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Sentimental Hours

'Twas a car ride at night and old tunes from a band.  Looking out, raindrops raced on the window glass. Houses passed, red bricks and orange lights. Messages sent to radios, probably were never heard. And I dreamt of becoming, but never being. 'Twas a lazy afternoon and indescribable longing. A poem hastily scribed, of a girl  peeking from behind the curtain.  There you were, a boy of pale face, of mismatched socks, of silly attire. For a while you lived there, a fixture of short future. And I dreamt of becoming, but never being. You are a thousand things that were and never were :  The smell of bookstores, Murakami on the shelves, Spanish Romance from a music box, withered messages in a bottle, a smiling face on the screen, unfinished poetry written on tattered pages. Still I only dreamt of becoming, and never being. Bandung, 15 April 2020 Vera F. Maharani

Day #1 : 10 Things That Makes Me Happy (PART 2)

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Greetings, random lurkers  of the dark alleys of internet, it is nice to see you again. I hope you are not waiting everyday for my post, because I have been cheating on this challenge by not posting in consecutive days. But trust me, I have prepared this post for quite some time.  So let's just forget my inconsistency, and on to the part 2, shall we? Credit : This post was written (and posted) after urging from Aulia Dewantari. Go check her entries here .  For the first part of my post, click here . 6.Germany win in a major competition Actually it doesn't have to be major competition. My mood escalates drastically every time the German national football team win a match, no matter how trivial that match is. You can imagine how ecstatic I was when Germany won the 2014 World Cup. One of the major reasons why I think 2014 is among the best year of my life so far. Some of you might think, why Germany? That, my friend, is a hard question. You might need to subje

Day #1 : 10 Things That Makes Me Happy (PART 1)

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Greetings, random lurker of the dark alleys of world wide web, I welcome thee. I was tempted to revive this dormant blog after I read my friend Aulia ' s challenge post. If you happen to be (somehow) enlightened/entertained/experience any kind of positive influence from this post, please go check her post here and thank her. Considering so many negative things happen -globally, locally, and personally-  it is necessary to remember things that makes me happy. But, good gracious, who would think that it would be so hard? Well, for me, at least. Of course, there are a lot of things/moments that induced some sort of positive affect within me, but was that really happiness? Did I genuinely feel it or did I just trick myself into feeling it because I think I should? Was it counted as happiness only if I am aware of it when it happened, or is it okay if I realized it in retrospect? What is happiness, really? Well, I decided not to overthink it further and just wrote down thi

I am on Wattpad : Proof of Vera's changed allegiance?

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So, Sebuah Novel Yang Belum Selesai is now live on Wattpad. Yeah, saya tahu. " KOK GITU SIH VER? FICTIONPRESS APA KABAR? JADI GAK AKAN DIPAKE LAGI AKUN FICTIONPRESSNYA? " Belum ada yang nanya kayak gitu sih, tapi kebayang aja kalau para pembaca di fictionpress pada tahu soal ini, akan muncul pertanyaan yang senada. Karena saya orangnya penuh persiapan (?), saya udah bikin jawaban sebelum ada yang bertanya. Jawabannya adalah : Nggak juga. Saya bakal terus nulis di fictionpress. Fictionpress adalah tempat "publikasi" pertama saya, dan saya sudah kadung sayang. Iya, saya orangnya emang baperan. Fictionpress masih jadi tempat yang paling oke untuk dapat feedback. Memang pembaca Indonesia rada sepi, tapi alhamdulillah saya sering banget dapat review. Dan reviewnya juga mendalam.  I love short reviews, but I love longer, thoughtful ones even more. Walaupun saya masih rada kurang tanggap membalas review, pembaca-pembaca baik terus aja ada. Dan lumayan banyak pe

(Day Zero Project) Sing Karaoke with Friends : DONE

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See my full list of 101 things to do in 1001 Days in Day Zero Project I always ranted that I do not have enough time to blog. Due to the past 4 days-long holidays, I (kind of) don't have that excuse anymore. So here it is, a long overdue post I should have posted MONTHS ago. Singing karaoke with friends is one of the easiest thing on my Day Zero list -I am bound to do it anyway at a certain point of the year. My closest group of friends and I are not that creative in thinking up what to do during our meet up; karaoke is a regular part of our activity-repertoire . However, I figured this would be a less intimidating way to start my 101-things-challenge, and wouldn't it be fun to go to karaoke with different group of friends? Less Afgan, Raisa, and Bruno Mars for a change. I mean, I still love them, but a little variety would be nice. Since this is one of the easiest things to do on my list, it is not fair to just perform this once. Thus, I have done this three

Aishiteru - Kizuna (a.k.a. The Movie That Made Me Feel Like A Stone-Hearted Cyborg)

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Aishiteru~ Kizuna (I Love You~ Bonds) DVD Cover It's been a while since the last time I posted my Monday with Masaki reviews. I kind of miss fangirling in public writing about it, and I still have some unwatched Okada Masaki's movies lying around, so here it is! This is actually a TV special, continuation from the drama Aishiteru~ Kaiyo (2009) . I haven’t watched the drama, so I was a bit worried that I could not follow the storyline easily. Turned out that it can be enjoyed on its own. All the needed background information from the original drama was summarized briefly at the beginning by Sano Shiro , who played the father of a murdered child in the original drama. Er…a murdered child, you say? Yes, you read that right. Aishiteru~ Kaiyo was about a 5th grader who killed a 2nd grader, and how their families were shattered after the event. It seems like a very emotional drama, and according to Sano Shiro, it made the casts contemplated a lot about th

2016 resolution #1: Actually finishing things on the resolution list

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picture source Happy New Year dear readers! Well, it is already 2 days after New Year, but whatever. I used to be really excited over New Year. When I was younger, it felt great to stay up late with my cousins, just chatting about childish stuff. The midnight countdown moment was something to wait for, and the fireworks were quite a sight. And afterwards, we would be busy sending happy new year texts to our friends, the content had been prepared since a few days-sometimes weeks- before. Now that I think about it, my effort to send happy new year texts to SO MANY friends back then was quite amazing. I had to repeatedly clear my inbox/outbox, since the capacity of my phone was very limited. Plus, it was rather expensive, if you compare with the SMS rate nowadays. Think how many Famous Five books I could buy with that money; I would probably be able to collect them all! I would not have to check secondhand book shops' site every 2 weeks hoping they restocked the previous edi