The Department and Me

Thursday, as I sit myself on a hard, plastic chair, and began to write, I remembered my friend told me that there is a possibility that the department I belong to is unsafe - there is possibility to be closed. The issue about this department, for which I have studied for almost three years, which is on the verge of being closed, is exaggerating. In fact I didn't really understand why it has to be closed, but the reason mainly due to hard accreditation.
I didn’t surprise, however. This department, although it has did its best to assure its students to learn and to live, allow their students to work off from what this department taught. I recalled when I was on my walk on a shady plafond; some of my friends gave me news about the alumnus. They were work as an administration boys or girls, some as salesmen or salesgirls, others continued their study, and the rest remained unknown. I didn’t know for sure, and I didn’t have any chance to proof it. In fact, it was a matter of believe or not.
One thing that I got from the conversation was that it was really hard to get a suitable job for us in Indonesia. We often heard that Mr. Santoso, an agricultural expert, has made his living by selling porridge, or Mr. Iwan, an architect who worked as a journalist. There are more Santoso or Iwan if you are willing to count – honestly you will not want to count them. I began to think that getting a suitable job now days is as hard as finding a needle in a stack of straw. More and more company coming, more and more people born and raised, yet more and more unemployed occur and people has no chance to live: they work what they were not willing to.
I stranded here, in this room – a medium campus dormitory cabin consists of four students, which two of its guests had already missing somewhere. Sunlight went through the windows just beside my seat, as I kept thinking about why should people born to be something, or rather, why some things big in people’s mind are fixed to be the same thing at all: businessman, merchants, company worker, or else? I would rather see the life of local people farming rather than watching how businessmen work.
Aside from that, I felt abandoned if this issue was true, but then what? Our friends and I were fated to get stuck into this department. If the reason to close this department was because the jobs gained by its alumnus really didn’t match with the department, then it all should goes the same for agricultural department in IPB, or forestry or Russian Literature department in UNPAD, or archaeology department in UI, or else. To be honest, I can think about that later. I feel that the best thing to do right now is to focus on what I want to be, and what I want to achieve. Even if later it is closed, I will regret no single thing, as this department is what bounded me and my friend for so long, thus enable me to do many things: went to a library, cruelled by lecturer, place hope, place worry, and place fate, and even write this piece of damn literature. Sometimes I feel no future for me, but isn’t tomorrow is still a mystery? Why should I sad or angry or worry about every things? I just need to do my best to survive.
I looked out of the window. The sunlight touched my eyes, and I began wondering what my life would be. Is it hard? Or is it full of happiness? I don’t know. I looked everything around me - chairs, beds, floors - and I thought that I should do something else rather than wrote all the time.