Desperate student-life

It is almost the end of my student life.
If I flash back to the years I was sitting in the class, listening to my boring teachers (FYI, not all teachers), or probably a great fun of secretly eating some snack during the class (eating during classes was of course forbidden in Indonesia), I would love to be a student again, especially a high-school student.

Now it is almost over.
I just need to have a good teamwork with ulmie, co-orporate with our contact person from the company we are doing our research with, and in the next four months we will be graduating (ulmie,.. crossing finger!!). Probably I will still have some more years to study (if God allows me to continue my study in the graduate level), but,.. yeah,.. come on, master student? It is not the real student. I think. But,.. we’ll see.

Looking up to the title I apply for this article, it will probably remind you to your favorite soap, Desperate Housewives. I don’t actually follow this series, but it happened once or twice when I had my dinner and I accidentally watched it. From my point of view (which might be wrong), it is just about comparing one woman’s life to the others.

It happened to me, too, when I was not satisfied at all with what I had at that moment. I couldn’t stop comparing myself to others.

So, let’s go through my silly thoughts one by one

Elementary School

1. No girls want to befriend with me
2. My female classmates think I am a slut because I had more male friends than female friends.

Junior high-school

1. (Again) My female classmates think I am a slut because I had more male friends than female friends.
2. No boys like me because I am not attractive.
3. Everybody hates me
4. I am stupid. I wish I had a brain like my brother’s; he is very good at school.
5. I am an irritating person, no one likes me.

Senior high-school

1. (Still) I am an irritating person, no one likes me.
2. I am not pretty at all! I should know a little bit about fashion or make-up
3. I am very bad at school. I wish I was as smart as my brother.
4. I am a FAT PIG! No one finds me attractive.
5. I am a weirdo
   

University

1. (Still) I am a FAT PIG!
2. I wish I could know more about webdesigning or graphic designing.
3. I wish I had a better internship, a well-paid internship.
4. I wish my parents are richer.
5. I am not attractive at all!
6. Nia, you are the most embarrassing creature in the whole world!
7. Oh my gosh, your boyfriend is cheated on you!
8. You have no friends in the Netherlands! Everybody hates you.
9. I cannot speak Dutch. No Dutch people will befriend with me, because it is difficult to communicate with me.

And probably I still have some more stupid thoughts in my head. FYI, most of them are lies,. They are incorrect!

I don’t have to explain my thoughts one by one, or if you want, you can always ask me how come I had those stupid thoughts. Probably, I will talk about some of them; some which I thought had a big impact in my life.

Being fat!
It is a thought that has been signed in since the first time I became a teenager. I always felt fatter than other girls, especially when I looked to girl magazines or television or fashion show. I had been through some diets during my high school. Probably I wasn’t very slim, yet I wasn’t fat. I was just healthy.

The fear of being fatter and fatter made me even want to suffer to lose weights. There was a moment when I often throw up the food I had eaten. I did that because I thought it was a very easy way; I didn’t have to follow any diets, yet I would lose weight. It happened several months. No one knew. Until I had a chat with my favorite teacher, my biology teacher, and she said that throwing up food like that could damage my body. Then, I stopped.

Recently, I sometimes still felt that I was fat. Especially when I went back to Indonesia. Hundreds of people would tell me that I was chubbier, fatter, or ‘healthier’. Afterwards, I would feel very bad, and then look into the mirror saying “Oh my gosh, Nia! You are fat! Look at your cheeks. You are not attracted at all! What are you doing in that t-shirt? You look like a sausage.”

Thankfully I have never done the throwing-up thingy again.

I changed my mind, radically, when one of my good friend, Tam, told me that we are God’s temple (1 Corinthians 3:16 “You realize, don't you, that you are the temple of God, and God himself is present in you?”). Thus, our body is God’s temple. Tam added that if our body is God’s temple, thus we have to take care of it. Bad diet or to suffer to get an ideal body (ideal = according to your point of view) is not right.

From that moment, I changed my eating behavior. Sometimes, stupid thought tries to enter my head, saying “Nia, you are fatter. Oh, look, Nia, the girl over there is thinner than you!” But no,.no,.. I don’t allow it to enter my head. I usually pray and look into the mirror, saying “You are a perfect God’s creature. God doesn’t make mistake when He created you.”

Not attractive
I met my elementary school classmate through Friendster. We talked about what we were up to and where we were, and then we looked each others’ pictures in Friendster. She then said “Nia, you are cute like you always were. Since you were in elementary school you looked like this.”

I stunned.
I didn’t believe what I heard.
She was a cool, cute girl (according to my point of view) in our elementary school. A boy I fancied liked her.

Hm,.. maybe I should have given more credits to myself.

How about you?
It is not a moment of ‘praising myself’ or “look at me! I am beautiful” moment. It is a moment to think about ourselves. What silly thoughts that have entered my head? What kind of stupid things that stayed in my head and that I have to get rid of? Who am I actually?

It is natural that some girls are cuter than you, thinner than you, has more beautiful hair than you. But you, probably, have the most beautiful eyes that your classmate envies. You probably have the cutest lips you roommate has always wanted. You are probably very organized and so clean that your housemate desperately wants to be like you. Or you are probably the warmest and most charming person that other people will be just like you. Or you have the funniest story that everybody will love to hear. Or…you are very good at PHP or HTML so that you have the most promising internship.

What should I do?
I, now, normally pray when I recognize this kind of battle. I will ask God to fill my head with His words not with all the lies that could defeat me. It always works.

Thus, friends, it is always an issue that your neighbor has a greener garden; yet do you know that you have the most beautiful rose in your garden? Yes, believe me, you do.