Confession of A Binge-Watcher Who Hasn’t Quit Binge Watching (and oh my god this title is so long)

Binge watching is so bad. Even Mark Manson says in his book, that it’s the Big Mac for your heart and your brain. It tastes good going down, but in reality is nothing more than empty calories that make you emotionally fat and bloated. (umm, he actually doesn’t say it regarding binge-watching tho, but i like that statement and i think it’s still related so i’m just gonna put it there.)

Binge watching is so bad. “I shouldn't keep doing this because this is gonna mess my bedtime and my health in a long run.” will pops out in my head, many times. Yet after deciding for no logical reason to re-watch the whole seasons of Narcos for the 3rd times, i’ll end up sleeping at 4am then waking up in a great anxiety and feeling lost track of time.

Binge watching is so bad. It’s like voluntarily jumping into a river with a waterfall in the end. I know i’m gonna have to swim against the flow, but i still do it anyway. It consumes all of my energy and my time. In the end, there’s only regret and me promising to myself that i’ll quit (well, after 12 episodes of Young Sheldon.)

I’m sorry self, but we still have a lot to watch.

the children

If you've never heard a website called Top Documentary Films, you must check them out like right now! I spent a huge amount of my time watching docs from that website. Fuck the rom-com, the thriller, the drama, these are real stuff. They always got me in tears. And sometimes ago i watched War/Dance and Invisible Child. I'm lost for words to tell you how they made me feel. Absurd. They creeped my soul away.

Children have the right to grow up in an environment in which they are enabled to reach their full potential in life. And it’s the duty of parents, other caregivers and family members, communities, civil society and governments to ensure that these rights are respected, protected and fulfilled.

Meanwhile the armed conflict has affected the lives of millions of civilians around the world. And children are the most vulnerable one during the conflict. Millions of children are injured, homeless, lost education, or orphaned by war. They may be refugees, internally displaced or migrants.

In war-ravaged lands where schools have been closed, fields destroyed, and relatives arrested or killed, many children voluntary and involuntary becoming a child soldier, forced labor and trafficking for sexual slavery. Those options are more attractive alternative than staying home alone and afraid. Furthermore, they earn money by being a soldier, labour, etc. Those child become the way they are simply to survive.

They are children; no matter where they come from, whoever they are, and without exception.

They do not bear any responsibility for the bombs and bullets, the violence, or the country’s politic situation. But they are, however, always the first to be affected by war and conflict. This needs to stop. 

It’s not their responsibility; it’s us that made it happen in the first place.

Children have enormous energy, high curiosity, a great willingness to learn and an innate sense of justice. Given the opportunity, children are the doctors, teachers, inventors and leaders of tomorrow. It wasn’t without a reason why children are called the world’s future.

If only they have the chance to learn and grow, and to develop their potential, they can be a source of stability and economic progress. Girls and boys should be encouraged and supported to speak up for children's rights and to take an active role in their own protection against abuse, violence, exploitation and discrimination. 

The children are willing to be exploited and not being in school, because the school doesn't give them money. So instead of lecturing them about biology, mathematics, physics, etc which i think is important, but less suitable to their situation, i think it will be better if we offer the children something else like, SPORT! (also really inspired by Invictus, how a diverse country can be united in the name of sport), music, art, etc to improve their soft-skill. Or also vocational trainings like sewing, carpentry, etc so they can earn money from that.

Children are the ones who are very vital for deciding how the world is going to be after some years. So if one can do some good in the life of a child then there can be change, at least a slightest change, in the world to come. And if more people have the same awareness and the same vision about this then we can hope of a better future ahead.

Ps : Dear position paper, working paper, and draft resolution, i love u all :)

Indonesia Merdeka Hari Senin

*this post is written in Bahasa* 

Suatu pagi yang cerah di SDN Inpres Moilung, Sulawesi Tengah. Seorang Bu Guru sedang mengajar di kelas 5b, lalu bertanya kepada murid-muridnya. 

"Anak-anak, siapa yang tau kapan Indonesia merdeka?" 

"Aku tau!" 

"Ya, Ani. Apa jawabannya?" 

"Indonesia merdeka hari Senin, Bu!" 

"Kenapa hari Senin?" 

"Soalnya tiap hari Senin ada upacara bendera, Bu." 

Hening sesaat, 
"Ada yang punya jawaban lain?" tanya Bu Guru 

Seisi kelas menggeleng.

Cerita diatas merupakan cerita nyata, yang saya baca disini, dan kemudian dengan sesuka hatinya dielaborasi dan diberi sedikit bumbu oleh nalar dan imajinasi. Termotivasi mtuk menuliskannya disini karena satu dan banyak hal. Dari kegaduhan mengenai status kewarganegaraan menjelang tujubelasan, isu sekolah full-day, carut marut bakal calon gubernur di ibu kota, kemenangan Indonesia di partai final ganda campuran, sidang kopi Vietnam yang sungguh mengundang gelak tawa, dan yang teristimewa headline salah satu surat kabar nasional pada tanggal tujubelas yang berbunyi "Kaum Muda Merdeka Berkarya"

Duh, kalau-kalau ada yang peduli. Baru-baru ini saya menginjak kepala dua. Mereka-mereka yang muncul di halaman surat kabar nasional tadi itu, masih muda-muda seperti saya. (re: Ghalib Kubat, Wregas Bhanuteja, Eldwin Viriya, etc) 

Dua puluh taun saya hidup kok rasa-rasanya belum pernah melakukan sesuatu yang bermanfaat bagi nusa dan bangsa.

Bung Tomo berumur 25 tahun saat bertempur di pertempuran 10 November.

Christina Marta Tiahahu menginjak 17 tahun saat berperang melawan koloni.

W. R. Supratman umurnya 21 tahun saat menyanyikan Indonesia Raya untuk pertama kalinya di Kongres Pemuda II.

Apa iya saya harus bergerilya puputan hingga semaput seperti begitu?

Katanya, jadi mahasiswa yang lulus tepat waktu dan tidak jadi pengangguran saja sudah meringankan beban negara kok, syukur-syukur jikalau malah membuka lapangan kerja baru. Ah tapi kok, rasanya masih saja kurang yah dibanding pemuda-pemuda di atas.

Minggu lalu saya ditampar oleh si Andrew Morgan dengan salah satu dokumenternya, The True Cost. Masih sering saya menyimpang dari jalanmu, pak Rick Ridgeway. Tak segan menunggu berbulan-bulan untuk punya merk tertentu dengan harga miring. Bantu hamba, tegur hamba, tapi jangan kau tinggalkan hamba. Inilah namanya budak-budak kapitalis. Korban-korban merk. Padahal sering cuci mata di website AOTW. Ironis. Semua iklan itu tujuannya jualan, kawan. Ya pasti ada tipu-tipunya. Kenapa sikapmu masih tak ubah jua, Bulan. Percuma saja upaya Alim Markus dan Titiek Puspa menjerit-jerit "Cintailah produk-produk Indonesiea!", masuk kuping kiri keluar kanan. Bukannya membantu, malah menambah utang negara.

Ah sial, susah kali jadi pemuda!

Awalnya ingin mencampakkan tulisan ini dengan dua bahasa biar seru, gara-garanya teman saya ada yang sedang candu main duolingo. Tapi kebetulan bulan lalu saya selesai baca buku ini dan itu. Bagus bukunya. Saya jadi semangat lagi menulis dengan Bahasa, malah jadi malas inggris.

Kalau kamu tidak semangat  membaca yang Bahasa, ya sudah tidak apa-apa. Tak ada yang paksa. Tapi kalau sudah terlanjur, ya sudah terima kasih ya. Jangan lupa mampir lagi di lain waktu.

Dan mari berharap semoga Bu Guru tidak lupa bilang pada seiisi kelas bahwa Indonesia merdeka tanggal 17 Agustus 1945. Amin

The art of being alone

Nighthawks by Edward Hopper

Call me a laggard but the truth is I just discover how to use podcast on iPhone....

and God knows how joyful I am to ever discovering this podcast and stuff.  There's a lot of superb podcast channel out there, but my current favourite is 99% Invisible. I've been listening to their podcast almost every morning during my walk to campus! I see myself as a "visual" person than an "audio" person. Among the 4 basic communication skills, listening is the most difficult one for me. So listening to podcast really helps me improving my listening skill.

Also, I kinda wonder why podcast isn't that popular in Indonesia.

Anyway, last week I listened to The guardian's podcast, who interview Olivia Laing (the author of The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone). They talked about the connection between isolation and creativity. Its such a good podcast, that inspires me to wrote this post.

And the book itself talks about how Olivia Laing explore the lonely city (re: New York) by way of art. Its so cool, how the loneliness can affect some artist's works (from Edward Hopper's Nighthawks to Andy Warhol's Time Capsules, from Henry Darger's hoarding to David Wojnarowicz's AIDS activism) and suggest we should all be a little less frightened of being alone.

From what I experienced, we live in a society where children raised to be social and make many friends. Then they grew up thinking that "alone" is associated with "shame", "anti-social" and "unwanted". As a proud introvert, its actually irritating for me being with people that fear of being alone. People needs to understand the difference between being alone and being lonely. Even one says that lonely itself have two different reasons, because the lack of intimacy with human being or because the lack of connection with like-minded person.

Agnes Martin, an American minimalist-abstract painter, once said that 

"The best things in life happen to you when you're alone."

I've read somewhere, that there is a term called "Spotlight Effect", it refers to the tendency for individuals to think that others are observing them more closely than they actually are. Based on the research, people actually aren’t paying as close of attention to your appearance and actions as you are because they are too busy paying attention to themselves. I mean like, maybe you're the only one that realise you're having a bad hair day or your shirt is the wrong size. 

So the next time you're walking the wrong direction, no need pretending to check your phone before turning around. 

Because less likely people see that.

routine

Some night rants

"I know some young sisters who spend a ridiculous amount on fake hair, to impress fake people and to feel better about themselves in a fake society" - chakabars's instagram's caption

I started using makeup as a basic routine when i was in my 2nd semester of college. I'm majoring in communication, i learned that looking neat is one of many ways to persuade people to hear what you're saying. And the last two half years i tried to convince myself that when i put my makeup on, it means i love my body so i try to look "good", not that i hate my body so i try to look "good". But slowly it gets me to the point where i'm not pleased with my bare face, and it scares me. I don't even wanna go out without putting something (or some things) on my face.

On the other side, i hate the fact that when you were born as a female, the society told you that a woman's crown is her hair. Then they manipulate the standard of beauty, the standard of the "perfect" hair. Yet, i'm not pleased with my natural hair.

Gosh, i wish i'm brave and confident.

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / 

Anyway, a few of my friends asked me about some beauty products that i used, so here you go. All of the products mostly under 200k and you can find 'em easily in the drugstore

Face

Moisturizer - The body shop shiso UV protector

CC Cream - Hadalabo CC cream (medium shade)

Powder - Revlon touch & glow extra moisturizing face powder (translucent 1)

Blush - Maybeline cheeky glow (fresh coral)

Lip

Lipbalm - Moogoo tingling honey lipbalm (its organic! yay!)

Lipstick - Revlon super lustrous lipstick (love that pink)

Eye

Unbranded lash curler

Mascara - Maybeline hyper curl volum express

Brow - Silky girl duo eyeshadow (16 mocha latte) *i'm quite fine with my brow so usually i just fill them in with the dark colour of this eyeshadow using an eyebrow brush.

severe destruction

There are bunch of pictures, and I had a hard time to pick some good ones. 
There are many things I want to say, and I had a hard time to put it in words. 
So here you go. 
Enjoy this post.

// Bogor Botanical Garden //
Thanks to Monicha & Nadeenka

a letter for my 29-year-old-self

A bunch of narcissistic pictures of me taken by Monicha

First thing first, it scares me that next year I’m going to be 20 years old. I think I’m not ready for it, but isn’t everybody the same? Last year when I turned 18 I made a letter for 28 year-old-self, this year I was thinking about making another letter. I always wonder if my future-self will be so much different with my present-self, will I still have this way of thinking like what I have right now? Will I judge my teenage-self silly and dumb? This letter basically ask my future-self whether I'm still the same or no.

There you go, I know the last post here is like months ago. I recently completed an internship in one of my favourite magazine as a copywriter. And at this moment of my life, I realize that now I have no idea what I wanna be. Before, I always want to work in a magazine industry, but the thing is after the internship I have this though like "can you survive the hectic deadline? the overtime? what about the fussy clients?". Dammit its tough.  

how much do i worth?

Since early February this year, I took Mass Communication class and Digital Media class. And I think those classes took a part in changing the way I see the media right now, especially the new-media.

I'm might be not the master of those subjects but here is what I'm sure of, do you remember the protest against SOPA-PIPA in the U.S? or The Malala Fund? or  the Arab Spring in the Middle East? or even how Obama win the election? It all happens thanks to the internet. (Speaking about SOPA-PIPA, you guys have to watch a documentary movie, The Internet's Own Boy!!!)

But on the other side ,thanks to the internet, we ironically measured our worth and value by the number of followers we have or the amount of people w o retweets our tweet or the number of likes we get for our selfie? How can we put the 'price tag' on ourself of how much our worth is. It scares me how I am right now still have this anxious feeling when I post a picture on my instagram’s feed because I’m afraid no one will ‘like’ it. Well, there are common modern ilnesses these days named FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), FONL (Fear Of No Likes), or FOFR (Fear Of Facebook Rejection. At night I often think that if this world right now quiet scares me, then what kind of world that my grandchildren will lived...

READ THE FULL WRITING!

10 Things I'll Tell My Future Kids About Living Alone

It's almost a year since i moving out from home for college. Its 4-hour driving from my home to where i'm staying right now. So far, living alone is such a nice experience for me, i learned so much from this. and here are the things that i've learned and will tell my future kids when they're moving out too...

1. Management skill is the key. I learned it the hard way. Woke up late because stayed up late the night before since i always doing the assignment the day before it's deadline, skipped breakfast because i woke up late, had unhealthy instant noodle for dinner for 3 days in row because i run out of money before its time, had a blackout since i forgot to pay the electricity, its all i think happens because i've a bad management skill. So yeah, you really have to work really hard on it.

2. Its okay to save some money, but prioritize your health. Its a classic scenario when you're living alone and run out of money, the cheaper the food is the better. There is this famous 'franchise' food stall in Indonesia called Warteg, where you can get a lot of food with a very low price. The price is low because it's not really that hygienic, but its yummy though that's why its everyone's favourite. The thing is if you eat in warteg continously for the whole week , i guarantee you that you can save a lot of money but you'll end up getting diarrhea for sure. It happened to a lot of my friends, and they skipped class because of this. 

3. Put your shoes inside and careful with your clothes horse. I don't know where you live, but in Indonesia especially in a densely populated area, if you're not careful someone can really steal your shoes or your washed clothes that hung in the clothesline. 

4. Clean your room if you don't wanna get sick. Living alone means you have none around telling you what to do, your mom won't yell at you if don't clean your room because she isn't there so she doesn't know. But seriously man if you don't wanna end up having tuberculosis, you better clean up your room. Harmful bacteria usually grow in gross places.

5. Don't buy refrigerator, if you've no money to buy the food. It feels sad you know when you have a refrigerator but its empty with nothing you can eat, i think it might turn out to be a bookcase :"(

6. Don't buy books, if you've no time to read it. Yep, just don't kids. 

7. Don't open the door for strangers. I have this weird storyline happens in my head if stranger break in to my room with a gun because i stupidly open the door without checking who knocks it.

8. The more underwear you have, the better. I believe you're smart enough to know why ;)

9. You have a lot of spare time, so do something. I think its not the perks of living alone, but the perks of going to college haha. I realise that i have a lot of spare time rather than when i was in high school. Even when you have full classes and actively involved in campus activities, you still have spare time. I also realise that going out and exploring new places with friends can be fun but also can be money-consuming, so sometimes i prefer to just stay in my room. I started to learn new things, I learn to play guitar (which i'm addicted to it now), i learn knitting, i learn how to compose a song using fruity loops, and i learn them all from the internet so it takes no money haha. And i'm currently saving my money to buy a harmonica!

10. Always tell someone where you're going. It could be your friends, roommate, or your parents. Make sure that someone knows where on earth are you, because you don't wanna cut your own hand and drink your own pee like James Franco in 127 hours right?

(Society Ripped Us)

*representative video from my personal babble*

I think society ripped us

They judge the way you see things

They force you to listen to their unlogic norms

They judge the way you create things

They judge you if you wear makeup, 

but they also judge you if you don't

They judge your hair

They judge your skin color

They still judge you whether you're white, black, or yellow

They told you how to pose

They told you how to smile

But its up to you,

to give a f*ck or no

Bogor, 15th May 2015

too cool for this

source

Its Thursday and I wrote you a poem. Just because. Currently feeling kinda stuck and fed up with routine. Also my guitar's string being such an arse and just slack off. So yeah,

"Too Cool For This"

took the bus

no need to rush

no remorse

we suppose

it starts from the eyes

put some ice,

please

never giggles

she dances

virtuously effortless

and she won't stop.

---- // ----

That stunning black dress on the picture is from Zalora. Zalora is the largest and fastest growing fashion-focused online shopping website in Southeast Asia that provides various kinds of fashion needs. And I think Zalora has so many superb dress especialy for their party dress, go check 'em out!

Kartini

Kadang saya suka bingung dengan perempuan.

Suka aneh.

Menuntut kesetaraan gender, tapi ingin diperlakukan spesial.

Pengen setara, tapi gamau capek.

Gamau panas-panasan.

Gamau bawa barang berat.

Tapi tiap tanggal 21 april teriak-teriak nuntut gender equality di medsos.

Maunya apa?

Menurut saya,

Emansipasi tidak akan pernah terjadi selama "Ladies first!" masih ada.

Sebagai perempuan pun kadang saya bingung.

Jadi ya gitu.

Jatinangor, 21 April 2015.

Happy Kartini Day!

Alasan

*this post is written using Bahasa*

aku ingin bersamamu

karena kau merangkai kata untukku

aku ingin bersamamu

karena kau menikmati percekcokan awan hitam dan awan putih ketika hujan akan turun

aku ingin bersamamu

karena kau mendikte ku berdiri tegak agar mahkota ku tak jatuh

aku ingin bersamamu

karena kau menelanjangi keindahan dari para bedebah yang melukaiku

aku ingin bersamamu

karena ketika kau bersamaku kau berharap jarum panjang mengalami hipertensi 

dan kemudian lumpuh

dan jikalau untuk bersamamu butuh alasan

itulah alasanku

Bogor. 2010. Puisi masa smp.

Happy valentine!

P.S: My friends and i have this film festival coming, and I really need your help to watch and thumbs up the trailer for our short movie, it means a lot :)