Banyak pulak nak ceta...

I am forcing myself to write something today although I am not up to it. I have not been feeling very well since I got back from KL last thursday. Been having fever and cold and I'm coughing like mad. Rasa nak tercabut anak tekak. My head rasa nak tercabut because the sore throat has sort of affected my eyes and the rest of my kepala. My eyes felt pain and watery, and I had a terrible headache. Still do. Everytime I sujud during prayer, I felt like the blood all went to my face causing my eyes to feel the pain. I lost my voice since friday after my PJJ class. Although the sore throat is now gone (adale rasa sikit-sikit) which means I can now eat food that I wanted to eat, I still need to be very careful. I'm still in a daze right now. Difficult to pay attention to work as the headache and the cough are still bugging me (or is it just an excuse to go home early????).

Oklah, enough said about my health.

A bit about my long break. Well as I said in the last entry, most of the time I spent lepakking - with friends and family. My sisters, brother and I went back to Segamat for Raya Korban as we also performed a korban. It was raining on the raya morning. Nevertheless the ritual had to go on. The korban was carried out at a surau close to my sister's house. We only need to go and watch our korban. But my sisters were not enthusiastic about watching the slaughtering process. So got there slightly late. Everything was over by the time we got there. (depa ni ada sikit sensitif bab sembelih2 ni...) So no camera shots to post here.

The melapah was done at my sister's. My task was to cook the sup tulang and gear box. One big pot of sup tulang! Habis!!!! (Again no shots sebab camera woman sibuk masuk sup and lupa nak suruh orang lain amikkan). But I did get to snap a shot of my nephew Man cleaning the ekor. Nobody else but him knew how to do it. So dialah yang buat.

Back in KL, it's lepakking time. Visited my old colleagues kat KLIUC. Kalau jumpa tak buat ketupat tak sah le. But that was after a sumptious lunch kat La Rizz. We had lamb and sotong bakar. AWESOME. I tried making the sotong bakar and almost jadi. Taught bibik how to do it so the next time dia boleh cook for Along. Takle kena complain je.

Saturday pi makan kenduri back in Segamat. Apparently this was my only makan kenduri this holiday season. The food was good. I wouldn't say awesome, but good. Then pi shop kat Jakel pulak. Managed to control myself from buying more materials but Angah bought a few pieces - unplanned! Me, I have to control myself. Earlier in the week I collected five pairs (which I never knew I had that many) of baju kurung from my tailor which cost me RM500 and before I left for Kedah I collected four more. I spent almost RM800 for the tailoring this time! Luckilah ada duit terpijak nak bayar. Kalau tak.... I have to stop buying material for now or I'll be broke.

The next few days are spent lepakking with KL friends. Apa lagi kalu tak makan. From pasta to gulai kawah to ketupat sotong and the ever-popular telur dadar. I am blessed!

Lepakking and makan-makan with friends kat
Kelantan Delight @ Sooka Central

The ketupat sotong which is not my cuppa tea. It's sweet!


But then I guess Tuhan nak bagi padah kot. Makan banyak-banyak 2 3 hari ini ko makan jele bubur nasi dengan telur masin!

See ye in the next entry. Ciao!

Hi, I'm back!

A friend yesterday said to me, "Kak, masih Los dan Faun lagi. Bila nak update?" Hmm, been pretty busy memalaskan diri lately. Tu sebabnya takde entry baru. Anyway, today is my first day in the office after a long break. You may ask, cuti lama pun tak dan nak buat entry baru ke? As mentioned earlier, plain malas. Lagipun, I was back kat kampung for several days during raya. Tak ada access to Internet. Back in KL my access is only my sister's. Anyway, whatever excuse yang I bagi, the keyword here is lazy! I just wanted to relax and do nothing serious like staring at the wall and watching cerita Cina yang was never my interest. That's just what I did and a few other things like lepak with friends...

I actually had a tonne of work that I brought home with me. Konon-konon nak try and get it done before the semester starts. Hmm... the only thing that I managed to do was my lecture notes for tomorrow's PJJ class. Itu pun cut and paste from my previous lectures. Nothing mind-cracking.

Anyways, good to be back. willwrite more in my next entry.

Los dan Faun...

No, not that Adflin Shauki's movie. This entry is about an old friend of mine (10 years, old ke?) whom I have lost contact for ten years (since balik from UK) but we were brought back together by a good samaritan name Sharon Wilson from UTAR. Thank you so much Sharon.

I have been looking for this friend of mine, Kim Sae-Uen, a Korean whom I met during my student days in Sussex. I googled and e-mailed but nothing came up positive. She was my neighbour and fast became a very dear friend of mine. I first saw her during the registration. We happened to register in the same program. The next day she knocked on my studio door to deliver a message from the housing dept. to me. And guess what? She lived just next door! That was the beginning when we became friends. We would often 'lepak' at each other's places and have conversations, sometime until late at night. When she first arrived in Sussex, she was quite lonely as that was the first time she ventured outside Korea. She missed her family so much especially her children. She had just given birth to her second one when she left for England. I can only imagine how she felt having to leave her children behind. But not for long though. Her parents came a few months later with her children and they stayed on in Brighton until she completed her Ph.D. Best kan kalau ada the whole family dengan you during those critical years. Bukan moral support je, duit pung!

Last thursday she called me and I was overwhelmed with joy to hear her voice again. I guess we spent about half an hour talking and reminiscing about our lives in Sussex. We planned to meet up but don't know when. Nevertheless, I promise myself that I would go to Seoul one day and meet this wonderful friend of mine. See you soon my dear friend!

So much time and too many things to do...

Last weekend was a long weekend for me. No, did not go anywhere. Dok romah and do things that I did not get to do (well, not really) for the past 3 months sebab ada kelas every saturday. For each saturday yang ada kelas, I get to get cuti ganti. So bertimbunlah cuti ganti yang tak boleh di carry forward to next year. Kena habiskan by 31 Dec. 2008. So I've gone through my diary and decided that I would take one or two days of leave before or after weekends.

It started with last weekend. What did I do? Not much and nothing interesting. Brought home 2 stacks of students assignments which I managed to finish marking one stack last night (Alhamdulillah). I actually have five stacks of assignments and project papers to mark but til now only managed to finish one. Hmmm...bila nak abis ni???

Anyway, buat plan macam-macam nak buat over the weekend - nak cook some nice dishes so that boleh pulangkan pinggan neighbour, nak pi window shoppinglah cari shelves or cabinets to place my stuff yang lama dah dok dalam tong, laundary yang bertimbun, tukar curtain yang sepatutnya dibuat before raya lagi, mark assignment students, complete my proposal, pi tengok wayang etc. - but hanya laundry and marking saja yang dapat dibuat. They rest....

Next weekend is another long one again. Plannya sama tapi tak taule akan materialise or not. Itu pung dah ada plan tambahan.... Takut tak jadi lagi.

Rasa-rasa nak get away for holiday kat mana-mana. Sesekali nak balik KL or Segamat cari ikan baung. Sesekali nak turun pi Melaka sebab teringat fresh mussels masak sambal kat gerai tepi pantai (tak ingat pantai apa). Sesekali nak naik Cameron Highlands. Sudahnya dok kat Jitra le gamaknya... Ada kawan ajak pi makan nasi biryani cung kat Alor Setar this weekend. Students projek "Knowing Kenyalang" ajak to their get together this weekend jugak. Tiba-tiba ada banyak masa but banyak pulak benda yang nak dibuat. Tensi, tensi....

of tomyam and donuts...

Tiba-tiba rasa rajin pulak nak write although the assignments masih tidak bersentuh. I have a proposal to table tomorrow and it is yet to have a title. Huhuhu ketaq...

Anyways, nak ceta sikit about the food that I had in Phuket. (What else to cerita kalau kat blog badak ni??!!!). Of course le nak cari muslim food is a problem. But we are lucky though the morning of our arrival, after tanya kat reception counter, we - my friends and I, went towards the direction given by the guy (with whom we had problem understanding what he said). Jalan-jalan and we came to this one warung. Not much choice. No nasi lemak, or nasi goreng or roti canai or what whatever that we have here. So did not really know what to have sebab kuih-kuih diorang tak berapa nak memberangsangkan. Apparently kat sini pagi-pagi lagi depa serve nasi campur. So no choice. Gipun takut susah nak cari food we decided to have the nasi campur. I was already ketaq - not due to lapar - but the dishes looked so tempting. Gulai ikan/udang with rebung, and those kampung kind of dishes. Apa lagi makan le. Luckily I remember that makanan siam ni selalunya super hot. So I only took sikit je gravy. But unfortunate lah for my friends..... berasap telinga!

Petang, we went to this arab-indian restaurant yang serve awesome tomyam that I had to comeback again the following night. Memang awesome. The hotel food? Pi makan kat Laka Kona 100 times better. Since depa had to serve muslim food, depa amik satu caterer pakistan yang foodnya memang a no no. From the first meal sampailah that served before we left, tak ada apa yang beza. Serupa aje lauknya.

On the way balik to Mesia, I saw one donut outlet kat one of the stops that we made. It was in a shopping mall behind a petrol station. Apa lagi, terus made a quick get-away dengan friends sebab dah jemu dengan makane siam/pakistan. Tak le glamor macam dunkin donut but very creative and cheap giler. I saw this bunny donut that I had to have. Cute giler. The donuts were awesome. Not that sweet compared to dunkin's. After all the bad experience in Phuket, at least there was something interesting to talk about.

(Waah, wa dah pandai upload gambar... This is the first after so many entries!)

Tolon, tolon...

Hi everyone. It has been a long time since my last entry. When was that? Gosh, right after the raya break and that was about a month ago!

Since then, many have happened. Some interesting ones, some not so interesting, and some were just bad.

Let me go chronologically. A few weeks after the raya break, I was pretty busy with my students' projects which were launched in conjunction with the Communication and Media Festival organised by the communication program, UUM. There were 8 projects all together held during the week. Although they were not fantastically carried out, but I am proud of my students for accepting the challenge that I gave them. Things may not be perfect but they went fairly well. Good work boys and girls. But surely that will not guarantee a super good grades!

Anyways, the week went by not without stress. I had to go home late at night three nights in a row. So tired I wanted so much to take a break, have a good massage and relax at a spa somewhere. A good thing though, my badak friends were having a raya open-house in Penang ( I was also one of the hostesses, by the way). That gives me the chance to get away for a while from the hectic life in Sintok.

The open-house was fun. I got to meet with friends that I seldom meet apart from my badak friends whom I meet frequently. The food? Of course, awesome. Mind you, all badaks are good cooks. So you can be assured that whenever the badaks have a get together, food will always be the best. After the food, there's the karoake session. Tak best kalau tak try out songs yang memang tokle nak tarik suara tapi nak cuba jugak. Balik suma dah hilang suara!

The day after Deepavali, I left for Phuket. I wasn't looking forward to it. No, it was not for holiday. I was asked by my boss to attend a convention on student development. Since I'm a student advisor, she said it would be good for me to go. She said it would be a chance for me to relax and get away from work. Yeah right! It all sounded so glorious. PHUKET. Who wouldn't want to go (except me when I thought of all the work that I had to come back to later!). The thought of seating in a bus for 12 hours already put me off. But it's an order, she said. GOD, it was tiring. My body ached all over due the uncomfortable seat. Tau ajele tidor yang tak berapa nak tidor!

Even worse when we reached the hotel at 6.30am, there was no room for us. We had to wait until 2.00pm to check in. The weather did not help either. It was raining all day. So don't bother about going to the beach! Shopping? Not many nearby places to check out for souvenirs as we did not have the opportunity to wonder around the island. BTW we stayed at Patong. So you can imagine that most of everything is expensive. Nak cari makanan halal pung a big task.

However the convention was okay. Papers presented were quite interesting although ada gak yang wa rasa buang masa dengo. The third day i.e. the day we left Phuket was, how should I put it...TERUK. Never in my life pi conference orang halau kita balik. Takut tak make it to the border (Blackwood Hill) in time, we were asked to leave ASAP. Depa halau sebab takut students couldn't make the exams the next day. Lunch pung kena pack makan atas bas. It was so out-of-mind. Rebut-rebut pung tak dan jugak nak cross over to Mesia. Kena lepak for 5 hours kat Dannok until the gate's opened. HORROR betul. Pitty the students yang nak sit for exams at 9am. Depa carilah tiang lampu to buat revision.

Nak kata pung universiti sendiri tapi nak kena kata gak. Lain kali buatle planning bebetul. Why do you have to go across the border so far away when you can always have it here? Less money spent, less time consumed and so very convenient to many.

Buat rugi duit den ajo pi urut Siam then bisa tulang semulo tiba Mesia. Lani nak kena cari tukang urut semulo.

Tengok kejo yang bertimbun-timbun on my desk lagi le poning palo den. Tolon, tolon....

How's your raya celebration?

One day, 2 days, a week, a month or maybe a whole year? I had a brief conversation just now with a colleague. He told me that here in Kedah people usually celebrate raya for only 2 days, unlike in Johor or KL or other parts of Malaysia who would usually celebrate this happy occasion for a month. The way he put it sounded like "you people like to have fun while we are more down-to-earth kind of people" or something to that effect. I have to say I was bit intimidated.

Well, I told him Kedahans may celebrate raya for 2 days because most of them do not need to go out of town to be reunited with friends and relatives. Relatives are mostly a stone throw away. For people like me who are hundreds of miles away from my family, the 2 days are only good for travelling to and from my hometown. For those who are working, the best time to celebrate would be weekends, and there are usually four weekends in a month. So how is it possible for people like me to celebrate raya in 2 days? Maybe my dear colleague should get out of Kedah more often and experience for himself what 30 days of Syawal is worth!

Coming back to my raya, it is always a happy moment for the whole family. It is one of the few occasions that we get to come together and renew and "refine" our relationship. The first day has always been the day for visiting close relatives. Since my parents passed away, not many relatives would come to our house especially on the first day. A bit sad actually when you realise that you are not significant after your parents are gone. But on the other hand, it gives us the chance to do the visiting - something that we did not get to do much before.

The food? Of course. It won't be raya without food, and I mean plenty of good food. We had ketupat, rendang, the delicious ayam masak merah (which I cooked) and laksa johor (Ngah's specialty). But we did not get to savour them much as we all went "beraya". So the food was carried forward to the second day.

The second day is the day for rest. Well, not actually. Although we did not go out to visit families and friends, they instead came over to our house. Dozens of them. It was quite chaotic but a pleasant one. Children were running around, ketupat and laksa were just enough for whoever that was lucky to enjoy them. Anyway, I thank GOD that we did not waste anything. But the best dish of the day was of course, gulai BAUNG. I managed to grab a few of the fish when I went to the market the day before raya. The lorry delivering the fish had just arrived and I did not waste even a second to grab hold of the still alive-and-kicking fish. Gulai baung was the best raya dish for me this year.

We left for KL on the third day unsatisfied as there were many more relatives that we did not visit. But due to time constraint we had to shelve it for next year or whenever time permits. If you realise, the visits that we made had only been to relatives, not friends. So is 2 days possible to do everything?

Lastly to my family and friends, I would like to wish all of you SELAMAT HARI RAYA AIDIL FITRI, MAAF ZAHIR DAN BATIN.