Cart in SG : Of book launch and his arrival

Its has been a week now that Cartcart left Singapore and I miss him more than I ever had before.

Saturday evening, 22nd December 07

I attended the FAQ Book on Public Speaking book launch. Even though I was a little worried since the event was so close to the time that Cartcart would be landing, I thought that I’d just drop by for a while as Eric has written such a nice, personalised email inviting me to the event 🙂

When I arrived at Geek Terminal, I realised that I didn’t know a lot of the people there. But the people at the event were very friendly and I met Eric Feng, the writer himself and said my hello after recognizing him in his photo from his blog.

Eventually I saw a couple of blogger friends like Daphne, Herry and Brennan.

Later we were introduced to the panel whom guided and inspired Eric in the writing of his book. Andrew Zhan, Kelvin Lim as well as Irene Ang, all of whom were very experienced and passionate about public speaking.

I got my book signed by them, shamelessly asking them to sign as “To Marina with love”.

For me, the event was like food for the soul. As much as I am interested in improving myself, public speaking being one of them, the event felt more like a group of close friends gathering together. One could really see the love between the interaction of Eric’s family and friends there and I cant help but to just soak in the love 🙂

I enjoyed myself so much that I nearly forgot the time and I had to quickly slip away to board the train to Changi Airport.

There were a lot of people already waiting outside the arrival hall when I reached Terminal Two. I peered anxiously behind the glass to find him.

At long length I finally saw him. And my heart warmed. How I’ve missed him! We are together again 🙂

Back in June last year, while I was in Rome with Cartcart, we paid a visit to one of the mosque there to enquire about conversion and marriage processes. I was surprised to find out that there were no Islamic studies courses being conducted there

I asked cartcart if he would be willing to undertake the lessons the next time he comes to Singapore and thankfully, he was open to the suggestion. Late Sunday morning, cart, mum and I went to Darul Arqam, a muslim convert center to register him for his Islamic studies.

When we arrived there, the area seemed festive with a lot of people. It turns out that they were having a sermon upstairs in liew of the aidilfitri celebrations. We sat down and I listened as the preacher was postulating about the responsibilities of a child to their parents.

I have to admit that the delivery sounded very different to me, having been used to listening sermons in Malay. But the essence and the message was still the same, in the end.

After the sermon, we met Nurul Jannah, one of the staff there whom gave a contact to a Haji Mustafa whom will be giving cart his personal lessons.

Later in the early evening, Cart and I headed off to Vivo City to meet Attilio, a blog reader and a friend. Call it a social experiment, but I’ve always thought that it would be interesting to see what happens when two Italians meet each other outside of their element. Thank goodness Attilio said yes!

We waded about in the human sea at vivo city and eventually found him waiting and one of the first thing I observed was how genuinely amiable they were to each other.

We stopped by starbucks and unsurprisingly, they started to converse to each other in Italian. It was like a jigsaw puzzle for me all over again. After ending my Italian language classes for some months now, I’m rather rusty. There were words that I could understand, and some which I could not. I had to concentrate hard to piece the image in my mind.

In the end, I could not keep up with the conversation and was just content to listen to their musical way of talking.

view in vimeo

After what seemed to be a short while, we were forced to say our goodbyes as Attilio was on his way to catch his flight back to spend time with his family.

We decided to have dinner at Secret Recipe. After which, I pulled Cartcart over to the area facing the sea to enjoy the breeze and the relaxing sound of the waves.

It was such a special moment for me. Just being there, enjoying each others company.

(to be continued)