His Mysterious Plans

Jeez, talk about hard week…

I had to go through a lot of things that I just don’t want to deal with this past few weeks, and today’s just the hardest. I got my Geography test and I got 47! How about that?

Just a few days before (I think it was Satuday), I checked out the website to see if my favourite tennis player had advanced to the next round at Nasdaq 100 Open in Miami. And, as it turns out, she didn’t. I was so shocked and dissapointed. She lost in the early round, a thing she rarely got herself into.

Just weeks before, she was playing at the Indian Wells (Pacific Life), and she got through to the semifinal. She was playing good, won the first set, and was up 5-2 in the second set. She had it. Well, almost. Somehow the game turned 180, and she lost 7-5! From 5-2 to 7-5. In the third set, she lost again, 7-5. And that was it for her. Two hours of hard tennis, she had the perfect chance to go through her opponent, and lost.

It’s weeks like these that makes you question God’s work. Is He there, is He not there? Does He actually care? All those stuff are going through your mind, as you learn about the devastating facts in your life.

I might as well tell you this. I was hot as hell to Him for not letting me go abroad to achieve my dreams. Somehow I think He’s involved, and I was furious. So I didn’t want to admit that He exists, and I tired to think about Him logically. A thing which I should’ve never done in the first place, because the more you look for Him, the more He becomes a mystery to you that you just cannot solve.

But then 11th grade came along, and dragged in my current Bahasa teacher. She is one of the most religious people in the school, and everytime it’s her period, we would get 10 minutes of Bahasa and the rest 35 minutes listening to her talking about her expiriences with God. The first few days of hearing all those things just made me wanna barf. I was sick with all those stories, since I was always the kind of person who hates fanaticism towards religion.

After getting used to hearing all those stories, I began following a Rosary pray group (I’m not in it anymore). By then my perspective in God had changed. I was more accepting, although I was still doubting Him a little bit. Listening to those stories my Bahasa teacher shared changed me completely. I started to believe that He has plans for me, plans that what ordinary people such as myself may not understand.

Nowadays I don’t blame myself quite as much as I did before. Maybe it’s me the one who didn’t do my part of the job, that is to study hard. I see myself in my new school as a reflection. I behaved oh-so-badly in my old school, religion-wise. Here, although it’s not as sophisticated as my old school, the one I’ve been in for 11 years, I learned a lot about Him. Now I feel dissapointed with myself to have doubted Him in the past. and not just about the going abroad thing, I was mad at Him for almost everything. He has big plans and big pictures about me, and what I should do in my lifetime.

And maybe what He’s doing to her is just the same. Maybe He has other big plans for her. I for sure do not understand what the hell He’s doing. But that’s because I can’t see the big picture. When you’re talking about God, you have to remember that He is, the guy with big plans…

What a Wonderful, yet Crazy, World

Does the world looks crazy to you?… It is to me. If you read the papers and watch news every now and then, you would see how this world is slowly turning upside down. Natural disasters everywhere, bombs, crazy president, terrorists, homosexuals, lesbians, bi, you name it.

You can make someone feel two things, basically. You can make ‘em sad by saying all the bad things to them. Or you can make them smile and laugh and feel good about themselves by cheering them on, telling them that they’re worthy to you, things like that.

When Justine Henin-Hardenne withdrawed from the Australian Open final, many people said that she was faking the stomachace and that she was getting the creeps because she was down 5-0 in just 10 minutes. She held on and played the longest rally on the match (33 strokes), before ending up the match by forfait (2-0), thus making her opponent, Amelie Mauresmo, won her first ever Grand Slam title. True or false about the faking, I don’t know. What I do know is this: When I was browsing for her pictures I came across two sites, which I still visit regularly. One is made by her fan, the other is her official site. I opened the guestbook and discovered 2 basic things. In the fan site, there were 2 very bad comments about how she had withdrawed from the final, and how she was not playing like a pro, and it goes on and on. On the official site, however, I found a lot of encouraging comments and hope from her fans. I myself became a member and became a regular guestbook post-er. I always fill it out at least once a week, asking about how she is, hoping her injuries would get better, and stuff like that.

In a crazy world like this you may think that all the people in the world have gone crazy, too. They burn each other, dropping bombs, hijacked a plane, etc. But when you found a site like the one I found (and am very proud to be a member of) and read the guestbook, when you read a Chicked Soup for The Soul, when you see Tim McGraw and Faith Hill on Oprah, when you watch Friends, then you knew. You knew that there are still a lot of love in what appears to be a whacky world.

It’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s there. Love actually is… everywhere (Hugh Grant-Love Actually).

Hmm…. apa ya judulnya?

Hari yang mengejutkan…

Buat kita-kita, nyontek adalah hal yang biasa (banget!), ya kan? Apalagi buat anak-anak sekolah yang gak se-ketat Sanur ato CC, nyontek itu udah ‘makanan’ sehari-hari kalo ulangan. Contoh aja sekolah gue,,, ya ampun yang namanya nyontek itu bener-bener udah biasa. Malah anak-anak yang gak nyontek yang dianggep ‘aneh’, padahal it’s supposed to be the other way around.

Hari ini (diiringi dengan ulangan Aljabar yang gue gak bisa… mati deh, dapet berapa tuch?!) gue berkomitmen buat nyoba gak nyontek. Karena belajarnya gak mantep, jadilah gak terlalu bisa ngerjain ulangannya. Godaan buat nyontek jelas-jelas ada, banget malahan. Tapi gue berhasil buat ngerjain semuanya sendiri. Biarpun dapet jelek, yang penting hasil kerjaan sendiri.

Terus, pas lagi chatting, tiba-tiba ada seseorang yang bilang dia liat ad gue di Yahoo, n I’m his top match! Gila gak? Padahal setau gue gue gak pernah masang ad di Yahoo. Anyway, long story short I saw his profile. And OMG, he’s sooooo cute!! Dia lawyer n aduh, bener2 cakep banget deh! very American, very cute… Tapi apa cocok dengan gue? Hm… salah orang mungkin?

Maybe it’s God’s way to tell me to calm down and not to be desperate. Kalo gue dengerin curhat temen-temen gue, itu gak jauh-jauh dah dari cowok, ato ceweknya,,, all the things about relationships. And as I listen to them, I began to realize that I want to be in one again. Kangen banget rasanya punya cowok (desperate kan?),,, yang jomblo pasti tau deh rasany gimana. Biarpun dari luar keliatannya I’m doing just fine, tapi miris banget kalo ngeliat orang yang udah punya pasangan… Hua!!!!!

Anyway, I hope this guy really think that I’m his match (can’t believe that I just said that)… Who knows, right?