We Can Live Like Jesse and Celine If You Want

He reminded me so much of you. So much. What reminded me of you was not himself—rather, the story of how it all went, albeit shorter and infused with a little more romance than friendship.

He's your age; perhaps younger by a few months. His confidence? He literally referred to Deadpool 2's character whose superpower was: luck. He speaks with an accent that sounds like yours, if not better. His voice was rather more soothing than your deep, rough, bass-y voice. Like you, he's not the tallest guy in the world. He was probably only an inch taller than me—I definitely could beat him if I weren't wearing flat sandals that day. Unlike you, though, he looks like a replica of the photographer Francesco Carrozzini. Dirty blond with blue eyes and tan, sun-kissed skin, he had on a bright orange-red jacket and sneakers with a white shirt and jeans. I'm guessing unlike you, he wasn't a mathlete.

He speaks a bunch of other languages like you. Also like you, he traveled a lot. He told me about the cities he has been, and his senior year of high school in Boston. He's street and book smart about politics, macroeconomics, and international policy. He knows what is going on in not just Europe but beyond that. He talks about the EU's central bank systems and compared it with an Argentinian policy. He is pro-Palestine, pro-choice, and supports LGBT rights without question. He's confused about how people say a Middle Eastern ultra-conservative country is undergoing a revolution brought to the country by a high profile prince who probably killed all of his cousins to get to where he is. He calls Jared Kushner the quintessential bad guy and refused to move to the States while Trump is president even though he is a citizen. 

Like you, he also talks about the mafioso culture of Southern Italy—but because he's from Sicily, he did not make a single joke about it. So, pretty much unlike you.

Perhaps also like you, he's a decent skier. I got sad though when I think about because... I didn't know that about you. I didn't know if you ski. I didn't know if... if you and I, we'll be deep into such interesting discussion like I had with him. Will we? Ever?

He and I agreed on several things—except for my love for this city, that apparently he did not share.

That day, Navy Pier was our Vienna. He was almost definitely a Jesse, and I, the Celine. Theoretically it should be Before Sunset, but, it did feel more like Before Sunrise. 

What was it that I've said about you before? Anyone would be perfect in a short period of time. 

You had been perfect because we only met for 10 days. So he was obviously perfect because I only knew him for 2 hours.

I could get lost in his big blue eyes if only time had let me swim in it longer. I tried to, but his brown Aviator-style sunglasses let me see more of my own reflection than the bright blue windows to his heart.

Mathlete, did you remember? We were 10 years younger back then. We didn't know how the world is supposed to work. So when we parted ways, it was just that. A simple good bye and a little wave of hand. Fast forward 10 years later... it's a little better. 

A great day that ended in horrible post-midnight texts. Then awkward silence. Then both of us trying to end this in a mature way. Acknowledging that it is the best possible alternative to how this should end.

But I guess at least this time I can say that I tried. I guess this time I wouldn't have to keep on wondering what if for the next 10 years.

I guess this time, I can peacefully live with myself.

I learned a new language

I soli beni che conosce al mondo sono il cibo, la femmina, il sonno

means:

The only items which are known to the world food, female, sleep

This week on history

This week is, well, sucks.

The only good news came on Tuesday. When I was so freakin bored at school, I checked my email and there was an email from Edward! The subject is tipical english jokes.

Rasanya kayak kena serangan jantung. Like there was a lightning striking me (haha, trust me, it's true!) I waited days until I can read it on my laptop and when I check it out... I was the only non-Italian contact he sent it to........

GOD WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING HERE???

I don't know, maybe I was so anti-social atau emang gue ga kenal orang-orang itu, tapi yang gue tahu ada di grup Italy dalam daftar recipients-nya itu cuma 2 orang lagi dan salah satunya ya temen sekolahnya. Terus juga cuma ada satu contact yang dia save namanya, so probably that's the purple-haired girlfriend.

I wanted to reply it, I was pretty sure for that but then... well no. I guess better not. Or should I???

Today is Thursday, udah kebayang di kepala gue dari kemaren bahwa gue akan pulang cepat dan sebagainya, lalu......... JAKARTA MACET MEN. Gue sampe di rumah jam 9! Uggghhhh

in the memories that will never fade....

astrid and me, outside my house, hahahaha

....or at least I hope it is.





I actually have forgot some, but yesterday and today some of my friends from holiday remind me a lot about this once-in-a-lifetime experience. so if you're bored of my summer story, leave now.


I didn't know that Indonesian kids could be so tacky but here's the hint: Bule Ganteng/Cantik. I remember we just arrived at Heathrow, a guy and a girl from EF Oxford picked us up and bring sandwiches with yoghurts. The guy was, well, cute, and he got a lovely hair cut too. Gue sengaja nanya cara memilih sandwich no ham padahal it was so easy! Hahahaha! Terus pas kita lagi nunggu bus gitu, I was chit-chatting with all my friends and suddenly this guy (who later we know from our friend who went to Oxford, Neris, named Daniel) ngelewatin kerumunan kami dan mengibaskan rambutnya ala iklan sampo anti ketombe. HAAHAHAHAHAH WHAT A BLOKE. berasa ganteng dia.

Catharina reminded me of the last day of the school where we play Blue vs Ping Ping. Jadi waktu itu, guru gue, Ms. Sangeeta, divided the class into 2 big groups. And my captain was Alessandro, y'know, the popular, Abercrombie kinda hunk... I forgot why he was my captain, tapi pokoknya begitulah ya. It was so funny, I can't write all the funny stuffs about it! Anyway, I was on the blue team. Jadi sebenernya gini, Ms. Sangeeta told us to name our group with any names, whatevs, it could be tigers or anything. And then this funny guy named Riccardo, raised his hand and said he wanted his group to be named "Ping Ping". everybody laughed their ass off, I didn't know where he get that name from! Later on I found out that it was the name of Korean woman who's the hostparent of him and Edoardo. Yes, Ricca and Edo were housemates. I recently found out that they won the olimpiadi della mathematica together too. Dan karena lawan kita namanya udah lucu banget, mendadak kelompok gue jadi ciut. Ya udah akhirnya kita asalan aja namain grup jadi "Blue". Sooooo good to be in the normal group!

The game was just to answer the questions faster than the opponent. Guess what? The Ping Ping, with Riccardo in it, was so funny they were like making jokes rather than answering questions! At one point, one person from each group has to write the word 'balloon' on the board, the fastest will win. Alessandro as my captain yang mewakili Blue, dan dari Ping Ping adalah Sanna. UUGH SWEET GOD HE COULDN'T WRITE IT! Salah anggotanya juga sih, gue, Valentina, Matti dan Rachele kelamaan mikir mendingan nulis apa. Udah tau Alessandro juga lagi bingung di depan. Hahahahaa! I can't remember who scored the most for Blue but we had a tie-break.

It was so freaking funny. Ms Sangeeta said, "Please write the word archaeology," I can do it, seriously. But I was so shy (ha ha ha) jadi gue diem aja. Dari Ping Ping, Sanna lagi yang maju, tapi karena cuma satu kesempatan dan dia salah, akhirnya dia harus mundur! Ms. Sangeeta asked, "Now who can?" Dengan pedenya, I raised a hand! "Oh I can do better!" Rachele aja sampe agak-agak siok gitu liat anak Indonesia ngomong sepede itu, hahahahaha! Gue maju dan deg2an parah, gimana kalo ternyata gue ga bisa......? "Yup, that's right," kata Ms. Sangeeta. Blue wins! Gue langsung tertawa lebar dan berjalan riang gembira kembali ke tempat gue, Alessandro senyum lebar dengan gigi kelincinya, "High Five!" Ooh it felt so great to score a victory. In fact it felt even better because Edoardo was there.... hahahaha!



Other than that is we watched "HITCH". For me, it was the first time. I guess most of classmates too. Dan saat nonton itulah gue baru denger dari Rachele bahwa di Italia, juga banyak negara Eropa lainnya, film Amerika di dub! "In big cities, no, it's not dubbed. but in smaller cities, yes." I can't imagine nonton film Hollywood di Blok M pake bahasa Indonesia, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! what a very thoughtful idea anyway, not everyone enjoys watching with subtitles.

One funny thing about Edoardo is that, he's this very plain guy, he wore the same white T for 4 days in a row to school, but his girlfriend was, well, extra-ordinary! With purple hair and extreme sense of fashion, the two walked together was a very weird, yet completing-each-other kind of couple. he's a snob, you know? sombongnya parrrah. Ratih dan Asti pernah ketemu dia dan Riccardo di stasiun... well, maybe Harrow&Wealdstone, he was sitting on a fence, dan ga menegur sama sekali! I don't really remember tapi seinget gue menurut cerita mereka, Riccardo aja ngomong sesuatu gitu. Yeah, maybe Edo just don't wanna be org yang dicap sksd, hehe.

And going to England is nothing if you don't rub shoulders with something like football (or soccer, if you're so American). I remember that, maybe I haven't been a week in London, ada final Euro 2008. I've been waiting for it like crazy! With this very dumb thought gue pikir gue akan bisa menontonnya karena tengah malam gue pasti udah ada di rumah. Ternyata, I was in Europe dan pertandingan itu live hanya beda paling 1 jam dari jam di London! Jadilah, saat gue lagi berjalan pegeeel banget sama temen-temen gue mau naik kereta (dunno where, somewhere hectic like Oxford Circus or something) we saw a group of men wearing Spanish jersey. OOH TORRES! gue mau nangis rasanya ga bisa nonton. Germany vs. Spain would be so dramatic! I love Germany!

The next day, I was on my way to The Big Ben, seeing the famous 10 Downing Street (yang ternyata nyempil dan nggak norak kayak rumah pejabat di sini), gue baca di koran Metro gratisan dari stasiun bahwa Jerman kalah. On the picture, Podolski was crying... oh shit man. And turns out ternyata cuma gue diantara 28 grup London yang mendukung Jerman! Eeerrghhhh!

One day I went to Emirates Stadium in Highbury&Islington with Ratih, Asti and Catharina. we met these two Italian boys also in London with EF, Angelo and Claudio. Claudio is kind of gorgeous, yeah... hahahaha. he took a picture of us and we had this really short small talk. Later we met them at the disco... with their girlfriends. Hahahahahaha! In front of the Emirates Stadium, there was this pile of Arsenal souvenirs and a big picture of a black young man. Maybe he was murdered there, or... well, scary as hell.

I can never forget about Ben Kinsella. You can google him and found that he's a very good-looking guy with angelic face. and what happened to him was so tragic. He was stabbed to death 11 times on his abdomen, in Islington! He was the brother of Brooke Kinsella, former East Enders (a British TV soap opera) actress. What's so ironic is that he got good result for his IGCSE essay, writing about the day that he dies. Setelah kasus itu, menyusul lagi 2 mahasiswa Perancis yang ditikam very brutally, 250 kali! AAARRRRGGHHH itu bikin gue ketakutan setengah mati! apalagi kalo gue pulang kemaleman, dari stasiun gue akan jalan kaki karena bus 183 atau H19 bakal lama banget datangnya.

the first day I went home alone, it was so frustrated. yes I was with my roomie debby but we both were map dummies. London A-Z on my hands but I still got lost! I remember it was almost 1 in the morning, amazingly freezing, dark... have you watched "House of Wax" Paris Hilton version? suasananya sepi, dingin, lembab... misterius bangetlah. And suddenly I realised that there was this man in his late 20s in his car, staring at us smiling like a bloody old pervert! Eww! I was almost crying at the time. Thank God I called my hostparent, Mary Mesmain, and asked for her guide home.*sigh

that's the sad part of Harrow. Harrow isn't the best part of London, y'know, but Dev Patel was born in Harrow! I wonder if he was my neighbour! Hahahahahaha!

More stories later, maybe. If someone will remind me again, hehe. Toodles!

Note this day

Hari ini hasil ulangan matematika bab suku banyak gue dibagikan daaan........... untuk kedua kalinya gue ga remed matematika selama di SMA ini!

Very honestly, I suck in maths, REALLY. Bahkan di bab yang menurut gue gampang ini aja, kesalahan gue terletak pada salah hitung dan ga teliti. Dan kadang-kadang masalah gue adalah, gue bener-bener ga tau itu soal mau dibawa ke mana. Blank bangetlah pokoknya. Dan yang paling gue benci dari matematika adalah, gue merasa gue nggak mati kalo ga belajar itu so why the hell would I waste my time crying for my math scores? banyak banget temen gue yang sering sibuk belajar matematika, ngutak-ngatik angka, but that's something I'll never do kecuali at least seminggu kedepan ada ulangan. mungkin karena itu ya nilai gue jelek terus, tapi gue benci banget di SEMUA sekolah takaran orang pinter adalah bisa matematika, fisika, kimia.......... padahal Oprah Winfrey pasti nggak tahu cara memfaktorkan persamaan kuadrat.

Tapi karena gue masuk IPA, ya, terpaksa lah. bisa ga bisa harus bisa, there's no other option.

Pandangan gue terhadap matematika baru berubah ketika gue tahu bahwa Edward Turin (now I know his surname, but to keep this blog safe so I won't tell his real name) adalah finalis olimpiade matematika nasional di Italia! Turns out he's a badass. Hahahahaha. He looks nothing like that. I mean, gue ga pernah tahu ada finalis olimpiade matematika nasional di Indonesia yang berani make out di depan TopShop di daerah serame Oxford Street.

Kedua, hari ini gue juga baru tahu kalau gue nggak remed kimia! Ooh sweet Godddddd!!!!!! I couldn't be happier. mungkin ini ga akan berpengaruh besar banget ya, tapi gue merasa, oke, ini hal besar. karena gue sangat amat jujur dalam ulangan kimia gue kemaren. dan meskipun nilainya, well, fairly ngepas, I know I made it.

Ketiga, hahaha, hari ini adalah pertama kalinya gue dipanggil BK gara-gara cabut. Rame-rame sih, tapi tetep aja it felt so awful. Hampir tiap minggu gue dan beberapa temen gue ini cabut bta dan selalu dipanggil untuk balik ke kelas. soalnya, kami duduk satu barisan jadi kalo kami cabut, barisan itu akan kosong melompong! Ha! Biasanya gue suka kesel banget kenapa siiiih mesti dipanggil balik lagi. apa coba hubungannya kelas kosong sama enggak? jadi most of the time kita balik karena ga enak aja ketua kelasnya udah menderita disuruh nyariin kita yang kabur. I end up daydreaming in the class, saking ga tau mau ngapain.

Bawaan gue mules kalo ketemu guru BK, dan alasannya bukan hanya karena mereka selalu ngebahas nilai tapi juga karena menurut gue, ada masalah yang suka dibesar-besarin. Satu hal yang gue benci adalah, SEMUA guru, termasuk guru BK, bilang bahwa sekolah itu cari ilmu dan bukan nilai. Guru2 BK cuma makin meyakinkan gue bahwa sekolah adalah cari nilai. Saat gue dapet nilai bagus, gue merasa menang, tapi nggak bangga2 banget. gue cuma seneng karena berarti Tuhan denger doa gue, but part of me says bahwa gue resmi menjadi bagian dari sistem yang ga sehat ini.

Nggak dimarahin sih, and it doesn't make me hate BK even more tapi... ya ampun yang cabut nggak cuma gue dan beberapa temen gue itu doang kali. in fact almost everyone has done that, turns out I'm out of luck today. jadi cuma kebetulan aja pas gue hari ini lagi iseng malah ketahuan. apakah gue kapok? well, I don't know about that.

My very late info about Edward Turin

To make this post safe, I'll tell the story in Indonesian, okay?

Last summer, gue punya summerfling. HAHAHAHAHA yes my first ever summerfling. Namanya... errr... ya pokoknya kalo di Inggris-in namanya Edward lah gitu ya. Buat yang pernah baca post-post gue sebelomnya pasti taulah.

Nah, emang sakit cool-kas nya nih cowok, gue jarang ngomong. Tapi emang dia suka lucu sih, dari logatnya, mukanya yang mirip James McAvoy.... oh my God ganteng banget deh! Yang bikin gedeg adalah, dia suka rese gitu. Bahkan saat di kelas gue lagi ngomong bahasa Indonesia yang dia ga ngerti aja dia suka ketawa-ketawa gitu ke gue, kayak liat badut lagi ngomong. ugh, what an ugly shit, gyahaha.

Kemaren, gue baru chat sama temen homestay gue yang namanya Catharina. Summerflingnya bernama Alessandro. Ouch, bukan summerfling deng. It's like summerfling goes to autumnfling and still a winterfling. d'oh! hahahaha sorry Kariiiin!

Kira2 begini isi chattingnya:

Catharina: Meng, udah liat fbnya Roberto belom?
Arien: Udah
Arien: Mukanya tolol, hahahahaha!
Catharina: Hahaha iya, tapi gitu2 cewenya model
Arien: Oh iya ya pantes, tinggalnya di Milan sih
Catharina: Iya tuh, satu sekolah sama si mangga
Arien: Hah? emang mangga di Milano juga?
Catharina: Adooooh ke mana aja lo menggg?
Arien: Ooh pantesan mesos
Catharina: Iya gimana gitu ya meng, ABERCROMBIE.... HAHAHAHAH
Arien: Iya buckle-nya D&G bok
Catharina: Hahaha liat aja lo, dari yang foto dia lagi meluk gue itu kan?
Arien: Yoi
Arien: Bareng Andrea juga dong dia, ewww
Catharina: Haha iya
Arien: Eh, terus kalo edo dari mana?
Catharina: Edo dari Turin
Arien: Iiih tebakan gue beneeeer hahahahahaha
Arien: Kalo Vale sama Ricca?
Catharina: Sama, mereka satu sekolah kok di Torino
Arien: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA GUE BARU TAU KAR!
Catharina: Ya elah lo ke mana ajaaa? Makanya jangan sama Rachele doang
Arien: Yah gimana ya, partner in crime gue kan orang desa di Bologna, hahahahahaha

Keterangan: mangga=alessandro. surname-nya mengandung kata mango jadi gue memakai bahasa isyarat mangga

Yah, intinya gue memang telat banget.

Dan saat gue konfirmasi ke temen gue yang satu lagi, yang suka ngobrol sama Riccardo, dia juga bilang gue telat. hahahahahah biarin deh yang penting pernah ngegosip sama si Edward.

Kadang2 gue suka serem deh. Si Edward ini jarang banget online di jam2 I normally online. Begitu ketemu suka gue tungguin sampe dia off. hahahaha. Karin bilang dia suka online jam 4 pagi waktu Indonesia. Hell maaaan.... I'd be totally insane if I have to wait for him to be online every morning.

Aaaaaaa I miss you my Edward--James McAvoy!