April: Cherry blossoms, starting Grad School, Coldplay concert and some other stuffs in between

Couldn't manage to post this in April, but I still feel like sharing some prominent life events that I went through last month. So here it is, a new post about what happened in April, to start the upcoming May posts in Morning Hope. 

Spring Fling: Cherry blossoms 🌸

What's April without some snaps, I mean, gazillion snaps of cherry blossoms? 

  

This year marked my second cherry blossom experience in Tokyo, and I still haven't got the chance to have an ideal picnic under the cherry blossom trees. The transition to graduate school was pretty much time and mind consuming, with many stuffs going on all at the same time. Mainly on what classes to take and other administrative related things.

But it's okay, I'm not really disappointed either since I got much more proper photos of cherry blossoms, even some are with me under the trees (lol), than last year. It indeed doesn't necessarily substitute the picnic, but at least I was able to spend some times under the cherry blossom trees longer than last year! So, I was feeling content and happy for this!

Location: Nogawa Park

Here are the places where I particularly enjoyed the cherry blossoms: the above mentioned Nogawa Park, Inokashira Park, Musashino no Mori Park and uni's calming neighborhood. Except the Inokashira Park, the other places are located adjacent to each other and are very close to my dorm. Thank God, I'm very grateful to be given the chance to live in such a beautiful neighborhood!

And, below are the pics from the Inokashira Park outing with Maria and Mariko! ;) 

We first planned to spend the day in Kamakura, strolling around the old town in Kimono. I know, it sounds really good! But unfortunately I couldn't make it, due to one crucial reason: financial crisis, lol.

Yeah, I dropped my old DSLR camera with my 50mm f1.4 lens kissed the asphalt first. It goes without saying that it left pretty serious damages to both the camera body and the lens. But thank God, the kids fully recovered now after being hospitalized for 3 weeks in Yodobashi Camera fix-it shop, and the repair cost surely drained my bank account at once 😂  So that's why I chose to sacrifice certain forms of pleasure in order to finance that sudden silly accident.

The lens filter was broken into pieces and slightly dented. Fortunately, the lens itself was safe. Although it became quite loose because of the strong shock when it hit the ground. My heart still hurts every time I remember that moment when I was so late to grab my camera before it eventually kissed the ground. No more careless camera handling, Shabrina. The repair cost is again, no joke, crazily account-draining!

So that's the sad story. Now let's back to the park talks!

It was a perfect sunny day on the last day of spring holiday. Everyone opted to go outside and bath in spring sunlight, enjoying cherry blossoms while they lasted. As you can see from the pic above, the park was jam-packed with people having picnics! 

I forgot to bring my mini Canon G7x MII to Inokashira Park, hence I wasn't able to completely snap how beautiful the park was actually. The sunshine was a bit too glaring at the point where my old iPhone 5s' camera couldn't deal with it.

Location: Inokashira Park

Last ones from this cherry blossom section, below are some pics when Afrin and I enjoyed hanami (cherry blossoms viewing) at uni's neighborhood soon after we finished our classes. We then continued our walks to Musashino no Mori Park located just across our uni. The weather was super lovely and warm, we super loved it :)

Afrin: partner in crime, the one to lean on every time I need to get my sh*t together.

Going back and forth to the sidewalk every time we saw a car approaching, haha.

Musashino no Mori Park's giant cherry blossom trees are unbelievably beautiful! So excited to come back here again next year, and not to forget the picnic mat! :D

My favorite spot!

After all, I'm having a good time under the cherry blossom trees. The ones that I show you here are of the "somei yoshino" cherry 🌸✨. This very type of cherry blossom is the most well-known one within its genus. It's also the representative flower of spring in Japan.

Anyway, as I also have some other pics properly taken from the camera, I'm thinking to write another cherry blossom post next time! :)

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Officially enrolled in Master's 🤓

Please ignore the head on right side. Ain't got time to crop it, lol 😂 I guess it's my Russian friend, Boris' head.

Officially finished my first year in Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (TUFS) as a research student. Now I'm moving on to a whole new chapter in life as a Master's student. Things have been pretty challenging in this first month and umm... I don't feel like saying it in such an early phase but I might say that it's kinda exhausting sometimes, lol! I mean when it comes to deal with piles of weekly readings. But hey, this is only the beginning. I still got another 22 months to finally end this tough yet fun journey. So I gotta make this very phase of life meaningful no matter how crazy the hurdle might be. And I do hope that I shall pass all classes with flying colors! *fingers-crossed*

But one thing that I'm very grateful right now is that I finally found a new research theme that I surely love to conduct in this two years of study :) I know, conducting research isn't an easy peasy lemon squeezy thing, but it's the challenging thing that would make me grow. At least, that's what I believe over these recent years.

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Teaching about Indonesia! 🇮🇩 

Finally, a chance to wear my traditional costume here in Tokyo!

Yep, I love wearing traditional costumes, just as much as I love being in denims and cute button down shirts. As a person representing my country and ethnicity, I plan to wear my traditional costume called "Kebaya" whenever I teach! Last time when I was back in hometown during the spring holiday, mom bought several pairs of colorful Kebaya for me to wear in the class! Yay!

So, long story short, I got the chance to teach about my homeland, Indonesia 🇮🇩 in elementary, junior and senior high schools in Tokyo. This activity belongs to "Kokusairikai", an association that promotes global citizenship education and intercultural understandings in Tokyo. Hundreds of foreign students from all over the globe studying in any university in Tokyo and its neighboring cities get involved in this program. So that's why taking a part in this program has been one of my biggest goals since last year. And finally God made it true and possible after I passed the interview last year in October :) Alhamdulillah!

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Coldplay concert!! 😳

Tokyo Dome, April 19th 2017 ❤️
My heart skipped a beat for the shortest two hours in my life. 
Seeing them live on stage, witnessing how they look like in real life,
and their lively performance.
Hearing Chris' heavenly voice.
And all the goosebumps and endless mixed feelings.

Thank God, it was real.

Tbh, it was my first concert experience ever! and it was no doubt, a BOMB!

COME ON GUYS, WE WANT MOREEEE. WE DON'T WANT THE SHOW TO END 😩

For this one too, I'll make a special blog post next time! 

So my friends, the pics above are just teasers 😆

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Well, those are what happened last month! I didn't stroll to some new neighbourhoods, just simply because I had no time. I spent most of my weekends finishing the following week's readings. And surprisingly, I didn't feel like complaining just because I had to spend weekends that way after I enrolled in Masters.

So now I understand when people say that universe will conspire to make things work out if you're committed to what you're doing. I've proven it lately!  By being naturally loving to stay at the dorm reading pages of lecture materials, or even chose to stay for a while at the library, doing the exactly same thing. The things that I never did before, because I have always chosen to stroll till my feet hurt rather than sitting at the library for hours.

Just so you know, I never really liked library before. I've always thought that library and I weren't meant for each other! hahaha. But now, things have gradually changed! and I'm super glad about all of these drastic changes that happened in my life.

Well, I guess I need to close the post here. It's 2:05 in the morning already in Tokyo.

I'm soooo sleepy! Catch you guys soon on the next post ❤️

Good night/morning, beautiful souls!

xx,

Shabrina.

Successfully Unleashing Myself from Being Homesick: Just a Personal Report on The Blog

Exactly a week ago, I set my feet on Tokyo's ground, back to this bustling city. Yes, I was away for exactly a month, spending almost the whole February and early March in hometown. To my surprise, I wasn't that much excited when the airplane landed in Narita airport. "Oh, hello again Tokyo...". I tried to greet the city, which at that time, was covered with clouds. Which made the melancholia within me grow even worse. At the point that I wasn't sure if I was happy or not to be back in the city. Luckily, I could still hold my tears and chose to burst them down once I did my evening prayer in the dorm.

The sleepy one year old me

So, here it goes the story about what happened lately...

Homesick

I was suffering and battling this wicked mind disease for the first and second day after arriving here. I know, it's ultra common for someone to experience homesick. But it never crossed my mind that I would be that kind of someone. I had always thought that I was strong enough to deal with my decision to live far away from home,  most crucially from my mom.  I had always thought that I would instantly be happy, once I set my feet in Tokyo. But this time, I was so wrong.

What made me really surprise about being homesick is that, I never experienced it before. Trust me. During my one year of student exchange program, I was super okay. I was missing mom indeed, but still in a normal way. Last year, which was my second year living in Japan, I was super okay too. I had so much fun living my life here, along with the ups and downs the life had to offer. Turned out, I could still survive happily. Til I realized, I was away from home for nearly a year, even though in my mind I felt like it was only three months.

I wasn't the only one who was suffering. Mom was in the same situation. Just so you know, we both are extremely connected. Once I feel sad, she will definitely feel the same way. And vice versa. We could never lie to each other about our feelings. Because in the end we would just knew, even though we never put them in words.

She said, before, she has never felt that difficult to let me go. It's not that she could always handle my leaving easily, but at least she had always been so strong, so mentally prepared. But this time, none of us had an ample mental prep. During our phone call, we then analyzed what was really happening to us, why we felt so down, why we were so sad despite we both knew that I was leaving for the better, to pursue a higher education in an undeniably good place. Even, it wasn't my first time leaving home!

We then came into one conclusion, which then made us mentally stable again. And I couldn't be happier than being able to be back as the usual me and feeling this way :) I don't know, whether I should categorize "homesick" as a good thing or not. But at least, now I started to feel that home is always the best place, and being at home with mom has always been the best moment. Two things that I nearly took for granted before.

Now, I'm fully back in my normal condition, and back at making my daily to do list again. I couldn't even make one when I was feeling homesick. Since the only thing that I would possibly write is: go home and hug mom. lol.

I'm so glad that I'm able to think clearly again this time. The best part is when I finally found a new research topic yesterday! It was such a huge surprise to me, as I was casually reading a book on the train heading to Shinjuku. New idea came to me without me trying so hard to find one. What a miracle! I can't wait to meet my academic adviser in two weeks, and inform her about this. Hoping my communication with her will just go smoothly, and she agrees on this new topic! 

Anyways, I have some posts pending on the draft. Gotta finalize them as soon as possible, so that I can move on to the other new stories! *feeling energetic*

Guess I'll close this post with a happy birthday shout out to my dad that has just turned 52 yesterday!

Selamat ulang tahun, Papi! <3

Till the next post, guys ;)

xx,

Shabrina.