I’ve never been to Athens or Berlin, but I believe, that nothing compares to a town where your father came from. Where your grandma lives. Where people speak and you can only listen. Where the good foods are.
“Oi rang rantau nan jauah, pulanglah ka kampuang
Jan lupo yo sanak, mari kito pulang basamo…”
Betharia Sonata – Pulang Kampuang
Some say code is poetry, but for me, poetry is code.
With these codes, I’ve been cheating the clear blue sky and flower on the window facing my neighborhood. I’ve been singing my betrayal and cover it as if it is only lines of Icelandic. I’ve been writing love letters to the past and the blur of future. I’ve been spilling my dreams of Socotra and its dragon’s blood trees and the rest of the world, including Turkey.
With these codes, I’ve been trying to tell you something.
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Morning comes without coffee this month
——————–——————–——————–——————–——————–
Ramadhan comes back each year while life rolls. Things change, like the distance between me and my family: my home. Like how I do the hours-countdown to sunset. Some other things just stay the same, like the soothing-Arabian-like TV commercial jingles. Like how the trees rhyme.
Ramadhan for me is an annual special guest. It is a harmony; a holy remedy; an eternal childhood memory.
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Hey, A! :)
It came with cakes, wishes & smiles from people who got starlight on their eyes. Thank you Anggaputra, Jesika-Brenda-Mala-Shabi, those special twelve Hardi, Keni, Hakim, Sari, Feni, Cebi, Panjie, Dinoy, Ai, Japir, Beyo, Pii; Ramda and the rest of Liga Film Mahasiswa; those who called, who texted, who said it on Facebook, on Twitter, or left it on blog. Thank you Bunda & Ayah & Zakki & Mbak Yanti for waiting at home. Oh, yes, thank you, Harris Nugrahardi for the fantastic plastic camera & for being better and sweeter than Edward.
Thank God, for creating the universe with good good friends and blueberry cheesecake.
* * *
So now, I’m ‘Twenty Something’. A good friend said, it’d be a beautiful nightmare, and I trusted her as much as I believe in miracles and street lamps.
Tomorrow I’ll turn 21, and the plans are:
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“Whatever with the past has gone, the best is always yet to come.” — Lucy Larcom
I’ve been trying to write all these things, in my mind. Unfortunately they are queuing in non-alphabetical order (and worse) behind my fixed items of to-do-list: to procrastinate, to procrastinate, to procrastinate, to procrastinate, to procrastinate, and so on. Did I tell you it is holiday?
After returning to the city, my family and I went for vacation. We took pictures and smiled a lot :) :) :) Then I got back to Bandung; to do my routine in LFM. The bad news was: I missed an opportunity of volunteering in Global Citizen Corps Indonesia. Did I regret that? Kinda yes, for people around me all are seemed to do GREAT things like internships, exchange programs, backpacking, etc. I kinda, envy them.
Well, I changed my mind:
HEY, THIS IS HOLIDAY!!
I’ve almost always been busy on Julies, BUT this time, I feel like really taking breaks. I buy novels, and DVDs. I spend a lot of times with LFM, have frozen yogurt everytime I want, and tell my boyfriend that I miss him. F__k the rest. Really. Just f__k the rest.
Next semester is coming, and I would stop pretending like I have all time in the world.
People know how much I like him, and how loyal I’ve been to Spain.
They congratulated me.
***
This is my 8th year of blogging. If you ask me what have changed; a lot. If you ask me what have not changed; I still post about Iker Casillas Fernandez.
When I was a child, I and most kids, drew mountains a lot. Mountains were, maybe, the simplest object we could imagine. And then I (and several else children) grew up and got into these geology things.
I never thought a mountain could be so complicated inside.
Every mountain has its own tale; its own history. It might be born under the sea or the continental sky. It might be hard outside but weak inside. It might be very hot once then it calmed down. Mountains never writes autobiographies, so we have to ask. We have to ask to them in very special way because each mountain is special. It is special because, just like rain, a mountain is not literally alive but it gives lives; to the people who struggle, the trees and the wild.
It takes special people to ask, and we are learning to be that special.
***
When I was a child, I and most kids, fight each other a lot. Friendship was not that simple; like little things mattered. And then we grew up and we knew each other and we continued growing up.
I never thought friendship could be just simple and very simplifying.
After 30 days in Karangsambung I also learned more about friendship. We hiked and got tired. We were up and down. I got bored and I thought, “maybe I’m not special enough to ask to the mountains.” But when I looked at my friends, there they were: very special. Then, when we talked and we laughed, I knew, that we are THAT special.
And we deserve to ask to the mountains.
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Thank you all a lot for those days in Karangsambung; Pak Bambang Priadi and all lecturers and staff and the whole team (we were 87 although I wished we were 89) and also very special thanks for Brenda Ariesty, Hermala Yuniaji, Shabiati Hafizah, and Jesika Chandra for even just being there.
I’m back to the city for a while :)
‘Hi’ from Kebumen! :D
Ooo… Karangsambung…
O o o… Karangsambung…Bangun pagi-pagi mandi pun harus antri
WC mampet banyak cabe mengambang
Palu dan kompas ayo segera disiapkan
Berangkat ke lapanganOoo… Karangsambung…
O o o… Karangsambung…Dari Bukit Brujul sampai ke Penosogan
Siang hari degan selalu jadi santapan
Sore hari Mbak War selalu siap sedia
Menyegarkan kita dengan susunyaOoo… Karangsambung…
O o o… Karangsambung…Begitu setiap hari, keakraban tercipta
Tanpa terasa sebulan lamanya
Banyak arti yang kini tersimpan di dalam hatiOoo… Karangsambung…
O o o… Karangsambung…(Musik Santai GEA – Karangsambung)
My summer holiday: friends and Earth :)
This semester is ending soon. Monday will be my last day of final exams, and on Tuesday we will visit a dam. From the 8th of June we would spend a month in Karangsambung and act like a true geologist. As the rest of long holiday flies, a new semester comes. My 7th.
Tonight I walked in the campus; from the north gate, to the south. The low light touched a part of my heart; where memories are kept in unalphabetical order. It’s been almost 3 years of falling in love with the configuration of a life phase: myself, my friends, and everything in between.
I remember the first day I came here to start a new life. I remember the first day I met my boyfriend. The first day of Salam Ganesha; a little thunder I am somehow proud of. The first day of Calculus. The first day I broke my heart and learned that a couple shouldn’t come from different religion. The first day of getting a crush on an unpublished writer and becoming a goddamn stalker. The first day I misjudged the girls which later became my very best friends. The first day I turned yellow and raised my fist to the blue sky.
The low light and the empty path reminded me when it was full and bright. I could picture us there, then I felt like everyone is leaving, and younger strangers are coming. Another semester is coming.
And the first day I countdown to the day of seeing the aurora would be the first day of missing a life phase. That I think I do already.
One of the pop-up cards I made for Ais.
I learned the concept of making pop-up paper craft a few years ago; the simplest one. It was my best friend, Noumi, who made the card (full of Iker Casillas’ pictures cut from newspaper and magazine) for me after reading the tutorial on Gogirl! magazine. Later, I started making pop-up cards for everyone (one of them is Ramda) :D
I wouldn’t write any tutorial in here. My tips is to check here for the basic mechanism, and here for the more advance tutorial, and if you may go googling and end up with hundreds amazing forms of this kind of paper work.
I may only guess what makes pop-up card so special.
It is: the surprise. Because when we receive a folded card, we would expect writing or picture or well, maybe lips mark (duh); something 2 dimensional. Then, ‘tadaaa!’, pop-up card delivers it in 3 dimensions. So, can you see the point? It is about being something more than what is expected.
What else? Simply, it is handmade.
Anyhow, I’ve spilled one of my analog best trick. Why don’t you try? And stop doing the birthday greeting for your important people via Facebook ;)
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“It’s a juried show. We look at the crafts and make sure they are handmade. We try to be careful about the balance so we have a mix of everything.”
- Deanna Anderson
I am typically not a gig-goer. I am too lazy to be inside a crowd with those girls in … (insert ‘animal printed’ / ’stripes’ / ‘whatever is on GoGirl magazine’ here) and mini outfits.
However, last night, it was Copeland and I decided to come. First, Copeland was one of my favorite band (as I told you in this post) and they have my attention. Second, it would be their first and the last gig in here. Third, I’ve dedicated too many of their tracks to my boyfriend :P
The show was started at 9 PM, (after 1 hour waiting) and they opened it with ‘Priceless’. Priceless is a song I would recommend to you guys who intend to melt a heart…
Cause I need you / Like the dragonflies’ wings need the wind / Like the orphan needs home once again / Like heaven needs more to come in / I need you here like you’ve always been //
They went on for about 2 hours. They performed all of my favorites; ‘Take Care’, ‘Control Freak’, ‘Coffee’, ‘On The Safest Ledge’, ‘California’. Yes, also ‘You Have My Attention’, and… ‘Brightest’. How did it go? I’d borrow the lines from IndyWeek.com to define it: Airy falsetto voicing sentimental verses works against a backdrop of dreamy keyboards and a lush rhythm section, as it long has.
It was beautiful. They have been Copeland.
Could it be so beautiful just because it was a farewell?
—
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(PS: I lost my voice last night because of the flu.)
My mother just called me. She told about a thing or two, and then she told me that my uncle passed away. She didn’t cry. I didn’t either. I have never met my uncle. He sailed to America when he was seventeen and he never came back.
I knew him from the blurry memories of my mother and my grandma. That he was childish, and really good at swimming. I knew him from my father who visited him sixteen years ago, that he ate and gambled a lot. I knew him from my other uncle, that he lived in Richmond, Virginia which is my mother’s last name, that he got married with older woman named Beatrice, but they didn’t have children.
He couldn’t speak Bahasa Indonesia anymore, but from his letters I translated for my grandma, I knew he missed her, his mother. And before my grandma passed away, I knew, she missed her eldest son even more. I knew; from the way she kept his photographs, his postcards, and even his folded dollar bills.
I have never met him, but I miss him a bit. I know it’s strange, to miss someone we never met, but blood is thicker than water. I tried to google his name, but he’s only known as a random citizen and there is no detail about his cancer, or how lonely he had been before he died.
So I dedicate this post for you, Alexander Abraham Tahalea.
That you are loved, and you have been missed.
May you rest in peace, Uncle :)
Last night was the opening of Festival April 2010 including the exhibition I’m taking part in. I had mentioned about this once, and sorry for being too excited about it that I would mention it again. O-ho.
I was too excited that I skipped classes (which is pretty unhabitual) for two days so I could attend it. I know it wasn’t THAT big, but I couldn’t resist the tempt to peek at the different dimension other than X, Y, or Z: non-commercial-art-and-cultural-thingy. Where the people are great, much bigger than their heads. They live based on their eagerness of living, and I can’t really guess whether money really matters or not.
I met them, and they amazed me. They have the charm: the real artists are the real indie people, and they drink a lot (which I don’t). I have strong admiration on them; because they do what they are eager to, while I plan to make holes on Earth, seeking for oil and gas of million dollars. Eventually, none of us is wrong.
What an interesting life.
After all, I feel like collecting a database of people. Database of strangers, and I befriended some. Database which can be sorted by anything: hobby & interest, job, personality, age, music they listen, or how they treat me. Geeky, artsy, ordinary guy, wannabe (my least favorite). Student, once-a-student, journalist-also-photographer, seven-to-five worker, freelancer. Jerk, rich, famous, rich and famous, jerks and rich and also famous. Who underestimates me, who overrates me, who doesn’t give even the slightest damn.
I’m still not good at meeting new people. I still worry a lot about being overacting, overreacting, or annoying. But as my database grows, I start to learn that people are the same: they are different. As my database grows wider and longer, I grow wiser.
—
“Mendamba Tubuh”
Goethe Haus, Jakarta
13 – 16 April 2010 dan 21 – 27 April 2010Pembukaan : 13 April 2010, pukul 19.00
Artist talk : 16 April 2010, pukul 19.00Ade Kusumaningrum
Agan Harahap
Aiko URfia Rakhmi
Eki Rahajeng
Evelyn Pritt
Imelda Mandala
Keke Tumbuan
M. Firman Ichsan
Mitu M. Prie
Nico Dharmajungen
Meninaputri Wismurti
Puty Karina Puar
***Pameran ini terselenggara sebagai bagian dari Festival April yang diadakan oleh Institut Ungu. Institut Ungu adalah kelompok perempuan yang bekerja untuk isu penyadaran hak perempuan dan datang dari berbagai latar belakang diantaranya aktivis perempuan, pekerja seni budaya, pengajar dan peneliti. Sejak 2003, Institut Ungu memperingati hari Kartini dengan mengadakan Festival April yang merupakan perayaan kreativitas dan pemikiran kaum perempuan yang digelar untuk masyarakat luas melalui pertunjukan atau pameran seni, diskusi publik dan orasi kebudayaan.
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It’s been 2 weeks since my last post. I actually have many things to write, but then, I get busier everyday. Being busy is not an equal of being important, but somehow, I enjoy it. I just sometimes, worry whether I’ve turned myself into such shark, poor things that die when they stop moving.
Well as I said before, what am I busy about is not as big as developing nuclear technology or fighting poverty. I am just like everyone. Here and now is a phase when everyone is becoming someone. My friends are becoming chairmen or president or coordinator or head of bla bla bla. I decided to follow them: taking a part, and learning to handle responsibilities in a part of my life phase.
So I started becoming the public relation manager of LFM ITB, from last week. LFM ITB stands for Liga Film Mahasiswa Institut Teknologi Bandung. Here, we all love films and photography as much as blueberry cheesecake :D And if you do too, loving films and photography as much as __________ (put your favorite food in here), you can contact us, and let’s be friends :)
I know they would be hectic moments, but I’m sure they would create beautiful memories as well. So wish me luck and thanks for your patience :)
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“When you are asked if you can do a job, tell ‘em, ‘Certainly I can!’ Then get busy and find out how to do it.”
- Theodore Roosevelt