New Project: Another Chance

Jadi, terinspirasi dari project gue dan kawan-kawan yang sekarang masih berjalan (Lingering Tale), gue juga akan membuat project cerita bersambung di blog ini, yang diprakarsai dan ditulis gue sendiri. Judulnya adalah "Another Chance".

Ceritanya berdasarkan dari teori (atau hipotesis?) "Swampman", yang menjelaskan bahwa ada seseorang berjalan di tanah basah lalu tersambar petir, tubuhnya hancur terbakar, lalu tiba-tiba ada petir kedua menyambar di dekat tempat orang tadi tersambar, lalu tubuhnya terbentuk lagi. Pertanyaannya, apakah orang itu adalah orang yang sama? Melalui hipotesis itu, gue membawakan cerita gue. Pemeran utamanya adalah Kate Jones. Penasaran? Ini sepotong excerpt untuk chapter pertamanya. Selamat membaca!

***

What if you have a second chance to live?
What if it leads you to impossible circumstances?

Those are questions especially made for Kate.

Kate is your typical, 20-something, adventurous working lady. Living and moving normally in New York, she got used to walk to move everywhere. But that middle night doesn't strike her a pity.

Kate got struck by lightning as she walked to her parents' home in order to surprise them for her mother's birthday. Rather than a birthday surprise, their parents got a surprise because an hour later, Kate pops in front of her parents' house, with a cop and a blanket to cover her body.

She survived.

Yet the cops and doctors around the place got very intrigued about her survival, that they chose to make her a guinea pig, an experiment tool, for the science of consciousness.

She would probably spend her whole life in the fully-facilitated, house-like hospital.

But will she stay there forever? Is it all that it costs to survive, to have a second chance?

Or, is there a second chance?

If you are interested in design

Lately I've been having some fun designing. It's actually just some refreshments by a simple online designing class from this website called Method of Action.

It's fun! You are requested to make some designs with a few tutorials and some other users will judge how you do it. I kinda like how things actually turn out, and how interactive it is.

If you really love designing and in need of refreshment, visit the website at www.method.ac. It's really refreshing and addicting! (I can't help to say that)

Henry Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley

Ok. Probably some of you who's been reading my Twitter knows who this guy is and what happens to me about it.

Yep. If you read about him in Wikipedia, you might not get any interest in him. He's a damn scientist (or actually, a chemist) who died because of getting shot by a Turkey sniper. Not that interesting.

But actually, I was studying this part of chemistry, and actually his picture is in one of my textbook pages. And somehow I got disturbed by the fact that his picture got me interested. He was the one of the people who made the basics for periodic tables, and yet he still looked young. Maybe he was actually old, and it was his picture when he was young, I thought.

And he looks really nice. First time I saw his picture, actually I recognized him first as Fun.'s vocalist! He looked awesomely cool with that expression. But anyway, I thought that it wasn't important.

But sessions passed, and every time I passed that page of his picture, I couldn't stop to gaze at his picture and thought, 'what a good-looking man!'

So today I checked about him in Wikipedia.

And I couldn't breathe.

He was awesome. Really smart (I think he's a genius), totally nice (I mean, why would someone took away their part in inventing something damn important to participate in a war? And also he's the school's favorite!), and he died at a VERY YOUNG AGE! I mean, 27 is not a good age to die! And yet he was so brilliant that actually if he hasn't died, people were going to award him Nobel.

I was in awestruck. He died while serving the country in a war.

And it hits me through like one of Fun.'s song, "Some Nights".

Oh. My. God. For heavens sake, I like this guy! I mean, literally. I really really like him.

Oh God. I should probably stop.

(And yeah. That's the picture I'm talking about and that's HIM! Totally awesome guy. Okay. Stop.)

I'm lost in the crowd.

That's it.

A Matter of Heart

Akhir-akhir ini aku rakus membaca buku. Aku membaca 3 buku sekaligus, yaitu Larasati (Pramoedya Ananta Toer), A Death In Vienna (Frank Tallis), dan yang terakhir, Set-Apart Femininity (Leslie Ludy). Beberapa hari yang lalu, aku membaca sepenggal dari buku Set-Apart Femininity. Satu bagian menjelaskan saat Leslie Ludy melahirkan anak pertamanya, Hudson. Saat itu bukanlah saat yang menyenangkan bagi Leslie Ludy. Proses melahirkannya berlangsung dengan berantakan, dan baru beberapa lama dari kelahirannya, Hudson sakit parah karena tidak mampu menerima ASI dari Leslie Ludy. Saat itu seharusnya Leslie Ludy sudah kalap dan frustrasi berat, namun tenyata yang terjadi ialah sebaliknya.

Membaca cerita ini, aku sering ingat kepada saat-saat yang "gila" di sekolah. Rencana presentasi tugas gagal total. Lupa bawa pelajaran. Catatan pelajaran yang penting hilang semalam sebeum ulangan. Ulangan dadakan. Masalah pertemanan. Masalah keluarga. Atau gabungan dari semuanya menjadi satu. 

Seringkali aku merasa seperti mau pingsan saja, menghilang, masuk ke lubang, sakit, apa kek, supaya aku tidak harus menghadapi hari itu. Pusing, frustrasi, perasaan campur aduk. Doa komat-kamit diucapkan. "Tuhan, semoga ini dibatalkan", "Tuhan, semoga guru itu tidak ada", "Tuhan, semoga si anu tidak marah-marah lagi", dan lain-lain. Terkadang beberapa doa tidak terjadi. Aku lalu bertanya, "Tuhan, kok doaku nggak dikabulkan sih?"

Seringkali aku menganggap ini karena kesalahanku. Beberapa merupakan hasil dari kelalaianku. Mungkin hukuman dari Tuhan. Namun, jika hal itu bukan berasal dari kesalahanku, aku jadi kesal juga. Apa yang salah? Aku meminta agar aku terhindar dari masalah yang asalnya bukan dariku. Kenapa tak ada perubahan yang lebih baik sesuai waktunya? Pertanyaan mencuat-cuat dari otakku. Aku mulai meragukan Tuhan. Tuhan, aku 'kan berdoa supaya aku tidak mengalami hal yang seperti ini lagi, tapi kenapa ini terus terjadi?

Namun sekarang aku mengerti. Tuhan tidak selamanya bekerja dengan hal yang fisik. Bagi Tuhan, hal yang utama adalah yang di dalam ini, di hati. Ketika hati sudah tenang, Tuhan mulai kerja dengan yang fisik. Seperti cerita Leslie Ludy tadi. Saat ia hampir mencapai batas, ia berdoa agar Tuhan yang mengurus segalanya. Mungkin beberapa menit kemudian anaknya tidak sembuh, tetapi hatinya tenang. Ada suatu kekuatan yang menguatkan Leslie Ludy, untuk tidak panik dan kalap. Dan memang, setelah hatinya damai, dalam waktu 24 jam Hudson pulih dan sehat kembali. 

Setelah berkali-kali mengingat-ngingat dan memikirkan, memang benar juga bahwa Tuhan selalu menjawab doa kita. Kusadari pada waktu hal-hal yang tak diinginkan itu terjadi, seringkali perasaanku tidak sehancur dan sepanik saat aku memprediksi hal buruk yang terjadi. Kadang saja aku bandel dan tidak berdoa. Lalu masalah datang. Lalu frustrasi muncul. Dan aku menyalahkan Tuhan.

Hari itu (dan hari ini), aku belajar 2 hal, bahwa kerap kali Tuhan menjawab doa kita bukan dengan cara pikiran kita, dan bahwa mengikut Tuhan, percaya Tuhan, cara Tuhan bekerja, itu bukanlah dengan cara yang selamanya bersifat fisik dan logika, tetapi dengan cara yang bersifat rasa, yang mengutamakan hati. Following and believing God is not about something physical, it's the matter of heart.

Now that's supernatural!

Yuli