Paradiso Perduto

'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

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...

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...

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...

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 (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...

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...

There are times when I felt so worthless. I could not get anything right. Life was one wrong decision after another. There are times when I wished I could just shrink shrink shrink and then vanish, as if I was never here before. People might hate me. I didn't blame them; I hated myself too. People didn't want to be approached by me, and that's fine, I couldn't stand being me, too.  Then my supervisor drove me home because apparently I look like someone who would break down with an ugly, inconsolable cry in the middle of traffic jam. Then I realized that I haven't eaten anything but my grandma prepared my favorite food for dinner. Then I texted random message to my best friend way past after her sleeping time, and she unexpectedly replied. Then I was told that people miss me -me!- and they might sent me messages but I was unable to read it because my silly phone was broken. Then I read nice things people posted on internet and I thought it would be nice if...

Bagi saya yang sudah cukup lama inaktif di fictionpress ini, mendapatkan notifikasi review baru untuk salah satu cerita saya merupakan momen-momen tersanjung level dewa. Bagaimana tidak, update terakhir saya adalah sekitar enam bulan yang lalu, tapi masih ada aja pembaca yang tersesat  mengunjungi cerita saya. Lebih dari sekadar membaca, mereka juga menyempatkan waktu untuk meninggalkan review . Dear FP readers and reviewers, thanks for keeping a dream alive! Keep the reviews coming (for me and for your other favorite fictionpress author)! Dari semua fitur interaksi penulis-pembaca di Fictionpress, buat saya story review adalah level tertinggi. Dengan story favorite atau story follow  kita sudah bisa menunjukkan pada penulis bahwa kita suka dan/atau tertarik dengan cerita mereka, tapi story review memungkinkan interaksi yang lebih bebas. Pembaca bisa mendeskripsikan rasa suka/nggak sukanya terhadap suatu cerita. Pembaca juga bisa menunjukkan dengan spesifik mana ya...

Kau membuatku berpuisi lagi! Karena hanya lewat ini kita bicara patahan kata sepenggalan cerita teka teki setengah terisi tapi aku sudah lupa bagaimana merangkai rima aku tidak tahu lagi cara membuat makna sembunyi Mungkin, aku puas jadi makhluk bumi Mungkin aku tak ingin ke langit! Tapi Kau mengetuk Dan aku... Ah! Apakah ini! Bandung, 26 November 2015 Vera F. Maharani

I used to be that girl who does not care much about skin care. I consider myself quite blessed with (most of the time) acne-free face and no major skin complain. Of course my skin is not of the brightest kind, and it can get slightly oily at times, but hey...I don't really care. I committed all kind of skin sins in the past. I slept late. I drank less than 8 glass of water every day... heck, it's a miracle if I even reached 4 glass (should have known better since I had kidney problems as a child). I gobbled all kind of sweets and cakes, and left my veggies untouched. I used my daily face wash in the morning and that's about it. I only used moisturizer when I remember to...which means very very seldom. And sunscreen…what sunscreen? When I had sleepovers with my friends, I watched in awe as they diligently dabbed and rubbed their skincare products before sleep (and more in annoyance when their prepping up took sooo much time in the morning). I thought, I could never do t...

LOL I know I have never been serious serious in blogging (as in trying to gather audience to read my random rambling...aside from occasional shameless self promotion in the few social media I have). However, I like writing, obviously, and I like the idea that people read my writing. (I know some of you might care more about my fiction... you can read my stories in fictionpress  for free...for now). After I lurked for a while in the blog-overse, I noticed that a lot of blogs I frequent have this cute little button telling me to follow them on Bloglovin. I clicked on it out of curiosity, and... BAM. I'M ALSO ON BLOGLOVIN NOW.  It's a very simple platform that allows you to collect all blogs you love, whether they are originally from Blogger, Wordpress, Tumblr, or you-name-it. It helps you to stay update with the blogs you love. They can also help you discovering blogs you might love, based on your preference. For bloggers, it's a nice way to find audiences too. ...

Akhirnya, setelah tahun kemarin gagal ikutan Jermanfest 2014 gara-gara bentrok sama liburan di Bali, Rabu kemarin (9 September 2015) bisa ikutan juga. Opening movie kali ini adalah “Metropolis”, film bisu karya Fritz Lang yang dirilis tahun 1927. Pemutaran film ini diiringi secara live oleh Babelsberg Orchestra. Setelah main di Jakarta dan Surabaya, orkestra ini mampir juga di Bandung. Suasana Aula Barat ITB sebelum pemutaran Metropolis ( sorry for the low quality picture. I promise I will change my phone into something that has a better quality camera in the...er...far future ) Tadinya sempat mikir saya bakal nonton film ini sendirian ( which is fine by me). Maksudnya, sepintas kan film ini hanya menarik untuk kalangan terbatas. Film bisu, intertitle -nya bahasa Jerman, ada orkestra segala. Hal-hal yang bikin banyak orang kabur tapi malah bikin saya merapat, hahaha. Apa lagi ketika saya tahu bahwa event ini gratis, for me the decision to watch this was a no-brainer.  Tapi...

Saya tergoda untuk memulai post ini dengan deklarasi “ I am back! ”, seperti yang juga saya gunakan untuk membuka sekitar lima post sebelumnya…yang rupanya saya tulis dalam jangka waktu lebih dari satu tahun. Iya, saya memang balik ke blog ini beberapa kali, tapi adaaaa aja terus hal-hal yang mencegah saya untuk benar-benar stick around setelah kembali. Kemarin saya dikontak teman saya, Meutia. Senang banget dan nggak nyangka juga karena nggak ada special occassion tertentu yang bikin kita kontak-kontakan. Kami ngobrol banyak, dan akhirnya nyinggung-nyinggung soal blog. Soalnya saya blogging pake platform blogger , Muti juga, dan biasanya kami kontak via kolom komentar di blog masing-masing. Blog memang media yang menyenangkan buat catch up sama kehidupan masing-masing, cuma ya akhir-akhir ini saya nggak ada waktu buat blogwalking. Meutia juga udah lama nggak komen, tapi karena saya juga udah lama nggak berkunjung ke blog saya sendiri, saya nggak sadar, hahaha. Ternyata Muti uda...