Within the past weeks, I’ve been forbidding myself from blogging inasmuch as it forced me to bear the guilt of ‘wasting’, if not ‘sparing’ extra time to open Posterous and type some crap down while there’s a quite long to-do-list on my wall. However, there was a big flaw in the whole concept: I did not realize that blogging per se is a therapy that helps me get through all the mess. So if you don’t mind, let me pop all these bubbles of thoughts in my head so that I can get back on feet immediately. You can just skip this post if you feel that personal ramblings is immature and does not benefit you at any point.

For the record, I cut my surprisingly long, boring hair. It was Dan Brown who inspired me. Not through his fictional character Robert Langdon, but a simple sentence in one of his thrilling novels (I practically forgot which–and what were the exact words):

“A spiritual transformation is best begun with a physical one.”

I guess I needed a spiritual change, a more balanced chakra. I thought that the hair, in a way, held me back from looking forward, or simply moving on. Hence, I cut it. Yet I was wrong.

As it turned out, I failed to really see such a reckless decision as an achievement. Worse, I’m currently mourning over what I’ve done. I needed the hair. I loved it. Come to think of it, she–the hair–was one of the tiny bits that form my pride. The hair made me feel that I am female. I could perceive myself as one of those uncanny women who, regardless of how severely workaholic they are, managed to grow such a beautiful feature. Now that she’s gone, I have nothing left–nothing physical, to be happy of. The feeling is similar to what a queen might feel as she lost her crown. She’s still completely the same person, but there’s a part of her that’s not there.

I keep telling myself that it doesn’t matter, nobody really cares about it anyway, but apparently it does. I’m so devastated that if a time machine really exists, I would sacrifice meeting Socrates in return of 5 minutes to stop myself from going to have a haircut that day. Err. Wait. Not really.

My next minor announcement is, as you might have got fed up of me mentioning it on Twitter over and over again: I lost my voice. (Or should I put it as: I’ve been losing my voice?) Literally. No, well, hyperbolically. I can still speak, the kind of speak that normal crowd would consider as ‘whisper’, but yes people can still get my points in a discussion. On the bright side, I started to realize that human is over-blessed with many alternative means of communication: email, messengers, you name it.

Now if you allow me to get to the main chunk, you might want to know that THIS SEMESTER IS SERIOUSLY BRAINGASMIC! I mean, we actually learn on the phylosophical level on how identity shaped the world, or how those great strategists’ thoughts evolve from time to time. To put additional exciting themes to the pile, we’ll be having clashes of ideas (read: debates) on United States’ foreign policies, textual studies on ASEAN legal documents, site visits to established non-governmental organizations, and I simply can not stop.

I wish everyone a very nice academic semester, too!

P.S. I think one of the biggest issues in bahasa Indonesia is the presumption of wisdom in ‘policy’, i.e. ‘kebijakan‘. I think the government, especially in this far-from-accomplishing country, makes mistakes just as much as their people do.