I read it on twitter: don’t grow up, it’s a trap!

Yes, growing up is a very serious trap. I don’t know how could I ever wish to grow up faster than I should be. My little me used to think, “Oh, I must be really pretty and elegant when I work in office. I will use lipstick and high-heels everyday.”
5 years later, I still loved using my flat-shoes and didn’t have lipstick. I rarely used make up because I didn’t want to waste my bedtime just for waking up earlier so I could put some make up before going to the office.

Anyhoo, one of the biggest problems for being an adult is finding the easiest and fastest way to move on. Move on in here not always about love thingy, but also failures or pudency from something or someone.

In 2005 I did medical entrance exams and failed, but because of the curiosity I tried again in 2006. I studied very hard during 2005-2006 while I was studying in Communication faculty. I was a good student tho in my class. So I got good grade since the first year but still something pushed me to do the entrance exam for medical school again. But I failed (again!). Haha. I was crying like a baby when I got the message and locked myself up in my room for 3 days. My parents got angry with me, because my terrible reaction and I think they also little bit upset of the failure. Deep down inside I know there was a time when my parents hoped I could be a doctor someday. On the 3rd day, while blew my nose I read the text from my friend. She wrote, “I’m so sorry for your second failure. I know it’s very sad, but you must know, God always give you everything that you need not everything that you really want. So, cheer up!”

I re-read it twice and finally admitted my the failure. Yes, maybe I’m not fit in medical school but it doesn’t mean I’m stupid because I know I’m one of the brightest students in my communication class. Moreover, I have a lot good friends in my university and everything goes very smooth for me. Then, voila, I moved on!

Almost a year ago, I struggled to move on from someone. Yeah it was a cheesy like story (I wasn’t in love with him yet) with my latest ex. We broke up not in a good way in January and in March I still mourned myself of him and his new girlfriend. So I decided to run away from him. Unfortunately, We live in the same neighborhood so I carefully choosing my walking path to the university and I even knew his schedule to get lunch and dinner in canteen so I could avoid meeting him accidentally. Then I went to France and Belgium for 5 days with hopes, “when I come back here I can totally moved on from him and don’t need to pretend being happy again every time I see him.”

And what happened after those trips? I felt happy of course, but when I saw him again, I still felt so sad, started blaming myself, and made new scenarios again about us (always the bad ones). I googled tips and tricks how to move on from ex. They said: write your deepest feeling, hang out with friends, make a list of the positive and negative impacts if you were together, find new love, and admit your lost. I did all those steps (exclude find new love) and focused on the last one. And surprisingly it helped me a lot. I moved on (finally) in May!

My friend said, the opposite of love isn’t hate, but indifference. Because love and hate is just separated by a thin layer. Today you might love someone then tomorrow you hate him, but in the next day you will love him again. But when you feel indifference with one person, it’s the final line of your story with that person, you won’t feel any emotion or feeling toward him.

So I make the conclusion here of how to move on faster that really works on me:

1. Put something or someone as an enemy will not solve your problem, trust me.
2. Admit your failure or lost.
3. Make a list of what you will get or what you can achieve after that failure.
4. You can run away for awhile from the problem BUT just to pluck up your courage to face your problem after you come back.

Well, I’m not an expert in move on thing, I do still struggle to move on from many things.
So your not alone, dear Grown Ups, cheer up and move on from anything that block your way!

Move on

Fenomena yang cukup sering terjadi akhir-akhir ini di sosial media adalah pemberian hastag (#) kode atau nomention setelah kalimat yang dituliskan di media tersebut. Dan setelah saya perhatikan, penggunaan #kode cenderung digunakan pada kalimat yang merujuk pada hal romantis. Sedangkan untuk #nomention, either romantis ataupun kalimat negatif (marah-marah, mengutuk, dan lainnya). Tapi uniknya, banyak juga pengguna sosmed yang menggunakan #kode atau #nomention di sosmed dimana si subjek yang ingin dia #kode atau #nomention-kan tidak berada disana.

Menurut saya pribadi, ketika kita menggunakan hastag tersebut sebenarnya ada kecenderungan dimana kita benar-benar ingin mengungkapkan kalimat berkode tersebut kepada si subjek, tapi karena malu, ingin lebih misterius, atau tidak ingin menciptakan hubungan buruk dengan subjek yang dituju jadilah si hastag digunakan.
Sehingga, menurut saya lagi, bila ada pengguna sosmed yang menggunakan hastag, misalkan di Twitter, tapi ternyata si subjek yang dikodekan tidak memfollow Twitternya, sama aja dengan nonsense, berarti komunikasi kamu tidak tepat sasaran dan efektif.
Melalui penggunaan kode tersebut saja si subjek belum tentu menangkap isi pesan kamu, apalagi kalau kamu menggunakan kode ditempat yang tidak sesuai?

Dan setelah saya sedikit observasi lagi, ada 3 macam maksud #kode:
1. #kode untuk banyak orang. Misalkan: Cowo-cowo yang solat Jumat sesungguhnya tingkat ketampanannya meningkat 80% (Maksud: dia mengodekan kepada semua pria bahwasanya pria yang solat rajin solat Jumat lebih menarik baginya),
2. #kode untuk satu orang. Misalkan: kangen deh sama kamuuu #kode (Maksud: ya dia kangen sama satu orang yang seharusnya ada didalam lingkungan Twitter atau Facebook atau di sosmed yang dia kodekan).
3. #kode bukan untuk siapa-siapa. Ini jenis kode yang dia sampaikan di sosmed yang tidak di follow atau digunakan oleh subjek yang dia kodekan.

Sebagai anak komunikasi (lulusan Universitas Padjadjaran angkatan 2005, sekalian promo haha), saya akan berusaha untuk membuat komunikasi saya efektif, efisien, dan tepat sasaran. Bila saya menggunakan kode di blog, mungkin karena subjek yang saya kodekan sering membaca blog saya. Atau ketika saya membuat #kode di Twitter, itu ditujukan untuk salah satu follower saya.

Singkat kata, penggunaan #kode atau #nomention tentu bukan contoh komunikasi 2 arah yang efektif, jadi gunakanlah dengan seefisien dan sejelas mungkin agar sang subjek setidaknya merasa di kodekan.

Love is in the air for some people and I’m glad to see that.. No, it won’t make me envy, especially when it happens to my friends. People who are in love are so cute and funny. I just saw the conversation between my friend with a girl he likes, and suddenly I was giggling and smiling for a couple of minutes. Hope they’re meant for each other.

What is so funny with people who are in love is the way they send texts or messages or talking, with cute line (or maybe some people, include me, will think it’s really ‘eeewww!’). Many of my best friends always told me to, “make a move, Nya! Say or do something cute!” Like whaaaat??? I’m not a person who can say sweet words to someone I like.
When I was a student in Indonesia, Niken and Maul (my best friends) one day came to me and said, “okay, Nyanya, we’ve found a really good guy for you. We think you’re match for each other.”
“????”
“Yes, yes, listen, you and this man are really different, but those are the things that can make you a good couple.” “………..”

Then, me and the ‘different’ man met. And yaaa, he’s good, and kinda my type. Niken gave me some ‘instructions’ to make a move to this guy and I followed almost all of those, and it failed. Hahahaha!
I think because when I did those instructions, I wasn’t myself. I was trying to be someone else. So now, whenever I’m interested with a man, I do what I wanna do. Not with saying cute lines or being so girly. I know it makes that someone thinks, “seriously, does she like me or not??”

By the way, I like to tell about my friends to my au pair mother. And one day, out of nowhere she asked me, “Is it good being in relationship, huh?”
“Ha?”
“With that boy.”
“Oh, we’re just friends.”
“But do you like him?”
“No, no, he’s just a friend.”
Then I turned back to her baby and smiled. For almost 3 minutes. Oh gosh, what happened to me??

Anywaaay, love isn’t in the air for me yet. Maybe it’s still hanging somewhere.

Buona giornata!

“Is it hurt having a labor?”
“Yes.. ummm.. but it’s not really hurt. I mean, you know when you get an injection on your arm, it will be hurt but just a second and after that you will feel nothing.. Having a labor is like that.. It’s just hurt in the process, and when you see your baby, you’ll feel so happy and grateful, and the process will be meant nothing to you. And you start wanting to have another baby. But don’t take it wrong. Maybe when you ask other people, they might say ‘it was hurt like hell!!’ Different person, different experience. But don’t worry, if give a birth is really painful, no women wanna have more than one baby or maybe they don’t wanna have one.”

“And how about the contraction?”
“Hahahaha.. yes, it’s also hurt of course.. And some women will have contraction since a week before giving a birth.”

“Gosh! Is the contraction same with when we have poo-poo?”
“Noooo, more than that..”

“Period?”
“Yes, when you get period, you know sometimes it hurts so much. But it’s a biiiiiiiiig period.. But, really, don’t worry. When the baby comes, you’ll feel so relieved and happy, because you finally got the baby and you’re a mother.”

“Have you ever felt ummm.. bored with your husband? Hahahaha.. You know, sometimes my friends scared of marriage things because  they think ‘what if I get bored with my husband?’ ‘what if he’s not the one or I’m not the one?'”
“Yes yes.. I know what you mean.. I once woke up and felt ‘what am I doing here??? I’m a wife! I don’t have my freedom anymore!’ But then I realized, it’s wrong.. Because actually I feel really happy with my husband.. He’s my only one, and I’m his only one too. So, Isyana, you’re still young. Here’s my advice, don’t get married because X factors; age, family asks you to get married while you’re not ready, status, or anything else. Just enjoy your time, go with the flow.. In the end of the road you”ll meet someone who makes you ‘I really wanna spend my life with him! A whole my life!’ Don’t be in a rush.”

-My au pair mother and me, one fine evening in Blaricum-

Menurut gw kadang ketemu sodara pas lebaran adalah momen yang menegangkan karena pertanyaan mereka lebih susah daripada sidang skripsi dan selalu ada pertanyaan lain di tahun berikutnya.

Kayak misalkan pas gw duduk di bangku SMP kelas 3, ditanya, “Nyanya, ntar lulus SMP mau masuk SMA mana?” “SMA ini, Miwa.. (Miwa: tante).” “Itu unggulan ga? NEMnya harus berapa? Nyanya udah bimbel? Jangan main terus sama nonton telenovela terus Nya, harus fokus belajar bla bla bla.. apalagi jaman sekarang pergaulan makin bebas, anak SMP udah ngerokok, nyimeng, ngelem, mau jadi apa pula mereka.. bla bla bla bla..”
Dan gw cuman bisa ngangguk-ngangguk selama setengah jam kedepan.

Begitu akhirnya gw dikelas X, kebetulan waktu itu SMA gw termasuk dalam jajaran SMA ‘kelinci percobaan’, jadi di angkatan gw waktu itu kita mulai penjurusan di kelas XI. Dan begitu lebaran dan ketemu sodara-sodara, pertanyaannya mulai bercabang jadi masalah pacar, selain pertanyaan masalah sekolah yang ternyata cuman ‘kata-kata pembuka’
“Aduh, Inong (perempuan) ini udah gede ya.. Siapa pacarnya, Nak?” “Ga ada, Miwa.” (Kalaupun ada juga gw ga mau ngaku, ntar malah diceramahin karena masih SMA udah pacaran). “Ah masa belom punya.. Ada lah pasti, coba cerita ke Miwa..” “……………”

Dan biasanya Mama bantuin gw jawab dengan diplomatis, “Nyanya belum punya pacar umur segini, masih kecil. Nantilah pas udah kerja ya, Sayang?” “Lah, lama amat, Mam.” “Kuliah belajar dulu yang bener, lulus cum laude, dapet kerja yang bagus, baru punya pacar..” (Tapi pun pada akhirnya karena gw diem-diem aja selama kuliah ga pernah cerita tentang cowo ke Mama, Mama panik karna gw dianggap terlalu cuek sama cowo. Dan pada akhirnya pas gw diterima S2 di Italia, Mama bertitah, “1 bulan di Italy, udah punya pacar ya..” NAH!)

Ketika kuliah, pertanyaan mulai banyak, dari mulai “nanti mau kerja apa? Dimana?” Sampe ke pertanyaan yang buat gw panas dingin nyiapin jawaban pas lebaran tahun 2009, “Kapan lulus?”

Dan semenjak gw kerja, pertanyaan mulai sedikit ‘serius’, mengenai calon. (Ada tuh banyak calon, calon gubernur DKI!). “Calonnya udah ada belum? yaudah sama anak Tante aja mau ga?”

Gw sebenernya sedikit bersyukur lebaran jauh dari pertanyaan-pertanyaan itu, toh ketemu sodara juga palingan lewat FB, dan pertanyaan mereka juga sekitaran, “kapan pulang? Lebarannya di Indonesia ga, Nya?” Ada sih pertanyaan tentang calon yang diikutin sama ceramah panjang mengenai, “jangan lupa mulai serius cari suami, jangan sibuk sekolah terus, ntar ilmunya ketinggian nantinya banyak cowok yang minder.” “ya itulah Bang, klo sama cowo minderan, mana Nyanya mau.. Calon insya Allah nanti juga ada, yang jauh lebih baik dan hebat dari Nyanya.”

Kalau pertanyaan, “kapan pulang?”
Gw akan jawab, “Insya Allah tanggal 21 Februari 2014 Nyanya udah ada di Indonesia..”

Good thought from Om Piring