Some notes about Twyla Tharp and her book
When people around me discuss creativity and creative workers, I often hear them portraying that those two entities are closely knitted to an unstructured life. Through the years, I have been familiar with the notion that activities that are identical to art are created purely under a chaotic yet exquisite circumstance. Yet, my recent trajectory of life taught me the opposite situation. Becoming a part of the community that integrates both art and science led me to understand the important intersection between creativity and consistency.
Twyla Tharp is a New York-based dancer and choreographer who discovered the beauty in the…
On normalcy, identity, hope, and memory
During my young adult days, the portraits of Japan (and South Korea) are more likely brought through comics, cartoon shows, and popular music. They could be accessed at the nearest book shop or broadcasted freely nation-wide by the television stations. Books were sort of unfamiliar until I met friends who introduced me to the books of Haruki Murakami — whose works are later displayed in many Indonesian book stores. Luckily, my discovery didn’t stop there.
Here’s a glimpse of Japan and South Korea that I traveled by reading in 2020.
A quest for normalcy
“The normal world has no room for exceptions and always…
Snapshots of 2020
Starting 2020 with a bunch of optimism still left a weird tingling sensation to me. I thought it could be a very great year, with me seeing myself going to another country to pursue another degree, attending my friends’ wedding ceremonies, traveling for an annual photography trip, or even as simple as celebrating my birthday with a dinner in my favorite restaurant. But, things just happened. With no significant sign of the end of the pandemic’s dark tunnel, somehow I think that the past twelve months are still worth celebrating.
Jumping into another ocean
The career pivot that I did at the end of…
IN/TRES/PEKSI
Things I’ve learned from Kolektif Agora
If I am allowed to mention only one entity that has successfully transformed my value about knowledge through informal approaches, well, I would definitely say Kolektif Agora. Since my involvement in August 2018, I have been exposed to a variety of first-hand experiences that luckily still meets my expectation of what the young minds could contribute to the so-called collective improvement. Today, walking down the memory lane brought me back the memories of how epistemic emotion could linger even before I recognized that.
Social media brought me to Agora, vice versa. The younger version of me would not regret myself…
A reflection after reading “Contagious: Why Things Catch On”
Some friends lately have been expressing their confusion about the government’s decision in handling the pandemic. Almost every week the government surprises us through their press conference. What has been puzzling my friends’ mind is the lockdown policy that is implemented (again) in Jakarta. This combination made me quiz myself about the ideal way of communication.
As a former Development Studies student who took a public policy analysis and evaluation class, I can personally claim that the recent lockdown policy does not surprise me. I assume that my familiarity with the process (including the political aspect that I gained from…
A note about Convenience Store Woman
Absurd. That was my impression after I finished reading Convenience Store Woman (originally titled Konbini Ningen), a novel written by Sayaka Murata. Previously, I never had the intention to read this book, even though some friends of mine already recommended it on social media. Long story short, Kak Hestia made me read it through an online reading challenge that she hosted on Twitter.
Convenience Store Woman revolves around the world of the main character, whose name is Keiko Furukura. Keiko is a 36-year old devoted convenient store worker. There was nothing that made my forehead grin for first time, except…
A purchase that came with endless questions
I was still in my first year of middle school when I saw the Kindle’s advertisement on a local news magazine for the first time. Knowing a device that offers the digital experience reading was a strange thing. Is it good for the eyes? How do people flip the pages? Does it offer a similar calming sensation from not smelling the ivory papers? How many books can I carry at once?
But then, no matter how the tempting the review was, the Kindle was a luxury good that was out of reach for a schoolgirl. I spent years growing into…
Ide / Bumi
On the game-changing urban design and mental health
In the third week of social distancing due to the outbreak of COVID-19, I started to notice that my friends are gradually shifting their habits and missing the scenery from their holidays in the non-built areas. On a daily basis, my timeline is flooded by pictures of people enjoying sunbathing, morning exercise, and even grounding.
This reminds me of the idea of human interaction with nature. Citing Berto et al. (2018), the combination of an immersive stimulus and a fully present condition can construct satisfaction towards restorative properties of Nature, in which Nature (with the capital “N”) is scoped as…
On embracing the features of life
Looking back to what I have done for the past five years has given me the instant goosebumps of feeling not doing good enough (but what is ‘good enough’ anyway?). Sometimes I think that the imposter syndrome keeps haunting me, even though I already try as much as possible to celebrate the small wins, in which some of them are worth to be immortalized on my social media pages. When you’re about to celebrate your 25th birthday, mostly everything can significantly contribute to a combination of strange feelings. …
When I was 18, I met the best teacher for the second time. The first one is Michelle*, my year one and year two teacher in primary school. A long time after that, I did not meet any inspiring teacher whom I can look up to, either as a role model or mentor. The school was just a formal education institution for ten years. I graduated from high school in May 2013 and moved to Surabaya in August 2013 to pursue a degree in urban and regional planning. That was the new beginning of my learning and unlearning journey.
I…
Jennie Yuwono
too dumb to understand environmental politics, but —
