The December Playlist

December is a funny oxymoron thing. It's the time of the year where ambition has run slow, while optimism is at its highest. It brings the most melancholia out of the twelve months we're given in a year, what with the grey sky and sweater weather, and the sudden urge of staring out the window while sipping a cup of hot tea... 

I'm not gonna lie, but it's my most favourite activity in December. Last year, I spent the whole month sitting in a Starbucks sipping my favourite hot green tea latte, overlooking a desolate man-made lake, reading my terribly boring law books, with the bluest Christmas love songs playing on the background. Now, look me in the eye and tell me that doesn't make you want to jump into the lake and drown along with all the freaking algae growing sporadically down under. Ugh.

Today, however, even though the situation is different, I'm not saying that it's better. It's not better, it's just different. But now at least, even though I still want to jump into said lake sometimes, I've got my own sad songs playlist that should accompany me for that very dramatic drowning scene---because I'm a big girl and I can decide for myself now.

So here it is, my top 10 sad songs that plays in my head all through December (I won't cheat by putting all my favourite folk songs together, swear in the name of Ray LaMontagne!):

1. A Case of You by Joni Mitchell

The way this woman sings is what I'd call beautiful and painful. She should be the only woman singing on the background of every movie scene where the prettiest girl at the party is always the saddest. Try not feel your heart squeezed like a fresh lemon while listening to this song, I dare you.

PS: There's a cover of this song by James Blake, which is so wonderfully beautiful, and it will rip your heart open like never before. 

2. Into My Arms by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

This song is sad, romantic, depressing, and overall melancholic, all at the same time. It's the perfect song for when you desperately love someone but God was the only one you can talk to because other people can't know---they just can't. The love is too intense and secret and beautiful for everybody to find out. This is that song. Because when you know someone will choose the kind of God he will worship based on whether or not He will bring you to him, you know that someone is crazy, possibly creepy, but crazy about you nonetheless.

3. Strange and Beautiful (I'll Put A Spell on You) by Aqualung

Aqualung is the expert of singing about love. This one, though, is my favourite 'unrequited love' song that gets to haunt me every single time.  It's hopeful, sad, and self-conscious; like that time you were looking at your coolest senior in high school even though he never cared, but you wish that there is a way that he would, and you secretly want to cast a spell on him. It's that desperate, really.

4. I Can't Make You Love Me by Bonnie Raitt

Everybody knows that one of the most heartbreaking moments in someone's life is the first time they realise that they can't make someone love them no matter how much they try. Actually, someone's love life can't get harder than that. Maybe. Most likely. And there's also a cover by Bon Iver. Because Bon Iver likes to get people to bawl their eyes out, apparently.

5. Gale Song by The Lumineers

I'm not #TeamGale, but listen to this song and imagine being Gale: The Alpha male. The strong, handsome man in the middle of desperate, dusty miners who's in love with the super-feminist, strong-headed woman who doesn't need you. You really wish there is something you can do; when she's whimpering in pain, when she's stressed out and depressed as hell... But there isn't any way that you can help to fight for her. You can only see her through the screen. And eventually, after so much hopeless stares through the pictures... You've gotta let her go.

*sobs*

6. The Scientist by Coldplay

I was thinking of putting any of the songs from their most recent album, Ghost Stories, but then decided that The Scientist remains the saddest, moodiest song Coldplay has ever produced. And the music video--oh, the music video. Tell me you didn't cry when you re-watch it, listened to the lyrics, and having that someone from your past haunting you back just in time you were ready to be happy again. Tell me. 

7. Rosyln by Bon Iver & St. Vincent

Every single of Bon Iver's songs sounds like the coldest day of winter in Middle Earth. But this? This song sounds like a worn-out wanderer walking through Middle Earth in the coldest day of winter, starving, teeth bleeding and crying with blood-shot eyes. And it's not even half his journey. 

8. Happiness by The Fray

We must be old enough by now to know that sometimes, something that happen in our life can be both happiness and sorrow. Sometimes, we're sad when we should be happy. And sometimes, I long for happiness just when life keeps on sending me reasons to be sad. But it's a good life. Hold on.

9. Cold Water by Damien Rice

Sadness can feel like it's giving you chills; it can feel like drowning in a sea of cold water with no one there to help you back to the surface. Sometimes sadness can feel like singing with your eyes all teary and all your power used up to hold back your tears. And sometimes, sadness can feel like listening to this song; and it's much better than the other two.

10. How by Regina Spektor

Letting go of someone (or something) can be messy. And this song sums it up: not wanting the memories to fade, but knowing full well that time will come and heal everything, and that someday somewhere, they'll meet again. But at the moment, you are a guest here now. 

Metanoia

I'm the kind of person who regards a meaningful conversation as highly as a businessman sees money. My favourite books are the ones with quiet a few conversations so remarkable that I had to highlight them every so often. My favourite movies are all Before Sunrise-type; full of conversations, either deep or small, but lacks in anything else other than two people talking. My writings--they have no action, only talks. But you should know that I'm not a good conversationalist. In fact, I hardly ever start a conversation with someone, and even if I do, it usually end up to be awkward. But I love talking to people. I love exchanging spoken words with someone, because it's like opening another window to a new world. It's interesting.

And some conversations, as rare as it seems, went so deep and honest that it became remarkable and inspired an essay. Some of them happen in a bedroom, some on top of a mountain... and some happen in a seaside chocolate bar overlooking an endless ocean.

Remember when, three--almost four--years ago, I was a college freshman with broken dreams and longing to feel okay with the way that I am? When I wrote this post and thought that I know the first thing about not knowing where to go, wishing I haven't messed up my life beyond repair?

Remember?

Well, me neither. I'd like to think it was just a phase... But maybe the truth is, what I mean by phase is the state that I was in between that time and now. 

Because look at me now. Look how I still don't feel any different now. Or to be fair, how I've come back to square one.

I'm the kind of person who thinks that one should always be open for any possibilities. Theoretically, I'm an expert. I can be your go-to person to talk to about how life doesn't always go according to plans, how you could spend four years of college training to be an accountant and end up being a photographer, or how your degree in Russian lit doesn't always mean you will be a translator to some cold-blooded ex-communist men. I'd say, 'Oh, but life is so full of possibilities. What's interesting about life is that we never know what it has in store for us.' What a goddamn bullshitcliche.

The truth of the matter is, I'm not ready. I'm not ready to be the one who's in that scenario; when I'm the character instead of the observer. You see, I'm always that person who needs to be constantly reminded that: talk is easy. Because I'm awful at doing. I don't know how Aristotle had it; was he also only good at theorising and not at realising? Was he a pure philosopher who thinks but not do?

Paul Gauguin is one of the many people I'd consider a rockstar. For one, he's a legendary painter, and for that also held the curse of being a lousy lover. But I see him as someone who could do the thing that I wish I would have the courage to do someday; the thing I couldn't quiet fathom my obsession with; the thing that scares the hell out of me. 

I would like to believe that, like Gauguin, it is never too late to change your vocation. There is always time, just as much as there is always something you must sacrifice for the greater good. And maybe he didn't even know it was for a greater cause--maybe he just did it. Because he wanted to. Because he could. And he'd never looked back, because he was doing the right thing for him. Because he took a chance on himself and never feel sorry for it.

I guess it says something about me when my favourite quote is someone telling the story of how a stockbroker abandoned his family to become a legendary painter who suffered of syphilis in a Pacific island. I came to the point of thinking that everyone should be as brave as he was. I thought that nobody was born to something--they can always do something about it. Because the universe is limitless.

It's my own thoughts that limit me.

It's the voices in my head that do the talking, that sometimes I feel like I shouldn't be let alone with my own thoughts, especially--and I didn't say this lightly--my 3 AM thoughts. I may be thinking and worrying too much, but... how on earth do you not do that?

Honey, Honey

Sometimes when you're older, you have to learn how to be satisfied with what life can offer you despite what you think you need and/or deserve. I thought after all the ups and downs we call daily routine, I deserve a 7 days holiday in the sun in Bora-Bora with my best mates... But life wasn't always so generous so my last weekend getaway in Singapore lasted less than 48 hours, but not to be disappointed because the overwhelming sensation of it got me hungover for more than 7 days! Talk about considering it a success ^^.  Now, onto the stories, which I have decided to let the many selfies we took do the dirty work for you (I leaked only a reasonable amount of them to you) here's how it went, clockwise from top left:

#1: Perfectly nice selfie that we can be proud of.

#2: Pretty lips courtesy of Sephora VivoCity (Because apparently every girl should not leave Sephora looking plain, you know?)

#3: Major #iwokeuplikethis selfie.

#4: Yep. Normal face.

#5: Pretty excited for the Mamma Mia: International Tour at Marina Bay Sands' Grand Theater. (And by the way, those eyes had just witnessed David Beckham, live!)

#6: What supposedly look like a 'candid' face does look like a candid face, right??

Young But Not Wise

Somebody told me, about a while ago, a quote that might as well represent who I am today. I don't particularly know this person, and I didn't get a chance to dig deeper, but I am thankful for the one thing I was told that perfectly captures me. It's a well-known quote from the notorious Stephen Colbert, and it says something like this:

Don’t be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying yes begins things. Saying yes is how things grow. Saying yes leads to knowledge. "Yes" is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes.

Being My Own Hero

Growing up used to mean being able to do what kids can't do; it used to mean that I get an all access pass to every thing adults can do, and it used to sound fun. But boy, was I a naive little girl. How could I never come up with any suspicion for it to be slightly... depressing?

I have always waited for my turn to turn 21 years old. That's why this year, I have done the things that doesn't sound like 'me' for the sake of it. Just because I want to. Just because I feel like I'm legit enough to say that now. Just because I don't feel entitled to explain to anyone for the things I wanna do, because I'm my very own person, and eventually, my own hero. (Because, who else is there to save me?)

Recently, I cut my hair short--like really short, and above picture is me while I'm writing this post, and I've grown it out for about 2 months now, so it used to be a lot shorter). The last time I've worn my hair this short was second grade, and I was 6 years old. And, I don't know. I just feel like chopping it short now, you know?

Also, I dyed my hair reddish brown. Don't ask, just-- yeah, I did. Did I regret it? Well, not as much as loving the fact that I did it. If Coco Chanel said that, a woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life, what's she gonna say about a woman who cuts and dyes her hair? I was gonna start a revolution, really. 

And I'm not gonna lie. It does change my life a little. The thing with change is, no mater how small, it can be good. With my much shorter and lighter hair, I cut my time allocation for getting ready in the morning. And anyway, I was never great with hair. I barely ever brush my hair! Short and straight hair is awesome for someone who never remember the use of hair brush on her vanity. It's so much simpler, and the fact that you can't really put too much make up when your hair is nowhere to cover it really helps. Usually, like every other girl you could see at the mall these days, I would just paint my brows a little and put on some lipstick, and call it a go. I don't always wear red lipstick, mind you, because I work conventional 9-6 corporate job, but I always do put on some lipstick. I believe that, for a female individual, putting on lipstick is a sign that you are pulled together and respecting anyone you're going to meet--unless, of course, you work with kids or other groups of people who would feel intimidated by some colour on your lips.

One of the many secrets that adults never told you is that growing up feels lonely sometimes. Your world would start to seem like it's shrinking--you start having distance with your family, your friends all busy and moving places (forward, actually) and the people you make contacts with are mostly people at work, and they're just... not the same, you know? You're so lucky if you could sit down with your work friends and feel the same way you'd sit down with your old pals from college or school. It's completely mundane and repetitive and it doesn't take long before you realise that all of these routines are necessary evil that you must deal with because you're an adult. Because your parents put you in school and eventually college by actually doing this very thing. By being miserable Monday-Friday, 9-6, and feeling tired on the weekends. Because everyone's done it, and it's your turn.

The problem with me is that I agree too much with Woody Allen; that my only regret is that I'm not someone else. I compare myself with other people way too much that it keeps me awake at night (so when I don't, know this people, it was a good--or tiring day). I cannot stop binge-watching my friends and colleagues on social medias on their new and current endeavours. Most of my friends are graduating college, and everyone seems to be going on a new adventure. This is mine, I know. I don't have to live what they live in, someone in my head keeps saying. But then I keep hurting myself by asking, So is this what I have to live in instead? This?  Is this what I deserve?

It's always been my problem: not knowing what I deserve. It seems to me that I always find it hard to settle with the things that I have, because I always focus on the things that I could have. I'm crazy about the idea of a parallel universe, and maybe that's my fault, too--I keep thinking about the me in the parallel universe; what I am and what I do. I've dealt with insecurities before, but it's not the same. It's like feeling as if I'm not ready to grow up, and it sucks. Because I've been writing about it since the beginning of this year and I still don't ace it. Granted, writing is different from doing it. But that just proves even further the kind of smarty pants that I always am. It doesn't suck, though. I've always been one since I was a kid. But I guess it's more like a restlessness. Feeling like I'm not living my life to the fullest enough, not having enough fun, not achieving enough, not taking chance enough...

If growing up means I have to my own hero, then I certainly still have lots of homework to do. If being my own hero means that I have to be good enough for myself, then I'm still on my way to it. I'm getting there. I promise you, I'll get there. Someday.

Different is good

If you know me, chances are you've heard me saying indisputably that Silver Linings Playbook was one of the few stories which movie version is way better than the original book. Something about Matthew Quick's way of telling the story of a mentally disturbed adult in Silver Linings Playbook just doesn't fit my liking, though I did feel like the narrator of the story was not a normal person. I mean, Pat does sound like a lunatic at times, but Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock is a whole different matter. Quick's voice as Leonard and the first-person narrator of the story is as troubled and insane as a suicidal teenager could be. I found myself cringed and winced a lot of the time, and my heart pounded like crazy when Leonard was about to do his mission. Long story short, I really like this book better than Silver Linings Playbook.

So, Leonard Peacock is suicidal. He's mature beyond his years, and is probably a genius. He likes to think that he's different--and he is. He's obsessed with Humphrey Bogart to the point that he conversed to his old neighbour, Walt, in Bogie's quotes from his B&W movies. He's obsessed with Shakespeare's Hamlet, as most suicidal people do. He questions God and religions in general, finding it hard to believe why God is so vain and all that questions you sure would encounter once or twice in your life (believe me, I have). He looks up to his holocaust teacher, Herr Silverman, who's easily predicted is the hero of the story, and he loathes his mother for being so oblivious and absent from his life.

It can be very depressing reading this book, truthfully speaking. But it can also give you a peek of the benevolence that even someone who carries a gun with him to blow someone's head off shares with all of us. There are moments when they still dare to hope that someone is going to make them change their mind, no matter how firm they are on the plan. So the next time you see the news about school shooting, mass murder or suicidal people/celebrities, you'd know; that they have tried their best to stay and not check out on us, but our world was not welcoming enough; not tolerating enough, and certainly not accommodating enough, for them to see their hope grow. 

'Til Death Do Us Part

If you know me well, you'd probably know that I'm a hopeless romantic, and a dreamer, but mostly a cynic, when it comes to marriage. I didn't grow up as a girl who dreams of a wedding and spending the rest of my life with my prince charming, no. Cinderella is not something my mother read to me as bedtime stories, but rather a fairy tale I discovered in the children's book section. I wasn't raised to be a romantic girl, but rather someone with a perspective, and it was up to the universe what to make of me.

At 21, a lot of my friends and co-workers are already talking about marriage, which is understandably a natural thing. But I am still a cynic--here I am, someone who believes in love, but doesn't believe that it's the very foundation of a marriage because, let's face it: we're too old to believe in fairy tales. Rainbow Rowell's Landline and Taylor Jenkins Reid's After I Do came to the rescue, to help me being less of a cynic that I am. They both have the same premise: a couple who have spent so many years together, ended up questioning their feelings toward each other and whether or not what they have is enough to keep their marriage alive. Because falling in love is the easy part. It's the sugar and icing of a cake that is not probably as good underneath. Because it's the thing after we say "I do" or witnessed as "Sah!" that people called as marriage.

You can go to google for what the books are about, so I'm not gonna waste your time here reading the same stuff they have. What I feel the need to write is this: This book is necessary, nay, mandatory, for the cynics alike me out there, who wants to see what marriage means for a couple who's been together so long that they can't remember how beautiful things used to be, and when it all went wrong. If there's anything that I learned from both of these books, it's this: Marriage is a full-time work. It's not romance. It's not all of those lovey-dovey stories about boy meets girl and fall in love. No. It's a whole different story, and it's hard. It requires your entire being to keep it alive. Sure, love and romance are parts of it; they're good for a start, but they fade, and when they do, marriage is just another job that you go home to after a long day of work.

Tiring, huh?

Well, yes. But guess what? When marriage is for you, you'd rather having this job to come home to than not having it all. It shouldn't be a shame for people who don't think it's not for them--the truth is, it's a thing, the way vegetarian lifestyle is a thing, but it's not for everybody, alright. And it shouldn't be a shame too, if someone was born dreaming of his/her wedding day, surrounded by people and things they love, because it's a thing.

So, you probably wonder, are you still a cynic? My answer is: well, yes. Less of a cynic that I used to be, but still more cynical than people my age and gender in general. I believe that marriage is a tripartite commitment a couple makes with God. It's something sacred, something that's worth fighting for. When you think about it this way, it's a lot less romantic, but it's a lot more worth the energy--unless if you don't believe in God, in which case, I cannot speak for you. 

Love is not enough

I know I live in a very modern society because, back in high school, when there'd been going around the big question: love or money, most of my friends would answer: Money. Because love is not enough.

Modern, or smart, or fairly shallow, I'm not really sure. But I believe that those friends of mine knew better than the sparkly sweet, glitter-y stories about love that we were read as bedtime stories back in preschool. Because if love was enough--if love was enough, it's not going to be indoctrinated into fairytales and children's stories and works of fiction because we would've known. No persuasion needed. But it has to be; because it doesn't come naturally as enough.

After the death of two admirable people--Ned Vizzini and Robin Williams--due to suicide resulted from chronic depression, I got to thinking about it a lot. Not about suicide, no--I am way past that teenage angst emo-years to be suicidal--but about... Why? They both have a family. Wife. Kids. Success. If anything, they're far more accomplished than the rest of the world population will ever be. Why would they take their own lives? 

I used to think that it must be the hardest to be their family. Their wife and kids. It was as if they will be forever wondering if they were ever enough; if the love they gave was enough; if the deceased's love was ever real. What were they thinking, minutes or even seconds, when they were preparing for their death? What did they see? Freedom? Victory?

The more I think about it, fortunately, the more that I learn. Love is not enough. It will never be enough. It can be a huge factor for good measure, but more often than we'd like, it's not enough. Depression is not a disease with a remedy. It's a disorder. It was not meant to be cured, even by something as grand as love. I'm not an expert in psychology so I'm not in any capacity to speak about depression, but I know it will not really go away. Therapies can help, or perhaps there are some other methods that people can try, but they don't cure it.

Everyone has their own demons, who live under their skin and could at times get the better of them. People who commit suicide--they probably have it harder than you. We all come from different places; and that affects how we see life as it should be. Some people might've seen far better--or worse--things than you have even though you're the same age. We don't fill the same shoes. We didn't go to all the same places. So when someone chose a different way to die, it shouldn't be a tragedy. It should be their choice--and we must respect it.

So the bad news is... you can love someone so much, and they can love you with all they have the way happy people do it--but that's still not enough. So maybe next time you stumbled into someone depressed and suicidal, know that you can only help so far. It's their battle--not yours. 

Thinking Out Loud

Do you ever stop once in a while and listen to what the voices in your head are saying?
Do you take a moment to actually mind what they say?
How much is that affecting your life? And more importantly,
How is that working out for you?

Remember when, six years ago, you promised yourself that you'll go back there again someday; to the place under the same tree that gave you shade the when the summer sun got too warm and bright. Today, you are a guest. One day, you are the host, you said to yourself. You were so determined and you knew exactly the steps you were going to take to get you there. Back then, you might be naive; but you had a vision, and your mission isn't something that you have to spend nights in solitude thinking of.

Oh, look at you now. Someone asked you, "What do you plan to do with your life?" and you were fuzzed and you had to lie with something as silly as 'I have something, but I can't tell you now.' 

You were listening to the sad, sad song about someone who was obsessed with the clarinet teacher's daughter and it brought you to one of the most painful part of your past, and you cried in silence, and you wish you could've stopped yourself but instead you cried harder, and you felt you were alone beneath the sad, starry sky, and you wonder why a starry sky could make you feel so sad but you decided to stop asking yourself questions--especially ones you don't have the answers to. He's gone, you told yourself. And he probably doesn't care that I've been gone, too. 

What are you doing with your life? Seriously, what?

A Sky Full of Stars

I always promised myself that this is it. This is the last time I would write about you. This is the last few words I would ever produce about you--it may not be much, but it's millions compared to the zero words that you ever gave me. But we never lied to anyone more than we lied to ourselves. Of course I will break my promise again. Of course I'm about to do it again now.

It's such a beautiful night outside. I don't live in a place where stars are fond of showing up before midnight, so when they do, it almost makes me cry. I like walking home alone at night--it's soothing, calming, and it's the only time of the day where I don't have to listen to anyone other than the voices inside my head. It's when I'm being most of myself. And I can't find a bigger happiness than that, even if it usually ends up with me in tears.

I have a feeling that I have never stopped writing because I believe I will find you through my writings. I firmly understand that this is me, making an effort so that you can reach me out... so that you can find me. Because the world has too many turns and blocks, it's so easy to get lost even when we're not hiding.

I promised, through one of my writings, that I will find you in the seventh winter we'd spent apart. Pretty soon, it will be the sixth. Whether or not I'll find you in the seventh winter is still a mystery. The bigger possibility is, obviously, I won't. But sometimes my writings work like magic; they probably don't come true, but they hit close to home. I know that writing about that here now will probably jinx it, but... it's too beautiful a night with the sky full of stars that guide me home not to be thinking of you.

I will always miss you. I will always remember you: in the darkest of night, through a song, through a magical starry night, through a glimpse of memory that took me back in time. You have never been far; and my memory of you is now mixed up with the things that probably never happened--but lives dearly in my memory anyway.

Treasured memory is a piece of life that shall never be gone. I'd like to believe that you are so deeply engraved in my heart that even though one day life takes away my memory, they can never take the ones about you anywhere. Because you're staying here. Because it's not me not moving on in my life. It's me--holding on to hope, even in the absence of it.

That kind of love

“It was the kind of love that, sooner or later, cornered you into a choice: either you tore free or you stayed and withstood its rigor even as it squeezed you into something smaller than yourself.” 

― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed

Most days, we long for someone to love us deeply, unyieldingly, and without recourse. Sometimes, we are so selfish that we'll do anything, anything, to get someone to love us; even if sometimes we are a little hard to love. But, we accept the love we think we deserve.

Some days, there is a kind of love that terrifies me; the kind of love that is much bigger than we are ever capable of having; the kind of love that is too big for us to bear, that all it ever does is shrinking us into a million tiny molecules. The kind of love that, instead of nurtures—kills. 

Forward

I always consider myself a lucky person. And sometimes, when you're lucky, good things happen to you. And sometimes, when one good things happen, others will follow, so sometimes you will be so overwhelmed with so many good things that you either, a) forget that it's only temporary, or b) you get scared because you start to believe that too much of good things can kill you. No, really. Sugar, for example.

At the start of this year, that's what happened to me. A bit of both, actually. Things started to change course a little while ago, and I can't believe that I'm particularly glad that it did. Because too much sugar can kill, so a little bit of sour and bitter may be good for me, you know?

I like that it did. I like that now my life is pretty much in the normal, balanced pH (it's very good when it's in a product you use on certain parts of your skin), so I believe it must be good. I like that I feel like life is talking to me. Mostly, I like that life reminds me that just when I think I've seen it all, like I've had it all, life can still surprises me. 

Had I stayed where I had been, on my throne much more beautiful than the infamous Iron Throne, I probably won't have this wisdom. I probably won't be able to speak in this manner; the manner of someone who's finally been where people have been. I like the fact that I'm back to land on my own two feet, and having a life realistic enough for people to let me be. I'm glad that I would no longer be the cocky version of myself that some people (including me) would find extremely obnoxious. Because as much as I would like to be back there again someday, I... would prefer to work my way around it, rather than relying on luck. Because even though I believe in luck as a grand factor that can define our lives, it can only get you so far. When you're too overwhelmed in it, you'll drown. And before you lose your ability to swim and float, you gotta go back to the land and walk on it. Because that's how the history always teaches us. Explorers walk (or sail on ships, whatever); they don't swim and drown.

As it is

Mindy Kaling's commencement speech at Harvard Law School Class Day 2014 is basically what I really want to hear at my own graduation--which happened some time ago--and went nothing quiet like it. This speech basically reminds us how really important it is to be educated; to be smart; to be acknowledged by the world for the qualities that we basically had to work on, rather than blessed with. I found this speech to be quiet moving, and it's always refreshing to hear someone who could tell it as it is, had the talent of insulting people without being offensive, and all that was done by a woman who is so confident of herself--and that's because she's so damn smart and sure about what she's capable of.

Hamshira

It's been awhile since my days of reading books got corrupted with reality, and I have to say, it's good to remind myself of who I am and what I like to do, and how reading, more often than not, has helped me to gain perspective in several aspects of life. And what better way is there, to celebrate such moment, other than purchasing a book that had been a rave in many best seller list 7 years ago?

I pretty much believe in NYT's Best Sellers, even though of course, I'd rather pick a book based on the reviews I've read and decide for myself whether it will be suitable for me. I have never read Khaled Hosseini's books before, even though his latest, And The Mountains Echoed, has been out since last year (I have, however, seen The Kite Runner film. It made me wince and cry like a baby) The reason why is a bit stupid, but it's simply because I don't really believe in the big names that major bookstores around the world just put them on the featured shelves by default, despite what the reviews say. I had experienced something like this many times. It's probably because I picked the wrong book, but anyway, I picked A Thousand Splendid Suns because I think I would like it. It's got so many elements that I love from a book. First of all, it's historical fiction, which is my personal favourite; and secondly, because it talks about humanity. It's not about women, it's not about Afghanistan, no. It's about being human and alive during the wartime. It's about something that I have yet to see with my very own set of eyes. It's about something that I can never imagine having. And mostly, it's about learning the choices human have in that time; because I believe that no matter how desperate, we will always have a choice.

It's a tale about love, about Afghanistan, the country that I could only see through my TV screen how very grey and dusty, and ruined, they are. Reading a book like this gave me perspective; that even a country that seems to be mostly in ruins now, who had witnessed so much war, and blood, and rotting bodies, is still a land of paradise to the people. That it is still home, to its people. That once, before weapons and power-hungry men invaded their land, it was a beautiful place to be. It was home. It was a piece of heaven put into the world.

But mostly, it is about endurance. It tells the story of two women from different generation, Mariam and Laila, who endured so much of their life, that they ended up bent in places. That's what happens to people, you know. Human, physically and mentally, was created to endure the things beyond what we could imagine. Even in extreme desperation, we endure. The characters are so vivid; so real, and so alive. There are so many layers in each one of them, it's like they're in 3D. There is no black and white; there is black within white, and white within black, and there are other colours; which is the truth that each one of us secretly holds. No one is a pure saint and no one is purely sinner; do you know how impossible it is to stay extremely right or left?

All in all, I love it. Usually, I finished a book in 3-7 days, or much longer, because, you know, I'm a lazy reader. But it doesn't take me more than 24 hours to finish this book. There is something about the way Hosseini tells his story that is so compelling and bewitching, that I could not even put this book down and let Buzzfeed's fun and brainless stories distract me. It's very enjoyable, and shattered your heart many times, but you'll end up a better person after reading (Okay, that doesn't happen to me, but I suppose it should) Highly recommended, especially for you, hamshira.