Ladies and gentlemen, as we're approaching the end of the year, may I present you the (self-proclaimed and only regionally-known) word of the year:

Hayceur (adj.)
State of being commonly experienced when approaching deadlines, in which one is overwhelmed with reality so bitter it brings one close to tears.
a.k.a. hayang ceurik pisan sob

Do our best to survive fellow interior students and let's hayceur together yang penting finish ya <3 p="">

Secret fascination, whisper a quiet tune
Hear me calling you
Virginia moon, I'll wait for you tonight

And now our shades become shadow in your light
In the morning when we're through, and tomorrow rescues you
I will say goodnight.

http://ayuutami.com/mengapa-kita-tak-pantas-lagi-bilang-suka-sama-suka/

Bagus.
Paragraf terakhirnya mengesankan.

Kemarin baca satu artikel (page six type of article, mind you) tentang 80 something billionaire (with a not-so-pleasing look and dwarfish posture), newly engaged with 30 something beautiful lady, dubbed with the article as a girlfriend 'half his age and twice his height'.

I read the article right until the end, being increasingly sarcastic about the article selling their "true love despite their differences" as I got through another sentence, another paragraph. No, sorry I can't look past the piles of money to see this "love" the article kept on harping about.

Then I looked to the comment section of the article, expecting all the comments to be along the lines of my thinking, merely confirming that I'm not the only one not buying this love idea. What I came across, to my surprise, is this comment:

Ok, she is attracted to money, brains, and power. Why is that worse than being attracted to eyes, legs, or poverty? To each her own, I don't see why she is being derided.

Too many of us are so quick, so quick to judge. That some kind of lives are a certain blessing, others a certain misery. And dare not the blessed feel sorry of themselves, dare not they complain, dare not they feel envy.

From the cries of the poor souls whose sufferings so obvious it makes us cringe to the secretly grim hearts of the ladies and gentlemen lonely in their cold, spacious houses, all we know is just that each of us are just as equally wounded as everyone. We just wound differently, some deep and subtle, some exposed, some clearly seen and some hidden. But noone is free of scars, noone is not pained.

And maybe this is just the curse of life, that all of us, from the ones we long to be to the ones to whom we always feel sorry, we're all sometimes sad, sometimes happy. And while thoughts of grace should never, never leave our minds upon thinking of ourselves, we should be allowed to sometimes accept that we're all wounded. Maybe sometimes, sometimes it's okay to feel sorry for ourselves.

Having spent almost my entire life under the scorching and punishing sun, I thought I'd be forgiven to find your cold shoulder enticing.

I'm summer-bound, you're cold.

Sonder

n. a realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.

The clearest view is always, always from the outer circle, seeing thing as a whole, glasses not tinted, details barely seen and not overbearing.
Like it or not, the inner view is always rose-tinted. Romanticising.
Keep your feet standing on both side of the circle. To see, and moreso, to understand. To be in love and not be blinded. Taking the best of both world.

Anjing manis berbulu hitam, bermata coklat indah.
How is it possible that one had looked into your innocent brown eyes yet still had no heart to drug you to death?
You had very beautiful eyes, Roti. Have a very good life in the dog heaven, please never forget us, akan selalu kangen menyapa kamu di depan Bang Ed, melihat kamu tidur-tiduran di bawah matahari sekitar jam sebelas pagi, mendengar sapaan 'Roti!'
Orang yang takut anjing, gak takut anjing, semua sayang kamu, anjing paling ramah. Kamu mungkin makhluk paling terkenal di tenggara ITB. You will be missed, much.

http://whatplanetareyouon.com/

Going by my astrological sign, I should pursue a career as a brain surgeon, apparently.
Well, you don't have to believe it to enjoy it ;)

It took me until the last glance, the last peek to the dimly-lit scene of the office after I closed the door and about to go, to fully realize that this is the farewell, and for a good while I won't be returning here anymore, the place I used to go to for the last three months.

Brief, I know, great nevertheless.

Perhaps it has something to do with the midyear, the so-called summertime. When people are more spontaneous, smile wider and laugh a bit louder. Call me lucky to get to know these people in such a pleasant time of the year.

Many moments shared, lessons taken. I don't speak flowery words but I hope my feeling come across quite well. It was great, it's been such an honor and I take many, many things from here. That little moment of taking the last glance, I feel many things but mainly deep thankfulness, I feel grateful knowing you.

I'm convinced that somehow someday we'll cross paths again, one way or another, so it's au revoir, I guess? Merci beaucoup pour l'aventure. C'est un moment précieux pour moi. (Mind the grammar. I tried.)

http://qz.com/118844/asias-mega-mall-boom-is-headed-toward-bust/

An interesting article that was shared by my friend on facebook. Speaks the ugly truth about Jakarta's malls, whose many problems eventually boil down to one thing: there are simply too many of them.

During my internship period, I used to pass 5 malls on my way from home at Casablanca to work at Sudirman every morning. The distance's not even that great and there are 5 malls; granted that the area is probably one of the most mall-packed area in the city, but still. I've been itching for a place just like Gasibu or Saparua, but other than GBK I can't really think of an open public space like that. And it's not like Bandung is a godsent heaven of public places.

Jakarta has had enough malls, too many in fact. I don't think the city people need more of those monstrous places that looks so alike each other. We're not spoilt with choices - the numbers of the malls give of impression that there are a good variety of choices on spending time in Jakarta but really we don't, it's all the same.

As someone who truly hates spending time in malls, I find this as one of the most unappealing thing about living in Jakarta. Hope for a change, anyone?

Today I had a terrible headache, it was so terrible that I decided to take a pill (I'm normally not someone who's quick to resort to medicines when experiencing pain).
For sometime after I took the pill, the pain doubled and it was terribly painful I had to hold my tears. Then the pain gradually disappear until it was gone completely.
It was just like how it works, everytime. That's how you finish off pain, by taking what seems like a bitter pill. And that's how the pain bows out of your system; it gets worse before it gets better.

It's probably no coincidence that the moon is so big, and so bright, and so immensely beautiful on the birthday of the musician who writes a beautiful music about the moon. It thanks you, and it celebrates your greatness, and so does the world, and so do I.

Bon anniversaire, M'sieur Claude Debussy. Thank you for your whimsical, beautiful, brilliant music, the part  of you that will live on, forever.

Had the nights not been really warm and the moon really bright, perhaps people wouldn't have been so honest to each other.
Maybe, just maybe, that's why so many things happen midyear.

Lagi. Mimpi bulan pecah. Lukisan biru pekat milik sahabat. Gerakan lambat. Langit gelap. Asap biru, hijau samudra, abu-abu di udara. Cuma warna itu yang terlihat. Pikiran kosong sepertinya otak berhenti bekerja dan detak jantung melambat, ada perasaan bahagia yang aneh menjalar di sekujur badan. Tidak ada hangat atau rasa ingin menahan senyum tapi susah, tapi bahagia.
Langit berasap, lukisan biru gelap, gerakan lambat.

Some poetry reading at midnight hour. Entertaining the melancholy the finest way possible.

Bulan setengah lingkaran.
Kamu siapa?

Waktu terbatas jadi sepertinya pertanyaan ini akan tetap tidak terjawab dan sekalipun bulan benderang penuh satu lingkaran, tetap ada satu sisi yang tersembunyikan.

Dan yang tidak terselesaikan atau mungkin tidak pernah terpikirkan biarkan saja tetap begitu sampai kita pulang, pulang dan bulan mati, langit gelap.

Some things are so hardly earned it needs thousand times of failures for you to have it within your reach.
When you've failed the first time you decide whether or not you want it badly enough to try again for the second time.
And so the same for the second time trying, and the many times that would follow.

Sometimes you eventually succeed, some other times you'd fail for the thousandth time and start to think that maybe it just isn't meant to be.

It's hard but there are some moments when it's best to accept that when something is not meant to happen, it won't happen.
The hardest part is letting go, indeed?

There are two things that I love so much: the sea and the sky. Both are broad, borderless, and very calming.
Tonight it's the sky pampering me with its finest form.
Plenty of stars and pleasantly clear, beautiful sky. Prompted me to pay a visit to my rooftop after a very long while, lying under those sparkling stars. Such a good feeling to be under the sky. Dark and bright at the same time. Slowing down the time and the pace, freezing and idling the thoughts, just looking at the sky. Couldn't get any better than that. What a treat from this lovely, lovely city.

How could I forget you?
You did a very good job in reminding me of what you were to me, and apparently, what you still are.
Dear July.

Actually it just felt wrong to nitpick that particular part of the interview. The whole interview is awesome, very inspiring. If you have some free time I suggest to read it here.

'So I like the idea of a reductive process, I go through a process of subtraction until I capture the essence of what is left, what has to remain to be the essence of the piece, from a functional and aesthetic point of view. You work on all sorts of different layers in this reduction exercise to take away the excess and purify the product into what it becomes'

Michael Anastassiades, a lighting designer. Well said, Sir.

It's relentless
invisible,
indefatigable,
indisputable,
undeniable

So how come it looks so beautiful?
How come the moon falls from the sky

I can see you
But I can never reach you

We human, we are part of the nature. The way we live, the way we die, the resemblance is uncanny.

We are at our brightest when death comes onto us. We are remembered, we are grieved and we are missed. Our light shines and impacts the whole universe.
After a while it goes dark, new lights are dimly lit, universe rearranges itself and everything goes normally, sans our presence.

Those around us are our universe. We might think they revolve around us, but truth is we are never, never bigger than the universe.

Got through the first three days of internship which included lots of walk to and from the office, sweating like crazy in the packed mikrolet, working random scrapes and some internet browsing in-between, tagging along mentor to a project meeting (and listening to lengthy conversation between the CM, architect and structure engineer while completely not understanding a thing), and listening to mentors brainstorming concept ideas until late night.
Still finding my feet, not firmly settled but it kinda went okay.

I'm not really doing bad, am I?

The saddest thing you've ever seen....

*very short and meaningless post that has to be posted anyway*


Hehehehehehe. :)

Sometimes our hands are overly occupied trying to get a hold on something that's not within our reach; sometimes we are just wasting our time looking to control something that we really have no power of.

Life consists of so many variables, but there's really only one of which we can control: our very own selves.
It can be very vulnerable, it can be really strong, but the only thing that can protect it is our willingness to accept that not everything is in our hands, not every decision is ours, and those what ifs could never change the unchangeable.

We have to accept that there is a greater force keeping our lives running, by whatever name we call it; and we are not the omnipotent, nor the omniscience.
Nevertheless, however little we can do, we must do to make it matter. We control ourselves, and we'd better be bloody good at it.

There were times when I wish this place were a person who can reciprocate my actions, who can talk back so it wouldn't be some sort of one-way traffic here.

Luckily this is just a blog, something inanimate, because otherwise I think it would be having abandonment issues due to my (extremely) frequent absence.

Well, I had my own reasons.

You would've thought, there would be much to tell, and the first post after a long period of absence would tend to be a very long narration of what had happened, what had lingered in thoughts, and what had kept me from coming. But no, there's not much to tell. Much had happened, much had lingered in thoughts, and much had kept me from coming, but from those, only little did I find worth-sharing.

Some part of me had considered describing recent periods of my life 'straight-forward, repetitive routines', but after second thought (and third, maybe fourth), I wouldn't describe it as such. I might have gone to same places at the same time, done same tasks and activities, but it was never a repetitive routine. To label a certain time span of your life as "straight-forward" and "repetitive" to me is just trying to describe things in hindsight. Leaving out little things that matter, that set the difference. Over-simplification.
I'm inclined to think that everytime someone describe his life as such, it says more about his reluctance to recall and to share than the quality of his life itself. You know, just a way to finish off conversation quickly and not go into details. "How's your life going?" "Nothing much, just as usual. Same stuffs." End of story.

I miss times when I actually had that eagerness to dig into interesting excerpts of my life, and actually feel the urge of sharing it here (whether or not it is read is another matter, of course). I miss times when those little bits do intrigue me. And I keep coming back here, writing very long posts that most certainly will bore the five-years-from-now me.

Until then, please do miss me. Haha.

We need that certain dose of fearlessness to push the limit, and to move the goal post just a little higher, and higher.

We take comfort in not doing our best.
We take comfort in being lazy, not giving it all, and not getting the most out of a given situation. We give ourselves that little excuse of consolation, to entertain the disappointment. That wasn't my best. I could've done better, had I given it my biggest effort.
A little part of us is scared of knowing what would've been the result, had we given it all. A little part of us is, always, scared of seeing what would've been the most of us.

What if we've given our best, and there's nothing more we can do, and still the result lets us down?
We take comfort of never, never knowing it.

Apology is one of the trickiest thing to read.

Sometimes we just have to take it at the face value - apology means sorry, and it really means: sorry, I know I was wrong, I truly regret it, I wouldn't have done that if I could turn back time.

Sometimes an apology is said just to save face instead of a sincere regret. Sometimes, it means: sorry, I didn't expect I would get caught. I didn't realize that this makes people mad at me, and now unless I say sorry they would think poorly of me.

The way you take an apology says it all: Do you trust the person enough to take his apology at the face value, no matter how badly he had wronged you?

Reblogged from Futility Closet:

At the moment when man’s oldest dream is becoming a reality, I am very thankful for NASA’s kind attention in offering me the services of the first human messenger to set foot on the Moon and carry the words of the Ivory Coast. I would hope that when this passenger from the sky leaves man’s imprint on lunar soil, he will feel how proud we are to belong to the generation which has accomplished this feat.

I hope also that he would tell the Moon how beautiful it is when it illuminates the nights of the Ivory Coast. I especially wish that he would turn towards our planet Earth and cry out how insignificant the problems which torture men are, when viewed from up there.

There's a quote from Einstein that says: Everybody is born a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend the rest of its life thinking it's a failure.

What people seem to forget everytime they quote this, is that you can't spend your life living on a tree but expect people to judge you from your ability to swim in the sea.

Been less a writer, and more a lurker lately.

It's possible for us to forget the ones we treat well, but we can never forget the ones that we've hurt.

For a long time, I thought distance is a great way to make something fade away and disappear completely.
It did give that very impression.
But turns out, it wouldn't disappear just that easily. It came back, and hard.
Or maybe it wasn't that hard, it was that I was caught off-guard. Unprepared, and now completely taken aback.
I'll never, ever get close to this again.

In 365 days, I only have two proper chances to have something closest to 'a conversation' with you.
The first one is today.

Saved for (very near) future reference:

Call me conservative or too-serious or whatever, but I'm seriously annoyed by people who constantly talk about stupid things, act in a stupid manner, and appear to never take their life seriously. I know some people like to deliberately construct this manner and treat this as conversational jokes; they actually treat life very deeply and seriously, but they keep it inside and try to appear not to care at all on the surface. Why? Apparently it's a trend to be just that bubbly, airhead, lighthearted, empty-brained guy? Apparently it's not cool to give even the slightest of a hint that you're actually taking life seriously? Tacky, and definitely a total turnoff if you ask me, but perhaps I am this one nerdy, gak asyik girl in the eyes of those kind of people.
I'm definitely unappealing for them, aren't I?
Gladly, the feeling is mutual.

I'd love to call this a coincidence. But it's not. It's just about as random as coming across a random acquaintance on the street. The odds of it happening is just the same, yet we call one a coincidence and another 'just a random occurrence'. We spend some time trying to figure out the hidden meaning within one, yet another does not even leave a trace in our memory.

What sets the two apart?

Perhaps, a wishful thinking. How some parts of the so-called 'coincidence' happen to be more meaningful to us. How we secretly hope that it has a meaning, that perhaps somewhere deep in our subconscious mind, we are hoping to read something between the lines. And in some ways, it's important to us to see it differently, to try to read a plan, to try to claim it a destiny.

Otherwise it would be just another day, another usual day, would it not?



Kenyataan yang sedikit mengecewakan, kebetulan berbicara lebih banyak tentang pengharapan daripada rencana Tuhan.

Every kind of relationship starts off with being strangers.
Some of them go back to being strangers, again, on the surface at least.

I can't get over this.

Glimpses of all the things that have been, or perhaps, could have been. They flashed, they danced, right at the space between your eyes and your lids.
Thoughts were bare, and our understanding of time and reality were skewed.
Half the moon dimmed spreading the silhouette of obscure things,
grey,
and pale.

Am I really committed to this ideal or is it just the case of me being too afraid of jumping on the same boat with anyone else? Do I genuinely aspire to other path of life, or is it just a justification of my reluctance to take the path that perhaps almost everyone will expect me to take? Oh dear the doubts of internship periods...

malam2 sedang santai2 di ruang keluarga sama kakak dan ibu.

SB: So, any solution for my aim problem? I'll have to get it sorted for the re-certification test tomorrow.
G: It's Brennan. You're in love with her, aren't you?
SB: What does it have to do with this?
G: When it comes to a man and a gun, it's always about woman. She's your partner, you want to protect her.
G: Take her to the re-certification test. Make her watch you. You won't fail in front of her.

I find this conversation really deep.

A strange case, when the life of someone completely strange and unknown to you intrigues you so much, that you start to read everything he/she posts, and try to read into his/her thoughts, despite the absence of relation you can find between their life and yours.
He/she's not even your friend's friend's friend, let alone yours.
Strange, right? Yet intriguing, very intriguing.

At some point in their life, people will go through a time when a question keeps nagging on their minds; "Who am I and what have I done in life, as opposed to  those successful people? Am I taking the right path to be the person I'd like to be?"

That question does nag my mind a lot lately, and apparently many of my friends feel the same, too.

One of my friend says that when we're well past our twenties, we won't think of this question as much as we do now. So I call all these life-anxiety and self-questions period, the twenties life crisis.

It's no coincidence that these questions are inclined to appear a lot more when we're approaching our twenties, or when we're at our twenties. During this crucial stage of our life, we experience many deciding moments. Career, achievements, love, self-fulfillments, so many important aspects in our lives depend on what we do at our twenties. It's a very determining stage of life. It pretty much shapes up how you live the rest of your life.

Before this stage of life, we can dream as much as we like. We can dream of our life, of the man we would become, of the things we would achieve, of the places we would go to. As we grow older, reality hits us harder and harder, and our dreams start to fade away. Whether or not we live up to our dream, it greatly depends on how we live our twenties. If it's spent in vain, once we're well past the twenties, it slowly becomes clear that the dream is just unreachable, improbable. That's when people give up their initial hope and living the life that's just there in front of their eyes.

Hence the importance of living our twenties to the fullest.
Hence the anxiety of approaching that stage of life.

Let's live it to the fullest, friends.

Semester lima, menjelang semester enam, and I fully comprehend the meaning of "GPA does not matter".
And no, unlike how I used to think it is, it's not an utterance of self-consolation when you've dropped your scores big time.
It's about the sense of relief. A relief and self-satisfaction of knowing that you've given your best, you've done your best, and whatever happens, you'd still feel proud of yourself because you knew that it was your best. It's about those feelings.
Those feelings I fail to get even after I have fully closed the last semester.
I didn't get such sense of relief. I knew I could do better, here and there. I knew it wasn't my best. I wasn't relieved. At all.
So I didn't really expect my scores to increase from last semester. Of course I was sure that at least I would get respectable grades, but other than that I really couldn't expect anything.
But then, it was better than what I expected. No, it's not an increase, but still really good. Most people would sigh in relief or even smile ear-to-ear. I initially thought I would myself, too.
Well, I didn't.
Of course there's some relief, but not that kind of relief. It's more like a relief of escaping some harm, maybe. Like a sense of relief of committing a crime and getting away with it, in a way you're relieved but you can never completely get rid of all the haunting feeling.

I really don't enjoy my off semester's holiday.

I just watched the rerun of HIMYM season 6 on Star World, the episode where Lily got a false alarm and thought that she was pregnant and the whole group, upon learning the *false* news, were intrigued to re-evaluate their respective life.

When we hear a news (be it good or bad) from one of our relatives and/or friends, of course what comes first in our mind is to celebrate (or mourn, depending of the news) for the one from whom we hear the news. What comes after? We are left with ourselves, left to re-evaluate, left to question our own life. Making comparison would be inevitable; it happened to someone else, how about me? What has happened to my life, what would probably happen?

Today, just this morning, I had to learn a very, very unpleasant news from one of my closest friend; the passing away of her father.
I have never encountered such an experience like death of a close relative, so everytime I hear news like this I'd just be taken aback. Totally clueless of what to do, totally strange to such feeling. But just hearing such a news, it's like taking a bitter pill. It leaves a really, really bitter taste in my mouth and never really disappear. It still feels bitter even right now.
To hear such an unexpected news, to be suddenly attacked with feelings I am still strange of, of course it really forces me to re-evaluate myself, my own life.

In a sense, aren't we really fortunate that every now and then, things that happen to people around us really do work like an alarm that gives us the opportunity to evaluate ourselves? 

Taking a really, really egocentric approach of life, it is really possible that all that happens around us is signs and clues that God has kindly given to us. Some obvious as day, some very subtle. Some come in a good way, some leave bitter taste in our mouth. But isn't God so forgiving to give us the opportunity to learn and to understand beforehand, and gives us just enough hints so we won't walk blindly in this life? Life is something big and largely unknown, but we have so many things, so many people to reflect upon, to whom we make comparisons, to which we do evaluation. In a sense, we are so, so fortunate, aren't we?

Selamat pagi, selamat satu per dua puluh empat hari.
Mengejutkan bukan betapa banyak kita berkawan di rentang waktu yang larut ini, sepertinya kesendirian masih enggan menjadi teman. Beberapa waktu lalu saat belum ada layar untuk dipandang lekat-lekat, waktu seperti ini bukankah kita sudah terlelap? Atau setidaknya, sendirian, sepenuhnya sendirian, yang menyenangkan.
Entah sejak kapan episode nokturnal melahirkan penggalan-penggalan percakapan, dan jika boleh aku agak menyalahkan saat-saat perbincangan dilakukan sambil mata setengah terpejam, untuk hal-hal yang kemudian terdengar seperti kesalahan dan tersesalkan.
Pada akhirnya mungkin tidak bijak untuk menyalahkan yang seharusnya dapat terhindarkan.
Pada akhirnya, segala yang tersesalkan itu adalah pilihan.

the spinning top made a sound/
like a train across the valley/
fading, oh so quiet/
but constant till it passed/
over the ridge into the distance/
written on your ticket/
to remind you where to stop/
and when to get off

2013, cuma bisa nyanyi do you have to let it linger, do you have to, do you have to, do you have to let it linger
buat detective conan.