Life Teaches Us to Let Someone Go

Wednesday, 30 November 2011. That was the first time I met Anh after about almost two weeks we were having chats on The Internet. That was our first meeting as foreigners to be friends. At Taeoyuan International Airport, one hour after my departure, I finally met her. I am kind of person who is always excited to meet new people, and at that time I was. Around 9.30 p.m., we were heading back from airport to the dormitory that had been settled by the school. All the way long, I had nice talks with her, still feeling excited.

As we arrived at the dorm, we chose the room then. I thought that both of us would be in the same room as we had been talking on ym!, but she decided not to be. “I think we need privacy”, she said. I just agreed, ‘though my mind was not really into that.

Talking about speaking, to be honest my English is not really good. I admit that I am good at writing, but not really at speaking English. I always had a trouble speaking English during the conversation with anyone. However, the surroundings gave me no choice. From the time I woke up till the time I had to sleep, every time, every second, I should speak English. This trained me, though. I am a graduate from English Major, so I had to practice my English. That was the best time to do that.

All things need processes. Being able to speak English fluently needs times. I couldn’t speak up that fast. That was why I just chose to say ‘yes’ that I thought it was faster to solve all of the problems rather than say ‘no’ and speaking up the reason why I had to disagree. When we already decided to be in the same room, that was the reason why I just said ‘yes’ when she asked me to sleep across her bed rather than having a bed next to her. I once rejected that with wanting to be closer to her as the reason, but she even rejected me because the bed next to her would be used to put her stuffs. I couldn’t disagree more. I just didn’t feel like having to argue, and then accepted that. From that time, I was a bit uncomfortable with her.

Life went on. The next day as my first day in Taipei, Taiwan, came. I let myself forgot about last night and enjoyed the life in the school. I started to live my life to the fullest, and started to speak up with English and got closer with anyone there. In my home country, I never failed to have an exciting new friendship with anyone, but not with my roommate. We met each other all the time, every day, ever ysecond of our life in Taiwan, but I just felt that we always had different points of view and always had different opinions. I tried not to care deeply about the feelings, and tried to enjoy my life, but unfortunately it was not that easy. I felt that she became more selfish. There was a time where we were going to visit a new place for travelling. As my needs were always a lot, I always brought my big bag. It was always heavy, especially the camera, but I just sacrificed everything in order to be able to fulfil my needs during the travel. Unlike me, she was different. She just asked me to bring her bottle of water, or even the umbrella. I couldn’t say no because I saw she just brought small bag. But she then repeated that thing to ask me the stuff on the next day while we were having another travel. From that time, I just mumbled in my mind. I felt that she took the advantages of my kindness and my weakness. I didn’t want to argue. I just met her command.

Almost 8 years I had lived away from my parents, and I never got homesick and already got used to, but not at that time. I had ever thought how was going to be my life living with foreigner during my exchange for almost two months. If people who are going abroad for exchange worrying about missing their parents or not being able to handle the project, at that time, what I was worried the most was about friendship, and it finally happened. Why I was really worried of the friendship because I knew I would have no body in that strange country except my friends who were in the same project. If anything happened to me, I knew no one would help except friends. I was nice to everyone, and everyone was even nicer to me, but I didn’t think she was. She just acted like she cared no one.

Day by day, I couldn’t stand that feeling anymore. I had no one to share the feeling, until finally my manager and my close friends in Indonesia realized my strangeness and asked me why. I told them about my inconvenience living with her. I just realised that I was homesick. That was my first time being homesick after a couple of years ago, and I felt really weak. They gave the solution not to care about what she was doing. They asked me to try to refuse her command if I thought I minded. Since that time, after I had felt for the result of what she had done to me, I had decided not to be a good roommate for her. I would do anything I liked. I would refuse anything what she asked to me. I would never care about her anymore, because I knew I could live by myself and if I needed help, I still had so many people to ask for.

You will know how deep someone trust you from how personal he or she tells you a story about him or herself. I felt it. It started on the day when we were heading back home to the dorm after having the conference in Tamsui. I never liked telling about personal stuffs to new people, but then at that time, we suddenly talked about people and their characteristic. No one knew that we felt it the same and we had hidden it for the friendship’s sake. After realizing that both of us were experiencing the same, we laughed, we smiled, and we giggled. What a moment. Since that moment, even though selfishness and stubbornness were coming along in our friendship, we always had fun.

Days were passed as the time went by. Interesting places had been visited and many events had been attended. Visiting places and attending events alone? No. We were always together. Both of us. When I didn’t come, she wouldn’t. We were never be apart.

At the first time, I realized nothing. But on several days to go to the day where Anh should go back to her home country, something happened. I just realized that everything that happened was our progress to maturity. Being childish to be so sloppy, being selfish to be so mean and being so stubborn to be so sarcastic were only our way to know oursleves and know each other.

After living together for almost one and half month, there are so many things that I knew about her. She is 

actually kind of girl who really loves her family, especially her mother. She is too focoused on the family’s stuffs, so she tends to have a few friends because she is not easy to trust someone. She is a smart and independent girl who has a strong confidence and willingness to make her family proud of her. She is punctual and reliable. She can handle and deal with her duties very well. Also, she is kind of girl who can sacrifice anything for reaching her goals. She is tough and decisive, then. However, I knew silly things about her habit. She is careless of her stuffs and often let them messy. She is sloppy and sometimes she forgot to bring or put her stuffs, like forgot to bring her laptop in the office or forgot where she put her easy card and we were like crazy looking for it and taking everything in her luggages out just to search for it, and any other silly but funny moments. She is often being careless of the toilet; she often forgot to flush after peeing. Moreover, when see was chewing meals, there were always funny sounds from her mouth. Now I know, I miss her because I remembered every detail of her.

If I should pick one of the best moments with her, I would pick the moment where she and I were talking about ourseleves in the living room while waiting for Chui Nee, our other housemate, to come out. That moment seemed like being summarized for every moment that we had had. We told every glimpse of the place and the moment that we had. We also made a bit comparison between at the first time we met until that second we had been together. Furthermore, we spoke up about our habit that was always talking about other teachers and gossiping about other people. The most touching moment at that time was when we imagined how we would live our life when we were already being apart and away from each other, and imagined how we would miss the dorm and every moments it had inside that we had been through together. Why I picked this moment as the best? Because we were crying while telling those feelings. The deeper we talked about those stuffs, the harder we our tears were bursting out.

The night before she was flying to her homecountry, we were sleeping in one bed. We had so many jokes. We cried, we smiled, then came back crying, and started giggling. We were like sisters. At that time, I was offering her to open the browser using my laptop, because I knew her laptop was already put in the bag. I had actually made the video for her, and I was a bit worried when she refused to open the website at that night. But at the time she had to wake up, she asked me to let her borrow my laptop. Both of us actually had already planned to make our turn; she would wake up at 4, and I would wake up at 4.30 because I had less things to prepare. At that time was at 4 o’clock. She had woke up and asked me to continue sleeping when she was asking to borrow my laptop. Actually, I did not sleep. I really wanted to know what was her reaction of my video. A few minutes after she browsing  the facebook, I heard she was crying and mumbling about something. In the warmth of the blanket, unconciously, my eyew were watery. I heard that she said something that meant she was thankful for that. My tears were falling down. I just hoped that I had more time to spend with her. I just hoped that it was not gonna end.

In the video, I made several lines of sentences that represented my feelings. It is not gorgeous sentences. It was just ordinary group of words that were fit into the video. But those words and the video were made with the heart that didn’t want to loose another part of it, which is part of the best friend’s heart.

Here is the video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZj8clXwpnU&feature=g-upl&context=G2c12d6eAUAAAAAAACAA

with the back sound of the "Cry On My Shoulder" song, these are the representatives of my feelings:

“The first meeting, we introduced ourselves. From nothing to be something.

[then] spending time together. Just you and me..

[for] every happiness and sadness, in every moments that we got, we always shared it to each other.

Cheers and fears.. Together we were strong.

No matter how hard our times, together we felt better.

Through smiles and tears, we made our own world.

We lived together and started understanding each other.

Now we know, we can’t be apart...

Now we know, we complete each other...

But [unfortunately] times have to get their own role in this play.

Everything might change, but your memories in my heart will stay...

Forever.”

In the morning when she had to go, the sky was still dark. It made me feel so blue when it started raining, like crying. While taking her to the airport, I really appreciated every second that I had with her. I stared at her appearance in details, because when we were apart, we might look at each other only through electronic devices. I hadn't cried until the time she really had to go. Before she had got to enter the check in counter, we hugged each other, very tight. She kissed me several times. I couldn't stand anymore. I just cried while asking her "are we going to meet again?". She did not answer, but continued kissing and hugging me.

She walked away leaving me and the priest who took us. I didn't want to leave that place until I really saw nothing on her. I was staying behind the entrance gate and looking at her through the window until she really disappeared. I was crying one more time. I just talked to God in my mind. "Is that all, God? You let me be with someone and really close to her, and now we have to be separated and don't even know when we are going to meet again?". Yeah. This is life. People come and go, but some will always stay, in heart. God lets us learn, learn how to deal with new people and now learn how to let close people go.

I let you go, Anh.. and I let my heart have a space for our memories that we had together.
You are my best friend. Always. Forever

A New Hobby: Photography

Beberapa minggu sebelum saya berangkat exchange ke Taiwan, saya membeli kamera DSLR Canon dengan tipe D1100. Tadinya saya ingin membeli tipe lain yaitu Nikon D800 atau entahlah tipe berapa tepatnya. Memang tidak begitu jauh perbandingan harganya. Namun saya masih harus memikirkan dana yang akan saya pakai di Taiwan pada saat itu, jadi saya hanya berusaha berhemat. Tidak disangka sekarang saya menyesal tidak mengambil kamera tersebut. Okay, well.. Regret nothing, you will be happier! Syukuri yang ada :)

Ini salah satu hasil jepretan saya

Saya senang berfoto dan senang pula mengambil foto. Tetapi kamera DSLR bukan lah kamera handphone yang bisa menggambil foto/gambar dengan manual tanpa bantuan seseorang. Dengan hanya bantuan tripod dan timer, pengambilan gambar/foto diri sendiri tidak akan sebagus jika diatur oleh tangan seseorang. Begitulah yang saya rasakan. Dalam hal ini, saat saya ingin berfoto sendiri, saya harus mengandalkan cermin sehingga bisa memantulan diri saya di dalam cermin dan dengan mudah saya hanya mengambil gambar cermin tersebut. But it's not that bad.

Ini gambar yang saya ambil sendiri dengan bantuan tripod 

Dan berikut adalah beberapa foto yang diambil dengan bantuan pantulan cermin:

Selain itu, saya meminta orang lain untuk mengambil gambar saya. Saya pun berusaha untuk meminta mereka mengambil dari sudut yang artistik.

Ternyata hasilnya tidak terlalu buruk. Beri sedikit touching pada gambar, lalu jadilah hasil jepretan yang memiliki segi seni dan menarik :)