Just a random post about music

Sewaktu aku mulai nulis ini, aku lagi dalam perjalanan dari Jakarta ke Bandung. Location di notes-ku sih bilangnya aku lagi di Cikarang, Jawa Barat. Hahaha anggap ajalah fyi ya. Btw... Duh, kok awkward gini rasanya nulis di blog ya? Mungkin efek udah nyaris setahun gak nulis, hehe. Bukannya gak mau nulis, malahan selama 2015 ini I've made several attempts to write here, tapi ya... selalu gagal. Kali ini insya Allah berhasil deh.

Sambil nulis ini, aku lagi dengerin album Muse yang terbaru, Drones, yang diputar di mobil sewaan kami. Yah, selama dua hari di Jakarta, aku, papa, sama adekku sibuk nyariin kaset. Hasilnya kami dapet 4. Ada Drones-nya Muse, A Head Full of Dreams-nya Coldplay, Save Rock and Roll-nya Fall Out Boy (sebenernya aku mau yang terbaru, tapi yah kehabisan) sama... satu lagi gak bakal ada yang tau... Wonders of the Younger-nya Plain White T's. Hahahahahaha I'd bet you didn't know the band, because even my father was like "ini band apa?" When I took it from the store. Ya aku aja gak nyangka itu tuh dijual disini, soalnya emang gak terkenal dan aku denger full albumnya juga di deezer. Bodoamat dah, pokoknya it's one of my favorite albums. You should give it a listen.

Ngomongin kaset album gini, aku jadi pengen cerita tentang band yang aku dengar selama 2015.

Awal-awal 2015, aku masih tipe orang yang bodoamat tentang band. Yaa lagu apa yang enak didengar, mau nemu dari radio atau darimanapun, aku download. Pokoknya nggak peduli lah itu band atau penyanyinya siapa, boro-boro punya band favorit. Paling banter juga suka Peterpan, band yang menurutku band sejuta umat soalnya emang lagunya dikenal sama semua orang Indo.

Mulai masuk Maret 2015 alias bulan ulang tahunku, kayaknya masih sama... Sampe akhirnya adek aku entah kenapa beli kaset Avenged Sevenfold yang keluaran 2013, Hail to the King. He's not even a fan of metal or hard rock, jadi dia ngaku beli itu karena penasaran aja. Waktu kaset itu diputar di mobil mah nggak ada yang spesial, yang nempel di otak aku paling cuma "Haiiil to the king!" sama bagian gitarnya Heretic (duh jadi pengen denger). Dalam pikiran aku cuma, "oh jadi gini band Avenged Sevenfold tuh" which is... completely wrong karena HTTK tuh beda sama album-albumnya sebelumnya.

Yang akhirnya bikin aku denger lagu-lagu A7x lainnya itu, tak lain dan tak bukan, adalah kakak les aku. Ya waktu itu kan iseng-iseng buka twitter, terus aku follow lah kakak lesku ini. Waktu aku liat cover photo twitternya, ternyata itu cover albumnya A7x yang Nightmare. Wah anjer, jadi makin penasaran gitu sama band ini. Maka dari itu pada bulan Maret tanggal sekian belas, atas dasar rasa penasaran yang secara mendadak muncul, I opened youtube and searched for Hail to the King's full album track. Walau aku punya kasetnya, tapi di mobil aku nggak pernah benar-benar denger, jadi kali itu aku mau coba give it a better listen.

Waktu aku dengar bener-bener, aku lumayan suka lagu-lagunya. Favorite track aku tetap Heretic karena gitarnya enak. Lagu pertama, Shepherd of Fire, juga bagus. Yang lain juga oke, paling kalo denger 2-3 kali nanti suka juga, pikirku waktu itu. Yaa entah gimana, pokoknya akhirnya keterusan juga denger lagu-lagu A7x yang lain, denger albumnya yang Nightmare dan langsung suka yang judulnya Welcome fo the Family, iseng buka lyric videosnya secara random, cengar-cengir nonton video A Little Piece of Heaven (my absolute favorite song! 8 minutes worth of watching/listening, really), denger albumnya yang lain... Sampe akhirnya tanpa sadar, udah ngerasa kayak Avenged Sevenfold itu bener-bener band favorit.

So yeah you know, I'm pretty newbie about bands, jadinya isi hape aku waktu itu sumpah berderet lagu A7x semua ahahahahaha. Berminggu-minggu cuman denger lagu mereka, tetap betah denger lagu-lagunya yang rata-rata durasinya lebih dari 4 atau 5 menit (malahan lagu Save Me kalo nggak salah sampe 11 menit durasinya). Nah, saking bangganya punya band favorit, kupasanglah salah satu cover album mereka jadi display picture bbm. Yang ini nih:

Nah setelah aku pasang foto itu, ada temen aku di IPS yang komentar, namanya Fadjar. Ya intinya, ternyata dia suka A7x juga. Besok-besoknya kami sempat ngobrolin A7x pas aku ke kelas IPS 1, kelas berkumpulnya temen-temen deket aku hahaha. Dia bilang dia suka sama band yang namanya My Chemical Romance, tapi udah bubar. Yaudah, pokoknya entah kapan akhirnya aku tanya dia minta rekomen lagu MCR sama lagu Fall Out Boy (pasti tau Fall Out Boy kan? Yang nyanyiin soundtrack Big Hero 6 itu loh). Oh iya, selain itu Fafa, temen aku di IPS, juga rekomen ke aku dengerin album My Chemical Romance yang judulnya The Black Parade. So, pada awal bulan Mei 2015 yang bersejarah itu, mulailah aku dengar band yang gak pernah kupikir bakal jadi band favoritku itu...

Awalnya sih random aja dulu liat-liat music videonya. Awalnya aku biasa aja sama lagu-lagu mereka, sama sekali ga ngerasa bakal suka. Akhirnya I decided to give that The Black Parade album a listen. Aku inget banget tuh, dengerinnya dari aplikasi yang namanya TorchMusic, ya gimana kan soalnya kalo dari youtube audionya gabisa diputar pas appnya ditutup. Mulailah aku dengar albumnya...  (Iya Azz cepet aja yaelah)

Opening track, judulnya The End, yah okay. Second track... Judulnya Dead! (Iya, pake tanda seru emang), aku mulai mikir wanjir ini lagu mayan juga rupanya. Third track... This is How I Disappear. Good. So freaking good. Too good that I had to post it on my path account. Fourth track, The Sharpest Lives, made my mind explode as I thought DAMN THIS BAND IS DA BOMB.

Lambat laun, akhirnya aku suka sama semua lagu di album itu. Semuanya. I can't even choose a favorite. Well, mungkin yang paling unik yang judulnya Mama sih... Coba dengerin deh.

Anyway, sampe hari ini, album The Black Parade masih jadi album favoritku dari band manapun. Sumpah, it was a compilation of tracks with quality. I love the concept, the art, the lyrics, the music, everything. Damn I even decided to buy it online, played it on my car's stereo, and watched my brother slowly starting to like the songs too.

By the way, selain album itu, akhirnya aku juga punya album-album MCR lain... Kecuali album pertama yang keluaran tahun 2002 kalo gak salah. I wonder if that album is still on sale somewhere. Needless to say, I absolute LOVE the band and all of their tracks. They're so freaking unique with their album concepts, lyrics, and good music. Oh, and don't forget about the members' personalities. Gerard, Mikey, Frank, Ray... It was such a shame for the band to part - they were really good, y'know? I sometimes hope they'll make music together again, someday.

Setelah denger MCR, akhirnya aku jadi suka explore band-band lain, mulai dari Fall Out Boy dan Panic! At the Disco yang dianggap "sejenis" sama MCR (mereka bertiga disebut sebagai 'The Emo Trinity' alias trio emo), Arctic Monkeys, System of a Down, Coldplay, Muse, dsb. Pokoknya, entah kenapa hidup jadi lebih rame sejak mulai discover band-band kayak gini. It feels good to be able to discuss about music with other people, let alone finding people with similar taste of music with you. Kadang aku masih mikir juga, dulu sebelum aku nemu band-band ini... Hidup aku sedatar apa ya...

Hahahaha I guess that's it! Maaf postnya rada gaje gitu ya, apalagi bagi yang gak suka musik. I just need to write on this blog about how much I love bands now, especially alternative rock ones.

And now... Wait, I've got a list of bands I have to listen to. I'll stop for now. See you on my next post!

Lima atau Sepuluh?

Aku lupa kapan pertama kalinya aku mengetahui, melihat, atau mendengar namamu. Rasa-rasanya aku pernah memandang wajah anak perempuan berambut lurus sang pemilik nama itu sepuluh tahun yang lalu. Rasa-rasanya pernah kulihat di daftar absensi kelas 1A yang tertempel di depan pintu, saat aku dan ibuku tengah mencari kelas pertama yang akan aku duduki semasa sekolah dasar. Rasa-rasanya pernah kudengar terucap dari mulut seorang teman kecil, entah siapa itu. Semua hanya memori samar.

Yang jelas teringat olehku hanyalah aku kecil yang dengan penuh rasa iri melihatmu maju ke depan saat upacara sebagai salah satu pemenang lomba mewarnai. Saat itu kita kelas 2 SD dan masih tak sekelas. Dengan kesal aku berpikir siapalah Adelia Salsabila Sudiana yang mengalahkan aku yang hebat ini.

Dan begitulah, kelas 3 dan 4 SD kujalani tanpa mengingat keberadaanmu lagi. Aku sibuk memerhatikan pelajaran, belajar, dan meraih peringkat pertama. Tak lagi kupedulikan tentang Adelia yang pernah menggagalkan ambisiku untuk menjadi juara di segala bidang yang aku minati.

Lalu tibalah saat itu. Kelas 5 SD. Saat akhir sekolah dasar sudah cukup dekat. Setelah lima tahun akhirnya nama kita tertera di kertas absensi yang sama. Dalam hati aku bertanya-tanya apakah kau berpikir seperti itu juga.

Lantas apakah aku senang?

Tidak.

Keberadaanmu menggangguku. Maafkan aku, teman, namun aku pun kurang mengerti kenapa. Mungkin karena kau selalu dikelilingi teman-temanmu yang ramai, nyaris seluruh perempuan di kelas. Mungkin karena kau seringkali membuat lelucon dan tertawa, ceria sepanjang hari. Sangat berbanding terbalik dengan diriku yang dulu.

Aku masih ingat sosokmu yang memakai seragam kebanggaan SD Djuwita. Baju terusan dengan rok motif kotak-kotak dan tulisan "Djuwita" terselip diantaranya, ditambah rompi biru tua yang diatasnya terpampang logo sekolah. Rambutmu masih seperti terakhir kali aku melihatmu dulu, kurasa. Lurus tanpa poni. Di kepalamu seringkali tersemat bando berwarna hitam. Entah selalu hitam atau tidak, ingatanku tak sejauh itu.

Kau seorang yang pintar sejak kecil, meski aku tak begitu merasa tersaingi, karena peringkat satu selalu ada padaku. Ah, namun bukan berarti kau berhenti mengalahkanku. Suatu saat kepala sekolah kita masuk ke kelas untuk mengumumkan bahwa kau terpilih untuk mewakili sekolah mengikuti olimpiade IPA (Lucu, memang, mengetahui reaksimu tentang IPA sekarang). Aku masih ingat rasa kaget, sedih, dan iri yang bercampur aduk menjadi satu, rasa muakku saat kepala sekolah mengatakan suatu hal tentang stabilitas nilai, dan air mataku yang tergenang, siap meluncur di pipiku. Rasa tersaingi yang timbul semasa kelas 2 kembali menguasai diriku.

Kelas 6 SD ku melupakan semuanya. Lagi-lagi kita sekelas. Tak acuh, aku hanya fokus pada ambisiku untuk meraih nilai terbaik demi masuk ke SMP negeri yang aku idamkan.

Ternyata hidup ini memang tidak bisa kita duga-duga. Entah sejak kapan aku mulai benar-benar berbicara denganmu dan menemukan kenyamanan disana. Aku pun tak ingat apa saja yang kita obrolkan. Semua mengalir begitu saja. Ternyata kau juga suka menulis, sama sepertiku. Beberapa kali kita merencanakan sebuah cerita bersama. Tentang Venus Ethellins dan teman-temannya, tentang Autumn Verdugo dan rumah berhantu yang ditinggalinya. Aku masih ingat kover buku putih yang kita gunakan untuk menulis kisah Autumn. Apakah masih kau simpan?

Ada masa dimana aku berpikir kita tak akan bertemu lagi. Misalnya, saat kita akhirnya lulus sekolah dasar. Aku yang sempat turun peringkat di semester satu - dari peringkat satu yang tak terkalahkan menjadi peringkat tujuh - kembali merebut tahtaku dengan mendapat nilai Ujian Nasional dan nilai sekolah tertinggi di angkatan. Senyum tak dapat lepas dari bibirku yang menanti pergantian suasana di SMP negeri. Dan kau, entahlah, tampaknya juga begitu. Entah kenapa aku yakin kau tak akan satu sekolah denganku.

Namun sekali lagi, hidup ini memang tidak bisa kita duga-duga. Pada akhirnya, sesuai dengan permintaan ibuku, aku kembali menjalani masa-masa belajarku di sekolah swasta. SMP Darma Yudha. Sudahlah, terima saja apa yang terjadi. Dalam hati aku penasaran kau akan melanjutkan sekolah kemana.

"Azz, aku juga masuk Darma Yudha!" Pesanmu termpampang jelas diatas layar ponsel Nokia C3-ku, tiga setengah tahun yang lalu. Dasar, pikirku. Lagi-lagi satu sekolah denganmu.

Maka begitulah, kita sekelas lagi hingga dua tahun kemudian. Nilai-nilaimu meningkat, bersamaan dengan nilai-nilaiku yang menurun, hanya saja aku tak lagi memedulikan itu. Kurasa aku mulai berubah menjadi lebih terbuka, dibanding sebelum aku dekat denganmu. Perlahan tapi pasti sifat ambisius, arogan, dan perasaan tersaingiku dipudarkan oleh waktu.

Kelas 3 SMP kita tak lagi sekelas, namun sudah terlalu dekat untuk berhenti mengobrol dengan satu sama lain.

Dan SMA, yah lagi-lagi satu sekolah denganmu. Kau yang dulunya sempat berkata sekilas tentang keinginanmu untuk masuk IPA, kini ada di IPS. Dan aku yang bertekad kuat untuk masuk IPS, justru berada di IPA.

Pertemanan kita terasa sudah lama sekali. Namun, hal lain yang tak dapat kita pungkiri, segalanya juga terasa cepat berlalu.

Hidup memang aneh.

Atau mungkin, kita yang aneh.

---

Maka saat aku melihat inbox ask.fm-ku yang penuh dengan pertanyaan terabaikan, pandanganku tak lepas dari "pertanyaan" - yang cenderung ke "pernyataan" - yang kau kirimkan dengan maksud bercanda ini.

"Gak kerasa udah lima tahun aja ya," begitu katamu.

Lima tahun... Benarkah baru lima tahun berlalu?

Kemudian aku mulai menulis.

Surviving 2014: Memoirs of the Previous Year(s)

I hope writing this kind of post on the third day of a new year is quite forgivable.

2012 was such a sweetheart, albeit having a strong flavor of bitter-sweetness. On the year's first half, I got a taste of first (unrequited) love, first heartbreak and all the disgusting cheesy stuff everyone must have experienced (or will experience) at some early phase of  their teenage years. Oh well, writing it here makes me feel so yucky, I apologize, but I have no other choice other than getting it written. The year's second half was way better. Many amazing things happened - and it, more or less, changed my perspective on life, on myself, and the whole world. I realized many things about myself that time; especially the fact that I wasn't just another kid that wanted to study and come up with high grades to satisfy herself and her parents. And so it began, the times when I worked my ass off to practice English, create a school blog, write, and draw for the sake of my own self, and for the appreciation and compliments from people around me because being not known sucks. I didn't want to be clever. I wanted to be recognized.

On the other hand, 2013 was such, pardon me, a complete asshole. I was recognized, I guess. Loads of people talked to me due to my creation of a school blog which many people complimented as funny and brilliant. But did I feel, even a bit, happiness or pride as if I'd reached a great accomplishment? Surprisingly, it's a big no. Why? Consider this; there's a great difference between being loved because of who you are (your personality, your looks, how you talk, those kind of things) and being popular because of what you have created. Both are equally sweet, I once thought to cheer myself up, but what would happen if I'd never come up with the idea of creating that blog in the first place? Would they ever, at least, love me as a person? No. Would they talk to me with admiration? No, because I'm just another not-so-good-looking girl with an awkward personality and nothing nice enough to like about. Needless to say, this realization wasn't a good thing for the beginning of my teenage years, as it affected my self-esteem a bit too much. Not to mention the things that followed after; having my parent being called by my homeroom teacher, seeing my friends ripping off the article I'd written and printed wholeheartedly, losing the people who meant a lot to me, and other things I don't want to recall right now as they used to kill me a bit inside.

So when 2014 readily served a new chapter each for all seven billions lives on this planet Earth, I couldn't help but wonder about what pattern has God prepared for me that year and all the years to come - if I happened to live long enough, that is. For instance, 2012 was a nice year, and 2013 wasn't. So was 2014 going to be as nice as 2012 (a.k.a repeating the pattern), or was it going to be shittier than 2013 (a.k.a having the graph goes downward)? I didn't know. No one knew.

I have little to no memory about the beginning of 2014, except for the time when the trumpets were blown and the fireworks were set as my brothers barged into my bedroom to give me their brotherly new-year-hug. Oh, and also the time when I opened twitter to discover a horror picture and turned out to be all "oh shit, this is gonna be a shitty year all along". January, nothing happened. So did February, except for the birthday of someone special but that didn't contribute much. March, I had the loneliest birthday ever... Somehow. April, a hectic month full of examinations, both practical and written. May, national exams followed by a quite fun preparation for farewell party, then the party itself, then a study tour and finally my last class farewell event in junior high... Ever. June, when hard work got paid off; a pretty good national exam results, but probably not good enough to get into the town's - or perhaps the province's - most wanted high school. July, when I was finally able to sigh in relief as I stepped on SMAN 8 Pekanbaru's territory, but my days weren't conflict-free either. August, choices were made. September, October, November, December... Things have gone on too quickly ever since - and life's getting better all the time, I suppose.

If 2014 was a chapter in my life (in my case, the 15th chapter), it sure wasn't a typical one where things immediately got better after all the conflicts in the previous chapter. It was, in fact, a slowly progressing one. The first four sub-chapters made it seem as if all the conflicts would continue instead of being resolved. The fifth gave a break to the main character, so did sixth which explained how things weren't as messed up as they actually seemed. Seventh offered a whole new circumstance for the main character. Eighth, instead of serving the solutions to all problems, was where the main character was stuck in between choices; and in this case, the whole Sciences-or-Social thing.

I've been having an interest in sciences since I was little. My brother and I used to collect many, many books related to the sciences, and since we were just mere little kids who loved decent pictures a bit too much, all of them were in the form of comic books. When I was in my third year of elementary my father bought me a set of encyclopedias, which made my interest in sciences grow even more. I scored higher in sciences than I did in social studies, and perhaps any other subjects.

But as I entered junior high realization kicked in - that I fell in love with the world of literature, aesthetics, and social studies, too. I wrote many things to myself because I was too shy to show other people, drew well in art class, and studied hard in social studies. I abandoned my love for sciences, my admiration to Gregor Mendel, my will to learn more about atoms and how it made all the things in the universe, and other things I was supposed to love the most. Journalism was my life goal, which I would probably never achieve for now, because high school reminded me of my love for sciences again. The psychology test that "forced" me to be in sciences, despite my ambitions in social studies and linguistics. The inability to refuse and move to social studies. I was in dilemma, for I knew I was no longer the brilliant student in sciences. But no matter what the circumstance was, the choice had to be made. Some choices are made unwillingly, others freely decided. But all choices affect lives... And so I decided to go on with sciences. It might hurt at first, leaving a huge dream. But meeting sciences wasn't a bad experience - it felt quite right. It felt like meeting an old friend.

Ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth. Aforementioned in the fourth paragraph above this sentence, things have unbelievably gone so fast. Reuniting with elementary friends, new group of friends, new activities to learn (debating, scrabble, poetry writing even though not seriously, etc), all the ups and downs... It wasn't an easy journey, but I'm quite grateful for the year, for the new experiences, for the choices I made albeit I messed them up a bit too much. Being in sciences didn't make it easier for me, but I'm sure it will, for things get better all the time if you keep on being optimistic and consistent with your choice. Oh, and hard work, don't forget to include that in the equation. I lacked in hard work, I guess.

It wasn't the best year ever. But it was - indeed - a precious, memorable one.