Another one for Malaysia

Beautiful Merdeka ad by Petronas

It is Saturday Evening.  I wonder what had made me sentimental today.  I grabbed my red diary, the one that has my promise to be written daily by me ever since I bought it, but now has been abandoned, clean and stacked on my bookshelves.  I realised I have not written anything since a month or two.  I was thinking to join the #100happydays challenge just to find a point that, okay, the half of 2014 are gone, I admit I found so many happiness on those days that I do not have to join the #100happydays challenge to know that I am happy, so might as well join the challenge for the last 3 months of 2014.  (Oh my, time flies fast!)  But then I opened this empty diary, I knew I had to do something with it.  So I wrote the diary backwards, and counted all the memories.  I also wish to let go all the attachments I have with these good and bad days.  Because a friend said, that once you write something out, either a simple story and poetry, then you cannot take it back... it has lost all its meanings.  So that's what I aim to do.  I want to start my life, as white and clean, as a blank paper. Because indeed, I am moving to Jakarta this week.  I have an offer to become a Copywriter, back in ad game in a position which I truly desire, and I am grateful for it.  Although I do not know what to expect, in terms of the difficulty of the task and the clients... but hell, I am going to give my best!


When I began to write the diary.  I could imagine the flashes of memories in KL.  The freshest memories I remember is walking for my apartment and out.  I lived in Vila Puteri Condominium, it was a busy part of the town.  With Chow Kit market and PWTC LRT station are just down the road. The scary big pedestrian walk at the junction between KFC and 7E.   The market looks like somewhat slums I see in Indonesia, because indeed, there are many Indonesian workers and sellers living in Chow Kit, which always adds a colorful sight to 1Malaysia, because somehow Indonesian has been growing into a massive community in Malaysia.  There are plenty Indonesians who claim they can speak Bahasa Melayu, and there are plenty Malaysians who claim they understand Bahasa Indonesia... but boy, do they wrong about it.  I always have a pretty good laugh at them who are trying so hard to mimic each dialect.

Oh yes, I am going to miss the Indonesian foreign workers with their Madurese accent in their Bahasa Melayu.  I hope I do not sound racist, this is a part of a real observation!

I miss the office.  I miss the kedai.  I miss taking LRT Putra down to its last stop at Kelana Jaya.  I remembered taking KTM and missed stations til I lost my way to Shah Alam.  I miss all the kedai, laici kang (I hope I spell that right), all the discreet local cart and kedai my officemate brought me... truly showed me how to enjoy food like a Malaysian.  Okay, I miss the gym... can you believe it?  I miss strolling down the KLCC park on Saturday, stocking my hummus at Presto and having brunch at Tous Le Jour... Gosh, now you know all the weekend details!  Thank God I spill it now!  Or else some creepy stalker will follow my back and hunt me.  I miss Cyberjaya too.  My long commute to KL.  The Scottish Book Lady at the terminal.  I planned to make a visit before I leave but no chance. I miss it much!  The Thai Food at QThai and Chicken Chop at my campus... Oh yea, 10ten, the mock 7E my campus used to have.  I used to buy redbull and coffee there, oh and the curry puff so good! Ah, do not even start with IKEA... or actually start!  Because they will be opening one in Alam Sutera, not so far from where I will be living, and I actually have a friend working there!  (shouting : MEATBALLS!)  I miss pasar Ramadhan in Putrajaya and Kampung Baru.  Glad I still had a chance to visit Pasar Ramadhan at Kampung Baru this year and performed tarawih at my apartment's mosque.  It is a small place but something about the memory that makes it different.

And, don't get me start with poetry.... There are a lot of amazing things happened in Kuala Lumpur. Got my poem written, performed and published! Being a self-acclaimed Indonesian Poetry Ambassador everytime I read my Bahasa Indonesia poem, and I love to know that the audience respects the beauty of my mother tongue. 

I am eternally grateful for being given a chance to study, 3 years in Cyberjaya and 2 years of working in Kuala Lumpur, the memories are uneven to compare with anything else in this entire world.

I know,  I have written a similar post before.

Deep down, I am still wondering of my decision to come home and if Jakarta can offer me more awesomeness... but yeah, I know it will do!  I am happy that I gain strength to let go.  That strength comes from KL.  Letting go my apartment in Cyberia within weeks, and at that time, I was kinda seeing (or obsessing) on someone.  It taught me a thing or two with attachment.  There will always be new things that follow.  Some of the kids who had studied in KL, would really wish to stay and live in Malaysia.  There is also a kind of notion that they'll fail if they'd ever go back home to Indonesia... but I am over it.  Better be home.

Lebih baik hujan batu di negeri sendiri, dari pada hujan batu dinegeri orang.... 

(but at least travel doesnt hurt)

It is a Saturday evening, I do not know what makes me so sentimental until I saw ad for Merdeka day on Facebook.  I had the feeling that I had to prepare teh tarik (now I am chugging down my kopi tarik).  Now I know what it must be....

Selamat Hari Merdeka Malaysia!

The Naked Soul