The Forerunner Times

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

Another post of singleness lamentation…

Well well, sometimes I wonder how things can turn so fast, or maybe it is time that is moving so fast that I am not able to chase it anymore. Back then when I came back in July, these two couples were not there yet. But now, there are two new couples in the Latreia youth, Ipooh - Hermanto (confirmed) and Jambi - Medy (whether or not these two are a real couple or just TTM is still being questioned). It’s not that I don’t believe that things can turn out quick for love, but especially for the first couple, Ipooh just broke up with her previous boyfriend in June/July and now she got another boyfriend in September? Man… that’s quick!

Looking back, I broke up with Juli (the person, not the month) in July 2006. Since then I haven’t thought of it as a priority to find another, what’s with my problem of being an immature person and also due to the fact that I still have to see whether I will remain in Singapore or return to Indonesia for the following years. There are also hints given by some people not to start another relationship so quickly after breaking the last one, to “guard the feelings” of our previous significant other.

But yeah… I’ll admit that I do feel a bit lonely and jealous by the couples I see around me. I know that starting a relationship just for the sake of having a relationship is wrong, so don’t worry, I won’t jump to that. I wasn’t thinking about this at all, until just this afternoon when Netty “hinted” a person - who she thinks is a nice girl - to go for (note: for those who knows the name, DO NOT put in comments or shoutbox!). Errr… no special feelings about her either, but why is it that I always start to look at someone after others “hinted” the person to me? Like what happened after the King & Queen ceremony in last year’s youth camp, at first I was just playing King-Queen with Jambi, but somehow *I think* I got a little bit attached to her after all those “oh my dear lovely beautiful Queen” scenes. Well, maybe that’s what you got when you keep calling someone your queen for a whole year.

Fortunately of course there are still some people that I grew attracted to that was NOT hinted by someone else. Like my previous two girlfriends… and still some others. Guess I am still normal then, haha

Well then, I guess there are still some things to iron out first before thinking about this. My maturity, my future, my education first and foremost. When it’s time, I’ll ask God to help me on this, as I actually have no experience on courting someone, because I did long distance relationships with my previous two girlfriends, so I didn’t court them the common way, never knew how to ask a girl out and things like that. Maybe too late for a 22-almost-23 years old guy, huh? But when the time comes, then it’s time. When it’s not time yet, whatever you do, you will not be able to build a successful relationship - maybe due to immaturity and other issues. I’ll just wait for the time and believe that it will not be too late….

Anyways, congratulations to Maitra & Mariani who will be getting married soon with their Holy Matrimony coming up in 11 November (so the date is 11-11-2006, cool huh?). Thank you for inviting me and I am really-really sorry that I cannot be there on that day, but when I come back in February let’s have a long chat and show me your wedding photos. You two are really my “image couple” with an amazing love story. I wished that I could be like you two but it seems that I cannot. Oh well, God must have another plans in store for me… the time will come for me later to tell my own love story.

Yep, finally got hold of my own DEATH NOTE today…

Was going with friends from KP GPO for a dinner in Es Teler 77 at Cathay CineLeisure after the Sunday Service, and spotted this very nice item at a stall just outside the toilet. I guess it was a lucky coincidence because if we hadn’t go to the toilet I wouldn’t have come in touch with this note. It was being sold for S$9.90 and I think the price is quite fair considering that it is not the original Japanese DEATH NOTE version but this is the Chinese version of the said item so it got some Chinese text in the “HOW TO USE” pages, but still looks very nice, though, as you can see in this photo.

It also come with the trademark pages from the DEATH NOTE plot that all fans will recognize soon enough, such as…
Shibuimaru Takuo - Death of Traffic Accident
The infamous “Lind L. Tailor” page
Notes for Raye Penber and the FBI deaths

Quite satisfied with it and perhaps I will never use it for writing and I would keep it as a collection item, or maybe use it in cosplays.

On another interesting note, the DEATH NOTE anime is out since 2 weeks ago and now it’s in the second episode. ToriyamaWorld is subbing this and you can get their DEATH NOTE fansub here. Though Live-Evil might have a better job in styling, ToriyamaWorld have a closer translation to TOWNL’s such as the “god of the new world” and “humans are interesting” part, which in turn is the official English translation used in the DEATH NOTE movie, so we’re kinda proud of that. You can also join TOWNL to get the direct links to the fansubs, so you don’t have to mingle with BitTorrent if you don’t know how to use it. Alternatively, you might also try grabbing it from DeathNoteFan.com.

The DEATH NOTE movie will premiere in Singapore on 19 October and I’m gonna watch it with my friends. Stay tuned to read my report and impressions of the DEATH NOTE movie next week.

It was the Moon (Mid-Autumn) festival in 6 October and my friends invite me to go along with them to celebrate it by going to the Chinese Garden in Singapore. Really, it would have been a beautiful night with a full moon shining in the sky, if it wasn’t for the haze covering up the sky and ruining the whole situation…

We departed each from our own locations and decided to meet by 8 pm in the Chinese Garden MRT Station. When all of us have arrived, turns out that it was only seven of us coming: me, Esther, Cory, Mori, Evi, Michael and Edy. As always, we come equipped with cameras to collect memories of the night. It was very hot and jam packed there, as it seems that half of the Singaporeans are coming to this place (while the other half are going to Chinatown). The Moon festival is also dubbed as the lantern festival, and certainly the exhibitions in the Chinese Garden did not disappoint. There were many beautiful formation of lanterns and a lot of beautiful sceneries that we took pictures with. I have uploaded some of those (not all of those as most are my friend’s pictures and they want to keep them private) and you can click here to access the whole album.

As a shameless self-promotion, I will post two of my best pictures of that night here.

Well, I told ya it would be shameless

I must say my thanks to my friends though. I am really grateful for being able to come into KP GPO. The first six months I have been practically doing nothing but studying, but on this first month alone being with them, I have been able to see a lot of places I haven’t been to before, like the MacRitchie Natural Reservoir, the Roti Prata House (yum!) and this Chinese Garden. Well, I seem to have gotten a lot fatter too because I’ve been eating too much with them and I’ve been to many eating places I’ve never been to before, but it’s good, it feels just like home with Latreia, going out and trying new places to eat. Certainly it’s a lot better than my daily chore of just eating in either JCU’s cafetaria or the nearby hawker centre…

As I promised, finally the photos for the forest walk a few weeks ago have been uploaded.
Click here to see the album, now you will believe that Singapore really has forests, right?

Bear in mind that we have about 5 cameras in that day, and this is only from one of the cameras. I notice that there are still so many good shots missing. Don’t worry, I will upload them as soon as I get my hands on them too.

You think Singapore is all about buildings and no forests?

Think again.

Anyway, yesterday I went with my friends from KP GPO for an outing to MacRitchie Natural Reservoir. It’s not as big as some real rainforests or jungles, but for a hiking spot it is big enough and have many natural wonders of its own. The funniest thing is that while forests are usually separated far from civilization, considering the scale of Singapore, the natural reservoirs - although quite far from the city - are still much in the Singapore centre themselves. What does it mean? It means that you can still get a full signal coverage for your cellphones inside the forests. Yes, as we walked up the mountain trail, surrounded by trees, we are still sending SMS and making calls with ease. How “amazing” is that…

We started out about 8.30 am in the morning and planned to finish the entire trek of about 8-10 km in 3 to 4 hours time. In the beginning, we were all cheerful and energetic, taking photos all the way (the photos are still not in my possession at the moment, I will post as soon as I get my hands on them) and singing cheerfully. But as we trailed up and up the inclining mountain path, we start to get tired after about 2-3 km of walking. We planned to get to our destination, the HSBC Treetop View, which is located about 5 km from the entrance in about 2 hours (11.00 am) and we felt like the destination was still very very afar. We kept on walking and everytime we see a signpost that tells us how much farther is the HSBC Treetop View, we would get all happy and take photos near the post, because that means we have walked 100-200 metres nearer.

Finally, after a long walk, we reached the destination. The treetop walk was some kind of a suspension bridge, hanging about 25-27 metres above ground and having a total length of 250 metres. Yes, the view was beautiful from up there, but as I have fear of height and the bridge keeps swaying left and right, I got a headache and just want to get to the other side of the bridge as soon as possible. It didn’t help that my friends kept making some scary comments like, “Hmm what if our cellphone falls from here, ya?” and things like that. After we crossed the bridge, it was a long long way walking up and down through a set of stairs, and when we found some resting place we decided to take a little rest, eating some bread and drinking some water.

The challenging part came after this. Since we all came here to see the Treetop View, after we passed that there was no more motivation for us to go any further. We just want to get out of there as quickly as we can and go have some lunch at the tantalizingly delicious Roti Prata House. There was still about 3-4 km walk left before we reach it and tired as we are, the walk felt very longggg… first we got out of MacRitchie itself and reached a normal road, then we walked all the way to the end of the long road to reach Thomson Road, a big roadway, to catch a bus that goes to the Roti Prata House.

The food in the Roti Prata House was probably the best I’ve tasted since I came to Singapore. The crispy roti prata was so damn good and the nasi briyani + fried chicken was amazing. We all entered the place with hungry and loud-sounding stomaches and after the food arrived, we all became menacing gluttons. I ate two roti pratas and one nasi briyani with fried chicken myself and that made me feel very full. Some others ate a whole lot more than what I ate, and in a moment suddenly our long table became a mess of empty plates and leftover food.

Feeling very tired, all of us went home to grab some sleep after having a good meal and full stomaches. My legs were sore, I got two blisters one in each leg and I also had a great deal of pain on my left kneecap joints, making it hard for me to walk (and later that night unfortunately I had to take another long walk to Marina Square to retrieve my new Creative Zen Vision:M). I was dead tired, but was also very happy. In this one month I’ve been in KP I had experienced so many good and fun things which I never expected to have in Singapore. It’s been years since I had a hiking session with friends and this felt refreshing. It’s nice to actually have friends and a community you can belong to and have some great deal of good time with…