The Drifter’s Journey to Ninoy Aquino (Part 1)

Finally, I got this time to share some stories about the drifter’s journey to Ninoy Aquino last year. The third semester was quite a fast challenging semester for I had to finish kind of two studies at a time and starting a new job to serve as a vice officer at Department of Studies, Sharia Economics Forum. Quite a tough life, huh? Well, I feel lucky though becoming a part of them. And I didn't even know that I will serve since I had applied for this program long before. I thought I applied in my second semester and got the announcement for a quite long time of waiting.

I was taking the opportunity at ASEAN Today’s World (ASTW) conducted by Kyushu University at Ateneo de Manila University of Philippines. Further information about the program can be found here http://www.isc.kyushu-u.ac.jp/astw-j/KU&MU.html/ http://www.isc.kyushu-u.ac.jp/astw/

Even if only two half  weeks, I learnt a lot from this program. Meeting fourteen other ASEAN students rewarded this grant, meeting up with the ASEAN Secretariat, traveling with my travel partner (for the first time with no chaperon) and meeting  Kyushu and Fukuoka students joining the program, I feel thankful to once again feel the thrill of journey! Special thanks to my dearest friend to travel with me from Adisucipto-SoekarnoHatta-Changi-NinoyAquino. Quite a long journey. Thank you, Caroline, for truly making it with me!

The traveling journey starts as we work on proposals. Yes, we had to write permission to leave classes in two half weeks also asking additional funding resources to the university. We actually had grant from Kyushu during the program. But, that would be given as we arrived and completed the program. And so, the most complicated one is arrangement of airfare tickets. We decided to use Air Asia from Jogja-Jakarta. Then, Tigerairways from Jakarta-Changi-Manila (Ninoy Aquino).

My parents accompanied us when we had to leave at the airport. And you know, I myself, had to be in a rush. I had to attend my accounting class completed my homework and quiz. Then I hurrily went to the airport to catch my flight. OMG, that was a big day!

I enjoyed my study with ASTW. I took ASEAN Language and ASEAN Economics which I do love! I learnt Basic Japanese with Ms. Kyoko Takada and ASEAN Economics. ASEAN Economics was challenging. I had Mr. Shoji Sinkai for Agricultural Economics and Mr Victor Vernida for International (Integrated) Economics and Development.

I did a presentation about The Horticultural Production in Indonesia in Agricultural Economics. I talked about a great potential to be reavealed in the land of the archipelago. The horticultural products especially. Who can deny the richness of our tropical fruits and vegetables? Such a paradox when we look at how much we import goods in this sector. That way, last February I read on the newspaper about the policy applied by our government in order to optimize local horticultural products and limit the import rate. Great debates over this status quo. On one hand, the integrated economics is aimed at achieving welfare between nations by creating small gaps among them. The theory of David Ricardo on effectiveness can be achieved when a nation optimize its economic income by focusing on their competitive advantage in certain products and import goods that do not generate high profit and become more efficient just to do imports. However, this could be a threat when the local business do not have enough capacity to strive in the free market. My conventional Economics mindset would tell me that isolated economics could not achieve the goal anyway. It is because a country has to manage its expenditure on matters that will benefit and thus, create efficiency.

I love the lecture. He made the atmosphere of discussion alive. Mr. Sinkai is a great lecturer. He made us love and enjoy this class, especially the development economics in the environment and agricultural development. He is very nice young man and he told me that he has once visited UGM.

Anyway, I thought that there’s an interesting fact in which Agriculture is part of the majority source of occupation in Indonesia. Yes, large amount of people depend their lives on the Agricultural sector. However, a sad undenied fact is that our land are becoming an expensive commodity. Less and less land is available. Thus, the production of the agriculture keeps decreasing. Even though more and more people depend on our agriculture, high demand of rice, soy, and the other products but it’s threatened by less and less rice field. Now, becoming a farmer is like nothing. Their harvest is priced very low.. The farms are owned not by farmer and more and more farmer are just labor in the field. Their boss owns everything. The loan shark that embed the life of our farmers with high interset killing the life of the farmers slowly but surely. No wonder, no one would dream of being a farmer. If you dont believe this, ask any Indonesian kids who are still dreaming of becoming a farmer or perhaps any parents who wants their kids to be farmer, is there any? May be countless.

This reminds me on a song during my elementary school telling us how we should appreciate and be proud of our farmers. “Nasi putih terhidang di meja. Dari manakah datangnya? Dari sawah dan ladang di sana.. Petanilah penanamnya.. Panas terik tak mengapa, hujan rintik tak dirasa, masyarakat butuh pangan. T’rimakasih bapak tani, trimakasih ibu tani, tugasmu sungguh mulia..”

My lecture in Integrated Economic Development is so tough that kids in my class keeps complaining how much work we had to do and how sleepy and boring it had been. I did feel the same. But guess what, i loved that class! It is because I was enjoying syudying there. I just got through their style and loving the thrill of studying abroad with such atmosphere. And that I could sense the freedom of learning. I could go through my days with spirit and enthusiasm. I do things for reason not for a respective symbol to others. I do it because I want it. I have no objections of my past. I look just what the future seems to be. And that is the nice part of becoming an overseas student. I wish this could last for completing my bachelor degree not just a two weeks program.. :”(

I know that the two lecturers have different styles of teaching, However, they bring great message and lesson by their own ways. Mr. Victor really makes me learn a lot. Writing a twenty pages of paper analyzing the Economics in ASEAN countries and having it presented in front the class was quite a! I chose to present about the Philippines and I analyze the data of the economic structure in Philippines focusing in the employment and its demographic structure.

Interestingly, the geographical setting of Philippnes is quite similar as it is also archipelago. But more interestingly, the economic structure of this developing country is majored in service sectors. My friend Josh, a senior at Ateneo, who is the one knows anything in the class told me that my thought is right about the unique economic structure in Philippines. Service sectors are supposed to be the focus in developed countries. But developing countries with high quality of service sectors is another thing. I would analyze this country is similar in coping the problems of pollution, traffic jam, beggars, unemployment, translocation between the geographic areas, the Asian ethnicities. However, I was amazed as to the system taht adapat much from US. The transport regulation, the education system, and the govt. It is quite intersting that English in the urban cities sucha s Manila is very popular. People in the formal institution like in campus talk and speak English most of the time. It;s like their second language. And their English speaking is so American-ish although mix with an accent of Philippinos. No wonder, the international labor with expertise in service sectors sucha s operator, communication, etc are mainly coming from Philippine and India. Somewhat they are well recognised. No wonder, I sam at the bookstore in and nearby teh campus offering SAT preparation almost anywhere. Like you know, kids are so flexible to study abroad esp. to US since SAT is a standard asmission test to enter college in US. I took once I was at Walla Walla haigh School. I think this standard admission test is interesting sinceit has Math, English, and essay. Besides, we can take others such as Science or Sociam science (AP-Advanced Program) for a college credit that could give you a start up so then you can accelerate your college year. Oh well, that is different in Indoensia.

The fun and enjoyable class was Basic Japanese with Ms. Takada. She’s very charming, beautiful lady with such a grace of teaching. I learnt simple Japanese, the writing of Hiragana and Katakana, the culture, and practiced the tea reception, also did the Japanese calligraphy. Besides, we did presentation in Japanese, quizzes every day, mini drama, and singing performance. Yeaay!

Coffees, my day feels nothing without it. How could I devide my self in focusing my ASEAN studies and at the same time keep working on my home studies works. Yes, I had every day home work for my Accounting class. I got it done, scanned, and sent. That way, i brought my heavy thick text of Intermediate Accounting. And that was awful. No one else did such a thing. No one was an Accounting student. All the Japanese students are having their spring break. So, I was lucky that every night I had to stay awake while others were sleeping or perhaps having one with the other kids in the boarding house. And me, I have to finish tomorrow’s homework at home and tomorrow;s homework and quizzes for my ASEAN class! Wow, that was great I could get through it!

Although honestly, I feel such a disgrace, when I had been working really hard. Yes, on weekends I’m supposed to do homework for my Monday class at my home country since I had three lectures on Monday I had three homeworks and the only time to do is weekend. However, on weekends we ASTW students aren’t free. We always had projects durring weekends. We traveled and did nonacademics activities suring weekend which was good for refreshment although it was also tiring.

But, on my first night before Monday I felt like crying. I didn;t know how i could finish all overloaded homework here and there. Besides, i had to scan my accounting work since accounting has to be hand written. I felt hopeless when I know that the price for scanning is so high abou forty pesos each. Then, my roommate a Korean student told me to have the scanning at the library tomorrow morning. So, I did. I went to the library with Josh and Jasmine, Ateneo students. But, the library is closed for it had a private session like misa you know.. I was hopeless... But then, I remember I had a camera that I could use to take a picture of my homework. Even if it wouldnt be that good with a camera at least I did my homework and had it sent in time. Later, the saddest part is that it was not satisfying enough. You know, sometimes the lecture only value what’s on the paper. Physically. I wish they learnt how much I work for it. Like I put all my life into it. And I feel that wouldnt count. Nothing at all. Only three times of absences is another threat to me. And I’m glad I got through it. I kept my absences in my home countries twice up to three times which save me enough from dropping the class because I had to miss the classes by attending ASTW short program for 2-3 times without doing any illegal presence. I did not want to do what so called "titip absen" and I took the risk of it. But it’s all worth it at the end. I felt like learning alot and  good to have a nice report at last, yeay! Thank God!

There is a voice within my mind... Though we’re from ten different lands..bound by shores and common sense. Singing out as one, lets dance, the world is in our hands.

No matter where we’re from. If we could sing one song. Dreams that are yours and mind taht will be realised. Trust in the love we feel. Trust in the love thats real. Children unite. People of ASEAN rise. (ASEAN Rise, a theme song that we all performed at the opening ceremony at ASEAN Today’s World)

(to be continued)

People keep asking, don't you wanna travel more? Of course I do. I'm longing for some more adventure, to learn new things and new life. But, there's sometime that we need to pause to see, listen, hear, and think more for something bigger. Work, pray, love. Hope we always be in the blessing of Allah to travel the world to learn and be rahmatanlil'alamiin. Sometimes, I do hope we can have a journey together, Ibu, Bapak, Mbak. Hopefully, someday.

Sebuah Pengakuan

Alhamdulillaah, senang sekali menjelang Ramadhan ini bisa berkumpul bersama bapak, ibu, dan simbah. Hanya kurang mbak yang masih di klinik hiks ada yang kurang.. Setidaknya bisa berkumpul begini lagi, selalu kangen masakan simbaah sih. Dan entah kenapa tanpa berencana membuat pertemuan kali ini berakhir melankoli begini. Sebuah pengakuan. Namun, setidaknya dengan sedikit menghabiskan waktu bersama kami lebih bisa saling terbuka dan tentunya saling memahami masing-masing. Dan pada akhirnya, kami sama-sama saling memulai lembar baru untuk Ramadhan. Saling memaafkan. Dan momen spesial itu, bisa meluk ibuk hehe.

Alhamdulillah, Ramadhan sebentar lagi tiba.  Dia seperti sahabat lama yang selalu menyempatkan berkunjung sekali setahun. Sementara, apa yang aku lakukan? Mungkinkah aku sahabat yang tidak tahu diri dan mudah melupakannya? Huhu. Sudahkah benar-benar mempersiapkan kedatangannya? Astaghfirullah.. Rasa-rasanya aku ini sahabat yang tidak tahu diri. Ramadhan, selaamat datang kawan terbaik, kawan penuh barokah. Ya Rabb jadikanlah kami bagian yang berntung untuk meraih kebarokahan Ramadhan hingga kita bisa berjumpa lagi. Aamiin.

Belum lama ini dua adik sepupu sedang mecari tempat kuliah. Yang satu adik sepupu laki-laki yang dulu kecil bandeeelnya haha. Tapi Alhamdulillah sekarang sudah baikan meskipun agak galauan. Iya dia yang suka nanya matematika fisika karena dia benar-benar benci kedua hal itu. Dengan seedikit ilmu yg pernah didpt selama di bangku sekolah seneng banget bisa ngajarin jadi bermanfaatlah pernah belajar dan suka pelajaran itu. Mohon doanya ya, dia pengin ambil keperawatan. MasyaAllah adik saya ini justru suka banget Biologi dan pengen jadi perawat. Salut deh. Semoga dimudahkan.

Sepupu satunya perempuan. Sebenarnya mbak statusnya karena dia putri pakdhe tapi ternyata sy yang lahir dulu. Mbak sepupu ini maunya di Akuntansi kalau nggak Akuntansi nggak mau sekolah. Masya Allah sekali ya semangatnya. Ya, semoga dimudahkan utk meraih cita-citanya. Aamiiin.

Entahlah, melihat dua adik sepupu saya jadi bernostalgi. Jadi mikir lagi. Meerenung dan terjadilah pengakuan terbesar itu. Saya hanya menangis di hadapan mereka. Saya tak pandai mengungkapkan perasaan saya selalu begitu. Akhirnya saya bisa bercerita. Terima kasih Buk, Pak, Mbah. Kalian terlalu tulus. Semoga saya menjadi anak yg bisa membalas ketulusan kalian.

Ya Allah maafkan saya, ampuni saya ya Allah mungkin saya telah kufur, saya banyak salah. Sejujurnya benar-benar merasa bersalah sama ibuk dan bapak karena saya belum menjadi anak yg terbaik. Selama ini saya jauh sekali dari motivasi luar biasa adek-adek itu. Saya harus mengakui. Saya pernah merasa sangat kehilangan arah dan tidak tahu bagaimana memulainya. Sungguh saya tahu Bapak dan Ibu selalu mengaharap dan mengarahkan kepada yang terbaik. Iya saya sangat merasakannya. Hanya saja saya.. Saya yang tidak cukup kuat, belum cukup tangguh.

Semakin hari saya mencoba memahami diri saya dan orang-orang di sekitar saya. Saya mencoba memahami, mengamati, dan mempelajari dari mereka. Saya tahu Akuntansi adalah bidang yang sangat baru bagi saya. Saya tahu usaha saya belum seberapa. Saya hanya berharap selangkah lagi selangkah lagi dan saya bisa menyelesaikan perjalanan ini dnegan sebaik-baiknya. Saya hanya berharap saya bisa menjadi seseorang yang bisa memberikan manfaat. Saya memang tidak punya cita-cita muluk untuk bekerja sebagai akuntan ternama di perusahaan besar ataupun kantor akuntan public, jadi auditor yang jam terbangnya tinggi. Saya benar-benar pernah merasa lost ketika ideals di lingkungan berbeda dengan idealism inside of me. Rasanya seperti saat saya kelas 3 sma. Kala itu saya pulang dari pertukaran pelajar dengan berbagai idealism dan cita-cita. Saya tahu saya suka humanity. Ketika pendataan hanya saya anak ipa 1 atau bahkan seangkatan yang menuliskan mau masuk humanity target UI. Subhanallaah deh.. Saya hanya seseorang yang punya internal value yang kuat. Ketika itu saya bingung karena ibu dan lingkungan memancangkan kedokteran sebagai ukuran keberhasilan. Ya saya bingung. Dan ya, begitulah selalu ada saja nilai-nilai yang tidak sejalan dengan nilai ideal pada umumnya. Namun, pengakuan kali ini semoga bisa mnguatkan kembali.

Di sebuah kelas ekonometrika yang paling dihindari di FEB, dosen yang saya kagumi bertanya, “Anda Akntansi tapi anda mengambil ekonometrika?” Tanya beliau sedikitt takk percaya. “Eh iya Pak.” Jawab saya sedikit ragu. “Hmm kenapa?” “Saya tertarik Ekonometrika Pak. Saya suka belajar hal-hal seperti ini.” “Wah, semestinya Anda jangan di Akuntansi. Anda salah jurusan.” Hancur hati saya saat itu tapi saya sudah bertekad dan berniat untuk belajar benar2. “Iya mungkin Pak. Tapi saya menikmati dan menyukai pelajaran ini. Mungkin Bapak mempunyai gambaran bagaimana menerapkan ilmu ini ke Akuntansi?” “Iya banyak sekali manfaatnya. Data mikro yang dipelajari di ekonometrika ini data yang penting bagi akuntansi, perusahaan, dan lainnya. Aakan sangat applicable. Sebaiknya Anda belajar Behavioral Finance nantinya.” “Oh iya Pak, saya pernah mendengar dan mengambil krsus online tapi Behavioral Economics, apakah sama? Karena di sini tidak ditawarkan mata kuliah tsb.” “Oh iya, tapi itu ilmu ekonomi. Behavioral Finance lebih spesifik ke Finance.” “Ohiya Pak, teriam kasih atas informasinya.”

Ya begitulah. Saya memang sesorang yang tdk suka dibelenggu oleh standar. Standar manusia itu berbeda-beda mengapa kita harus mempermasalhkannya. Alhamdulillah saya bisa membuktikan bahwa saya tdk main-main. Saya benar-benar bertekad dan bisa mendapat nilai yang hampir tdk mungkin diraih di kelas beliau. Alhamdulillah saya menemukan sedikit pencerahan beliau utk tdk lost lagi. Sampai-sampai kawan saya yg sudah lulus (karena dia aksel jadi angkatan 2009) bilang mau menjajakan bakso kalo saya ambil ekmet2. Sambil bercanda, saya menjawab tertarik sekali ngambil kelas lanjutannya. Dulu waktu semester 1 saya juga dijanjikan dapat semangkok bakso dari mbak sekar krn berhasil menyelesaikan soal di depan. Tapi saya selalu mengingatkan motivasi itu ada di hati. Minta Allah saja yang menjaganya.

Dalam konferensi kecil ini bersama simbah, bapak, ibu, saya hanya ingin menyamakan kembali visi dan misi kami. Ya, karena kami keluarga. Karena kami tidak ingin kami bergerak sendiri tercerai berai. Kami adalah keluarga dan atas ijin Allah. Seperti dalam ilmu Sistem Pengendalian Manajemen, dalam sebuah organisasi terkecilpun keluarga tiap-tiap kita adalah bagian-bagian yang saling berjalan bersama dengan aktuvitas berbeda kami memiliki satu tujuan yang sama. Goal congruence. Pengendalian paling mudah adalah komunikasi informal maupun formal. Dan kali ini saya bersyukur masih bisa menemukan momen yang tepat.

Memang Bapak sedang dalam masa transisi dengan berbagai hal yag psti membebani pikirannya. Ya, beliau dicabut dari kepala sekolah secara menurut saya system yang tidak adil. Karena bapak hanyalah orang di bawah pekerja lapangan yang berusaha mencari yang terbaik. Mencari murid untuk sekolahnya yang swasta dan kekurangan murid. Menggratiskan sekolah utk emreka yg memang tdkpunya biaya. Membimbing dari rumah ke rumah. Saya tahu bapak bukan siapa-siapa yng punya kewenangan apapun. Suatu ketika bapak yang berpendirian keras itu mengungkapkan masukan kepada jajaran atas (diknas setempat) untuk meninjau kembali kebijakan yang memperbolehkan sekolah negeri menampunng secara khusus mereka yang belumditerima. Jadi, menunggu sampai akhir pengumauman di kota keluar, aka nada beberapa kursi sekoalah negari local yg nantinya bisa ditempati mereka yg telah diberi kursi khusus. Hal ini menurut bpk tidak tepat menyalahi aturan, krn selain illegal juga menyebabkan sekolah pinggiran lain teruatama swasta menjadi kehilangan calon murid. Sebenarnya, masuk akal juga yg dipikirkan bapak. Ada goal incongruence dalam jajaran pendidikan tersebut. Mengapa seperti perusahaan yang bersaing saham, berspekulasi, dan mau untung sendiri? Apa yang sebenarnya dicari?

Akibat dari tindakan bapak, bapak dicabut dari yayasan tsb. Sebenarnya bapak pernah bilang bahwa bpk hanya memperjuangkan apa yg harus diperjuangkan. Ketika sudah tdk dibutuhkan yayasan ya tidak masalah. Yang penting tugas bapak menjadi guru yg bisa mengabdi. Saya terharu.

Kali ini bapak bilang katakana saja apa yang ingin dikatakan. Tidak usah menangis. Bapak hanya ingin kamu tahu bahwa bapak tdk hanya memikirkan mbak dan adik. Bapak punya tanggung jawab murid2 bapak yang posisinya di bawah dan dua keponkan kesayangan bapak yang sdh ditinggal almarhum pakdhe yang dulu menyekolahkan bapak. Iya, saat itulah saya merasa sangat bersalah. Saya tdk ingin membebani bapak. Saya hanya ingin bilang. Mohon terima saya apa adanya. Saya suka mengajar dari dulu. Saya suka menulis. Saya mencoba menyukai Akuntansi meskipun sulit. Jika nantinya saya tdk bekerja seperti idealnya lulusan akuntansi apakah bpk ibu tdk apa2? Apakah bpk ibu akan kecewa seperti saat pertama kali dalam hdp saya mengecewakan dg mengatakan tdk ingin mengambil jalur keokteran?

Akhirnya saya hanya memeluk ibuk.Dan saat itulah saya bersyukur bs mengungkapkan ini. Saya tdk pernah benar-benar membangkang. Saya tdk ingin sekalipun mengecewakan. Saya hanay manusia yg cukup emosional tetapi sya masih punya rasio dan prinsip keyakinan yang selalu sy pegang insya Allah.

Mengejutkan sekali Bapak justru mengatakan. Iya tidak masalah kalau sudah diniatkan tinggal diperjuangkan. Bapak bukan keberatan tentang itu. Bapak hanya ingin kamu paham bahwa bapak dan ibu selalu mengharapkan yg etrbaik utk anaknya. Ketika menyekolahkan pun bapak ibu menggunakan uang yang halal. Unag yang resmi menjadi milik kita bukan uang yang kita kumpulkan yang menggunung dalam tabungan dan rekening kita. Bukan. Uang kita sesungguhnya titipan dari Allah yang kita keluarkan untuk memenuhi kewajiban mereka yg membutuhkan setelahnya kita gunakan untuk keidupan kita. Bapak juga matur nwuwun karena punya anak-nak seprti mbak dan adik yang tidak aneh2 yang tidak minta ini itu, yang sehat, yang sholihah. bapak  berterima kasih.

Saya trenyuh sekali....

Saya ingin sekolah lagi Pak Bu. Saya masih ingin belajar. Saya mau berjuang mencari beasiswa. Setelah menyelesaikan di sini, saya ingin belajar dan mengejar apa kebahagiaan sesungguhya. Melepaskan penilaian2 ornag tentang makna kesuksesan bahwa kita memiliki ukuran sukses kita sendiri. Saya tidak menjamin bs menjadi dosen setlah itu. Tapi saya yakin ilmu tdk akan pernah sia-sia. Hingga saat ini saya belum memutuskan, saya memang punya ketertarikan kuat dg Sastra. Tapi saya jg berrtnaggungjawab terhadap ilmu akuntansi saya. Saya suka belajar tentang manusia. Saya tertarik Behavioral Finance kemungkinan itulah yang sangat nyambung dg bidang dan minat saya. Jika pun tidak mampu, saya tertarik Humanity science, rumpun keilmuan itu sdh menjadi ketertarikan sendiri. Mohon doanya, Pak, Bu, saya bisa lancar menyelesaikan semuanya. Saya tertarik untuk tetap menekuni sastra meskipun tdk seberapa. Menulis saja cukup, mengajari anak2/sepupu bahasa inggris jg menyenangkan sebagai sambilan atas kecintaan pada dunia sastra. Apalagi jika sy berkesempatan sekolah lagi saya ingin bs mandiri. Belum tau pak bu bagaimana nantinya. Tapi insyaAllah selama ada kemauan dan usaha sy bs dapat beasiswa lagi. Negara yang menjadi pusat studi keuangan itu adalah Inggris. Negara itu juga pusat studi sastra yg saya impikan dari dulu. Atau, mungkinkah Tuhan akan menjawab permohonan kita bersama untuk bisa berkumpul dg keluarga Reiter suatu saat nanti? Ya, semoga pada saatnya nanti saya benar-benar dewasa dan mandiri. Aamiin ya Rabb.

Hujan yang turun dengan deras di luar membuat kami sama-sama terhanyut dalam sebuah emotional moment. Semoga doa kami diijabah dalam waktu terbaik, doa di kala hujan.

ini foto sebulan yang lalu saat mbak pulang dan kami berkesempatan berkumpul full team :")

The World Cup Euphoria: Is There Emotional Hand Acting in The Stock Market?

    The World Cup, a global competition of the football (soccer in US), has long become the international festivity. Countries all over the world celebrate and get participated in this big event. The excitement of World Cup creates the euphoria and the emotion throughout the whole world both the thrill of winning a victory and getting into the risk of a defeat. This year marks another World Cup being held in Brazil. The three lions-England, Spain, and Portuguese have already kicked out of the game.

Bill Wilson, BBC News reporter reported on June 23, a compelling news with a headline “World Cup 2014: The Real Cost of Losing?” Wilson reported the wide impact of World Cup according to Alex Edmand, a finance professor at the London Business School. He revealed his findings on his research about the impact of emotions created by the World Cup in the stock market. There is such an “emotional hand” drivng the investor to react in the stock market irrationally as if the analogy of Adam’s Smith-invisible hand that acts in the market creating supply and demand theory.

One of an interesting article about World Cup 2014 did show up in the newsletter of London School of Business and Finance (LSBF) written by Alex Edmand. The article in the newsletter was originally cited from www.cityam.com. The article talked about the World Cup fever putting the loss of England into a swing of billion pounds in the stock market. In his article, he stated that it is extremely difficult to match the perspective of the efficient market and the behavioral finance. The efficient market holds the state of having the rational investors and argues that the price of stock incorporates all relevant information (available and fully relevant information) assuming that the price ends up theoretically correct fundamental value. Meanwhile, the behavioral finance argues that stock price is not solely defined by the fundamental value but also the emotions. In late 1990s, internet companies have become highly expensive. According to Financial Behavior, it was not because of the prospect of the internet companies but the irrational investor. On the other hand, it could be that the internet stock price was fundamentally correct but then a crash happened as bad news unexpectedly spread out.

The new term “irrational exuberant” was firstly pointed out by Alan Greenspan-The President of Fed (Federal Reserve-US central bank) at that time. This term was later popularized by the writing of Shiller through his book entitled Irrational Exuberance.

 The Concept of Efficient Market

“An efficient market (EM) is defined as one in which the prices of all securities quickly and fully reflect all available relevant information” (Jones, 2010 p. 300). In short, there are two main components in the concept of efficient market, i.e. relevant information and fully reflect available information. Hence, the market price of the securities should incorporate all relevant information and on the other hand, it should also reflect available information for the information is important to the investors to create decisions whether to buy or sell as well as to measure the expected return in correspond to the risk level.

Jogiyanto (2013:548) classified efficient market into two categories, informationally efficient market and decisionally efficient market. He further mentioned that informationally efficient market consists of three types of form: weak form, semi-strong form, and strong form. First, weak form is a market which the price of the securities fully reflect past information. Second, semi-strong form is a market which the the price of securities fully reflect all published information. Third, strong form is a market which the price of securities all kinds of information includes the private information. However, the main difference between informationally efficient market and decisionally efficient market is that informationally efficient market only consider the availability of information. Meanwhile, decisionally efficient market considers two factors; both the availability of information and the sophisticated behavior of investor.

  Behavioral Finance

People are sometimes irrational due to some reasons especially the psychological condition. Bernstein in Jones (2010:318) noted that one finds “repeated patterns of irrationality, inconsistency, and incompetence in the ways human beings arrive at decisions and choices when faced with uncertainty.” Emotions and the psychology of the investors have found to be the causes in the biases that affect stock prices and markets.  In processing information on the stock market, investors often make systematic mistakes. Investors are motivated by various irrational forces. Therefore the irrational judgment mistaken by these investors can give benefit to the other investors who recognize this irrationality.

Accoding to DeBondt and Thaler (1985) in Jones (2010:319), people overreact to unexpected and dramatic news events saying that the consequence of overreact is that “loser” portfolios outperform the market after their formation which indicates irrational behavior of the investor (overreaction).

The Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) believes that markets are informationally efficient. However, according to behavioral finance, in some circumstances markets may be informationally inefficient.

Edmands (2014) argued that the previous study and research observed the impact of weather to the stock market. Unfortunately, weather has the boundaries, the geography and climate that depends on the location. Therefore, the weather in one place could be widely different from weather in other places. The effects of weather to stock markets have also been questionable as they may create different impacts to one another, specifically the personal factor or the emotional impact of weather couldn’t be controlled creating biases of weather’s impacts to stock market.

Psychological research found that individual mood is affected by weather and daylight savings changes respectively, Saunders (American Economic Review 83, 1337–45, 1993) and Kamstra et al. (American Economic Review 90, 1005– 11, 2000) stock prices are systematically related to these economically- neutral events. Another literature found a similarly-strong relationship between sporting team success and fan self-esteem, a finding which raises the possibility that stock prices also respond systematically to sports results (Boyle, G., & Walter, B., 2003).

            Previous study conducted by Lucey and Dowling (2005) studied about the role of emotions in the process of decision making and equity pricing by the investors. Investors appear to allow their mood state at the time of making an investment decision to influence their judgment. While this is an efficient decision-making tool and is consistent the general knowledge on how people create decision, it may bias the investors towards irrelevant mood states that could influence their judgment.

It was shown that investors can sometimes invest in an equity based on whether they like or dislike a company… Given the strength of the theoretical support for investors investing in a manner consistent with their feelings, this research area deserves further investi- gation. Especially, as many of the findings in the area are inconsistent with existing theories of how investors should make investment decisions. Previous studies in this area, especially in the area of environmentally induced mood effects on equity pricing, have been mainly empirical, with (arguably) limited theoretical foundations (Lucey & Dowling, 2005)

Edmand (2014) found a greater impact of sport to the weather in affecting people. One of the evidence was found in the loss of England from Argentina in World Cup 1998 creating more heart attacks in the following days. He did an investigation over 1,100 international football matches and stock returns in 39 countries in Sports Sentiment and Stock Returns. He found that being eliminated from the World Cup creates a national market fall by 0.5 percent on the next day (cateris paribus).  As of applying in the UK stock market, this fall creates 10 billion pounds wiped off the market in a single day as England loses.

According to Edmand (2014), the effect of sport sentiment is higher in the World Cup-an international level sport than a national/regional match such as European League. It is because World Cup relates a bigger scope and creates greater tension which correlate across countries. It is also stronger in countries which have the favor of football such as England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Argentina, and Brazil. This phenomenon applied similarly in other areas of sport, such as cricket, rugby, and basketball. The decline in the market are caused by the economic effects of losses, for instance the defeat causes the reduced number of sales in the merchandise and the emotion of a loss creating negative emotion causing lower productivity of the workers.

The loss that creates elimination causes strong effect to the negative emotion of the fans. However, Edmand (2014) there has not been any finding on the effect of a winning a match. One of the reason proposed was that the fans are naturally optimistic that their beloved teams are about to win. When the team finally wins, it perfectly meets the expectation of the fans. Therefore, they already set with this mindset creating not much effect. However, if the team lose, the fans get depressed with the fact that doesn’t meet their initial expectation. This creates highly negative attribution.

            Empirical evidence found in the study of Boidoa and Fasanob (2007) in Italy that soccer data, relative to Italian teams, shows that the average price/return ratio following wins is higher than average prices/return ratio following unsuccessful matches. Examining the impact of lost and tied matches, both researchers found that Italian investors dislike matches ending in ties. Meanwhile, Boyle and Walter (2003) investigated the impacts of national sport event in New Zealand, it is found that stock return behavior is independent of the success of the premier national sports team.

            The World Cup 2014 has been reviewed by Alex Edmand. It was evident that following the loss of England to Italy, the stock market fell by 0.34 percent in UK while the rest of world market remained stable. On the other hand, Spain lost 5-1 to Netherland creating a fall by 1 percent the next day in the Spain stock market.

In conclusion, emotions and the psychology of the investors have found to be the causes in the biases that affect stock prices and markets.  In processing information on the stock market, investors often make systematic mistakes. Investors are motivated by various irrational forces. Therefore the irrational judgment mistaken by these investors can give benefit to the other investors who recognize this irrationality.

According to Edmand (2014), the effect of sport sentiment is higher in the World Cup-an international level sport than a national/regional match such as European League. The loss that creates elimination causes strong effect to the negative emotion of the fans. However, there has not been any finding on the effect of a winning a match. One of the reason proposed was that the fans are naturally optimistic that their beloved teams are about to win. When the team finally wins, it perfectly meets the expectation of the fans. Therefore, they already set with this mindset creating not much effect. However, if the team lose, the fans get depressed with the fact that doesn’t meet their initial expectation. This creates highly negative attribution.

 Reference 

Boyle, G., & Walter, B. (2003). Reflected glory and failure: International sporting success and the stock market. Applied Financial Economics, 13(3), 225-235.

Boidoa, C., & Fasanob, A. (2007). Football and mood in Italian stock exchange. Review of Financial Studies, 14, 1-27.

Edmand, A. (2014). World Cup fever: Why an England loss will wipe billions off the stock market | City A.M.. [online] Cityam.com. Available at: http://www.cityam.com/article/1402423069/world-cup-fever-why-england-loss-will-wipe-billions-stock-market [Accessed 20 Jun. 2014].

Jogiyanto, H. (2013). Teori Portofolio dan Analisis Investasi. Yogyakarta: BPFE

Jones, C. P. (2010). Investments Principles and Concepts. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Eleventh Edition.

Lucey, B. M., & Dowling, M. (2005). The Role of Feelings in Investor Decision‐Making. Journal of economic surveys, 19(2), 211-237.

Wilson, B. (2014). World Cup 2014: The real cost of losing?. [online] BBC News. Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27976865 [Accessed 20 Jun. 2014].

***

        Nur Isnaini Masyithoh
Accounting Student at Faculty of Economics and Business
Universitas Gadjah Mada

Tuhan, dalam dekapan, dalam harapan.
Tuhan, secangkir kehangatan, lautan kekuatan,

Tuhan, dalam dekapan, baris-baris doa.

#ujian #akuntasastra

Rethinking Education: Holding Education Back to The Transmission of Civilization

“Education is the transmission of civilization.” Education, as Will Durant quoted, becomes one of the way to transform the life of our society towards civilizations. It is one of the key to elevate the human resources and the socio-cultural lives nowadays. The idealism of education should be put as our first concern in the implementation of education.

The early generation transmitted knowledge by memorizing, writing on woods or leaves or bones, and creating new invention depending on nature. The transfer of knowledge also creates the social relationship, the more intense on communication, and the higher dependence among the citizens of the world into a dynamic culture. The other important thing is it also creates new discoveries. The new discoveries create the higher technology. The technology equips people with better and simpler way of communicating. Thus, it embraces the world towards civilization.

Education is one of the basic human rights. It promises the society to gain educational support from the government. Specifically in Indonesia, the government sets up the main goals of education, one of the important one is to deliver the skill of the young generation to contribute their knowledge in society. However, education in Indonesia still needs improvement especially in its quality and accessibility indicated by a low Human Development Index and a high unemployment rate coming from the educated citizens (most of the unemployment ironically come from high school and university graduates).

Education system in order to be able to meet global challenges should consider the process of transferring moral values, entrepreneurial, and community service skill. However, the country education system does not fully support the freedom of creativity in searching the student's interest by giving so much pressure to master about 14 subjects in each semester. The incentive of getting good mark or passing the final exam have been the only goal to be achieved creating pragmatic mindset of our students. The standardized exam, the over-changing curriculum, and the low quality of the learning process have become such unbreakable-chains of problems in our education. There should be a reform in our education if we want to generate bright minds of our scholars by building a quality, process-oriented, and dynamic education. Therefore, there needs to be a balance in our education system, i.e. to build character, creativity, life wisdom, as well as the virtue of education itself.

***

A Note on "The Role of Youth Leadership in Managing Global Issues"

It was two years ago when I first took part in the team having the responsibility to organize the student reporter for the conference from selection, the D-days, and final report. I love my student reporters, they are totally awesome. I did make some troubles due to my first time experience. It was a big deal with some important people but I really did not have any bad intention. I am simply this little ordinary person. Anyway, we did learn something from our past mistake. 

The second year I helped my friend with the same agenda. This year marked my third year, and who knows might be my last year. I love reporting and writing that is why I was so happy when the committee asked me to be part of the rapporteur. Here, I would like to share the minutes of the enlightening plenary session with Mr. Imam M. Bashar Arafat. Even though I made this on my own, the copyright is for the committee. The full report and the declaration is at the ownership of the committee as well so I just enclosed the summary of the plenary but I did not enclose the discussion here. I am sorry that honestly I was exhausted for the second plenary since I had no break (only limited for dhuhur due to a tight class schedule) from morning till the second plenary. I feel bad that I did not concentrate and do well in the second plenary. However, let me just share the first plenary session. The only motivation for me to share it on my blog is to share goodness. It was a very heart touching and inspiring speech from the first plenary. Goodness is supposed to be shared with each other, right?

Jogja International Conference

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Sidang Kertanegara

Speaker:

Mr. Imam Mohamad Bashar Arafat                           

President of the Islamic Affairs Council in Maryland and Founder of Civilizations Exchange and Cooperation Foundation

Moderator:

Mr. Bambang  Riyanto

Lecturer of Accounting Major, Faculty of Economics and Business, UGM

Rapporteur:

Nur Isnaini Masyithoh

Plenary Session I

Mr. Imam has been living in US for 25 years. He left Syria in 1989. The issue was how to manage the local potential not only the particular subject in particular area but also to manage the global issue. He dreamed of creating the bridge of global civilization. The youth are hope of each nation so every nation depends on them. If we invest them properly, they will solve our global issues such as global economic crises, climate change, poverty, and so on. So, the global issues have both positive and negative impacts. The wars and conflicts have been around the world such as in Palestine, Egypt, in Southeast Asia, Myanmar, Thailand, Philippines-Mindanao, and Nigeria.

When he goes to Africa they do not know what is happening in Southeast Asia because it is not in their interest. If we live in Indonesia but we are not aware of what’s going on beyond Indonesia, we really miss the boat.

The Lord is for the whole world. Rahmatanlil’alamin, mercy for the whole world, for mankind. According to Imam, that is the true Islam because the message from Muhammad is to embrace the teachings of all prophets from Abraham, Josef, Jesus, to Muhammad. They all are the messengers of Allah who delivered the teachings. So, the lack of faith and moralities of others should be considered. Hence, in managing the local potential we have to cope with the global issues. Since Allah wanted happiness to all mankind, we are reminded to be taqwa which is the combination of love and iman to be called ibadah.

Imam is an entrepreneur and Muhammad is also an entrepreneur. There is example how to manage the potentials as Indonesia is the most visited country by tourisms and there needs to be partnership between government and society in order to build civilization with civil involvement. The Quran shows us the roadmap not only to manage economical issues but also the spiritual issues and the intellectuals to study what’s on earth and beyond. For instance, Islam through Quran teaches you what to eat and what you cannot eat because they are harmful which the teachings align with biological needs. Besides, we do learn to live in the society, how to be a good wife, husband, and so on so that we can build a strong society, a strong global community. Imam said, “The reason why I come here is not only for the conference but for what is called silaturrahim.”

The economic issues is a global issues such as Islamic finance emerging in the west, such as in England. The economic bubble burst because there is no morality and ethics when we deal with financial system. In Quran Surah Al Muthaffifin, there will be bad destiny for those who cheat people with what they sell. In Quran there was an example that the Jews cheat in their selling. Therefore, we have to learn from good Jews, good Christians, and Muslim. God teaches us love not hate, so we shouldn’t generate that all Jews are bad and not all Christians are bad. So, that is why Islam is rahmatanlil’alamin. Muslim reaches the world such as in khilafatul Umar ibn Khattab because we bring justice. We are not the best because we are muslim but because of our attitude.

We are now at the time that is different from the era of Muhammad, everyone nowadays has the iphone, Samsung, facebook, so the world changes. It is important to avoid the obstacles, in the Quran, wahlul’uqdatammillisani helps me to untie the tongue to speak appropriately.

Sometimes we don’t know how to deal with diversity, fanaticism, extremism, and terrorism. Business runs away from these. Leadership means to manage the diversity. BUBW (Building Understanding for Better World) is one program offering a way to understand differences and make the changes. This is a human conference not a religious conference. This is to help each other understand what makes us different.

“Changing the world is even a bigger thing so how to change is what is inside of me.” 

demi bulan

ialah jarak yang memisahkan kita di muka bumi. 

namun kau tahu, ada yang menyatukan kita ke mana pun kita melangkah. 

ya, di mana pun kita akhirnya berserah dan menunduk pasrah. janganlah menyerah.

bukankah kita selalu menatap langit yang sama?
lihatlah, matahari yang sama di atas sana. ia tak jemu menyinari hari-hari kita.
lihatlah, bulan dan bintang-bintang yang tetap menyala di tengah malam.
mungkin saja impian yang mempertemukan kita di bulan.

setiap kali kita melangkah kepada impian dan cita,
semoga selalu ada yang menggenggam kita.