hello again.
i really wanted to start to write again but hesitated, thought it wouldn't be the best idea to publicly pour my heart out just so some stranger can read what was my roller coaster of emotion in the past 6 months. but i think if i don't just write it, i wouldn't really be able to get it off my chest. so just to be clear, i write to figure things out. to untangle the knot of endless anxiety i'm currently having on my mind.

basically i had a really hard time dealing with psychological pain in the last couple of months. i talked to a friend who had similar experience and it took him longer than what i needed to accept and let go of what happened. well we're still trying to accept and let it go but i hope it gets better as time goes by.

so all my life, i never really had problems hanging out with boys. i even found it easier to hang out with them than with girls my age because i've always had the feeling of indirect competition between girls. and i don't like it. i hate that i had to dress up and make myself pretty to impress boys. i hate that in school, the society created some kind of social pressure that you have to have boyfriends/girlfriends to be considered normal. i was probably weird, but i'm glad i didn't give in to those "standards".

now that i don't live in my homeland anymore and i am responsible for myself, i have that feeling of liberation because i don't have to fulfill that idea of what a girl should and should not do at this and that point in life. i met new people, fell in and out of love, cried my eyes out, had the best time of my life, found me new families in this home away from home..
long story short, i met someone new and thought this was probably just gonna be like any other guys i had met before, and it turned out to be my mistake to not anticipate of what came next. i kinda liked talking to him because he responded just like the way i wanted to, and he liked me probably because he was able to forget the fact that he became completely messed up from his last break up. i sort of hoped that this would stay like this for a while, where everything is fine and nobody gets hurt but it started to change as i spent the majority of my time with him and it was kind of getting really time-consuming. and so i had this feeling that this was not gonna end up good. and my feeling turned out to be true. our closeness went really wrong, turning from 'like' to 'lust' and i didn't like it. i knew it was wrong because it felt wrong and i kept doing it. he was forcing himself on me, even after i didn't give consent and when i showed unwillingness, it directly went off the rails. i decided to stop seeing him and became this empty, traumatized person. i wasn't myself, couldn't really smile nor laugh and had to meditate a lot to release all the negative energy in me. i was disappointed with myself for letting it all happened in the first place. but i also knew it took a lot of strength from me to get out of this circle. so the first thing i tried to do was to forgive myself and apologize to my body. that's where i thought would begin the healing.

i was incredibly upset, i felt used and betrayed because all my trust i put in someone was ruined. later i found out that he might be a pathological liar and glad that i was freed from this whole mess early enough. but to be clear, i was assaulted and it was not okay. i know i'm not the only one, i know there are so many who are having it worse than me. but i just never expected it to be me. i thought i was strong enough to not let boys go near me that much. the worse part was that he didn't even have that remorsed feeling and never wants to acknowledge that his doing was wrong. he checked on everybody to make sure that he's still seen as the nice boy in town. he called me things behind my back and indirectly asked me to make sure i wasn't telling anybody about us. it was terrible.

but if i let it consume me, i wouldn't be a better person. so after i decided to try to forgive myself, i tried to forgive him. even when he doesn't apologise. i needed to forgive him to make peace with myself. to finally be able to move on with my life and to let me free from this unnecessary drama. i don't even care about what people think of me, that's probably the last thing i could be worrying about.

i hate that some men have -or society makes them feel like they have- the need to prove themselves as 'men' with this girl-conquest. but you can't hate them, you can't hate society, you can't hate the person who did it and you can't hate yourself. the more i try to forget it, the more it comes back to me. so i guess the only way is to accept everything that's happened and repulse any negativity that tries to bring you down. i'm still telling myself to take as much time i need to heal because there's no right or wrong in that. i was questioning my self-worth all the time, and that's was wrong and what made me depressed. i realised i don't need anybody's approval to love myself, but in that kind of situation it was really hard. moreover when you realised you gave the right pieces of you to the wrong person.

i know in this case i generally talked about women being the victim but it could also happen to men. and i'm not trying to make myself the victim here, because it's partly my fault too that all of this happened. so yes, i could see it from a different perspective now. i tried to comprehend his past and the complexity of the circumstances of it all but it really took me a while to get there and i'm still struggling to not let it define me and the actions i make.

"Forgive anyone who has caused you pain or harm.

Keep in mind that forgiving is not for others.

It is for you.

Forgiving is not forgetting.

It is remembering without anger.

It frees up your power, heals your body, mind and spirit.

Forgiveness opens up a pathway to a new place of peace where you can persist despite what has happened to you." - Les Brown

sidenote: this post was not meant to offend anyone, but was meant to liberate myself from the anxiety and hatred it has caused me.

spread the good love guys, xx R

Setelah sebelumnya sempat sering diprotes karena jarang nulis pakai bahasa ibu sendiri, saya coba aja mungkin yaa.. haha

Sebetulnya banyak alasan saya malas menulis menggunakan bahasa Indonesia, karena salah satunya saya merasa belum bisa menulis pakai bahasa yang baik dan benar. Suka masih malu juga karena ngomong aja masih suka campur campur bahasa Inggris, malah kadang Jerman kalau ngobrol dengan sesama pelajar Indonesia yang tinggal disini. Tapi bukan berarti saya tidak cinta bahasa sendiri. Bahkan sepertinya saya terlalu cinta dengan bahasa Indonesia dan bahasa Jawa. Bagaimanapun juga kan saya lahir dan delapan belas tahun hidup di Jawa.. Sayangnya saya sempat tumbuh dengan pola pikir bahwa semakin pintar bahasa Inggris semakin kamu gaul dan kalau bisa menyelipkan beberapa kata bahkan kalimat bahasa Inggris di dalam percakapan maka semakin keren lah kita.
Itu dulu ya, waktu masih labil dan masih muda, maunya paling keren dan gaul jadi ga sudi lah dengerin D'Massiv atau ST12. Sampai sekarang juga masih mikir-mikir kok kalau mau dengerin 😁

Alasan yang kedua karena yang membaca blog saya ternyata tidak cuma dari Indonesiaaa saudara-saudara. Jadi rasanya (mungkin ini perasaan saya aja) kalau mau menulis post pakai bahasa Indonesia kok sepertinya agak egois hehehe lagi pula saya niatnya dari awal ingin berbagi cerita ke sebanyak-banyak manusia.

Jadi apakah maksud dibalik saya tiba-tiba nulis post ini? Banyak.

Beberapa orang terdekat saya suka (lagi-lagi) protes kenapa saya jarang berbagi pengalaman selama tinggal di negara orang. Karena.. sebetulnya.. saya ngga kepikiran kalau pengalaman-pengalaman saya ini lebih istimewa dari orang lain sehingga patut ditulis di blog. Untuk yang belum kenal saya, saya tinggal di satu flat hampir dua tahun bersama dua orang Jerman (satu laki dan satu perempuan), satu anjing, satu kucing, dan satu kelinci. Mereka ini sudah seperti keluarga saya sendiri, bahkan sepertinya saya lebih sayang mereka daripada adik saya sendiri (ups. ngga kok, bercanda). Mereka ini yang menghibur kalau saya lagi susah, mendengarkan cerita ga penting saya tiap hari, partner olahraga, teman makan pagi/siang/malam dan partner diskusi mulai dari politik, kultur, agama, sampai kenapa orang Jerman Utara suka makan telur yang kuningnya warna orange.
Saya pun cukup sering dapat komentar macam "kok tinggal sama cowok sih, padahal pakai kerudung." atau "ih terus kalau mau sholat gimana kalau ada anjingnya di dalam rumah??" "kan orang bule suka minum/makan babi/bawa pacarnya pulang ke rumah." dan pertanyaan plus pernyataan serupa.
Faktanya, teman serumah saya dua-duanya tidak ada yang minum alkohol di rumah. Bukan karena saya, tapi karena kesadaran mereka sendiri bahwa alkohol bukan sesuatu yang esensial. Kalau ada teman datang mereka memang bawa wine, mereka mau minum juga saya tidak ada masalah, toh ngga ada yang sampai mabuk, muntah-muntah atau ngga bisa balik pulang ke rumah. Di rumah saya juga tidak ada yang makan daging babi. Lagi-lagi bukan karena saya tinggal disitu, tapi karena mereka sayang sekali sama binatang dan kalau ngga terpaksa ngga akan makan daging :) lah, pas banget kan? Saya tidak pernah sengaja cari flat yang orang-orangnya vegetarian juga lho.. tapi saya percaya, kalau orang yang sefrekuensi akan menarik orang lain yang juga sefrekuensi.

Mereka juga partner saya dalam humanitas, bersama mereka saya akhirnya tahu bagaimana rasanya ikut demo di Jerman menuntut hak-hak untuk pengungsi, membantu orang-orang yang mencari perlindungan ini belajar bahasa Jerman, dan lain lain, dan lain lain.. Ini bukan pamrih, cuma saya rasa kalau saya tidak tinggal dengan mereka, mungkin saya ngga akan bisa berkembang dan menjadi seperti sekarang ini.

Saya merasa meskipun mereka belum percaya agama (yang satu baru saja memutuskan keluar gereja dan yang satu lagi mengaku ateis), tapi mereka sudah menerapkan nilai-nilai agama saya tanpa melihat apakah mereka akan mendapat pahala atau tidak, akan masuk surga atau tidak. Justru disitu saya iri, karena mereka sudah jelas melakukan hal-hal tersebut dengan ikhlas meskipun bukan atas nama Allah sementara saya mungkin masih ada secuil rasa ingin diganti kebaikannya oleh Allah entah itu dengan pahala atau hal lainnya. Dan saya sudah sering juga didebat dan dinilai nyeleneh oleh orang, kalau prinsip saya "sebaiknya melakukan sesuatu jangan karena surga dan neraka tapi karena Allah" itu... ya nyeleneh. Lalu saya pikir, kenapa tidak kita lakukan aja dulu dengan bismillah, urusan dapat pahala atau tidak, masuk surga atau neraka itu bukan kuasa kita lagi, kan?

Kenapa saya belajar menghormati keputusan dan kehidupan orang lain serta belajar menjadi manusia yang welas asih dan lebih baik justru dari orang-orang yang dicap oleh banyak orang di negara saya dengan "kafir"? Saya sering sedih kalau mendengar kata tersebut, bahkan menulisnya saja saya kurang suka. Menurut saya, kita sebagai manusia tidak dalam kapasitas mencap seseorang itu "tersesat", "kafir" atau bahkan "salah" karena kebenaran itu datangnya dari Allah saja. Interpretasi kita akan kebenaran itu bukan kebenaran yang sesungguhnya, itu kan hanya opini dan keyakinan kita. Ilmu saya dalam hadits dan Al-Quran memang masih dangkal, tapi kadang saya ngga sampai hati dan jujur aja, sering miris kalau orang-orang yang mungkin hatinya penuh dengan cinta dan kebaikan seperti teman-teman satu flat saya dinilai "kafir" dan harus dijauhi.. lucunya, bahkan teman-teman saya ini sudah bisa menjelaskan kepada orang-orang Jerman lain kenapa saya pakai kerudung dan bahwa dalam kasus saya, itu bukan paksaan dari kaum laki-laki seperti citra perempuan berkerudung di dunia Barat selama ini.

Rasanya saya tidak pantas dipertemukan dengan orang-orang seperti mereka. Rasanya saya selalu kurang bersyukur.. dan rasa-rasa lain yang membuat saya ingin menangis setiap selesai sholat.

Jadi kalau ada yang bertanya kenapa saya sayang sekali dengan mereka atau kalau ada yang menganggap saya terlalu liberal dengan pemikiran-pemikiran beragama saya, saya ngga mau ambil pusing lagi. Toh yang rugi mereka, karena tidak merasakan indahnya bersaudara dalam perbedaan dan kemanusiaan. Justru saya merasa, Allah terlalu baik deh sepertinya sama saya yang bukan apa-apa ini..

Kaiserslautern, November 2015 (Demo gegen Pegida)

"Dia yang bukan saudaramu dalam iman, adalah saudaramu dalam kemanusiaan." - Ali bin Abi Thalib

I discovered spoken word poetry -and Sarah- a few years ago and instantly fell in love with her poems. They speak the truth about human feelings, empowerment and even little things in life. One of my favorite poems of hers ever is this one. This makes me realize that men don't define you as a woman. If they can accept you with the way you define yourself as a woman, they're a keeper!

The Type

If you grow up the type of woman men want to look at,
you can let them look at you.
But do not mistake eyes for hands or windows or mirrors.
Let them see what a woman looks like.
They may have not ever seen one before.

If you grow up the type of woman men want to touch,
you can let them touch you.
Sometimes, it is not you they are reaching for.
Sometimes it is a bottle, a door, a sandwich, a Pulitzer-
another woman.
But their hands found you first.
Do not mistake yourself for a guardian or a muse or a promise
or a victim or a snack.
You are a woman- skin and bones, veins and nerves, hair and sweat.
You are not made out of metaphors, not apologies, not excuses.

If you grow up the type of woman men want to hold,
you can let them hold you.
All day they practice keeping their bodies upright.
Even after all this evolving it still feels unnatural.
Still strains the muscle, hold firms the arms and spine.
Only some men will want to learn what it feels like to curl
themselves into a question mark around you,
admit they do not have the answers they thought they would
by now.
Some men will want to hold you like the answer.
You are not the answer.
You are not the problem.
You are not the poem or the punch-line or the riddle or the joke.

Woman, if you grow up the type men want to love,
you can let them love you.
Being loved is not the same thing as loving.
When you fall in love, it is discovering the ocean after years of
puddle jumping.
It is realizing you have hands.
It is reaching for the tightrope when the crowds have all gone 
home.

Do not spend time wondering if you are the type of women
men will hurt.
If he leaves you with a car alarm heart, you learn to sing along.
It is hard to stop loving the ocean even after he has left you
gasping- "salty."
So forgive yourself for the decisions you've made.
The ones you still call mistakes when you tuck them in at night.
And know this:
Know you are the type of woman who is searching for a place
to call yours.
Let the statues crumble.
You have always been the place.
You are a woman who can build it yourself.
You are born to build.

Hi i'm back in the kitchen! Or back to baking, to be precise. I've been looking for the perfect banana bread recipe but then I realized I don't have a loaf tin so I decided to bake the banana bread as muffins, hence: banana bread muffins.

I wouldn't say it's the perfect recipe, but this one tastes surprisingly good, actually. Consindering that it's vegan, I'd say it's worth the try. I wanted to bake a non-vegan banana bread but then I realized (again) I don't have any eggs so I just tried the vegan version instead.

What you'll need:
225 grams of all-purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
100 grams brown sugar
3 very ripe bananas
75ml vegetable or sunflower oil
3 tsp cinnamon
Crushed nuts or raisins

Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Mix the flour, baking powder and cinnamon. In a separate bowl, mash the bananas and combine with the oil and sugar. Combine the wet and dry ingredients together, add your nuts or raisins. Put it in muffin tin about three-quarter full. Bake in oven for about 20-25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Enjoy!

I like to eat them with sunflower butter, it gives them nuttier flavor that I love. Happy baking!

Well hello!

I am back in Germany, was greeted last weekend by very warm and sunny days here in Kaiserslautern and currently living with some of the most positive and nicest people I've ever met here. There's sooo much to be thankful for! :)

This time I left home with lots of hope and positive feeling, and hopefully it will stay so for a long, long time..
Also I have to admit that I've struggled so hard for the last 8 months or so and it feels kinda nice to finally be able to relax (a little bit, just a little bit) before things go crazy again.

"Every man can transform the world from one of monotony and drabness to one of excitement and adventure." - Irving Wallace

Rara xx

Hi, hello, how are you guys doing?
So today's post is gonna be one of those rambling/random thought posts since life has been really crazy these days. I never really talked about this on the blog or any social medias, but I've spent this whole year preparing for my study abroad. Wait, this might sound good for those of you who don't know me, but it's been really exhausting taking care of everything by myself. What's so bad about studying abroad? You can go to a lot of new places, meet people, travel, have a promising job after graduating, etc, etc...

First of all, you need to know that there are tons of stuff to prepare before you're going to apply. Tons of documents, translations, e-mails, and that costs not a small amount of money too. But I don't want to talk about it in details. Mainly, it's a looong and exhausting process since I don't have that much money to pay people to do things for me. And it wouldn't be good for me too since I also have to do it all by myself when I live there.

There's been many difficulties and challenges throughout the year, but I somehow managed to deal with it, thanks to friends and family who helped me. The first couple of times I encountered some problems, I went easily into stress mode. I was afraid, over-thinking and worried if it doesn't work out. Up until a couple of days ago, when I realized my visa might not be ready in time. This means I wouldn't be able to take the test needed to go to college since there's only one date for the examination. I was devastated and worrying about all the efforts I've given and how long I've been waiting for this. So many thoughts were swimming in my head, I blamed the embassy, I blamed myself, I blamed the system, I was trapped with my own fears of failing and letting people down but then I realized that it doesn't bring anything good just to blame anyone.

The only thing I can do is to make peace with myself and accept whatever is going to happen. I've given everything I could, and if it doesn't work out, maybe it's just not meant for me. Maybe there's a whole other plan waiting for me, even if it means I must wait another year to go to college. I'm so glad that in tough times, you can always tell who would stay and support you through thick and thin and who wouldn't. If plan A doesn't work, then make a plan B. I'm supposed to leave in less than a week and I still haven't got my visa, I haven't booked a ticket nor packed my things. Maybe I should start packing today, just in case ;-) So, yes, I've learnt that you just need to let some things go if it doesn't work like you want it to be and you have no power over it. Sometimes what lays in front of you is a thousand times better than what you really want but you just couldn't see it yet. Now my heart feels much lighter than before, I sometimes meditate just to clear my mind up a little bit, even if it's only for 10 minutes.

If you're having the same problem like me, if anything doesn't work out like you wanted it to be -whether it's relationship/school/life in general- know that the hard times will always pass and you'll thank yourself that you decided to forgive yourself and let it go.

My heart is at ease knowing that what was meant for me will never miss me, and that what misses me is never meant for me. - Imam Shafi'i.

Rara xx

Hi there! This post is definitely gonna be one of my favorite because I was finally able to have a proper holiday, with my favorite people, doing one of my favorite things; road trip! It was bit of a bummer that not all 7 of us could go but we had tremendous amount of fun with loads of laughter, sore feet, camp food, monkeys and back aches from sitting too long. But hey, that's what we signed up for, right?

So I went to Jember, East Java with my 4 best friends and my brother, in search of adventure and beach camping. Turned out this place has a lot to offer but we only managed to get to 2 of the beautiful beaches and built our camp by the sea that night. After 5 hours of car karaoke, we finally arrived. The first beach that we went to was Puger. It's still super clean and we were the only visitors at that time apart from 2 other people so we got the beach for ourselves! This is the kind of beach that you'd find in Bali, but with no crowds, all the disgusting trashes and overpriced touristic stuff. We stayed there until the sun sets, break our fast and then we drove to the next beach: Papuma.

This beach. Is. The. Bomb. We've wanted to go since a loooong time ago when we were still in school but the opportunity never came. So when we finally realized that we can't see each other that much anymore, we started to plan a trip together and this place is definitely worth it. Because it was already dark, we had to ask the locals the way to the beach and we drove through this little bumpy road with no lightings whatsoever hahaha
We arrived safely at the beach which obviously we couldn't see because it was dark and found the perfect spot to set up our tents. And I tell you what, the sky was... soooo breathtakingly beautiful with abundance of shining stars and the calming sound of the waves. I just felt so lucky. After our tents are done, we cooked dinner which ended up ridiculously acceptable hahahaha I wouldn't tell you our cooking story in details, but it involved saliva dripping down the noodles and other impossible things. But heck yes we survived.
So the next morning we woke up to a bunch of monkeys looking for food. They kind of raided the rest of our food from last night so it wasn't a big deal. It was funny though, we didn't know what was happening at first because those monkeys appeared out of nowhere and walking towards us suspiciously so we all hid in the tents and after a while we realized how ridiculous we were. I mean... hiding from monkeys? Seriously?!
It rained just a little bit that morning and we couldn't see the sea because of the thick fogs. A little disappointed, we hoped for a better weather, packed our stuff and stayed at the shore until the sun comes out again. Luckily, the sun did come out and the fogs were already gone after a few hours and we could finally see the beach and its stunning views. After attempting to build a sand castle and failing, we decided to play with the waves until around noon. Soaking wet, tired and happy, we cleaned ourselves up and headed home. Too bad it was over, but I'm pretty sure this is not the end of our adventures.

So I guess that's all for now. I'm so sad that my time with my loved ones are drastically limited, since we used to see each other everyday and now we barely meet throughout the year. But the best thing is, no matter how long I've been away, nothing's changed. They're still the goofballs I used to know and we can literally tell each other everything. Distance makes the hearts grow fonder, right? Till another time then!

Rara xx