Indonesia Raya

From this semester on until the rest of my life, my academic focus will be on Indonesia. Well, last semester I couldn't really make up my mind as to where specifically in SE Asia I want to focus in; I was torn between Indonesia and southern Thailand. Hence, my taking First Semester Thai last year. Also last semester, I dabbled with various SE Asian countries ranging from Vietnam to Thailand to Indonesia to the Philippines when I wrote my various research papers; I just couldn't make up my damn mind. I remember being so envious of Sinae, who was and still is focusing solely on Thailand, and Scott, who was doing everything Vietnam. Why didn't I have the same kind of clear academic goals?

Rest assured that this semester I finally make the big leap and start to concentrate more on the land of my ancestors, Indonesia. Dropping out of the Second Semester Thai class definitely helps in making this decision. As of now, my mind is so saturated with all the minute details of modern Indonesian history and politics that I feel like I personally know Bung Karno, Gus Dur, Pak Harto, Ibu Mega, Pak Amien, Cak Nur and others--they even talked to me in my sleep! I'm also getting good in memorizing and pronouncing all the complicated polysyllabic Javanese names after encountering the same names for like a million times.

I haven't really made up mind what book to pick for my final paper in the Modern Indonesian Literature class. I read Sri Sumarah by Umar Kayam last night and I'm thinking of doing my paper about this long short story (about 80 pages). As for my Politics in SE Asia class, I'm doing a research about Islam and Pancasila Democracy during the Suharto's New Order regime. It's about how the various Islamic socio-political forces in Indonesia dealt with the de-politicization and de-ideologization process throughout this repressive era. It's very interesting to find out how adaptable, creative, versatile and intellectually-refreshing some of the major Islamic groups and Muslim intellectuals were during this time in using the state's own repressive ideology against itself. Makes me love Indonesia even more! I wish Malaysia has more people like them.

All I want to do right now is to sit at the top of Borobudur temple and watch the sun goes down over Mount Merapi.