Sunday, August 31, 2008

Selamat Merdeka dan Ramadhan Kareem



mercutanda

Selamat Merdeka
Today is Malaysia's 51st Independence day.
So why do I feel that even though our nation is 51 years old, we are still acting pretty immaturely?
You know what I'm talking about.
There's name-calling, taking away someone else's toy just coz you dont like him/her, throwing a tantrum when you think someone's gonna talk bad about you, swearing to god you didn't do something... I am just waiting for someone to chant and jeer "Ayok, tak tayor, balik rumah makan sayor" (or something to that effect).
Grow up.
Perhaps one day we'll be grown up enough to not need parties and fireworks to celebrate our own birthday.
A good present - abolishment of tolls? Reduction ( a real, substantial one) in fuel prices? a trustworthy government? - would do.
eh, but i digress.
Selamat Hari Merdeka, Malaysians :)

Ramadhan Kareem
Tonight is the first of Ramadhan!
Ilham and Ihsan are excited coz they get to "wake up in the middle of the night an eat". I've got tempoyak, sambal daging and plenty of eggs for emergency lauk. I bought a Malaysian cookbook, just in case I suddenly crave for something.
I again, will attempt to finish reading the Quran within 28-30 days. This year I will read the regular Quran and not the tafseer, coz I find the translation distracting and slowing me down, though I feel that defeats the purpose of reading the Quran in the first place. But i just want to be able to say "I managed to khatam my Quran this year!"

I would like to take this opportunity to ask for forgiveness from all who read me, just in case I've written or said something that hurt your feelings.
I would also like to wish you all a blessed and peaceful Ramadhan, may Allah widen our path and award us with opportunities to do more ibadah than we did last year.

Insya-Allah.

Kalau beli kueh kat pasar ramadhan tu, ingat2lah kita yang jauh dan terliur ini..

Saturday, August 30, 2008

My Kids' Holiday

Today is the first day of school.
Finally, some time for myself .. :)
Now I have time to tell you about how our holiday went, and don't have to wrestle the computer away from people who wants to play runescape.
Let's start with how my children's holiday went, shall we?



10 out of 14 cucu-cucu kustamang

They were really happy to go back this year coz mokciknab's kids were around. I almost didn't recognize Adam coz he looked so different from the last time I saw him. He's taller and leaner now.
We picked up our nieces and nephews whenever we can and had sleepovers as often as we could. You should have seen the ruckus we made every time we took the whole bunch of kids out for a meal at a restaurant. Everyone would take a second look at us and I am sure they were wondering whether all of them were Taufik's and mine coz they do look almost alike.
There was only one air conditioned room in my house so when they were sleeping over there, everyone crammed into that one room. Macam duduk setinggan.
My kids enjoyed themselves very much, though :)



Ilham is really curious about the dynamics of relationships nowadays, especially that of my parents. He had a lot of questions about why my parents are together but not together, why he has a step-grandmother. He absolutely adores his Ki and Wan Shereen, but he's just curious as to how it all happened. Sometimes when I get tired of fielding his questions and am scared that I would accidently let my guard down and he could see my residual bitterness, I would just tell him to ask Ki himself. The last night we were in Malaysia, he did. According to Taufik, he sounded a little rude and got told off for it (by Taufik). I hope Ki knows that he's just asking out of curiosity and not malice.
I wonder if he's old enough to understand the complexities of human relationships.



Ihsan just wants to have fun. And what fun he had. Both he and Ilham got to snorkel for the first time in their lives. We were actually worried how he would do since we had only been swimming in concrete pools before, and not in the open ocean. I buddied up with him while Taufik was with Ilham when we went to our first snorkelling spot, which was near a lighthouse and the water was relatively deep. He struggled a bit at first, trying to get used to his flippers and life jacket, but after a while he was okay and enjoyed himself immensely. He counted how many Nemos he saw. We also got to swim with turles! Ihsan would patiently watch the turles eat sea grass and the moment it showed signs of surfacing for air he would be the first one to chase after it. For his efforts, he got to touch a turtle's flipper. (Actually, you're not allowed to touch the turtles.. *sheepish grin*). The next day we went snorkeling without life jackets (in shallower waters of course) and he was doing quite well. Maybe next year we could try scuba diving ;)



Anis had been complaining about not finding things in her room and she sits really close to the TV when watching it, so we suspected that something was wrong with her eyesight. So one of the first few things we did when we got back home was getting her eyes checked. Turns out that her right eye needed 1.25 lenses and her left 0.5, so we ordered glasses on the spot. She got her glasses a day before we drove back to Alor Setar.
She had wanted pink plastic frames but her brothers said she looked like Betty Suarez so she decided on something that was similar to Taufik's glasses. That didnt stop her brothers from calling her Ugly Betty for a few days, often reducing her to tears. I told her that I think she looked really cute and smart in glasses. Don't you think so?
Taufik taught her how she should always have her glasses on so that her eyesight doesn't deteriorate and how to take care of her glasses. She's quite good at it too, she always finds a table or some kinda ledge to put her glasses on when she goes to sleep or shower.



Izani just wants to try and do everything his older siblings do.
When we got Anis glasses, he wanted one too, so we had to buy him a cheap pair of sunglasses (which he eventually broke). When his brothers climbed trees he tried that too. He even tried to snorkel, but gave up when he discovered his head would get wet (Somehow he has this fear of getting his head wet, which makes bath time a scream fest).
One of the other first few things we did when we got home was go see the dentist. Ilham had a tooth extracted and the doctor gave him a gauze to bite on to control the bleeding. After Izani got his own teeth checked out, he didnt want to get off the chair and pointed to his brother and said "I want I want". We finally figured out that he wanted a gauze to bite on, just like his brother, and the friendly dentist obliged.

More stories later :)

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

MyPhone

wah 6 days flew so fast.. I have no excuse for not blogging, but heck if I'm not gonna try to give some.
My internet was unstable. I had laundry to do (I dont understand why I always have loads of laundry to do after a long holiday. It's as if I did not do any laundry at all when I was where I was). I forgot I was lactose intolerant. Correction - I thought I had gotten over being lactose intolerant, but I was wrong. (I drank fresh milk and suffered headaches and diarhea, i dont know how to spell that word, for 2 days. too much info, I know). I had to finish 21 sudoku challenges! (berpinau mata).
I was malas.

aaanyways.

My Phone.
As I mentioned in my previous post, my old phone got stolen.
We were in Paka (Trengganu) sleeping at a friend's house (a very lovely house, lotsa windows, no grills, wooden floors, huge backyard filled with fruit trees and a view of the river mouth and south china sea) and I had charged the phone in the kitchen on the first floor and when I woke up and went downstairs I found both phone and charger gone. Someone(s) had broken into the house through a window with a broken latch and took what was easily reached and disposable. Also missing was a bag of duku, and I think a bag of instant keropok that my aunt Loni gave, coz I couldnt find it anywhere.
I wasnt really bummed that my phone got stolen. It was a really old Motorola E398, and the battery/charger was going all wonky anyways. I had to charge it everyday to keep it alive. Taufik had said that we should buy a new phone.
I was bummed, though, that with the phone, I also lost pictures of my kids when they were younger, especially Anis when she was chubbier and curlier, and everyone's phone numbers!!! (Last year Taufik accidently threw away my SIM card, so I kept all my numbers in the phone instead of the card, so now I have nothing. Nothing! except for maybe a few numbers that Taufik had kept in his handphone)
So if you're reading this and you have my Saudi number, please do sms me your number so that I could keep in touch with you.
And also because i lost everyone's numbers, I was not able to contact some people that I had wanted to meet up during my holiday. My apologies!!! (Especially you Farah.. dah beranak ke belum?)

anyways.

My NEW Phone.
I hearrrrtttttttt my new phone!
It's a Nokia 5310 XpressMusic, in red. Taufik chose it for me. I had wanted a different phone, but I am glad he forced made me buy this one.
I had just transferred PearlJam's Lost Dogs, Riot Act and the avocado album into the phone. I had also transferred some bootlegged songclips I had stored on my computer (like Stuff&Nonsense that Eddie did with Neil Finn at Karma Club).
I can now rawk to PearlJam while I cook in the kitchen. woo hooooo!!
awesome!
All I need now is either a headphone with longer wires coz the ones I have are really short and keep coming off my ears when I have the phone in my pocket and I bob my head, OR .. get me blootooth headphones. oh yeah...
hey hey I have a birthday coming up, maybe that's what i should ask for *wink*

More tomorrow or whenever I finish uploading pictures into Flickr.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

almost over

Well, my 5 week malaysian holiday is almost over. It felt like it went like a flash.
Tonight we're gonna have a dinner with half of my family to celebrate mokciknab's birthday . 'Half of my family' - coz my mom is away to help tulisje with her new baby, The One Who Does Not Blog is away in Bangkok, and Mimi is down with chicken pox (hey hey go wish her get well soon!).
Tomorrow I've got to wake up early to get the kids ready and have breakfast and get in the cab at 9am to reach the airport by 10am and check in for my 12:15pm flight.
I'm almost done packing, except for the keropok (fish crackers) and ikan bilis (dried anchovies), and I just remembered that I didnt buy any udang kering (dried shrimps). :P

Actually, there are many many things that I wanted to buy but ended up not buying for one reason or another. C'est La Vie.

aanyways...

Just thought you'd be happy to hear that I'll be returning back to my regular blogging schedule in a few days ;)
See Ya!!

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Bloggers Gathering 16th August ...

... has to be cancelled...!

SO SO SO SO SO Sorry!!
Tapi macam susah aje nak coordinate :P
Dah lah i susah nak online.

I will be in KLCC besok (thursday the 14th) during lunch time. Sapa nak jumpa boleh call kosong satu nam, nam kosong limer mpat tujoh tujoh smilan.
The rest of the days ada kat Kelana Jaya kot. Kalau rindu sangat telefon lah.
AHAHAHAHHAHAHAH

*tunggu tepi talipon*

eh sat nak habag.
telefon i kena curi tau... so I lost semua orang punya numbers.
kalau rajin, sms lah nombor yang tertera di atas so that i can store your numbers.

incident kecurian tu, kita story mory lain hari ya?

btw, I balik Saudi on the 21st, so tak boleh join shopping2 on 23rd.
:(
Tapi i dah borong satu munawarrah before balik kedah itu hari. *huge grin*