Happy birthday to little ol' me!

Let me get one thing out of the way: I suck at keeping commitments. I mean, I've been aware of this for quite a while now, but only recently did I realize just how much I suck at it. Look, I promised I'd update this blog every, what was it, three days? AND IT'S BEEN OVER A MONTH SINCE I POSTED THAT!!

Well, here I am. Better late than never, I suppose, but it's still a bit too late, I guess :/ Meh, whatever. I made that commitment and, despite everything, I do intend on keeping it. It's just... *voice trails off as I look for an excuse* ...

...

...

Well, I did have something to do this morning. It was this thing that was leftover from yesterday, and it was unfinished because of unforeseen circumstances. I tried hard to do so today, I honestly did, but, well, a string of stupid mistakes prevented me. Not that I had any significant chance of finishing it from the start, but there was still a chance. But I guess today just had to be started by a miserable failure.

Hmm.

...

'Kay, well maybe I've got nothin' to use as an excuse. Nothing good, anyway. Sorry, me. And, my imagined readers, I suppose. Won't happen again. Maybe. Hopefully. I mean DEFINITELY. I'll try, definitely.

That was lame.

In other news, as you may have noticed from the title, today is my birthday! Not that a lot of people seemed to remember, of course, but why would they? In this day and age most people forego the virtue of remembering details about friends for the superficial values of modern life. With my birthdate purposefully hidden on Facebook, the number of people who remembered sank like an overweight stone elephant in a extra-quick quicksand; three years ago I pulled a different stunt which was similar in principle: I changed my birthdate every month, on the same date. The point was to camouflage the actual date with five other fake ones, starting from March and ending in August - to see who'd fall for the trick. And not only were there people who congratulated me on more than one month (I MEAN REALLY, YOUR MEMORY CAN'T LAST FOR ONE FREAKING MONTH?! YOU PEOPLE WERE SEVENTEEN, NOT SEVENTY!!), some of my so-called close friends didn't even remember the actual date!

*cough*

Logically-speaking, of course, there could be a number of possibilities. Maybe some of my friends just have lousy memory? Not impossible, and I can't blame 'em for that. Maybe some of them weren't close enough (or close enough yet) that they hadn't known about it? Also possible, and again, can't blame 'em. Maybe some of them were too busy and had a lot on their mind? Less likely, since, y'know, the whole thing lasted for half a year. Maybe some of them were/are simply fakers who couldn't care less? Certainly possible, and does seem to be the case in regards to several individuals.

In any case, this year I simply hid my birthday on July 31st on Facebook. And bam, how many people gave me a 'happy birthday' or equivalent? A whopping less than 20 of my friends (and a couple of those had to be reminded). Compare this to over 200 that I got two years ago.

*cough*

Again, the same possibilities apply, as above. However, there's one thing that crossed my mind: some of the closest ones probably remember that I dislike being given 'happy birthday' greetings. Why? Well I'll save the full story for another day, but the point is, what I find important here is not the birthday itself, but the remembering of the details about your friends. I would prefer people remembering my birthday without making a big fuss (or really, a fuss of any size) about it. However, I doubt most of my friends who didn't congratulate me today did so because of this, for the sole reason that the people who know this particular dislike of mine can be counted on two hands.

*cough*

Bottom line is, I don't appreciate people giving me birthday greetings, but I don't appreciate my birthday being forgotten even more. What's important isn't the birthday, it's the remembering part. If you're my close friend who knows when my birthday is, a simple "today's your birthday, right? Cool." is the best way to go. It doesn't even have to be on my birthday, because as I said, the birthday itself doesn't matter. What matters is the remembering bit. So I would equally like it if, on any random day, you come to me and say something along the lines of "I remember when your birthday is" or "You were born on August 22nd, am I right?". I would be really, really pleased because you remember. As a friend of mine, that's a basic expectation.

Consider this: earlier this month, one of my very good friends asked me when my birthday was. Irritating, but not unusual: some people just have bad long-term memory. She did, however, remember that it was this month, hence why she asked, so that was nice. I answered her, and specifically told her to write it down, if she must (because she forgot). And then she said absolutely nothing today, nor did anything that would indicate that she remembered! It couldn't be because of the whole "I dislike birthdays" thing, because she's not one of those who know that! As a matter of fact, she doesn't care about me enough to know something like that! Because obviously when you have a friend it is unimportant to know what your friend likes and dislikes and just completely focus on what you like and dislike and just do things based on how you want to be treated because obviously how you want to be treated is how everyone else wants to be treated!

*cough*

Sorry, lost a bit of control in that rant there for a sec. Ah well. The point I'm slowly and painfully trying to make is this: how many of my other friends are like her? How many others don't care enough about me to know? How many others don't care enough about me to remember? And how many others simply pretend to care, just to be nice on the social surface, when deep down they just simply don't think I'm enough of a friend to be remembered?

And does she, someone I'm supposed to be really close with, only pretend to care? I just can't tell who's my friend and who's pretending to care!

...I'm sorry. If you're my friend, why don't you remember? If you do remember, great, but if you also gave me a 'happy birthday' greeting today, why don't you know that I dislike it? And if you do remember and know about me disliking it, then I sincerely, honest-to-goodnessly thank you, but that also means I'm going to have to ask you about my birthday on a random day, just to see if you actually remember. Maybe that's not fair because the day I ask could very well be a hectic day for you, I know, which is why I'll lessen that possibility by asking on other days as well.

Am I being overly dramatic? Hmm, maybe. But then again, it's just human nature. None of us are born wanting to be lonely. Some people are introverted, yes, but that's not the same as wanting to be left alone. Nobody is born wanting to be left alone. I still don't want to be left alone. I want to be remembered, or at least, I want some aspects of me to be remembered. And if my so-called friends can't even remember one of the most basic aspect, then, am I really on anyone's mind at all? Or am I, as I have always been, alone and unremembered?

(whoa, that ended up being much more depressing than I planned. Come on Fan, not here, that's what your other blog is for!)

*cough*

So. Happy birthday to little ol' me, the kid who put the 'one' in 'loneliness'.

The Flames of Hope

So, been busy lately. Well, maybe not, but I've been busy procrastinating. I know I know, that's a bad habit to have and is really something I should work on getting rid of, and, well, that's what I'm devoting myself to during this period that I'm in Indonesia.

Oh, yeah, probs should've mentioned that. I'm in Indonesia again and have been here since the third of June, hahaha. Lotsa things have happened since then, and I'm gonna force myself to update this blog every two or three days for the rest of my time here, mostly because I'm worried about my own ability to keep commitments. So yeah, expect quite a fair bit of new entries in the coming weeks (and no, fasting will not keep me from writing stuff I'm sure few people care about).

Just one more thing before I leave for now: this is really more for myself than other people to know, but lately my instincts have been telling me (shouting, to be precise) to give up on something. And/or someone, I'm not telling. And while I'm one to trust my instincts, this time I'm gonna say "screw you, instincts". After all, just because my instincts tell me to do something doesn't mean I have to do it, right? Even if my instincts turn out to be right in the end, I'm gonna make sure the fight itself will be worth my early adulthood. As I always tell to myself (and others): KEEP HOPE ALIVE!!!

Expect a new entry Monday!

The Knobhead and the Wrong Hand

Last night was a great night for me. I didn't actually do anything drastically different from what I usually do, but stuff happened and they, in combination, made the general night awesome.

First of all, I'm in a play. Wait, before that: I'm in one of the two drama clubs in my uni, and this club is called Rostra. There will be a play in a couple of months and I'm in it (as a non-American old man, no less...), and there was a rehearsal last night. What the play is about, you'll have to go see it for yourself :P But basically, if you're a fan of Shakespeare, or a sci-fi fan, or both, then this play might be your stuff.

Anyway, so there was rehearsal that was supposed to start at 7.30 last night. There was also a free performance by the uni's comedy club, which started at 9.00. So it all worked out: rehearse for an hour and a half or so, and then head straight to where the comedy performance was being held (it was only a 5-minute walk away from where I was rehearsing). I was psyched, right? Of course I was! A free opportunity to laugh my thoughts away? I'll take it! (And... there's another reason. But I'm keeping it to myself, for now~)

So, while waiting for 7 PM to come ('cause I spend around 25ish minutes to walk from my room to where the rehearsal was) I was reading some stuff on the Internet. There's a 7-hour time difference between my home country of Indonesia and the UK, and the time on my laptop was set to the Indonesian time zone (known as WIB, which is actually one of three different time zones in Indonesia, but I digress). And even though I usually have a pretty good grasp of the difference (I mean, I just need look at the time displayed on my laptop and add 5 or subtract seven!), for some reason I lost track last night. I can blame a certain website called Quora for this. In any case, I jumped out of my chair when I realized it was 7:19 already. I hurriedly put my laptop on hibernate, readied myself and zoomed out of my room, luckily remembering to lock the door before I left my dorm.

As I was on my way to the rehearsal while listening to music on my iPod, a text message came to my phone around 7.40ish. It was from the director, Josie, and she said she was stuck on an elevator, so she'll be late for a little bit. "YES!" I thought to myself! The rehearsal can't start without the director, and when I arrived at the place, apparently several other people were also late. I'm not the only one, so phew! #:-s

Before the rehearsal started, we warmed our bodies up and played games. But before that, there was a small but entertaining argument between the director and the lead actor... about the word 'knob'. See, earlier in the day Josie had texted everyone about where and when the rehearsal was going to be. Then a bit later the lead actor, Nick, asked on Rostra's Facebook page when the rehearsal was going to be. So Josie called him a knobhead, which I totally think is a good word. Anyway, back to the argument: Nick says the word 'knob' doesn't have a 'k' in it, but Josie says it does. Personally, I've never seen the word 'nob', but I'm not even from an English-speaking country, so what do I know, right? Nick claims that since he was from the South of England, he knows English better than Josie, who was from North Wales. Y'know, since England = English? I pointed out that we were currently in North Wales, and things turned hilarious. The whole thing was just for fun, though!

So after that, warm ups, games, and then the rehearsal. We were just practicing for a montage in the play but it was quite funny. Well, the whole play is supposed to be comedic, so that's a good thing. We worked out what was going to happen exactly in the montage and practiced it for a bit. In the middle, I kinda got sad, since we started late (thanks to people who were late as well as the whole 'knob' thing) it ended later than I expected as well. I thought I was going to only make the second half of the comedy club's performance. Luckily the rehearsal lasted shorter than I thought, and it ended at around 9:10.

I quickly grabbed my bag and stuff and ran for where the comedy club was performing. I arrived there in less than 2 minutes. Of course, they had already started. Out of breath, I took a seat and calmed myself down as I enjoyed the performance. They were absolutely hilarious, as always! The first half went off nicely and funnily, and then came the 5-10 minute break. By this time, my throat was already quite sore, what with my imitation of an old man voice earlier on and loudly laughing. So after I talked to some friends of mine, I whooshed out of the hall and went straight to the ATM nearest the place I could buy a bottle of mineral water. Well, I originally intended to go to the local supermarket (known as Morrisons), which was a 3-minute run downhill, but as I arrived I remembered that Morrisons closed at 9. Knobheads! Fortunately for me, there were a lot of stores around (I didn't want to go to a nearby bar just to buy water. They're expensive!), so I went to the ATM at the outside Morrisons, withdrew some money and ran back up. I went into a store I frequent and bought a small bottle of warm mineral water. Thankful, I paid and again ran up, back to where the funnies were at!

Bottle in hand, I sat down while controlling my breath. Turns out, I didn't need to run, since the second half started 5 minutes after I got back! Oh well. So I waited by reading a book while savoring that sweet, sweet water washing down the soreness down my throat. Then it started. And I didn't expect anything different to happen. I mean, the performers were just gonna perform, the audience laughs, everybody goes home, right? Wrong!

The logo of Bangor's Comedy Club

See, the performance was basically a series of random sketches. The performers already determined which of the performing members (since not all members of the comedy club were in the performance) are going to play which sketch, but they (mostly the host) always ask for suggestions from the audience; for example, one sketch involved a good cop-bad cop duo interrogating a criminal, and it required a crime, a victim, and how the criminal managed to get away. (As an interesting note, the host chose my suggestion for the crime, which was: toilet-papering someone's house!)

Now, back to the second half. This is where things got interesting. There was a sketch about an anchorman, and there were three other people in the sketch: a co-anchor, a weatherman and a sports reporter. The performer playing the anchorman was sent to a different room while the host took suggestions from the audience for three different quirks for the other three, and after that the anchorman had to guess what the three quirks were based on how they reported things. The three quirks were: the co-anchor's hands had different personalities, the weatherman was melting, and the sports reporter couldn't say the word "ball".

And so the sketch started. At first, it was just like all the other sketches: hilarious. Then it got even more hilarious. The co-anchor's right hand turned out to be evil, and his left hand was good (a good angel-bad angel dynamic), and the right hand tried to kill the anchorman, before it was stopped by the left hand. Then the right hand told the co-anchor to kill the anchorman since he hates him, but the left hand told him he loves the anchorman. Random funny stuff happened as the anchorman got confused. And then, the co-anchor's right hand and left hand got into a fight, everyone laughed, the anchorman made stupid faces, and the right hand tried to strangle the co-anchor. There was more hand-to-hand combat (teehee, see what I did there?) before the left hand strangled the co-anchor and he fell into the process of dying.

At this point, I realized that the left hand was supposed to be the good hand. Finding this weird, I open my mouth and uttered the only words in my mind at the time:

"Wrong hand."

I may have said that a little louder than I planned, since the room immediately fell into silence and the performer playing the co-anchor (a fella by the name of Dan, if I remember correctly) awkwardly stared at me. From the corner of my eye, I saw some other people turned back to see me, too. And then... everyone laughed. Uproariously. No, really, the entire room (even the president of the comedy club!) burst out into a loud roar of laughter as the audience (and Dan) realized what I meant. I just sat there grinning, still locking eyes with the stunned performer as he tried to find a way out while his supposed-to-be-good left hand was still wrangled around his neck. Then he shouted "Mercy kill!" to me and everybody laughed again, he died, and we applauded his brilliant save.

The rest of the performance went off brilliantly, ending on a really entertaining note. We applauded, everyone cheered, and the room was cleared out. Since I was sitting at the back (I was late, remember?) I was one of the first to exit the room. Then I stood around for a bit while getting my iPod and my jacket ready as other people exited the hall as well. Then Dan came out, saw me, and jokingly insulted me, to which I replied "pwned!" But then I commended him for his nice last-moment save and he thanked me, and so I went home. Happy and cheery, not only because the montage for my play was set, but also because I managed to get a room of about 50 people laugh loudly together (at the expense of Dan. Sorry, Dan!). And hey, it was a comedy performance. We were all there for the lulz anyway, so no harm done, right? :D

I'm back.

So, like what it says on the title: I'm back! I have no idea why I'm back, though. I mean, I haven't posted anything here for the past year mainly because I STILL don't know what I'm supposed to write here. But since just leaving it in the dust makes me feel guilty, I've decided to, you know, write random stuff. Whatever I want. Like I always do. But random-er. I think. Hmmm....

Anyway, I'm not gonna leave this blog anymore. I'm in the United Kingdom now (specifically, Room 007 of the Arfon building, Holyhead Road, Bangor, Gwynedd, Wales, United Kingdom, Western Europe, Europe, Earth, Milky Way), and I'm studying in university. Yay me! I'm taking a Bachelors degree in Linguistics at University of Wales, Bangor, colloquially known as Bangor University. So I need to take 120 credits per year, with a 60-60 split per semester (though a 70-50 or 50-70 split is acceptable). Last semester, I took two core modules (meaning modules that I, as a Linguistics student, am obliged to take) and this semester I'm also taking two core modules. I studied Language Development and Introduction to Language Studies in the previous semester, and in this one the two core modules are Describing Language and Language and Mind. All four of these modules are worth 20 credits each.

The logo of Bangor University

Now, if you've been paying attention, you can see that I'm missing 20 credits from the first semester and 20 from this semester. I took optional modules to fill it in, and while the School of Linguistics and English Language offers other modules that I can but don't have to take, I didn't take 'em. Instead, I registered for two modules from other schools, and these are Creative Writing: Prose and Basic Welsh. Both these modules last the whole year, each giving me 20 credits split 10-10 per semester. So there you go!

Now, last semester the focus of my Creative Writing class was short stories, something that I really needed help with because I tend to extend my short story ideas into full-blown novel ideas. For this semester, the focus will be creative non-fiction (yes, it exists), including travel writing and biographies. And this is basically why I remembered my blog. I decided that maybe I can practice writing creative non-fiction through blogging. So expect this blog to be filled not just by my odd rantings and/or 'outheart' (outpouring of the heart, or 'curahan hati' in Indonesian), but also by my attempts of writing down some of my experiences here in Bangor University in a hopefully creative and entertaining way. I already have an idea of what the first of those may be... Just look out for that!

Hanifi (left) and Wian (right). And cake.
In all their sickeningly-loving glory!

That's it for now, really. Well, I suppose two people here deserve a mention: Muhammad Hanifi and Dwiantari Satyapertiwi. Tonight (GMT, not WIB, which is GMT+7) I had a long heart-to-heart session with these two people, and for that I can say nothing but 'Alhamdulillah', meaning 'All praise be to God'. Wian is a really close friend/think-trader/confidant/sister figure of mine and I'm really glad she is; she's an awesome friend. Her boyfriend and husband-to-be Hanifi is someone really cool (in my opinion, anyways) and I've always hoped me and him can know each other more, not just because he really IS a cool guy but also so that I can help and support them even more. These two are, right now, the couple I support the most, and I already even see them as 1 instead of 2. Yeah, they're that close, and yeah, I'm that psyched for their future wedding (which, supposedly, will be in 6 years' time, as of this writing. I sure hope it's sooner!)

Yeah, so I talked about a certain someone with them. Someone whom I doubt would even read this, and even if they did, I'm almost definitely sure that someone won't realize it's them. Oh well! In any case, I'm really, really, really glad I know Wian and Hanifi (aka WiFi). It's friends like these that make life all the more worth living, anytime anywhere, and I wouldn't have them any other way. Thanks, guys! But you still can't troll me anytime you want!

Okay, so I'm done. I'll be seeing you later? We'll see. At least I'll always be here to write creative non-fiction!