Confinement and myself

Entering the 13th day of confinement, I was quite surprise with how well Im surviving in this situation. Comparing with other situation which required me to work from home (during the presidential result announcement in 2019), I think I waaaay much better to cope with the situation now.

I dont really know why, maybe because I know it's going to be a long period, or maybe I have successfully set-up my expectation about how long this period is going to last, or maybe simply I have become a mature adult who can separate between things that I can control and which are not.

I think to deal with the uncertainty, I channel my need to control the situation by treating all the things I've done as a project which has time and place to do it. Like the exercise. I plan carefully the exercise could be done through the resources I have. It also apply for other things during my personal time, I try to do some handy works like decorating my bedroom, printing some photos from vacation years ago or sewing my own clothes.

In addition to that, I do believe keeping the routines does help to cope with this situation. I try to exercise every morning and start my work at 10am till 7pm. I make a to do list in the morning which provides sense of achievement whenever I manage to finish the tasks. Although some of the time, it might take longer than that, but I think the experience of working as a freelancer some years ago, really does help me to be able working by myself or virtually while still respecting my personal time.

Maybe some of my advice could be relevant for you, maybe not.

But for me, there always be a rainbow after the rain.

Yes, I know the situation is difficult with all the uncertainty ahead of us, but at the same time, I am excited to see how this situation can shift (maybe) our generation. From working behavior to way we run our lives. I can not to wait to see how companies could evolve in this situation. I want to learn how agile those fancy executives can come with new business model that will be sustainable for the future.  I want to know how the artist and art societies will absorb and interpret this situation into their artifacts.

All in all, Im kind of proud with myself about how well I can thrive in this situation, how about you?

Raisa

Corona, pemerintah dan warganya

Corona menjadi sebuah momok yang menghebohkan di beberapa bulan belakangan ini. Banyak orang yang sempat meragukan apakah negara Indonesia raya kita ini akan terkena dampaknya. Pada awalnya saya tidak begitu peduli dengan hal, hingga akhirnya saya melihat bagaimana hal ini dapat mengganggu kestabilan politik dan sosial sebuah negara, bahkan untuk negara-negara maju seperti Jerman dan Perancis.

Negara-negara yang sempat mengelu-elukan pentingnya globalisasi dan ingin membuat batas-batas negara menjadi semakin hilang, malah sibuk didesak oleh rakyatnya untuk menutup perbatasan. Bahkan ada beberapa negara yang memutuskan untuk mengunci dan meminta rakyatnya untuk berada di dalam rumah agar mencegah penyebaran penyakit ini. Banyak oknum-oknum di negara ini yang ingin meminta supaya negara kesayangan kita ini dikunci juga. Hal ini membuat saya bertanya "apakah mereka sudah memikirkan apa dampak dari kebijakan tersebut?"

Saya rasa tidak.

Dijaman orang-orang yang sudah darurat membaca, saya meragukan bahwa orang-orang mau mencari tahu lebih lanjut apa arti dari "lock down" ini dan bagaimana dampaknya kepada perekonomian di negara ini. Tidak usah jauh-jauh membayangkan tentang ekspor-impor, coba kamu pikirkan bagaimana nasib bapak gorengan atau ibu kantin kantor yang memang penghasilannya itu dari hari per hari, yang mana kalau mereka memang tidak jualan ya tidak bisa makan.

Saya disini bukan ingin membela pemerintah, tapi saya ingin mengatakan bahwa keputusan untuk ini tuh harus dipikirkan matang-matang yang memang tidak bisa sebentar, wong mau memutuskan fitur produk apa yang mau dibuat saja panjang prosesnya, karena menyangkut hajat hidup banyak orang gak cuma kamu doang cuk.

Apalagi ditambah dengan negara kita yang demokrasi nan uang paspasan, jangan samain dengan Cina yang sosialis  nan kayaraya. Apakah negara kita punya cukup dana untuk bisa lockdown sambil berusaha menjaga perekonomian ini stabil? wong mau menekan perusahaan untuk merumahkan karyawan saja sulit.

Jadi poin dari tulisan panjang ini apaan ya Sa?

Tidak ada, saya hanya mau mengutarakan perasaan saya saja karena baru hari pertama bekerja dari rumah saja saya sudah bosan. Tapi saya akan berusaha mematuhi himbauan dari pak Presiden untuk mengurangi pergi keluar rumah sebisa mungkin. Bukan karena saya warga negara yang baik atau karena orang tua saya sudah tua dan rawan terhadap penyakit. Tapi karena saya sadar, bahwa saat ini saya belum mampu membantu mencarikan solusi, jadi ya minimal saya jangan menjadi bagian dari masalahnya dan menambah tingkat stres dari rumah sakit di Indonesia yang (menurut saya) sudah cukup rapuh.

Saya berpikir bahwa kalau saya masih berkeliaran diluar hanya karena bosan atau malah berpikir ini adalah momen buat liburan, saya tidak berhak buat ikut mengomentari bagaimana pemerintah seharusnya bertindak karena itu menunjukan kalau saya sendiri tidak cukup dewasa dalam menjaga keselamatan diri dan keluarga saya. Karena pada akhirnya urusan keselamatan dan kesehatan adalah tanggung jawab saya pribadi, bukan negara.

Raisa.

Love yourself

A couple of days ago a good friend of mine came to visit me here in Germany. I like to pick her brain as she is an ambitious person while still maintain a good faith in God. I can chitchat with her for so many hours and talk about many things, from shallow topic: about our mutual friends, or deep topic, life, career, world economy.

Long story short, we arrived to one topic about why I have never felt enough about myself. I told her that rationally, I should count my blessings instead of my unattained goals. But, talk is always easier than walking the talk. I’ve told her t­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­hat for some years, couple of my good friends told me that “You deserve to be happy”, “You deserve to be loved” or simply said “You should look down more often”.

And you know what my dear-friend-from-Indonesia said?

“I think you should love yourself more, Ta”

“What do you mean?”

“I think as a social person, you really love meet new people. It’s good; it’s actually one of your strength. However, you should try to have more conversation with your inner-self and try to understand yourself better so that you can learn how to love yourself. I think it might be one of the reasons for your falling relationship. If you haven’t loved yourself, how can you believe that other people love you?”

If you have met me in person, trust me, you will never ever guess that I am not a happy person. I can easily fool you to think me as a free spirited person with happy go lucky attitude. Therefore, to receive that feedback from a close friend, it was such a slap in the face.However, some part of me thought this advice worth to try. So I googled “sign of not loving yourself” and I found many interesting articles and suddenly I didn’t feel less normal (alone). HA. If you have the following signs, maybe you are one of us?

First sign is being too hard to myself. My inner critic can be a nasty bitch. It is hard for me to accept that I failed on something. Yes I know that everyone fails from time to time. But knowing it and accepting it are two different animals. Maybe I will try to remember that my success is related to how I handle my failure and setback; the way I handle failure that will set me apart from the rest.

Another sign is how constantly I am comparing myself. Sometimes I wondered why this girl who looks less prettier and less smart than me can have a boyfriend while I am still being single for (quite) sometime. This comparison has done nothing good beside made me feel inadequate. I think I should just focus on loving my life.

Third sign is maybe sometimes I haven’t really honest with my emotion. As an Asian with happy go lucky persona, I have found it hard to accept my emotion such as angry, upset or sad. For some problems which I think too personal to be shared to my close friends, I tend to hold it inside me or write it in my blog. I have never let people get too close to me where they can diagnose my emotion clearly. Even some friends felt that the person who wrote this blogs is a different person with whom they have interacted. I don’t know whether it’s a good thing. However, maybe I should allow myself to feel what needs to be felt so that I can move on and move forward.

Yeah, that’s a bit of conclusion from my latest self-reflection. Maybe I will implement those advises and learn to love myself a bit more. Will surely keep you posted guys J

Cheers,

Raisa

Meiner Hemastadt - Jakarta

In meiner Hemastadt, Jakarta, gibt es viele sehenswurdigkeiten. Es hat ein interessantes Museum. Es heißt Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. In das Museum können Sie viel indonesisches Kultursehen. Traditionelle Häuser, Tanze, Kleidung , das ist alles finden Sie in dem Museum. Es hat einen besondern See. Es zeigt die Miniatur Indonesischen Archipels.

Bevorzungen Sie etwas Modernes? Es gibt viele Einkaufzenter z.b. Plaza Indonesia.

Der Plaza ist 38,050 quadratmeter un 28 Jahre alt. Es bietet viele internationale Marken ,Louis Vutton, Channel, und lokale Marken. Man kann dort lange einkaufen. Die offnungzeiten 10 bis 22 Uhr.

Haben Sie Hunger?

Es gibt viele Restaurants, die 24 Stunden geöfnett haben. Nördich von Jakarat finden Sie einer besonderen Snack. Das heißt Martabak Terang Bulan. Das ist besser als franzosische Croissantes oder deutsche Kartoffeln.

Also besuchen Sie jetzt Jakarta!

Whining?

Setelah lama tidak posting, akhirnya saya tergerak untuk kembali belajar menulis.

Quick update about my life, I have finished my education in France and earned my master degree. I have decided to try out my luck by applying for Jobs in Europe. While waiting for that, I am taking a German course, 3 languages are not enough for me. Yeah, I am THAT ambitious. HA. (im just being sarcastic if you're not notice).

Long story short, living as a Jobseeker always been an interesting phase to start writing a blog. You have plenty of time in your hand and what is better than whining out your misery in Blog while still being productive. HA. (again, Im just being sarcastic).

Anyway, being in this phase is always an unique experience. I have always tried to come up with many solutions to keep my sanity. Just to feel that Im good enough to work somewhere. After rejection and rejection and rejection, dont you think is normal for you to question your competence? your capabilities? your faith in God?.

I have always, ALWAYS, try to be a positive person. Try to see a silver lining in every situation. Try to understand what God's plan for me. Try to remember that God has given me so many blessing.

But still.

It has been many many times my families and my closes friends told me that many people want to have a life like mine. Many people want to achieve what I have achieved. Do not take your achievements and experiences for granted Raisa.

But still.

I tried to remember many reasons why I should be grateful with my life. And it is more than just for my freaking achievements and status. I should remember that no matter how many rejections I had, I still have roof above my head, I still have food on the table, I still have highly function and supportive families.

But still.

A good friend of mine told me "Although we still have roof, food and families, doesnt mean we are not struggling. Doesnt mean we are happy. Doesnt mean we are not allowed to whine".

HA.

Human and their ambitions and their disappointments.

Many many many times I really want to given up. Just want to say "Fuck you God" and then disappeared. But disappeared to where? and who am I to say that shit to God. It's not like God need me more than I need Him.

At some point, I feel tired and burnt out after so many whining, after so many questioning about Life and God.

So maybe for now, I am just going to learn how to keep my head above the water. How to keep my sanity on. And how to be better from myself yesterday.

Maybe after that, just maybe, I can learn how to be a free-spirit Raisa  again who is strong enough to take a leap of faith in God.

Missing you :")

I received the video this morning on one of my whatsapp group. It broke my heart when i realized how true the video is. The video was talking about how time has changed our relationship with our "used" to be gank. How close we were in the college, how easy we were to just hang out and did fool stuff. But now? we were hesitated even just to say hi.

Sometimes, i am wondering, what goes wrong? is it because of the time? is it me who become a jerk? or you become a jerk and not willing to make time for this so called friendship?.

Or is there any reason beside that?

 I read an article which is saying "Losing touch with your old college friends is a natural consequence of growing older. It isnt solely up to you to keep every friendship you've ever had alive-some things fade out naturally, because they should. and that's okay".

Really?

This evening, i talked with my other friend regarding this topic. Her answer has succesfully blown my mind. She said "Raisa, people come and ago in our life. It's just like when we were passing by with someone on our way to go somewhere. Sometimes we are meeting this person longer than others because we are on the same road, has the same direction at that time. But when we reach our goal, we are eventually split our way. We should moving forward and continues our journey to reach our other goal. So if you are losing your friend along the way, that's normal. It doesnt mean that one of you is "the jerk". It's just because you are walking on different road".

I found her opinion very interesting because sometimes when bad thing happened in my life, i tended to put the blame on something (it could be on me or other people). But maybe, actually, there's none of the party is the wrong one.

It's just the road that was taken is different.
It's just the situation that has changed.
It's just us who has to grow up.

But you, my dearest friends, yes, you.
I'm still missing you.
Till we meet again,

Raisa

Pushing the boundaries

Have you ever wondered why NASA spends millions of dollar in order to understand Mars?

That’s the first question appear in my mind when I watched the show in National Geography. So what if there’s water in Mars? So what if there’s oxygen in Mars? It’s still an unknown place which is far in the physical distance. We won’t migrate to live there, right?  Not at least for the next 20 years.

So, why we have to understand that? Thanks to my over curiosity, I did a little bit research on the internet to understand the reason. Based on NASA’s website, the objective of this exploration is to heighten up the unknown which can be benefited for the human kind. Frank Stratford, the founder of Marsdrive, wrote that this exploration was meant to test our knowledge, our resourcefulness, and the limits of our abilities in every way.

Limit is the word that usually be put on the same sentence with human.  As a human we have our limit, we can’t do that, because that’s our limit. How we can know our boundaries, if we have never crossed it?

I remember when I was 6 years old. I and my mom went into a public swimming pool. I usually swam in the children pool. However, one time, my Mom asked me to swim in another pool. She even dropped me up from the children pool into another pool and just staring at me from the pool side, I begged to her “mom, I cannot do it, I’m too small for this, I can sink in and die” “Yes of course you can, look at that boy, he’s even smaller than you, if he can do it, why you cannot? You need to be brave, don’t be afraid!”

Yep, afraid of the unknown, scare of change; that’s usually be our limit. Don’t you think that when we are getting older and we tend to be more hesitate to push the boundaries. It could be caused by more understanding on the difference between fantasy and reality. You already knew how hard live could turn when making a mistake by doing a change, by going out from the comfort zone. Oprah winfrey on the Harvard commencement said that “If you constantly pushing yourself higher, higher the law of averages predicts that you will fall at some point”.

Fall, or we can called it failure, is the situation where no bodies want to have.  When you cannot 

manage that thing, it probably could turn into a depression where you need an expert help to solve that. I had one experience where everything felt go wrong and world turn into a dark place; where I had to ask for a help from a psychology in order to have a grip with my life again. I wouldn’t say that’s the nicest experience to have. But, like Oprah said “There’s no such thing as failure. It’s okay to feel bad for a little while. Give yourself time to mourn what you think you may lose but the key is to learn from every mistake”

Fearful to make a mistake is another set of the lines which keep us on the box. Since when we make a mistake, we felt wasting our time which can’t get back. So sometimes in order not to waste our time, we stay in that mistake like stay in the wrong job. Let me tell you my wrong job. I used to work in strategic consultant firm where the boss was really intimidating. He really likes to answer a question with a question in a very intimidating way and he didn’t mind to speak his mind out loud “Raisa your answer is like a kindergarten student answer”. I always relieved when I get back home especially on Friday and depressed from Sunday morning “Oh God less than 24 hours I had to go back to that office, why time flies so fast”. I didn’t even want to go with my boyfriend after the office hours or during weekend as I really wanted to appreciate that precious time by myself, alone. I stayed on that job for about 6 months because I don’t want to waste my first 4 months and learn nothing than how to type fast, how to photocopy fast or how to make a good coffee. No way. I can stand this job, this is just part of the success.

“I’m not depressed, I’m not depressed, and I’m just not…depressed”. That’s the mantra that I usually repeated to strengthen myself every day. Thanks to my friend who woke me up by saying that “Maybe you just need to accept that the learning from this situation is to show that this job is….not into you”. Yes, maybe I made a mistake by taking a wrong job or not knowing what I wanted from a job, but at least I learned that “that job” is not the thing that I want.

Fellow friends, in three 3 idiots, Fairnan said that “Life is a race, if you don’t run fast you will get trampled” and like in the horse race; the record is always broken by the fastest one. So keep pushing our limit by facing our fear, having a failure and making a mistake so that we can run fast and race to Mars.