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.

You are Responsible With Your Own Happiness

「幸せは自分でつかむもの、自分で守るものだよ。誰かが決めるものじゃない。。」

" Your own happiness is something that you should fight for. Something that you should protect of. It's not something that other people can decide it for you..."

You know what is sucks about memories? They just pop up anytime and anywhere they want without any warnings before. Just like today, when I had my part time job in local convenient store from early morning until 3 PM. While putting some stocks and stuff, suddenly one memory about him popped out into my head. A memory from about more than six months ago, on one random night when suddenly we just ended up chatting for the whole night.

It was when I just had Skype with my Mom and my Mom just said to me about how she would never ever agree if I got a local boyfriend. As I told him about that, he told me to fight for my own happiness because we are responsible with our happiness, not others. Thinking about it now, it's kind of ironic because his word is actually that encourage the most to decide to end everything with him.

I am responsible with my own happiness that is why I walked away.

And I would never forget his other line that following afterwards.

「幸せは自分でつかむもの、自分で守るものだよ。誰かが決めるものじゃない 。それに、俺の幸せはまやにかかっています。」 

" Your own happiness is something that you should fight for. Something that you should protect of. It's not something that other people can decide it for you...  Moreover, my happiness relies on you."

 Biggest lie ever.

We Must Go Through Pain To Realise Wonderful Things

" I always wonder, why bad people in this world are not easy to recognise like in Disney movie? You know, scary, villain-look, ugly and stuff. Why sometimes we have to meet some decent-look people in the beginning and ended up hurt so bad by them. Or first we always argue or fight with someone, but then we try to make peace with them and turn out become friends in the end. It's just too complicated." - Arien Kartika Sari

To begin with, yes, I met a very-decent-look person last December, had shared laugh and smile but it was over in a splash of moment. Crying was the first thing that I cannot help myself to not to. Broken trust on people might be one of the reason why I cried so hard, when actually I started to learn how to trust people again after loosing faith on trusting people for some period of time. Or maybe some of part of me just blame myself of how I just let things happened this way. Or maybe some part of me still not believe that that person could change this bad where that person looked totally different when I first met that person. Or maybe the anger of me knowing that person just let go of me so easily without trying to hold on even once. Or maybe because I pretended that things were fine and ignore all the wrong signals that keep coming in for the past half a year. All of the mix emotion--sadness, anger, frustration, betrayal--just makes me had no power to stop the tears from falling down. It reaches into the level that I don't know if I can trust people anymore in the future, or even if I should open up again.

There was time that I thought by sleeping, everything would go back to normal when I woke up, but it never does. It's hard to wake up in the morning that things already changed permanently and I have no longer power to change it. It's just like having a real bad dream. That time, I wish just to stay in my bed and close my eyes. Not wanting to accept what just happened.

However, even though most part of myself kinda regret of meeting that person in the first place, and just wanted to go back in time and warned my young self to stay away from that person, there is still a tiny part of myself that told me that I actually didn't regret on meeting that person. For the past seven months, I thought about what I really want in a relationship. I thought about what I really want to do with my life and what kind of person I want to share the rest of my life with. I thought about how people's feeling could change easily so never put your life onto some temporary emotions. Hurts as hell, but somehow I changed in some aspect. Without I realised, I think more maturely and grew up a little.

And also, because of this, I realised that actually there are lots of people care about me. It's classic and pathetic to realise all of this after I fell down, but I have to admit it. I never thought that my busy senpai (senior) would care enough to text and called me to help me get through the whole night. I never expected my best buddy from middle school would even drew me some motivated drawing. Never expected that my best friends would lent me their shoulders to cry on once I reached Beppu. Or how many people were there just to listen to my stories calmly and support me.

For the first time, I realised how many people out there that actually care for me and I am not alone.

Just to realise that already makes me want to cry again.
I don't know how many times I thanked God that He sent me so many people who were there to help me get through this. Without them, I am not sure if I can stand up again. I might broke into pieces right now. I still have to learn how to smile and laugh again, but for now it's enough. I kind of think that actually I don't deserve all of their kindness, part of me told me that I didn't treasure them as much as I should. And now, it's one of the things that I regret the most.

Don't ever think things will last forever.
Treasure people who are around you.
When things falling apart, don't forget you are not alone.
That's what I learned through this summer.
Thank you.

Two Worlds Collide Into One

Marriage. When I was about 8 or 9 years old, I was dreaming that I would get married at age of 22, living in big house in South Jakarta (probably in Pondok Indah since that area is like my second home for me somehow), have two children and do the best parenting that any kids would ask for. It was my dream life where all I will be doing is about playing with my children and go for recreation with them. But, I just realised that when I was child, I never thought about who will be the husband. I think that's the problem.

Marriage. Now I already passed 21 years old, and being 22 years old is only about the matter of time. And I do not feel that I am even ready to get married, not even close like in my childhood dream. I never knew that 12 years later after imagining those marriage-stuff that reality is not that simple. It is not only about finding Prince Charming and happily ever after which all fairytale tried to convince us, but it is about finding the right person who shares the same value and point of view with you as you will spend the rest of your life together with that person. No.. it is about finding someone who will willing to fit into each other's world despite of differences. "Mine" and "yours" will eventually becomes "ours". All the discussion and decisions will be done by both of the parties. And to find him or her, you have to get hurt like.. a lot. 

Marriage. As witnessing my brother's love story (that will be soon get married in the end of this month!), if you are meant to be with someone, in the end you will be with him/her no matter what. They hurt each other, they fought a lot, they screamed, yelled and cried, but in the end, they do not want somebody else to replace each other. I believe they must be meant to be. Together with them, I went to buy a new bed for their new house last weekend and seeing them seriously thinking about their future together there, I cannot help but wondering if I will be able to become like them someday. But the thing I know for sure is that I am so happy for both of them.

How about myself?

Nah, I think I am still far away from the word "marriage".

Unlike in my childhood dream, I still want to be free.
Unlike in my childhood dream, I don't think I can be a good parent yet.
Unlike in my childhood dream, I even haven't really grown up.
Unlike in my childhood dream, I simply far from the word "ready".

That's all.

For the past 3 years or more, this is my first time feeling so fed up with everything here. Things that was totally okay with me, suddenly I just feel sick about it. I just want to get over everything.. and start all over, fresh and new. For the first time, I want to escape from this place.