Vidya Dahana Patra

Or what we dearly call Vidatra. It’s my school name.

I went to school there since kindergarten. I went until 12th grade. So it’s basically the only school I have in my life other than my university. Well, it’s normal if you lived within a company housing. It’s quite common here, especially for oil company. So yeah, I have exactly same friends since kindergarten to high school.

My memory from kindergarten still quite strong. I remember my house that time was walking distance from my school. My maid, or mom, or even my grandma when she visited us, took turn to walk me to school. I still remember I was in class A6 and B6. The class located at the back side, where it’s facing directly to school pond and playground. It’s close to the yard. I remember we had a kind of sand yard. We used it for Monday ceremony, or simply just playing around building sand castle or anything. I still remember my class pretty well also. There was 4 big tables to accommodate all of us. On the right side of the class there was cupboards to put all art supplies. And on the back side of the class, there were toys to play house. I remember there were baby cribs, small sofas, tables, and small tableware. Cute isn’t it ?

My elementary school was soooo big. It’s so big that we have 3 gates to enter the school. Each grade has about 6-7 classes. It completes with a huge hall and our own football field. Our school yard can accommodate 1000 students for Monday ceremony. The class can accommodate up to 30 students. It has no AC but has big windows on both side. We didn’t move around during schools, we stayed at 1 class and the teachers came to us. We only move to other class for music, math or religion class. When I was still in elementary school, the canteen was so small and they only sold snack. We could only buy the meals for take-away. We ate in our corridors. It’s an open air corridor though. What I like about my elementary school is the way they arrange school bus. We relied on school bus so much because the school location is quite far from the housing area. The school made marks on the parking yard, to where each bus for each of housing area has to park in dedicated area. So it ease the students to find the bus.

My middle school and high school are 2 different yet similar buildings. Funny things about these school is that we shared some facilities. The basketball court is located at middle school, but the computer lab is at high school. We didn’t have football field, so we need to go down the hill (there was stairs to access it) to go to our main stadium. Middle school’s canteen was same like elementary school, where they only sold snacks. But my high school has some menus that is ok for lunch. Though, we rarely ate lunch at school. Because it’s located only 5-10 mins from home, we always had lunch at our home. What I love from my middle school was its library. It’s small, but complete enough. Sadly, my high school’s library wasn’t managed well. They only had books from former international school that we had long time ago.

It’s an uncommon school. But, still it’s the best school in East Borneo. We even managed to get into best 100 schools in Indonesia, where we rank above some good schools in Jakarta. We always have 100% rate of graduation and most of the students went to the best universities in Indonesia. ITS and UGM have a great relationship with my school that they give us a special track for colleague scholarship submission. Each year, the students either graduate with the highest score in East Borneo, or there’s 1-2 students that graduate with perfect score. Not me, though. hahah!

Anyway, because we only have that same friends from kindergarten until high school, we learned how to appreciate a friendship. After we graduate, sometimes it’s difficult to find friends we can truly trust. We become more grateful as we understand by heart how a friend could be our family. So, yeah, thank you, Vidatra!