Me & Favourites: March-April 2019

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I thought I wasn't going to survive March, so it was really relieving when finally April comes around. I thought I would be able to take a breather in April, but it turned out that April was even worse. 

So much happened in March and April that I barely had the energy to recount everything. There were a lot of committee stuffs, midterm exams, unfinished projects, and frequent college assignments. I got sick in the third to fourth week of March. Then I had to prepare for moving out around the end of April.

But March and April also brought me some happy news. My favourite Korean boygroup, Stray Kids, released a new album on March 25th, and I've been loving all the tracks. I am going to talk more about it during the music section of this post. My housemate and I rented a new house and moved out, which meant new environment and experience. I also did a team building event with my committee friends on the same day I moved out (so it had been really hectic) and we got to talk about many deep things about each other.

Since I had been so busy, I had to neglect my blog for the past two months and I am sorry for that. May also seemed to be pretty busy since it is another exam season, so I can't promise I would be able to post frequently. Truth be told, I am afraid that this monthly highlight is gonna be my one and only post in May. Seeing how packed my schedule is for the next few weeks, I know I need to prioritize and at this moment, blogging is not on top of my list (despite how much I really love it).

So that's how my March and April went. Let's talk about books I have read during these two months.

//BOOK

In March, I read Sutradara Itu Menghapus Dialog Kita (That Director is Erasing Our Dialogues), a poetry collection by Sapardi Djoko Damono. He is one of the most famous and legendary poet in my country, so I'd been really excited when I was finally able to buy his book.

The book design is pretty simple and very straightforward, but the same thing cannot be said for its content. Since it is a poetry book, I need to read the book over and over again (which I haven't done) to truly understand it. I plan to read the book again in a few months to gain a new perspective of the book.

The second book I read is A Million Worlds With You by Claudia Gray. It is the third book of the Firebird series. For those who haven't read the series, it is about a painter whose parents invented a dimension-travel technology called Firebird. I don't want to give spoiler, but the third book tells the story of the main character trying to save millions alternate universe which are going to be destroyed by her parents in another universe. She also struggled to convince her boyfriend that they are truly meant to be together, even though there are some universes in which they don't meet each other or even hate each other. I love the first and second book more than the third, but I am very happy I found this series. My high school who read the book said that it is very science fiction, but in my opinion, it's more of a romance book.

In April, I read The Years of Voiceless by Okky Mandasari. She's also one of the legendary writers in Indonesia, but her book that I read was in English. The Years of Voiceless tells a story about a mother and her daughter who have different perspective about beliefs and how to live their life. That difference strains their relationship. But the book tells not only about a mother-daughter relationship, but also common bribery practice amongst people, inequality, and also discrimination. It's a very interesting book and quite deep too.

//MUSIC

During March and April, I did not listen to much of new songs. My favourite idol group released a new album, Clé 1: MIROH, in March and I'd been listening to it for days. My favourite singer also released a new album after two year-long hiatus, Our love is great. Both albums were on the top of my list for weeks before I watched an old Korean drama series, Who Are You: School 2015, and then I got hooked with its soundtracks.

For individual tracks, in April I'd been loving Back to You by Selena Gomez and Turtle by TWICE. Other thing I listened to was a Spotify recommended playlist, Road Trip to Kyoto. I usually don't listen to songs that Spotify recommends to me, but I found this playlist strangely enchanting.

//CINEMA

As I've mentioned, I went into several episodes of binge-watching Who Are You: School 2015. Guiltily, I have to admit that I kinda procrastinated on my college assignments just to finish the series. It didn't help that I got burnt out really often and experienced severe mood swing when I was exhausted (I need to do something with my mood instability).

Who Are You: School 2015 is a Korean drama series about a pair of twins that were separated into two different orphanages and thus led a different life. The older sister got adopted by a well-off woman (I don't know whether she was perfectly single or widowed), while the younger sister stayed in orphanage and got bullied in school. The series focuses heavily on the bullying aspect which has been a big problem in South Korea society. I like the characters (the older sister is such a bad ass role model) and their relationships. They're all very relatable with their own depths and background story.

I rarely watched Western movie and if I do, they're usually either fantasy movie or slice of life. But while it came to no surprise when I decided to pick up Little Women (2018) and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, I still don't know how they end up on my to-watch list. The reason is that despite being my preferred movie genre, both were not exactly appealing to me when I tried to watch the trailers. But I did finish watching them.

Little Women (2018) is a movie adaptation from a classic book with the same title. It tells a story about an aspiring writer and her three sisters. All of them are quite different in terms of personalities, and they perceive happiness in a vastly different views as well. The main character is a very ambitious person and throughout the movie we can see how she deals with her temper, her failures, her rocky relationships with other people, and how she grows as a person.

A Series of Unfortunate Events is also a movie about siblings and their struggles. Three siblings had just lost their parents in a fire accident. The court then sends them to their distance uncle, who turns out planning to kill them so that he can have their inheritance. The movie follows the siblings' journey trying to escape from their uncle's endless murder plotting.

Narratage is a Japanese movie. It's on my list because Sakaguchi Kentarou is one of the supporting actors in it. The movie is about a girl who falls in love with her high school teacher. The teacher's wife once tries to burn their house because her relationship with her mother-in-law was really strained, and ever since, the teacher and his wife decided to live separately. Despite that, the teacher claims that he still loves and cares about his wife and rejects his student's feeling, even years after she graduates. But she seems to still care about him. Their relationship is unnatural and a bit unhealthy, I suppose, because both of them are broken inside and neither shows desire to heal their scars.

Sexy Killers is a documentary about coal mining and its effect on people's lives. I watched it with my roommate impulsively (it's just one of those nights when I felt uninspired and she suddenly asked me whether I want to watch something together). At first, I thought the documentary would tell stories about how coal mining caused pollutions and environmental damage, but it turned out to be more about politics and a bit of capitalism. Personally, I feel a bit disappointed because it was clear that the movie wants to drag some politicians and businessmen down, while I am more interested in the way coal mining affects people's lives and whether we can do something to fix or stop coal mining.

Adam Sondel

So that's how my March and April go. And now it's already near the end of May. I feel a bit sad because I couldn't post much lately, but I promise that in June I am going to post more regularly, at least once in every two weeks.

My Perseverance series is far from over (yeah, I am still have many posts coming up), so my plan is to finish the series by the end of August. I am going to upload another monthly highlight before July arrives, so please look forward to it! College is over in two weeks so if you want to talk to me and discuss anything, feel free to leave comment or contact me via social media. I am Eta Wardana in every platform, mainly active in Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. See you next time!