I picked this book spontaneously when I took one last glance before leaving the library, and there she was, sitting gracefully on the top shelf of the return cart.

I've kind of noticed certain patterns on books I prefer to read and what surprised me (based on my last convo with copilot) is that I figured I have a various taste in my tabs. I keep coming back to this dreamy, slightly unsettling, emotion-than-plot driven book that brings up things that I don't usually get but the feelings linger, #iykwim. Some would say it screams literary fic: most of the time it's Murakami's. But honestly though, I don't mind reading a light, giving off 2000's romcom vibe either 😆.

I had read Emily Henry's latest book, Great Big Beautiful Life, and I could say that I don't like it as much as I would take a moment to write a review about it here, let alone recommend it to anyone (okay, actually the book has been with my coworker for about a month now but it's because she told me she likes People We Meet On Vacation movie). Someone even made a meme on the internet, calling it as a 'great big disappointment' instead (rude). That said, I still like the way Henry writes interactions between her characters. I can't help putting sticky tab color on some pick up lines that I love 🙈. Therefore I decided to give her another try—but this time not with my own money.

An almost complete Emily Henry collection is available at Cikini Library, so why not make use of it? Unless it's Great Big Beautiful Life. You can borrow my copy if you want 😌.

I was totally hooked after just a few pages. It's like that advice your mentor gives you about pitching an idea in front of your boss: leading it with the knockout punch.

Meet Daphne, our main character, who had to move after her fiancé announce that he decided to marry her best friend instead, because, well, he loves the best friend more. What makes it even more messed up is that Daphne has nowhere else to go. She agreed to move to a new town due to the life they planned together, only to be abandoned before the wedding even happened. And somehow, she ends up living under the same roof as the ex-fiancé's new fiancé of her ex fiancé, Miles Nowak.

I love the banter,

I love the simpler story line,

I love how ridiculously easy to read it is,

I love that I pictured Miles as grown up version of Tom Felton *but with tats and Daphne as Emma Watson, who look smart and composed. From a far, they don't look right together, but I don't know, maybe in another universe they do.

When people say that Ali Hazelwood has a similar resemblance of the man who yearn first in her works (I kind of get it after reading Love On The Brain and Love, Theoretically), well, I can see Emily Henry has a character archetype here—it is always the cool, independent, female lead's mom.

I think this story would be great if adapted on screens. Like, seriously. There's a pretty small chance that it turn out fail unless they chose the wrong director or casts 😉

Now that I am back to a normal, 8 to 5 (more like 7) life, I have fallen back into the same mundane routines and I can't help but feel that my daily activities starts to bore me off. Not trying to be ungrateful, but I should not drawn further to this kind of feeling that lingers, or else I am gonna lose my self again. Therefore I started to do things differently to spice up my day. Looking back, the first thing that could potentially ruin my mood is having a shitty coffee in the morning. On my previous workplace, before I go straight to my desk, I would stop by the bakery located at GF (which rarely got customers in line) to buy a cup of hot coffee; it comes with a free bakery and is totally cheap but honestly though, the taste is quite bland and the amount of caffeine isn't kicking enough. Famima at the basement level, however, always packed with crowds and it always took me more than 30 minutes to get my order. So a good cup of coffee in the morning would fix my mood the entire day 😁

The second thing that I do to make my day better is to have mini adventure on my way to work. On days when I don't have any deadline, or doing fasting for example, I would commute to workplace by TJ or Jaklingko, in every way possible. The idea of commuting by public transportation never fail to excites me. By far I figured 6 different ways to commute to work using the combination of different corridor and bus stop, depending on where to grab my coffee first. Most of the time I would stop by  Fore at Djakarta Theater to grab coffee—another effort to not rely on deliveries, but lately the headway of Jaklingko had been longer due to Dishub officer monitoring onsite (got this information from the driver himself)—notice how Jaklingko used to skip the bus stop unless the passenger told the driver to stop, but lately they compliantly stop at every single one?

These days I visit Kopi Api Cikini at R.P. Soeroso frequently, where I have to walk around 7 minutes from Gondangdia station. Sipping dirty latte and watching trains pass by are peaceful ways to start the day (note: I unlock (useless) skill where I can take coffee on an empty stomach). Sometimes I make Japanese iced coffee at home to cut down on my daily coffee budget but more often than not I treat it as substitute for breakfast and I buy my second cup of coffee somewhere else. Well, at this rate I might run out of money at the end of the month 😷 Later I found a perfect excuse from @champagnecruz on Thread saying, "Everytime you hesitate to have your third coffee of the day, remember there are people out there doing cocaine. Enjoy that coffee" 😂😂

Not far from Kopi Api is Blue Doors Menteng, but I've only visited once. I tried really hard to like their coffee; I ordered the Kyoto Latte this time around. Unfortunately, they couldn't adjust the sweetness level, so it ended up being way too sweet for my liking 😷

Another way to make the most of my commute, is to distract myself by reading a bite-sized book, especially when I get a seat on the bus or while waiting at a bus stop, because it can take a while for the bus to arrive (I will write more about this later).

The third way to start my days is by having a quick breakfast at Soto Mie Mang Udin not far from Kopi Api Cikini.

To be honest, I had never been a fan of soto mie until recently. I used to hate it when the broth temp cooled down due to the cold risol on top, but theirs is different. The broth stays hot. It is clear but rich, and it warms my body in an instant. Not to mention, the place is somewhat nostalgic, it reminds me of places in Bandung—dining under the shade of a huge tree in the yard of a colonial-style house.

Post-work catch-ups with friends is something that I really need to recharge. That include geeking out at Kinokuniya or Gramedia, buying comics, chit chatting and ending the day with a few strolls at Food Hall to buy groceries.

The last thing that I and A do lately is having transum date (read: public transportation date) after office. By taking the MRT, we visit cafes and restos we've never been to. One night, we tried out Daring Deli and got into the wrong bus on our way back. On another night, we had delicious bakmi jawa at Bakmi Jawa Mas Yono (never miss to order their mendoan also), and had the best dirty latte I've ever tried at Brookland Panglima Polim. I'm super happy of what we're doing even though we both already felt tired from working the entire day. It's like mini escape to our mundane schedule.

Best, best, BEST 

*I wrote a lot on used papers at night since I'm a paper and pen person. I always make an excuse to type it out on Penzu and post it here. Maybe next time 😶

I'm gonna confess here: I bought it due to its pretty cover, despite the goodreads rating. But honestly though, it was a struggle to finish it.

This book tells a story about Adelaide Williams, who, fell in love with the wrong person (clearly, from the reader's point of view). But she just jump in, head first, to the rabbit hole where she doesn't even know where it leads—blindly bewitched by the Disney prince like face of Rory Hughes, even though the glaring red flags were there. She always put someone else after her. She's naive enough to believe that her devotion to that man would give her a happy ending in the end.

That her ways to make the relationship work would eventually move him.

That Rory Hughes would love her the same.

Yet it cost her her sanity, her precious time, her whole self in the process.

Although many will relate to Adelaide's problems, the level of the toxicity of their relationship is another level. Definitely not a romantic story I would say, and leaning more of a mentally heavy, showcasing intense vulnerability of a girl who crave for someone unworthy for her.

For what its worth, I think we all have been in Adelaide's shoes for once in a lifetime: falling in love with the idea of love, or, mistakenly assume the idea of how the universe conspires to cross your path to someone like Rory.

Life after coming back to work has been pretty eventful. During my first week I realized something wild: about 90% of the people in my division are somehow mutuals.

Some were college mates of my late co-workers from my previous company,

One was a friend of a senior from grad school,

One was in the same cohort with my financial math lecturer at grad school,

Another is the wife of someone who used to intern at my previous company,

And one of the current intern turned out to be the younger sister of someone I also know from there

It feels like, the world is oddly small.

The director leading my team also happened to be my lecturer at grad school. It took him until the third meeting when he suddenly realized my presence by saying, "Hey, aren't you one of my students? How come you get here?" 😅😅

So here I am—surrounded by familiar people, in a familiar ecosystem as well as the company culture. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve spent too long in this industry, but as someone who once worried about not being able to afford Office 365 after losing my campus access… moments like this make me feel incredibly grateful.

But anyway, after a long being away from professional setting, I think I seriously need to update my office wardrobe. Honestly though, for the last few years of being employed, I never bought a new one, let alone batik. There's a pretty big chance that I might run into one of the director inside the lift (unlike my previous workplace, where layers of various offices were there which, we could care less who works where). I need something practical, fabric-wise, so that I don't have to worry for the laundry service to do the wash. For instance, most of my batik apparel had their color bleed, and so I have to hand wash them carefully with special detergent. It's taxing me though 😢

Not long after, I went on a trip to Sukabumi with my colleagues. I didn’t expect this at all, but despite being mostly girls, they’re actually pretty adventurous—not like me, whose idea of hiking is limited to Taman Hutan Raya, mainly motivated by perkedel Bu Kokom 😂

On the last Friday night, we pulled an all-nighter to finish an important report, threw a birthday celebration (quick one) for the big boss, and went home at 5 A.M. the next day. I guess working late is sometimes inevitable. But the real question is, who you’re doing it with 😄

 I don’t think A and I really share the same interests.

He has a broader knowledge on Indonesian's 2000 pop songs, while I have.. none. Not exactly something to be proud of, I know. The only songs I vaguely remember are the ones that used to play as soundtracks for the soap operas mum watched at night—and even then, I couldn’t tell a single title. My only real exposure to music back then was MTV. I still remember (at that time) how it kept replaying Marie, Marie, Marie by Solveig Sandnes (the scene where the girl is in the bath and the real homeowner suddenly arrived is insane 😂), Coffee and TV by Blur, video game-like Californication or Windows-Media-Player-animation-on-Windows XP-like Zephyr Song by RHCP (I used to hate it visually but once I grew up I get why these songs are big hit back then), and blonde Dolores with daisy bandana on Animal Instinct music video. My cousin who was way older than me also introduced me to BoA, a Korean singer who sung Japanese songs at that time, whom her face I hardly recognize these days. 

Even our youtube feeds could not be more different either. Like most guys his age, he loves watching gadget review, politics, and football related content. Meanwhile mine is a mix of cooking videos, travel in eastern Asia, and alternative rock musics. He tried to convince me many times to binge Game of Thrones but I just can't with all the blood and explicit contents.

One day, he said, "let's watch anime in where the male lead piggy backs his little sister everywhere."

To be honest, I'm more of a shoujo, rom-com, slice of life kinda girl. For instance, I binge watch Horimiya for more than 5 times. I was familiar with Rurouni Kenshin (my favorite of all time), One Piece, HxH, or Shaman King but those came out decades ago—and apparently kids these days weren't familiar with them either. One of my classmate told me that it was her mum's favorite—you know what, kid, I know I'm old but I don't know I was that old 😞

Still, we ended up watching Demon Slayer all the way to Hashira Training Arc Season and even watched the Infinity Castle movie as well.

Aside from the amazing graphics, I felt like something is missing but I couldn't point it out. Was it the character's depth? I know the movie relies a lot on flashback and backside story but I think it was kinda rushed.

Or is it lack of character's development? I am used to read shounen manga where the main lead and his parties grow gradually through the struggles. Or maybe because it is animated so they have to chop the story here and there? I have no idea either since I don't read the manga.

But overall, I love the fact that we enjoy something new and be excited about. We found ourselves talking about Demon Slayers non stop in a Cafe while waiting our order to arrive. Apparently A's favorite characters are all villain: Akaza (for being a hopeless romantic) and Douma (due to his realistic, bluntly speaking behavior). While I were fond of Tokito and Giyu, simply because their fine and calm appearance 💘. Now I can't stop myself from watching reels unboxing pop mart merch where the price is basically the same as import books in my wish list.

**this post is written on 9/15/2025. At fisrt I decided to post this after checking out one of the pop mart merch at marketplace, but in the end I still hesitate to buy one HAHA

The first half is written at July 2025 

As long as I remember, I don’t really have a nice memory in attending graduation—I wasn’t thrilled to any family-involved events. Next month will be my 3rd time experiencing it. I am actually consider attending the upcoming one because I want to take nice pictures with my friends, and of course, so A can finally step inside Sabuga after having his own ceremony online during the pandemic.

Being the youngest in the family, graduation day was never about me. During my first one, it was about my sister nagging me about broken souvenir that I didn’t plan to keep at the first place, spam texted asking why it took so long to be paraded (some kind of tradition that the juniors have to honor the seniors who enter a new phase of life—and what she really wanted me to do though, to just walk out of the parade and go back to the building on heels? Meanwhile, a buffet and entertainment had been prepared for family as the guests of the graduate.

My second graduation wasn’t any better. I was taking a few photos with friends who came all the way from other college to congratulate me, but my sister insisted to leave the venue immediately because she was hungry. Then we dined out at a tiny Chinese food stall with no AC, in a hot sunny day of Surabaya, with me still in kebaya and make up on since that's her favorite (don't get me wrong, the food there was superb but perhaps we could have it on any less special occasions)—all before our scheduled family photoshoot at the mall I had booked weeks earlier. Wouldn't it be nice to dine at a restaurant inside a mall like other family instead? I don’t think they ever really think about how I feel; somehow, it always becomes about them. I’ve always swallowed my feelings because they never seemed to count in the first place anyway.

Fast forward, August 2025

Long ago I had this planned to take mum to Bandung for vacation—to see orchid garden in Cikole, or to enjoy delicious food Bandung has to offer, or to accompany her visiting our relatives at Antapani. I was one click away to book her train tickets and hotel, but she said that it would be better if the vacation was postponed until the graduation day, since she felt under the weather either.

But then one day, my sister had this idea to tag along mum to the graduation day. How could I say no? It’s fine as long as she didn’t bring her kids and her husband along with her.

However, not long after my thesis defense came, that crazy idea crossed her mind. She said that instead spending her annual family vacation at Bali, she decided to redirect the destination to Bandung. 

I said that half of the city would be jammed due to two graduation ceremony held and pay day combined. The hotel fare would be skyrocketed. The viral spots on her list would be packed as well. But she insisted to do so.

And the crazy part? She would do road trip, with mum—the elderly!! She said she would drive carefully, nothing to worry. Honestly, though my biggest concern would be the old car she drive, along with she and her husband who only know how to use it, not how to do the adequate maintenance regularly. As always, she never takes no for an answer—and so I let her.

D-2

She said they would go off early in the morning. At 2 P.M. I heard nothing from them, and so I texted mum. She replied that the car had been broken (to simply put, the water broke into the system and got the machine overheated and boom—the car stopped working at around 1/4 of the journey )

I had experienced kinda same 'tragedy' (A said my case was way worse, but nonetheless) and it took more than a day to fix the damn car. I texted A right after the phone call. What I didn't know that, later, A called mum and offered her to get picked up by A's relative to the nearest train station so she could make it--to the graduation day—on time yet unfortunately mum put the call on speaker so my sis could hear him and she (or her ego, to be precise) snapped "there's no need to! according to the mechanic, the car could get fixed tomorrow morning". Oh the combination for being so dumb and gullible in the same time.

D-1

I remembered it clearly that was Friday morning, we were on a trip passing through MBZ when my phone rang. It was mum. She said she was sorry she couldn't make it to the ceremony since the car wasn't able to handle a long journey anymore.

I just froze for a solid 2 minutes, trying to process the information I refuse to accept.

Inside my head was total chaos—but I was lost at words.

When mum hung up, I asked A, “why she always find a way to ruin my day?"

I could read "I told you so" on A's forehead but he managed to not say anything about it. A was that kind of person who understand car (more than a woman's heart) so he predicted that it would take more than 2 consecutive days to get fixed, and it won't be back to normal like it used to be. Not to mention the expensive bill that came along with it.

My sister was the one who suggested that I book Mum a room at the same hotel as mine—where the price had doubled from what it used to be. She managed to screw everything up perfectly. She even guilt-tripped me by saying, “Thank God the car broke down, since Bandung isn’t safe either because of the protests.” I mean, wow 😦

I am utterly grateful I have A by my side, so that I could got myself together—I didn't miserably attending my own graduation .. alone. At that time the hotel I booked was relatively near the protests. However, Bandung weren't that packed of tourists; the streets was almost empty—such a blessing in disguise. A wanted to take a graduation photo as a memento so I decided to book a photographer last minute (contacted the photographer during the ceremony, lucky that there was a slot available). We were so happy with the result.

In order to get rid of this kind of woe, I need to write them out so that it become easier to deal with. To be honest, I haven't got a good sleep afterwards as I always pondered on why the hell this kind of misfortune slipped under my nose. It has always been my dream to see mum at my graduation. She was the one who wanted me so badly to study here, the one who kept bringing up the idea of me pursuing graduate school whenever she could. I wanted her to savor all the good food and see the beautiful places here. I wanted her to experience sleeping in a proper hotel room—not in a house already overflowing with my sister’s clutter.

Yet somehow, I lost the chance to make her happy.

The first story title Naked is about a woman who gets divorced and become unemployed at the same time as she had built her company from scratch with her former husband. Once a high achiever—she seemingly begins to enjoy her unemployment regardless of what people around her might think of.

The second story, Planarian, tells the story of a cancer survivor whom I would avoid being friend at all cost because she’s honestly a pain in the ass. She can’t stop talking about how she have dealt with cancer and bring it up every time she has to, even though she no longer had it. It is incredibly irritating to have someone like her around. But what’s amazed me is how the author notice that this particular person always exist between society.

The third story, Here, Which Is Nowhere, features the most normal protagonist in the book—a devoted house wife. She was caught up in an unfortunate situation where his husband is ‘restructured’ by the company (familiar much?) and in result forced by the less-than-ideal circumstances to work part time and take midnight shifts—where her ‘job’ was to make sure her husband, children, and her mom had been taken care of by the end of the day—to make ends meet and that’s where the problems starting to arise.

The fourth story, The Dilemmas of Working Women section, which shares the same title of the book, tells a story about the woman who ponders a little too long whether to marry her long time boyfriend. I had a hunch that this reflects something many woman in modern society in Japan face—leading them to hesitate to when it comes to marriage. But this might be an eye opener for those dealing with the same issues—that your boyfriend is considered a glaring red flag when up until now he was a freeloader—living off parents’ money and planning to do so after marriage—def not a husband material.

The last part, A Tomorrow Full of Love, is my favorite. It is written from a first person point of view, which is a divorced man who describe what he feels toward this homeless girl he simply can’t stop taking care of.

In the end, it was rather amusing to realise that this book is written around 2000s and yet depicts some issues that is still relatable to these days—corporate restructuring program, societal pressure to get married or to join the workforce, or simply to live up society’s expectations. My first impression  shifted slightly after reading the translator’s note at the last page, which emphasize that this overall story should be understood within the cultural context—specifically on how the Japanese society is constructed or how rigid the gender role there. Overall, the stories are somewhat showcase different realities that women could go through and in the end, they have to stay true to their own voices, no matter how unusual and heavy it might seems.