Marcella Purnama

Page 17

Marcella Purnama is a blogger and author of What I Wish I Had Known: And Other Lessons You Learned in Your Twenties. She is currently obsessed with finding the best recipe for bread rolls and keeping her sixteen plants alive.
517 articles written by Marcella Purnama

My boyfriend thinks critically.

I don’t know how he is raised, but he is more Western than any Asian in this regard.

He was asking questions on facts that I took for granted. Example. Okay, someone in that movie died. Why? It may be because a lot of things, but I simply accepted it. Yes, someone died. Period.

But he didn’t.

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“If she’s worth it, she’s worth it.”

A reader posted these words on one of my posts which I really agree to. I have said this to a lot of people too many times. If someone tells me their love stories, the first thing I’ll ask is, “Is he worth it? Is he worth all the risks, pain, and troubles?” And if I get an ambiguous answer, well, we all know what that means.

Before all the troubles of analysing, thinking, and processing a relationship, I want people to be sure that the other party is definitely worth it. Even if the relationship doesn’t work out in the end, they will still say I’m glad I go through all these troubles, for he is worth it. I want to make sure.

Too many times people are not.

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Last week I went to my boyfriend’s place and I used his laptop to do some errands. It was hard.

The keyboard didn’t blend with my fingers like mine does. Everything was at its wrong place. The folders and files were not sorted by kind. I can’t find documents. Like, our categorisation system is different, so is our ways of storing things. It took ages for me to locate the internet browser, and I’m not sure if he was using Chrome (I do). I think it was Safari – that’s why it took so long. And I surely tried to impose him my ways of doing things (to his dismay, of course) because I am sure that my way is much neater and simpler.

But of course, he thinks that way too.

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I’m always searching for one.

I’m searching for one when I’m trying that new dress, and I’m searching for one when I tell my friends of my new favourite book.

I’m searching for one when I tell my boyfriend what I think of the movie we just watched. I’m searching for one when I try to defend my drink preference. I’m searching for one when I post a brand new writing.

I’m always searching for it. Validation.

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The other day, I was thinking of this thing called expectation. Sure, my sister’s boyfriend has chimed about this all the time: when it comes to relationship, best to keep expectations low and do something great after – you know, to double the happiness.

On another random day, I was having dinner with my friends after class. And it seemed that among the three of us, only one person has high expectation in terms of his grades and studies. ‘High expectation, eh? The higher you will fall,’ I jokingly said.

My other friend agreed. She, too, thought that the lowering expectation helps to shield us from most of the pain – we will be easier to please and overall happier too.

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It’s week 12, and students, you know what that means. That means you can almost taste freedom.

I said almost, because we still have final exams and assignments to do.

This is my first semester back and I thought I would nail it. I have three-year experience of being an undergrad student, and I thought this time nothing would surprise me.

I was wrong.

Coming back to Master’s degree after 18 months of full-time work is another kind of wake-up call. There are still new things I learn, and some other stuffs I re-learn. Here they are.

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Rest, my dear one. Rest.

Rest is the answer to all your problems.

I think you’re exhausted. I think you’re always disturbed – mentally and emotionally. You don’t have a good night’s sleep. When you’re working, you’re thinking of your studies. When you’re doing assignments, you’re thinking of work. When you’re relaxing and watching TV, you’re thinking of the work and studies you can do while watching TV, mainly to be ‘productive’.

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I hate going out.

If the weather forecast says it’s going to rain, I will usually skip my university tutorials for the day (like I did yesterday). If it’s going to be windy and cold, I will usually try to amend my schedules to not go out.

I really, really like staying at home.

Mostly because I’m just lazy. The outcomes might be different if I have a car (yes, I’m pampered that way), but come to think about it, they might actually still be the same. Going out exerts a great deal of effort, and it’s not something that I do lightly.

Yes, I’m wondering how will I survive working full time in the future.

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I have been reading about the Holocaust lately.

Last week, I read Elie Wiesel’s Night, which tells his story of surviving the concentration camp. This week, I’m reading Primo Levi’s If This Is a Man. It makes me think: if I were there, what would I do?

Truth is, I don’t know. I don’t know if whether I would keep on fighting and trying to survive, or whether I would just let it go. I don’t know if luck is on my side – if by chance I would be able to work instead of being sent straight to the gas chamber. I don’t know if I would embrace death – if I would beg and wail or if I would be able to keep my faith.

I really don’t know.

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Today, I was feeling blue. As I wrote before, I have this ‘you’re not anything useful today? Well, you’re wasting time’ issue. It’s always been like that. I had a copyediting test and other than that, I was just a brain-fried being who wanted to take some time off to relax but felt too guilty to do so.

Yes, I tried to watch the entire season 7 of How I Met Your Mother, once again. Yes, I ironed my laundry, cooked and washed the dishes. (And yes, if you want me to do housechores, make me feel guilty of wasting time.) But I felt empty. I didn’t feel like I’ve accomplished something. There are 24 hours in a day and that means I have to come up with 16-hour worth of result. And today, I feel like I’ve only come up with one-hour-and-a-half worth of doing, which is my copyediting test.

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