HELLO FOLKS.
It's that time of the year again where I remind people to be strong in accepting changes and that your pimpdaddy can be wrong at times. Wait, what? I don't even know. It's 12:47 a.m. and I've just drank a long black two hours ago. Bad mistake.
Again I bring good news and bad news, like I normally do to everyone in my life. To my parents when I was born: the bad news is you're going to have another head to feed! And a weird one at that. The good news is I might help you financially in the future. Stressed on might. Hopefully *Crossing fingers*.
MOVING ON, the bad news is, I'm moving back to Indonesia! I know, I know. A month ago I said that I'll just be moving up to Sydney which means that the blog's name which is conveniently called Living in Wollongong will be utterly irrelevant. Boy, how that escalated quickly. Universities and Australia itself has proven to be extremely inconsiderate of internationals, by giving us higher taxation rates and higher university fees. And when I'm talking about higher, it's about 5x higher.
Yeah.
The good news is, I'm moving back to Indonesia! I'll be able to travel around more, seeming that there is actually a lot of places that I really want to go to but I've never been, like Dataran Tinggi Dieng and Pulau Seribu. I'll be able to see and hug my family again, not just through a virtual "bear" hug on Skype (yeah, you), and I'll be able to catch up with my mates.
Which brings me to my second Rant of The Night of The Raging Coffee: Social Interactions Within the Indonesian Community. Nobody steals that amazing thesis title from me. Ish mine.
For starters, the very social culture in Australia and Indonesia are amazingly different, starting from how Indonesians have certain sentence structures that clearly distinguishes the lines between a person who is in your strata level and people who are above you. We have distinction nouns. This means that a lot of people are still bound by the social norms that came with our dad's generation. And their dads', and their dads' dads. This is good for ensuring a courteous and well-mannered kids, which in time will be socially acceptable adults, who in turn will procreate and foster the same type of kids as well. If this is the case then it doesn't seem bad, doesn't it?
Truth be told, I'm yet to see on where do I feel a difference between our social norms. People in Australia - the friends that I have at times trusted my life with - acts and thinks differently from my very Indonesian friends, and I am sure, heck, I would bet my half-completed university degree on it, that our social norms are very much almost the same to an extent. I wanted to say that Indonesians are less open to strangers, but I'm guessing that is just because I haven't been looking at people other than who I've been spending my time with.
The second factor is probably because most of the people that I know in Indonesia are basically egocentric-minded people, which means that they at times think that they are the most interesting person in the world. I, for one, condemn the very idea that this term exists within our society, which is currently bathing in seas of materialism and objectifying. A lot of people believe that matter defines who we are, over the very notion of how the old saying goes. Mind, in oppose to matter, is the one that can actually helps you define who you are against what you possess. A 14-year old kid with a smartphone does not essentially means that he's as smart as his smartphone. He may be smarter or he may even be dumber than it. Another thing that I should bring up is that other people cannot define you on who you are, regardless of what your Sociology book says.
Which, in turn, brings me up to my hypothesis (yay segue!) that a lot of Australians are a lot more fun to hang out with is because they do not care about lots of things. They do not care about what other people might say about them, they do not care about certain actions' consequences, and some don't even care about their future. I'm not much of a fan of the third example, but it proves my point. A lot of Indonesians want other people to see that they are good and doing well in life, which proves my point that they feel that it defines them. I was one of them, so I've come to this conclusion not just by observing, but through a personal experience as well.
(I will be making these last paragraphs as quick as I can seeming that my coffee intoxication is coming to an end soon. So segue dance. Segue segue.)
So my point in this hour long rant is that I will miss my open-minded, globally-knowledgeable, can-never-be-replaced friends with my old friends from Indonesia which I haven't seen in a long time. According to Twitter, the web corporation that has gained my seal of Should-Be-Useless-Now stamp, a lot of my Indonesian friends are still on that level of egocentrism. I'll say it out loud: I don't care about how you feel about your test. Maybe if you make a funny remark about it then I, with the rest of the world would enjoy it, but no, you've chosen to put in, "Omg, worst test ever hhh" or "woke up late, alarm didn't work @_@" as your status update. I hate you. I hate you and I hope you die. I hope people will stop listening to you in real life seeming that you've chosen to talk on a social media instead of the people around you. I should probably unfollow you. And 'unfollow' isn't even a word. I hate Twitter so badly now, so I probably should just deactivate my Twitter account. Or just follow news updates and Markus Persson.
Anyways, that's my huge remark. Twitter and materialism is destroying our social system. We should be talking to people, face to face. Learn where they come from, exchange your knowledge. Read something new everyday, and by something new I don't mean other people's status updates. Go to the library. Buy a book. Heck, download a book, it's free. Read newspaper articles about the world, and I don't mean the Hollywood Celebrity section. Talk to strangers who seems like they would enjoy your company, you might make a lifelong friend. Find a new hobby. Do more activities. Learn how to juggle, or just try origami for starters. Taste new things in life, it isn't a sin. Do something crazy and feel better about yourself afterwards. Make dinner and invite your friends instead of going out for food- It's cheaper and more enjoyable. Go to parties. Create parties. Talk more with your friend's friend instead of alienating him. There is a lot of things in life that can make you a better person, and having materials isn't really the number one factor in it. I have enjoyed encounters with low-incomed people compared to they who their fathers have rented them an apartment in the middle of the city while also paying for their expensive university degree.
People can be interesting- you'll just need to break the barrier sometimes. Do not be scared, as prejudice is a sin itself. You can't tell if something is bad if you have never experience it by yourself.
The coffee's finally gone, so I can go to bed. This might be my last post in this blog, seeming that I don't have any reason to update it anymore. I have enjoyed talking and sharing my ideas and stories in this page, and I hope someone, somewhere is enjoying my blog, laughing out loud.
I wish you all the best in life, and all the best in mankind.
Adieu.
