Category: Notes Catatan
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phase two; ready
I went to the Netherlands with a broken heart. Anxiety of traveling. The unfinished grief from visa shenanigans. Long distance relationships with my loved ones. My best friend K in Amsterdam gave me a room to weep and a corner in the kitchen to watch her baby child and occasionally zone out. At night, I…
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hold and held
A friend teased my responses from Gencontrolz roundtable on reproduction and care labor. “I want to say ‘no’ to all your questions.” I giggled. He knows my impulse really well; how my response to Fai’s, Michelle’s, and Phuong Anh’s prompts is not really an explanation, nor an answer. It’s questions. More and more questions. As…
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phase one; not yet
The tip of my fingers smells funny. The old papers give marks. The past sticks on the surface of my skin. Someone I never know had touched those pages, binding them, carrying them, until they arrived in the hands of librarians and stayed on the shelves for decades. They put stamp, catalog number, enforcing the…
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Pada Dada
Pada satu waktu, kamu berkata pada ibumu, “Aku tidak pakai beha lagi.” Ibumu tidak bertanya kenapa. Ia hanya melihatmu menunjuk binder yang kamu beli sendiri untuk menutupi dadamu yang besar. Dada yang tampak menyembul dan mengundang komentar orang asing di jalan, “Anjir toketnya gede banget.” Dada yang membuatmu menangis di tengah jalan karena mata yang…
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Keruwetan
Beberapa hari terakhir, saya sedang membuka kembali proposal disertasi untuk mengingatkan diri sendiri tentang pertanyaan riset dan hal-hal yang perlu diperhatikan. Saya selalu merasa tiap kali membaca sumber, kepala saya mengeluarkan berbagai macam skenario yang akhirnya membuat saya hilang arah dan tidak tahu mau berbuat apa. Sebenernya sangatlah menyebalkan karena hal ini membuat saya tidak…
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Ceritanya Lagi Bosan
Menyelesaikan tahun ketiga dengan hasil yang tidak buruk ternyata cukup melegakan. Tidak buruk di sini terdengar ambigu ya? Hehehe. Maksud saya, di tahun ketiga kemarin saya berhasil menyelesaikan ujian, sidang proposal, dan mendapatkan dana riset tambahan tetapi di saat yang sama juga mendapat berbagai penolakan dan hambatan fisik yang cukup mengganggu (halo covid, migrain, dan…
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Motion Sickness
I suffered from vertigo in the middle of answering an exam question about the history and historiography of translation in Southeast Asia. The world spun. My guts hurled up. I threw acid fluid from my mouth. I closed my eyes. The light hurt. “Sayang, I need Dramamine” so my head could stop saying to itself…
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On A Whim
I have always wanted to be both man and woman, to incorporate the strongest and richest parts of my mother and father within/into me–to share valleys and mountains upon my body the way the earth does in hills and peaks. – Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name One day I loved a…
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On Reading History: An Attempt
Disclaimer: A bit sotoy. A couple of years ago, I found X, an emerging Indonesian historian, citing a small part of Quentin Skinner’s Vision of Politics, Volume 1: Regarding Method. X cites Skinner’s book (specifically page 57) to say something about the importance of historians to study and interprets canon classical texts. He also includes…
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i don’t read the way i want but i do
i have to find an argument (or arguments) between the lines. either being mind-blown or agitated, convinced or flooded with doubt. make a review or response, or a review of responses. quoting, citing, re-phrasing, tadi penulisnya bilang apa ya? do i really understand? someone misread the history of Hindia-Timur Belanda. i run out post-it flags.…
Nik Setiadarma 