Best of 2018, the reading challenge result and 2018 gratitute journal

A little disclaimer: this post is on draft since early of January 2019 and only had the opportunity to post it late in March 2019 (I know, my bad).

Congratulations to all of you who have passed the year 2018! To begin the fresh year of 2019, let us thank yourself that we've made it this far. I know, time passed really fast and it still feels like yesterday we celebrated the new year 2018 but look at where we are now, it's 2019.

Firstly, I'd like to share the 2018 Goodreads Reading Challenge result. I challenged myself to read 10 books in 2018, so much lesser than in 2017 (challenged myself to 20 books) because I knew how hard it is for me to finish a book currently. I've lessened the challenge to 10 books for 2018, yet I only managed to successfully finish half of it. Well, actually there were more books that I read in 2018 but most of the reading stopped in the middle and I didn't finish it until the last page. If you're curious about what's in my reading list, check out my Goodreads account here.

Actually I kind of feel ashamed to show the books I finished reading throughout 2018 because the books were mostly a light reading. Marchella FP's Nanti Kita Cerita Tentang Hari Ini was a graphic book that could only take 15 minutes to finish while the longest book was Sitta Karina's first of her Magical Seira series, Seira and The Legend of Madriva that consists of 240 pages. All in all, I take it as a punishment for not keeping my commitment so I promise this year would be better!

Next is a series of The Best of 2018. Here I gather you my favorite things throughout the year, just because I like reading and watching (on youtube) other people's annual favorite.

(Reverse) Homesick and a guide to find home

This post is truly inspired by CultureShockPanda's post in here. 

This month marks almost one and a half year since I left Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for good. Do I miss KL? Absolutely. And it goes beyond what I have explained in here. I actually miss every bit of it, everything about KL, whether it be good and bad.

A young inspirational YouTuber, Gitasav, said in one of her videos (here), the dilemma of 'perantau' (people going overseas whether it for studying or working) is their confusion of home. Gita, as a perantau herself from Jakarta, Indonesia, to Germany, one time found that she couldn't define whether her home in Jakarta is her actual hometown, or Germany, the current country she resides.

As a perantau myself (which I don't really prefer to be called since Padang-Kuala Lumpur only an hour flight away--not that far in compared to Germany), I have been in that situation before. Like Gita, the first semesters I was still hating the facts that I got to go miles away from my friends and family. I hated that everything was so different, very new and I thought Malaysia was not home, really far from what I thought was home.

But now, after I left Malaysia for good and my student visa expired, I realized KL was the city of my first times where I spent my early-adulthood stage there. I was 17 years old the first time I stepped into the university there and I left the city when I was 23 years old. Can you see the transition there? From a young, foolish and innocent high school graduate to a young lady who got bachelor after her name and ready to embrace the adulthood life.

"Why Don't You Write Again?" and Internet Anxiety

"Why don't you write again?" was the questions I got times this year. It came first from Dad, the loyal reader of my blog, mom, and it came from friends too. I could blame the never-ending office work and my time management skills but to be frank, firstly, it's because I'm too depending on my writing mood. I could have a thousand words on my mind if I'm in the mood, but most of the time it's not on the situation where I could write it down and when I got the time to, suddenly I'm on a writer's block  I made a lot of excuses. On the other side, sometimes I got too overwhelmed and it makes so hard for me to write it all down.

Another reason is something that has been on my mind lately. Talking about the internet, it is a place where everyone can have access to. It could be anyone from the job recruiter, the boss of the company, long lost friend, distance family, friends who said that they're your friend but they're talking about you at the back, the friends of someone you have a problem with or anybody else in the world - which you don't know that they exist.

I was once writing my personal stories and I thought nobody would read cos I didn't tell everyone the link and I thought if some people knew that it's personal, they would understand and got over it- what I'd do to others' personal posts. Turned out people read, shared links and talked about it but never said it to my face and asked me. I once disappoint someone because of my post too. Hence that gave me a lesson to be more cautious about what I share on the internet.

because what stays on the internet stays forever.