Category: Notes Catatan
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dari meja pembaca
November, Desember, Januari: tiga bulan pada penghujung 2025 dan awal 2026, saya meninggalkan tumpukan buku dan daftar baca saya. Mereka terbengkalai, entah karena saya ingin “berlibur” atau sesederhana kemalasan yang terbingkai dalam kerangka swa-perlindungan “bulan-bulan sabat”. Saya masih melihat arsip dan mengumpulkan data, merevisi manuskrip, menghadiri konferensi, tetapi saya betul berhenti membaca dengan tekun dan…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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phase six; telltale
An artful life sojourned through a cliché: a young kid from an Old Town once tried to make staging theaters out of the world yet failed because their economy was just too cruel. Later, after two decades, a friend asked: “what would you do if you can?” “Maybe theater; a dying art in this country.…
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phase five; come on to
Weeks in-between spring and summer were bright; most times dull. I keep contracting my own deadline. I’m not hard on myself. I know I wanna do more things, but I’m just tired all the time. I already have half of a draft and whatever. Should I celebrate small things? I don’t wanna. I keep refusing…
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phase four; pacing
I kissed her goodbye a thousand times; and yet the gaze still sees her as part of me. It doesn’t matter anymore what I call myself. I can only write. Out of disaffection because what I have right now is responsibility to finish, to think, to answer, to sit with the past always for the…
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under the sky, always new names
Name changing; I constantly do that. I change the way I call myself. I changed my social media’s account names (from @/eunikeglr to @/quotidianemot to @/niksetiadarma to @/tukangmikwir). I changed my blog’s name and title (used to be a cringe “happyloner”); and by this second, I want to throw the name of this blog “quotidian…
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phase three; keep trying history
for they who write history for they who make history for all of us,who are and will be history memory I sat with Mbak Anna. It was in Yogya, last year. I visited some good people there as I tried to find a place of collaboration where I can share my question. I always respect…
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no, for a body that does not
“What Human Emotion Am I? You’re Anger.” A chuckle. Sianne Ngai once wrote a question: “Is there an ‘adequate’ or ‘sufficient’ response to racist expression?” The “I” was shrugging. A performance of idk-yet-somehow-do-know. This is the “I” who feel without rather than within. The “I” asked itself why history is impossible to be written without…
On Reading/History 