Letter to N-Sensei

Kyushu University, Ito Campus, Fukuoka in a cold winter, tho no snow, January 2019

Dear Nonaka-sensei,

I hope that you, your family, and the JTW team are safe and sound.

I'm sorry that I couldn't reply to your last email, and that it took almost 2 years for me to do it now. I've always wanted to write to you but I just couldn't, even after you sent your greeting through my juniors in JTW. I think it's similar to the way it was with you after giving birth to your daughter, the difference is that for me I got a new job.

I am forever grateful that you updated us on your daughter, and so is Hanna & Tri. I hope she’s well. You haven’t told us about her name. Does she have an English family name then? Just realized I haven’t learned about your husband’s name either. I assume she can walk quite freely now? And starting to talk I guess? (My boss has a baby boy who just turned 2 today, that’s how I guess). How is she adapting to the pandemic? Pandemic babies tend to be shy here, but one of my friends’ kids managed to overcome it after last Ied Al Fitr last month where he met a lot of people.

Do you teach outside the JTW program too now? What are you up to in teaching these days? How’s the JTW program adjusting to the pandemic? How are the students? How did my juniors do? What were their interests? Any similarities with mine?

Btw, just took I break from writing this email to read back on our previous correspondence. I can feel the difference in the way I write emails compared to now. I don’t know if you can tell. A lot has changed in real life too for sure. 

So, I got accepted into the architecture publishing company I told you about before. It was after my application was neglected for like 3 months and I almost took an internship in local online media (which has nothing to do with architecture lmao). I finally moved to Tangerang (next to Jakarta) to start my new job here on December 14th, 2020 (still remember the date, such a new life chapter). 

1.5 year has passed since then—which is longer than what I planned, coz my Mom got very sick before I applied for the job and it was hard for me to leave her, so I planned to work there for 1 year and then go back to my hometown to accompany her. But then she got better (not her health condition tho, it’s still the same or maybe worse, but her mindset and attitude in life have improved so much), and I learned so much here even in just a year, so it was kinda unfortunate to just leave for perhaps something totally different (coz I still want to write but we have no architecture publishing in my hometown and nearby).

I’m probably still gonna be here at least until the end of 2022. Our company is very small (it’s currently just the 4 of us) and has no particular career path. So, I need to plan what I want to do next in life. One of the options is to be a lecturer, a lof people told me to (my boss, my college supervisor, friends, colleague, etc), and hopefully, I can move closer to my parents after becoming one. But in order to do that, I need to study again and perhaps obtain real design experience to teach my future students better. So apart from my main job, I am now using one of my day-offs to train in My Boss’ architecture studio (which is his main business). It’s been 2 weeks, and it was such a big challenge for me. I’m glad that everything is going pretty well so far.

Hanna and Tri are doing fine. Tri is still in the same company. While Hanna has resigned from her work and has been accepted into a university in Australia for graduate studies, I heard she’s still looking for a scholarship. Otherwise, she would have let go of the program and try again next time. She’s enjoying a lot of cooking and baking now in Jogja. I met Arsya last year after she graduated. It’s been so long ever since, so I’m wondering about her too now.

Though a lot has changed, I do still write long emails, hehe. And I left so many questions! Lol. You don’t have to answer them all. Any update is fine ^^

Is your address still the same? I really need to send your flash disk back and perhaps some Indonesian stuff :p

Looking forward to hearing from you~