Are You There God? It's Me Jessica

I love books. When I was a kid, I carried 16 books of The Baby-sitter Club everywhere.
Lately, I find it's quite hard for me to finish my books. I keep buying new books, get some distraction in the middle and move on to the new book.

There are around 7 titles of unfinished books I currently have.
One more new book is on its way (thanks to my super H!).

I'm currently reading Damned by Chuck Palahniuk. Few weeks ago I got so motivated because I just joined goodreads.com and read Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger. Nonetheless, distraction came and I've moved on to Damned.

I've been wanting to read Damned since it was first published last year. Damned is the hell version of Are You There God? It's Me Margaret by Judy Blume. I just finished few chapters of Damned, it's cynically hilarious, as expected. I shall continue reading Damned (I can't wait to finish it!).

Anyway, during my adolescence Are You There God? It's Me Margaret had given a lot of influences in my way of thinking. I was facing the same problems like Margaret had, not only about the menstruation, popular kids at school, but about religion.

When I was a kid, my parents raised me as a Buddhist. I was raised to believe that reincarnation does exist, karma and pray to the universe. My parents raised me according to Nichiren Buddhism.

I went to Christian school, back then I was learned about Christianity, Jesus, heaven and hell. I celebrated Christmas. I even received Christmas presents from my parents.

Then I started to think about religion. I was confused. I started asking question. In Indonesia, you cant be an atheist. You have to choose one of the five religions; Islam, Christian, Catholic, Buddhist or Hindu. I was discussing it with my Singaporean friend, for him it's funny that you don't have the freedom to be atheist. I was thinking the same way during my adolescence, nonetheless, I started to understand why we have to choose one of the religions.

In the middle of my confusion, I followed Margaret, I prayed to God, without specifically mentioned one name. I did not believe in Jesus Christ, I did not want to follow the Nichiren Buddhism, I hated Christian because of their shallowness. At the same time, I followed my sister and aunties to church.

The series of events during my adolescence brought me here.

1. I believe in God, Jesus Christ, The God Almighty. I've chosen catholic as my religion the reasons are;
 - Catholic started to grow. Catholic has learned from past mistakes. Quoting from the article I read in Tempo years back "It's not a new religion that can get angry easily like a bull (I can't really remember the exact words).

2. I swear to God that I will never be involved in the specific religious group. I swear to God, I will try to go to church every weekends (although, I've failed most of the time).

3. The religion is fine, but I do hate the people. I find the people in church, temples or whatever tend to be artificially good. Living in denial. They will think that themselves are superior compare with other religions. They are special. Quoting from Nick Hornby - How To Be Good "God wants to see the real you, not the artificially good" (I cant remember the exact words as well, trying to paraphrase,wtf).

4. I accept different religion. I would never ask anyone to convert in order to marry me, vice versa.

Religion you've chosen will define your way of living. I don't want to be those people who blindly follow the religion without trying to understand. Trying to dress like a specific culture won't make you religious ( Zan Azlee, my former lecturer).

Are you there God? It's me Jessica. I'm 26 now. I have finally can specifically address You to one name.
God, I hardly pray and worship you. But as you know, you will always be in my heart. God, I just want to be a better person, no matter how many lesson you're going to give me, I want to learn as much as I can. I wanna pray for my parents, my siblings, and everyone who means a lot to me. I hope you will take care of them.God, thank you for everything. Amen.

The Little Prince

I think everyone should have The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery as part of their collection. If you haven’t read The Little Prince, then go to the nearest bookstore and buy it.


The story appeals not only for children. Adults have to read it and remember how they used to be.

The king who rules the entire universe, the drunkard, the business man, the fox, the snake, the rose and obviously, the little prince who has been wandering around to give you the unstoppable question about life.

“And no grown-up will ever understand how such a thing could be so important.”

INDIA!

Inspired by Ashanti, my good friend with whom I shared the Indian madness, I feel like writing about my India trip.

I should have done this since months ago, but yeah too much stuff to do, until I abandoned this blog.

I went to India on February. Honestly, I was not really keen to go. I’ve been staying in Malaysia since 2004, but I’m not a big fan of Mamak, Curry, or etc. I was not really into hindi movie and familiar with the history.

Nonetheless, I had a little luck on my side that allows me to go to India, with my best friend Ms. N and her sister, Ms. W.

After the very little preparation and worried from our friends and family, we boarded on the plane to Delhi. We were really excited and worried at the same time. India, God!

It was freaking cold in Delhi; we waited around 2 hours to settle visa on arrival. Luckily, Ms. N was with us, with her broken Hindi we managed to get through the immigration. We went straight away to our Guest House at Main Bazaar. We were really hungry, but we were scared to go out at night. We wanted to find some kebab on the alley of our guest house; however people started to offering us some help. We have been warned by our friends, these people will take advantage of us, hence we were really scared and we decided to buy the vegetarian burger, bring it back to our guest house and sleep.

The next day, we went out to explore Delhi. We had no guide book, no map, no direction and no tour guide. We bought Vodafone simcard and headed to

Connaught Place

where the madness started. We wanted to check out some markets around

Connaught Place

, have our lunch and maybe sitting around in the park as the weather was really nice. Nevertheless, people started following use everywhere, they offered help that we have known going to cost us some money, we felt insecure as we tried to find our way to the bookshop. We finally went to the bookshop and bought Delhi map, we decided to go to Red Fort so we took the metro.

Shockingly, the metro station was good and the metro itself looks decent. We were quite happy to finally get out from the full of scams

Connaught Place

. It such a sad thing though, it would be nice if we can sit around the park in

Connaught Place

.

We went to Red Fort without realizing that it situated in Old Delhi. When we came out from the Metro, we walked in the small alley, where people selling clothes, foods, and etc. Beggars were everywhere. After the experience in

Connaught Place

, We got to scared to ask people for direction. We asked the direction from one foreigner and he was really shocked with the fact that our first day in Delhi and we arrived in the most chaotic place in Delhi.

The Old Delhi madness did not turn us down. We visited Red Fort and India Gate. We walked all the way to Khan Market from India Gate. At India Gate, I tried panipuri, the first real Indian food I tasted, but I did not like it. My impression towards Indian food hasn’t changed that time.

Khan Market is our sanctuary in the middle of Delhi. I visited Café Turtle, bookstores with wide range of collections, Fab India, and stumbled to the pastry shop with extremely nice desserts.

But our adventure did not stop there. We tried to go back to Main Bazaar by Metro. When we just got up from the station, the New Delhi Railway Station, there were around 20 auto rickshaw drivers came all together trying to approach us. We saw men peeing everywhere. The smell, the dark night and the panic attack, we would never forget about our first day India. In India, I saw guys were peeing everywhere, as long as there’s a wall, feel free to pee.

Things to do in India:

#1 Pee like a local (for guys only) J

#2 Buy books (apparently the government subsidies the books in India, you’re gonna see a wide range of collection with really cheap price)

            (to be continued)

With Feathers

Thanks to torrent, I finally got to watch all the movies I’ve been searching for years.

The last few weeks, I was so depressed and stumbled into extreme self introspection period.

Then again, Woody Allen inspires me!

Towards the end of Manhattan, Woody Allen was having a monologue regarding “what makes life worth living.”

After the extreme self introspection period, this scene got me thinking all over again.

The things that make life worth living;

1. Fall asleep in a bus/train/car that brings me to the place I’ve never visited before
2. Visit from my old friends
3. goodbye kiss from parents when they’re sending me off to the airport
4. 9 hours train journey to Singapore with my favorite aquarian
5. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
6. Oscar Wilde
7. Woody Allen
8. The warm familiar smell of home
9. The familiar smiles
10. Food! French fries, cakes, desserts, chocolate, ice cream, etc etc
11. hope for something and it comes true without any effort
12. long distance calls
13. spooning
14. curling on the bed on Sunday mornings
15. discovering new songs, books or movies
16. postcard!
17. reading other stories, about how messed up they were and now they’re having a good life.
18. cooking
19. having a conversation with myself
20. being confused and scared for days and suddenly everything turns out to be just finee
21. new places to explore
22. arrival halls
23. breezy days
24. unexpected phone calls/messages
25. kids! (esp aged 2-3 years old)
26. great laughs
27. The sense of hope

And how about you? What makes your life worth living?

Quick Post

India was great.
Although, not literally convenient or comfortable or whatever, but it was great and unforgettable.

1. It's safe for women to travel India.
2. I enjoyed the celebrity kind of life in India. Being a foreigner, I started to get used to it; people staring at me, asking for pictures etc etc.
3. The food is gooodddddd.
4. Trapped several times. Being cheated for many times.
5. Taj Mahal is overrated :P
6. The people, hmm, where should I start? Despite the fact that they are trying so hard to earn money, I have no complain.
7. Will continue later.

Is it safe for women to travel in India?

I was working on the itinerary for my India trip, while my friend suddenly messaged me saying India it’s not safe for girls. She heard from her friends that there are many cases of women being molested and raped in India.

Here comes my dilemma, tour seems safer; nonetheless, I don’t really want to follow tour. There are some reasons why I don’t like to follow tour while traveling;

1. I want to experience the culture
2. I am not traveling for the sake of taking picture in the famous landmark
3. I want to explore the cities inside and out
4. Who needs tour guide? That’s so mainstream :P

I started to do a research on travel safety in India.

I can conclude that it is depend on you. Some might said that it’s not safe, but I found some useful tips for women traveling solo India.

- Dress properly. Do not wear anything that shows your body curve.
- As foreigners, you will attract more attention. Please be prepared of people staring at you.
- Use your common sense.
- Do not go out at night.
- Be polite and act like you know what you want.
- Do not accept food from strangers.
- Do not wear any jewelry that will attract more attention.
- Do not give money to the beggars.

Wish me luck.

Cheers!

No one belongs here more than you

I’ve been eyeing this book since I saw my friend Ashanti reading it.
Then, in the most unexpected way, I got this book as my Christmas present from my charming “enemy”.

Miranda July is a filmmaker, performing artist and writer. She directed, wrote and starred for film, Me and You and Everyone We Know.

This is a book of short stories by Miranda July, and I’d like to say that this is one of my favorite books right now. It’s about everyday people, doing ordinary life with extraordinary mind. This book is an honest book about people making their honest mistakes. It is odd, but yet enchanting.

I wouldn’t forget about The Swim Team. This story teaches me that although you don’t have the facility, you still have the ability to trust. To trust that you can learn anything you want through different forms.

These dreamy stories make me brave enough to imagine the alternate scenarios of my life. These stories are just too beautiful. Let your mind goes free, create the alternate scenarios from your current life. Well, we need to take a break for a while.

Thank you.