In March 2024, one of my close friends Acha randomly texted me, saying that she was checking my old blog entries to take a trip down memory lane. She asked me to write again. In between endless reading and dissertation pressure, I said I could not do it then, but I would later in the year after master's. God knows I'm such a sloth; fast forward to today 10th October 2025, I only started writing 10 minutes ago.
Many months have passed since I returned home after a year living abroad. I still remember the feelings that I had post study. They were quite messy; it took some time to untangle and properly process them. I realised in the end that I was predominantly furious. Apparently, I still am.
I have a love-hate relationship with London. Though it might sound like trouble, me being furious is not because of London, really. I do hate that everything is expensive and it feels like life is never enough there, and that I can never make peace with its gloomy weather, and that there are simply too many people in the streets. My frugal and homebody ass really can't.
But I sincerely cherish my London days. I love my quarterly morning trip to the Columbia Flower Market--picking out seasonal fresh blooms to arrange back home. I love that the life there rekindled me with an interest I thought I lost: books. I started reading again--mostly fiction, just to balance things out with pages of academic papers. I love all the walks, the city's extensive network of public transportation, and its free museums and galleries. My mundane routine was also a pure joy: taking the 91 bus to Holborn, looking at the King's Cross and St Pancras stations in awe, going for weekly groceries in Angel, finding secluded corners around campus for focus time, and zoning out at public parks. I often went to the Lincoln's Inn Garden whenever I had enough with my own dissertation (there was a lot of existential crisis there).
I started feeling angry as I approached the end of my postgrad journey, mainly because of three things.
First, the genocide going on in Palestine. You know those countries who have been declaring themselves as the beacon of civilisation and human rights, always setting whatever standards for the rest of the world to follow? Their complicity and hypocrisy in the annihilation of thousands of Palestinians people, a third of them children, are truly astonishing. Schools, hospitals, and refugee camps are bombed in front of our very eyes. Humanitarian aid is blocked, people are starved, and ceasefire agreements are constantly violated by Zionists. No parties are held accountable. No consequences are imposed. Bunch of clowns.
More countries finally begin to recognise the Palestinian state after 2 years of genocide, when most of the Gaza strip has become rubble and dust. Ya.. sure.. better late than never. But what the hell?
Second, the political and social turmoil back home. Man, this is a whole another story. I think my country is at its dumbest time since reformation. There is absolute shit show everywhere: ethics being slaughtered in a broad daylight during the last election, data ransom, illiterate high school students (??? what do you mean there are those who can't read and can't solve simple math problems???), police violence.. the list goes on and on it is as long as the Great Post Road from Anyer to Panarukan. Truly never a dull moment checking out national news.
Third, social media. I used to love it, honestly great platform to connect with friends and seek updates, but not so much now. Aside from bots and buzzers swarming the space, I notice that it is now dominated by users showcasing things just to look good on screen and chasing engagements--at least from my own observation. Lifestyle full of chasing the latest trends. Excessive (to the point of deceptive) personal branding. I even found some people disclosing their double to triple-digit salaries nonchalantly online. For what? Everything feels painfully superficial. I'm tired of Instagram, I'm extremely tired of Twitter (still refusing to call it X; btw this weariness led me to write a dissertation around the topic), and I once flipped my phone and laptop close right away after I opened my LinkedIn homepage (never a fan of LinkedIn, but what's a girl to do, still need those job postings and industry updates).
I also learned and discussed a lot about AI and left the school highly skeptical. Great yet insufficiently regulated technology, with questionable ethics. And yet again, it is an unstoppable wave. Everyone needs to be ready in making the most out of what AI can offer.
All of these grew into resentment, disgust, and helplessness. There is suddenly no OK place on earth. In the first three months after school was over, I did not know where to direct the anger to. Even if I knew where to point my finger at to hold the persons responsible, there was nothing much I could do. I ended up lashing out at almost everything and being extremely toxic. It took months to reflect and make peace with the current state of the world, to release and redirect all the unwanted energy, which was far from easy with the relocation blues going on.
I'm still angry at people and humanity. At corrupt people in power. At social media users creating and succumbing to the superficial social media culture (and of course to social media platforms pushing for screen time and conversions). At criminals using technology the wrong way, too. Sometimes it is a raging fire, sometimes it is manageable. Although causing discomfort, it has guided me to a new calling in life. Talk about blessings in disguise. They helped to identify directions I want to head towards and pinpointed causes I want to serve.
If you happen to share the same feelings, I suggest keeping those flames alive. They could make you contemplate a lot and propel you to be the constructive antithesis to whatever thesis out there worth challenging. Life is a series of counter-adjustments anyway; one side tries to get advantage from the other side, the latter adapts, and the cycle continues.
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