Updates

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Wow look, it has only been 2 years since I last updated this blog..

Let’s see.. let’s see.. what’s new.. Well, I am currently sitting in my room mid morning on a weekday, at my parents’ house, with a 6-week old baby in a carrier on my chest.

Since the last time I wrote, my husband and I graduated, left Japan, and moved back to Indonesia. I have several blog drafts I wrote about my feelings leaving Japan, but I never got the sentiment quite right, so I am not publishing them (short version – strange sadness and loss, confusion, major reverse culture shock, etc). Long story short – We came home in April 2018, and we promptly got into setting up our home and careers – my husband doing AI research at an Indonesian e-commerce company, and me teaching at our university. And in March 2019, we welcomed our daughter.

And with that, I think I’ve had enough with my stories now, and I’ll let this blog fade into the internet void.

What’s next

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Last month, we went for a 2-week vacation to Indonesia. As usual, it wasn’t very relaxing, because we had so many things to do, and when we weren’t doing that, we were shuttling between our parents’ houses.

(Can’t wait till we have our OWN house.)

I have been living abroad for about 7 years now, since 2010, and Indonesia doesn’t really feel like home anymore. It’s a hot (weather) respite, where I can see my family and friends and the food tastes really good.

That’s it.

Since leaving Indonesia in 2010, I have frequently (between years 2010-2012), and less frequently (between 2012-now) gone to visit it. And every time it felt like I was just biding time until I went back to whatever country I was living in at the time. Often I would even get bored. My life abroad was convenient, fun, new, and interesting. Indonesia was a break, a temporary visit.

But last month during my visit to Indonesia, I realized that I felt differently. I had been living in Japan for almost 5 years by then, and while it is convenient, clean, and orderly; I was tired of it. It was not home either.

Indonesia this time still felt weird and foreign. I still didn’t know how much things were supposed to cost, I didn’t know the current traffic conditions. Administrative paperwork was a nightmare. The people were so un-feminist and right-wing religious I wanted to throw up. But I was no longer in a rush to go back away.

This time, upon coming back to Japan, and getting back into my routine, I realize that I had had enough.

I’ll finish what I came here to do, and then I want to go home.

…

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Feeling stupid is normal. What’s dangerous is if you feel like you know everything. (A friend, 2016)

phd092316s

http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1896

More like ‘all the years’. For lucky ones, there are only 3.

So, I wasted my whole summer vacation (seriously–I only took 2 days of real vacation, as in days where I went somewhere other than my lab or the supermarket) writing. Since half of your time as a doctoral candidate involves calculating how many more papers you need to put out, I was thrilled. I was glad to not think about derivations and coding and images, at least for awhile. New semester, and lo and behold. Na-ah, you’re not done yet.

Looking for something to read?

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It’s been a while since I’ve wrote. I’ve been busy with a journal paper that I have been writing for half a year now–I realize I can not put out a half-a**ed paper but this is now already version 7.0…..(&$’&&'())~’%%$#”!$’)’), but I digress.

Anyway, I’m not delusional, I know I don’t have a lot of followers or readers, (ha ha ha ha ha) but I am stubborn enough to keep this blog, hence I feel I need to update it once in a while. Since I don’t have the time nor talent to put together a good post on an interesting topic, I am not even going to try. Instead I will just steal share something worth reading. Check out Nisa’s post in which she shares links of her latest Jakarta Post articles. The post is in Indonesian but the linked articles are in English.

*) Nisa is a writer with 2 published (Indonesian) books, and I’ve known her for more than 10 years. While she can make up interesting stories, I can only write about data. Sigh. She writes in both English and Indonesian, but I personally enjoy her English writing more, so I think it deserves a share here.

Akhir Januari lalu saya mendapat tawaran buat bergabung dengan blogger community-nya The Jakarta Post. Awalnya agak ragu sih. Gimana caranya coba nyari waktu buat nulis artikel berbahasa Inggris; buat nyukur bulu kaki aja ga sempet (TMI banget ya ini). Tapi waktu itu kebetulan saya lagi ga ada proyek nulis. A untuk Amanda udah kelar edit [â€Ķ]

via On Being A Community Writer — I send my rockets forth between my ears