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Another Lunar New Year
My family rarely plans for Lunar New Year. It’s not part of our household tradition, from which I often say to friends that we’re more Christian than Chinese even when one of my core memories is about fifth-grade peers at school bringing red envelopes (one of them said she got almost one million rupiah from… Read more
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hold house
for the ones who are ready for holding me and my space The kitchen sink leaked without breaking. It was the pipe: condensed, hardened oil and fat. Per landlord’s request, two building maintenance workers knocked on the door and started cleaning. Necessary noise, very much needed labor. I sat on the working desk, trying not… Read more
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love in time
notes on heavy raining days “I am a love theorist” is what Lauren Berlant wrote in mid-2012 on Supervalent Thought after the title “The Book of Love is Long and Boring, No One Can Lift the Damn Thing …” Their philosophical I moves through their own feelings of dissociating from all their loves—sometimes. They wrote:… Read more
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*sigh* *smirk*
Dusting the weather; I checked my back, and my damn dear drenching sweating without pocari sweat. I swore to the sky that I wouldn’t write shit about coming back to Jakarta–oh lord here I am vomiting words. My grammar is rusty and my speech bubbles aren’t popping and yada yada yada, I always have reasons… Read more
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phase eight; for now
“What kind of history do I want to write?” is a constant question I’ve asked since day zero of my graduate studies in the US, knowing that I would turn my intellectual gear from policy analysis to history. It’s an inquiry about method and form, about questions I want to answer, all the things about… Read more
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phase seven; a call
Thursday morning in mid-December: a sudden call from a hospital. I was in my office, talking and having a casual discussion with Sofyan and Ridha about politics, dissertations, and everything else in-between. I didn’t pick up the call right away. I quickly sighed. The last time they called me, they moved an appointment (which I… Read more