Blog si Feminis

"If you want to be confident all the time Nana, always remember that you are not worse than anybody else; at the same time, you are not better than anybody else either. You are exactly equivalent with anybody in this world. Keep your chin up to face your future. Face everybody and see them as equivalent as you."

I must say that Rick’s suggestion he told me some years ago works well on me, to boost my confidence.

I remember some years ago (after Rick told me that advice), I said the same thing to my students. One student said, "Ma’am, you are our teacher here. I believe that you are better than us, than the rest of us in this classroom. How could you say that we are all the same, equal?"

Simply I said, "I am better in mastering English, probably, yes, coz I am a teacher, here. But, I believe you are better in another thing, something that I even probably know nothing about. That makes us equal." => sounds wise, eh, or wise-guy? LOL.

Btw, do I really sound like a wise-guy when I write here? Do I sound like I am better than the readers? More experienced?

Ah, emang gue pikirin. LOL.

I write coz I need to write, to express what fills my brain, to tell the world what I am thinking, to get rid of stress that sometimes comes to me coz seeing the unequality and oppression done to my folks–women, to expose my being romantic. Only God knows how helpful writing is for me (well, of course Gilman and Aquarini share the same idea with me, as I wrote in my post entitled "I write …" I posted some time ago) to reduce the stress.

So???

Go on writing, Nana!!!

P.S.: just got an email complaining that I am just a WISE-GUY, and terlalu ngurusin trivial things. Oh well, trivial things to some people, not always trivial for others, right? LOL.That makes a mature person different from immature one. LOL.

Grow old along with me
The best is yet to be
the last of life
for which the first was made

–Robert Browning–

Who doesn’t know this very popular novel serials–HARRY POTTER?

Angie loves this novel very much. Unfortunately, the publication of this novel was not at the right time for me. LOL. I mean, it was published at the time when I considered the price of the novel very expensive so that I was a bit reluctant to buy it for my lovely star. LOL. It was the time when I had to spend much money to buy books for my study. Luckily (for Angie), her auntie–my younger sister–loves this novel too. I didn’t buy it but her auntie bought it. If not, she was willing to borrow the novel from her workmates who is also crazy for HP. Me? None of my workmates or classmates (when I was still at college) is for this novel. LOL.

I’ve heard and read lots of complement about HP. However, it didn’t make me curious at all to read it. At first, my reason was i didn’t want to let myself distracted by reading this thick novel coz I needed to spend much time to do the assignments from my lecturers. People said, "Once you start reading this novel, you will not be able to stop it until the end page." wow … LOL. It was a threat for me, then, LOL, a threat that would make me forget to do my assignments. However, FYI, once in a while I needed to distract my concentration not to think of my study all the time. For that, I did any other thing, including to read some other novels (nah lo!!!) LOL. Sama-sama novelnya, but I didn’t read HP, I chose some other novels–especially written by feminist authors, both in Indonesia and America.

After finishing my study, and I was supposed to get more spare time to read any book, in fact, I still didn’t feel encouraged to read HP. LOL. I bought other books whose prices are not far from HP’s, and read them that are thicker than HP. LOL. (For Angie, I bought her teen lit novels she likes. For HP, she will always be able to find someone else to lend her. LOL.)

Some months ago, a student came to me, telling me that she chose HP to be the novel she would ‘dissect’ in her graduating paper (alias skripsi). I am never interested in dissecting pop novels as the material for paper, and so far never let any student under my supervision choose pop novels. However, she insisted it. At last I gave in and suggested her to use a theory–READER RESPONSE THEORY. This theory has never been applied yet by any student in the college I work for. That particular student felt challenged, while at the same time also felt discouraged coz she couldn’t find any reference in the library to help her.

I myself usually challenge myself to read the novels my students use as the material for their papers. I thought that I would feel challenged to read HP afterwards. However, in fact, I was wrong. LOL. I gave her many suggestions related to the questionnaire she made to gather data from HP’s readers. I gave her many inputs too. (That is of course my responsibility as her first advisor).

Many months have passed.

And today, August 26, 2006, I approved her paper to be examined. She seemed so relieved and happy for that. I myself felt the same. One student finishes writing her paper. Another student will come again. LOL, will make me busy again. That’s one part why I am paid. LOL.

This morning, before that student came to me, I happened to find a blogsite where the blogger condemned HP as one bad work. It reminded me of one blog friend of mine from the UK, stating the same thing some months ago. One workmate of mine who used to like this novel very much finally said the same thing too after she read some other novels with simiar topics–e.g. containing magic illustration. "HP is nothing compared to … … …" LOL.

Oh well, talking about interest, people are free to choose which works they like, aren’t they? No one can condemn others as "not having a good taste" only coz they read different books. LOL.

Ooppss … suddenly I remember one thing. Some months ago, in my workplace, when discussing "Favorite books" in one class, I carried some books of mine to class–ranging from Sex and the City, Princess Diary, Jurnal Perempuan (with topic "Seksualitas"), Jurnal Kalam Budaya, the Diary of Anne Frank, and some others. Some students who were junior high school students seemed astonished to know me having books such as Sex and the City and JP ("seksualitas"). From their facial expression, I could interpret that they judged me as a bitch coz loves sex books. LOL. The following meeting, I bought another book entitled Qur’an Menurut Perempuan, and I told my students proudly, (maklum, suka pamer sih, LOL.) "This is my new book. I just bought it yesterday." Can you guess what my students comment? One of them said, "Oh Miss, sekarang udah insyaf yah?"

Wakakakakakakaka …

Cinta adalah satu karunia yang indah, yang menghampiri orang-orang yang indah, yang memberikan karunia itu kepada orang-orang yang terindah pula. (Nana P)

P.S. : What is love for you, my blog readers?

FBS UA 18.50 250806

Pengen nulis sesuatu tentang pekerjaanku, "I Love My Job", but entah kok kata-kata tidak bisa mengalir lancar. (Tadi judul udah kutulis, kalimat pembuka juga udah tertulis beberapa, but then STOPPED.)
Pengen nulis sesuatu tentang my only Abang, but juga mengalami hal yang sama. MANDEG di otak, ato di hati. LOL.
Pengen baca-baca postingan teman-temanku di blog.co.uk, but kok entah kemana nih mood-ku.

Juga pengen baca-baca tulisan teman-teman di mailing list yang aku ikuti, SP, atau milis puisi, dan kemudian membalas puisi-puisi itu dengan puisi pula, but, kemanakah gerangan perginya moodku???
Pengen chat dengan abangku tersayang, but he seems not to be online at the moment. (abis baca email balesan dia yang bikin aku ketawa ngakak … kak … kak … huahuahahahahaha …) Seperti my ‘hunk’ yang telah menghiasi hidupku dan membuatnya menjadi jauh lebih berwarna selama dua tahun ini, abangku juga begitu.
Dia bilang dia strict and ga sabaran, tapi aduhhhhhhhhhh … dia lucu sekali, tiap kali chat selalu bikin aku ketawa ngakak. Tapi aku memang bisa ngerasain dari chat kita (gimana tuh cara ngerasainnya Na? LOL) kalo dia strict. Padahal dia hadir dalam hidupku barusan juga, baru tanggal 12 Agustus 2006 yang lalu (tepat hari ultahku, euy! waktu aku dapat hadiah online gratis 3 jam di warnet langgananku). It means akan sangat mudah mengingat the first time my Abang came into my life.
Btw, komentar Abangku tentang aku sebut my loved one sebagai ‘hunk’, ("kamu nih Na,ada-ada aja!" katanya) huahahahaha … mosok gitu aja aneh sih Bang? hahahaha … sounds like teenagers yah? LOL. Akunya aja kali yang belum rela menjadi middle-aged, pengennya jadi teenager melulu. LOL.
Wah … ternyata jadi juga aku nulis tentang my only Abang.
Udah ah …

Do you believe in true love?

Several days ago, Siti Nurhaliza, one diva from Malaysia who is also popular in Indonesia got married. (I also wrote about her some months ago, in one post of mine here.)  I never really feel interested in knowing anything that happens to celebrities. However, since my workmates talked about this for some days, it made me want to write something on it. (what the hell made my workmates gossiped such a trivial thing?)

Many people seem to feel sorry why Siti married a divorced man with some children. In Indonesian culture, people tend to think that a single girl marries a single boy (meaning both of them haven’t got married yet.); divorced women marry divorced men. What a shame if a single girl/boy marries someone who is divorced or whose ex spouse has passed away.  A single girl/boy is supposed to be considered as still ‘virgin’; and there is a consensus in Indonesian culture (perhaps I can call it as overt culture here) that a virgin marries a virgin. People will talk about it ‘hotly’ if the consensus is broken. More hotly again if a divorced woman or widow marries a single boy (meaning a boy/man who isn’t married yet) It is more acceptable when a divorced man or widower marries a single girl.

Similar as a case where a woman marries a younger man. The couple are also considered as breaking the consensus so that they deserve to be gossiped. LOL. (The consensus says that a man marries a younger woman! LOL.)

Going back about Siti Nurhaliza’s marriage. My workmates said, “What is Siti Nurhaliza looking for by marrying a divorced man? She will not get a ‘virgin’, LOL. Money? As a popular diva, she must have lots of money. Moreover, the man is much older than Siti. (The best different age gap is around 3-5 years old here.)

Another workmate tried suggesting an answer, “But her husband is very very wealthy!”

And the crowd commented, “Oh, in fact that adorable Siti Nurhaliza is just a materialistic girl!”

In the middle of noisy ‘gossiping’ in the teachers’ room, I kept quiet; not interested to involve myself. But, then, I said to a good workmate of mine, “Aha … I will write this topic for my blog!” LOL. LOL.

For Siti Nurhaliza (I am not her fan though, LOL) or for her fans who happen to read this post, I wish her all the best for her future life—her career and her personal life. J

And as romantic person, I assume that true love will not consider whether someone is rich or poor, younger or older, "virgin" or "not virgin", bla bla bla … LOL. Or as many people are cynical, true love is only consumed by foolish people.
LL 14.45 240806

Two days without internet access

Feel like two consecutive torturing years

Without your warm and attentive words

Without your encouraging utterance to my works

PT56 19.45 210806

I watched this movie-CRASH-yesterday. It tells us about poignant racial discrimination in America. It made me a bit scared.

Since I was born, I have lived in Indonesia. Fortunately I have indigenous parents (gosh, what is indigenous???) so that I look like many other majority people in Indonesia, having almond-shaped eyes, black hair, dark complexion (I have been getting darker since I loved swimming in 2000), and a Muslim. Never in my life had I experienced racial discrimination coz I belong to the main stream of the majority Indonesian.

Indigenous …

It reminds me of my time when I was doing a small research to make a paper in the "African American Literature" class in 2003. I got task to analyze poems written by Langston Hughes. I chose three poems of his. Unfortunately I forgot the titles but one poem–Will V-Day be Me Day too? in one of his writing, Hughes protested why he was still treated discriminatively rather than other people (such as those who had ancestors from Denmark or Italy) while in fact he was the fifth generation of his ancestors living in America while those whose ancestors from Denmark and Italy were only the second or third generation. Only coz Hughes had black skin? And those Danish and Italian had similar complexion as the main stream–let’s say having English ancestors?

One topic in one book in the English course where I teach is about OUR ANCESTORS. I have tried to make my students "see" that the ancestors of Indonesian people come from some or many places in the world, so that they are not so discriminative toward other ethnic groups in Indonesia. However, oftentimes my students (most of them are high school and college students) look at me weirdly. They easily just see those who have fair complexion with oriental eyes and straight hair as not indigenous. It somewhat gives them "justification" to be a bit discriminative toward them (though I believe it is not as terrible as what is illustrated in CRASH).

It made me wonder if I were born as black people living in America …

If I were born as Chinese in Indonesia …

If I were born in a non-Muslim family in Indonesia …

P.S.: This article is a tribute for my only Abang …

Di kantor.

Setelah dua hari libur (hari minggu, dan hari senin yang bertepatan dengan hari isra’ Mi’raj), aku kembali menyapa teman-teman milisku di SP. Whooaaaaa … dua hari tanpa internet, serasa terdampar di satu pulau terpencil somewhere. LOL.

I am not a television addict. So? Tak pernahlah daku ini dengan sengaja menyalakan televisi karena kepengen nonton sesuatu. Selama libur dua hari, tentu aku lebih memilih nongkrong di depan komputerku tersetia dan tersayang. (Maklum, punya juga cuma satu itu, hehehehe …) Kebetulan memang aku harus ngebut menyelesaikan handout TELAAH PUISI yang sudah hampir deadline. Biasalah Nana, pengikut SKS, huehehehe … Trus, juga menyibukkan diri mengetik email to my loved ones. Aku punya loved one baru, euy!!! hahahaha … Well, semua teman-teman baikku, yang kebetulan tinggal jauh dariku, yang kadang bikin aku sibuk ngetik email ke mereka, semua bisa kusebut sebagai my loved ones, selain my most special loved one, ANGIE, my lovely star.

Pagi ini, setelah dropping Angie at her school, aku langsung ke kantor, dengan harap-harap cemas semoga internetnya accessible. Tatkala aku masuk ke kantorku yang terletak di lantai 10, menyalakan komputer, dan mengakses yahoomail, hatiku berdebar kencang, gak karuan, kayak mau ketemu pujaan hati saja. wakakakaka … (gubrak!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) jadi inget tahun 1999-2001 when I was having a special relationship with my Californian bf, setiap kali lihat warnet, serasa aku lihat dia melambaikan tangannya kepadaku, "Nana darling, drop by, please. I miss you …" wakakakakaka …

Huuaaahhh … dua hari tanpa internet connection memang sangat menyiksaku.

"Lah, Na, napa kamu ga ke warnet aja? Kan gampang. Warnet bertebaran di mana-mana kan di kotamu itu?"

Well … mungkin memang aku ini termasuk pengikut sado-masochist, kadang suka menyiksa diri sendiri, kemudian menikmati luka itu. torture itu. Aku nikmati torture itu selama dua hari. Tentu saja karena di rumah ada my loved one yang bikin aku sibuk dengerin dia ngoceh (eh, emang burung? wakakaka … jadi inget my only Abang yang pernah menyapaku, "yes, my humming bird …" hehehehe … ) tentang segala kesibukannya di sekolah, tentang teman-temannya, dll. Nemenin dia baca teen lit novels yang barusan dia beli. Maklum, di novel itu, ada banyak istilah-istilah asing, dan Angie nanya kemana lagi kalo ga ke nyokapnya tercinta? ehem … Sementara dia baca novel, aku ngetik di komputer.

Kalo situasi dua hari libur itu terjadi ketika aku all alone di Yogya beberapa waktu yang lalu, tentu aku sudah kabur ke warnet, yang terletak di seberang jalan dari kosku.

Dasar internet addict!!! hahahaha …

Sebel …
Sudah berapa jam yah aku coba buka blogku yang di www.blogger.com/start ? Gak berhasil juga.
Seperti biasa, aku selalu posting tulisanku ke tiga blog, di friendster, blog.co.uk, trus di blogspot. Yang paling utama sih memang yang di blog.co.uk (so far, the most famous blog of mine, LOL.)
Trus, untuk menjaring lebih banyak pembaca, aku post juga di FS dan blogspot. Dan memang selama ini yang sering ngadat tuh yang di blogspot. Heran, napa yah dengan blog satu ini?
Jadi inget postingan salah satu teman di blog.co.uk. Dia mutung dengan google. Semakin besar google, semakin terkenal, semakin banyak user yang akses google, semakin sulit ato butuh waktu lama untuk mendapatkan hasilnya, bisa berarti google semakin sombong. LOL.
Barangkali blogspot pun begitu. Semakin banyak orang yang pake blogsite satu ini, ya semakin butuh waktu lama deh ngaksesnya. Ato, barang kali komputer yang kupake ini aja yang lemot???
Btw, aku jadi inget komplain beberapa temanku di blog.co.uk beberapa bulan yang lalu. Mereka komplain karena blog mereka tiba-tiba hilang dari peredaran. Kok bisa yah? Entahlah. Maklum, aku termasuk gaptek sih alias internet illiterate, so ga bisa ngerti deh kok bisa terjadi seperti itu. Apalagi kalo aku udah ignorant, cuek bebek lah daku ini. LOL.Cuek aja kenapa begini kenapa begitu. LOL.
Jadi inget (lagi) alasan lain mengapa aku juga posting tulisanku di blog yang lain. Kalo tiba-tiba blog ku ngilang dari blog.co.uk, aku masih punya blog di tempat yang lain. Yah … meskipun tentu aku akan menangis darah (cie …) kan tadi aku udah bilang, blog ku yang di blog.co.uk itulah yang paling famous, paling sering dikunjungi orang, dan ratingnya paling tinggi dibanding blogku yang lain (aku ngecek pake www.silktide.com) Phillip temanku dari blog.co.uk yang bilangin aku dulu.
Well … well … well … Nana, sabar aja yah? LOL.
Tomorrow will be better. LOL.
HAVE A NICE WEEKEND, DEAR FRIENDS.