Kagayaki Dina e ~A Letter for Mba Dina in All Her Shining Darkness~

Because my friend wants to read my reply to mba Dina's Letter, here we go~ :3 I'll come and read yours next, Ukky~ Nyeahahahahaha

Dear mba Dina,

Your letter to us really inspire me to look deeper on what’s happening around me as well as what’s happening on people’s mind. Just like what you said, I don’t have to experience amazing twists and turns like you did in your childhood ( I bet you’re in an even amazing ‘roller coaster’ of life right now out there). But I can’t help myslef but think what a plain and simple life I have. I can’t stop myself from comparing my life and yours. How you were brave enough to show your frustration of being compared to your sister and how you were brave enough to demand for people around you to love you.

On the contrary, I lifed a plain life, too afraid to cross the safe zone encircling me. But that does not mean I also close my eyes from seeing the world outside my safe zone. I see things outside, and yearn for it. But My feet is too weak and my body is too frail. I don’t have the courage to push myself and cross the line. I ended up just watching from the safe zone. Watching while trying to put myself on those people’s shoes. Those who are already get free from the safe zone and enjoying the world with its bitterness as well as happiness too. I wonder if what I’ve been doing is what you call premonition only. It is not the truth since the feeling and sensation are just my imaginations? I wonder if I should break free from the safe zone and experience things first hands. But by breaking out from the safe zone, does that mean I have to intentionally hurt myself? Haha. That would make me a masochist. But somehow I don’t mind being a Masochist. 

Wanna join the maso Dark Side?

And another things that is bothering me is if I intentionally throw myself to a world of chaos and problems just so I could experience those pains first hand, It would be rude to you and other people who don’t have choice and HAD to experience bitter things because of the situation. Compared to that, me who is going to throw myself down the gutter on purpose is like a huge mockery to you. So I will not do that. I think I will life the live the way I’ve been doing all these years.

I trust Fate and am too lazy to think of something for myself anyway. So might as well go with the flow and from time to time go against it when the situation calls. If she wants me out of my safe zone, Fate’ll always have the card to turn myself upside down in just a flip of a finger anyway. So, for now I will try to understand what’s happening in my surrounding, trying to understand the world and why things turns like that. Observing. Afterall, I already got used to my role as an observant. I observe and analyze, trying to empathize and seeing things with other people’s perspective. So I used to see things from the third POV instead of the first POV. Reading your letter also makes me trying to put myself in your shoes. Though what I got might not as similar to what you actually feel, your emotions reach my heart. Or so I thought. I got the feeling that putting things into writing helps people and you show me with your letter mba Dina.

Like how you put your feelings and emotions in writing, and then feeling lighter after that, I also do that, though my problems are not as complex as yours. Haha. Sharing one’s experience will always have good effects. Thank you for sharing what you have with us and thank you for giving us more reason to write mba Dina.

You surely have one hell of a twisted life but how you manage to go along with the twist and made it something that inspire others is really what makes me admire you. Words are really amazing. Writing is really amazing. I’ll continue writing and share what I see and feel with other people like what you do with your letter and other writings.

Life long, life strong, keep writing and touch people’s heart mba Dina ^^.

With love and admiration, from a country girl in big city

Dian Kartika Dewi

That's a response to mba Dina's letter, here. She's a great writer with a great life. I really respect her :3

Jogja Under Eruption

"I was scared to death!" that was what Emma (21) said when Gerometto, our made-up magazine, asked why she left Yogya during the eruption.
The city of Students shook. Merapi began to activate after a long period of slumber. It started to spit volcanic ashes to Yogya as well as the area around. People left the city, afraid of the rage of the mountain.

photos taken from: here

Emma is one of the college students in Yogya, who went back to her hometown because f the Merapi eruption. She left Yogya a few days before the predicted peak of eruption. Situation was chaotic in town. Roads were full of ashes and grey clouds hung on the sky. Eerie feeling of ‘grey town’ strongly came from the previously bright and eccentric town.
Emma here went home by train, taking Prameks train to her hometown, Kebumen. The crowded station was a common sight for days. Trains leaving Yogya always packed every day. Similar situation could be found at bus stations. Bus was also another means of leaving the ash-buried town. In town, people were wearing masks issued by government and social organizations. It was to protect them from respiration problem that might be caused by the dangerous volcanic ashes in the air.
Emma also claimed, “The eruption will probably reach UGM campus, so we were planning to go home,”
Indeed, a lot of people were leaving for the same reason. Universities also canceled their classes in hope that the students could evacuate to a safer place.
Prior to and after the eruption, Yogya had lesser population. Most shops were closed. Though some of them still open despite the thick ash in the air. The condition lasted for about a month after the eruption stopped. Universities announced that classes will be held again and soon Yogya got back its liveliness. Though those at the feet of Merapi were still suffering from damages and causalities caused by the eruption.

by Dian Kartika D.

source: Emma Arifiani

Gaze at The World and She'll Gaze You Back

World is the reach of your five senses. Everything that comes to exsistance in front of you and you believe on, exsists and is in your very own world. That is why each people have their own world that is different from other people. Each person sees something from different light and places because precisely everyone is different from each other.

My world during childhood is a big dome of safety zone where strong society control and simple life of a countryside protect prevent me from going wild or taking the ‘wrong’ unusual turn on the many crossroads of life. I developed a big fear of mistakes from growing up watching my two rascal brothers doing everything they want and got scolded for all their broken motor cycles and night sleepovers. I became rather careful and sly in covering up and acting good in front of my parents so I was safe from the scolding. But then later it developed into some kind of guilty complex that makes me up until now unable to freely doing mistakes without being extremely frightened by the thought of making one. 

'Persona' guards everything inside

Back to my past though, Fate always have her way in finding a way to send me some twists and turns. I met my first hobby at a book store, in the form of Doraemon comic books my brother get after wailing and flailing in front of the book store one day when we (my two brothers, me, and my mom) was shopping at the traditional market nearby. After that I really enjoyed reading comics and by the time I was in Junior High School, I already began collecting comics of various genres and age range. My world of comics grew wider as I knew more about it through the internet. I was a net geek back in my second year at Junior High School and that was when I met with my second obsession, back when arcade games and Playstation rental was booming in my small town. My two brothers dragged me to game centers, letting the little girl that is me enjoying the world of gaming and wonderful graphic of the two dimension. I fell even more to the world of imagination then with comics and games (and several animes that was popular back then) and the internet is another link that widens my world.

The day I put my hand on the mouse at that one public internet, my safety zone was torn down and I found the wonderful world of imagination from my love to comics, games, and animes leads me to a deeper world of those via the internet connection. I wrote fanfics, read articles and stories, I came to contact with people from various places even outside the country, I got my motivation to learn English so I could browse the new world I found even more, and got my mind broaden up from the various stories from those comics and games be it fantasy or real. I didn’t realize it back then but I was becoming an observant girl enjoying how various theory and philosophy I found through  books, comics, and anime were rightly applied in the real world. I was fascinated by that and started to like analyzing people through their own point of view, trying to understand the feeling of various people.

That was mostly how I have been living up until know. Observing people, checking reasons on why some people do this while some of them do not. Rooting up the reason for certain event or some problem happened on people, and trying to find out how to solve it without hurting either sides too much.
I learnt the two most inspiring quote in my life: ‘equivalent trade’ and ‘too much is as bad as too little’ both from my hobbies of watching and reading. I’ve been pretty much living my life up until now from those two quotes, and been fascinated all the time it fits perfectly for various situations whether it  has to do with me or everybody around me. Been pretty skeptical secretly for those who said ‘life isn’t fair!’ and complaining to God and World for the misery that actually they bought themselves, but sometimes hating myself for thinking such villainous thought when people are actually suffering and needs help.

My world is now a big drama stage. I am outside the stage, watching while screaming, laughing, frightened, and crying as the play turns from good and heartwarming scene to gory and gloomy scene of misfortunes. From time to time I would be bought up stage, feeling the joy and sorrow of life first hand and I would then quickly return to my seat, watching while screaming, laughing, frightened and crying as the film of Life keeps rolling on, and as my time at the ‘theater’ runs out year by year.