Essays in Idleness

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Cecilia Lanny Winata
Aliases: Lanny/Cecilia/Xenopus
Location: Singapore
Occupation: Grad Student, National University of Singapore
Interests: Zen, Martial Arts, Japanese Culture and philosophy, Life Sciences, Religious philosophy, Christianity
Hobbies: exploring new places, learning new things, walking (preferably outdoors), cooking, eating good food, home making, swimming, sea sports, anime (Naruto being the best by far), good music to accompany my different moods, and good books to read
Schools/Past Affiliations: TK Bunda Hati Kudus, Jakarta (Kindergarten); SD Bintang Kejora, Jakarta (Primary 1-2, 4-6); Ironside State School, Brisbane, Australia (Primary 3-4); SLTP Santa Ursula, Jakarta (Secondary School); SMU Santa Ursula (High School); Indonesia International Taekwon-Do Federation (Jelambar, Jakarta); National University of Singapore

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Wednesday, October 22, 2008 @ 7:11 PM

Going to Jakarta

I'm going to Jakarta this evening. And I'm not exactly excited about it. In fact, I feel deeply saddened each time I have to go there.

Why?

Coz of the hypocrisy I have to face, the pretentious act I have to stage, and the lies I have to tell.
Oh you wouldn't understand anyway, especially if you've been a good Catholic... my situation is too complex.

On a lighter note, I found this awesome tea which my labmate brought. It's got cute little messages at the tiny holders (that part which you hold and is connected to the teabag with a string) too. One of my favourite: "Strange how a teapot can represent at the same time the comforts of solitude and the pleasures of company". Yeah, I do feel like my anti-social self is predominating lately. I wonder if this is because of my increasing workload?

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Tuesday, October 21, 2008 @ 1:44 AM

DAMMIT!

it just came to my mind that certain arrangements are actually a burden.

Yes, accommodating everyone's wishes is so troublesome. It's almost impossible to please every single person involved in a particular issue. Sometimes I wonder whether lying is still the best way to keep the lid on the can of worms...

And this is not about work.

And why am I so negative today? Oh blame it on the rain and the gloomy music I'm listening to!

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Tuesday, October 14, 2008 @ 6:51 PM

A little confession

I'm not sure why I am writing this entree. I guess I have been feeling quite disturbed by some event which occurred in the past. It is kind of difficult for me to admit that I have actually done wrong, especially regarding the shame I had to endure for the extremely childish nature of my behavior that time. I really felt that I wanted to apologize to a particular person, eventhough my behaviour towards her may not even affect her at all. However, I really don't have the proper means to do so, because first of all I do not really know her well, and I do not know where exactly she stays, we have very few common friends, I don't have her facebook account and I feel really stupid to just pop up into her husband's facebook and say something like "Hi! How have you been? Oh btw,can you tell your wife that I apologize for what I did in the past?" heck, she may not even remember me. Or maybe.

I doubt that the person I wanted to apologize to would even read this, but I decided to write it down here anyway, perhaps also as a penance for my mistakes. So the silly confession goes.

Back when I was in university, I got attached to a guy. This was my first boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. Sometime later during our courtship, I found out that before we were attached, he was in love with a girl. He did many things for her, spent many days at her side, following her around. He also did something extravagantly romantic in order to win her heart, during an event in our hostel, such that many people in the hostel actually knows about it. Perhaps due to me being clueless, or being anti-social at that time, I was one of the few who didn't know about this. In the end, she rejected him bluntly. And sometime after, he found me and we fell in love and decided to get attached.

I wouldn't say that our relationship was anywhere near perfect, but I do believe that his feelings for me were true (at least at that time). However, I guess my inexperience in relationships, or should I say my lack of knowledge in the "Guys from Mars Gals from Venus" thingy, prevented me from accepting his true feelings although I do felt the same way towards him. Upon learning that he once loved this girl, I became overwhelmed by jealousy. My immature mind kept telling me that I was being used as a second option, as a replacement for that girl. And the fact that many people in our hostel knows about the past, brought down my pride and confidence in myself even more. I would initially complain to my then boyfriend and make a big fuss about it every time the topic arose due to events in the hostel which may involve her as well. This was my first mistake towards my then boyfriend. In the end, I became more and more angry with myself, and here lies my wrong towards that girl. I started to display my dislike towards her. Each time I passed by her, I would turn my face away. Whenever I saw her in the dining hall, I would stand up and walk away. I also distanced myself from people I once knew, who were close to her. And I think she felt it too, and subsequently started to ignore me too.

Then time goes, and I forgot about everything. I didn't get together with the guy in the end (although not because of this issue mainly), and my life just went on. Sometime ago, a close friend of mine told me that she got married with another guy I know from the hostel, and recently, the same friend also told a group of us that they just had a boy, and everything suddenly came out to the surface again. As I could think much clearer now, at least compared to in the past, I am truly happy for them. Although I don't know them well, I was in good terms with her husband. I know he is a good person. I remembered the last time I came across the two of them sometime recently. He actually approached me and we talked quite a bit, although she was sitting somewhere further in the MRT and didn't show any interest in joining our conversation, nor even looking towards our direction although her husband seemed to want to call her to join in. I felt rather awkward, although I was quite delighted and relieved that he is still in good terms with me. I was and still am really curious whether she actually told him about how I behaved towards her in the past. Maybe she did and he understood it as being merely childish, or maybe she didn't think that such matters are worth telling. I haven't a single clue, it's rather amusing.

To end the story, again, I really have no idea why I am writing this. I guess I just felt guilty, and I needed some means to channel my (mild) restlessness. A little advice would probably help as well.

If I were given the chance to meet them again, I pray that I will have the right words to make things right again. And I sincerely pray for their happiness.

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Monday, October 13, 2008 @ 11:20 PM

I'll be

My first attempt to publish a video...

And this song somehow kept on playing in my head for the past few days. A romantic song indeed.

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@ 3:20 AM

Waiting for dinnertime...

ARGH! I don't know why I keep writing about these kind of things lately >.<

anyway, I'm waiting for dinnertime... going for dinner with the Awesome Brotherhood of Holland Village + associates... a bunch of awesome people who had pulled me through the toughest times of my life.

And among these awesome people, of course there are some people whom I love to poke fun at...

just j/k :P

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Sunday, October 12, 2008 @ 11:42 PM

Something that sounds like... ME

Currently, I have no inspiration for writing my thesis.
I feel guilty for staring blankly at my notebook screen for sometime, so I thought maybe i can get some work done here.

I also wanted to say that I really dislike my previous post. Why? Coz it sounds pathetic. I know I couldn't really change the way most people think or behave. And yet, I still like to poke fun at them, especially my fellow Catholics!

Father RA's talk last friday was a reassuring one. It was about true biblical faith which stems from knowledge. How can we believe in what we do not know? If a Christian says he/she believes that Jesus had saved them, can they really provide a convincing evidence?

Believing in something you don't really understand sounds rather childish to me. If I were to tell someone that I am actually an alien princess sent from another galaxy to destroy earth, I don't really know what to call him/her if he/she really accepted what I said without proof. Same goes for our faith. We know and understand something to be true, therefore we believe in it. Not the other way around.

A certain religious figure which I adored (among the very few), once asked a group of us, "What is faith? What do you believe in?". After several attempts to describe what the Catholic faith is, she said again, "That is the church's belief. What is your faith?". After a long silence, she explained, "since we are Christians, we believe in (the teachings of - ed.) one central figure, Jesus", to which we all nodded in agreement. And then she asked again, "do you know Jesus? if not, how can you believe in Him?".

And how do we know Jesus? Without doubt, through studying the compilations of testimonials about Him and His teachings - which we affectionately called the Bible.

Somehow, I felt that today's Catholics are more concerned about rules and regulations of the church. They spend their time to argue about church rules; whether contraception is against the church, whether women can be priest, how to run a mass, who can accept holy communion, if you wear this talisman thingy you can definitely go to heaven, if you pray this novena 13 times in a row you can save people from hell, etc. Many Catholics today know how to recite the CCC out of their heads and know all the details about the teachings of the church. But I do wonder if they really care about Jesus. Whether they really love Jesus.

And all these inspirational stories about people who got sick, then prayed to God, and got healed. What do they tell? Jesus's mission on earth 2000 years ago was not to be Santa Claus who gives out what people ask of Him. His purpose was not to come down here to heal people or even save everyone for free. Instead, I believe that it is to teach humans about themselves. About how they are loved by their creator, and how they should live as a result. About the way that leads to eternal peace. I think many people missed this point.

Before I start to sound like some revolutionary anti-religious person who is ready to set up a heretic movement of her own, I guess I must get back to my thesis writing.

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Thursday, October 09, 2008 @ 12:45 AM

The Eleventh Hour

"The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius." (Mat 20:9)

God's love is incomprehensible. It extends to every single one of us without exception. I think this is the hardest part to accept: that God loves even those whom we would normally hate.

I remembered some occasion where a servant of God once made an insensitive comment due to my revelation on a certain sin I committed in the past. That comment almost made me give up Catholicism, if it wasn't for my persistent search for the truth. That aside, I would like to point out that whether a person is good or not, is not judged by how nice he behaves to other nice to normal people, but more by the way he loves people who are difficult to love. And I am not talking about the poor, diseased, and miserable people. Instead, I am talking about people whom we would be inclined to hate.

Certainly, each of us have our own criteria for people whom we tend to hate. For example, troubled youngsters, gangsters who kill people, people of other religions who may display their belief in an overly zealous ways, or even a certain friend of ours.

Think about it for awhile. Look beyond the surface, and try to understand. Perhaps, they have a sad story to tell? Perhaps they are also longing for something? Though our lives may be far from perfect, most of us grow up surrounded by many opportunities. Many choices lay before us. But not for some people. Try to think for awhile, I plead you, before we all become as the pharisees.

If a particular priest is nice to you, and to his church people, can you conclude that he is "nice" or "good"? I don't think so. In fact, all this priest worshiping kind of sickens me.

Jesus said,
"For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?" (Mat 5: 46-47).

Therefore, as God loves each one of us, we should try our best to do the same. As Jesus did when he healed the leper.

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Monday, October 06, 2008 @ 8:54 PM

Haiku in idleness

Writing and writing
with my heart in turmoil
Ah, the rain!

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Thursday, October 02, 2008 @ 10:12 AM

In memoriam

http://lannywin.blog.friendster.com/2007/04/to-my-brother/

Today, 1 October 2008, is my late younger brother's 20th birth anniversary.

Therefore, with this post I shall declare the birthday gift I am giving him:

My PhD thesis will be dedicated solely for Matthew Winata.

For teaching me that the most important thing in life are made of relationships between individuals, and for the lost time I could never make up for.

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Wednesday, October 01, 2008 @ 8:59 PM

On becoming too complacent

Last night, as I was preparing my schoolbag before going off to bed, I checked my mobile phone, and saw that I had one missed call and one sms. I cursed myself for keeping my mobile inside my bag, for the whole day, in silent mode. Even more dissappointed with myself was I when I found out that it was my close relatives who called and messaged me to ask whether they could come by our house that night. I so missed an honor from them that they actually wanted to come all the way to our place instead of just asking us to meet up for dinner at a location convenient for them. I hadn't really forgiven myself until this moment. I am so angry with myself.

I am so angry because I see myself as becoming something I really hate: being too dependent on others. I guess life has been too easy for me for the past one or two years, and I had somehow become too soft. I realized that I had become too dependent on my other half in many aspects of my life. One example is the mobile phone. Since I am very comfortable at home, spending my time with my loved ones, I tend to not give a damn of who may try to contact me. I noticed my habit of moving my mobile into my bag (which I normally put inside my pocket whenever I am outside on my own) as soon as I meet my other half after work, because I always thought whoever might call me could not be as important as my own loved ones. When I am at home, I even tend to forget that I had a mobile phone. And that is really not good because it is (almost) the only means by which people can reach me. Sure we have a residential line, but as a student growing up in a foreign university, we tend to be more... uh... mobile, moving from one hostel to another almost every year. Therefore the mobile phone is the only thing that could accommodate our mobile nature, and hence people are more used to reach us through the device. After this incident, my resolution is to be more aware of my surroundings, and to constantly assess the possibilities of things happening outside the comfort zone of my family.

Another area which has been plagued with my complacency is regarding finances. I never really bothered to organize my finances or think a lot about it. My idea of savings were simple: spend as little as I can. As I naturally don't have the tendency to fancy beautiful clothings or accessories, or high-tech gadgets, this thing has never really been a major problem to me. However, as I develop myself, have a family, meet more people at school/work, I started to realize the importance of looking presentable to a certain extent. As such, I spend more on fashion nowadays, although trying to keep it to a minimum. Nevertheless, it was my other half who does the recording of our spending each month. I never really know the dynamics of our family's finances, how much we save or lose each month. And that is definitely not good.

I guess I always feel too safe when I am with people I love, and who cares for me too. I have to admit that this is one of my biggest flaws. I realize the dangers of this habit. And I really hope that I can make a change before I ultimately turn into a tai-tai (a Singaporean term for a married woman who does not like to work, has no job, lives off her husband's money, likes to spend on vanity stuff and exchange gossips with others of her kind). Yucks! Please note that the definition of a tai-tai only includes a certain proportion of housewives which has the characteristics as such. I do think being a housewife is cool too, only if its done seriously. I do not exclude the possibility of myself becoming one (although it would be one of my least preferable arrangement), and if I have to be a housewife, I vow to take it extremely seriously.

Back to the main topic, I hope that this post would also serve as a reminder for myself that I have to regain control of my own life and be independent to a certain extent, at least regarding my own issues and belongings.

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