Holiday Log: Tribulations of a Free Man

    PAS comes to an end.

    After seven day's worth of computerised testing (and dead-end, late-night studying to match), a holiday is the pleasureful release from the constant back-breaking pressure which is school that any student would need-- especially one from SMAN 3.  Two entire weeks off from everything. No work, no holiday assignments, no conformity to school rules, nothing. 

    Nada. Zilch. Nihil.

    One could even cry tears of joy at the mere concept of it. A break? How laughable! Were you unaware, my dear fellow student? Us pupils were built for suffering. How impossible something like a "break" seemed to be.

    And yet, here it is. Laid in my palms, like a pearl amongst the fleshy innards of an oyster, after such a long, gruelling time. Had all my hard work finally paid off? Was this the happiness I deserved after countless hours of torture?

    Perhaps.

    Perhaps it isn't the break I deserve at all, no. I believe it is far from that. My efforts, as tolling as they were, they simply did not meet the status quo; to refer to them as anywhere near sufficient would be an insult to every other student in this campus. To say that I even tried in the first place would be but a fib, and to say that happiness would be granted to me by days of leisure would be pathetic.

    But perhaps it *is* the break that I need.

    So I accepted it with open arms.

    The young days of my holiday were quite tame. My hours were spent indoors, in front of my PC, playing an arrangement of video games; from my number one, my beloved Shin Megami Tensei IV, all the way to casual farming with my dear acquaintance Juno on Stardew Valley. My father had even provided me with an allowance of Rp 250k to purchase video games during Steam's Winter Sale, which, sadly, I have yet to use. May God bless his soul. 

    Even with my vast array of video games, Shin Megami Tensei IV remained the top title that accompanied me throughout my holiday. I would even go so far to call it one of my favourite games of all time. I even named my online persona after one of the characters, Jonathan. 

    Shin Megami Tensei IV tells the story of a group of blessed samurai from the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado, a kingdom built upon the firmament-- in other words, Mikado's foundation was a wall of bedrock that enveloped the world below in darkness, allowing no sunlight through. Every year in Mikado, all youngsters that reach the age of 18 must attend the gauntlet rite, a ceremonial tradition that selects new samurai, per the word of a mystical gauntlet. We, the protagonist, Walter, Isabeau, Jonathan, and Navarre are the new recruits this year, and as newly appointed samurai prentices must set off with our new duties and make descisions that determine along the way.

    Outside of video games, I also took the time to finish a show I had been watching, Bojack Horseman. 

     However, in the days nearing New Year's Eve, my family and I retreated to the comfort of our home in Padalarang-- as our day-to-day house, you could say, stood in the midst of a sea filled with drunkards. To spend your holiday break in a home surrounded by nightclubs, bars, discoteques and the sort, all filled with partygoers-- seems like a recipe for disastrous "rest". One would not find the request of peaceful sleep during the New Year to be unreasonable, no? So, to Padalarang it is.

    I waited for the clock to hit 12 accompanied by one of my closest online friends, Hali. They and I

I fell asleep. I was greeted with a dream about my school acquaintances and I, running about a campus-like facillity during what seemed like an event. At the end of the dream I had checked my Instagram, and, for whatever reason, Mark Zuckerberg was now sharing my posts and photos and tagging me, as if we were best friends. In Japanese culture, the first dream one has in the new year is referred to as hatsuyume. ( 初夢) According to tradition, the contents of such a dream would foretell the luck of the dreamer in the ensuing year.