The Forerunner Times

"A life journal by Nathan J. Elias, called under God's grace to be His forerunner and restorer for His glory."

Official site: http://death-note-movie.com
Trailer: http://movies.apple.com/movies/jp/movies/wb/deathnote/deathnote_trailer480.mov (Hi-Res!)

Some of you might have known of the Death Note manga, created by Ohba and Obata, which have just reached its finale in chapter 108 (won’t spoil the story for you though). The news of the movie has been circulating around the net and finally the poster and the trailer is out. From what I can see, it is wicked cool and fits the detective action drama horror thriller genre perfectly. It contains all the events from the L arc from the founding of the Death Note by Light, the Lind L. Taylor and L introduction event, Raye Penber and Naomi Misora murder and all the way to… nah I better not spoil all the fun for you.

The first part of the movie (L’s arc) will come out next month, and I hope someone will be able to quickly give us the English subtitles so we can enjoy it the same way we did with the Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. The manga may end flat and bad, but the first part, Light vs L was the best mind game that you can find in any manga, so I’m expecting this to be good, and I am not even the slightest bit interested on the second part, Near and Mello can die for all I care, the one I care most is only L. And I didn’t imagine his scrambled voice to be like that… ugh.

Some people have been complaining about how Tatsuya Fujiwara (don’t mix it with Takumi Fujiwara, the Initial D AE86 guy, okay?) is not fitting to play Light, but well, who can play Light then? He is a damn cool psycho killer maniac that is also handsome and sexy. From what I see, Tatsuya might be able to play this good, and although the cast don’t look as good as the manga counterparts (admit it, the manga style makes it hard to impersonate in real life, even the cosplayers are having a hard time impersonating L), their acting would be what makes it count.

Rrrgh… can’t wait for it, and it seems that it won’t be released internationally, so must be patient for downloads.

The Road That Ends Here will tell you the summary about two months of my life in this Merlion country. It will have six chapters, corresponding to the six terms that I will endure in this one year. The idea about the title comes from a journey to hike a mountain. I imagine that getting my master degree is like enduring a long mountain path. Between the summit and the peak, there will be five stopping points to rest and regain strength (this is Chapter I through Chapter V). After the five stopping points, if I still endure, then I will reach the peak and reach my final destination (Chapter VI). Enjoy these stories and may the tales bring you new strength and encouragement to reach your goal.

Chapter I

The first stopping.

For about two months now I have endured things that never before I encountered in my life. It is hard being a leader for a band with so much difference within. All these times in my life, I have been leaders, yes, but those in my band are usually of the same age of me, or share the same way of thinking, since we came from the same place and we usually share a common goal and vision. And most of the time, they have recognized me and my principles so it is not that hard to lead them to the end. But here, I am assigned with trouble. Four people, two from a different place than I was, and all of them were older. Especially one, was a person who have worked long, called herself a professional, and refused to listen to what I say, doing things with her own ways and ideas, which in the end, broke the team union because only her work is different from the rest, as she do not wish to follow the team standards.

Imagine having a 80-slides presentation where about 10 pages look different because she doesn’t want to use the same font style and colorization that is present on the other 70. This was giving me headaches and now I am glad everything is over. I don’t know how I will fare if I have to put her into my band again in the future, but I hope not. But it was a good lesson for me and my leadership, now I know how hard it is being a leader of a diverse team members. Now I know how hard it must be for my friends to be leaders in the youth and in the choir, with so much different types of people, age, gender and personalities. In the future, if I am to join a large enterprise, these kinds of things would be for me to handle anyway, so it’s good that I can learn to be this kind of leader from now, so it will not be too late.

Other than the leadership issues, the only troublesome thing was the barrage of assignments, leading me to write about 100 pages of essays in one month alone. My final grades for that one class is predicted about 70%, not too good. For the other one, I will be having the exam on this Friday, so we shall see whether I will be able to hit the marks or not.

In the meantime, time to rest, download some mangas and stuff. I have downloaded about 4 GB of manga including Gantz, Blade of the Immortal, Hellsing, Vagabond, Akira, One Piece and Initial D. If you have any good mangas to suggest, do tell me. And if you’re looking for the place to download mangas, check the “Lurk Manga Archive” on the right, they got everything, as long as you have IRC.

Related Links:
The Road That Ends Here, Chapter II (July 2006)
The Road That Ends Here, Chapter III (September 2006)
The Road That Ends Here, Chapter IV (November 2006)

My old journal, The Chaos-Knights Journal as some of you might know it, has been abandoned due to the large amount of spam in the comments that cannot be resolved. But days without writing brought me boredom and I longed to create a new and fresh journal, starting all over again from the beginning, so here I am with a new book of chronicles titled Tales of Legacy. The layouts from the old journal are migrated here, with a few changes on the sidebar, commenting system and shoutbox. I also upgraded the spam protection so let us hope that this new journal will not be destroyed by infidels anymore. You are invited to talk with me about my tales, so that it will not be a one-sided storytelling night.

The events in this journal will be divided into seven chronicles:

• Chronicles of Faith will tell you about God, the spiritual journey and Christianity lessons
• Chronicles of Future will record things about technology and things about the future
• Chronicles of Hymns will collect my songs, psalms and poetries written over the years
• Chronicles of Life will tell you about my journey, my life and what I have been through
• Chronicles of Mind will tell you about my thoughts on things, my review and opinion
• Chronicles of Change will give you details about the updates happening to this book’s layouts
• Chronicles of Nations will discuss about issues currently happening in Indonesia

The Chronicles Without Names is just a repository, where events that have not been put into the proper chronicles by mistake are placed. If I see an event on this place, I will move it as soon as I can to the right place, so you can find what you want to read easily.

I hope that you will enjoy reading this book of tales. Come again and I shall tell you another story about life…