Thursday, July 22, 2021
Hey guys, how have your covid-filled days been? Don't want to talk about it? I get you. Something scary happened to my family and even I, I'm not ready to talk about it. I don't know if I will be. The only good news is I've gotten my second dose of the vaccine though it's not that official yet in the eye of the government, since here in Singapore you're only acknowledged as really done 2 weeks after your second dose. It is rather strange for me seeing the different rules being applied in different countries. I watched Stephen Colbert and when he went back to his theatre with live audiences, it's just so unthinkable that it's full capacity and people are not wearing masks. Here in Singapore, I don't know what metrics need to be achieved to let go of the masks. We just started another stricter restriction today that will last for around 1 month due to new clusters forming and rising cases. The number of new cases may not cause other countries or cities to be that alarmed but here in Singapore, well we lose dining-in privilege. I guess I should be thankful that cinemas can still be open though you can't have your popcorn. On the opposite spectrum of strictness, there's Indonesia who's doing a piss-poor job in enforcing restriction I have to say. The number of cases and deaths make people like me pissed and yet the so called restriction, whose implementation is questionable, will only be extended for 1 week and then we'll wait and see. I wonder if the government are like just looking at numbers instead of all the heartbreaking suffering. Because if you look at the number, Indonesia is actually not in the top 10 countries with the most covid cases and deaths and in terms of percentage of the population, there's only about 1% of the population who got covid and if you compare this number to the US for example, there's around 10% of the population who got covid there. So maybe that's why the Indonesian government still say things are under control?
I am in favor of more restriction with stricter enforcement in Indonesia but hearing how the lower income people are losing their livelihood due to the restriction, well maybe I am quite disconnected with how life is in Indonesia or Jakarta where I'm from. I don't know how things are going to unfold in Indonesia. Will there be herd immunity? That will be good, but what if as some people fear, there's a new mutation that causes the virus to be more contagious and deadlier? *sigh* Who knew it will be this long and I don't want to think this way but if it can be this long, who to say that this time next year we're not still in it?
I'm sorry guys if all this sounds so negative *sigh* As usual, I haven't been doing anything interesting. I did somehow got it in my head to use Adobe Fresco to try watercolour painting. Okay, I can't recall if I wanted to try watercolour painting in Adobe Fresco or I just wanted to try watercolour painting and remembered that I have Adobe Fresco and so to try it there first. All and all, I watched and watched YouTube videos of people doing watercolour painting of flowers and it looks really nice and yet when I tried in Adobe Fresco, I failed and failed. These 2 are the ones that are kinda somewhat decent after many attempts and I have yet to learn how to do any flower properly. I don't know if I would fare any better doing watercolour with actual brush, probably not.
:) eKa @ 9:09:00 PM • 0 comments
Friday, June 18, 2021
I finally finished reading the first book this year, The Topeka School by Ben Lerner. I found this book too smart for me, like I'm not adequately smart enough to understand it :( The story didn't fit what I expected when I read the book jacket. It tells the story of a guy whose parents are two psychologists. The guy is a champion debater in high school and a lot of the passages talk about debate and its strategies and how the strategies are also employed by politicians these days. He and his parents have alternating chapters. The parents being that they are psychologists also talk about smart things in their chapters. It made me think of how different life is if your parents are highly educated and live in a white collar world. It made me realize that it's not something that I can relate with. Along with the chapters of these 3 different view points, there are also short chapters of the guy's childhood friend who's like an outcast but then suddenly was included in their high school group, but it didn't work out in a really bad way and the last we see of this "friend", he was a Trump-er. Yes, the story is quite contemporary. It's one of Obama's favourite book in 2019 and that kinda makes me think even more that I'm not smart enough for this book. I can't say I enjoy it much. Maybe if I have read it in another circumstances when my life is not in disarray and my mind is not all over the place, then maybe I could have liked it more, or maybe no matter what, I'm really not that smart. So that's book 1. I'm pretty sure we're not gonna reach 5 books this year. It'll be good if I can complete 3. Next, I think I want to read Ann Patchett's The Dutch House.
So life, how has yours been going? To say that my life is going bad is utterly ungrateful, so I'll say it's not ideal. The last time I wrote, I wrote about my new living situation which I just want to say is actually going bad. A lot of people will say it's not so bad, but it's bad for me and here I am, I have to last. There are other things that are not going well either. Health wise, one part seems to be better but I'm not sure, but even if that part is going well, there's another thing that's torturing me and I have yet to go to the doctor since I couldn't find the time, so I just have to endure :( The only good thing is perhaps I finally got vaccinated. Only first dose so far, didn't feel feverish but the soreness was immediate within 5 minutes for me. If I think about how things are not going as I want them to be, I'll get very depressed. My mom keeps telling me that I need to change, that I need to deal with things not going my way, that I can't have things go the way I want them to be, that everyone can't be fitting into what I want. She annoys me so much when she says this, but today I realize that I perhaps have issues with this. I'm not saying that I will try to find a way to bend. In fact I think I'm inherently unable to bend or the nicer word some annoying people like to use, be flexible. The issue with this way of thinking is that most of the time, there's only one outcome for me and that is to get out. Thoughts like this really depress me because what am I going to do. I feel so directionless in life and writing and admitting that is really embarrassing but it is what I feel. Too much turnmoil in me :( As such, I do hope that your days are glorious, sincerely :)
:) eKa @ 9:38:00 PM • 0 comments
Sunday, May 02, 2021
When I watched Nomadland, I didn't feel much about the slow moving movie. Mom called me in the middle of me watching it and I talked to her about the premise of the movie. It's not my favourite in this year's Oscar (I'm leaning towards Minari maybe because as Asian, we get it more?), but Nomadland came to my mind a lot as I am undergoing a big change these past 2 weeks. As written in the last post, this April brings with it a feeling of melancholic reflection. Like last year, aside of what happened with my dad, COVID-19 brought a set of tasks that can be quite demanding. This year, in addition to all that, in the last 2 weeks I had to find a new place to stay and move out. The reason why I moved out would be silly for some people, a non-issue, but for me and Jenny 2.0, we're just on 2 opposite sides. I was surprised that my mom didn't reprimand me whenever I complained. She also didn't say I was being overly dramatic when I said I felt like moving out. She was instead very supportive and tried to calm me down and told me to move on if I didn't feel comfortable anymore. She did say to say sorry to Jenny 2.0 on my way out - very typical Indonesian requirement. However I couldn't bring myself to it. I did manage to say thank you for everything and take care. I think I lived with the first Jenny for 8 years or so and I lived with Jenny 2.0 for over 8 years. So maybe every 8 years I am destined to move? Anyways, it was a long time to live with Jenny 2.0 and as I was exiting, there are things that she did that make me feel like wow ... in a negative way. My mom told me to let it go whaveter it is, some people may need more things than us, also mom said she did good things to me as well and I shouldn't forget that. Another person may tell me that's because I don't give enough so there will be times when things will be taken from me. This time last year, I have to let go things that I felt was done unkindly to me, so this year it's the same. I hope it will be better days next year.
Anyways, new place. I was really stressed out about moving out and I wanted it to be quick. I was so stressed out that my body did something strange and I'm so confused. It's like the 1-2 week stress that I had was like a month for my body. I hope it's nothing because if not I have another major issue on hand :( I really cannot survive this all without my mom. She was calm and told me to calm down and deal with things one step at a time. This new place has good sides and bad sides but the usual me, I am seeing more of the bad side. The one big difference and as mom told me yesterday is that, for the past 2 living situations I was living with someone. Now I am in charge of my own things. There's a landlord and landlady, but they don't live here. So mom thinks this is a new thing for me, like a new phase of life. For someone who hate housework, it seems I have to do more cleaning and that makes me think of one of my cousin who cleans and cooks and how great it will be if she's living here so that she can clean for me :D There are more things in my room like a small fridge and an induction cooker (I don't cook), but it's a more noisy area. There seems to be a lot more things going on in the neighbourhood.
Put it simply, it's like I'm living in a super small modest studio. That's why my mind goes to Nomadland a lot. In Nomadland, the main character, Fern, decided to live simply in her van and find works in different places in America like many other actual nomads (who are also featured in the movie). To facilitate this move out, I actually shipped a cupboard size of things back home and yet I was stunned I still have so many junks that I lug with me. I thought of Fern and the other nomads in the movie who choose to live the nomadic life. You really have to have the mindset of letting go a lot of earthly possessions. Is it sad? I kinda feel so more on the part that they don't have a single stationary place to live in, but it is perhaps what they are actually looking for. At the same time I also find it amazing that they're able to do this. It is so liberating. So where I am right now, I'm not living in a car. I live in place which is not the nicest thing you see, but there's a place for me to be safe and all this I do on my own. So I should just give myself a pat in the back and like mom said, it's alright. I just need to give it time to get used to this and like in another movie I watched, The Mauritanian, it's not like I live and and being tortured in Guantanamo Bay. I have prayers and God will be there for me. Though I say that, I still freak out and crumble when things go bad. May God have mercy on me.
:) eKa @ 2:12:00 PM • 0 comments
Sunday, April 25, 2021
Really Not As Bad As Last Year
If you had asked me where I'd be right now last May, I would have had an optimistic answer. I thought I would have been vaccinated and I could go home to be with the family to pray for my dad's 1 year death anniversary and yet I am here with a major problem being thrown my way. I'm barely keeping it together and praise be to Mom who's there to tell me to calm down. I'm not going to talk about my issue right now, maybe I'll do it next week. What I can say right now is that I have been looking back and whatever it is I'm facing now, I know it's pale in comparison to last year when it's the worst time in our family's lives. Knowing that did not stop me from freaking out and stressing out though and my head is so all over the place that I didn't even have time to wish that I'm mentally stronger :(
Entering April, it's really a time of reflection for me. I wish I could have done it in a more peaceful way without this shitty thing that I have to deal with. It starts with April 8th. Good God, that's the worst even though obviously it's not the worst day. There's April 23rd and then tomorrow's date. I haven't done any reading on how one should process grief, I'm sure google will tell you it's different for everyone. I can still cry thinking about my dad so I tried my best not to think too deeply about it. Anything longer than a few minutes could get me crying. Don't get me wrong, me and mom have talked / gossiped about him, like his annoying traits or how he would react to certain family news, and we're fine, we could laugh about it. It's just when I think about his dying process or memory of him, I could still cry about it. I had some tears when I went to temple today to pray and right now, just writing this, tears are starting to form. So what I do is that I try hard not to think too deeply about it. Things could appear randomly in my head and when thoughts about my dad appear in public places, like the bus or just somewhere, it's the more I have to snap out it and pull myself together. I don't know if what I'm doing is healthy, but well I have been unhealthy mentally, so this is nothing new?
President Biden said there will come a time when the thoughts of the departed loved ones will bring us smiles first before tears. I believe him when he said that and it is comforting to hear him say that. I don't always cry when I talk about my dad, but where I am now, I could easily cry when I think about him. What happened to us last year was really bad and through it all I'm really thankful that I have my family to go through it all with me. I know how weak I am mentally, how easily I crumble, so I really need someone to lean to :(
:) eKa @ 9:07:00 PM • 0 comments
Wednesday, March 31, 2021
When I buy banana, I always look for the ones in a bunch of 4 and preferably rather green because I'm the only person who will eat them and I eat them over the course of the 4 days, so it shouldn't be overly ripe by day 4. Yes, I am that sad; I eat the bananas from the state that it's hard to peel and tasteless to the point were the skin has turned giraffe like and accumulated maybe too much sugar. It's all very calculated; the group of 4 with a starting light green colour would generally give me a good range of different stages of banana, but then there were times when the supermarket stocks really green green banana that it's not that edible yet. On days like that, I got it anyway because I don't want to go back to the supermarket the next day, but then I would only start eating it the next day and to eat on the day, I got 1 single banana. These are bananas that either have somehow fallen out of the group or were turning yellow and the staff pick them apart so that they can be sold separately. It's very yellow and sometime not that pretty. The sign would say something like, pick me, I'm single! I would then illogically grow a soft sport for them on account on us being the same, alone and ripe and unwanted, left in the basket. So I'd be like, I will choose you single banana, though I am still choosy about the one I would take :D I'm also not all that generous either; when I found out that they're 65 cents a piece, I was like you're still expensive for a banana that may get thrown away (gosh I do hope they won't end up in the rubbish bin, I hope unsold ones will be given for free to the staff or other people), but then I thought, no you're right. So what that you're alone and all ripe, you're still worth your value. Yes, I am projecting way too much of myself into this single banana.
This being March is my birthday month. Turn 39 this year (what the fuck?!?!). Last year when the world was still normal and I went home for Chinese New Year, I met with the best friends and we're talking about maybe taking a short trip this year together, to celebrate the 3 of us being in our last year in the 30 range and Emilia turning 40. We never talk again to plan about it because what can you talk about. It's still not smart to do unnecessary travel though I know many people and Indonesians have done that. Also on a normal circumstances, it's not like borders are easily accesible for Indonesians, so many dreadful paperwork for visa and all. Now during the pandemic, where can we go really? Though if you are in Indonesia, apparently people are still doing domestic tourism. Anyways, birthday always gets me down on account that I'm still stuck but turning 39 feels more depressing because being stuck is not totally true, the age is climbing. Yeah age is just a number but with that age, there's no denying that physically your body is degrading and things that you really want to do maybe forever be closed for you. Looking back as I am ending my 30s, I do see that perhaps my 30s is the decade where I do not do much. Let me break it down:
0-10: I was born, learned how to read and write, arithmetic - pretty much learning how to be a functioning human. There are extreme changes from when you were born to when you're 10, so that's an accomplishment.
11-20: completed elementary school, junior high school, high school and got accepted into a university and moved to a different country. I would say that's quite a life changing moment though now looking back, it's a whole lot of education, yes? The only decade in my life when I was all in institutionalized education.
21-30: graduated from the university, started to do what most adults in the world have to do to survive (I refuse to talk about this), also started to do things that I wanted to do for myself like learning new languages and travelled alone for the first time. The travelling alone is quite life changing as well because I feel it's really building me into someone who is just capable of doing things on my own.
31-40: I have nothing here really. It's all life as usual. Not to say that it doesn't come with its life changing moment as well. Dad died. So that happened. As for things that I did or accomplished, nothing really. Nothing new, not to say the usual stuff is not great, like the travelling have been a blessing, but as accomplishment and all that, I have nothing. It feels like same old same old :(
I still have 1 more year in the 30s, so maybe a good massive thing would happen, but as with anything, I don't have a lot of confidence :( I really don't feel like going on and on like this :( Yes, I am spiralling and yes I know that I'm putting arbitrary deadlines on what should be achieved when and time is a construct, but still, as I march on and try to be okay, I'm just not that okay. I guess it doesn't help that along with the restlessness and anxiety, physically my body has been breaking down everywhere. I'm really am tired and many days I'm still not sleeping. I pray for something good, for good days unlike these ones, but here I am repeating a life I should be grateful for, but not necessarily want to do.
:) eKa @ 11:57:00 AM • 0 comments
Friday, March 12, 2021
I finished reading Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo. I'm really quite slow now in reading due to the lack of discipline. Anyways, I mentioned this book before in one the posts; it's basically a collection of stories of women, mostly of colour, in the UK. The characters are connected in one way or another though the stories pretty much stand alone. I like the book though on some of the stories, I feel like I want to learn more and yet the stories just end there. All the women in the stories have their struggles - rape, racism, patriarchy that's dismissive towards women, poverty, gender and sexuality, and plain old young adults trying to figure themelves out. I have become cynical of young adults with all their "passion and energy", I guess because I feel more and more less young.
One of the character in the story is non-binary, I think. I'm not sure. I don't think s/he's transgender and they use they as their pronoun, so non-binary? This is my issue. Brace for what's perhaps an intolerant opinion. I fully understand if you're physically born male and feel like a female and vice versa. I also get if you don't feel like male or female 100% and more like in between or feel more like a combination of both which is what I understand non-binary to be. All those are fine, but then with non-binary I do not like the pronoun "they" for them because why are you plural? You're still a single person and I get that "it" will be condescending, but whenever I read "they" to describe a single person, it's very disorienting. I know, why should they sacrifice for my benefit, but then the same argument can be made, why should people like me sacrifice for your benefit? I have to admit that I also roll my eyes at what I think is a trend of "common" people (I cannot use normal, right) who like to state what their pronoun should be on their bio. Like what?!? Why is this an issue, why does this have to be front and center? I thought we don't like label. Then I also realized it's a limitation or perhaps a feature of the English language that is limiting. You use he / she / it while in Indonesian, to describe a single third person, you just use Dia which is genderless or should we still be using Mereka for non-binary people to follow the plural they in English? Again why are you oocupying multiple spaces? But then I also think that in Indonesian, most of the time and in a formal setting you need the Mrs / Mr (Ibu / Bapak) to describe an older person or a person in higher position and then what are you gonna do with non-binary people? I just googled, apparently in English, you can use Mx and it's pronounced Mixter. So in Indonesian, what are we going to do? Bupak? Pakbu? Does it matter if the Bapak comes before the Ibu? Gosh, so many things to consider to ensure it's all politically correct.
Googling also shows me that in Indonesian Bugis culture, they have long accepted people who is of a third gender. I actually have heard of this long ago. What is a third gender? I don't know; third gender and non-binary have separate Wikipedia pages though they sound kinda the same to me. Human evolves, right. I mean it's undeniable, it's science. So if human evolves from the past to now, we're definitely evolving to the future as well. I guess to be inside that evolution and seeing it, seeing how things are being raised, discussed, coming into forms or different forms and not fully getting it, you just ... you just have thoughts. Bottom line though, regardless of what the person is, always and always try to treat them with kindness and respect and I know that is a way too easy thing to say. Like it happens to many of us, when you come across someone you don't like, well fuck kindness ;) Anyways, next I am reading The Topeka School.
On other news, mom has received her first shot of the COVID-19 vaccine, oh what a relief. In Indonesia, in the midst of things not working, some things do work. My family was like registering in many places to get a slot for the vaccine. Mom was registered in 3 different places. The day before her shot, in the morning my brother received confirmation for the shot some weeks away and then in the afternoon, they received confirmation for the shot in another place for the next day and she took that appointment. So somehow things work. I was surprised because it felt sudden. Then I was even more surprised when one my good friend, Emilia, said her mother is getting her second shot next week. So somehow things can move fast in Indonesia. That being said my cousin still hasn't gotten confirmation for her parents. Anyways, all went well for mom. She had concerns because on the day of her shot, she saw that everyone were Indonesian Chinese except for one muslim girl bringing her parents. Considering the majority of Indonesians are muslims, if the take-up rate from this demographic is low, then things will not get better. I don't know if there's vaccine hesitancy or they just think the process is a hassle, having to register here and there, and the older people do not have younger people to whom they can ask to register for them online. All and all, I hope the vaccination process in Indonesia is getting more efficient and reaching more and more people. As for me, I don't know when I'm going to get my vaccine. I thought Singapore will be fast and efficient, so it is rather strange that my mom was able to get it first, but it's all good that she did.
:) eKa @ 7:30:00 PM • 0 comments
Friday, February 12, 2021
In the time before, I wouldn't be here writing to you; but it's Chinese New Year in a different time, so here I am blogging. The last time I spent Chinese New Year alone in Singapore was in 2004. I wrote about it in this blog, apparently mom sent me a care package (aww!). This time we're living though, travelling is a costly hassle. So I'm here. Now if this is pandemic time and dad was still alive, I would perhaps approach it with more lonely sadness, but then dad died and since we haven't passed 1 year of his death, the family can't actually celebrate Chinese New Year and so in any case, this Chinese New Year is meant to be subdued. So I was just okay approaching it, but then restlessness can just hit you any time without warning. Yesterday morning I was okay and perhaps was rather looking forward to having the afternoon free, but then in the afternoon, I was just kinda sad restless. They say exercise can help you feel better, well it's not. I did a long walk to get to the mall to get fruit and lunch yesterday and I think the whole thing caused me to be annoyed because when I arrived in the mall, it was crowded. The flurry of people trying to get things done last minute was just ... gosh, I hate people. By the time I got to the supermarket, the staff was saying we needed to queue now because there's many people in the supermarket. I guess I should have counted myself lucky because when I got there, the queue was not that long and by the time I finished, it was snaking and queues to many different places where like combined together, it's hard to see where things ended. Anyways I got my stuff and since then I've just been in my room. I need to get out later though to find something to eat.
Someone asked me what I'm going to do this Chinese New Year. I was wary at the question because I thought the person would ask me to do something together out of pity to me. No such luck or perhaps luckily no - I am that anti-social. So anyways, I'm planning to watch The Godfather since I have never watched that and I have Amazon Prime Video on trial, but then they don't seem to have the 3rd one, so I don't know what I'm gonna do then. I have been trying to watch as much Prime Video as I can before the trial ends in a few days. Though it is cheap at S$2.99, I will not be moving forward with this. The selection is so so for me and I suspect some things are just not available here, like the latest This Is Us is not available here :( and I think some time ago I saw Sylvie's Love available, but not anymore. So I didn't manage to watch that. Back to This Is Us, how did Kevin manage to go from Vancouver to Seattle without identity check? There's no border control? If there is, he couldn't just use the same ID to get on his flight?
Anyways, so how did I get Amazon Prime? Well because I have gotten a new laptop. I wanted so much the same specs of my old Vaio but with better processing power and the closest I can get is an HP. Amazon US is selling it like S$500 cheaper than the HP store in Singapore and the HP store still doesn't have the stock (even now!), so to Amazon I went and they put me on prime trial. It was quite a journey seeing this laptop travel and it made me think of the many things are moving right now all over the world to get delivered. It's kinda crazy. This laptop's journey is as follows: Charleston (Tennessee), Louisville (Tennessee), Knoxville (Tennessee), Louisville (Kentucky), Dubai, Shenzhen, then finally Singapore. It made me feel bad about global warming and all. Anyways, so far the laptop is fast, but if only my old Vaio can just be filled with the latest processor and more RAM, I like it more. The old Vaio has CD drive and more USB ports and an SD card slot which I use for my Canon. The camera was also much better. This camera in this new laptop is just bad, I'm all fuzzy. The lack of USB port also means I may need to get a USB hub and I was surprised to learn those things can be quite expensive :( Then the new laptop battery doesn't last as long as I would have liked it. The only plus I guess aside from this laptop being fast is that it comes with a stylus pen which my old vaio doesn't have. Anyways, as I switched on this laptop today, I got reminded that I need to wipe my old laptop clean and dispose it in the e-waste bin, but I'm still procrastinating.
Hope you guys are doing well. I feel there is sadness when you are alone without your family, though you have technology to communicate. I think people, especially those who have their family living with them, often don't even register this can be an issue for us the lone wolves. Most times we are okay, we're functioning, but then there are times when yeah you feel the sad. I think all these years alone may have done some damage to me emotionally. To be a kite fluttering alone in the sky, it's ... it's a long way down to remember someone is still anchoring you.
Side note: talked to mom just now, it seemed most of the family are just staying put and not visiting. My aunt and uncle who live a few houses away just came and I'm glad to learn everyone are masking even for the short visit. I'm glad if everyone are being cautious and disciplined about this.
:) eKa @ 12:06:00 PM • 0 comments
Wednesday, January 27, 2021
Fresh Stale Woes In The New Year
Hey guys, how is your January going? Is it a surprise if I say mine is not good? I think most of my posts are filled with despair so I guess another post saying that things suck is on brand. What happened? Well I experienced something which I feel is unjust. It pisses me so much, still does. It doesn't happen to me alone and when I saw what happened to a particular person, the level of unfairness just broke my heart even more. Thinking of this unfairness can still rile me up. In addition to that, I found out something happened that is totally embarrrasing to me and also makes me feel like I've been backstabbed. I don't know if I'm supposed to know what was said, but I do and you know how sometime maybe you're dumb, like you know that person has done unkind things to you and yet why are you still disappointed and surprised now that the same person do these kind of things to you? I am that dumb I guess because I was pretty down when I was told. Some people can just put their interest above all. I happen to prefer people who consciously try to be kind and though I fail often, I do try to do good. So what's now. The ideal solution would be to extract myself out of this situation asap. That can be complicated and dependent on whether you find a door and God allows you to walk through it. My mom though told me to let it go, to let what happened in the past be in the past, basically she's telling me to move on in terms of dissatisfaction, anger, frustration, and profound sadness. She told me all those people who have done us wrong will get their own comeuppance. All these shitty things do make me think that perhaps this is me right now getting my bad karma too. After a conversation with my mom where I think she felt I was overly troubled by the situation and she wanted to make sure that I was okay and can let it go, I felt thankful that I still have a mother and she's like my priest :D I know me and I know I don't let go things easily and since I remember things, these things are likely to float over and over. Maybe this year is the year where I should just have to accept all the knives being thrown at me (and I foresee there will be a lot of them) and just be mentally impervious to the assaults and not waste a breath on unwinnable battles. If that is the lesson God wants me to learn, it will be a tough one :(
Okay that's that, fuck that shit. Let me tell you something that I did or still doing. I'm still reading Girl, Woman, Other which is a collection of stories about different women of colours in the UK. I like the stories, so much so that I find it unsatisifying sometimes when the stories end because I want to learn more about these people. One thing that I realize reading this book is as much as I read and watch things about people of colours, there's so much that I did not get and perhaps still may not understand about people of colours, especially the struggle of the women. I also finished watching HBO's I May Destroy You while reading the book and since the main character is a black girl in the UK, I found that there's some connecting theme with the book. Especially since there are characters in Girl, Woman, Other who have to deal with rape and sexual assault just like what the main character in I May Destroy You, Arabella, had to deal with. I May Destroy You is pretty exceptional. There are moments when it made me think of HBO's Girls in terms of the frankness of telling the viewers that these characters are just so messed up, but Girls is so light in comparison and I May Destroy You feels brave in its storytelling. In I May Destroy You, Arabella, was drugged and she was sexually assaulted but because it was such a haze, she wasn't sure what it was. Her character made me think of a girl I once knew, they both were creative and free-spirited and I really hope such things never happened to her. I May Destroy You also showed a guy being raped by a guy he met in hooking-up app and that was so uncomfortable to watch. It was maybe the first time for me seeing a gay rape. It was sad to watch the person having to process if what happened was sexual assault or not because they had had sex just some time before the assault. When he finally had the courage to report it to the police, the line of questioning was quite demoralizing. I want to say No always means NO!, but then if you said yes for the first 1 or 2 times and carried on with it and then around 30 minutes later you said no for the third act, things can get murky? Anyways, I have a lot of sympathy for people who have to deal with such a traumatic experience. I don't know if I can survive it. It's good that I May Destroy You ends on an hopeful note.
Another thing that I finished watching was Raised by Wolves. It's in HBO Max which makes me confused. Does thing in HBO Max appear in HBO? It doesn't seem so. Why does HBO have to make it so annoying for people? Now, Raised by Wolves, I have to admit, after the first episode I was like, no, this is not that interesting. Lucky for me, when I start something, I often just have to see it through, so I stayed for the second episode and then it got better and I became invested. By the end of the season, I cannot wait for the next one. I really do want to see what happens to this android mother and father who were tasked to raise human kids in a new planet after earth was destroyed by a war between the atheists and a weirdly God believing religion or cult. There's a lot of weirdness in the series and it even carries to the opening theme song which sounds rather weird but also nice at the same time and I love love the lyric of the song. Often time I would skip opening theme, but for this one I kinda listened through it all every time. Below is the beautiful lyric of the opening song:
the door that finally opens
with light flooding in
spilling out on the floor
the core that nevеr was
now it will be
the bones of what was thеre before
every step, every beat
every thought, every breath
everything is longing
pulling you from the sky
just like love will do
pulling you from the ground
just like love will do
I will make this post rather long, telling you things I did, so at least there's content :D I didn't do anything particularly special last December in the holiday season. I did go to Gardens by the Bay and visited the Floral Fantasy section for the first time. It was okay, not very big and so it didn't take a long time to explore it. All entrances were time based and when I went to the Flower Dome, there was quite a queue even with the time slot. I was thinking, gosh there's a lot of people. All and all, it was an okay visit, nothing spectacular. The only reason I did it was because I was like, you need to do something different and move a bit. For pictures from the visit you can go here.
Then this month, I also made a visit to the S.E.A. Aquarium. Gosh that place and many places in Singapore are expensive. Being that I'm not a citizen, I don't get this 100 SGD allowance given by the government to its citizens so that they can play tourist in their own country. One could argue I should just be thankful that there's often a reduced price for permanent residents which I am entitled to, but yeah I would have like some extra money to spend. These are frightening times for financial stability. I do think we must be prudent in our spending. I for one is starting the year worse off financially :'( Yeah, I have much to complain *sigh* Anyways so I had to pay 32 SGD for S.E.A. Aquarium and it included a snack voucher which I exchanged for a cookie and a 5-dollar retail voucher which I used to buy a small magnet that cost 8 SGD originally. The price is an abomination I have to say. I mean for 8 dollars, you can get two simple but decent meals. It's just too expensive. Anyways, the aquarium was quite empty, so it's a pretty nice visit. I still don't take good pictures. For pictures from the visit you can go here.
:) eKa @ 9:26:00 PM • 0 comments
Wednesday, December 16, 2020
When do you think your mental faculty peak? We hear the joke or people saying things like I'm getting old, so and so are difficult for me now. I wonder if I am in that age where I am starting to go downhill. There are things that make me question what's going on with myself. There were times when I felt I wasn't as articulate as I should have been, like the things coming out of my mouth didn't make much sense. Then Japanese class often brings me down afterwards. I have no doubt that I'm kinda the worst in class now. Last week my classmates completed fill-in-the-blank questions so fast, while I struggled in understanding the sentences. I wondered if the sensei was worried with me not understanding things. I also made mistakes on homeworks which everyone agree were too easy. It is embarrassing *sigh* There are reasons why I'm not doing as good as perhaps as I should be. One is the fact that I'm not putting much effort. I'm not reviewing grammar, not making an effort in memorizing words, and most importantly not making any effort at all in memorizing kanji :( The logical me would say that is the only reason I suck full stop, but I guess I like to put blame on other things, like the fact that I haven't been sleeping since the longest time. Growing up, I never struggled academically, so not being able to get things easily is always frustrating. God needs me to understand this struggle I guess.
Recently I also wondered about my mental faculty when I was finishing reading The Nickel Boys. The epilogue came with a twist which kinda bothered me because I didn't see it coming even though in the page before it, the text told what happened. I was thinking, didn't I understand the sentence? Were I not able to visualize the scene? I guess I just feel that I'm not as sharp as I would like me to be. I'm just not 100% on all fronts. It could be because of me myself not putting the effort to just focus or a combination of things like being down all the time, the lack of sleep, and well everything. Anyways The Nickel Boys is a good read. You can finish it in a week, but the not-disciplined me took so much longer :( It tells the story about a boy who had to go through an abusive reform school. The boy was African American and so in addition to the standard abuse everyone was getting, the black students also had to deal with discrimination and their lives were significantly worse. It's uncomfortable reading about the injustice and abuse. The boy had a future to look forward to before a mistake put him in the school. He admired Martin Luther King, Jr. and hold on to his words, but after all that happened to him in the school, he and me too, struggle in committing to what Martin Luther King, Jr. said about having love for the people who do us wrong. I know God wants me to be better, but I am weak.
So this year, due to the lack of discipline, I didn't really read a lot. The list is as follows:
- There There - Tommy Orange
- The Water Dancer - Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Do Not Say We Have Nothing - Madeleine Thien
- Rules for Visiting - Jessica Francis Kane
- The Nickel Boys - Colson Whitehead
:) eKa @ 8:54:00 PM • 0 comments
Friday, November 06, 2020
"Do you have any friend?", it's like a sensitive question to people who don't have friend, me included :D Many of you will be like, of course I have and will start listing who and who. I'm not sceptical of your life. I don't know you, maybe you do have many friends, but the sceptical me just have to say, how many are really your friends though? In my adult life in Singapore, I have had people that I used to call friends drift away and now we're like strangers. Maybe they drifted away, maybe I drifted away and they didn't come closer when I did that because I would admit I did do that. I stopped contacting people to see if they would contact me and they didn't. It is hard to swallow when you realize that you are not that important in someone's lives, that you're like bottom on their list, but then one day I heard Wendy Williams said that she always believes friends come with a reason and a season. She's like saying, so don't fret too much about it. Sometimes I wonder if it would be different if I lived in Jakarta. Would Indonesians friends be different? My oldest and still friend friends are all in Jakarta and somewhere there's photo evidence to show we've known each other since kindergarten, though I don't have any re-collection of that :D
Some would counter there are Indonesians in Singapore too, but I think if we, Indonesians, want to be honest, we know that sometimes somehow being here in Singapore, some Indonesians are kinda shedding their Indonesian-ness and just be more, well less Indonesians, the nice caring Indonesians we are expected to be. Am I saying Singaporeans aren't as nice? I don't know. After 20 years, I still don't know. You can't paint people in broad strokes, every person is different and when it comes to me here, there are different factors at play. I don't know if they are not as nice or it's because I'm not part of them and I come from a country that's not top on their admiration list that I always feel like I'm on the outside. That being said it could also be that I'm just a flawed human being that I'm unable to have deep friendship here. It could be me, not them :D
Anyways, what's with the strange opening to this post? Well I finished reading Rules for Visiting by Jessica Francis Kane. It tells a story of a single 40-something lady (side note: my God, reading that, it's ominous to me, is it gonna be me?!?!) who's like doing life just like what I have been doing, which sadly I can only describe as surviving. Literally it's like all we do is just to make us alive to go another day not knowing what that next day is for :( In her life, she doesn't hang out with friends. She basically just follows a pretty much unchanging routine day in day out. Exactly like me. Well at least she lives with her father, who is family, at least she has that. She's not socially awkward or anything. It's just for some people which I can understand fully, it's like after you are done with the public life required of you, all you want to do is just be alone and when you follow that routine year after year, you end up with not many people around. Is it unhealthy? Perhaps. Anyways so the lady in the book has a lot leave time from work and as she's looking into her life which is pretty empty, she decided to go visit 4 people who do not live in her city who she considers friends and the book is basically about her self-discovery through the visits. In all the visits, she stays in the friend's house. Er ... that is something that I will not do, but I guess if you want that quality time with friends and see how your friends actually live, you should do that. It's not a thick book and very light in content. It even has a happy ending, like it seems she ended up with a boyfriend. There's not much enlightenment in it, but I actually enjoy reading it very much. There's comfort reading this book. Anyways, the lady is a gardener and the story is interspersed with short articles about trees and that kinda reminded me of The Overstory. The dad of the lady has been giving different tree sheets to her, suggesting the type of tree to be planted for him when he dies. It's nice I think, to have a tree to memorialize you. So anyways, I am currently reading the winner of this year Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, The Nickel Boys.
On other news, the American election. I'm not gonna lie, I was scared that first day immediately after the election, well it's day for us in Asia when it's night for them. I'm feeling much better now. Trump is not winning this. Still, there is still that fact that there are over 60 million Americans who still voted for Trump despite of all that he did or didn't do and that is, that is un-understandable. Don't get me wrong, Trump getting votes was expected, but to receive this much. At the current tally, he's receiving around 47% of all the votes currently counted. It's like, what?!?! WHAT?!?! You guys are okay with this, with what's happening in your country, with you losing respect in the world? I mean if you discount all the news and just make your decision solely based on what he had said, his own words, like in one of his last campaign rallies he said doctors are making more money by declaring the patient's cause of death as from covid-19 - you can still be okay with this?!?!? I do not understand. Seriously I think the rest of the world had some sympathy for America before this election but now seeing so many Americans still voted for him, well at least me, I don't understand. There is a wrong answer here and many Americans chose wrong.
Indonesia has had its polarizing elections in recent years with incompetent candidates and in one of my post about it, I wrote about the voters who chose the wrong candidate:
They already have the most representation everywhere. They don't get hassled as much as the minority. They never experience being targeted simply for being the minority. So why on earth these people still feel like they're being victimized, that they haven't been treated fairly? What's with the anger and all the aggression? Are they just plain selfish, mean, and bad to the core?As an Indonesian, I know how it feels like to still feel disappointed even though the right candidate won. You hope most of the country would resoundingly dennounce all the bad, racist, fear-mongering politicking that happened and when that didn't happen, that when a lot of people actually endorse it, it feels so heartbreaking. In The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, there's a discussion if democracy is a good system. One of the aristocrats in the book did not think so because everyone has a vote and he did not think that your common people can make the right choice as a person who's fully educated or understand the issue at stake can. I thought that that opinion is condescending, but Jakarta has a bad governor now because the majority chose wrong and I do think many of the people who voted for the current governor were misled, did not get the correct information, and basically not educated enough at the time of the election. That being said I still think democracy is a precious system, I don't want my vote to be taken away from me. I'm glad Indonesia has free elections. It has its issues, but generally Indonesians can vote without much issue and the process is pretty great, voter registration seems to be simpler than the one in America. Voting day discount is even pretty instituionalized now :D Still there are real challenges to democracy and I think for every democracy everywhere, the main challenge is voters education on the issues so that they can choose the right party or candidate. As citizens, we really do need to stay engaged with what's happening in our country. We need to watch how party or people govern and educate ourselves. I say that but I know it may still not work because there are people who get their news only from their own preferred channels and when that channels are questionable, then they're just misguided. It's an issue in America, it's an issue in Indonesia, but for all of us who love our democracy, we don't want it changed for anything else.
:) eKa @ 9:51:00 PM • 0 comments
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