Thursday, January 20, 2022

Book 0 - A Gentleman in Moscow

I finished reading A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. I took way too long. It's a great book actually and I like it a lot. There will be a lot of spoilers in this post, so stop reading if you want to read the book which I am totally recommending. I myself got to read this book because it was on Obama's book list. Anyways, A Gentleman in Moscow tells a story of a Russian Count who was put under a hotel arrest. The reason of his arrest is hard to be reasoned with. Let's just say that at that time Russia was undergoing revolution (side note: I don't have any Russian history knowledge at all) and aristocrats were being wiped out. When the Count was sentenced, there's no end date on when he could get out, so he practically had to spend his entire life in the hotel. He moved from his spacious and luxurious suite to a small room in the attic. The count began his sentence at the age of 33, but thankfully he had experienced a bit of life before his arrest. One would think that being confined to a luxury hotel and having money during it would not be so bad, definitely not as bad as the Russians who were sent to the gulag, however as you see other people going about their lives and you stay stuck, well you can imagine that it will bring one spirits down. On his lowest moment something happened, something that I can only describe as God still having things to show and amuse him, and that caused him to literally walk away from the ledge and find a new way of living.

Another life-changing moment for the Count was when a woman who he knew as a child in the hotel entrusted him with her daughter. This part of the story had its sad moment for me (who tend to look at the downside of things). The girl's mom was never mentioned again and we don't know what happened to her parents. The Count, however, ended up having a fulfilling life as a father to this child and as he said, it made the whole experience of being confined to the hotel meaningful and he wouldn't change it for anything. While he was able to come to terms with his life, he didn't want the girl to live a restricted life and he seized an opportunity to give the girl freedom away from Russia. Without the girl, he also realized that it's time for him to leave the hotel and he also plotted his escape. He spent 32 years in the hotel by the time he left. That's a long time for someome to have their life be constricted. In the end though and this is something that I could relate with, despite "Russia" unfairly taking away his life and the lives of many people he knew, he decided to stay in Russia. There is this illogical love for country that I get, because I feel that. There's always question if Indonesia loves all her people equally for example people with my background, but at the end of the day I am still choosing to be Indonesian.

:) eKa @ 8:26:00 PM • 0 comments

Friday, January 14, 2022

One Year At A time

I'm not one who likes or really applies the phrase one day at a time. I have way too much anxiety and in general I seem to just steer away anything remotely close to self-help. It's like one day at a time, okay so you get through today, but then tomorrow you have to deal with this same old shit all over again, what the fuck?!? I say that knowing full well that sometimes what else can you do, you just need to get through and hope that things will somehow get better. I'm not a fan of the phrase and yet ending last year and starting this year, I found myself thinking one year at a time. I will just do and see how this year will be and then take it from there, whenever and wherever there will be. The thought was brought on by the fact that I ended last year with another change and I guess I need to let that change plays out, hopefully at least a year. To say 2021 was bad would be incorrect. Nobody close to me died in 2021. I lost my dad in 2020 and nothing topped that magnitude in 2021. When I prayed to God at the end of last year, I realized yes shitty things have happened (many may be brought by my own doings though the stubborn me will say there's no other way it could go), but I think mentally I just faired pretty badly reacting to all the shitty things and I said sorry to God about that. It also brought a realization that when you have to deal with things alone, it is perhaps somewhat expected that at times you will not be your best self. It's not always easy being alone, especially being in your mind all the time alone. In 2020, the most difficult things I had to do were done with my mom and brother and so I came out of it pretty much okay. In 2021, the things that I had to go through were perhaps not so hard but Lord, the way I went through them, I would describe it as a child having to do something she doesn't want to do, so the child did it kicking, screaming, and crying. That's pretty much me.

I ended 2021 moving to a new place. So I moved twice in 2021! Again I couldn't see any other way. There were just many things that made me miserable and I believe physically unhealthy in the previous place that I had been looking and looking for a way out. A way out did come, but it was way way more expensive. Only by mom's prodding that I took the exit. I'm worried about the money (still worried), perhaps kinda illogically (how much money do you really need, really?) and she was like as long as you can still make money, you have room to move (I guess that applies figuratively and literally). Talking about money, there's something that pissed me off when I left the old place and let me just say that if ever I get to be rich, I hope I won't be an ass. That kinda ties to a TV series that I am currently watching, Dopesick, which is about the opioid epidemic in the U.S. I couldn't recall how the opioid epidemic came to my consciousness, maybe a bit of John Oliver or Hasan Minhaj, maybe I heard Trump was going to do something about it (but what did he do actually?). I heard of it but I didn't know much and this TV series so far has been pretty good in illuminating though I have questions, like do people who take OxyContin will definitely get addicted? Are there people who took it and are totally fine? Also how do you detox or rid yourself of opiod addiction? Anyways tying it back to the money part, one of the character featured is Richard Sackler who as Wikipedia pointed is a billionaire; he was heavily involved in the development and push of OxyContin and he really pushed. He was aiming for world domination. I haven't finished the series, so I don't know if his drive would be depicted more and is more nuanced. There are parts that show him trying to convince people that his drive is just to relieve pain in people in a way that made me wonder if he believed it himself, but I think for the most part, he's just driven by wanting to build a legacy in his name, beating people who doubted him, at any cost. In front of his family members who have shares in Purdue Pharma (who made OxyContin), he definitely convinced them of his plan by showing how much money they could make. Money seems to drive the whole family and it's like you guys are already so freaking rich, why do you need more. Their extended family seems so dysfunctional. The way they and the other bosses and some sales staff in Purdue Pharma closed their eyes and even doubled down by creating pills with higher and higher dosage even though they heard how the medication was being abused just because the money were rolling in, it is all just so despicable.

Anyways, back to me. Another change in life is that I now have nothing to do on Saturdays. Japanese class ended last week and I knew I would be at a lost but somehow last week I didn't feel overly sad. I think I will be losing my mind maybe in a few weeks. There were times when I thought I had too much homework but I think the routine, the going out for class, is actually good for me and I miss it already. I spent 7 years with the same sensei which is unusual I have to say. In all my times learning other languages, I never had the same teacher from beginning to end. That is 7 years of commitment, of going to class every Saturday morning, of doing every homework (which I pretty much did). Not everyone could do that, but amazingly aside from me there were also 3 other classmates who had been there from day 1. It's pretty unusual. When the classmates were asked what they're going to do next, a few said they would pick up another language. That is not something that I will do because I think 5 is enough? I don't have enough brain space and I pretty much only fluent in 2, so perhaps I need to practice on the rests. I am planning to take the JLPT (Japanese-Language Proficiency Test) exam. Of all the classmates, only me and another lady have never took the exam, even one. The sensei seemed to think I should do N2 but I am so bad at Kanji and I don't think anyone really noticed how bad I am at it. How do you suppose to answer questions when you couldn't even read the questions :( I am aiming to do N3, but I start to feel that the crazy delusional part of me thinks that I could actually do N2. The test will be in July, but I have to decide which one to take in March. I could take N3 in July and if that goes well, do N2 in December. However it will be even better if I just torture myself one time. The plan is to self-study, but the lack of discipline and willpower is worrying me. We are already in the middle of January and I haven't even started. Finger crossed that I actually would do it.

:) eKa @ 10:39:00 PM • 0 comments