Showing all posts tagged pure rants

In Life on the Equator, Overcasted Mind

Does work-life balance only work as a lump sum?

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Does work-life balance only work as a lump sum?

The past few months, I have been nothing but swamped with work. Particularly since my return to Jakarta following my one-month vacation in May. My life has been revolving around my job and that only. And it has been a roller coaster of various moods and emotions, from tired to proud to drained to elated too. I did get a lot of things done and achieved, thankfully, but at what expense?

I have not talked properly to my closest friends in weeks – even months for some. My sibling is working on his undergraduate thesis, in a field that is somewhat close to my career, yet I could only pop in to check on his progress and help him polish his presentation or thesis draft every once in a while. Working from Jakarta again after two years of living in my hometown also means much less time to be with my four-legged furry kids, i.e., adorable pet cats. Things are also loosening with some of the people I met during and had kind of regularly talked to following my UK vacation, since the time zone difference itself has even been a challenge from the start.

Even little, seemingly-overlooked privileges such as going to bed when you feel that your body needs to rest without the crippling anxiety about not finishing your to-do list for the day yet, taking the time to scroll aimlessly on your Grab/Gojek/Shopee app to choose which food for lunch and supper today without guilt, enjoying a long shower with your favourite fragrance of body wash without worrying about having to immediately jump onto the next things on your calendar, or watching a couple of episodes of silly, wacky TV series just for the sake of it have become luxuries I am not always able to afford.

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In Life on the Equator, Overcasted Mind, Pandemic Pondering

Defisiensi Disiplin

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Defisiensi Disiplin

Akhir tahun ini, umur saya akan menginjak angka 28. Artinya, lebih dekat ke kepala tiga dibanding 25 – yang biasanya adalah batas usia untuk masih pantas disebut young adult. Agak aneh, mengingat kalau saya bertemu dengan orang-orang berusia dua puluhan awal saya masih suka berpikir, “Oh, masih satu generasi lah ya kita.” Hingga saya sadari, adik saya sendiri usianya sudah 21 tahun saat ini, dan kami bahkan lahir di milenium yang berbeda! Bahkan mungkin saya adalah salah satu acuan baginya saat memikirkan contoh figur orang dewasa. Yang dianggap dan diharap sudah bisa memegang penuh kontrol akan hidup masing-masing beserta segala tanggung jawab dan konsekuensinya.

Padahal, salah satu yang paling sulit dari menjadi dewasa bagi saya justru adalah mengelola self-control. Tahun ini sudah tahun keenam saya hidup tanpa rutinitas dan jadwal yang ditentukan oleh sistem, namun rasanya saya masih tergopoh-gopoh dalam memegang kemudinya.

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In Life on the Equator, Overcasted Mind, Pandemic Pondering

When does a break become too much break?

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When does a break become too much break?

At the beginning of the pandemic, I had my fair periods of bursting productivity. I completed my step-one fixed step training at work ahead of time, aced my French exam, went to the class twice a week virtually, wrote more than 20 poems for my portfolio website, revamped my childhood bedroom to an adult workspace, started a new obsession with houseplants and even created Excel spreadsheet to document its well-being updates, got myself a piano keyboard and taught myself from zero, regularly read papers and articles about planetary geology, started volunteering again, and the list goes on.

Yet a few months later, here I am, spending all my free time in the last few months either cuddling with my cat or binge-watching some shitty TV shows because I’ve run out of the good ones to watch. There’s no crap left to be given for things other than these two. Work hasn’t felt stimulating in a while either – and I probably haven’t been very receptive to new challenges too recently. I didn’t even have the willingness to spare some time to write here again. I gained some weight because I don’t exercise, I haven’t put my skincare on in months, and I’m only capable of the bare minimum of household tasks in the house, i.e. drying clothes and vacuum-cleaning. I’ve let my parents water my houseplants, a few died, and it’s been a month since the last time I checked on each one of them carefully.

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In Life on the Equator, Overcasted Mind, Pandemic Pondering

Is gratitude a prison?

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Is gratitude a prison?

There was this conversation between Randall, the adopted son of the Pearson family, and Kevin, his non-biological brother in This Is Us S05E13 that had been stuck with me for a while. It’s when Randall admitted that the fact that he was adopted by a family he loves so much makes him feel that he is bound to show nothing but gratitude at all times, while that feeling, truthfully, feels like an emotional prison because oftentimes he still couldn’t help but thinking about all the what-if’s had he been living with his biological parents instead his whole life. And Kevin said he sounds “wildly ungrateful.”

And I’ve been thinking about that ever since. The feeling of having to constantly show gratitude because people might perceive you to live a somewhat ideal life, when the truth is, sometimes you just want to lash out because things haven’t felt okay in a prolonged time, and let the world watch you go nuts in 4K if they please.

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In Overcasted Mind

Undigested arrays of thoughts that come out as a rambling essay

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Undigested arrays of thoughts that come out as a rambling essay

I know I can’t be the only person who sometimes goes to sleep thinking about a certain mistake, or embarrassing moment, or something utterly nonsense that I somehow managed to pull even out of a seemingly very casual thin air; wishing that by the time I wake up in the morning it’ll all be a distant memory that no longer matters. Except that most of the time, it does not.

The thoughts linger, and when I first open my eyes in the morning, it’s still going to be the first thing that intervenes into my mind. And then I’ll continue to have that battle within myself that won’t see a finish line until a certain situation unfolds and tells me whether or not that mess I created indeed results in something ugly – and if it does yield something bad, how bad it is exactly.

People – at least those on Indonesian Twitter-sphere, it seems, based on my not-so-in-depth popular culture observation – seem to enjoy being in a competition of: “Who overthinks the most?”. I hate to join the bandwagon as I think my particular case is not exactly special and a bunch of you may experience similar torment constantly, but I just wanted to say that these thoughts… Suck. Big time.

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In Days in Edmonton, Impulsive Writing

Oh What A Week

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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.