Ayaq Nyoq

My dad is generous to me. He'd come home with loads of tropical fruits. I on the other hand is a fruit machine. And my favourite fruit is rambutan. I am an opprtunist, so I always get my dad to peel them for me.

Picture this :
Someone who looks closely like the Buddha minus the skin colour is peeling the hairy fruit aided by a knife. With the big plastic bags containing rambutan on one side, the bowl for peeled rambutan in front of him and the trash bin on the other side. Also in the picture, someone whose identity is anonymous is either munching or having one hand dipped in the bowl.

Anyway the main character of this post is ayaq nyoq, not rambutan.
Dad bought 2 very young coconuts we called it nyoq beringuih. Roughly translated as the coconut with mucus.
Since we live in flat, dad can't go out and shiouuuu!shiouuu!shiouuu! (slices off the head of the coconut) and drain the water into the jug and then whack it into two to get the mucus.
So you get a Buddha like man standing and tackling the coconut. When I say tackling, I do mean it.
He flew the knife so many times and the shards flew in every direction. He's good at handling coconut. Only that doing it in a flat looks really out of place.

Anyway, this is what happened before he handle the coconuts.
Abah : go and get the pot.
Me : Hand abah a small pot

Abah : This is small. Get the plastic one in the cabinet.

 

Me : Here

 

 

Dad then proceed to whack the coconuts and I went to slice the pineapples and make my rojak.

After I'm done, I turned to this on the table.

Notice the ratio of the coconut water to the size of the jug.
Me : So, you only get that much?

Abah, I love you!

 

 

Nenas

Orientation :
In my world, there are 2 variants of pineapple ~ nanas bukit and the ordinary pineapple.
Ordinary pineapple is rather itchy to the mouth
Nenas bukit is juicy, and u can also eat the centre without having the feeling of wanting to scratch your tongue.
Between the two, nenas bukit is rather sporadic


Mom made laksa as per my request. The condiments includes pineapple as well. She use the ordinary one. I saved half of it with intention to make rojak.

Dad came home with 5 handfuls daun cenohom, 7 pieces of bunga kantan aka gingerbulb, sour,crunchy young mangoes and half of nanas bukit.
Told abah that I'll use the plain pineapple for rojak and save nanas bukit for snacking during the long hours of travelling tomorrow.

Abah : buat apa nanaih tu. bukannya sedap pon. tak makan pon takpa.
Me : Sampainya hati abah. Kecik hati mak dengaq.
And he proceeds to peeling his worthily edible nanas bukit because I lack the skill of peeling and de-eying the pineapples.
Being a fruit lover, I took a piece straight into my mouth.
Ngap!
It takes a second before my tastebud caught the bad taste.
The worthily edible nanas bukit turned out to be overripened.
I had to take it out of me mouth.
Glad that I am not partial to the superior nanas bukit.

My dad sure is an unintentional joker. It's such a shame that it'll be another few moons before I'll get to see him again, inshaallah.

Abah, I still love you despite your funny, childish personality in regards to food.

Pisang

My father loves papaya and banana. I suspect it's bacuse he has no more teeth left except one.
He'd bought like about 20 pieces of banana and finish it min within a day.

This particular day he bought quite a lot and the next day he brought all of them (yes, all of them) to his workplace. Then came back home with them (minus 4 or 5 pieces). Mom decided to make cokodok and whipped ALL of the bananas into the batter all member in our nucleus family know to leave 3 or 4 pieces for the big boss.

Dad asked whether mom used up all the bananas. To me. Not to mom.
You'd laughed until apneic if you had been there.
It makes mom looks like Angela in Rugrats and dad like someone who got his feeding bottle stolen from him.

Dear Classmates

1. If you are lazy to come for lecture/practical, don't ask me to sign your attendance. I don't do favour because one person is feeling lazy. Plus, make it so that the lecturer/doctor doesn't ask about why you are not coming to me. I am not your secretary. I can only be your secretary if you really have something important to do. Like you may say, it's your business whether you come or not, so don't make me mind your business.

2. The chair and desk are public to the students. Just because someone come later than you and your bundles of things, doesn't mean he or she can't take those just because you decide to put your things there. Priority should be given to the student. The things can surely have their own space, in the coat room/locker room.

Sincerely,
Ihavealreadyhadenough.

Eid Mubarak

I was blessed with high temperature running the whole 12am-6am, followed by pain in the joints and muscle. Am I prematurely aging or what?

The cough syrup kicked me off to slumberland only to be woken up by ridiculous banging on our front door. I couldn't do much but hand down the notes to them and off they went without any wish nor saying their thanks.

I woke up at 4pm, feeling better eventhough the joints still ache annoyingly. There are not that many kids circling in our flat, collecting money. A loss on my side =(. However, it's such a good opportunity to collect good points in my book written by Atid.

If the kids come and say salaam, it makes your heart swells. If they don't it's your opportunity to teach them to say salaam. You say it first, and then remind them to say salaam if they go to someone house after this.

I went to collect money myself when I was small and we were always depleted of our drinks before noon.
So I guess it's wise to ask them if they are thirsty or hungry and offer them food and drinks. This is the part of collecting duit raya that I cherished. It's the only time you invite strangers into your household and replenish them. If they are full, don't push down the drinks and food down their throat. As a kid I was threatened that if I don't drink and eat, I shall not get the money. It was humiliating so I am reminding myself to not do that now that I am on the other end of giving.

And one more thing that I realised today is that to ask them if they have prayed or not. If they haven't, offer them your place for them to pray. If they have already prayed or are delaying it, remind them to not miss their pray and about the benefit of hastening to pray.

Lastly, give them their deserved money. Nobody said thanks to me but one kid take my hand and said "Selamat Hari Raya". I was of course happy. If they don't you can say it first and teach them to say thank you if they don't seem to be practising it.

Remember the kids bring you a lot of opportunities of gaining good points that may help you in the future.
And when I shall have my own kids, I shall teach them all these things, inshaallah.

Huh?

In a span of one month, Germany get many huh? from me

1. During NSP, we went up this hill and the viewing tower on it. Then we climbed down. Then we were walking to dinner/student summer festivaL. Before we reach MENSA, we came into throngs of people walking and making noises. We naturally turned into busybodies and paparazzies.
The story goes like this. Person A ran over person B in what he said an attempt to protect himself. Person A is accused of being the extreme side. I don't remember is it left extreme or right extreme. But I remember that person A is accused to be neo-Nazi or sth like this. Person B luckily survived and they go to court. Person A, in turn of events wriggle his way out of any sentence. So people are making a demo to put him behind bars.

2. In less than 1 hour, we were still walking towards MENSA. Then we were diverted because we were walking straight into the area where they just found BOMBSHELL from WW2. Imagine going to die when you are thinking that you are going to dinner.

We survived the bombshell and went hiking in the Blck Forest they day after.

3. The only transport that is not punctual here is the ferry in Lake Constance aka Bodensee. Which means I got on the last strings of connection back to Freiburg. Someone jumped from the previous train so our train has to stop so that they can find that guy in the pitch dark. They found him. He broke his leg.

Ferry. Bodensee

My housemate expression.

4. Got free taxi ride from Basel to Freiburg. The driver obeyed the free speed limit offered in German.

5. Public display of attraction is rather scarce in quantity but rather intense in quality. They don't kiss a lot publicly like the Czechs. They do massage and some other type of PDA.

6. Stuttgart never get hails. at least never since Mercedes set up their base there. Loads of Mercedes automobiles are put under the sky so hail is a taboo. And to make hail never happened, they release something up the air into the clouds.

Learning Points : Surgery

1. when scrubbing, put your hand away from your body and your head away from your upper limbs

2. in time interval between finish of scrubbing and gowning. always put both hands together, and you upper limbs away from body in x- and z- axis and both the hands must be at chest level. No higer or lower than that if you don't wish to be looked down on

3. after you tie your gown, put both hands together on your belly. This is the only time I think having a protruded belly is an advantage

4. as a student most of your job during operation (heart surgery at least) are suction and holding the heart/instrument. Let start with the latter. Be forewarned that this holding business is something that lasts more than 5 minutes and the point is to not get anything in the way. Unfortunately, the chance of  having the instrument slipping from your grip is quite high, so you must have the skill of shrinking oneself and professionally switch the source of grip.

5. Suction. I learnt almost the hard way about suction. Basically in heart surgery you'll have 2 suction tubes. Unlike the metal ones, the plastic one will be available from the start until the end. Use the METAL one if it's available. USE the metal one until it stops sucking or until they say they have administered protamine sulphate into the system. Use it even though they squirt saline into the operation field.

6. when your hands are free sometime or all the time, put it on the patient. or use them to guard the instrument. never ever put them higher than the upper border of your breast base.

and if you are not scrubbed in, the most suitable place is on the anesthesiologist side. Never ever protrude your head or hands beyond the sterile drape. You can clip it with your hand and bring it down a little but your body part has to be before the drape.