoid explaining why Lucy this and why Lucy that, or no further explanation about the artifact that once believed was used by people who forced other people to switch bodies in order to avoid a death sentence or jail time.
The other weakness is, I guess for readers who doesn’t like graphic description. It doesn’t have much graphic stuff described but there are still some that require your attention, and this is the point of Fear Street after all, without an attempt of murder or horrors involved what even is Fear Street?
Of course now is the language, I read the book pretty fast, only almost two hours because I was in a rush, the loan duration is only one hour since it’s a tandon book. But there’s also another reason why I could read it that fast besides the page is only 150s. The language is easy to understand, it is for young audience after all, like any other R.L Stine’s works, most of them (particularly Goosebumps series) are easy to read with a first-person point of view, which is more understandable to me at least. I also can imagine things in my head well for every steps or action that the characters had taken. I guess it’s good for people who wants to understand English better, it’s a good start though there are a lot of old slangs coming from the 80/90s that I did not understand.
Now we’re reaching the end, the book is pretty predictable (for me) but I imagine it’s not that predictable if the readers are young or haven’t found similar twist from other stories. The reader might also not predict the ending if they did not pay much attention to look on what that mental illness is for people who doesn’t know much about it, or it may feels like an escape step to avoid explaining the murders and the chasing away. This book still delivers its horror sensation well, especially the thriller part but I don’t regard the murder parts that special. I brought my attention to that one artifact, that switching wall you know? Is it there? Is it real? Or maybe it appears on another Fear Street books, I hope so since I haven’t read them all yet, I like that it concludes the mystical part of Shadyside, the dark sensation they get when they arrived at the forest and of course again, the wall, it’s a good start to make us believe that they actually did switch and how Shadyside forest has a magical artifact involved.
I’m guessing this book is good for all age, well the understandable language for children above 12, but for the graphic parts, it depends. I mean I have watched Hostel since I was like at an elementary school and wasn’t traumatized that much. But I won’t be watching Hostel again since I realized that things like that exists in real life. But the graphic parts are not that bad, children above 12 can still handle it, there’s no sexual act either. So, it’s safe to say that you above 12 should read it, even though I had the whole plot explained already. Good day!
Author: Yessi Trianda
Editor: Yuan
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| Doc. Internet |
(by Deviana Kurniawati)
Last couples of day, the
global citizen are shocked by the cracking of a top-secret data well-known as
Panama Papers. These data was once occupied by a Panama-based law firm Mossack
Fonseca. The leak of the data was indeed the biggest in the history. In 2013,
there were 260 Gigabytes data of Offshore Secrets leaked to public. This very
year, the record was crashed since 2.6 Terabytes data were thrown before our
eyes as reported by The Guardian.
Some might raise a question: To what extent these data need to be paid
attention? Frankly speaking, that huge amount of data was in the form of at
least 11.5 million documents not to mention photos and files about offshore
investment ran by super-rich conglomerates all over the world. Moreover, these
investments are the ones settled in the tax haven countries such as Bahama,
Virgin Islands, Panama, etc.
Papers was first revealed by a German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. Later, this information was given to ICIJ
(International Consortium of Investigative Journalists). The chain is not
finished yet as they also gave it to the media having broader network as BBC.
That was how it was established until now we can easily browse it. Pros and
cons are everywhere since not many people know about this practice in advance.
Offshore Investment
might as well review what offshore investment is as it is the focal point of
the data. In the world of investment, this act is commonly known moreover for
those who are high-profiled investors. Investing in tax havens is surely
promising in terms of reducing paid tax every period. It is undeniable that the
progressive tax rate as applied in Indonesia might be the greatest factor why
businessmen “ran off” their asset abroad. It would be better and productive to
keep their asset hidden on some companies running in tax-free countries.
is the key why offshore investments are as interesting as it is. By keeping the
asset nominal hidden, an investor could save the tax payment. This is so close
from what is so called as tax evasion. They can do such this thing by—for
instance, having third parties to do the paperwork to make the activity
unnoticed.
laundry and tax evasion, offshore investment is considered legal. However, many
countries have pointed about their objection against this act. US have
restricted their tax policies to prevent tax loss. On the other hand, EU try to
have these companies disclose the name of the investors under the idea of
transparency.
Comes First or Business Does?
Panama Papers gave such a commotion in the world since the unpredictable names
came to surface. Maybe, Pakistanis did not wonder that their ex-PM managed to
have such a billion dollars outside their country. Maybe, British people also
did not ever imagine that their David Cameron was also getting tied with this
case. The Chinese communist party elites were also included that this news was
considered defying their anti-corruption campaigns. Even the news about Panama
Papers is all blocked by the government.
leaders and elites are way all around internet. Putin and his 2 billion dollars
are still surprising. In Indonesia itself, there are names related to the
government included. Not only businessmen but also politicians and
government-related people are in the lines.
In the end, what the
Panama Papers tried to tell is that some people—even who work in
governance—still treat business first. It would be an irony if they told their
people to pay tax regularly and diligently while they themselves try to avoid
it. These popular and impactful people should be the role model yet doing this
act seems being unfaithful to the regulation itself. In UK, there have been
demonstrations forcing Cameron to dethrone after his changing comments
concerning Panama Papers. The implication this far is that we finally realize
there are so many attempts to dodge tax payments out there in the world and
gain profit underground. Whether it must be banned—the tax haven operation—or
not is still questionable though. We as the part of a nation who pay tax
certainly deserve transparency no matter what because there may be clean
practices in which need no bad judgment as well as dirty transactions that
needs further investigation.***
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| Doc. Internet |
If we talk about culture,
somehow we also talk about habit. Why? It’s simply because culture itself has
several points related to people’s life including habit.Every person has their
own habit depends on the people themselves or their environment. In other word,
habit is created by both nurture and nature. Nature means what is affected by
the environment while nurture is attitude that is created on the person himself.
As in expression ‘culture reflects character’, we can see how people behaviour
creates the culture, especially from the most important aspect which is
education
country has done many things to improve our educational programs. However, it
wouldn’t works well if there is no cooperation with the people, especially the students.
Most of the students in our country only go to school to get a good mark not
the knowledge, so after the test some may forget and leave it behind. That’s
just a small example of the common mindset of Indonesian students.
awareness of the people to gain more knowledge in life. For example, we lack of
culture of reading, and we are not interested in it. Maybe some people like to
read a lot, but the amount is not equal with the other categories .If we compare
to other countries, we can see how other people value knowledge very much.
Japan is one of the countries where the people are aware about the value of
knowledge. As the result, they are able to create many great technologies with
limited resources. How could Japanese people have reading culture? It’s because
of their nature, in this case school and their environment, that make them love
reading to get new informations.
people love reading then? Maybe we need to improve the school policy to make students
have an obligatory to read. However, reading as a duty and not based on their
interest will not bring good effects for the children. So we also need to make
people aware of the importance of reading. How to create the culture is
questionable, but we can start from ourselves and hope that someone else will
do as we do.
in case of using social media in daily life. The capital city of Jakarta, for
instance, is the world most active Twitter city. For about 2,4% tweets in that
platforms comes from Jakarta. It is undeniable that Indonesian people have made
social media become the most important thing in daily life. According to the
research conducted by WeAreSocial, Facebook tops the most popular social media
in Indonesia and Twitter does the second. Based on this circumstance, we could
observe our surrounding how people see social media as the thing that matters.
However, these facts also lead to an irony.
In the urban society, social media functions in variousways. It has become the open portal for everyone to speak up their mind and
opinion. Ultimately, social media triggers more and more users each time as the
content moves to a wider range from expression and opinion sharing to the
integrated source of information. We are used to think that social media is the
platform where we only take a glance and scroll down again. This might create a
pragmatic way of thinking in which every information comes easily only to
ignore.
reading is so little. We are caught by photo and video sharing sites and
leaving such a comprehensive reading activity. One of the breakthrough social
media that provide a more thorough and complete article reading is Medium. It
is a micro-blogging site in which varies of articles being created and
published. Each article published needs at least two minutes reading. One of
its strength is the elegant and exceptional visual design. Another advantage is
that every article published is labelled with tags related to its topic. These
tags—for instance politics, life learning or poetry—would help the users to
search any certain topics by searching the tags. It would also make the article
gets more publication. It does not only accommodate articles but also photo and
even video inserted in the article. We can also share any link and audio
recording.
still have to face a serious problem concerning copyright article. Plagiarism
is still possible in the recent state of platform. However, we may hope that the
team is working upon plagiarism detector in order to protect the user’s
copyright. Medium itself is available in smartphone application that can be
downloaded freely from PlayStore as well as AppStore.
Some developed countries are having great quantities of participation and belief that they have an important position and role in politics. According to Silvia Bolgherini, political participation is a series of activities related to political life, aimed at influencing public decisions in a more or less direct way—legal, conventional, pacific, or contentious. Therefore in developed countries which have a good awareness of political participation, people are willing to be the part of democracy. The participation is not only occurs in politic but in any fields, for example when United States people held a party, most of their guest will bring several food and beverage without being asked. Because of that, the more the guest can be the more the food in the party.
The circumstances of developed countries are really different from the developing countries, including Indonesia. They don’t really care about who will lead them because they are just ordinary people. This belief is also happened in Indonesia that can be seen from their abstains in some elections and their lack of participation. Even though there are some people who participate in politics, most of them are moved by certain political parties.
However, the recent circumstances of president election are different from the previous one. There were a lot of people who came from any class participated in the president election and campaign. They’re also willing to be volunteers in gaining the other people participation and working together in order to make their president selected. It is not coincidence that Joko Widodo had gained more number of selectors because he was chosen by people in pleasure, instead of people who was asked by political parties.
The poeple’s participations are also can be seen from the President Jokowi’s enthronement that people accompanied Jokowi from HI roundabout to Istana Merdeka. They also made an event for celebrating the democracy party of the new President which is all free to enter and free food. This event was moved independently which funds are compounds of the volunteers and some singers who performed on that event. This participation system allows them to get more money but less burdened because the expense is guaranteed by many people, not just a single person.
The participation system which recently occurs in Indonesia may caused by the candidates who are considered as a new comers and taught as a change maker. However, this system is one of the political advancement that can bring Indonesia a better political culture. That is why; we need to support this progress by being involved in any political event no matter how small our effort is. ***
Wahyu Asih
This year, Indonesia is facing two kinds of election, the first one is
the legislative election and another one is the president election. However,
the legislative election that has already done in April 9th of 2014 was not
entirely honest in practice. Based on the information that I’ve got from TV,
internet, and my friends there are many legislative candidates who buy the
people voting right. The bad thing is that the people were working together with
open hands receiving money from the legislative candidates. In contrast, when
the election committee tried to set things right, the people were striking them
down. So while this democracy country is trying to lick wounds, there are
dishonesty attitude occurred like buying people voting right, accepting
conscience money, and striking the committee down.
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| dok. Inet |
As we know
that nowadays many legislative candidates are willing to do anything to get
their voting in high position. Most of them shared money to people in order to
get stalwart for their party and themselves. They are not only sharing money,
but also giving facilities for citizens, building field-path, and giving consumption.
I also heard information that some of them built facility for certain citizens
in half, but if the candidates lose then the facility development are stopped. Many
of the legislative candidates are disposed to go the pace, that’s why it would
be no wonder that the lose candidate run like mad.
only can be gotten if there is cooperation between two sides, in this case both
legislative candidates and people are working together. People who have a
voting right are having a great role to success the candidate. The bad thing is
that in Indonesia there are a lot of people that easy to be grafted. This may
be caused by the poor people was happy to get the money, or just because they feel
reluctant not to choose the candidate that have paid them. It means that the
election was not occurred based on honesty of the elector. In fact, if we
choose the dishonest candidates, then we will have the bad representative
person who may be a corruptor.
there are still some people who care about this and would fain to keep an eye
upon to this election. There is also commission of election who receive the
people’s complaint of election fraud. The less fortunate is the committee who
have hit by people or by the succeeding team because they were watching the
election. It really happened in Makasar and East Java on the Election Day.
conclusion, even though Indonesia is democracy country that tries to create
authority of the people, but in fact the authority is affected by certain
candidate. In here, some infractions are still occurred in the election such as
buy the people voting right and strike the committee down. These conditions
worsen by the bad behavior of the people by choosing the paying candidate.
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