A hundred years from now.

I finished this book yesterday. Sumpah habis merembes air mata! I tau, memang sungguh kurang sopan sekali membaca buku sedih serupa ini sambil berguling di katil dengan air mata penuh di muka. Tapi the book is a wonderful read. It reminds me a lot of the kind of sister I am, and the kind of sister I wish to be and the kind of sister I hope I'd never have to be. I've asked myself many questions along the way, half of them are still unanswered even after I finish the book, but somehow that's OK. Because I don't need them now. Not yet.

The book touched my heart at all the right places. Feels great discovering that you can feel a lot of people at the same time. And for the I-don't-know-how-many-th time, I envy Picoult's ability to write extraordinary stories using the very ordinary, everyday vocabulary. OK, envy is an understatement. I want to be able to write like her. I want to have a copy of her storytelling gift imprinted in my DNA. I want to leave the kind of impression she leaves on me, on my readers. I want that much. And maybe so much more, too.

I was never her fan until about 2 or 3 years ago, when I bought The Tenth Circle (my very first Jodi Picoult book). And then it becomes an obsession - wanting to write like her. Because I realized that after one or two chapter, her writing made me feel so small. Because she seems to know so much. Because it seems like all the characters in her book had personally told her what to write about them. Because they are so real. And I don't have 'real' in my stories. I need 'real'. Badly.

Reading her stories make me dream. Or to be exact, it makes my list of dreams longer. It also reminded me of what I used to want when I was younger; of my selfish wishes when my brain wasn't functioning the way it does now, when my heart could want so many things at a time. She made me look back into my childhood, which is something I rarely do. Because of the regret and heartbreaks that were graffitied on the walls of my past. But when I did so yesterday, it didn't feel so bad anymore. I'm still able to dream. I bet I'm still able to make more of them come true in the near future. But then again, how near in the future are we talking about? How near is near?

So My Sister's Keeper made me ask myself a lot of things. One of them was something as simple as 'What did I used to want to be?' I remembered how I used to want to be a doctor. I wanted to be a mermaid. I wanted to be a witch. I had wished to be a comic artist. I wanted to own a bakery. I wanted to be a florist. I once wanted to be a surgeon too, at one point in my life. And as far as I can remember (oh, I remember a lot), I had never once thought of, 'What if I'd never make it to university?' or 'What if I'd never get to finish high school?'

All my dreams were things so far ahead they were beautiful just thinking about them. So when I read about Kate Fitzgerald who had almost nothing to look forward to because she could die anytime, I felt terrible. Because a part of me felt incredibly sorry for her, for people like her, for families of people like her...and the horrible part of me was thankful that leukemia didn't happen to me, or anyone in my family. I don't know if that was simply being human. I just know that I don't like the way I felt.

Now I'm a teacher. I teach students how to write correct English the way I know it. I teach them how to speak correct English the way I know it. And I have new dreams, too. For me. For them. For many others. I want to see them become the people they're meant to be. I want to be a part of that circle in their lives; a part that would mean something when they reach the future. I want to be able to smile when they do. 

I also want to have a personal library. I want to build a house for my cats. I want to own a bookstore the size of Kinokuniya and I wanna name it Shaariah's. I want to have a family. I want to have kids. I want to be famous. I want to sign my own books my fans bought. And this list can go on for another hundred miles if I want it to.

I don't know if any of them would come true. I think some of them might. Some of them might not. Some might even be replaced with new ones. But there's one that will always stay in the list, and it'll keep coming true every single day for the rest of my life. No matter what. 

A hundred years from now, I'd still wanna be Nur Farhinaa's and Muhammad Nazif Aimaan's sister.

That much I know.

Am I still being read?

OK, first of all, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for being gone for quite a while (Alright, alright! I have been gone for several centuries, I know, and I apologize!). I'm sorry for not writing even a single bit of a sentence worthy of anyone's reading time. I'm sorry for not returning the visits. I'm sorry for not dropping comments on your blogs. I'm sorry for being gone. I wouldn't bet that you guys (if I still have any reader) were waiting for my making a comeback or anything – my head isn't that big, you know? But I still feel guilty for not writing because I sort of feel like some people might still wanna read my written self-centeredness and insane ego. So here I am, back from the blogosphere reign of Anubis. I'm as alive as you are.

Right, I've been living life like crazy – shopping for my very first Camelot retelling production, making the props and costumes for the play, collecting money, using the money, going to school at 7 in the morning and going back at night for two consecutive months, coaching a drama team for the Camelot retelling (I don't wanna talk about the competition, though), teaching (of course~), breaking the hearts of some people, cracking the heads of some other people, marking exam papers – you know what, this is even craz – who wants to read this anyway? 

So yeah, I've been working myself excessively before this was published so you could say that I finally have some time to be spent with myself at home now that it's school break. Hehe. With my books. Which is something I have almost gone stupid missing doing. And lately, I sort of feel like a different person. I guess the two months spent with the kids changed some parts of me. Some significant parts or me. And I like it. I really do.

So school break started. I managed to finish The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan. Found out that I like Carter a little lesser now, and I like Sadie a lot more, and I think Anubis is hot. Haha. Bast didn't get to shine so much this time, but it's still OK. Walt is quite cool, so I thought that if Sadie didn't get to be with her 5000-year-old crush, she could be with Walt. I sure hope he doesn't have to die. And page 91 drove me insane because Carter thought he saw a flying horse in the sky of Manhattan, which could have probably been Black Jack in the Percy Jackson series, or any of his chicken pony friends – so the book was automatically an awesome read. 

Before The Throne of Fire, I was reading I Am Number Four, which was promising at the beginning and turned out terrible as I went on. If you think Bella Swan sucks, you haven't read about Sarah Hart. And John Smith couldn't have been more uninteresting as a major character. He's downright annoying and selfish and not so smart. A total waste of narrating pages if you ask me.

I like strong guys in books. You don't have to able to fly or shoot laser beams from your eyes or lift an entire continent into the sun to be considered strong – just at least please do have a reason for loving someone; other than because she's an ex-cheerleader who happens to like photography and doesn't have superpowers. And those are the lamest of reasons to fall in love with anyone - he sort of reminds me of that walking disco ball who fell for Bella because he couldn't read her mind (which is a major Duh! since she couldn't have had one). Like, please have a mind that works, for once. Or try to have a personality that makes sense.

After that I managed to finish Maximum Ride: Angel. It was such a painful read I don't even wanna talk about it. But if you'd care for a reflection, you can read it here. Though I have to warn you that it is extremely biased and personal and selfish. And I know that's nothing new for those who know me.

So two months, around three books, I really need to kick myself. That's like what, epic laziness? I figured that I need to do something about it, and I'm doing it. I'm reading. Currently I'm speed-reading the second book of Tunnels, Deeper by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams. It's a good one. The details, the dialogues, the narration and the character development – I'm satisfied with almost everything about it. So I guess this is going to be a good one.

*takes a deeps breath*

Two months of nothing and a comeback of biased reviews, I hope that would mean something to my readers. I had been through some really hard days; days I don't even wanna remember. I'd gotten involved in messes that might have reduced around ten years of my entire lifespan before I got out of them. I'd pissed some really important people off. I've made some enemies accidentally. I'd necessarily stabbed some people (not in the back, of course). And I have had my heart broken to pieces so small it'll take I don't know what to have it mended (and no, it's NOT a guy).

I won't be gone for so long again, I hope. I'll try hard. For those who waited, thanks a lot. That means so much to me. For the recent followers who got surprised at how random this blog is updated, I'm sorry. I'll try to be around more often.

Now, how is everyone? 

Anything new?