Six weeks of ex(change)

*spends 3823423 hours looking for writing music*

I always start a blog post with "phew it's been so long" or whatever statement emphasizing my inability of religiously updating my blog. WELL. I don't know. I feel like the older you get, that excitement of sharing anything to the ~whole world~ gets thinner. Or I'm just lazy. Because I'm barely twenty. Also, I think I grew tired of having one year of, countable essays, yet tiring pages of sentences that revolves on everything except me and my interest and my activities (YAY FOR NO MORE ACADEMIC ENGLISH). I had to fake it so much, I pretended I'm interested in 'rookie problems of starting a business'. I have no interest in starting one, although I'm majoring in one. Hashtag consultant career. Hashtag pretending to have it all together when in fact, not. This hipocracy of me did put me away of writing creatively, and sometimes when I have ideas of posts I just... Sigh and "let it be". Energy be like, slim to none, more to a none.

So. The big deal of college, for me, is the summer break. 3 MONTHS OF NO SCHOOL, YO! I don't hate university, I kept saying to myself it will be beneficial for me. BUT, it gets tiring and... Repetitive. Being a snobbish, self-contained, and ~driven~ young lady that I am, of course I already planned of doing something for summer. I might have say something about being an AIESECer in this web of thoughts (read: fancy name for a blog, or me being used to 'elongate' my sentences to maximise ~word count~), and I joined this program called... GCDP. Global Community Development Programme. Basically, it's a cultural exchange programme, so you will go to a country doing some volunteering projects, and expected to grow a leadership sense, at least for yourself, by making an impact, no matter how small. For five-eight weeks, usually. You can pick ANYWHERE in this world, as long as your destination likes you. Like, I have 100+ options, but each projects have requirements and certain specifications. If you're a business student, you can't apply for a volunteering project about healing certain part of the world of a health disease. If you're an engineering student, you're less likely to get accepted to a project that helps people startup their business. You get me. Out of my gazillions options (seriously, one country can have up to twenty projects, most likely to be more than that. AIESEC is in 120+ countries. Boom, how about that for an organization), Malaysia picked me.

Yes. Malaysia. A country two hours away by plane, from Indonesia, with a history of quarrel over an island, culture, and songs. With similar food, similar language, even similar FACES. Basically, when I tell people "I'm going to Malaysia for my project", they all went... "Are you sure?"

Of course I'm pretty sure, but, I set my expectation to... Almost nothing. I have no idea what I will do, but I believe everything will have an impact in your life. Everything affects each other in a magical way, because you might be a princess. Just kidding. But who knows. Personally, my theory is that my owl got shot on his way and my Hogwarts letter never came. Great Britain and Indonesia is PRETTY far. Maybe an owl's limit is China.

BUT. I also have fears that I'm not pushing my limit, and that I might not bring any impact or develop myself. I mean, it seems so near. My trip to Papua when I'm 10 took longer than this, and even then, I wasn't making any impact or learning about myself other than 'maximise your use of electricity, we might not have one tomorrow'. Maybe I was also too young back then, but also, I know deep inside, I was not myself for settling small. 

Boy oh boy, was I wrong.

The video will show you what I did. But here, I will tell you how I feel.

You know that feeling of being familiar to something, yet it doesn't feel the same? The feeling of being so close, yet so far? That's basically me for six weeks straight. I kept seeing the same kinds of people, eating same kinds of food, having the same sceneries, going to same malls layout, seeing rhw same Sephora and Kate Spade, but it doesn't feel like home. It feels like everything is lying to me. It feels like you're not supposed to have a culture shock, but you did. Everything was similar. Even the (seated) toilets are the same, but the spray bidet is different. I cannot get ANY Indonesian food. Which was funny, because in Indonesia, I never crave one. I never have a soto betawi craving, I have sushi craving. I never wanted to eat rendang so much in my life, I would kill ~people~. I do that to a medium rare, rib eye steak. What's more funny is that you can find soto and rendang in Malaysia... But again, it's different. It doesn't taste like home. AND THE LACK OF VEGETABLES. 

tl;dr of paragraph above = everything seems like a lie and I was doubting my survival. I feel like bathing in kuah soto while munching on emping, if you know what I mean.

That particular feeling shocks me the most because I thought I was... Safe. I thought I didn't have to spare my energy to adapt. Exhibit A of why you shouldn't be a know it all, and that things might be different with what you expect them to be.

On top of that, I have 30+ EPs coming from different countries and mostly all of them are complaining about the same thing. So much negativity. During the first day, it was goal setting day. A week after, I was unsure about my goals, I was unsure if my goal will succeed.

However, my #1 key learning of this experience is that the development that you expect to get, might not exactly be the development you will get. But the point is, development is still development. I travelled to lots of places with a Russian friend, something I will never get if I stayed in Indonesia. I got to learn others' trivial culture that will never ever make it to the books and the encyclopaedias. I didn't learn others' culture, I experienced them. I experienced eating a goat cheese cube that tastes like.... Armpits. Each of them is rewarding.

My believe as an AIESECer is that you should never leave an experience as the same person. I left, and I changed, for the better.

Nineteen

Press play!

Turning 19 was... A bit strange. I always feel like 19 is such an odd age. Even I was hesitant about celebrating. It's like... You're not in that twenty area yet, but you're too old to act like you're in your sixteen, living fearlessly and screaming "YOLO" on the top of your lungs. You're too old to be living in crop tops and short shorts, putting flowers on your heads and losing your voice to The Cure's Love Song. Even some musicians hitting the charts are almost as old as you are. Even Dora is all grown up now. You have bigger responsibilities and a bunch more expectation to pay up. Your past is adding up. I knew I'm always going to be nervous about turning this 'old'. To be quite honest, some people still feels super duper young in their 30s... It's kinda ironic that I feel like 'this is it' for me.

I was always a planner. Ask me what will I be in 5 to 10 years and I will answer it very clearly, very quickly, without hesitation, and it is incredibly detail-oriented, down to the brand of the shoes and the bags I'm wearing. Very optimistic. I think of every single decision I made, what's the long-term impact, what's in it for me in the long run. I am very boring. You won't see me jumping off a cliff on a single rope bounding my ankles, it's too risky. You will see me exhausting myself on my job, though. I always knew I need that 'safety net' protecting me 24/7, I need a plan B for my plan B. My risk is your average Joe. I count my mistakes. I think of my mistakes. I regret, sometimes way too much than I should.

My wish for this year is that I let go. To be less perfectionist, to stop tiring myself thinking which shade of pink my best friend prefers. I want to be young, I want to make a huge load of mistakes and not feel too sorry about it. To embrace the smeared eyeliner and the unsaid I love you-s, to accept that a 'D' does happen once in a while... That it's worth the laugh. It's okay to cry, to disappoint and be disappointed. It's funny because it was never about other people. It was always me, limiting myself.

So to 20 years old Brina; I know you're going to look back to this post and see what was going on during your 19th birthday. Well, the 19 year old you wants you to be happy, healthy, and in love. With yourself, with the people around you, with your routines, with your homework that we all know it's currently piling away somewhere. The 19 year old wish you never stop trying to let go, to eliminate negative thoughts, to be kind to yourself. Forgive yourself. To live.

Oops... I did it again.

Leave it to Shabrina when it comes to creating goals and /not/ reaching it. I believed I missed two posts already? Yeah.

THIS IS A HAPPY POST! I hope I'm not dorky.

So I want to tell you about the Easter Break!

As a non-celebrating cult of the holiday, I and my Mom decided to go on a road trip to Mt. Bromo in East Java. This is my first time of being actually 'alive' for the moment, as my last visit there was when I am... Around two or three, which basically is redundant. To be quite honest, I was not really into the hiking and sightseeing part. Going to Bromo means I can drop by to Malang and meet my friends. Yep. That's actually the objectives. To meet friends. How ~extroverted~ of me.

(P.S. If you believe in Myerr-Briggs personality test, mine converts from INTJ to ENTJ because of college. How about that as a development of my personality. I think I spent less time with myself too, as my lonely time is usually accompanied by hundreds of words essay or papers, or some kind of homework that needs a huge amount of attention to deal with. #CollegeLife #nbd)

Thursday night, I went on a plane at 8 to Surabaya and arriving at Juanda Airport at 10-ish and I went straight to the mountain. How optimistic, I might say. We arrived in the before Bromo area (where phone reception is still widely available, I have no idea what is the area is called BUT there is a gas station. Gas stations=sign of humanity) at 2 AM in the morning. Yep. 2 AM. I slept throughout the journey from the Airport to the Bromo area and was wide awake during the trip after. For me, I think of it as the 'receptionful' area was Cipayung and we are heading to Cipanas, where things can get messy sometimes. The road was more extreme than Puncak though, as it is literally two small ways at the edge of the cliff. After that, we got off to get to our jeeps (fun fun fun). We were chasing the sunrise at Penanjakan 1. Some said that Penanjakan 2 have a better view but we need to, like, hike 800 meters in a cliff-y kind of trail and I was in no mood of doing anything physically challenging. The place was PACKED. My jeep can't park far, near the top so we have to take ojeks to the top. The beauty of Indonesia, right? Imagine being in Iceland and wanting an ojek so bad. Or maybe a dog sleigh? I don't know. It was quite cold, but just the air con type of cold. It gets freezing though, but because I was so into capturing the sunrise, I didn't realize that my hands were frozen and glued stiff to my camera. The sunrise was beautiful, though.

How awesome is that. After that we went to the crater, or kawah. I took some pictures blogger style, but as always, it will fail at some point. We had to take 200+ steps, but don't be discouraged because it is actually easy peasy. It is pretty uphill, but it is quite safe. On the top, however, is where things get a little creepy for me. I am not usually afraid of heights, but I am sure of fearing that my clumsiness somehow will lead me falling down into the crater and being eaten alive by the mountain. It was creepy, and I didn't spend much time there. I saw one guy walking quite high and all I was thinking about "WHAT IF HE FELL DOWN THERE WILL BE RIOT HERE." Anyway.

I am closing my eyes with fear. The next part was the fun part! The Bukit Teletubbies and Pasir Berbisik. It is REALLY cool.

It was so fun. The sceneries were so easy on the eyes, and I took lots of pictures. This is BTS:

To be quite honest, I am not the easiest person to shoot with. I am very hard to 'chill' and need to do a lot of silly things first to break the ice.

After all of that I met some of my friends (!!!) I met during AIESEC conference, and went to Surabaya to meet my family.

Settling for less

I know I missed February updates... Time just flies easily when you're having fun. This post however, is not your usual walk in the park.

I tried sleeping but it doesn't help. You know when they say "if you can sleep on it, it's not a problem, everything will turn out fine."

Not this one. This is me being really really unhappy.

At first I don't want to let this out in text. I want to leave no track, no history of me ever telling someone about this. I want to talk it out in person... But no one was available. So, might as well fill this empty space without naming names, conditions, real life situations, personal pronouns or anything that will giveaway a clue whatsoever.

Lets just say you're in a relationship with someone you really care about. Whether it is your friend, or your boy/girlfriend, whatever. You think know everything that is to know about this person, but you were wrong. What you knew it is only one millionth of it, and you found out another side of this person that completely blew your mind, with it being 100% different on this person brand image (ugh) (so sorry for technical terms) (it's quiz period guise).

It's like a huge slap in the face, is it?

For me, it's more like a huge betrayal, stabs-in-the-face kind of feelings. No longer a slap... It's actually stabs. There's also a bit of humiliation. No idea why. I'm just so ashamed.

I can never see this person the same again. I feel like talking to this person, like... Ugh. Can't think about the word. This bothers me so. much. But it is so scary too because I'm not supposed to know that this person is not like the person that I know. Slick.

SO COMPLICATED URGH.

I'm almost 20 yet I still have troubles communicating how I feel. I think this is why our generation makes up almost 40% of world's unemployment. Communicating problems. Just like a dozen billion breakups via text that our generation is so keen about. Ten more lines and I will turn this rant post to an essay.

That's it, I guess? I kinda have no one to talk to lately, and I have a lot of things that are left unsaid. Apparently, having no expectation still kills you. Might as well expect and get sad.

I don't know. I'm just disappointed.

(You kinda have to agree that I'm a better writer when I'm upset. I'm so weird when I'm happy. I'm a total dork when I'm happy.)

January: Busy

So first of all; one of my goals of the year, other than get skinnier and prettier (ahem, the last drops of my puberty dose, please!), is to post at least once a month in [ parenthesis ]. The post will include my story about how my month has been, my monthly favourites, and my goals towards the next month. Let's just say that in 2014, this blog is not pretty at all. Minimum posts and broken links everywhere, mostly because I delete a lot of my Instagram pictures. Not guilty.

January has been a lot busier than I thought it will be.

Other than having three big, major course-related projects at school along with finals week, I have AIESEC, I have my social life, I have Rayhan, I have laundry and dirty dishes, and I have myself to take care of. The cliche story of Brina's having-too-much-on-her-plate.

I started January on a vacation like a normal high schooler. My University gave two weeks break at Christmas and New Years, so that was nice, but is sure does slow your brain down. I have a hard time being in focus again in class and ended up getting nothing in my brain. I remember doing a lot of reviews and re-writing a lot of my notes because I felt like nothing makes sense. I will be adapting a new, note-taking strategy along with recording most of the lectures so hopefully, something like this won't happen again.

As for AIESEC, I am the organizing committee of Local Conference 2015 (YAY). Sadly, one of us doesn't do his job so others ended up doing a lot of his work. It got so busy that I don't even have time to wash my hair, so all I did was complaining to Rayhan about everything. I haven't met him in proper ways since December, by the way. It's kinda crazy since we go to the same university, yet we never have time to meet each other. Our schedules have been clashing since day one and he is even busier than me. I met my other friends from other university more often than him *insert grin.

Favourites!!! Nothing beauty because January has been... Me doing nothing to my face. All I did was draw my eyebrows on (with this eyebrow pencil in dark brown or this eyebrow gel in medium/dark) and wear lip balm. Although I started a new ritual by putting vaseline on my lashes and brows. My favorite song of the month will have to go for Ellie Goulding's Love Me Like You Do. I listen to it during my workout sesh, my study sesh, in-the-bus-getting-home sesh, everywhere. Obsessed. My favourite outfit to wear to campus is a shirt and a skirt with sneakers like this look since I did a lot of presentations and it's nicer when you present yourself with a pair of skirt rather than jeans.

Goals in February will be sooo simple. My goal for February is to go out at least 4 dates with Rayhan. Two months are insane, guys... Insane! :))