Boxes

Hello there, white blank space! Haven't seen you in three months.

I just learned something recently. So there is this group of people who live in boxes. Each of them has their own personal box, with their head, hands and feet popping out of it. They eat, sleep, do every single thing while being inside the box. But there is one point that you need to keep in mind, though. They didn't choose to be inside the box, there were put inside the box.

Sadly I'm not really sure who put those poor people inside the box. But it is probably me, or maybe you, as I said before, I can't be sure about it. But to make it easier, let's just say it was I who had put them inside the boxes. 

Some time ago, when they were sleeping, I picked each of them up and shoved them inside these boxes that I just happened to have in excess. I was really busy with moving to a new home, I bought a bunch of boxes, a whole bunch of them, because I thought that I'd need a lot of them. When I finished packing up all my belongings, it turned out that the corridor leading out of my house was still stuffed with empty boxes. What a pity, I thought. Instead of just throwing them away, might as well fill it with something. And that's how those people ended up inside a box.

The story didn't end there, actually. To help me discern one box from another, I put post-its on the inside part of the box. At first, I started with red, because I had a lot of red post-its, but midway through, I realized that I didn't have enough red post-its. Since I had no other way out, I took my old post-its, some were blue, white and some were even rainbow colored, then I taped them in randomly.

It won't be a problem, right? It's just paper with different color.

Even if it becomes a problem, those post-its were taped inside, so each of those people can keep it to themselves. Although whoever put them inside those boxes may be extremely disappointed after hearing that people make such a fuss about difference in color, when they don't even mind being put inside a box.

p.s. there is no known people living literally the way I mentioned above.

Sidewalks or Pavements or Whatever You Like To Call It

I was sitting on a bench (I wasn't sitting on a bench, but for the sake of this post, just suppose so) along one of those sidewalks constructed by the government. In case you failed to define government-made sidewalks, I shall help by providing several additional descriptions about these sidewalks.

These sidewalks are, most of the time, unproportional in size, with its width much narrower than the requirement. Every two or three meters, a tree sticks out of the floor, with the root cracking the sidewalk, while its trunk, at the same time, becoming a separator that forces every walking couple to let go of their locked hands if they wanted to pass through. But, if the tree was absent, you would absolutely find a streetlight or an electric pole full of advertisements - electrical appliances repair service's, toilet repair service's, and recent election's participants's pictures - as substitute. 

In other cases, sidewalks are built on gutters, just acting as some sort of mask to cover the filthy water beneath it that sometimes is blacker than the coffee you last drank (unless you drank it with milk, which I'm pretty much convinced you did). The odd part is, it's not rare to find the gutter cover/sidewalk, which is simply line of blocks made from cement, laying not on the gutter, but on top of another block, or occasionally by the side of the road. Well, maybe they just cleaned the gutter, although it's still as filthy as before, then found it too much trouble to return it back to its proper place. Of course it's dangerous, but at least you'll have this jumping game to keep your lower half from turning into something you'll have a hard time recognizing.

But, my bench was on a different type of sidewalk. It was neither the tree infested sidewalks nor the gutter cover, it's of a slightly fancier type of sidewalk. It had benches. I didn't smell any sewage. In place of trees, potted plants flanked my bench. Those were fancy. Rare as it is, I'm glad such sidewalks exist.

I forgot to mention that I'm back home in Medan. And I also put milk in my coffee.

To South Pole

While walking home tonight, I remembered a person.

He's far away. Nope, far isn't the right word to use.

Let's say that 'ideal' is standing somewhere in the middle of South Pole, then he, the person looking for it, would currently be walking aimlessly around the northern part of Siberia. He certainly had made some efforts to get closer to his ideal self, but to even call it far would be underestimating the distance he still has to shorten between him and his ideal self. To call it far would imply that it is a measurable distance ― that one can subjectively judge as near or far, but in fact, 'ideal' may not even be in the middle of South Pole to begin with, it may be in a completely different place altogether. It may even not be a matter of distance but a matter of depth, and yet he had no idea about it.

That would be the proper way to describe the distance he has from 'ideal'.

But what the hell is ideal? Is it just something like 'this way to ideal' written on a sign by the side of the road, or is it a part of some old legend that says, 'ideal lies asleep beneath that mountain', or is it a reward from proofing your courage, or is it an unending search that may or may not encompasses all kinds of possibility?

"I don't know," thought he. 'Plus, this place is too cold. If I spent too much time on thinking, I could end up freezing." He then decided, "If it isn't there, I'll just look for it somewhere else. After all, my life would be pointless if I stopped here just because I'm not sure about something."

And so he continues his journey toward South Pole.


*The GIF is probably unrelated to the whole thing, but please don't mind it

One of Those Classes

It was physics class, the Physics C. This week the lesson started to go deeper into the topic of light ― reflection, refraction and stuffs. My teacher is somewhat different, he teaches the lesson entirely by using hand outs. Good, since I don't have to spend a few extra thousands yen for another book. But bad, because no exercises aren't given.

Unlike previous weeks, this week's hand out was full of sentences filled with hand written kanjis. When the sentences started to show up, all I could think of was, "Okay, let's just leave this for later," "Let's do something else."

So I ended up wasting the rest of the lesson watching three people, and writing about them, and exaggerating what they did.

1

She wished that she had no need to hold a pencil and an empty piece of paper. All she wanted was to have enough reasons to keep her head up and eyes pointed toward the slide in front of the board. But it was not reciprocal. Her demand for reasons was paid with incoherent sentences from a man with graying hair, walking here and there by the slide.

Thus, she chose to stop. With head bending down, ears closed, she took the pencil and the paper, then began to write.

2

He was focused. He was, in all manner, different from the girl, except for one thing ― the pencil and paper, although that similarity was strictly limited to the fact that they both hold the same kind of thing, while the purpose was completely different. The girl held hers as a sign of lost. He held his because he had not gone down, he was in sync with the walking man.

3

He removed himself. He was there only because the schedule told him to do so. He sat there, behind the girl, holding a pencil and a bunch of papers, jotting down some other assignments.

He had papers and pencil, just like the other two, but one aspect made him unique. Unlike the other two, he had nothing to do with the man by the slide. He cared not a bit about the slide, or whether the man was giving him what he needed or not. None of these things mattered to him, he just carried on doing what he had started from before ― doing some other assignments.


*I should be studying calculus, not doing this.

Midnight's Ramble

It was two o’clock in the morning. Unlike previous days, the night was somewhat colder. He was already on his bed, ready to send the ships sailing to slumber, but just like most people of this age, he still had his phone shining a constant dim blue light on his face while he read just any lines he could find on the social media he was currently browsing.

Then a thought struck. He wanted to have something written. He abruptly dropped his phone on his bed, kicked away the blanket covering the lower part of his body, then went down from the loft.

He wanted to go straight to the computer, but he remembered that he had a few things left to do. Instead of pushing the square shaped button on the computer’s CPU, he got into the bathroom quickly, brushed his teeth then wudhu. He had missed his maghrib prayer, which normally should have been done about seven, eight hours ago. He was in Akihabara around that time, walking aimlessly with a friend, then with the same friend, passed the night with an equally aimless conversation at a Starbucks. And obviously, finding a proper place to pray in Akiba is not that simple. For that reason, he had to do the maghrib and isya together.

The prayers that followed his wudhu can’t be called proper. He shouldn’t really be having other thoughts in his mind during prayers, but he had. Lots of them, actually. Especially about things he wanted to write. He tried his best to cast those aside, but more random thoughts came fleeting by.

Once he’s done with the prayers, he was ready to have a start on whatever it was he wanted to write. Then suddenly he realized two things. First was that he didn’t have his glasses with him, so he took it from the loft. The second thing was that the story he wanted to write had actually been finished.

As A 'Mahasiswa'

I'm twenty years old, and finally a university student.

It has been an amazing April, although April hasn't even ended. My parents were both there for the university's entrance ceremony at the beginning of the month. Seeing them there, among the natives, I found it weird, and amazing at the same time when I realized that whenever my parents are asked about my whereabouts, they now can answer, "He's studying in Tokyo."

worked as a tour guide for two weeks

Making friends have been tough. I'm not really certain whether it's just me who is very adept in repulsing people, or it's the people around me who aren't really acquainted with strangers. Plus, my Japanese is still far from sufficient to talk smoothly, without stumbling mid sentence due to lack of vocabulary. It isn't rare for me to open dictionary in the middle of the conversation just so I can nod at whatever the other person is talking about, with complete understanding.

These people I met in my department are mostly into what they want to study. So after the entrance ceremony, we had a series of orientations, and within each orientation, we'll have to introduce ourselves. One of the introduction's item is 'to which major do you want to continue?' It was easy to find people who said that they want to study mathematics - my department/faculty/whatever is the school of science - because, "Mathematics is beauuuutiful!" He obviously didn't say it in English, but that's how it probably would sound like if he had said it in English. In another case someone else would say he likes physics because physics and world and bla bla bla.

Lessons are brutal. I used to learn calculus for about six months, and they were meaningless against this new horde of calculus, plus linear algebra. So we have a tutor class every week, and whenever I see the list of problems, sometimes all I could do is laugh.

Clearly not because I knew how to do it.

Even though it has only been a month, a lot of changes are happening. 

No longer leaving room five minutes before class without breakfast and a proper shower. Now it is either fifteen, twenty minutes walk or five, ten minutes of cycling to the school. 

No longer talking loudly in class with fellow Indonesians. Now it is either speaking Japanese or shutting up.

Mushy

This will be a post heavily filled with text.

You know what? Advancing, or let’s say moving on, is both good and bad. Well, who doesn’t want to move on? Some girl sure wants to move on from her ex: no more stalking on Instagram, no more putting double meaning posts on Path. But since I don’t have any love story, what I can move on from is this preparatory school and actually become a university student. Or if it were me from two years ago as the subject, I sure wanted to move on from high school and get into the university I wanted so much.

But before I get on to that, let’s suppose that life is like walking on a journey, although I find it to be a very bad metaphor. I’m not really sure why I said that though. Journey sounds romantic, it feels more like heading to a certain direction, or if I put my other interest as an explanation, journey sounds like meeting new companions, running in the forest up and down to level up, then beat the hell out of the last boss. But life isn’t like that. Most of the time, you’re not even sure of what you’re doing, and for most people on earth – those who can’t even feed themselves, those who are unfortunate, life sucks. But let’s just say life is like walking on a journey, or running if you find your life to be quick, because looking for some other metaphors might not be the best idea.

Here is my take on life as a journey. I imagine myself walking on a long stretching dirt road. It was almost dusk, but the sky was mostly still bright. The sun was there hanging close to the surface of the earth, but I was not really sure whether that’s west or south west or north west. On both sides of the road occasionally there would be short broken wooden fences, which didn't actually fence anything, they just stood there like props. Aside from the road, it’s just endless grassy plain. Once in a while I’d find trees, and if I looked into the distance, there would be some small houses gathering kilometers away without any road from those houses that connect to the one I’m walking on. There were barely any clouds in the sky, and if there were any that happened to be passing by, they would just be some small patches with curly sides like the kind of clouds that kids in kindergarten, or me in some cases draw above the twin mountains that stretch from the left to the right edge of the paper.

Somehow Radiata Stories' world comes to mind

These roads were cut into parts. You go through a few kilometers of road then you’ll find crossroad. Choose one, go through it, then you’ll find another crossroad. Sometimes there will be weird crossroads. There will be two roads, but lining side by side and you can move from one to another easily. Some other times there will also be a turning road, you’ll be taken around and somehow you’re on a whole different path but not really making any progress on your journey. The fun thing is, there are roads that can take you through small patches of forest or climbing up on a hill. You’ll repeat all of this over and over again until you find your own home, like the one I saw in the distance before. Once you find your own home, it’s your choice. You can stay there, talk to people who happen to pass by, or keep on going until you lose the last ounce of your strength. There isn't really a finish line. Even if you make it to a dead end, there is always another way you can take.

The road isn't yours alone, you’d meet people on this journey, those who coincidentally taking the same route as you. It’s not really a big deal if you met on a rather short road, or maybe you met each other on the crossroad, both mulling on which way to take. But it’s not a simple thing if you meet up from the start of crossroad, through forest, through swamp, for years, then suddenly you were put in front of a crossroad. And you both had different choices, and you both had known that your choices were different even from the time when both of you were struggling together in the swamp.

This is what I say about the good and bad of moving on. You clearly don’t want to stay in the swamp, but at the same time you wished that the crossroad never comes.

This is what I've been doing for the last two years.

Two years ago, with people who have been together with me for three years, I chose a path. Some of those people chose the same road, though. Then a year later, as consequences to my own actions, I met a different road, a road that I was kind of looking for. It can take me from the yellow skied grassy plain to the cold snowy hills. I took it because the road appeared just that one time. So I took that road and, well, detach myself from everyone else. One year through the snowy, relentless field, I met a whole bunch of people again. I’m happy. But just when I started to be satisfied with it, there, a crossroad. Again. I can see it down there. 

Parting

The year of living in Fuchu is coming to an end. Let me list a few things that I 'probably' will miss:

1. Random knock on the door at night.
2. Random knocking/bell ringing on other's doors at night.
3. Doing laundry after 11 pm.
4. Some clubs doing their morning practice on the field next to the dorm, with their random shouts here and there.
5. Coming to other people's rooms just because they're turning their AC on.
6. The whole cafeteria routine. Taking the green tray, lining up, taking the same menu - misoshiru, fish, tofu - as always, paying, filling the tea cups, taking chopsticks, sitting at the usual table, talking with the same people - usually in Indonesian, then returning to dorm at around 00.10 pm for dzuhur.
7. Seat for maths, physics and chemistry class. 
8. The distance between school and dorm that lets you get up from bed 10 minutes before class starts.
9. Class starts at 8.30 am.
10. Beautiful sunsets visible from room's balcony.
11. Beautiful sunsets which seem to always differ from day to day.
12. Free internet.
13. Convenience store that sells cheap vegetables.
14. The voice of my neighbor's skyping with his family, or the voice of my other neighbor while he's singing.
15. Sudden invitation to go to an all you can eat restaurant.
16. Easily forget to bring homework.
17. Indonesians' birthday party. Invading birthday boy/girl's room, then eating ice cream together. 
18. Being a majority.
19. Sankichi.
20. ...

The list won't end.

But most of all, I'll be missing the people. The teachers, other students, and even just the random Japanese students who happen to be studying bahasa Indonesia.

'Almost' one year in Fuchu had given me the chance to meet all sorts of people.

From the kind of person that I won't get along with, whatever I do and whatever he does; To the kind of person who doesn't want to eat the oranges that he got for free, just because he doesn't want to peel the skin and get his nails all yellowy; Or the person that I thought would be the riding-horse-or-shooting-arrows-kind, but turns out to be reading the same book as me and watching the same thing as me; Or probably the kind of person who says that Big Four isn't a good book.