One Month of Mysticism Class

In February I started working part-time at my university. It was a little frightening because I haven’t had much social interactions and “working” sounds like a daunting task especially since I was used to being at home. I was previously hired as a freelance staff so I already know the people I work with but coming to an actual working place is quite different than sitting at home. I was terrified of course, mostly because of my physical constraints (and I could not help but shudder at the thought of virus and bacteria running around the campus haha!). However, the people that I work with understand my condition and have been kind and helpful to me.

Up until now, I am still adjusting to working. I have flexible hours which is great but often I get extremely exhausted. While I know this is normal, sometimes it scares me and I start overthinking. However, the most important thing is that I enjoy it and being in a campus environment really helps me ignite my passion for learning again. So when I saw that CRCS (Centre for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies) of UGM opened two intercession courses for its students and the public in July, I was intrigued. I read that the programme was basically a “summer” programme so it only lasted 5 weeks with 10 meetings, twice a week.

Finding Treasures in Portugal

This post was originally written for my old travel blog Dream Explore Wander.

Just incase you didn’t know. I am in love with Portugal. I don’t know why I didn’t come sooner to this stunning country where the food is just amazing, the people are as warm as the summer sun and the scenery makes me breathless.

And to add, Portugal is just full of treasures. By treasures here I mean art treasures, or better known as street arts. I love a decent street art that adds beauty in a place. I love it when they are painted in bright colours and contain bold statements.

Body Acceptance

Long before cancer and all that, I had always been very self conscious about my body. I was never confident with my body and had always been the fat friend. Before I knew I had cancer, my weight dropped drastically. I didn’t know it was because I was sick, I was of course delighted and when I took some pictures of my “new” body, friends took their time to compliment me, saying how much prettier I look now that I’ve lost some weight. Finally, I was not the fat girl anymore.

When I found out it was because of cancer, well, my world came spiralling down. I lost so much weight that I was stick thin, that even a size S was too large for me.

Summer in Mykonos

This is an old post, originally written for my old travel blog Dream Explore Wander.

I am not a big fan of beaches. I grew up in Yogyakarta, only an hour away from some nice beaches, yes a contradiction. However, these beaches are barely swimmable as they are located in the south and the south sea is known for its vicious waves hence swimming isn’t recommended.

Also, I remember when I was a kid, I went to one of the “friendlier” beaches and during my stay there I heard a news of a young, married couple who were dragged by the waves into the sea. It was a pretty scary experience as you can imagine.

Silence and Coffee at Omah Minggir

It was December when I first heard of the name “Omah Minggir”. One of my favourite woman entrepreneurs, Alarasati (who makes beautiful ceramics), was on vacation in Yogyakarta and her place of stay piqued my interest. She tagged Omah Minggir and I had to settle my curiosity. One of my favourite things about living in this tourist city is ironically it is the travellers who often find places that I would never have found myself.

Within minutes I found out that Omah Minggir was not very far from my house. I was excited at the prospect of coming to this place very soon and informed my family that we simply must go there.

January, the holiday was over, people were going back to work and Yogya was finally a little less crowded. I decided to call Omah Minggir before coming since the place was around 20 minutes away from my place and I didn’t want to find it close when I got there. The friendly man who owns the place assured me that it was open for business.

Reading, A Meditation of Some Sort

In 2018, I read a lot, 86 books to be precise. Well, “a lot” is subjective since there are a great number of people who read way more than me (I wonder, what do they do for a living? Do they have a secret meditative recipe for reading so many books? If so, do you think they will share it with me if I ask them really really nicely?), but for my standard, that is quite a number.

To be quite honest with you, I didn’t even realise. I just read, read and read more. I do love books (!). I have always been surrounded by books since my dad is also a bibliophile, I remember him making a small library in our old house, complete with codes on his books as well as a sort of system for people to borrow (I’m pretty sure he lost some of his books to people borrowing and never returning – honestly those kind of people!).