Where can you buy motivation?

Hi. It's me. I'm writing this right after I decided to skip my Spanish class.

Why, you say.

It usually takes me about an hour and 15 minutes to reach my campus. 25 minutes of walking to the station, 30 minutes of train ride, 10 minutes of subway ride, and 10 minutes of, again, walking.
With that much of time needed to get me to school, it's hard for me to find the motivation to attend the classes that barely last for an hour. I often can't bring myself to go, moreover that now I'm alone.

Whenever I hesitated on doing something, I used to go to my mom. I then whine. Whine about how lazy I am, how unwilling I am to do it. Then my mom would find a way to compensate whatever it is that I have to do. There was always a way. I always had help.

But not now. I have nowhere to go. To whine to. It's even hard to chat with my family back home because of the time difference. It's hard to find the right time for both sides.

It's not that I don't want to do things so that I can just lie on my bed all day - I do want to do things. I want to learn how to edit videos well. I want to continue the writing I've been putting off for a month now. It's just that the things that I really need to do are not the ones I want to do the most.

How do you get things done? How do you find the motivation all by yourself?


It felt even somewhat painful to reread the things I've just written above.

Feigning Ignorance

It was during one evening; specifically on an Easter night. I was with five other beings chattering in a language I do understand but yet to speak in. For that inadequancy I slowly drifted off, my brain began to wonder, I started on contemplating life.
How did I get here?

I remember going on a plane. To Dubai. Then to Holland. I remember coming out of the arrival gate, wearing blue sweater and grey jeans, carrying suitcases. I saw my cousin. I thought about how I haven't seen her in years, and the fact that in the few times I saw her I don't think I was old enough to remember her well. Our ages are seven years apart. She was always "the cousin that lives abroad"; I was always "the little sister who is too little to hang with".

She stood metres away but I could see her eyes tearing up as soon as she caught a glimpse of my mom and I. She must've missed my mom. I remember hoping earnestly that she was excited for me, for my arrival, knowing that I would be living with her for the next four years. Which is simply a risk, really - I was moving. I, basically, moved out from my home of 18 years in Jakarta and moved in to my new home in Maassluis. Me and my 30 kilograms of a suitcase.

I remember stepping into the Netherlands in my skin-coloured pair of wedges, in which now I understand why my cousin got a little bit perplexed when she had seen those. It was fall - I was supposed to wear a more covering footwear. I wouldn't know. I had no clue. I was completely unaware how different things were going to be.

Snapping back into reality, I'm sitting here, realising how big was the decision I've made, and how different my life would be if I were to choose another path. I realised that I was trying not to think about it too much. I realised how hard I was trying to take it easy, as if it's not a big thing to study abroad, when actually I was doing something that changed everything for me. I didn't want to make a big deal out of it because I know how melancholy I can be when faced with a serious situation. I could've broken down several times; I could've cancelled everything on the last minute. It was hard to face the reality.

And for that, I feigned ignorance.

When in Bruges.

Last August I went to Bruges, a city in Belgium. Located in the northwest of the country, the city is a two-hour car ride from Rotterdam, where I live in Holland.

Last year, I gave you the photos I took when I was there.
This time round, I want to take you along on the trip.