My Darkness and My Lights

Imagine.

For some reason that can be the desire for an adventure or one for your psyche’s development or any other, really, you find the exit door from your comfort zone and finally decide to step out of it.

Suddenly, you are in pitch darkness, and you are not sure what you are stepping on. It is very cold, too cold, but you don’t have anything to make yourself warm. There are voices, whispers, murmurs, yells, screams–words that you don’t understand. And you just stay there, alone, scared, but you can’t find the door to go back to where you were before anymore.

But you decide that staying here being overwhelmed by fear is not going to take you anywhere, so you stand up and wander, in hope that something, someone, will take notice of you and make sense of everything you have known once more, make the world okay again.

And then some lights approach you, and they take you with them, and you can feel their warmth, and you can smile again, and you understand the word friendship in a deeper sense now, along with warmth, and safety, and sense of belonging.

For me, the darkness was Malaysia and the lights were my friends. You know who you are, and I am very, very grateful to have known you. I swear without you guys I will still be that little shadow of a person cowering in fear, drowning in my tears, trying to go back to when I never had to try. So, thank you. Thank you for accepting me and being in my life. I love you guys.

This has been an appreciation post.

PS: Because getting sentimental over a nonsensical WhatsApp conversation with some of your friends is completely okay, okay.

Things to Tell Myself Right Now

1. What are you doing.
2. Get off Internet.
3. Do your work.
4. What are you doing.
5. Seriously, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
6. Stop staring at your laptop.
7. Yeah, Imagine Dragons are a cool band. Should’ve listened to them sooner.
8. I miss listening to Anberlin.
9. OK now go do your work.
10. Seriously.

Listening

Listening is an art. Very few people know how to master this art.

I think most of us don’t realize how important the listening part of a conversation is. What matters the most to us is what we want to say. Often, we listen with the intend to reply, or even to counter-argue; very rarely do we listen to what a person has to say with the intention of actually understanding the message.

I understand that listening requires much energy to focus and pay attention; which is why I think some of us are experts in pretending to be listening. With gentle nudges here and there (“okay”, “uh-huh”, “no way”) and some eye contact, TA-DA! The other person doesn’t even realize she is not being listened to. But then comes the question, “So what do you think?” And then you crumble because damn she’s going to find out that you weren’t paying attention.

I don’t like not being listened to when I’m talking. Maybe it has something to do with my low level of confidence or my egoistic tendencies, I don’t know. It just makes me feel like I’m not important enough when my partner-in-conversation doesn’t listen to me. When I realize this, I usually just stop talking abruptly. Sometimes they will notice, sometimes they won’t. And it really hurts to know that the other person doesn’t think I am worth the time and attention to be listened to.

What To Do When You’re Awake at 4 A.M. and Not Feeling Well

1. Stop watching My Drunk Kitchen. Saying “just one more episode… ONLY ONE MORE EPISODE” after watching countless does not work. (Also, Hannah Hart is a wonderful, wonderful person.)
2. Not write a blog post about it. Also, don’t ever use WordPress’ relatively new posting template because DAMN YOU WORDPRESS I WORKED SO HARD ON THIS POST BUT IT WASN’T SAVED SO I HAD TO DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN. And no one reads your blog anyway. Sob quietly in darkness.
3. Not bother your best friend on WhatsApp. Because you will get bored when no replies come after she finally falls asleep before you.
4. Remember you have a morning class to attend to in less than five hours.
5. Remember you hate morning classes.
6. Remember you’re not taking any classes next semester.
7. DANCE IN GLORIOUS VICTORY.
8. Not dance in glorious victory–it gets you even more nauseous.
9. Attempt to fall asleep.
10. Fail attempts to fall asleep.
11. Remember every single horror movie you have ever seen.
12. Whimper in fear.

I Fulfilled A Promise!

Sooo in this post (http://gitadine.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/talking/) a year or so ago I told you that I was going to make a video and upload it on YouTube, right?

WELL GUESS WHO ACTUALLY FINALLY DID IT.

In Which Nature Hates Gitadine

Nature probably hates me.

When I woke up at 8am today, the sun was shining gloriously and the clouds were, you know, doing things clouds do, if they do anything at all. So I decided, aha! This would be the perfect day to do my laundry!

So of course I continued laying on my bed in the company of my lovely phone and the Twitter application until around 10am when I decided to actually kick start my life for the day. I washed my clothes and my body (more commonly known as taking shower) and then proceeded to hanging my clothes confidently. After that, I ate corn flakes for breakfast (because calling it brunch is too mainstream) and updated my Indonesian blog and went to group meeting and replacement class (because replacement classes on Saturdays are fun). I don’t even know why I talk in parentheses so much.

So anyway, as soon as I walked out of class after it finished, I realized that all I had believed in was a lie. It rained. It rained during class. When I was most defenseless, it rained. My poor clothes that was supposed to had been beautifully dry was once again drenched.

So I figured, oh what the heck, nothing I could do about it. So I went to get food (for lunch and dinner–gosh Gita no more parentheses!) and when I was coming back it was already drizzling and I was like, gosh nature really does hate me. But it stopped as I was just reaching my dorm, so I was like, maybe it doesn’t really hate me, after all. It just loves teasing me.

I can’t believe I was so naive. After I ate half of my food and watched a couple of YouTube videos because what is life without YouTube videos, I involuntarily fell asleep. Guess what happened when I woke up an hour after that.

HURRICANE!

Okay not a hurricane per se, but a really heavy rain. As I realized what was happening, I just stood by the window staring at the rain drops consuming my going-to-be-dry clothes with my broken heart and a hint of tears in my eyes.

Nature hates me. About that, I am now sure.

Bravest Warriors

Reblogged from International House of Geek:

• 

Pendleton Ward is a goddamn genius.

He has brought us Adventure Time, a cartoon that has explored all sorts of mature themes, while keeping things mathematical. Popular among all age groups, Adventure Time has taken the country by storm in the past two years and I will preemptively call it now: Ward has done it again with his new series, The Bravest Warriors.

Read more… 305 more words

I am someone who used to spend hours and hours AND HOURS on Tumblr (no you don't understand if I didn't need to eat or sleep I would be on Tumblr 24/7). I followed awesome people with similar interests in TV shows and animations. A lot of these people would reblog and talk about this cartoon with unique art called "Adventure Time", so of course I checked it out... And I loved it! I thought to myself, "there should be more cartoons like this. Pendleton Ward did an awesome job with this." And now there is. Can't wait to start watching (and obsessing over) it!