Do you ever feel like you’re just not yourself, or at least not your regular, bearable self? Like you’ve somehow discovered some anomalous, unnatural habits that make you yourself even cringe to live under that living body. Like it’s just so not you. At least not in the past. Maybe time changes you, maybe the circumstance, maybe the geographical place… But whatever it is behind that, it clearly doesn’t do a good job getting you metamorphosed into a beautiful butterfly.
Showing all posts in Days in Edmonton
On missing the only institution where I was actually happy to be unhappy
Today was Saturday, but I forced myself to head to my office at the university anyway. As a home person, I would obviously rather work from the comfort of my own desk in my house if I could, but I could not. I just wouldn’t be able to be concentrate somehow, and so the only other option is the university because it’s the only other place where I could still practice my 5-time prayers. So, to the office I went.
I started pretty late in the noon, so I finished up pretty late as well. Even though it was a Saturday. By the time the city lights embellished the entire view from the huge window next to my working space, my room was the only space with the lights on in the entire Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Sciences building. Sure enough, the idea of being totally alone during such hour in an isolated building deep inside within the very quiet part of the university kind of terrified me, so I decided to wrap up my thoughts and prepared to head home. My watch said it’s nearly a quarter past 10 already.
I took the only stairs connecting my floor to the first floor which was a dark, rarely used emergency exit. (I had promised myself to never take the elevators anymore for the health’s sake, that’s why.) I rushed my steps with my headphones on, playing some catchy tunes from Belle and Sebastian’s latest release, as I am not really a type of person who’s okay with being alone in the dark. I pushed the stairs’ door on the first floor, then was speeding up a little bit to be able to catch the bus. I was outside already. A moonless, mute nightfall was then unfolded ahead of me.
I wish my days in Canada were as pleasing as my Instagram posts
So I haven’t posted anything in a while… But I thought I might do a quick one, just because I feel like I need a short escape from my daily responsibilities by doing something that isn’t completely the opposite either. And writing sounds like a good fit, doesn’t it?
Also, I realized that I haven’t really posted much about the actual regular days I’m going through on daily basis here in Edmonton. I think I did a couple, months ago, but I took them down some time ago (hehe) because of one and two things that got me thinking that I probably shouldn’t be that transparent even though the subjects related to those posts are most likely not and never going to read those posts either. But, anyways, I chose the safest path eventually, and I’m going to start fresh by assuming that you readers (if any; see I have a real self-esteem issue here) have no idea which posts I was referring to.
VIA Canada 150 Trip Part 0: Full Itinerary
The possibly best summer in my life that I had been very much looking forward to has finally come! Iβm happy to admit that I had been very fortunate to have come and lived in Canada this year, for this year the country is celebrating its 150th birthday meaning amazing once-in-a-lifetime deals of tourism are lining up. What everyone had foreseen since last year was that the entrance to all national parks are becoming free for this entire year, but one thing that came as a great surprise was that: Via Rail offered a 150$ Canada 150 Youth Pass which means with 150$ you could basically travel to anywhere across Canada using Via Rail train service, for the entire July 2017. How cool was that?!
Oh What A Week
- Calgary went nuts from 28oC yesterday to 2oC and snowing today, continuing with the craziest rain I’ve ever witnessed in Canada by far which has been ongoing endlessly for the past 7 hours. I brought no jacket from Edmonton because it was a frickin’ burning 25oC when I left the city, so today I had my first experience of running in the midst of a heavy rain of 2oC trying to reach home.
- I randomly went to Google Maps street view only to view my house back at home. Darn I miss people and my comfy upstairs bedroom with a view. (And all those beautiful small showers next to the washroom’s toilets.)
- Impulsively bought two planters of tropical plants.. Because we got lots of those back home. I think I just need to be convinced how close I am actually to home.. Although it involves buying two planters in Calgary which means I’d have to carry them all the way to Edmonton.
- Just yesterday I spent literally one crazy burning hour after shopping groceries in Safeway, to confusedly look for a Western Union agent that Google says should be around a half km-ish outside Safeway, only to figure out that the place is actually INSIDE Safeway all this time. Time is money, and my sweats are even more.
- Been missing home more than ever. Thinking of purchasing a flight ticket to Jakarta, but the thought of my thesis haunts all the time. Should I or shouldn’t I?
- I’m getting way more skeptical towards people who often fake their opinions by saying, “I’m so happy for you!” “I’m so excited for this!” while all humans of all races in the world know that those things they refer to are actually just as ordinary as white girls wearing Lululemon leggings. Basic.
- I woke up two hours late today, and figured out that the reason was that I was dreaming about my old friends, we were hanging out playing some childhood traditional games in a place that looked very much like my neighborhood back home. So I thought maybe it was actually my unconscious self who told myself not to wake up because the dream was literally better than the reality.
- Being homesick actually lands me to a new goal: working as a lecturer in my past university (ITB). So that I could stay home with my family in Bandung, while probably with some luck Ade will successfully make it to ITB as well so Bunda, Ade, and I could actually go to work and come home together every single day. Care for an amen?
- Found lots of interesting quote about homesickness today. I shared some of them on the other post, but here’s another one that goes as my favourite: “I never realize how much I like being home unless I’ve been somewhere different for awhile,” from the movie Juno.
- Care to keep a little secret? This has been the song I listen to the most this year, lol.
Pneumonia
Just yesterday, I just got recovered from one and a half week of pneumonia. This was only the second time I got sick in Edmonton. The first was a pretty mild and casual cold, but this one is the kind of a pretty serious one.
I remember spending so much on Uber just to get to the clinic, then do an x-ray, go to the pharmacies, and buy some expensive nutrition supplies just because I didn’t even have the strength to cook myself some basic food. I tried Advil for the first time, finally figured out why its name appears in lots of Hollywood movies if it’s not because of its amazing powerful effects.
Those times make me nothing but realize that being away from home sucks big time.
I talked with Bunda on the phone while she was fully awake at 2AM-ish until morning, trying to make sure that her only daughter is staying alive on the other side of the world. That daughter that had never been sick alone before, especially when it comes to high fever that lasted for a week. I almost sent myself to the emergency room because noone was even able to take care of me; I couldn’t get myself food, my bedroom was a complete mess of quarantine of virus, I didn’t dare to touch the water for anything other than brushing teeth, I couldn’t even drink it. Walking downstairs to get myself glasses of strange-flavored tea and water with lemon or honey felt like such real huge struggles. And Bunda kept texting me 24/7 to make sure that I, at least, was staying alive.
There was no typical chicken porridge that Ayah always bought me whenever I was forced to lie in bed due to catching cold or fever. There was only some ugly-tasted instant chicken soup I forced myself to make, just because I couldn’t even stand for any longer than 15 seconds, let alone cook. He wasn’t there to prepare and clean a bucket of water that I’ve always used to vomit the accumulating mucus in my throat. I did it myself, while dragging myself to the bathroom back and forth, trying not to pass out somewhere in-between. No home cooked spinach porridge or chicken soup, no going to the usual dr. Rahayu with Ayah, no Ayah or Bunda changing my damped and unsterile pillow case and linens.
There was only me and my damped eyes, realizing how sad it is to have to suffer the bad days of your life without the ones who would able to help you get through them. Thinking, “How could my friends already get married by this age? I got pneumonia and I really couldn’t think how I would not die without the help of my parents. I don’t think a husband would be of enough use.”
I wish I were sentimental enough to have the courage to tell them how much I cherish their presence, how much I’d like to be home by their sides at the very moment, how much I need their constant supplies of never-ending blessings.
“O Lord, forgive me, my parents and Muslims in the Hereafter. O Lord, show mercy on them as they have nourished me when I was young.”