Movie That Influenced Me

It was just yesterday when I had a chat about life with one employee from SONY Corp. who came to my university to learn English for two months. He told me his life when he was young and regret it so much. He didn't really think about his future back then, and he really want to make sure that nowadays young people consider about the future more. Life is not all about playing in the playground, he said.

The turning point for him that made him consider about life more was when his fiancé (now his wife though) recommended him "The Bucket List" movie. Since then, he always plan ahead his life and eager to have other young people to follow his step.

Think about it now, until I got into APU and moved to Japan, I was a quite movie and drama freak. I watched so many movies and Japanese drama that I cannot recall all the titles anymore. I guess it's about more than 50 titles though. Anyway, I remember there was one Japanese drama that influenced me a lot.

The title is 14 Years Old Mother (14歳の母).
It was a story about a 2nd year middle school girl that apparently only 14 years old and really energetic and wanted to become a famous DJ Radio, accidentally got pregnant with his boyfriend. Her youth finished. She wanted to keep the baby so she couldn't continue her study and cannot go for her dream anymore. And the baby's father had to drop out from school and worked in such a young age.

Well, it's not about the storyline that encourage me to have a baby in such a young age or anything like that, but how the main character stay so strong despite everyone starts to look down at her. It was her decision to keep the baby and she took all the risks and consequences. She knew what kind of road she will go through, how much pain she will suffer from, but she keep going on, stay positive, not complaining nor crying at all.

I watched this drama when I was in my last year of high school and at the time I decided to go to Japan for studying, I also decided that I will stay strong no matter what happen with me for the next four years. No matter how hard life will be, no matter how frustrating the people I'll meet, no matter how much I have to break down, I promised myself that I have to get up by myself. I promised myself to stay strong as much as I can.

Before deciding to go to Japan, I keep telling myself all the consequences and risks I'll face if I decided to land my foot on this country. No family around, no best friends, the language and society I haven't known yet, the school life hardship... everything. That's why, since I came to Japan, I tried my best not to complain in any single things. Well, I do complain, but I tried my best not to complain so often.

Because for me, I was the one who decide to leave the country, so I have to face the consequences. I left my mother who cried over me whenever I forgot to call due to my crazy schedule in order to live in my childhood dream. If I complain over things, was not it kind of greedy? I got what I wanted for so long and it must be very arrogant of me if I keep complaining about the hardship. Many people in Indonesia might never get a chance to get what I experienced here for the last 3 years. So I keep remind myself to keep enjoying every single thing I do while I am still here, no matter how hard it is living in Japanese society. Just enjoy the hardship, I guess?

So what do I usually do when things get hard? Take a rest, take a break. Write it down and throw it away. Sleep more and eat myself up. Change my mind and see the problem from other perspective. If it's too hard to handle, cry it over and let go of the frustration.  It usually work for me. But, I always try my best to never let it slip out of my mouth. And staying strong was never easy for me.

You know what, I kind of have this urge to go to Tokyo to meet the producer or director of this drama. Thank them in person to change my perspective of life and becoming one of the reason that let me stay strong all this time. Well, I cannot decide whether I do really stay strong or not, though. But I always try.

Haven't watched this drama yet? I recommend you to watch it :)

What the Young Me Teaches Me

I guess getting lost in my life become my current job recently.

And suddenly I found my old blogpost that I wrote when I was 17 years old.

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I Wanna Be - August 5th, 2009

"“What do you wanna be when you grown up?”

“Doctor!”
“President!”
“Pilot!”
“Lawyer!”
“Teacher!”

I guess all of you is familiar with this kind of conversation. I bet you are already asked about this million time, no.. zillion time. Everybody asked the question since we were kid. And what was our answer back then?

I used to wanna be a doctor. Then, I changed it, I wanna be an astronomer. And then, when I went to junior high, I wanna be a novelist. Then in high school I wanna be a movie director. The problem is, now I’m in my senior year of high school. I’ll go to college next year, and.. I still confused about my major!

When we’re kid, it was so much fun. It was so easy. We can be anything we wanna be. As we all grown up, there were more questions come to our head, made us confuse about our own future. I wanna be a novelist, but then my brother told me : ‘the percentage of novelist that end up rich like JK. Rowling is so small. do you really want to take English Literature?’ then, I was confused.
Then, when I said I wanna take major something about design or languages or multimedia, my dad came and said : ‘pick a job that can produce money, not the one that waste money,’

Today, I just chatted with my old friends. I ask him what he wanna be and what major he would take next year. I thought he wanna be a doctor from a long time ago and would take major that related to it since he’s smart. I admitted, I was surprise to hear his choice. He wants to work in mining. Because, being a doctor does not have a good prospect anymore. For me, it means, mining will give you a lot of money (because everybody need it, especially oil) while being doctor will give it too but after a long years.

Okay, then I wanna scream out loud. Should everything has to related to money? I mean, yes, I need it. I am not saying I can live without money because I know that I can’t. But, come on, am I the only person that think money is not everything?

I don’t blame my friend for his choice. It really up to him. It’s not my business anyway.
I heard someone said to me, ‘Why don’t you be a doctor? You can raise money faster than other job, because everybody need doctor,’

Yes, logically, I think that’s right. But, why is the reason of being a doctor have to related to money again? I mean, is there somebody who will say that she/he wants to be a doctor because she/he wants to save people’s life? To save people from death? To save them and heal them because we all are relative and our job is helping each other from suffer? Is there?

J-O-B. A bunch of people of age 22-55 years old who go to work every Monday-Friday wearing suit for men and blazer for women and bringing varies of documents from 8 am ’till 4 pm.

That’s the definition of word ‘job’ for me. And for me, a good job means something you wanna do, something you love to do. Not something that we have to do because it will give us a big amount of salary. Not something like that at all. Am I too naive or what? I wanna have a job about something I love to do. Like when we were kids. We said out loud what we wanna be. There’s no thought about.. about anything.

Well, up until now, I don’t know what job should I take. At least, what major should I take next year. Seriously, I feel so uneasy about this.What’s wrong for being a novelist and  that’s because you love to write? What’s wrong for being a movie director because you love the process of making? What’s wrong being an astronomer because you love studying about stars, planets and galaxy? Are those job is something you can laugh at, gaping at, or saying ‘will you success just by doing that?’? I don’t get it.

I think I lost my way. I don’t know what to do, or what I wanna be. As a human being, I want to have a job that can help others too, sincerely. Sigh."

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Is it me or the young me seems more honest?

And since when we start to get out of word whenever people ask about our dream?

It's More Like Losing a Friend

Life is always out of expectation. It's been almost a month since the last time I contacted him.
As I read some of my old conversations with him, there was a strange feeling came along with it.
Not raged anger of disappointment that trap me in several weeks ago.
Not even self-blaming like I felt so strongly before.
It's just a kind of feeling when you saw your old friend's photograph that you know you will never had a chance to get in touch with them anymore once you got involve in a really big ugly fight.

In the beginning, we were a really good friend. We really were.
We talked a lot and laughed over jokes a lot.
It was so easy back then, when we didn't have to care about each others' feelings yet.
Kind of feeling like you got to live in a new place and get excited all over it.
He was a very good friend for me, that I can talk anything about with.
It's not the whole fairy-tale romantic memories that I missed about him the most.
It's just our simple random chat about nonsense throughout the nights.

How could such a good friend became a stranger that we'd never even talk to each other anymore?
And how could something called love can ruin one single friendship once it get out of line?

To be honestly speaking,
I do miss talking with him. Not as his girl, but as his friend.
Because for me,
losing him is more like losing a good friend of mine.