Cerita di Balik Sebuah Hadiah

Sebelumnya, a warning first. Kalo anda tersasar ke tulisan ini karena nyari review soal Nook, sorry to say, you got into the wrong place. Nggak, saya nggak akan gereview soal Nook. I just want to write about how I got one. Lagian saya gak bakat bikin review barang.

Intinya adalah, saya akhirnya punya Nook. Sesuatu yang sebelumnya gak kebayang oleh saya sendiri, secara saya tipe orang yang sangat konvensional soal bacaan, dalam artian, saya sukanya baca buku yang bener-bener buku. A real book in the printed out form. Saya gak begitu suka baca sesuatu di layar. Gak enak aja. Bahkan saya memprint sebagian besar (oke, nyaris semua) materi kuliah saya.
Jadi begitu orang rame-rame pake kindle, nook ataupun e-book reader macam apapun, saya tidak tertarik.

Nah, kebiasaan saya ini sering diprotes sama salah seorang temen saya. He said that it’s ironic that I am doing environmental science for my study, while at the same time, I am killing trees by printing out everything and reading books that made from paper. I told him that trees that was cut and made into paper that turned out into books, the trees do not simply die. They are being reborn in another kind of life. This silly arguments happen over and over again.

Saya bilang ke dia, it’s not the same, reading books and e-book are just different. And the conversation continued like this:
He : It’s the same. One is the printed form, the other is in electronic form. And you can read them both
Me : No, it’s not.
He : What’s the difference?
Me : When you get emotional about the story in a book, you can throw it. (Yep. I did this kind of thing, you know… kadang saking emosinya saya suka banting buku yang saya baca, sobbing queitly, lalu memungut kembali buku itu and curse the author)
He : Well, you can delete the e-book
Me : …
He : You can also throw the reader, and get a new one
Me : You. Just. Can’t understand.

Perdebatan lain?
Me : The smell. The smell of a book, a new book. It’s irreplaceable.
He : You can always spray any kind of perfume that you want on the reader
Me : We’re so not having this conversation again.

Then again, me being me and him being him, tetap saja kami berdebat soal ini setidaknya seminggu sekali.

And yeah, this friend of mine is someone that I would categorize as best friend. The kind of friend who you constantly telling “I hate you” at each other, then again we chat at strange hours (at 2.05 AM, for example).

me to him whenever City lost their game

He is the person to whom I whined about being so done with football and not gonna watch it again whenever Manchester City do not win their game.

Every now and then he will send me link to transfer rumors and I will reply it with a single comment: “Can you just not?”. (He knows how much I hate transfer rumors and that’s why he keeps on telling me about the news).

But he is the third person after my parents and my sister that I contacted when I got all of the result for my semester. As he always texts me whenever he walks out the exam room.

sometimes, we're just not friends

he randomly gave me chocolate, especially when
I am working on my STAT511 homework

When I told him that I have obviously failed my Statistic mid-exam, the next day he gave me a big chocolate to cheer me up. We complain about being a graduate student, but taking turns in trying to encourage one each other.  We argue about silly things, like about my obsession with guy wearing glasses and doing engineering, or which one makes more money: a football player or a baseball player. Still, he did not laugh when I told him the reason why I like to see the stars in the sky. Sometimes I have to wait for him in the library because he goes to the church, but every now and then he will remind me that it’s already dark so it’s time for my evening prayer (Maghrib dan Isya).

One of our topic: his addiction to Coke

Bahkan mungkin saking seringnya bareng kemana-mana, sebagian besar temen kami menganggap kalo kami ini sudah satu paket. Mhuahahahahaha XD.

But yeah, put simply, we are best friends. Some kind of that. We never really declare that we are best friends (do we have to?). But that’s just how it goes.

Oke. Kembali ke topik utama. Anyway, he’s a Catholic, and I am Moslem. Not that it means anything to our friendship. Tapi tetep aja, saya kaget waktu di hari terakhir ketemu sebelum I started my winter trip and he would fly back to his country, dia ujug-ujug ngasih kado.

Saya nyaris lupa bilang terima kasih.

For a few seconds, saya cuma bolak-balik ngeliatin kado itu dan dia.
Me : What is this?
He : A gift.
Me : For me?
He : For you.
Me : What for?
He : It’s a Christmas gift.

Saya nggak tega bilang that I don’t celebrate Christmas. No way. Just seeing his eyes and his sincere smile, all that I could do was hugging him and told him, “Thank you. It’s… so kind of you…”.
He just laughed, hugged me back and said, “It’s a Christmas gift. So don’t open it until Christmas.”

So yeah. Jadilah kado berbungkus biru itu (he even picked my favorite color as the gift wrap) saya masukkan ke dalam ransel saya, dan dibawa-bawa sepanjang perjalanan. Tiap kali ngeliat kado itu, saya setengah menebak-nebak isinya. Sampai akhirnya, Christmas Eve. Kebetulan pas Christmas Eve, saya masih di NYC. Pas 25 Desember jam 12.35 AM, saya mikir… well, technically, it’s already Christmas, right?

Sebelum kadonya, I opened the card first, and reading what’s inside put a smile on my face.

the card

the truth is, he's also always there whenever I need support from a friend

Tebakan pertama saya, buku. Karena ukurannya ya pas seukuran buku gitu. I was half expecting that it’s the newest novel from Neil Gaiman. Because I told him that I want that book. I told him that if he wants to give me a birthday gift, he can just give me that Gaiman’s book.  I even show him the cover of the book from Amazon. Dan komentar dia waktu itu? “Neil Gaiman? Never heard of him.”. Adegan selanjutnya bisa ditebak. Saya merengut sambil ngelempar setip ke dia and said, “We’re not friends.”

Tebakan kedua saya: something from Bath and Beyond. Secara ya, tag untuk dia nulis “To” and “From” itu dari Bath and Beyond. And yeah, isn’t it just practical to give something like that?

But once I saw what’s inside…

OMG. Selama beberapa menit, saya bengong. Like… Seriously? A Nook?
Jujur, perasaan saya campur aduk. Seneng. Terharu. To some point, I felt like I don’t deserve it. I felt like it was too much. Considering that sometimes I can be so annoying for him (sometimes I would text him at 1.30 AM just because I read a rumor about Juan Mata leaving Chelsea), I felt like I just…don’t deserve something so nice like this.

Anyway, saya masih belum sempet mengutak-ngatik si Nook ini, selain bikin account di Barnes and Nobles dan nge-register si Nook. But so far, saya masih terkagum-kaguuuum by how convenient it is to read something from it. I have ordered some accessories for it, tingal nunggu datengnya aja. All and all, I am excited to use this :D!

So yeah. That’s how I got my Nook. And you, thank you so very much :”).