New month with old cycle once again. Of course, it’s far from surprising but yeah, it’s still tiring.
I don’t have many things to say about the whatever name it is called, but I do have a lot to say about how the people up there deal with this situation once again.
I really wish they learn a lot from what happened last year, how devastating it was, but somehow, I don’t think this goldfish memory people can turn into herds of elephant. Remembering how ignorant they had beed during the first year of pandemic, I am so sceptical they could do better this time.
Two weeks after happily enjoyed offline school, it was closed once again. As I have written before, the children are the ultimate pandemic hidden victim in this country. It is almost certain, judging from current situation, it won’t be opened till the end of academic year, I guess. Hopefully not.
Heading to the third year, staying safe and sane is not as hard as years before. What I still find hard is feeling secured.
I don’t miss traveling (that much). What I miss is feeling secured of doing daily things. Sending the doctor to work without worrying too much, letting the little girl join a group class without anxiety, going places here and there around the town without thinking too long.
I don’t miss large gathering like wedding. What I miss is being able to meet whom I want to meet without overthinking about the risk.
I am fully aware about countless privileges we have during these years. Being able to throw some rants here shows how much privileged we are.
Still, spare me some space for a cup of whine.
Hope everyone here and out there stay safe, stay healthy, and stay vigilant to face whatever things we have to deal with, sooner or later.
Having internal conversation on something for some periods until it transforms into a writing these days. The more I read, the merrier those talkings inside the head.
This topic has been on my head for quite long time. The last time I wrote on similar topic was almost three years ago in this post. Many things happened within these years. Many books read, more meetings with different kind of people, and it gives more insights and different perspectives.
When the doctor once said that I am an avid believer of French Parenting, only a little part of that is true. It is also totally understandable when I was raised french way too. Although I am abosulutely in for their three main items which are eat, sleep, and say bonjour, but, for certain parts, I think French mothers might deny me to be a part of their group if they see how I take lunch lightly or knowing that I breastfed my baby for more than 2 years.
When some close family considered me as a strict Tiger Mom who filled her child’s day with schedule, the real chinese or east asian tigress will laugh out loud. The schedule part might be yes, but what kind of tiger mom allow her child to play game everyday, allow sleepover, not pushing the child doing hours of drilling, yet allow so many hours for leisure reading about anything, but not sitting and studying doing worksheets. A big grumpy cat might be yes, but tiger? I can see they are smirking on that idea. No tiger mom is this ‘laid back’.
When I sometimes considered myself (or maybe dying to be part of) as a Scandinavian mom. But, the real ones would be too shocked if they see how different I interpret the word ‘relax’, how little hours I assign for outdoor, and how packed the schedule the little girl has daily or how early we start our day. They will ask me to omit everything I have done and replaced them with some real leisure and pleasure for children.
I can go on comparing few more but let’s stop here.
One thing that came to my thinking, the more books I read, more examples I see, I found that it’s totally hard to define an Indonesian parenting way. Those countries that has country parenting label have things that are clearly defined by the government, applied to everyone without exception, and persevered across generations.
Here, there’s no clear goal, let alone guidelines, no strong foundation, and what define us mostly in general, in my opinion is not a good character. We’re not famous for our strong work ethic, not for honesty, not for intelligence, not for the good habits like reading, not for good education and health service, at least not famous for important items needed to build a well-rounded adult.
Because there’s no clear goal, that’s why there’s no support system built. No proper pedestrian walk in a whole city to safely walk (even an area with pedestrian walk taken over by street food seller or motorcycle), public parks are getting better, but still not enough, free libraries are rare, inequalities in school services (and it’s crazy), there’s almost no single important thing that we could rely on. The absence of the country means a lot. But, since we (currently) have no choice but to live in an this absolute non-kids friendly city and country, we can’t do much about that.
I remembered when I went Hajj, one of the official said how different Malaysian and Indonesian pilgrims were. Different in terms of manner.
It was packed during hajj session, so finding a spot for salah quite tricky because I wanted to have a Ka’bah view. But, since it was only a petite me, it was actually easy to squeeze in. It was easy to recognize Indonesian pilgrims from their mukena and Indonesian also brought their huge praying mat, so I asked some space to share from them.
Few times did this, can you guess what happened? Almost none did. Instead of giving a little bit space for me, they spreaded their legs instead. At first, I was a bit flustered. But, after several times of rejections, I was getting used to it and moved on.
Then who were the one who called me, even from a far and asked me to join? The Malaysian pilgrims.
“Come here, there’s a lot of space here!”
(Insert flat smile)
It was more clearly shown also during Mina. Malaysian (and Singaporean) tents were placed on the main road, closed to the jumroh, and their tents were so cozy and comfy, while Indonesian tents (pilgrims who went with government service, it would be totally different with one who went with privat service, again, see the inequality?) were located on the top of the hill, small tents, extremely hot, and being in one area with other third world countries-whose cleanliness manner was, should I say scary?
You’ll surely see huge difference in manner between children (citizen) who were being taken care well by their parents (government) with those ones who didn’t receive the same level of care or close to being neglected.
You’ll only be able to share, be it love, money or everything, when you’re already filled with it first. Those who spreaded their legs, refused to share a bit of space,even inside the holy mosque, maybe that was what happened to them too. Sharing is not something they would do because maybe, they don’t feel (have) enough for themselves.
It also reminded me of when I visited one of the food bazaar event in London. I came with high expectation that I would finally meet bunch of people where I could have a chat in my language, but, not until an hour, I decided to go home.
The ambiance was so cold. Most of the food seller gave cold response when I asked about the food (of course in Bahasa), but, but, when a foreigner came to their stall, oh la la, so much warmth felt in the air.
No wonder we’re famous as friendly people by the foreigner.
“Things that valued in one place will grow” from Geography of Genius.
Above is one of the pages from my current reading. It also applies here. What we value mostly here are material or something tangible. How much money one makes, how many cars or things you own, how big one house is, how much followers in social media, what position one is at work, and many more. Everything that is easily measured and judged by the paper.
We also rarely apply delay gratification here. Everyone wants to have or achieve everything in an instant. No wonder, no matter how often it happened in the past, the victim of fraud would always be available in this country.
In book stores, there are books for how to get rich quickly in many different perspectives, but none how to raise an honest kid, how to live right and enough.
Getting rich in an instant seems becoming the ultimate goal. No matter the way you take to get there. No matter how many rules you break to make it happen. As long as you end up with more money.
Why? Because that’s how you’re being valued here.
So, is it wrong to be rich? Bien sur que non. Even in Islam, it’s strongly recommended so you can contribute better. But, many times here, being rich means you have the permit to be asshole and playing power to abuse those who are less fortunate.
Fiuh. Another post that becomes another rant about being a frustrated parent in this country.
Back to parenting tribe.
When we look at certain local parenting tribe, I’ll surely stand with the chinese and bataknese. In 5 years, we have been working with two bataknese young adults, and I love working with them. Hard working, diligent, fast learner, resilience when dealing with complaints, problem solving-oriented (the one that I wrote here is about one of them), no quitting for cheap reason, and they say what they mean, no beating around the bush. Compared to those javanese ones, I prefer having non-javanese. Nothing about being racist here. Just point out what I have dealt in real life.
Reading these books doesn’t mean finding which one you belong to but more of knowing, or even better, applying, if there’s some practices from those parenting types could also work for you and suits your personality and family. Of course, it should be aligned with your goals.
From French, I took the sleep and eat properly part. From the tigers, I am totally in for the discipline part, no matter how many considered it is so tough. We can see how accomplished those tigress kids are academically. From Scandinavians, I took the play part, assigning outdoor hours, and taking care more of little important things.
What have been done are surely still far from ideal, yet all we could do is just trying our best in hoping the little girl could become the part of world citizen tribe, in spite of growing up in a non-ideal place for children.
Be as discplined as the chinese.
Eat well like french.
Living life to the fullest, simple and resilience like Scandinavian.
When last week was packed and hectic, this week the tension has been toned down a little bit. More leisure in zoom school schedule means we could have more pleasure in home school one.
This week has been quite pleasant so far. Got boosted at home by the doctor, less zoom meetings from school and the little girl had done her final theory exam for this first year. So, yesterday, when she only got one zoom school in the morning, we went around to visit some places on my list.
Whenever I see some empty schedule from the school on the day where afternoon class schedule allows, my brain is racing faster. It would be bad to waste such precious chance to just stay at home.
So, whenever that empty schedule is available, I spend quite some time to check on google maps to see which option is available for our field trip. Mostly, I will take her on bus or train riding with a little bit of walking.
Planning itineraries with public transportation has been my favorite thing to do since long. Even better, since I have more free time on my hand. Since the little girl was little, we had visited few spots in Jakarta, by car, like TIM, or small library around the area. During London days, I have been excitedly planning things to do on weekend, where to eat, what to visit, with which bus or train to take. Playground and park always become main idea and the rest will follow.
It’s been a year since we visit many outdoor playground around this town with public transportation, like here for example. Some of them are free, some a paid one.
For this week, I had an idea on my head days before yesterday. Planned to merely visiting a gelato shop nearby with only 15 minutes bus riding from home and short walking.
(Much) better ideas always come on the last minute. I found that it was possible to add another more interesting itinerary together with gelato shop.
Instead of heading to gelato shop from the start, we were heading to National Library first. When I think about going by car, it feels so far, more with odd-even number policy. But, when I checked the way there by bus, it only took 40 minutes without too much bus changing hassles, more, very agreeable transport fee.
So, off we went to National Library first.
We arrived around 10 am. If previously children can enter any buildings without question as long as accompanied by vaccinated adults, yesterday, I was asked to be presented the little girl’s vaccination proof. Luckily, she had done her first jab, but unfortunately her vaccination certificate is together with her dad apps not mine.
But, the officer was quite helpful on that. I showed her the screencap of her vaccine certificate and then we were allowed to enter.
The library has 24 floors. Since our time is limited, yesterday we only focused on the 7th floor which is children section. They have quite wide range of collections. It was quite empty and pretty cozy.
The little girl found book series that kept her sitting and reading for more than an hour, and that made me so happy. I looked around to almost every shelf. I found a box of Enid Blyton books that I once had during childhood.
What needs to be improved from the library is, the signage for books category. It’s not that easily read thus, the browsing experience is a little bit less comfortable, for me.
Done with children’s floor, we went up to 24th floor, the executive lounge where you could see the view of Jakarta from above. They have outdoor balcony too. The wind was quite strong yesterday.
But, luckily, after days of grey sky, yesterday we got pretty clear blue one. So, the view was even better. Pictures below will explain it better.
Overall, the library is one of the free-worth-to-visit spots in Jakarta. I saw lot of college students there, either just hanged out or did their homework.
There are only two problems. First, the elevator. It took long queues to go up and down waiting for the elevator. They have three which stop in every floor, and they are almost always full. So, yesterday, instead of going up directly to the 24th floor, we went down first, as long as we got on the lift.
The other problem is quite personal.
If there’s one thing that is similar in museums or library runs by government that I have visited here,they put so many unnecessary people pictures everywhere (mostly those faces with power). As if we couldn’t get them enough around the street all over the city, we still have to see those faces too inside a building. Such a nuisance.
Instead of those pictures everywhere, what we need more is this kind of libraries around the town and make it more accessible for everyone.
The view of the lady from 24th floor
Done with library, we proceeded to the main idea for the little girl. Found this secluded gelato shop when I was waiting for her time at the daycare. Planned to take her here during weekdays because they’re closed on weekend.
From the library, we only had to take one bus ride straight to the gelato shop, so it was so convenient.
Their gelatos are pretty good. I chose dates with almond and the little girl went with oreo cream. I bought five more cups home for the doctor and had tried all of them, they were equally good.
Nice places, nice riding, delicious gelato while the weather was nice, truly my kind of outdoor time and field trip!
Wonder if there’s any groups of people who feels this high level of anxiety of having old normal school life back in our life.
I know I have been screaming pretty loudly about how school closure costs a lot to many aspects of the children’s life, now when it finally opens again, it turns out has its own cost too.
Peaceful morning replaced by morning rush, long drive, and dealing with traffic jam.
The anxiety about sending back the little girl to school is more of how she would deal with her peers than the healthy and safety reason. Of course, they matter. But, with every precautions that have been taken, guess we could just trust the school and ask for Allah protection about the decision.
But then, she has to do what she has to do. I just hope she will meet the kind ones that would accept and be happy playing with her.
When I thought leaving the little girl at school is the most anxious thing to do. It turned out, having plenty of free time causes even more anxieties!
Freedom and free time without proper plan is more frightening than having tight schedule. That’s why I mostly plan my day 7 days a week. Not knowing what to do next always gives certain helplessness feeling inside.
Staying at home suits me most. But, there are times when I miss being a bit ‘busier’ to certain degree. The problem is I have plenty of requirements what kind of busy I want to sign up.
One of the reasons why I quitted full time job 12 years ago was because I started realizing time is the commodity that you couldn’t replace (have a draft about this but still can’t continue after weeks).
That was the first time I got the magic words inside my head “there should be more life than this”. This referred to spending entire Monday to Friday working and went home exhausted and had no energy to do other thing. What made me survive was because I had dreams to achieve. Thus, I worked also on Saturday and Sunday. I believe, the very first thing you should possess to achieve any dreams is not intangible thing like spirit or grit, but money. Then, no other way than working 7 days a week.
But, the situation is totally different now. I am more than lucky to be able to have a choice to stay at home with the little girl without worrying about food, rent, or even any other expenses, for now.
There are times when it was so hard till I promised my self I had no other space for anything else. But, there were also times when I had handful of free time till I thought I should be more useful than this.
When I seem to have clear schedule to the smallest detail for the little girl, I struggle a lot to have one for me.
During easy days, when the little girl stuff is done, I fell into a trap of doing mindless scrolling here and there. Pretty lucky there is a tiny part inside the head that rings the alarm and told myself to get my butt out of the couch and start functioning. My day begins at the end of a tidy home and clear sink. At the beginning of this year, I even set a daily reminder how much time I should spend daily watching people’s life in social media.
The biggest enemy is indeed inside yourself.
To say I am totally without any works to do is indeed not true. But, those sometimes feel inadequate to keep me ‘busy’. The thing is the free time is not something that consistently available. Sometimes I have it, many times I don’t. So, it is quite tricky to have another responsibility that won’t cause trouble with the ones that I have signed up before. Although fitting in to those requirements is quite impossible, I still keep trying to find one, still without deadline.
This period reminded me of one period that I had been through. The period before Paris happened. The period of too hopeless to be hopeful (because there seemed no way to get there), yet too scared to give up.
These days I feel like replaying U2 song all the time inside my head,
“I still haven’t found what I am looking for”.
But, Steve Jobs said,
“Keep looking, don’t settle”.
Then, I will.
It felt so incredible to be finally able to push the publish button for this post that had been staying on the draft folders for months.
Last year closed with some chaos, boggling mind and uneasy heart.
But, as always, problems mostly came with solutions. The pattern that I recognized whenever a problem aroused : it was bad, getting worse, then became the worst until it would get better and found the solution.
The period until hitting the rock bottom was indeed the hardest. Days went through anxiously. Hours spent waiting and kept looking the best way out.
When we thought we had found the solution, turned out it wasn’t enough. I learned that a good intention alone wasn’t enough. For certain situation, it could be largely misunderstood.
Last Monday one of the most intense days of this year, so far. Kept moving from one place to another doing things, driving in silence having conversation inside the head. Asked The One Who Deals with all affairs for some guidance. To be directed to right path to deal with this problem.
It never ceases to amaze me about the way your request answered. After a whole week in the dark, then the light just came. Slowly then suddenly.
That Monday, a trouble that had put so much weight on the chest finally lifted.
This recent chronicle made me more certain that dealing with human is the most complicated thing.
Dealing with kind of humans a whole day on that Monday was beyond exhausting.
The arrogant type, money without manner. The entitled one, request without respect. The full of bullshit one, talk with loud speaker, act in whisper.
But, among that three, thankfully I also dealt with the tactful and smart kind, one who focused on finding solution and made it happen.
Tough opening yet, my heart filled with so much gratitude that we passed another test with some price yet, all was clear.
It gave mixed feeling to describe this year. Incredible with some anxieties along the journey. Guilty yet absolutely grateful.
For the first time in three years, we don’t move place and renew the rent contract for another year. It’s nice skipping boxes and luggages after three years in a row dealing with those. The current place felt so much like home.
The greatest blessing for this year comes from something that often we take for granted, yet priceless and nothing more important than that.
Everyone is being healthy all through the year, despite facing two periods where the doctor had to deal with extremely high tension Covid situation in the hospital. It was nothing but Allah’s protection.
This year also came with some huge bonuses, like doing glamping and hiking for the first time and obtain such result on the little girl’s first international exam.
A huge milestone was celebrated this year. As huge as safely passed the first seven years. The last month of the year also marked the ninth year of surviving marriage life. Definitely not a walk in the park, yet many things to be grateful for.
This year seemed running smoothly until it dropped a small bomb on these last days. Currently dealing with some headaches regarding little things in the bussiness we run.
It’s always little things that make us slip and the price of ignoring little things has always been bigger than we can afford. It costs the peace of mind.
One of my favorite quotes from The Man Who Dies to Live :
Life is like weather. Clear days and dark clouds are for everyone. That’s nothing much that will kill you.
Hope so. Yet, it is totally different feeling between saying this during sunny days with smiling face and whole-heartedly spelling this with heavy breathing during dark sky.
May we have all the strength and the resiliency to face everything that 2022 brings.
Just returned from two nights stay in the heart of Bogor. Specific destination was Bogor Botanical Garden.
We ended up with a great stay in a semi budget hotel in front of the Garden, in a room with five star view from the window and excellent breakfast. Found an Indonesian Specialty Coffee shop that we visited twice in two days, a visit to zoology museum inside the garden, a hearty dinner in a restaurant with an-hour waiting list (for us, it was worth the wait, fyi).
If you visit Bogor, stay in Ibis Styles Pajajaran is recommended. Ask for city view room and enjoy this kind of view from the window.You’ll have Gunung Salak on the right and Gunung Pangrango on the left.Why go with trustable hotel chain? Three star with five star breakfast choices. Not only they have wide range of choices , the taste is excellent. Ibis Styles Pajajaran is part of Accor Group.
As always, we were up early and got all the best worms. Bogor Botanical Garden is located right in front of the hotel. But, the gate in front of the hotel was closed so we had to circle around to the main gate, we didn’t mind at all. Bogor now has great pedestrian facilities.
Big pavements on the right and left in Bogor City Centre.
We spent around three hours inside. Our first stop was bike rent for the doctor. I prefered stay on my feet. Then, we stopped by zoology museum. It was a small museum with average collections. But, it was clean and seemed well-maintaned. Ticket price is Rp 25.000/person. It is perfect museum introduction for the kid of her age.
English and Indonesian captions are available in Zoology Museum.
The garden visit itself was enjoyable. Again, because we were early, we didn’t see crowd within our sight. It was far from empty, but since it is a huge garden, there is enough space to enjoy for everyone.
A nature visit is always be a good reminder how tiny a human is compared to many other creatures in this world.
Next, food.
We found a specialty Indonesian coffee shop within walking distance from the hotel. We stopped by for the first time to have lunch after three hours spent in Kebun Raya. From Kebun Raya, we went here by angkot. Rode on an angkot in Bogor gave certain feeling of good old days during college.
It was quite long wait for the food, because they were short of staff, yet we enjoyed the waiting because we had nothing to do. The place has nice ambiance, we just spent talking about things. The first day coffee was great for me, I loved it. On the second day I ordered banana cake it was also good. The main dish that we ordered was just okay for me.
Kopi Spectrum
Just like when I went to Paris for seven days, the thought went to my father a lot during the trip. That was the fuel to make the London trip in 2017 happened. A sudden idea popped in my head during my morning walk in the garden, texted and called him for several times asked whether he wanted to join us. He said okay when I offered him to book a room. So we got company on the second day.
We chose a restaurant that we have never visited before, and of course my dad hadn’t too. Turned out it was quite full and when we came we got 13 queues of waiting list. We usually are not the type who is willing to wait that long for food, but we had no better options at that time, so we chose to wait. After an hour, and occasional nagging, the wait was over.
Two things that made up the long waiting were : the helpful and accommodating staff, until we tipped her personally, and the food came so quickly and the taste were excellent.
Medja Reataurant
As always, we’re never the ambitious type for every trip that we have taken to. Specific destination yes, but not one full of itineraries. Mostly enjoyed a laid back one. Slow yet long walking. Stopped by the park for ice cream or playground, nap time, afternoon walk for food, home by maghrib or at least isya, and bed by 8-9 pm. Just like what we do at home.
In this trip, we got everything that everyone needed. Overall, it was two days stay in a three star hotel with five star experiences!
This weekend we had done one of the most complicated duets so far.
On Saturday, we practised for more than an hour, took for more than 50 recordings (excluding the many times we did without record it) and still could’t get the tempo right. The song was still above 1 minute. Kept breaking my promise ‘this is the last time’ to her. I finally ended the practice after we got it to 57s although mistakes scattered everywhere.
We tried again on Sunday. Unlike the previous day where I had to deal with both playing and recording, this time we got the doctor to handle the camera.
We did the duet at the end of session on Saturday and did it at the beginning on Sunday. On Saturday, it was the first practice, so I had to put it after we did any other homeworks. While on Sunday, we just needed to refine some details here and there, although it was also far from easy.
Hard practice on Saturday really paid off. That day, we finally settled on the 20th take.
It reminded me of the lines from my current finished reading that explained our situation through a research done 30 years ago.
The research :
Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin
The finding :
“How much they practised” is talent
We managed to go from 58s to 49s. Nine seconds made all the difference. Just by one day, deliberate practice improved everything from tempo, details, rhytm, and of course, confidence.
What separates good from great sometimes only a little bit of patience.
This song arguably is the most enjoyable and satisfying duets for this year and the past two years since we started doing duet for the first time.
An ordinary piano practice session turned out to be a quite big meltdown when she finally ‘exploded’ after I told her to repeat same piece several times because her hands position didn’t show any improvements.
It was quite lucky and rare day since the dad was around. So he helped calming her down. The convo itself was quite funny and innocent. Several lines really made me burst into laugh.
Some lines like :
“Is the piano hurt you? Ok then, so, I’ll just donate it, so you won’t feel hurt anymore”.“NO! The piano didn’t hurt me. MOMMY HURT ME!!”
A scene while her dad hugged her,
“She’s better than you in playing piano, so you should listen to her,”. *took her face off from her dad shoulder and answered fiercely, “I AM BETTER THAN HER!”.
I recorded this scene and it got shaky in an instant, even her dad couldn’t help laughing out loud.
It was so unimaginable such statement could come from her mouth.
Yah, not everyday is full of rainbow and sunshine. Sometimes it’s dark clouds with thunderstorm.
Meltdowns, anger, lost the temper are things happened behind the closed door.
Although it’s not pleasant, that is part of normal life.
Who dont resent their parents for some (or many) reasons?
Who never yell at their kids? Here’s one truth from Mark Ruffalo.
Agree, Mark.
Also, the more time you spend with someone, the more they’ll see your bad side. That’s why, space between is needed.
But, in spite of everything, I would still choose to do this over anything else.
One bad day is just one bad day. It won’t define the whole life.
If we analysed her statement, there was so much truth on it. She is obviously FAR MUCH BETTER than me when I was at her age, not only in piano but in many things in life, which indeed something to be grateful for.
Never I would imagine a seven years old would have already been to many countries, lived abroad, spoke English fluently, got a distinction in an internationally certified exam, and many more.
But, it is also not magical, considering how much different set of situations she has. She gets amount of supports, opportunities, talents, starting line, and many more that I didn’t have back then.
Mathemacially speaking, the bigger and the better quality of your input and the earlier you start, the greater your output will be.
So, if we compare my (piano) achievement (or anything) and hers at this age, that is like comparing duku and cherry.
Thus, kind of statement like “Dulu mama umur segini udah bisa, bla, bla” is never valid.
I can’t and won’t deal with her the same way I had been dealt with in the past.
No space for argument and opinion, no room for questioning things in the past. Now, we spare so much room for those things about everything.
Apology rarely given because parents were always right and silent treatment became a normalized punishment, now we apologize and make up right away when we make mistake, and move on.
Hugs and kisses are thrown generously.
How I (we) parent today are very much different than how I was parented.
The big question,will it produce better generation?
That’s one thing I totally have no idea and would really love to know the answer.
Because, many times, life couldn’t be predicted as simple as mathematical equation.
Playing outdoor as much as we can becomes the main agenda during this holiday.
1. Taman Puring
Once in a while, try to bring this little girl (and of course, her mother) out of her (our) bubble.
Going by public transportation, waiting for the bus under the sun, riding on angkot with other people, dealing with this unfriendly-for-pedestrian city on her scooter (to be fair, it’s improving, a lot).
There was certain indescribable feeling watching her ‘playing’ with the kids in the public park. It was totally different with those she had in paid-playground.
Pity for a rare chance to enjoy this kind of surroundings and environment during her childhood, in this city.
Guilty for bare minimum ability to provide free play with strangers, with less supervision and close to zero instruction. Something that I really miss about the time spent in other country.
Although I would elaborate more, yet couldn’t mix and match the right words to explain it in a simple way.
But then, since when raising a kid (particularly, in this country) could be described as simple?😏
The smirk might be the simplest explanation that I could provide for now.
2. Taman Lapangan Banteng
Consulted online maps several times and it only showed the usual route and modes to go to this park from our place,which I didn’t really approve (Like kamp melayu).
After some thinking and searching, found that we could reach this place by coming through another more pleasant route,from the opposite way.
It only took one short bus riding from home’s nearest bus stop then changed to another 20 minutes one.No traffic jam,few traffic lights, and better view outside the window.
The mathematician Carl Jacobi was known for his ability to solve problems by following a strategy of man muss immer umkehren which is loosely translated, “invert,always invert”.
It’s one of my strategies whenever dealing with my many requirements yet limited resources (money, time, energy) to get many things in life as I once wrote longer here.
Through inversion I managed to find ways that allowed us to go to many places.
You tend to be more creative when everything is limited.
How to get here on time by the schedule in spite the distance? Not by leaving early and neglecting previous tasks, but instead, finding faster route.
How to raise an independent kid? Not by providing more, but helping less.
(Most) schools don’t teach such important thing called inversion, they even rarely teach proper thinking. Isn’t only right and better that we should?
A Penny for My Pensieve 