Together

Songwriter's note: Written about 1 year ago because the teacher asked us to sing a song that we at least changed the lyrics. My group was the only with an original song. I finished this in one night. Music and lyrics by me although the melody and lyrics of the verses are altered when performed because my singing is so terrible that they can't get what's in my mind. By the way, this was the first song I've ever finished. I made another song first but I finished that one a few days after I finished this one.

At the first time
No one could figure that
We'd be in same rhyme
Since we didn't know much 'bout one another

At this moment
Every of us can tell
We have been so close
Although we've only together for a not so long time

Reff.
We can be strong, together
We are complete, together
Wondering we can be like this forever
When you need me, I'll be there
The obstacles, I don't care
We now, forever, and ever, are friends

We are different
But that's necessary
When in one current
We can complete one another to be stronger

Yes, there must be
Some problems among us
But they can be solved
We're together, we're strong, we can find the solution

I know that nothing lasts forever
But I don't wanna lose this feeling, yeah
Someday, when I've found some new friends
I'll never forget you all

Repeat reff 2x

Someone I Admire

Author's note: Written around the beginning of 2008, a homework. I didn't get high marks for this but the content could be worth sharing though I couldn't really write it properly. You can google her name to know more about her.

Around the end of 2006, I watched a Japanese TV drama “1 Litre of Tears”. It is inspired from the diary of Aya Kito who was diagnosed with spinocerebellar ataxia when she was 15. The incurable degenerative disease causes the person to lose control over their body, but because the person can retain all mental ability, it acts as a prison. However, she struggled to live her life to the fullest until her death when she was 25.

One day, Aya’s class would practice basketball passes. She and a classmate who forgot to bring her attire would be in study hall. A classmate said that was so lucky. She was boiled with anger. She said that she wanted to switch bodies, even one day, so that the classmate maybe would understand her feeling that she could not do anything she wanted to do.

Many people, including me, are often too ungrateful of our lives. Despite all the things I have and I can do, I still long for other’s greener grass. I began to be more appreciative of every single activity I can do. More importantly, I am very impressed that Aya actually put her effort to make people see things from her point of view. Many people do not wonder if this disease with undiscovered cause struck them.

When Aya was sixteen, she went through numerous tests. Some tests hurt her. Several others required her to do things such as standing on her tiptoes and closing her eyes. After the test, the doctor asked her whether it was fun. She felt treated like guinea pig. Then, her head hurt after some shots. She also made a mistake in interview. She felt miserable. She said that she studied hard because that was the only thing she was good at.

Difficulties came across her life as her disease developed. I understand that I am so fortunate compared to her. She had to do the things she did not want to do and she could not do the things she wanted to do. However, she determined to do better in what she still could do. Even I sometimes be too easily satisfied and forget to improve. She had opened my eyes to realise more.

As I watch the drama and read her diary, I know I would improve. I often get too depressed that I feel I am the most unfortunate person in the world. However, when I remembered Aya, I feel guilty that I am not thankful enough. I am luckier than numerous people. Most importantly, it grows in my heart that I must determine to live my life to the fullest despite all troubles. She inspired me a lot.

More English Works

I just looked for more writings of mine and I found quite a lot of English essays that were my homework and I'll add the interesting ones here. I'll post some English scripts, too. But maybe I'll post scripts after quite some time because many people are not used to reading s really long text on computer screen (and I can't guarantee it's not boring).

Now I think I have more English writings than the ones in Bahasa Indonesia. But I would say that my favourite works were written in Bahasa Indonesia.

Where's Alex?

Author's Note: Written about at least 1,5 years ago for English lesson. My English was much worse then, but I chose to make only few mistakes that I came across otherwise I'll end up rewriting the whole thing, though it's quite short and has lots of fillers. This is my most incomprehensible story ever. I made several versions of how to comprehend the story but I'd rather leave it all to the readers first. Enjoy!

“Helen, please accompany me to the bookstore after school,” said Lucy.

“Bookstore? Lucy wants to go to the bookstore? Are you okay?”

“I’m really fine. I just want to buy a book as a gift for Alex. Tomorrow will be his 12th birthday,” she said.

Helen became more confused. “What? For ... Alex? Alexander?”

“Yeah, Alexander. My brother. You still remember him, don’t you?” asked Lucy.

“Yes, bu...but it has been a long time since the last time I saw him. Maybe about several months.”

“That long? I didn’t realize it. You’ll be surprised when you see him again. He has been taller and more handsome.”

“I’ll accompany you to the bookstore. But you’ll wait about five minutes. I’m going to submit my paper to Mrs. Tina after school,” said Helen.

“Thanks, Helen.”

Suddenly the bell rang. So they went to their seat.

At the bookstore...

“What about this one?”Lucy ordered a book to Helen.

“What? Alice’s Adventure In Wonderland? Come on, you yourself said that he’s gonna be twelve tomorrow.”

Lucy laughed a while. “Bad choice, huh?”

Lucy ordered another book to Helen. “How about this?”

“The A.B.C Murder by Agathe Christie? He likes detective novels, doesn’t he?” asked Helen.

“He loves detective novels. How can I forget? He has ten detective novel. Six of them are Agatha Christie’s.”

“Are you sure he doesn’t have this one?”

“He has that one. But I think he hasn’t bought that one,” said Lucy. She pointed at a novel and picked it. It was "Murder on the Orient Express".

Lucy paid the book and she walked happily from the bookstore. Helen just walked beside her slowly. Helen’s face looked rather sad and confused.

“What’s wrong with you, Helen?” asked Lucy.

“Nothing. I’m okay.”

“I think you should go home now.”

Helen looked at her watch. “I think so,” she said. “It’s three o’clock.”

“May I accompany you to your house?” offered Lucy.

She shook her head. “No, it’s okay. I can go home myself. Don’t worry about me. You’d better go home. Your mom must be worrying about you know. You haven’t told them about this, have you?”

“I haven’t. Okay, take care. See you.”

“See you.”

Then they went home. Actually, Lucy still feel something strange that could make Helen be like that. Maybe just too tired, thought Lucy.

About twenty minutes later Lucy arrived at her house. Her house is not so big and luxurious. Just a simple house. She knocked at the door several times and wait. After a while, her mother opened the door. She came in and they walked to the dining room.

“Where were you from, Lucy? You should have went home about one hour ago.”

“I was from the bookstore, “said Lucy.

“You should tell me if you wanna go somewhere after school. I was going to call police when you knocked at the door.”

“I’m sorry, Mom. I won’t do it again. But now, I’m hungry.”

“I’ve cooked your favourite food, chicken soup. It’s on the table, Lucy,” said her mother.

“Oh, thank you, Mom. I’m so happy today.”

Unfortunately, the happiness didn’t last long. Suddenly, the phone rang. Her mother went to the living room and picked the phone up.

“Lucy, it’s Helen!” shouted her mother from the living room.

Lucy ran there. Then, her mother went back to the dining room.

“Hello, Helen.”

“Hi, Lucy. I just remembered. Don’t forget to bring my physics book tomorrow. There will be a physics test next week, remember?”

“Oh, yes. Don’t worry. I’ll bring it tomorrow. By the way, Helen, what do you think if I use a red wrap for the gift?” asked Lucy.

“What? The gift? Oh, that gift. I see. Red is good. But does Alex love red?”

Lucy thought for a while. “Actually, I think he loves blue. Okay, I’ll use blue. Thank you so much for today. See you tomorrow.”

“See you.”

Lucy put the phone. Then she walked to the dining room and had a bowl of chicken soup.

“Mom, we still have some blue wrap, don’t we?”

“Yes, there are some in the drawer. For what, Lucy?”

“I’ll use it to gift-wrap a book,” answered Lucy.

“Whom will you give the gift to?” asked Lucy’s mother.

“It’s secret. By the way, where’s Alex, Mom?”

“What? Alex?” Her mother looked very surprised.

Suddenly they heard someone knocked the door. Lucy ran and opened the door.

“Dad! You go home so early today. Mom has cooked chicken soup for us. It’s so delicious.”

Then they came in and walked to the dining room.

“So, where’s Alex, Mom?” asked Lucy again. Her mother still looked very surprised. Moreover, her father looked very surprised, too. The dining room became so silent. Suddenly her mother ran to her room crying. Lucy became very confused. She couldn’t understand what was happening. She looked at her father and said, “What happened, Dad? Where’s Alex?”

Her father walked towards her and talked to her slowly.

“Lucy, I know it must be very hard to receive but you have to.”

“What are you talking about, Dad?” asked Lucy.

Her father explained, “Nine years ago, our house was on fire. That time, mom was sick and I was on duty at Singapore. Our neighbours were managed to save you and Mom. But they couldn’t find Alex. Alex was burnt in the house. He has passed away, Lucy. We have to receive it.”

“No way. That’s impossible. He’s alive. He’s alive!” cried Lucy.

Lucy collapsed. Her father brought her to her room.

The next morning...

“Good morning, my lovely Lucy.” Are you okay? You collapsed yesterday. Maybe you’re too tired,” said her mother.

“I’m okay. What happened yesterday? I think I remember that Dad said something about fire. I think he said that some years ago our house was on fire and...”

Dad said, “No. I didn’t say something like that. Maybe it’s just your dream or maybe because you still have a headache. Don’t think to much, Lucy. Just calm down. We don’t want you to be sick.”

“I think so,” said Lucy. “Where’s Alex?”

“It’s a bad news, Lucy. But it’s useless to hide it form you. I regret to tell you that he got a car accident yesterday last night on his way home. When his father’s car on the way here, the car crash into a truck and exploded. We have to receive this, Lucy. We can’t do anything now,” explained her father.

Lucy cried uncontrollably. Her mother tried to calm her down. His father walked to Lucy’s room. He picked an Agatha Christie’s novel and threw it to the dustbin.

If you have anything to say or ask, please leave a comment.

The Epic Journey of A Writer WannaBe

Yesterday, when I was collecting my old works, I decided to publish them online. I think it wouldn't be bad to have them published online so that my new friends (by this I mean those who did not know me on the time I wrote them) can read them as well. I'll also publish some never-read-before writings.

Let me give you a little insight about writing and me. It began with my love of reading so I'll start with that first.

I've been a keen reader since a time I can't remember. My father thought that fictions are unimportant so he was only willing to buy me non-fiction books. Fortunately, he bought me Bobo, a Dutch-origin children magazine which was popular in Indonesia. I would say that Bobo saved my childhood, but that's another story.

When I was in fifth grade, I began to read Indonesian literature from my school library. my parents were still against that because they're fictions. On the same academic year, I wrote my first work, which is a children novel entitled "Hari-Hari" (Indonesian word for "Days"). I wrote them chapter by chapter and let my classmates read every chapter done. I would say they liked it. I did not finish it, though. I stopped after about 7 short chapters. Anyway, that was the beginning of my epic journey.

The journey continues during my years of Junior High School (JHS). I was still in love with reading and writing. On my first year, I started reading teenlit (teen literature) which was then newly popular in Indonesia. I read quite a lot of them. I secretly bought some with my own money. Actually, most of the teenlits were for girls because most of the writers and readers are female teens. I planned to write teenlits a few times during JHS but I found that I did not have enough motivation to finish a whole novel. I did several short stories. By the way, I brought the EYD book (a book for all the rules in Bahasa Indonesia from punctuations to spellings) everyday for the first two years of JHS to be read in my spare times in school.

On my second year of JHS, I discovered a novel buku fiksi non fiksi (novel, fiction and non-fiction books) thread in a discussion forum called Forum Indosiar (Indosiar is a TV channel in Indonesia). There are many writers there, pros and newbies, who shared tips, infos, and comments. I joined the forum. Due to the large number of writers there, the administrator had a new place for us called Pulau Penulis (Writer's Island) in Lautan Indonesia (Indonesian Sea, the forum's new name in order to have no more relation to Indosiar). I was the one who made the abbreviation PulPen for it (pulpen literally means ballpoint pen). PulPen was successful and has a great number of writers in it. It was my main source of information, tips, comments, and motivation.

My JHS actually has a regular school magazine that's published to each teacher and student every three months. I did not want to submit my works because I knew that they have few writers (and even fewer good ones, obviously) so they would definitely accept my work (I was not being arrogant). Most people would do the same if they were the ones in charge.

During my third year of JHS, my Indonesian Language and Literature teacher happened to be the head of the school magazine. He did say that he would choose the best writings from the tasks and projects from my class and other classes he taught to be included in school magazine. I thought this'd be better because if my work would be chosen, it was not because there's no one else to write but it was really because of the quality.

In short, he liked almost all, if not all, of my writings, fictions and non-fictions on that year so most of them were in different editions of school magazine. He once said in class that my choice of word was good, which I thought was the main reason why he often chose my works. I once shamelessly submitted a short story for the school magazine which he accepted.

Since I graduated, I almost stopped writing at all except for a few scripts which I may publish later. I won't be writing much in 2009 and maybe the years ahead, either. I'd say that I can't write as good as these works here anymore.

Well, for the non-Indonesian readers here, I apologize because many of my works are written in Bahasa Indonesia. I don't want to translate them because I think that may spoil them. But if the any of Indonesian readers here are willing to translate them into English, I'd happily publish them here.

Feel free to comment on my works. But please be a good critic. I don't want simple "It's good" and "It sucks". Please try your best to explain what you think and feel about them. I have to admit that most of them are amateurish so feel free to slay me with your sharp comments.

I hope you can enjoy. Thank you very much.