Life goes on!

I'm a bit sad to see my friends changing their profile picture to the 'rainbow-filter' profile picture.

The wise thing to do now is...stay positive!

My boyfriend said that the situation during the first Christians' era was far worse than this. Thus, I would agree that we have hope! Of course I will pray more for the US, and most importantly, I need to pray more for Singapore and Indonesia. While most people just look at the Supreme Court's decision as a victory for equality and a 'progress', I guess few of my friends realized how irrational the decision was from the law and public policy point of view. Come over here for a good reading about this topic!

I think the urgent thing to do now is to wake my friends up. Many of us still think that it's something that is only happening far far away in the US, or thinking that our Asian society is still conservative, we sit back and relax. If we look at the timeline, it took only about 53 years (considering that the spread of information was not as fast as now) from the decriminalization of homosexual act to the Supreme Court's decision now. Looking at Singapore case, the PinkDot movement started in 2009, and growing number of people gathered every year for the sake of solidarity for the people with homosexual tendencies. The problem again, again, and again is... you can respect and honor people with homosexual tendencies without agreeing with the homosexual relationships, but people think that to support and care for them, you must let them ''marry''. With the fast spread information and social media that is not neutral, I foresee that it will take less than 53 years for Singapore to be in where US is now if we don't buckle up. Anyway, I promise to be positive, we have HOPE!

I would really like to challenge people who wear pink shirts on PinkDot gathering every year, and people who change their profile picture with the rainbow-filter, do you really know what you are proud of? Have you done your research? Another friend sent me various articles that claim that children who were adopted by homosexual parents were not disadvantaged compared to heterosexual parents. However, none of these ''articles'' were scientific articles. People stopped at reading an article that cites another article that reviews another article @.@ When I finally found a convincing paper on this topic, the no-difference in psychological problems were between homosexual parents and divorced families. There was indeed a higher likelihood of having psychological problems when we compare the children of homosexual parents from the intact heterosexual parents.

I am also surprised that not many people talk about the children when they celebrate this 'victory'. Have you read this and this or this? Recently I have been playing with my boyfriend's niece, and my mind flew to all the developmental psychology studies when I saw his niece sat on him while he did push up and screamed ''up-down-up-down'' while she ran to me to pretend play Goldilocks and the three bears. I can't remember the titles anymore but there are tons of studies showing the complex relationship between motherhood, fatherhood, and child development. It's as simple as how daddy tends to carry the baby outwards, and do rough play with the babies, and how mother affects daughter's body image and so on and so forth. It's complex. I just cannot comprehend how you would allow two mothers and two fathers to adopt children, after you know how unique the role of each parent is. No matter how strong and muscular the other mother is, and how gentle the other father is, can you really imagine a ''mother'' brought the daughter for a father-daughter-date and talked to her about how a guy should behave?

Anyway, enjoy the celebration! For me, life goes on :) If one truly thinks that #Lovewins, one will think about the children too. If one truly thinks that #Lovewins, one will stand up against people who send hatred messages or actions to priests and pastors even though he or she is agree with gay marriage. If one truly thinks that #Lovewins, there is no need to sue a baker who doesn't want to bake for your wedding (there are so many bakers out there, my love to my partner is not affected by one person's rejection). Love is not only for my partner, but also my neighbor and his or her God.

Much homework needs to be done to wake people up before it's too late.

What kind of love that #Lovewins proclaims?

For us who live in Singapore and Indonesia, what can we do? First, if you are Christians or Catholics, please stop saying ''the Bible said so" or "the Pope said so". It's a good time to read up. Second, pray. Third, be a better family member. If you are dating, prepare your marriage well, as our children are facing harder times soon. If you are married, strengthen your marriage, as that is the most beautiful testimony that you can give.

Letters from the past

I've found these stacks of letters in my old bag in my bedroom in Indonesia.

please ignore the mess behind...The blue box contains Barbie doll dresses @.@

This photo excludes Christmas cards from my primary school days.

I threw most of the Christmas cards except a few. Being primary school student, we wrote little on Christmas cards =P

However, the letters were too hard to be thrown away. I washed the bag and moved the letters to a nice cute tin. Unfortunately, the tin was a little bit small as it can only contain C6-size envelopes. I kept the DL-size envelopes in my other memorabilia-shoebox.

I used to have pen friends. Initially I only planned to keep one letter from each friend. I think I only had two or three pen friends. The memorable one was one from Bali. She sent me a Westlife poster. It was my first celebrity poster, as my dad put a poster of ministers' name and photos instead of celebrity photos on the wall. I am really curious, what if I send them letters now? In this facebook era. Are my pen friends still staying in the same house? Well, you know..Indonesia is a huge country.

I had another type of letter, which is from friends from my old school. I changed school when I was Primary 4. There were two or three friends whom I wrote letters to from the primary school and there was another friend from English course who has the same birthday as me =P

I can't remember how and why I stopped corresponding with my pen friends. I guess it is because of the busy schedule in secondary school? I suddenly miss the experience of writing letters. At the moment, I correspond through postcards mainly with my two friends, both are in UK. It's quite funny because recently I don't travel, so I don't have a nice postcard to write. I went to a bookstore with my colleague and I complained to her that I didn't like the postcards. She's a good photographer and I told her, "I think your photo is much better to be a postcard!" Afterwards, she let me choose her photos and we printed three 'postcards', very beautiful photos of Singapore landscape!!

I still have the habit of writing Christmas cards and as I travel overseas sometimes, I write postcards. I think these hard copy letters are really irreplaceable. Nothing can replace the excitement of waiting for letters and of thoughtfully put my thoughts down in writing. Unlike writing emails, which provides me the option to click backspace or delete, I need to think carefully before I write and I need to plan what I want to write (most of the times I run out of space). I guess I should write postcards more often. Hahaha. It's a good exercise for me to be less impulsive.

Things I wish I knew when I was a teenager

Vacation at home in Indonesia is not complete without cleaning my room. There are always things to throw as I always have a hard time to be detached from memorabilia, clothes, or papers. As I grow old(er), some things lose the value and I manage to reduce them. For example, last year I reduced one-box-per-high-school-year of memorabilia (total of 3 boxes) to one-box-for-3-yeards-of-high-school.

As I read my doodles in my agenda and diary or what other people wrote about me, I came to realize how lucky I am to have known some people now, particularly my spiritual director and people who give me formation classes.

So here they are: list of things I wish I knew when I was a teenager:

I wish I knew earlier...
1. that I can and should attend frequent confession, and that it would give a great benefit for me.

When I was about to receive Sacrament of Confirmation, a priest did tell me that sins are like thorns in the flesh (my last confession before that was in Primary 6!). Thus I somehow knew that I need to attend Confession frequently, but the people around me generally go twice a year and unlike in Singapore, priests do not sit in confessional 15minutes before Mass. I guess it's because of the limited number of priests in parishes in Indonesia.

Furthermore, when I read what people wrote about me, I became more aware on how bad my temperament was (or is to be precise). It's there. It's always been there, just that the manifestations change a bit. When I was primary school, my mom often scolded me and joked a bit that my lips became 5centimeters longer when I showed black face =P Now of course I don't do that kind of thng, but I do show black face when I'm corrected or unhappy with silly little things.

2. that it is important to guard my heart

You know..those silly period when you had crush here and there?
I think I was a bit emotionally attached and wasting too much time dreaming or day-dreaming.
Thankfully my parents never ally with idleness and my brother's and my schedule is always full, but still I would love to know earlier that it is good to not feel too emotionally attached with other people.

3. that I need to know about home-making

I study study study study study and 'only' study when I was teenager.

I am really grateful that at least my mom make sure that I wash my dishes =P but I only iron my own clothes on regular basis in university @.@ (unlike my friend) My own mom is a home-maker since I was 9 years old, so I never despised home-making, but I really little knowledge in home-making skills and need to catch up a lot now. hahaha.

4. that I need to choose good books

I was looking through the books that I read and I realized that I could've spent the time reading better books. I only started reading Indonesian literature such as Pramoedya Ananta Toer's works in university (ironically, through a module called Modern Indonesian Literature in a foreign university!). I didn't know that there were books that were considered 'classics'. My friend is a librarian and when we had garage sale last year, she got the job to select books that were not so appropriate to sell. Some of the titles were actually popular on bookstores and that experience opened my eyes and made me hope that I knew these earlier. Once we organized a discussion on 'how to choose good books'. I really like the explanation that my friend gave. We only have limited time on earth and there are so many good books to read! Why would we waste time to read bad books? Another explanation is similar with our physical health, we try not to eat junk food on purpose. We also obviously do not want to take poison. The same thing works for our mind too. We don't want to poison our mind with books that can be harmful to our mindset.

That's all for now. Hahaha.

Anyway, get up and start again =) Happy mid-year!

The value of freedom

I've spent a few days in Indonesia and I'll be back in Singapore on Saturday. Looking at my brother preparing his undergraduate final project defense, I look back and thank God that my parents have taught both of us a great lesson about freedom.

I only heard the notion of 'freedom-with-responsibility' in university (unfortunately), but my parents have taught both of us about it since young. While many parents force their kids to study in school of medicine, my mom talked to my brother and questioned him when my brother was wondering if he should be a doctor, if he really wants to be a doctor or he actually likes other things. My brother thought again and realized that he did not really want to be a doctor and at the end he chose architecture. When I was about to graduate from high school, other parents 'complained' to my mom "Why do you let your daughter choose psychology?" (as I was from science stream). My mother said in a cool manner, "It's her life, so let her choose what she wants". My parents just want us to finish what we start.

This may sound very simple. However, it's not that simple for other people (or parents). I've seen people suffer because their parents force them to choose a particular major, or not to choose a particular boyfriend/girlfriend (without strong reasons). I've seen relatives who were forced to study during high school, and once they are in college and live far from their parents, they enjoy their new 'freedom' by not studying!

When the priests talk about the importance about teaching children how to use their freedom responsibly, I always remember my parents. They are really an example for me and a good reminder for me (I can be a controlling person at times!), that learning how to use freedom with responsibility is really important! Take the freedom away and the kids will be handicapped :(