Saturday, June 09, 2012

Seeking the Soul

I'm not having a relaxing weekend this week. I have to make a decision and it's a very hard one. Before I elaborate more (as much as I can elaborate here), let's go through certain things in my head.

My french class has been one of the things in my week that I like the most. Yeah waking up and heading out to class on a Saturday morning still is kinda hard, especially when days like this morning when it rained. However, it's the place where I feel I can be the most me in my week. We talk about stuff and I get to ask myself how I feel about things. So a few weeks ago, me and XF registered ourselves for the next and last class, advanced 8. I can't believe we reach this state. I started 3 years ago. I remembered it quite clearly because I attended my beginner class for a few weeks on a friday evening and I skipped class to go on my first trip to Italy. So anyway, we have passed 3 years, and it's crazy. I did have some thoughts on what I want to do after I finish this whole thing. Of course there were other classes you can take to improve the fluency of your french which I have to admit that unfortunately I don't have. I was always thinking that I will take a break and go back to Italian class for 1-2 sessions to make sure they don't disappear and after that see what I want to do with my french education. Then it's somewhat decided that me and XF and now FL too, we would take DELF preparatory class so that we can take the DELF exam in December. My thought on that was like, wow December? So I will still be (have to still be) in Singapore in December? This is just the year, the year when I really question my whole existence in this country.

Come July 2, 2012, I would have been in this country for 12 years and that's a long time. It's one cycle of the Chinese calendar. I went from a dragon year to another dragon year. You can't help thinking what you have done (achieved) in that span of 12 years and the state of where you are now. I have had the opportunity to do quite a lot (according to me) in my 12 years here. Some of the major accomplishment are that I learn 2 new languages and I crossed many things in my life list. Then of course I also see the things that I haven't done, especially compared to my peers, those friends back from schools. As much as I am missing stuff, like the husband and the kids, I realize that I wouldn't have done all the things that I managed to do like the travelling if I have had them. So in a way, it's the give and take in your life, the one that perhaps God realizes more suited for me, hence certain things fall the way it falls. Then comes the ultimate question of, are you happy? Doesn't happily ever after come on a day to day basis? Well today, yesterday, and the weeks, and the months before, I haven't been pretty happy in life :( This leads to the argument people make, then change your life, get away from the things that make you unhappy or do not make you happy and just be happy. Do note that a thing may not bring you happiness but it does not necessarily make you unhappy, get it? Something can just make you feel nothing, it doesn't bring you happiness. Something can make you unhappy, it just sucks. Writing that, now I am thinking how best to describe how I feel. I guess things don't bring me happiness, hence I feel nothing and over prolong exposure of this feeling nothing, I start to feel unhappy because I feel life shouldn't be like this, I feel like my life can be filled with more things, meaningful things.

So with that, certain things seem to be clear regarding to the decision that I have to make this weekend. However, then it turns out there's 1 thing that makes this decision not as easy as I thought it would be. The more time I have to think about this over and over, the more I have a hard time to choose A over B. This is despite of my cousin, Marlisa, having written really nice, logical, encouraging words of advice. It struck me as very disappointing that it is not easy for me, that despite of the obvious unhappiness that I feel, I was willing to sacrifice my happiness for something else which people throughout history have said does not bring happiness. Of course perhaps there's the additional reason that I'm just being a chicken, scared of the change. I told my mom that I may have the courage to travel somewhere alone, but certain things just scare me a lot. There is the right decision and I know what that is and I cannot believe my soul is having a hard time to do what is right. Then there's the rationalization that perhaps it's not a decision to be made now, that it's not the time yet. I don't know about this because I prayed and God gives me this decision to make. I feel God is asking me, what is important Eka? Again, I am rather embarrassed that the answer is not an easy one. I feel very very torn. Right now, I feel like I'm tilting to the wrong side. I do not know what will happen to me if I decide on the wrong one. I wonder what kind of consequences from God that I have to endure later in the future, though I believe regardless of what happen God will never abandon me. I am scared. However, feeling scared means that you're doubting that God has your back. I believe the phrase, If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it. I also believe following in what God lays for you can only lead you to wonderful things. So this inclination to this dark side make me feel even more guilty. I do not know if I will have clarity on this. I don't think this is something that I can ask God to make clear for me, I feel this is the time when God asks me what is the right thing Eka? This is something that I have to choose on my own :(

Okay, so that's my weekend dilemma. On my boring life, as usual I went to the cinema. The last 2 movies I watched was What to Expect When You're Expecting and Snow White & the Huntsman. I thought What to Expect When You're Expecting was boring, this is despite of Chris Rock is in it and the handsome Rodrigo Santoro who drew me to the cinema. I didn't like Snow White & the Huntsman much as well. I thought the story was not so good. Despite of the handsome guy, Snow White is paired with the huntsman, that's just awful. I did like the forest scene though because it was beautiful. Reviews have been talking about how good Charlize Theron in it. Everytime I saw her, I kinda see Katherine Heigl. I think they really look alike. Even when I first saw the trailer for Prometheus, I thought it was Katherine Heigl.

On a more interesting thing, I've been listening to Nina Zilli's albums and they're great. I kinda love her now. I have also finished 2 books since March. I finished Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk by Ahmad Tohari, a book my dear friends back home got me for my birthday. The book which inspired the Indonesian movie, Sang Penari. I love the book so much perhaps because I haven't read any Indonesian book for a long long time. I just love reading the whole Indonesian words and being reminded of the vocabulary of the language. I love the narrative and the descriptive of the book, which I found to be very beautiful when the writer was describing a scene. The story didn't end quite happily but I am pretty satisfied with it, more satisfied than the ending of the movie. I hope to read more Indonesian books in the future, I think I should get one everytime I go home. After that I read Plum Spooky, a book Ms. J got me for my birthday as well. I finished this book faster, I think because of the bigger font size. After finishing it, I realize how I love this whole reading thing. It was a habit which I did a lot when I was young and which I abandoned in my teenager days. So last week after class, I decided to go to Kinokuniya to get a new book. The things I love from these 2 books is how the stories move, so I was looking for something like that instead of my usual style of picking a book in which I wanted something meaningful. Going around, I kinda stumbled into The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and I decided it should be my next book. Still, I hesitated and I walked around and decided that perhaps I should settle on a more "meaningful" one, Sophie's World. This was a book that I never managed to start when Gaby had it during our NUS days, so I thought I should really read it now. I took the book, went back to the shelf where The Night Circus was located just to see it one last time and at the last minute I thought, no, I'm gonna choose The Night Circus instead. Perhaps because it seemed less serious than Sophie's World, it seemed more fun, the black cover looked chic, and the title has the word circus in it. Dad loves the circus (I think). In my younger days, we have gone to the circus, because dad brought us there, I think because he wanted to see it. I didn't even know where we were, what we were doing until the show started and it was something that I was glad to have experienced in my childhood. I went to those traditional circuses (plural for circus is circuses?), when the last performance was the animal show with the lions and tigers. They would put up cages around the ring to protect the audiences. These days with the whole animal rights thing, this kinda circus is kinda frowned upon (I think). Well I do think animals are better off in their own habitat, but still I am glad to have such experience in life. Anyways, the book is amazing and I love it so much!!! I reach the state where I do want to read the pages more and more because I want to know where all these pieces lead into and at the same time (like how I feel with Harry Potter books), I want to slow down so that this book will last longer for me. I've reached more than 100 pages since last week. It's really really good and I can see it as a movie. In fact, when I read it, I play the scene in my head. This book is written like jigsaw pieces which are going to come together and make sense, I hope :) I love how this book is structured as well, with short sections which allow me to pause and continue rather easily. So with this new found love with books and stories, I feel like setting a goal to complete 5 books this year. This is my 3rd one and we're in the middle of the year, so I think it's rather possible to reach 5 before 2013. Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk has an orange cover (I removed the cover that shows the film characters because I thought it's rather embarrassing when people see me read a book with a couple on it in the train), Plum Spooky has a blue-purple cover, The Night Circus has a black cover, so I think following the theme, my next book should have a strong color theme in the cover. We'll see :) Okay, that's pretty much it with life peeps. I wish I will be able to sleep because I haven't really :( Take care! Hope your days are more glorious than mine :)

:) eKa @ 10:11:00 PM •