I hate you with all my life.

Dear the one single person I hate the most in the whole wide world,

The day you die, I’m going to scream HALELUYA with tears of joy and unrestrained delights. I won’t even be there at your funeral; I’d be too busy having fun in my new-found life without you fucking with it. I won’t even say a word of prayer. Well, except for that HALELUYA I mentioned above, although not directed to you, but as a sign of MY victory. And from that day on, as your deceased body rot into the earth, every single memory of you will also be erased from my mind, because I don’t want traces of your unwanted existence lingering about my brain. And then I will descend into a long life full of ease, freedom, and happiness, simply because you’re no longer a part of it.

With dignified regards,
Your ultimate hater

18 is such an ugly number.

Being 18 is like standing transfixed in an intersection in which there's only one road to take, only you're still not sure where each of them leads and what are the consequences of your actions. The catch is, there's no going back. The lazy days are gone, and now you're at the peak of having to have to choose.

Moreover, the line that separates adulthood and childhood have never been this hazy before. You keep convincing yourselves that right as the clock turns 12, you ARE an adult. But deep down you know you can't turn from a childish, carefree 17 year old into a mature, responsible 18 year old overnight.

When you turn 18, people drastically turn over their eyes against you. You no longer have The Unforgivably Cute Recklessness that people under 18 are born with. When you're 17 and do something wrong, they'd easily say "It's okay, you'll learn from your mistakes." But when you're 18 and do something wrong, they'd give you a massive hard time by stating that you've never learned from your mistakes, and they'd blame it all on you for wasting all your youth in vain.

They say the upside about turning 18 is that you're legal. The question is, legal for what?? Legal for getting in some club, buying some booze, getting fucked up? Well guess what, unless you live in some tight-ass country in the 19th century or something, right now everybody can do all those things above without having to be 18. Rules are overrated, and so is "legality".

Eight-teen, if reversed, is also a hideous number in its numeral row of -teen (13-19). 81 is probably the oldest you can get before you die. 17, if reversed, is 71, and by that age most people would probably be at their top of fondness for you as a grandma/pa. But then when you turn 81, they just get bored of taking care of you and their visits are getting more seldom and practically you'll rot yourself in your deathbed. As for 19 (91), I doubt you'd still be alive by then, so that does not really count. Whatever.

Last but not least, for some people 18 could be a wonderful number, especially since it stands for 1'm 8lessed (to have lived until this moment). Nevertheless it's ugly for me since it also represents 1inglorious 8itch.

I'm turning into an 1nglorious 8itch in about 3 hours and 19 minutes. Happy Fucking Birthday.

H stands for Highschool, Hell, and HEYGETMEOUTOFHERE!!!

When it comes to life after highschool, there are 3 kinds of people:

1. Those who look back and smile. Eg: ex-cheerleaders.
2. Those who look back and wince. Eg: ex-bully victims.
3. Those who look back and don't remember a thing. Because after all there's nothing worth remembering, moreover that they've actually burnt their yearbooks down so everything vanished simultaneously. Eg: ex-haters, the unsatisfied, and the unattached.

Guess which one I'm most inclined to be ;)

My adolescent life is an anti-climax.

Like a roller coaster on a straight lane

Like faking an orgasm

Like a movie with a boring ending

Like a long road trip not arriving

Like skateboarding with dislocated knees

Like bad first dates

Like baaaddd first kisses

Like an expired stand-up comedian

Like David Haselhoff

Like the point of no return, except it ain’t a point, it’s a circle that goes round
and round so tediously even the sun eventually gets bored of providing wasted sunrays

Never mind, this is emo Adilla talking

The pressure is on.

Right now all of us 12th graders are put under a gigantic amount of pressure, considering the exaggeratedly demanding yet useless Indonesian educational system that requires us to have brains as big as Einstein’s.

At times like this, boys become books. Hanging out at the malls becomes studying at home. Stalking random people on the internet becomes stalking your teachers at school for extra lessons. Being angry at God for reasons unknown becomes begging God to bless you with enough patience and perseverance. Gossiping about whom made out with whom becomes discussing about the velocity of gravitational pull and the interconnection of DNA determinations. Wanting to become a movie star becomes striving to get into a good university.

Most of my friends have two options: If they don’t get accepted into one of the best universities in Indonesia, they have one of those expensive, foreign-owned, socially-homogenetic private colleges for back-ups. But me, I don’t have any back-ups. I have one option, and one option only. It’s either architecture ITB (Bandung Institution of Technology), or total embarrassment. The pressure is doubled, and I become like a weak donkey who’s spine almost cracks in two due to the obese, merciless master fully pressing his weight upon the pitiful donkey.

At times like this, I wish Holden Caulfield would come to rescue:

“ Here’s my idea. How would you like to get the hell out of here? Here’s my idea. I know this guy down in Greenwich Village that we can borrow his car for a couple of weeks. He used to go to the same school I did and he still owes me ten bucks. What we could do is, tomorrow morning we could drive up to Massachusetts and Vermont, and all around there, see. It’s beautiful up there. It really is” ... “I have about a hundred and eighty bucks in the bank. I can take it out when it opens in the morning, and then I could go down and get this guy’s car. No kidding. We’ll stay in these cabin camps and stuff like that till the dough runs out. Then, when the dough runs out, I could get a job somewhere and we could live somewhere with a brook and all and, later on, we could get married or something. I could chop all our own wood in the wintertime and all. Honest to God, we could have a terrific time! Wuddaya say? C’mon! Wuddaya say? Will you do it with me? Please!”

If only he would magically materialize from the pages of the book and popped me the question, I would shout on top of my lungs with vibrations so ear-numbing I’d kill birds: “YES!!! A THOUSAND TIMES YES!!! PLEASE HOLDEN, JUST GET ME OUTTA HERE!!!” Hey don’t judge me, all I want is a sweet escape! Plus it’d be way fun to live somewhere deep in a forest, with nothing to mind and nobody else to interfere. And when winter comes, all day long I’d sit on a rocking chair on my wrap-around porch and watch the muscles on Holden’s arms flexing as he chops the firewood.

If only...

Mediocre Adilla in her mediocre world.

One if the things long awaited at the end of my senior year is the Yearbook. This year, I happen to commit myself to join the Yearbook Committee, and we were having a meeting to discuss the theme, design, etc. One of the most exciting sections everyone tend to get all excited about is the “The Most” section. Here, we categorize stereotypes and put in one girl and one boy who fit into the criteria the most. Example: Most unique, most bullied (yes, seriously), most eligible, most obsessed (?), best couple, and the list goes on.

Suddenly it occurred to me: If I were to be stereotyped, what would I be “The Most” at?? Here are some considerations, just for the heck of it...

- I am not strikingly pretty nor am I hideously ugly
- I am not brilliantly intelligent nor am I humiliatingly idiotic
- I am not saint-like nor am I an evil bitch
- I am not intimidatingly popular nor am I a dying loser
- I am not disturbingly talkative nor am I dully silent
- I am not conspicuously bold nor am I pathetically weak
- I am not much of an achiever nor do I have completely nothing to boast about
- I am not passionately compassionate nor am I an ignorant snob
- I am not paper thin nor do I look like a bloated pig
- I am not remarkably visionary nor am I a slow-progressing dimwit
- I am not pleasantly lovable nor am I horrendously hate-able
- I am not outstandingly talented nor am I utterly talentless
XXX: So what is your talent?
Me: Well i can play a bit of violin.
XXX: Oh that’s wonderful! Can you play *insert sonata* by *insert composer* from the *romantic/renaissance/baroque* period?
Me: Umm, no...

So yeah, my point is... It takes me whole lotta guts to say this, but oh my fucking god am I that fucking mediocre?? Even my teacher said this himself, “You are too mediocre, Adilla.” (Well, actually he said “Your grades are too mediocre, I’m sure you can do better than that”. But the only word my brain could perceive was MEDIOCRE MEDIOCRE MEDIOCRE!!!)

And no, I don’t think I’d fit into one of those “The Most” categories, except if there was one called The Most Mediocre. But then again, there might be a whole lotta other people who are more mediocre than me, so how mediocre is The Most Mediocre? This is just great, I’m even mediocre at being mediocre...

Me with my mediocre smile, mediocre hair, mediocre camera-gaze, mediocre plain white tee...

Mediocre me, mediocre me
How much more mediocre can I ever be?
Lock me in a box and throw away the key
And ship me forever out into the Mediocre Sea

P.S. You can call me mediocre all you like, but I would never accept the word GENERIC. Being generic is like being one those really cheap, mass-produced generic medicine they sell on ragged-looking pharmacies, or one of those generic Barbies with empty staring eyes and frozen smile and plastic curves you see rowing down the isles of supermarkets. And that’s the one thing I’m pretty sure I’m not ;)

A letter to al sexual harassers on behalf of all sexually harassed girls.

Jakarta, 18 October 2009

Dear Sexual Harassers,

You seriously amaze me. You amaze me for being able to somehow create a self-fulfilling enjoyment out of something so morally corrupt. You amaze me for succeeding in finding you own way to satisfy your revolting, sickened libido in every situation possible, whenever wherever however. You amaze me for not having to feel any pangs of shame at all, because you think what you do is hands-down righteous according to the fact that you seem to have more power and control over you victims, therefore you are free to act. You amaze me for being able to just walk off light-heartedly after sexually harassing someone, with eyes sparkling with pleasure and sperm cells accumulating inside your testicles waiting to be more roused up.

Remember 6 years ago, when I was nothing but a merry 6th grader, and as I was walking down the street with a friend, one of you walked in the opposite direction and as we came across, like a professional nasty thing that you are, you very stealthily landed your left hand onto my left breast? Wow you really do amaze me, for not even minding the fact that my breasts hadn’t actually grown, and nothing from my body except for my face was exposed, since I was wearing a goddamn hijjab. I wonder how that felt for you, really. Because for me, it felt like suddenly i was not a child anymore, like God had just unjustly decided to snatch back my girlhood innocenceby sending you to deliberately taint my naive purity. I bet you don’t even know what its like to think that you’re no longer pure, do ya, only because of one split moment made appaling by a random stranger who thought of your 11-year-old flat breasts as a jerk-off apparatus? Well, it’s equal with having your balls chopped off with a rusty chainsaw, because by then you would have nothing to be proud of.

OMFG remember last night, 6 bloody whole years after the booby incident, when I was among the thousand of people who were making their exit from a gig, and suddenly one of you grabbed my ass? Boy, did I feel your highly desperate sexual tensions flowing from that nasty squeeze. Let me guess, your looks are so vomit-inducing that you never actually had any girls putting special attentions to you before, therefore there is no way that you can actually feel the warmth and loving of a proper girlfriend, thus your only solution is to lurk beneath the dark so you can fervently stretch your hand and nimble on the cute softness of girls’ asses in your reach, without them not being able to see how grotesque you look so their faces won’t strain in disgust? Jesus Christ you really do amaze me. Oh, remember how I turned around, even though I didn’t exactly know which one of you did it, and I called you ANJING and TAI and shouted curses like there was no tomorrow? Ha, I bet you didn’t expect that coming did ya? You think most girls wouldn’t have the guts to do this, but I swear to Allah if my friend didn’t stop me right that moment I might’ve ended up screaming insults to your whole defected generation for not raising you up properly, thus you became the depraved, pathetic loser you are now.

And how about you, verbal sexual harassers? You think it’s less decadent to harass girls with words instead of actions? Well guess what, it’s not. In fact, it makes you more of a loser in a way, a talk only no action loser. Besides, what did you actually get from whistling at me passing by, or saying that I have a pair of sexy ass, with all your friends and their acne-suffused face, yellow teeth, and dandruff flakes snickering past? Nothing but a 3-second laugh indeed. So for humankind’s better future, why don’t you get up for a change and open the newspaper for a job vacancy search, for God’s sake, and try lifting off a bit of your old folks’ burden of still having you useless around the house by the age of 40.

One last thing, dear sexual harassers, never EVER use alibies such as “It’s her fault for showing too much skin” or “I wouldn’t have touched her if she didn’t wear that short of a skirt” to cover up your moral deficient minds. Take Australia for instance, girls wear panty-like shorts and tank tops with their cleavages flashing everywhere, and did they get their ass grabbed every time they go public? NO. Congratulations, dear sexual harassers, you just succeeded in making the image of our beloved nation low and corrupted in the eyes of others. You know what, I’ll be fair and try not to compare our Muslim-based country with a non-Muslim one. Take upper class Jakarta, instead. Girls don’t go to Grand Indonesia with really mini dresses peeping out bits of their butt cheeks only so some sad losers could get them squeezed, do they? Seriously, it’s not US who “don’t have any respect towards ourselves”, it’s indefinitely YOU, bastardious parasite-like morally inane you.

Fuck You a Thousand Times Over,
Adilla Mutia Fatimah

Reality is harsh.

Today I discovered two ugly truths:
1. Sometimes people who you care about the most can turn to be the people who hurt you the most.
2. Sometimes people who you thought care about you the most are the people who actually don't give the slightest damn at all.

enough said

Human behaviour.

Have you ever felt that u were too individualistic that u started disliking people around you? Or maybe, for some reason unexplainable, have you ever felt like you just didn't like the people you were with, and the only reason u could think about was because you were too individualistic?

My point is, I perfectly know that we all were destined to be socially-dependent creatures, that we couldn't live without one another. The things is, we are all different. And I do realize that we have to have enough tolerance and patience to be able to connect to each other. But sometimes, what's lacking is understanding. When somebody behaves differently than you do, if you were a sensible person, you try to be tolerant enough to accept them. You tell yourself to ignore your differences and just accept them into your life. But ignoring the differences doesn't mean understanding them. When you ignore, you don't even try to understand, instead you just jump right into the finish line to make everything easier.

Ignoring differences are almost as bad as not accepting them at all. Slightly worse maybe, because if you don't accept them at all, at least you've saved some energy and emotions by not being a hypocrite, rather than people who act like they gladly accept those differences, but actually deep inside they couldn't actually care less.

Since I'm in my hating mood right now, I'm very much tempted to list the kinds of people i hate. Well, hate is a strong word, so may i say, dislike.

1. Bad listeners. People who have their eyes all over the place when you talk to them, and then give a really bad response which indicates that they don't give a damn.
2. Over-the-top ignorants. If you don't care about anything else, then give me a good reason why I should care about you. If you only cared for survival, try life for a change.
3. Anti-criticisms critics. I know you like to point out other people's flaws so much. Maybe it gives you pleasure doing that, maybe you feel superior above the people you critisize, maybe you think you know better, who knows? But how come you get all frowny when we criticize you?
4. Narrow-minded stuck-ups. Ha, it's funny how some people can be both narrow-minded and stuck-up. Or maybe it does make sense, since if you were narrow minded, the only thing that revolves around in your little world would be yourself, so that automatically makes you a stuck-up. And if you were a stuck up, you would think that you were the most sparkling diamond around, and every other thing would be nothing but sad little specks of dust, and that automatically makes you narrow-minded. Anyhoo, both are dejected in the same measure.
5. Smartasses. Hear yourself talking, please.

I might be a hypocrite for writing the list above, but hey, fortunately hypocrites aren't included in the list! So as long as I don't hate myself, everything will go along juuust fine... Like what the say, love yourself, love life.

"...You'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior..."
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
(Spoken by the character Mr. Antolini)

P.S. Boy, do I need too add some new people into my life...

I'm selfish for not being a nationalist.

I’m selfish for hating to go on public buses, because their condition is far from adequate.

I’m selfish for continually watching American cable TV, because the local TV channels are filled with nothing but tacky soap operas and cheap entertainments.

I’m selfish for not enjoying the scenery whenever I drive around the city, because the sights of street children and beggars everywhere are sure not pretty.

I’m selfish for having a second thought of whom I may choose on the presidential election, because, well, how could we all not?

I’m selfish for always comparing my country to others that had achieved their independence later than mine, nevertheless develops faster and stronger in time.

I’m selfish for questioning, where did all that money go? To national growth or corporate greed?

I’m selfish for never rolling my window down on a morning city drive, simply because I don’t want to get killed by the carbon-monoxide pollution.

I’m selfish for realizing the big contrast between the rich and the poor, and who eats whom.

I’m selfish for doubting them as they say “Treasure our own culture”, because all I can see is their willingness to let Westernization in and turn ethnic morality into a form of ambiguity.

I’m selfish for wishing I could fly, so I don’t have to waste one-third of my day getting stuck in a chaotic traffic jam.

I’m selfish for wondering how the geographical benefits we had at first could turn into a profit for wealthy nations with dominating powers and left us nothing with but defeat.

I’m selfish for wanting to get out, to escape; because overtime, my faith in my own country is getting distorted in shape.

Why pre-menstrual syndrome sucks ass.

1. It makes me think life is pointless. Seriously.
2. It prevents me from even trying to have fun.
3. It deepens my feeling of insecurity.
4. It carves wrinkles on my face for frowning all the time.
5. It blurs my vision of which guys are hot and which are not.
6. It worsens my already bad day.
7. It turns me on and off and on and off.
8. It provokes negative thoughts regarding my future.
9. It brings in greed and ungratefulness for everything I have or have not.
10. It transforms me into an anti-social.
11. It affects me to question everything all over again, in a bad way.
12. It makes me hate people I usually love.
13. And now it’s becoming an excuse to defend my flaws.

The weird thing is, today was not supposed to be the day for my so-called PMS, so why am I feeling like some ooey-gooey, foul-smelling, dejected shit?

I don't need your money, I just need my life back.

You talk, you yell, you scream, but you barely listen.
You gouge your eyes out, shove your mouth with dirt, and clog your senses with mud.
You drown yourself in your so-called moral principle and expectations.
You break hell loose when others don't fulfill them.
You don't accept the word 'wrong'.
You don't even bother considering other people's values when they oppose yours.
You have strong faith in God but are faithless in dealing with human differences.
You walk on a dull, straight, narrow lane like a steel-made, programmed robot.
You think every single word that comes out of your goddamn mouth is as righteous as some goddamn proverb.
You are as dim-witted as tearing up a book by Salman Rushdie, and it wasn't even The Satanic Verses.
You raise your voice when others lower theirs.
You think you're a saint and whoever not following you path should get themselves "fixed up".
You don't think your past mistakes would make you a better person; somehow they made you more inhumanely arrogant.
You treat tears and pain like you diss birdshit on you window sill.
You perceive only the big picture and ignore the essential minor details.
You aim for perfect result without taking notice on the process.
You make decisions based on your own judgement, ignoring the impact they would do to others around you.
You can easily kill 6 birds with 1 stone, just because you hate watching them fly to whatever direction they want.
You make life looks like it's worth dying for.

I'm indefinitely going to burn in hell for saying this, but the first 14 years of my life was undoubtedly the best, because you were not in it.

P.S.
Please just shove those conservative, radical, insensible, gut-wrenching religious values of yours up your arse, because i would never ever want to be like you even if I had a fucking gun pointed at my head.

Bits and pieces.

“I needed somewhere to hang my head
Without your noose
You gave me something that I didn’t have
But had no use
I was to weak to give in
Too strong to lose
My heart is under arrest again
But I'll break loose
My head is giving me life or death
But I can’t choose
I swear I’ll never give in
I refuse”

Best of You – Foo fighters


That song is still traumatically etched in my mind since the first time I heard it about three years ago. It speaks of trust, betrayal, expectations, hope, faith, love and broken hearts, pain and revivals. The things I - for the first time in my life - experienced simultaneously altogether back then, which possibly marked the turning point of my self-realization.

Albeit more than three years had passed, whenever I hear that song, old (and almost forgotten) memories would just start crawling their way forward into the present. Bits and pieces of memories that pile up into one gigantic mass of nostalgic, over-romanticized reminiscence overflowing with feelings. I HATE it when those happen:
1st, when memories came with feelings still attached, coz those leftover feelings might crash with my present ones and turns me indecisive and sort of lost.
2nd, when the memory was actually a ghoulish one, but overtime (as I learn to forgive and forget) it’s losing its sense of ghastliness and whenever it emerges from the abyss, I couldn’t help but miss experiencing the thrill all over again, even though I perfectly know that back then, when I was IN it, I’d give up anything to get it over with ASAP. Confusing, I know.

Back to the song, I still don’t know what the meaning-beyond-meaning is precisely. On some parts of the song, I still don’t know who Dave Grohl refers to when he says “you”. First I thought it might be somebody he loves - a girl, maybe - but then it couldn’t be that trivial. I even tried connecting “you” with God, but it didn’t make any sense (one line says “were you born to resist, or to be abused?” What kind of human being would ask God that kind of question anyway?)

So the best possible answer I could come up with is that Dave refers “you” to us, or whoever is listening to the song. To be precise, “you” refers to anyone who could relate to the feelings and situations that the lyrics convey. Anyone who, by any sheer coincidence, could project off you into I.

Murdered by boredom.

What kind of parents don't let their daughter to her friend's birthday party and instead forced her to tag along to their college reunion, which they perfectly knew will be full of fat bald men and sagging fat women in their fifties and talk nothing but politics and their unforgettably fulfilling college life, and if during the event she shows a tiny bit of boredom or unwillingness to mingle with the super-tedious crowd, they'll go berserk and yell at her for being sooo fucking "ungrateful"??????? geezzz gimme a break, and my own life if u don't mind!!

So yeah, today started out sweet (too sweet maybe) and then THIS happened. And FYI, I'm still at the oh-so-exciting reunion right now, right this second. I wish I could make out a false alarm that a huuuge flood is coming so we all can just scurry back to our own houses. What sucks is that I obviously can't call any of my friends to seek comfort right now since they are all at the goddamn party.

I'm sure you are all tired of hearing my ungrateful blabbers, so let's just talk about yesterday instead. You know that feeling when you ate too much sugar and you get all hyped up and such but your tongue turned numb anyway? Yeah that's the kind of state i was in when i climbed up to my bed yesterday night. All flowery and dreamy and full of upcoming hopes yet also speechless. Like, dumb-struck love-struck speechless, not believing what just happened speechless. And all that was over a guy, whom I only met for 2 whole weeks 5 months ago, who happens to be 100000000000000 miles away, and who promised that we'll meet again in 1,5 year time (that is after his graduation).

ADILLA IS A PATHETIC WEIRDO

The thing is, what are the boundaries of being pathetic and realistic anyway? I mean, I've met him in person, I've talked and laughed with him, I've touched and hugged him, I've felt his lips, I've felt his heart beat, but still the only thing that connects us right now is a piece of shit called technology, and imagine if we were living in the stone age, how would we know that we miss each other every single remaining day??

PATHETIC, ADILLA, PATHETIC!!

Oh yaaay we're going home now! FINALLY!