denniland.com

In order to respect Carla who tagged me, twice; and to respect my sweetheart who asked me to write my things quite a while ago, I decided to write this post.

Okay, not all of those sentences are true, but the latest. In fact, I am quite bored, I want to write something, but I don’t know where to start since I haven’t write anything for a long, long time, so I guess this is a good material to help me start.

If you have noticed the title, it’s a bit different from what others have done, it says 7 things, not 8 things. That’s because I like the number 7. The items will be listed in alphabetical order. So, without further ado, let’s bring the list on.

7 Things I am Passionate About

1. Computer and video games
2. Food
3. Information and computer technology
4. Movies
5. My family
6. My sweetheart
7. Mystery

7 Books I Have Read Recently

1. Bible
2. Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture — Martin Fowler
3. Ruler of the Land (comic)
4. Shanao Yoshitsune (comic)
5. The Data Warehouse Toolkit — Ralph Kimball et al.
6. The Data Warehouse ETL Toolkit — Ralph Kimball et al.
7. The Pragmatic Programmer — Andrew Hunt et al.

7 Things I Want to Do Before I Die

1. Live a pleasant life before God.
2. Marry her and have a couple of sweet kids and several grandkids.
3. Satisfy my parents’ needs both materially and spiritually.
4. Start and grow my own company, preferably a game studio.
5. Stay (not just visit) in Surabaya, Jakarta, Singapore, UK, and USA.
6. Take my family to visit at least one country in each continent on earth, well perhaps except Antarctica.
7. Write a book and publish it.

7 Things I Have Learnt in These Past Years

1. God does work in mysterious ways.
2. Google is one of my best friend.
3. Humans are full of surprises.
4. No limits in learning.
5. Promises and commitments are easy to make but difficult to keep.
6. Sometimes, even the predictable is unpredictable.
7. True love does exist.

7 Things That Attract Me to My Best Friends

1. Common interests
2. Kindness
3. Sincerity
4. Can’t think of anything else, I guess I am not too demanding of my friends :p

7 Songs That I Can Listen to Over and Over Again

1. Because of You — Kelly Clarkson
2. Dragostea Din Tei — O-Zone
3. Du Qing (White Snake Legend Closing Theme Song) — Gao Sheng Mei
4. I Need Some Sleep — Eels
5. Most Christian praise and worship songs
6. Qian Nian Deng Yi Hui (White Snake Legend Opening Theme Song) — Gao Sheng Mei
7. Suteki da ne (Final Fantasy X Theme Song) — Ritsuki Nakano (Rikki)

7 Things I Say Often

1. Amen
2. Buzz, dah makan?, dah tidur?, lagi apa?, love you, miss you (only to her)
3. Damn, shoot, sial, what the…
4. Double kill, monster kill, triplle kill, killing spree, owning (mimicking the narrator of DOTA)
5. Edan, gundul, sinting (meaning: crazy)
6. Hehe
7. Oh ya? Masak? Mosok? (meaning: really?)

Sorry I haven’t written anything in a pretty long time so here it is. My real life doesn’t change as much as I expected that I couldn’t find anything to write. Works, games, comics, movies were really the only things I did lately. The only things different from my routines is on November 15-16, when the Moslems in my country celebrated the “Idul Fitry” day. The government decided that the two days were holidays. Some organizations, not where I work, even made the whole week holidays.

Like other holidays or vacations, I went to Jember to meet my parents and sister. But things rather different this time. GKT Jember, where I usually worshipped God, participated in a 4-days and 3-nights retreat at ITA Lawang about two weeks ago. My sis and I participated too along with about 10 other friends from Jember and Bondowoso. I didn’t get to excited on the kind of thing, but I did hope I would get something there.

Day 1: Get Started

We arrived at Lawang at about 10 AM. Just before the lunch time. A perfect timing. We weren’t the first group that arrived, but we did come early since the opening ceremony was at 5 PM. I explored ITA a while. Things changed a lot since my last visit. Of course it was about 10 years ago hehe. I hardly remembered anything. After a short chitchat with some new guys in the dining room, I decided to go to my dorm and rest.

Ah the opening ceremony, finally all the boring things got started. Um wait a sec’. Boring? What about the girl sitting in front of you? No make that two. They were just fantastic. Gosh I got to know them. A guy beside me asked me to exchange our addresses and phone numbers. No problem, it was so usual in that kind of occassion.

Day 2: Meet the Parents

Really, aside from the sessions, I couldn’t find anything interesting at the retreat. How I missed my computer games. I had an idea, why not borrow a chess board and played some games with my roommate. Fortunately, an old friend of mine were studying at ITA, so I didn’t get any difficulty getting the chess board. I was playing the second game with a roommate in the front park when suddenly a man and a woman came and watched our game. He commented our game but I didn’t give a shit since my side was winning.

Then the man got back to the car, took some snacks, and gaved them to us. Well, I thanked him and started a conversation to show my manner :D. I asked him whether he came to visit his kids? He said yes, as I expected. I asked him their names. He told me that he had three children, two girls and a boy. Their names are Susan, Ruth, and Yong Sin. Um, they sounded familiar. Oh my God, were Susan and Ruth the two attractive girls sitting in front of me the other night. And Yong Sin were the one who asked me to exchange my address and phone number.

Day 3: God, Help Me

Until day 3, I still couldn’t find any good chance to talk privately with the two girls. They were so popular that many people were around them. The sessions also didn’t give me enough free time. While having our lunch, I heard the sound of a guitar playing and I saw the girls sang Josh Groban’s “You Raise Me Up” with their friends over and over. I see, they must like this song.

Day 4: Farewell

Oh no, this was the last day and I still couldn’t get enough attention from them. What should I do. Uh huh, I accidentally found that their brother loved to play Ragnarok Online. Great, I could use the information. Ah, I don’t know, maybe I’ll just go home and forget them in one or two weeks. Who knows? For now, just say goodbye to them.

I got to give a private lesson to H again today. This was the second and hopefully the last. She had finished most of the project. I fixed some cookies problem on her project and she thought there were no other troubles. Good then. I came home to prepare for the church. Wait… I remembered. There was no service today since everyone was going to the revival service (KKR) by Mr. Stephen Tong. Gosh, I don’t like it. They all look the same to me so I didn’t go :(.

By the way, I started to create a new site just for fun. A Ragnarok Online site. I am playing the game currently so I think I’ll enjoy creating the site. I just finished the layout, introduction, and the game control sections. Many more to go. I may continue on the next weekend. By the way, you can find the link up there, after the Contact me link. Feel free to give any input.