Muhamad Fathurahman

I prefer to sleep in a room that's as dark as possible. This preference existed even before I learned about the benefits of sleeping in darkness, like improved melatonin production. Bright light can be like noise—a disturbance to peaceful sleep. As a child, I was scared of ghosts, yet I still preferred sleeping in the dark. This wasn't the case for others, according to stories I've heard about children who fear darkness and need lights on. Some can manage with just a reading lamp, but sleeping in a completely dark room is out of the question for them. It's probably just a matter of preference—not a big deal—until you need to sleep with someone who has opposite sleeping preferences. I can make exceptions and compromise by creating darkness for myself, perhaps by using a piece of cloth or a sleep mask if one's available. Though sometimes when I wake up, the sleep mask has usually slipped away from my eyes.

When I'm at home, I prefer to sleep with my fan on because it keeps my body cooler and the sound acts as white noise that helps me fall asleep. Even now, when I have air conditioning available whenever I want to sleep, I still turn the fan on. Sometimes it faces me, but mostly it faces the wall or something like that. It's still beneficial for my sleep because, you know, the white noise. Well, in that matter, you could say that I'm a fan!

Have you ever felt cringe about something you did in the past? Me too, my friend—because I think that's normal. I usually try not to think about it too much and just accept that I'm a better person now. It was just a phase, what we would call here in Indonesia the "Alay Phase" or something like that. While deciding to start writing short essays about random topics and publishing them to my personal blog, I'm also thinking about their cringe potential. Will this backfire on me in the future? Will this be used against me? But I've come to the conclusion that it's okay. I'm not posting anything controversial for now, and if it becomes controversial later, well, I can't control that. People are subject to change. What I am right now and what I'm writing now may contribute to defining who I am in the future, but I'm not in the future—I live in the present, right now. And if people, if my friends ask what inspired me to write essays, to what end?...

I like water—plain water—more than anything. It's my favourite kind of liquid to consume, with diet coke (containing aspartame) probably coming in second. It's unfortunate that in Indonesia, we can't drink tap water directly. I remember feeling puzzled by scenes in SpongeBob where he wakes up at night and drinks straight from the sink using a glass. The taste of our tap water, even when boiled, is strange. Perhaps it's due to rusty or improper water pipes that make it undrinkable, not to mention the risk of E. coli contamination. Our only options are buying from a home depot (what we call "refill water" or "air isi ulang"), or for a more expensive but likely safer option, branded mineral water. But let's talk about the title—I think the best feeling comes from drinking water when you wake up at 3 AM. Your mouth is dry, you're thirsty, maybe slightly dehydrated, and then—gulp—the water from your glass or bottle (whatever you use) humidifies yo...

My go-to way to enjoy tea is usually with jasmine tea, green tea, or black tea. Jasmine tea tends to be cheaper than pure green tea, though it might be made from lower-quality green tea leaves or what some might call "leftovers" (though I'm not entirely certain about this). For hot steeping, I almost exclusively use tea bags. I simply add 2-3 tea bags into a glass and pour hot water until it's about 1/4 to 1/3 full. Then I wait 2-3 minutes for green or jasmine tea, or 5 minutes for black tea, as it will become bitter if oversteeped. Afterwards, I fill the rest of the glass with cold water and enjoy it just like that. There's actually what I believe to be a better-tasting method called cold steeping. You simply add about 3 tea bags to a 600ml bottle, seal it, and refrigerate overnight or for 12-24 hours before drinking. It doesn't taste too bitter—just the right amount—and you can't really oversteep it. That said, I wouldn't recommend leaving it for mor...

These are two fruits that are high in carbs, so they're not suitable for keto or even low-carb diets, but they're still healthy, I guess. I can't handle pears as well as apples, though. Pears are cheaper here, at least right now, and their taste is okay, although I prefer apples in terms of flavour. But pears just make me... gassy and bloated, yeah. If someone hands me a pear, I'll still gladly accept and eat it, knowing I'll deal with the gassiness later. One pear a day isn't a problem at all, it usually only becomes problematic when I eat more than two pears. And how do I eat them? Raw, of course, by raw i mean uncooked. First, I wash it under tap water, and then I slice it into two pieces from the top. Those two become four, and after that, I slice them again into 3-4 pieces. This way, one pear or apple becomes a bowlful that I can eat easily, as opposed to eating a whole apple or pear by hand and biting into it. But of course, if there's no knife availab...