Since I started writing short stories when I was 6 or 7 (this is according to my mom – citation needed), I have always wanted to publish my writing. I wrote countless poems and short stories during my school days, mostly when I’m bored at classes. Unfortunately the problem was the follow up – many of the stories were unfinished, or even lost. Goodbye published stories.

So when my friend Putu kept telling me to write a human-interest story about my name-change, I was skeptical about myself. Because 1. As I said before, I have had problems with my attention span and follow up when writing longer pieces and 2. I have never written a human-interest piece tailored for newspapers/magazines. Sure I have written some pieces on this blog, but of course the style is much more relaxed and carefree – not really of publishing standard. I actually planned to blog about the name change already, but he convinced me to just write an article about it.

The process of writing that article took about 6 months, including slacking and forgetting about it. I started with conversation bits because that’s how I like it. Call that my style or something. That was the shape of the article for months, until the time when I just moved in to a new room. Since it was a new room, I had not configured the internet connection. Staring at my computer without internet connection, I then decided to open the almost blank document and started writing… Before I knew it it was nearing 1000 words. (I sent the early draft to Putu after I configured the internet connection, the subject line: “What I did when I didn’t have internet”)

I initially wanted to talk about the process of the name change, but the funny/annoying stories about my one-name took up too much space. If I’m not wrong I ended up with almost 1500 words for only the anecdotes. So I decided to scrape the name change process story.

“Remember that papers usually ask for 1000 words”, he said. Ugh. “Help me edit it then,” I said. Score!

The final draft was +/- 1025 words. He helped me to cut it until about 990. I then sent it to The Jakarta Post and The Jakarta Globe. That was December 22 – I remember because it was “ondeh-ondeh” day, my auntie made some delicious rice balls in ginger soup. Unfortunately The Jakarta Globe’s mailbox was full and I had to resend several times until December 25 (Christmas!).

On December 30, Globe emailed me back saying that they would like to publish my story. The only catch – I would have to shorten the piece into 750-800 words as per the column requirement. Damn! From 1500, 1025, 990, now 750-800? I could hear my pretty words crying. And yet I said ok.

Then I tried, miserably, to shorten it. I couldn’t bear it. My words were all crafted carefully. My kids, my darlings!

“You gotta help me. I give up.”

And so through Google Docs on flaky internet connection (we were both in Jakarta at that time) he managed to cut it into 805 words. “I leave the last 5 to you”, he said. I finally cut it down to 790 words and sent it by January 1. Signed, sealed, delivered.

Days came and went, I took my own sweet time waiting for a response. Well, they would tell me when it was about to be published, wouldn’t they? Then I could prepare to buy a copy of the paper, and cut the part and frame it. (I was serious)

Wrong.

On January 4th, another friend of mine Joe posted a link to an article on my wall. It first seemed foreign. But they kept my conversation bits at the beginning, and then I knew. This is my stuff! After editing and changing some stuff, of course. But they published it!

Excited and confused, I emailed the news editor again, asking about payment and whatnots. I wondered whether they can transfer the payment to my sister’s account (I don’t have an Indonesian bank account anymore), or if they’re not comfortable with it, they can wire it to my Singapore account. Translation – please save me trouble and send it to my Singapore account. Then I also asked whether they can tell me how I can get a copy of past issues. Translation – give me a copy please.

I learned not to use the hinting language too much. The money finally got transferred to my sister’s account (actually I haven’t confirmed this) and I didn’t get a copy of that particular issue. Speaking of which – anyone got one? You can scan and send it to me! It was January 4 2011 edition.

My takeaway? I can only say – I feel lucky. This was my very first attempt and somehow the universe or the guy up there decided to give me a lovely chance. Did my ego some good, seriously.

All in all, an interesting experience. I think I like it. May I experience it more. Let’s write!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Anyway, I have been writing my thoughts verbatim in my Posterous site. Do check it out if you’re interested in reading my thoughts and of course, sometimes, my mundane life. Though my mundane life is usually delegated to my Twitter or Plurk.

Writing in Posterous with shorter, verbatim style has been quite liberating. I like to write – but sometimes the level of quality I impose on myself hinders the process. I don’t know – maybe I should consider moving to Posterous full-time. What do you think?

Don’t forget to check http://sylv.posterous.com. Yes I snagged the “sylv” subdomain. Ain’t I cool.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

“Facebook/Twitter/Plurk/whatever got me addicted and I can’t do my work/school stuff/tasks/whatever”.

But, seriously, people?

Those websites only offer you services. Whether you got addicted, it’s only you to blame. It is not Facebook’s fault that you bombed a test. It is your fault to check Facebook ever so obsessively when you’re supposed to study for a test. It is not Twitter’s fault that you failed to finish your work task and got screwed real bad by the boss. It is your fault to tweet incessantly and neglect your responsibilities.

Stop blaming the medium. And acknowledge that you have a problem. Make a conscious effort to stop that.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

In my life, I have only lived in two countries – Indonesia and Singapore, where the availability of good TV shows is heartbreaking. I guess it’s just natural to turn to US-produced TV shows, which I generally like because the actors are great, the backdrop well-planned, and the plot believable.

Basically, they’re great. Except when it comes to portraying Indonesia.

I just finished an episode of Community today where the adorable Chevy Chase (who, in contrast, plays the racist and homophobe Pierce) blurts out “Did you know there’s an island in Indonesia where you can hunt people?”. While that might be true (as said, I didn’t do much research…), I think that joke is in poor taste. Why is it that whenever Indonesia is mentioned, it’s always on the line of ridiculous “facts” that imply Indonesians are civilized or – wait for it – terrorists?

Another favourite show of mine is Covert Affairs. It’s a typical CIA action flick, but the lead female is hot and so is her trusty blind confidante that I don’t mind seeing typical action scenes (running down the stairs while the chaser looks from above – geddit?) every week. On the much awaited 2-hour-long season finale, the lead female goes with her co-star to exotic locales such as Bangladesh and Bali, Indonesia. I waited for beautiful scenes of Bali (one of my fave places, btw) and instead, through confusing banters, implied that the military is up to something terrorist-ish. Oh come on, seriously? Are you really implying all people in Indonesia are terrorists?

We are not uncivilized. Indonesia currently consistently makes the top 5 of the number of users of Facebook and Twitter. And that happened despite the serious lack of infrastructure. What we say on Twitter sways the trending topics on Twitter! I should admit, though, that those people who contribute to the statistics are a very little percentage of Indonesia’s 200 million population (hey is it still 200 million though?). But anyway, seriously! Though battered by corruption and financial troubles, my home country is pretty decent. It has pretty beaches and mountains, it has big cities with skyscrapers, it has great food, it has friendly people. In short, it is very, very far from the image of uncivilized terrorists’ den.

Do these US writers even know where Indonesia is?

Probably not.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Let’s start with the etymology. sylvdoanx consists of two parts, Sylv and doanx. Sylv of course came from my name Sylvia. I’ve always liked to put my name as Sylv, as it’s shorter to write and looks more compact. In my own opinion, the name “Sylvia” looks too formal and gives the impression of vintage or old. In reality though, I never introduce myself as Sylv. For Indonesian people, I always introduce myself as Syl-vee (Sylvia sounds too formal). Yet for English-speaking people, I introduce myself as Sylvia, or rather Seel-vyah (two syllables!). Now for  the doanx part… It’s gonna take a longer story to explain.

Doanx is a stylized version of “doang”, a slang Indonesian word meaning “only”. I suppose I can say that sylvdoanx means “only Sylv” and it asserts my uniqueness and individuality, but that was not the story.

It started 21 years ago when my parents decided to name me Sylvia. Only Sylvia. No last names, surnames, middle names whatsoever. The reason – only my dad will know (mom said she wanted me to have a long name but dad decided against it). Flash forward to my 3rd year of high school. Despite having exactly 2 3rd-year Science stream classes, the folks at school conveniently decided to put a Sylvia and a Silvia M. in the same class. And that’s how it started. Calling me Sylvia would be awkward because there’s another Sylvia. My name unofficially became “Sylvia Doang”, and they started to call me “Doang”. It continued throughout the year, and some of them still call me that until now.

And so that’s how it evolved to sylvdoanx.

I don’t remember when I first used sylvdoanx. I remember I signed up for a site (I don’t remember which one – it was not Friendster) and when they asked for a username, I typed Sylv, and quickly followed by doanx. With the stylized version, of course. May I remind you I was only 16! Haha.

But I think this thing I scribbled on my scientific calculator predated all my online activities:

Well, that’s the story of how sylvdoanx came about.

There’s another reason why I wrote this post. I have decided that I will change my sylvdoanx nickname very soon. Details of why will be posted together with my new nickname announcement. I’ll just say – I don’t feel like sylvdoanx anymore, it has been 4 years and I think I have evolved. I’m still in a process of choosing the appropriate nickname. Update you soon!

Did the story of how my nickname came about go as you expected? For non-Indonesian-speaking friends, what did you think the “doanx” was about?

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

So much time can be delegated instead to appreciate what we already have.

Obsessing and whining about things we can’t have does NOT help us get the things in any way. So why waste the time, the effort, the heart?

I think it’s either take action to get that thing, or step back, evaluate, realize, and start appreciate things that you already have.

I’m choosing the latter. How about you?

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

When I was in Jakarta, my littlest sister one day threw tantrums to her boyfriend because he had not replied her text messages for several hours. Or not @-replying her on Twitter. Whichever it was.

I was like, “Seriously, sis? Maybe he’s just busy doing something else?”. And my sister shot me a blank look, depicting something like “Even if he’s busy he should be able to reply me”.

Isn’t that the bane of today’s world? It’s unbearably instant (borrowing phrase from my friend Putu). Decades ago, lovers will send each other love letters and wait weeks, even months, for a reply. To even receive a reply is a lovely surprise.

Right now we have text messages, IMs, Twitter, and many other applications that claim to bring people closer together, but create attention-deficit impatient people instead. We don’t even send long e-mails anymore (except perhaps when your groupmate is acting really obnoxious. SMU joke – if you don’t get it never mind). When was the last time you sent an e-mail like a real mail? Something like how are you, how is it like at your place, what has been going on, and yadda yadda yadda. Never? I am not surprised. Too often the longest emails I received are from my aunt who just caught the e-mail forwarding virus (yes, in 2010!).

Do we not have enough time to stop and wait? Or are we expected NOT to have time? Because everything is unbearably instant…

Here’s a suggestion. You don’t even need to send a real hand-written letter via post (do people even know that postal service still exists?). Try sending long e-mails. Write to a friend. Tell him/her how you are doing, what have you been up to. Ask him/her about what he/she has been planning to do, or even about his/her quirky hobbies.

Send the e-mail.

And then wait for the reply.

Savour the time.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

For how long should I be here, I don’t know. I haven’t even bought a ticket back to Singapore. It’s like I’ve been home for so long I almost forgot how Singapore looks like.

I think I have to convince myself to just go, to just dive in, to just step out and face it.

I’ve done it before when 4 years ago I came into Singapore, without anyone, without knowing anything. I survived.

But I dunno if I want to prolong it…

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.