I do love you, Indonesia, but...

sunset somewhere in Bali. credit: aritarman

Maybe around a week ago, I met up with some friends. They're from my uni period, and working as lecturers at my old uni. Different major, but the same department. Anyways, I'd been trying to see them for a month, and finally we managed to find the time. The last time I saw them was probably four or five years ago. So, we got A LOT of catching up to do. It's quite typical, you summed up your life in the past four/five years: work(s), relationship(s), significant events, etc. I told them what had happened with my professional life and of course mentioned the stupid mistake of working for the government. 

Their reactions were somewhat surprising. I didn't expect them out of all people would actually question my decision. I thought since they dubbed themselves smarter and more progressive than other lecturers in their department, they would at least understand my reasons for quitting without so many whys. One friend even got further by saying he wanted to switch places with me, if I refused to take money from my boss because I didn't work for it. He would just take it, he said. I was like, okay this is weird. And then I spent the next 30 minutes answering all the whys and trying to make them understand that my decision was not because I was a snobby bitch. The way they stared at me made me feel like I was the biggest and bitchiest snob in the universe, though. Finally, the other friend said that I did make the right decision because of the difficult circumstances involving corruption and such. I was like, what's difficult about that? People decided to take money without questioning its source, I did question. Nothing difficult. Unless, keeping your values and morals is considered difficult, then I was a goddamned hero. But, no I don't feel like one, nor I wanted to be recognised as one (or as anything other than myself, in that matter). 

Which led me to this: what the fuck is happening with people in this country? How come I needed to explain why corruption is bad and why we need to take a stand and create a change, at least with ourselves if we can't do anything further than that? It freaks me out to see so many people question my reasons quitting the government job. I can't remember whether I wrote about this or not in a different post, but I was once confronted by a member of my extended family. He was trying to make me feel guilty for the decision. He said something about how he had dreamt becoming a civil servant all his life etc. etc. etc. Did he question my reasons? Nope. I doubt he would care or understand anyway. Oh, let's not forget all people working in that goddamned office, who even bothered going to my department just because they wanted to gossip about the girl  who resigned.

I should have mentioned about my real objections about the office to my superiors then, but I didn't. Instead, I chose to use personal reasons. I did mention how I didn't feel like growing professionally in that office. But I didn't say I hate you lot because you just wasted taxpayers' money by doing shit in this office. Maybe I should, maybe I shouldn't. Honestly, I doubt harsh criticism or any criticism would do anything good, considering their (the people at that office) attitude towards their job and obligations.

 
Maybe it's because I'm rather odd. I've always suspected that. Do you ever feel that? Not odd in a good way, like X-Men-before-they-knew-they're-cool-mutants-odd. But it's when you felt like you didn't belong, even in your closest circle, and then your suspicion was confirmed and you ended up getting hurt anyway (despite suspecting your oddity for a while). Oh, right. That happened to me. I thought I was going to be okay, but apparently not. Right, enough emotional breakdown.

I guess I just feel a bit helpless. Too much shit is going on in this country. And I doubt I will change much just by writing a stupid blog post.