Project : Alterization
Chapter 7's

To me, this is common. Maybe this is one of the effects of the way my parents have educated me since I was a child. When I do wrong, sometimes my mother silences me all day so I will have trouble doing something. That's the education system my parents set up for me. So no wonder if I also become a falling fruit not far from the tree. After all, it hasn't been more than three days that I've kept it quiet. But, it was not only in the matter of that time that I applied this indifferent attitude. I have probably done the same thing to others many times. Even so, my actions can still be counted with the fingers.

I could not believe that the impact of my actions was so great that it affected the tranquility of my life in the pesantren. Slowly, people started to move away from me one by one. Silence myself, excommunicate me, consider myself non-existent, and then disappear from my life. It's like I've never been in this world. I was a class leader. Not because it was appointed or the result of a class consensus. Rather, it was because of me who appointed myself when the homeroom teacher offered the position to all of us. None of us dared to show our teeth. I was willing to do all that for one thing. I want to be the shining star that people see. I want to be the center of attention in a positive way. Honor and fame. However, what was the result? I was just a class that was forced to obey when ordered. Coming here and doing a job that's not really my part. As class leader, my words were never heard. What I can do, I do not have any basic ability in terms of leading.

Long story short, I was bullied. They bullied me on the grounds that I was the class president who was incompetent, ugly, baperan, cupu, and other bad things that they could make up as excuses. I've heard a lot of talk about me everywhere. Sometimes they throw various kinds of garbage into my bag such as used tissue, pencil sharpener garbage, and other dirty things after school. Not infrequently I also found my bed full of foot or spit from someone, when I went home to the dorm. Then, they also often hide my things such as closet keys, textbooks and others. To the worst of it, someone who happened to be my classmate during the first class of MTW, once pulled my collar to strangle my neck. I could only leave at that time. To fight, of course I will lose. I also reached a point where I no longer felt at home in the pesantren. My fate was so bad at that time.

Being alone in the mosque, spending time memorizing the Qur'an has become my daily fixed schedule. There's nothing important in the dorm when they no longer consider me. Except for one thing, which was my schedule of calling my parents. I think of the dormitory as just a place to sleep. Maybe this is the one positive side of what I experienced at that time. I am trying to get serious about what I do every day. Memorizing the Qur'an. I try to memorize little by little every day.

Holding fast a little bit of the word of the prophet shallallahu alaihi wa sallam "God prefers his servant the istiqomah even with little practice" and a verse from the holy book about the exalted degree of a learned person, even with little practice, it makes me feel more excited to dive deeper. I too was immersed in a sea of divine words. Indeed, at first memorization was very difficult, even I had to cry because of difficulty memorizing. But once you get used to it, then everything whatever it is, will become easier.

Besides that, I also participated in a martial arts society. Thifan Po Khan's. It was fortunate that I was invited to join my friend who I knew in the mosque, when I started spending a lot of time in it. You could say, he is a friend who always invites me to kindness. And at least, this martial will can make me not too underestimated anymore, or I can use it to protect myself when the danger comes.

I also did other things that would have changed people's views of me. All of that I did was to change my reputation that was so bad. There's no other reason. And finally, I managed to reach it. When I got to second grade, I got into the superior grade. In that year, I became the winner of the first position in the defending champion that I could not do before. My memorization process continues. My development in Thifan Po Khan is also growing rapidly. Other people's views of me began to change little by little. Even so, there will certainly still be people who are always hostile to me in this world.

Not just stop there. The next year, I was still struggling. And as it turned out, something I faced in third grade became even more challenging. It was in this year that I felt I had achieved ******** of the efforts I had made since the beginning. Back then, pandemics completely changed our whole habits and habits. Which at first Friday we can go out to the cottage to buy food, pay other wishes, or just healing, now COVID-19 forbids us to do so. So that we are one hundred percent locked up in this sacred prison. Quarantined in here. And honestly, we almost died of boredom.

However, all of that cannot just turn off our resourceful creativity. I became interested in writing because of it. Rather than die of boredom, I also fad about trying to write a novel. I have never read a novel before. Letter by letter, word by word, sentence by sentence began to straddle over time. The story begins to form on its own. It was as if someone was guiding my finger to write a story without me knowing the story myself. And this feels so much fun. I can't stop!