Tentang Menikah dan Cerita-Cerita yang Tidak Kunjung Selesai

December 23, 2014 by Prisanti 1 Comment

Ketika saya menulis ini, saya belum menikah dan saya belum punya rencana untuk mengadakan pernikahan. Di sekitaran lingkup umur saya dan teman-teman (25 tahun ke atas), adalah hal yang wajar untuk melangsungkan pernikahan. Umumnya banyak yang beralasan karena “sudah cukup umur”, “orang tua udah tua, pengen nimang cucu”, “kebelet kawin”, “udah dilamar, gimana dong?”. Dan tentu saja untuk alasan-alasan lain yang tidak perlu saya pertanyakan atau ketahui. Undangan dan seragam nikahanpun mulai menjadi hal wajar ketika weekend menjelang. Hari yang harusnya bahagia bagi kedua mempelai tiba-tiba menjadi beban bagi sebagian orang. Ada yang bilang, berat rasanya untuk mendengar pertanyaan “kapan menyusul?” yang tidak pernah berakhir. Atau ada yang menjadi cynical melihat biaya-biaya atau tradisi 500+ undangan, atau acara yang “tidak sebenar-benarnya” dimiliki oleh kedua mempelai. Ataupun bagaimana orang-orang membanggakan status pernikahan atau bagaimana mereka merayakan hari pernikahan (ataupun tempat liburan/honeymoon-nya, ffuuuu).

Tapi saya mau bilang: THE HELL I CARE ABOUT THAT STUFFS :))

Catatan Kaki Orang Biasa

July 23, 2014 by Prisanti Leave a comment

Wah, Indonesia punya presiden baru bulan Oktober nanti. Lucu kalau mengenang beberapa bulan belakangan di mana setidaknya semua orang pernah beradu “fakta” (yang kebenarannya dinilai dari sudut pandang mana kita melihatnya) ataupun menuai amarah dan kebencian terhadap satu sama lain. Beberapa membuat meme menarik, beberapa mengibaratkan Pemilu sebagai medan perang. Dan kesalnya, mereka mengibaratkan sebagai perang Baratayudha. Fffuuu, sebagai penggemar kisah Mahabarata, saya awalnya kesal (ini beneran saya kesal bukan main). Tapi toh mungkin pingin lucu-lucuan aja, lumayan gambarnya di-share orang di grup Whatsapp seantero Indonesia Raya. Ada yang benci dengan rakyat, benci dengan “orang-orang di belakangnya” (ffuuu, seriously?), benci dengan para pendukung-pendukungnya, dan mungkin benci dengan diri sendiri. Oh, ‘-nya’ yang dimaksud merujuk ke dua belah pihak, yaa. Saya sih memilih untuk tidak share ataupun komentar apapun di akun-akun sosial (too much drama). Saya memilih diskusi-diskusi di grup Whatsapp ataupun diskusi-diskusi personal. Saya sama seperti yang lain kok, share artikel ataupun membahas si “fakta-fakta”, kadang malah marah-marah sendiri, kadang nyinyir sendiri. Tapi bumbunya selalu bumbu bercanda, senang punya teman-teman yang selalu ringan menghadapi sindiran, senang punya teman-teman yang malah tertawa ketika ada yang terhina dan mencak-mencak, senang karena punya teman-teman diskusi yang membuat kaya dalam pandangan. Dan salah satu bacaan yang paling saya sukai, tentu saja yang ini. Betul sekali, mari kita jalin hubungan bilateral yang solid dengan Eiichiro Oda!

Saya akui, saya banyak belajar dari Pemilu kali ini. Tentang kenapa Indonesia selalu disebut ‘The Sleeping Giant‘, atau mungkin negeri si pemalas. Kita kaya dan miskin di saat yang bersamaan. Kita ramah dan mencibir di saat yang bersamaan. Lumayan kan, kita bisa lihat tingkat mental dan kecerdasan masing-masing teman kita selama Pilpres (oh yes, you. I’m talking about you :3). Manusia memang tidak luput dari kesalahan, kita makhluk-makhluk lemah yang mudah terseret angin dan terhanyut badai. Tapi seperti kata raja kerajaan Arabasta setelah pemberontakan, “Tidak ada orang yang bisa menghapuskan masa lalu. Kita akan bangkit dari sini, dan menjadi bangsa yang besar!”. Indonesia bukan hanya tentang pemimpin, saya, kamu, kita, dan mereka. Rakyat.

“Rakyat itu ada sepanjang zaman. Sementara raja itu tidaklah abadi. Ia bertakhta hanya dalam masa tertentu. Ketika masa itu lewat, ia harus turun atau binasa. Sementara rakyat terus ada. Buktinya, saya ini ada di sepanjang zaman. Menjadi punakawan, hamba yang menemani penguasa dari masa ke masa, sampai hari ini. Kawula iku ana tanpa wates, ratu kuwi anane mung winates (rakyat itu ada tanpa batas, sedangkan raja ada secara terbatas).”

All Those Bad Things

January 6, 2014 by Prisanti 1 Comment

I have been an avid TV Series viewer. I have watched dozen of TV Series before. The one that is been cancelled, the one that took my breath away, or the one that bore you after 3 seasons (I am talking about you, Revenge). For me, there is few series that I like a lot. The one that entertained me for its brilliant lines, like How I Met Your Mother, 2 Broke Girls, The Newsroom, etc. The one that makes me want to write about it because its depth and how interesting it is to be discussed. Sherlock, The Simpsons, and Game of Thrones are fitted for the criteria. And there is few that so undeniably beautiful and you can’t stop thinking about it. For me the first one is LOST and then this, Breaking Bad.

Okay, the premise of Breaking Bad is already interesting enough. A high school chemistry teacher turns drugs kingpin by cooking crystal methamphetamine (shortly meth) after he diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer in order to provide for his family after he is gone. Partnered up with his junkie former student, they take on the ride to journey they have never expected before.

I haven’t watched any episodes of this drama series until the last month of 2013. The show itself already started 6 years ago at 2008 on AMC, gained strong fan base ever since and suddenly become everybody’s favorite TV show (including Barack Obama and Warren Buffet). It is like a snowball effect. Everybody is telling how good the show is, and new fans arise, trying to catch up with its latest episode. Breaking Bad aired its episode finale on September 2013. The mind blowing fact here, the show has 62 episodes. Try to guess the 62nd element on periodic table. It is Samarium, which is essential in the treatment of bone pain with lung cancer.

If you asked me what one thing that makes such phenomenon, you can read here. The article pretty much listed all possible answers on why people love Breaking Bad. But for me, it is more than that.

Honestly, I can’t even define it. I don’t have any resembles with any character on the show. I even don’t know any of the cast before (I end up watching all interview of Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul on YouTube after finishing the series, from Kimmel to Fallon, Leno to O’Brien). I even barely know who Vince Gilligan is (but surely excited to wait his next work). At the end of season 1, we know that the series is going to be a good show. It is funny and brutal at the same time. It teaches us how mercury fulminate can blows up a room and how you can dissolve a body with sulfuric acid (which turned out to be busted on Mythbuster special episode of Breaking Bad, but we all forgive it). Turns out, Breaking Bad catches me off guard on how the show can be so menacingly dark and, like the blue meth Walt and Jesse cook, addicting.

Yours

October 12, 2013 by Prisanti Leave a comment

…and yeah the social media. I am not an avid user of social media, but I find it a useful tool to everyday life. If you use it wisely. Ever heard this sentence?

“We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.”

FYI, it is actually a quote from Dave Ramsey on one of his financial book.

Other opinion about the vast grow of social media is people trying too hard to show the world how interesting their life is. They take picture about the food they eat, telling people what movie they watch, they show map of the place they are at or a place they visit at holiday, etc. When I was 22, I might be judgmental about these kind of stuff. Now, I learned about seeing it on a much much bigger picture than I already saw.

Life is interesting.

Life should be interesting.

If your life is boring enough to live up, it is your problem. And if your life is so exciting to live up, you should be thankful. It is a choice to share it with the rest of people or keeping it by yourself. It is none of your problem, to give a damn with other people’s choices.

Like I said so many times, what you see is still the half of the story.

The Game and The Song

August 13, 2013 by Prisanti Leave a comment

It is easy to fall in love with Game of Thrones, the infamous HBO original TV Series, following the success of The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, or True Blood. I like fantasy movie and Game of Thrones gave all of those in one hell of a series. As each layers unveiled, there is more and more action, there is more and more story to discuss. The creatures, the dragon, the myth, the King beyond the Wall, the undead, the God of Light. As if all element of story is there. You got the action, the drama, the mystery, the fantasy, love, sex, politics, war, everything.

It is a different tale than The Lords of The Ring trilogy, which the original book series—The Song of Ice and Fire has always been compared to. If I’m going to say one distinct thing that I love more about Game of Thrones it is how George RR Martin made his characters so alive. How he painted each character as a protagonist, as well as an antagonist.

It reminds me of the story of Mahabharata, the tale about Pandawa and Kurawa that have been told million times, on different cultures. As a child, I watched the TV series (originally made by Indians, broadcasted at Indonesian local TV channel) with my dad. We used to record it on VHS and watched it together after my dad got back from work. I also owned the comic book written by the legend, R.A. Kosasih (PS: You can order your copy at Anelinda if you’re interested).

The story about Mahabharata isn’t entirely about good versus evil, which I found so confusing at that time. Yudhistira the eldest of the Pandawa, being portrayed wise and always telling the truths, gambled his own wife—Drupadi—at a dice game. That was the most interesting scene that I remember (along with Baratayudha war), the gambling table and how Sangkuni threw the dice. Drupadi, being a faithful wife to all Pandawa (yes, all the Pandawa shared Drupadi as their wife) is actually a racist. Bima, which always portrayed as a strong and reliable knight is a jock and a bully. He teased the Kurawas, challenged them into battle, and in the end, out powered them.

Growing up, it is weirder to see people portrayed them as heroes. Many babies named after the Pandawa just because they would make a good role model, it is amusing to find how I haven’t met someone named after Karna. Yeah and then there is Karna. You should read about this character and you’ll get exactly the point why the story of Mahabharata is so interesting to discuss. If we look closer at each character and giving reasons to their action, you’ll realized that it is just the same formula. When you’re playing the game of thrones, you either win, or you die.

Just like Drupadi, the women in Game of Thrones often seen as a consolation prize. Political marriage arranged to gain power and strengthen position, as if they are nothing than a tool to seal the deal. They’ve been raised knowing what would be their fate and how to deal with it. But what I like about Game of Thrones is some female characters in the series portrayed as a bad ass rebel, a strong force that ride on Dragons or become the assassins. But even characters that look like an annoying bitch has a depth story. Look Sansa for example.

Original image can be found here, along with easy guide of Game of Thrones.

The series also famously said to have political reference because each character represents a house, a banner (as well as a sigil and a motto) that identified them. They live to it, sworn to it, die with it. Here I quoted one of interesting conversation between the Shae and Master of Whisperers, Varys.

Varys: If you let yourself believe that a foreign girl with no name could spend her life with the son of Tywin Lannister…

Shae: I have a name.

Varys: You have one name. As do I. Here only the family name matters.

It is more interesting to discuss because there is some people that called themselves as ‘The Brotherhood without Banner’, the name that George RR Martin took from his fan group name.

After all, Game of Thrones hooked me with such angle of storytelling. It is weird that you have so many character that you actually root for instead of just one hero. It does make me seeing the world more colorful, even if it is a dark color.

“Let me give you some advice, bastard: Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.”

Tyrion Lannister