The Kite Runner

There were times I think the deaths are luckier

They don’t have to think about tomorrow anymore

They don’t even have to think about yesterday anymore

But my faith taught me that death is not an end, it’s just another beginning for the after life

An eternal one

And in the waiting for the eternal one, there will be hundred years to spent in darkness, or in light – depends on what you’ve done in your lifetime

There were also times I think other people are luckier

For what they have

For what I have not

For what they did

For what I did not

But I forgot to count my blessings

For you, for the thousandth times

My first book on this year is Khaled Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner”, that my lovely boss gave me few days ago, and I just finished it only on two days. It’s not an evening coffee book, and yes it’s a little scary inside, but the book makes me think a lot.

That before the war, every place must be a beautiful place, a meaningful place for someone.

A place where they start breathing, a place where they start to fall in love, a place they learned about life, a place they want to spent the rest of their lives or even a place where they want to be buried after they die.

To live in such a peaceful place I think is the greatest gift for me.

I can’t even imagine if I have to live my life in a war zone, no, I don’t even dare to think about it

To be surrounded by nice people is also another blessing.

People that always remind you to do good thing, to have a positive thinking and attitude, to be grateful for everything you have.

People that you love so much and you don’t want them to feel hurt, and for them you will do anything, even if it means letting them go from your life – or worse-  walking away from their life, and all you can do is pray for their happiness.
People that even for so many times they might hurt you, you can never do the same. 

And for those people this phrase exist "Tapi untukmu, walaupun untuk yang keseribu kalinya"

“Datanglah, ada jalan untuk kembali menuju kebaikan”

And reading this book I found the same feeling I felt few years ago

When I think about how many things I did wrong

And how could I be still alive after that, when I feel I don’t deserve it

I remember what Rahim Khan said to Amir “There’s always a way to come back to the right path”

And in one way or another, God helps me through it and I can never be more thankful than that.

When this book was handed to me, I also knew it’s another reminder

To start reading again, to start wondering again, to start writing again

To open my eyes so I can see the hidden messages, to open my mind so I can understand them, and to open my heart so I can accept them

For myself so I won’t get lost anymore.

Ps. Many thanks to Ms. Angela Soedjana for the book, a book is indeed a best gift for a bookworm 😘

Colors

I don't know if others have issues about noises in their head, but I certainly do.  My mind seems louder than it should be, and I have to figure out some ways to make it stay at the right place.  It sounds a little bit freak but no it certainly not.  I just think I'm fully aware about what happen inside and outside my mind.

  
I've been trying many things to turning down the noises a little bit.  Running, writing, swimming, and recently, coloring.  Coloring used to be a childhood activities, but lucky me, this year became the best seller year of adult coloring book.  The difference between children and adult coloring book is the details of the picture drawn.  In adult coloring book you'll find intricate details of things all over the pages.  

It will be stressful to color it all if you do it unwillingly, but if you like it, it will be a peaceful and pretty addictive to spend your time with.  If with reading we'll gain something from the book, and with writing we create something from ideas, then coloring always make me feel like I'm straightening the haywire inside my head and then transferring energy into colors.  And it turns out beautiful. 

From many choices of adult coloring books in the bookstores, I bought the Enchanted Forest by Johanna Basford, with beautiful patterns and details that I can't wait to color all the picture inside.  But I think to make it into beautiful colors, you have to do it in the right mood, not in order to achieve a target to finish the book.  

It's a great way to relaxing your mind and playing with colors even if you can't draw or paint.  I always love the feeling when I completed one page: it's like finding a way to Wonderland, and I don't mind to get my self lost in it.  

Ah, and one last quote from Leonardo da Vinci

"For those colors which you wish to be beautiful, always first prepare a pure white ground."

World, stories, mind, heart,  For everything you wish to be beautiful, always set a pure heart first, 

then you can show your true colors. 

Lumineux!

I got this enchanting crystal flower as my birthday gift from one of my best friend last year.  This beautiful crystal is something we have to work on before it “grows”, and it will be a chemistry experiment that absolutely easy and simple.  Inside the box, we will find an empty bottle, a crystal powder, a crystal growing tablet, a wood stick, a cork, LED lamp, batteries, and an instruction leaflet.

To grow the crystal powder, simply follow the instructions on the box or we can find it on the instruction leaflet too.  To start the experiment, prepare all the items from the box and follow the instruction.

1.       First, we prepare boiling water and pour it into the empty bottle, there’s a line on the wood stick as a marker for how much you should pour the water.  Add the crystal powder and stir it until the powder dissolve.

2.       Place the crystal growing tablet into the solution.

3.       Close the bottle with the cork lid and let it be for 24 hours.

4.       The next 24 hours, open the cork, you can see the crystal slowly grow on the tablet.

5.       Continue to open the cork for the next 12-15 days or until you get the crystal form you want (for mine, I waited for 3 weeks).

6.       Dry out the remaining solution, and clean up the bottle, but be careful not to drop water into the crystal, just use a wet towel or tissue to clean the bottle.

7.       Place the batteries inside the cork lid and close the bottle.  Now you can see the colorful light reflects on the crystal flower and it will shine more brilliantly on a dark place.

I really love to see the lights on the crystal before I go to bed.  It’s somehow relaxing and gives a new hope for a better day tomorrow.  Ah, you can find this enchanting Lumineux on Gramedia bookstore everywhere.  Trust me, you’ll love it!

Ps. The crystal flower comes with 12 beautiful words, and mine is "Happines", as if it's a reminder that even when we can't find happiness, we can always create them, with simple things or a complicated chemistry reaction like this one. J

What I Enjoy Most when Swimming: Serenity.

I'm proudly announced that I just finished my 8 weeks swimming class! 
Beberapa orang mungkin akan berpikir kalo telat banget ya baru belajar renang di usia segini, but hey.. my 55 years old mother also just finished her swimming class!  So I guess age is just a number right.. 

Terus kenapa tiba-tiba belajar renang?  
Karena baru ada kesempatan dan tempat yang pas sih sebenernya.  Awalnya sih ngira bakal panik ya pas di air, tapi setelah belajar ternyata asik bangeet..  Yah, walaupun setelah 8 pertemuan tapi belum expert banget, tapi lumayan lah jadi ga terlalu panik kalo nyelup di air.. hehe..

And what I enjoy most from swimming is.. Serenity.
The relaxing silence you feel the moment your head and your body is inside the water, the movement of your body that feels more like dancing inside the water, and the peaceful feeling of nothing except your breathe..

For someone that has a super noisy mind like me, swimming is some kind of moving meditation that shut all the noise and give a time for my self to think about nothing.

Ya kira-kira merasa jadi seperti putri duyung. :)

*btw yang mau kursus renang di depok, ada tempat namanya Khodijah Muslimah Centre (KMC) yang khusus buat muslimah, bisa cek websitenya di http://khodijahmuslimahcentre.com/ ya.. recommended banget deh pokoknya!

About Language

Ngga terasa sebenernya cuma sisa -Insya Allah - 1 semester lagi dari 6 semester yang harus ditempuh. Dari awal dan makin kesini semakin banyak yang bertanya ngapain sih ambil jurusan bahasa..

Kalau diinget-inget sebenernya dari jaman TPA tertarik banget sama bahasa Asing.. Sayang dari dulu ngga pernah punya kesempatan les bahasa kayak temen-temen yang lain.. Biasa.. Ga Ada uangnya :D
Pas jaman SMA, sayangnya ga ada jurusan bahasa.. Jadi ambil yang nyerempet-nyerempet ngebahas bahasa dan kebudayaan..

Buat saya.. Bahasa itu menakjubkan.. Incredibly amazing!
Language is the first thing we learnt as a baby. We learnt how to communicate through our own language, and then we tried to mimicking our parents. Bahasa adalah pembentuk kebudayaan. Language formed society. People with the same language shared ideas, knowledge, ideals, and then passed the knowledge to the next generation.

My drama lecturer said that artist, writer, and other profession that used language as their power, are the one who always feared in revolution. She said machine gun can kill them, but their words will travel through time and place. I personally amazed at her words knowing that the statement is right.
Dan di semester ini kami belajar tentang English Literature, and I remember her words again. Of how words and works of art can travel through time.

Memang sih keliatan ga ada gunanya belajar jaman Renaissance, Romantic Age, and so on. But learning language is also learning about wisdom. How we see things in how others saw it hundreds of years ago. About people at that time also questioned about life, about their existence, about the personal feelings and everything in their mind.  And in some of them, I found wisdom.
I do hope I can be wiser and wiser each day.

"Of that there was and end; so there may be of this"
Taken from Deor's Lament, from the Old English Period.

#JeSuisMuslim #JeSuisCharlie #JeSuisHumaine

There’s still vividly in mind about the shooting in Charlie Hebdo Headquarters in France that happened last month.  When two strangers shouted “Allahu Akbar” before shot 12 peoples, include the chief director of the newspaper, and suddenly, being a muslim-which is some people think you’re half terrorist when you’re muslim in some muslim minority country- became an issue again.  Despite of the satire caricature about Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) that Charlie Hebdo published, which me, as a muslim also hate it, but I don’t think killing people is the answer.  I found an article that told me about how hard it was to build trust from non-muslim people to the muslim in muslim minority country, and it will be harder-once again-after the shooting in Charlie Hebdo.  Especially when all the international media blew this case up and it became international issue about “Terrorism”.

#JeSuisCharlie

And few days ago, I read heartbreaking news about the shooting, again, but this time the victims were my brother and sisters.  Three young muslim founded death in their apartment in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with bullet in their head, without any sign of resistance from them.  The shooter said it was because they had argue about the parking lot, but the family and friends of the victims said that the victims once told them that the shooter came and talk to them with gun in his belt, he showed them the gun to insult them.  But the family and friends think the problem was already over because they never mentioned him again.  Only Allah knows the truth.  But killing people is not the answer.  They just students, they even younger than me, and the husband and wife just got married for few weeks, for god’s sake! 

This shooting triggered emotional reaction to the community, and also from muslims around the world.  Anger, sadness, and question: why the international media didn’t blow this up like the one in Charlie?  Why there’s no “terrorist” label for the shooter? Is “terrorist” label only for muslim?

There’s rumor that the shooter will be examined for his mental and psychological.  Do you know what that means?  There is no way to punish people with mental illness.  I wonder if he was a moslem, maybe the police will shoot him directly when he was captured.

#JeSuisMuslim

I, we as muslim in Indonesia, the largest muslim country in the world, sometimes forget how easy our life is.  How it is so easy to wear hijab or any religion attribute, any religion, not only Islam.  How it is so safe to walk alone with hijab or any religion attribute.  Maybe we will never feel –and I hope we do never feel it- as minority.  And I didn’t write this as a show off, I write it as a reminder, for myself, for my brothers and sisters, about the humanity, about how it is so evil to take someone’s life because of what they worship, or even for whatsoever reason.  It’s not in our hand to take someone’s life.  And how, we are blessed to be in this country, and how we should always pray for things like this will never happen here, and how we should care more and more aware to what happen around us.  And also how, our country should stands up as a good example for tolerance and harmony, and how our country should speaks against humanity and religion issues like this.  I can only pray.

#JeSuisHumaine

the stories:

http://www.islamicgeo.com/2015/01/tragedi-paris-mengkhianati-nabi-tanpa.html

http://www.newsobserver.com/2015/02/11/4548704_our-full-coverage-of-the-chapel.html?rh=1

You Won't Feel A Thing

So lately, some people constantly asking what i'm looking for - from someone of course.

They thought that i'm looking for perfection, while i am not.

And I never in the mood to explain every time they ask me, and it always end up with me laughing with the phrase 'i don't even know what I've been looking for' hanging on my lips.

But as every day, every thing that happened for the whole day always repeating before i sleep, including the question.

Then i found out, I'm looking for courageous, bravery, dauntless -whatever it's called- that shining from someone's eyes.

The courage that can assure me that everything's gonna be all right.

It's just that simple.

Well,

with another list of not-so-but-it-does-important extras i guess  

And this is the soundtrack of this post, a very brave song that always makes me imagine what kind of person will give the meaning of the song. 

                                           "You Won't Feel A Thing"

                                                       The Script

I've been kicked right down

I've been spat in the face

I've been pulled, weighed down

To the lowest place

I've been lied to, shamed

I have been disgraced

Been ex-communicated from every holy place

I've been beat up and robbed

I've been left for dead

For the way I look 

For the things I said

When trouble thinks it's found us

The world falls down around us 

I promise baby you won't ever

You won't ever feel a thing

[Chorus:]

Cause I will take it on the chin

Eh, for you

So lay your cuts and bruises over my skin

I promise you won't feel a thing

Cause everything the world could throw

I'll stand in front. I'll take the blow for you.

For you.

I've been cleared on the street

I've been left in the cold

Had my dreams held up

Had them shot full of holes

I've been laughed at, burnt, beat and butt of the joke

I've been lit up in flames

I have gone down in smoke

I've been stabbed in the back

While they promised the earth

Tried to keep my head high

For all I am worth

Aside I'm double blazing

I know when war is raging

I promise baby you won't ever

You won't ever feel a thing

[Chorus]

Yeah.

And if I fall here

At least you know my dear that I would die for you

Promise you won't ever feel a thing

And if I fall here

At least you know my dear that I would die for you

Promise you won't ever feel a thing

[Chorus]

Yeah everything the world could throw

I'll take the sticks, I'll take the stones for you

For you

**You can listen the song here