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During my childhood, I spent much time living with my grandparents. At that time my grandmother suffered from cancer and
my grandfather suffered from hepatitis C. As their only daughter and as a devout one, my mother lived to take care of them
for 4 years at their home in Jakarta (my mother’s only brother lived in the distant Surabaya), until they subsequently
departed. As her children, I and my siblings followed her and schooled in Jakarta, where we met our father at our real home
in BSD City only at weekend.
When I was a child, I can say that I was always fascinated with interesting things. My particular interests at that time
were astronomy and archaeology. I bought many books on these themes and I read a lot about the Black Hole, planet Mars, Triassic,
Jurassic, Cretaceous Age, and the dinosaur species that lived in those periods. I was also interested in programmes like “Palaeoworld”,
which was broadcasted on Discovery Channel every Tuesday/Thursday (?) midnight. I still remember that I always became the
only remaining one in the family’s TV room at that late hour, waiting for the programme!
With the expansion of my knowledge, my imagination grew as well. I had so many imaginations about living in outer planets,
reviving the dinosaurs, travelling to the future, and others. During the elementary school, I always jumped to my desk after
returning from school, writing stories about them. Unrealised, the number of these stories slowly accumulated to tens of books!
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| The story books that I have written. |
At junior high school, I didn’t dream about living in outer space etc. anymore. Instead, I dreamt of having my
own country. This country was vast, located in the Pacific Ocean between Japan and the American continent, and inhabited by
various ethnics, each having its own distinctive characteristic. I started writing about this country, and by the end of my
junior high school, I’d completed 2 thick books containing the imaginary complete history of it, from the country’s
emergence in the prehistoric age to its end in the modern world!
I also created the languages for these ethnics, and I can say that until now these languages are not yet finished! I thought
I was quite peculiar doing all these. But now, I’ve found someone else, with whose even crazier ideas, has scored worldwide
success: J.R.R Tolkien with his Middle Earth!
At senior high school, my fascination about imaginary things turned to writing novels with science fiction or historical
themes. For example, I wrote about the hunting of a treasure from Ancient Greece period made by 2 modern american scientists.
For this, I made deep researches about Ancient Greece, the life in that period, and other things via the Internet after my
school time. Unfortunately this novel was never finished since I lacked of time when I came at the middle and end period of
my high school. Actually I still have many novel ideas waiting to be written. Even now I write ideas for film scripts! If
you are my friend, you may see them. =)
I didn’t only write. I also drew. I satisified my imaginations about fictive cars, jet planes, robots, and troops
by drawing them on papers. My mother still remembers that already since my early childhood, I had consumed uncountable number
of sheets of papers. Sometimes, I brought these imaginations to “the next level”, where I made the models of the
cars, planes, or robots I'd dreamt about.
As my imaginations expanded, the models that I made also became bigger and more complicated. I finally also made the model
of the Jurassic Park I’d once dreamt about! I started from drawing the landscape for the park –its mountains,
clouds, etc-, preparing and drawing its base –its lake, ground, etc-, to putting in the dinosaur models which I got
as bonuses from a milk brand that I drank at that time!
At another occasion, I’d also made a city, where I wanted to be its mayor. I started by preparing the base, drawing
the streets, rivers, cutting and making the models of each building in the city –houses, a hospital, and some others-
and finally putting in toy cars and paper trains which would operate within the city.
My last project was at early junior high school, where I made a model of a military headquarter I had been wanting to own.
I began making its base, hangars, vehicles garages, office, its helipads and jetplane runways. When it was done, I put in
my toy airplanes and vehicles, and invited a friend with his Micromachines’ fortress to have a battle! Although now
I laugh remembering this, but it indeed felt so fun for me!
I made those models in the family’s living room or in my room after school. Although making them always took me weeks,
but I never cared. It felt so fun for me. I couldn’t wait for the models to be finished and became playable. =)
Due to the uncommon knowledge and peculiar hobbies that I had at that time, my friends at elementary school called me “the
insane professor”. However, this didn’t make me a geek at school at all. In fact, at school I ruled. I was very
ambitious and had a strong will to dominate. I (sorry) regarded myself as superior and the others as inferior.
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| When I was a child. My photo in Rockingham, Southern Australia. |
At school I always tried to be a leader. In the elementary school, I founded a school boys’ gang where I became its
leader and my friends became its members. I set rules and “codes of conducts” for this gang, as well as money
(play money at that time, of course) which had to be used by all the members, as if our organisation were an exclusive one.
In the academic field, I tried proving my “superiority” by always trying to be the leading one at every subject.
I succeeded. The peak was in the middle period of junior high school, where I openly proclaimed competition with my fiercest
rival at that time –the class’ 1st rank-, where unluckily after that I began to submerge.
Now that you’ve known the story about my past. Perhaps you can see the similarities and differences between the past
and present me. After all, I regard my childhood as a sweet part of my life. I also thank and always pray to God for those
who had made my childhood so beautiful yet now have passed away.
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