Ugh.

Great. great. On our way to O’Hare airport, for whatever reasons, we got to talking about the Air France crash. I realized it right away and decided not to continue, SINCE I realized we were heading to O’Hare for my flight to Copenhage. But mom kept on talking, and added on other scary story. Indra and I simultaneously told her,‘Mom, you do realize we are going to the aiport right? and for what reason.’ And she stopped.

Since I came early (ten hours early) to the airport, I signed up for Boingo Hotspot wireless service—What am I going to do in the airport for 10 hours? and fuck... all the news site I am browinsing through has somekind of coverage about Air France. I told myself to not read it, but I can’t help but read through the news.

I am a little jittery now. An hour before my flight.

coming together.

There is nothing quite like witnessing two families coming together. Weddings. Am in Madison now for my best friend’s wedding. Seeing his family. Seeing her family. Listening to what the fathers say, what the mothers say, and everybody else in between say. Wedding week is like a storm, in a good way, I say, there’s a moment that does not quite have a name. That moment is the eye of the storm. It is the calm in the middle of chaos and cacophony. That moment is when the two families come together.

…

There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make that can destroy your life everytime you choose. But maybe you won’t know for twenty years and you never ever trace it to its source and you only get one chance to play it out and try to figure out your own divorce.

And they say there is no fate but there is. It is what you create. Even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are only here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain wasting years for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it alright. But it never comes or seems to but it never really.

So you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope
that something good will come along,
something to make you feel connected,
something to make you feel whole,
something to make you feel loved.

And the truth is I'm so angry,
and the truth is I'm so fucking sad,
and the truth is I've been so fucking hurt for so fucking long,
and for just as long have been pretending I'm OK just to get along.

Just for… I don’t know why…

Maybe because nobody wants to hear my misery because they have their own.

Synecdoche, New York
Charlie Kaufman

threefortyseven.

It is 3:47 am now and I am still up. I have just finished watching Living Dangerously on TV. It is about a journalist’s experience living in Indonesia in the sixties. Communism was flourishing in the country. It was not clear which side Sukarno had been. Rumor has it that he was with the communist—hence the CIA-backed military coup, led by Suharto. This fact aggravated me so much. Growing up in Indonesia, we were never told about a coup. It was a peaceful transition, they said. It was Supersemar, they said, a declaration of order signed by Sukarno, giving Suharto the authority he needed to restore order. It had been false history we were learning—what a waste of my braincells.

It has been almost thirteen years since I left Indonesia and I have adopted America as my country. But recently something has been tagging at my heart. When living in Indonesia, I have never felt to be truly an Indonesian due to my Chinese descent. And truly a Chinese, I am not either. Moving to Singapore was also a strange experience. Being an Indonesian Chinese, some of my Chinese friends claimed me to be their Chinese friend, while my Malay friends claimed me as their Melayu friend. Moving to America has added my nationality confusion—I am not Asian and/or Indonesian enough, neither am I white. As my time into becoming an American citizen is getting closer, I started to think and miss Indonesia more and more. I miss Indonesia.

Sigh. I might be just reminiscing my past. I was elated when mom told us about the move to Singapore. I was an unhappy girl spending her time wishing she could start her life over. Singapore was the chance to start over, or so I thought.

But now… I don’t know… I have always wondered how my life would have been different had I stayed. I have never really got to know Indonesia and I really want to be friends with her.