Sahur, Home Version

By home, I mean at my parents'.
To date, I've never helped to prepare sahur. My mom does it very efficient and fast.
And, ahemm, abah will be there to accompanied her.

Abah job is also to wake his brood up. By experience, he knows that turning off the fan will not wake them up so he goes for other tactics.
When waking the firstborn he either
1. throws pillow(s) at her and yells "hoi mangkit!"
2. put the ice tray with ice and wrapped in thin newspaper on her cheek. It has the effect like that of electric shock.

When waking the first son
1. "hoi mangkit" with a little push.
2. asks the firstborn to wake her brothers up

When waking the last child
1. "mangkit!mangkit!mangkit!" from 2 meters away
2. "hoiiiiiii, mangkitttttt.satgi mak hang bising."
obviously both approach will never work. So it's my mom who will go and shower him with kisses and coax him with "mak dah bancuh dah Milo Aje". Sometimes he wakes up easily after that. Most of the time he wakes up when my mom has turned into a dragon spitting fire. We all thought he has the most cumulating dosa with mom but he often get away. His weapons are going to mom and slap her butt, after which he proceeds to lie down and request "mak, gaghuuu".

I like fasting month. It means one whole month having twice meals a day with the whole family.
Sahur will always consist of rice.
Recently, fried rice is on repeat.
There will always be Milo and it's the only time these years where I get to drink Milo made by mom. Other mornings when I'm home, I'll wake up to empty jug. I suspect Milo is one of the strong reasons why the Milo monster in the house never wanted to stay away from home. Even though my parents have cut down on groceries, Milo has never been taken off the list.

My abah's eternal love is doing laundry. In normal days the washing machine is loaded as early as 6 am. During fasting month in the old days, the laundry was being hung by abah whilst I was finishing my sahur.
Since last year (or was it last 2 years?), abah finally realised that he can ORDER his kids to do the hanging. It's obvious who is ordered to do that while abah has his landing time in the living room and giddily flaps his feet. And his daughter doesn't go far away to study for nothing. One of the reason why you should be the firstborn+the only daughter+studying abroad is that so you can be more favourable by your parents = get away with many things.

I miss Ramadhan and is very happy that it's approaching. Looking forward to bonding time with the family. =)

Teluk Duyung

Towards the end of our life chapter in Teluk Bahang, we had a few trips to Teluk Duyung/Monkey Beach.
I always love it. Going there means riding in a fisherman's boat, the whole day of sand and sea and my most favourite part, korek siput.

I still remember arriving at the beach.
The clear water where I can see the seafloor. I always picture the abundant remis inside it.
We'd always settle down somewhere distant from the west end of the bay.
The monkeys there are peacebuster. The beach is not named Monkey beach for no reason.

There's something about lying there on the mat and watching the sky, the coconut trees and the eagle flying by but I was most of the time in the water, either dipping or korek siput.
However, for some reasons, I never wanted to go near the meromictic lake and the bungalows.

I worked hard at korek siput, because I really, really love remis. You can say that it's my second most favourite after laksa.
The minimum harvest is a 3L pail, full.
On my last trip there I learn how to harvest kepah (not the green ones) ~ you dance in the water.
Basically, the seafloor should be a lil muddy, and you moves your body to the right and to the left. You can feel the shell with your foot and when you feel it, you dive in and retrieve the kepah.
We had a competition on it and by the time we came out of the water, we had more than 10L of them and ugly wrinkled skin.

When the 24 December tsunami striked, we had already settled down in Bayan Lepas for 3 years.
Seeing how Teluk Bahang beach looks now, I reckon Teluk Duyung is also not the same anymore.
It's very upsetting to me but I guess I can just remember the good times I had.

Attachment

Liyana is someone who accompanied me to Hakeem on my first day in MAIS to buy my dinner. She proceeds to be my camwhore partner when I have had enough with my books. She can speak under the pillow and I am still amazed on how she still managed to not be cyanotic after a good 1 hour under it. And thanks to her, I got to know there's someone name Sarjan Bego (frankly I don't remember the name exactly but we had a good time when we accidentally found this army's residence)

Puted wrote her phone number on my name on the paper stuck on our door. There are 7 others'name I don't know why she picked mine @_@. Our reception towards her is rather a cold one. Nury even want to throw her out of the window but lo and behold! we had a blast together the rest of our stay in MAIS. She was the one who taught me Bollywood dance. and yes, I didn't master even the shoulder shaking part.

My time in MAIS is a brief one. One year with few long breaks in between but the intensity of this friendship is rather deep given the short time, and it's still going on strong after 4 years. You never know. And I had a blast meeting the duo who was on a round the Europe trip. 4 years apart and 4 hours together in Prague, it's safe to say that nothing changes between us.

They've been up the Jungfrau and for making me jealous I ridiculed their "proper" meal, the delicious croissant =). Fact is, croissant is something that I eat when there's no other better option. Being someone who prefer bitter truth and not sweet lie, I had no qualm telling the fact to them. I got " akmrjuk ngn hg 2thaun byeeeeeeeee" (I wonder if she writes her patient notes with such nahu). Oh, she replied to my comment on Facebook within minutes after that.

You can give your stamp of approval that they have experience of living in India when crossing the road with them. What zebra lines? And the day I met them in Prague is the day where the memorial service is done. It's for a fellow student who died after being run over by a car. and there I was telling them to keep their keindiaan (a quality possesed by MSU- IMS students according to me) for another country. But we perused their keindiaan quality when getting into the furnicular up the Petrin Hill.

Us singing bunga angkasa while waiting for the tram.

When sending them off to Munich, if not because of having class on Monday, I would have already jump on the bus on the spot with them. Could imagine our 3 heads travelling ~ fantastic!

Pilih

In making choice, people tend to choose based on 2 basic reasons
1. because they like the choice. nothing else matters.
2. because the choice deserves to be picked.

Coming along to 23 years old, I have been made to choose. Many a times, I had difficulties. I tried to do number 2 but usually and ironically, big decision should be made on choices with blurry pros and cons. I feel that it's unfair to choose without even knowing the prospect of all the choices and to choose just because you are familiar with your pick. But then making a choice that you like and deserves to be picked is really liberating. Like without secod thought, I choose to be a wirawati. and it's a choice that I never regret. =)

Masa Lalu

Saya letak sehelai (sehelai, bukan sekeping) bulu merak di dalam buku tulis. dengan serbuk pensil. harapan untuk membiak bulu itu biaq jadi besaq sekeping. keputusan : semua bulu merak yang dibiak hanya mengeluarkan sehelai sahaja lagi bulu.

Daun setawar. Ialah daun yang dikepak. Hasilnya, daun2 akan tumbuh dari daun setawar itu.

Mencari kulit siput. cantik, menarik.

Menghambat ketam kecil yang sangat jarang terhambat. Ketam kecil selalunya pantas berlari pup masuk lubang.kalau korek pun buat sakit hati sebab tak kan pernah jumpa balik.

Menangkap belalang. sanggup ketepikan rehat untuk tangkap belalang. kalau dapat tangkap belalang kunyit, perasaan macam dapat nombor satu dalam peperiksaan.

Mencari kepompong. lepas tu tengok rama-rama keluaq. priceless.

Mencari sarang burung for no reason at all.

Tapi ada benda yang sampai sekarang tak imun

- ayam belanda atau nama glamernya ayam piru. kerja nak hambat orang saja, sembelih nanti baru tau!

- nyamuk penghisap darah. bingit. gatal. parut.

- cicak. bingit. kalau jatuh atas badan, euw, sejuk gedik terus, tadaknya sejuk-sejuk pingu.

Lupa, lagi satu benda seronok ialah menyepak ulat gonggok, shringggg, terus ulat gonggok menggulung diri.

Itu masa lalu. Terima kasih.

Italy Teaser

Buongiorno!

Land of curly haired people. I mean, curly curly, not wavy. You bump into curly hairs in a day more than you do in a year elsewhere.

Italy is as green as Malaysia is. But being in Italy made me realise that Malaysia does more pruning than Italy does. Czech Republic is far cry from being green the plants all are taking their sweet time waking up from winter hibernation.

The bridges in Venice are all steps except for exceptional few.

If you want to train yourself to be patient, get everywhere with waterbus when in Venice. The speed limit is never more than 20km/h. Once, the speed limit is 7km/h.

The paramedics maybe a highly skilled one. Reason being that the ambulance moves 6 times slower than any Czech or Malaysian ambulances.

To me, there are two types of statues in Italy, nudists and decent. I wen to Florence for the art paper, others mostly go there to see the nude David.

To date, the coolest train station in my opinion is the one in Manarola. It's at sea level and is directly in front of the sea. I don't care to wait hours for my train given that the weather is nice and I am waiting at Manarola train station.

Opportunities

I grew up playing with soils and seas and plants. The only bad thing I got from that is ascaris lumbricoidales which was easily rid off by antihelminths and which got rid off feeding bottle from my life.

Before formally starting school, I lived alternately between Teluk Bahang and Batu Feringghi. Chicken, is not something that I only see on my plate. I saw them running around, stepped on their stinky poo, got chased a few times by them, chased them and even had the nerve to dissect an almost mature egg, which stinks beyond their stinkiest poo.

I got to feed horses, harvested earthworms to fish for ikan pelukang, spent nights where my parents lined for fishes, watched fishes and crabs and squids still on fishermen's net and also went to korek siput. Saw my mother was followed by cows from the morning market too =p. In those days, pokok semalu, morning glory, pokok duit-duit are plentiful. I hardly see them these days. Pandan and curry leaves are something you get for free and now people start paying money for such things.

To be able to cycle to school every morning with your friends without worrying about kidnappers. The only hazard in cycling to school is that you'll most likely come across a vulgar demented old man and I once got myself and my bicycle upside down in a drain. Apart from that I was a happy girl enjoying cycling to get some bancau/fresh cut fruits/sengkuang+kuah rojak sprinkled with peanuts/pisang goreng.

I know that my future kids will not get the chance to experience an almost identical childhood but I at least want them to know things that I know like identifying pokok semalu at a glance. And yes, chicken should not be something that they only see featherless and dead. That would be too sad.