smart vacation

I told you we had to cancel our vacation abroad, kan? (cos' my mom isn't well) So we went Ritzy (at Starhill).We saved time on travelling.Tak payah Nik nak bising2, "Pls don't sleep.Papa ngantuk ni.Talk to me." (while driving).Lepas tu penat sakit2 badan for 6-7 hours drive out of KL.Kalau fly pulak, sibuk nak pack baju byk2, queue kat immigration, itu ini.Tidur 2-3 malam, the whole process starts again.Yang ini, pack a small bag, terus pi Jalan Bukit Bintang.Kalau ada barang tertinggal, boleh balik rumah kejap.Kalau ada emergency calls, 10 mins dah sampai.

Day 1 did facial with Z.Phuiii...tertidur2. Lepas tu lunched at Fisherman's Cove. Sedap woh the seafood.If you stay at Ritz, you get RM50 baucer.Tak lepas sorang makan pun but still, it's something.Dengar jazzy music at Shook (the last time we dined there was with mendiang Hilary Tham). Shopped at Pavilion.Walked to Sungei Wang (kenangan lama mengusik jiwa..dulu sini lah tempat paling hebat to shop.Now I can't even stand the place.Too crowded.).KL kalau Xmas..selalulah overdone.Tapi kita pun sibuk juga ambik2 gambar mcm tourists.

Day 2 the whole family went for Balinese massage at the Spa Village.Again terlena2.Lepas tu jumped into the blue pool (not their swimming pool..another pool at the spa village) Lepas tu masuk jacuzzi.Mcm berok! :))

Ritz Carlton isn't 6 star tapi bantal dia best.Kalau tidur atas dia, tenggelam woh.I have no prob sleeping.The breakfast also sedap.But service a bit slow and they don't employ too many locals.Ramai Indians from India, Indonesians and other nationals.

While melepak at Starhill, I noticed how we'd lost KL to the Arabs.Shishas were everywhere on Jalan Bukit Bintang.The music they played on the street pun Arabic.And for such a narrow road, BB tries to be like whatever avenue it is on Broadway...ramai buskers tapi meriah juga.I took a pic with one.Ada la rasa ala2 New York city kejap. :))

We left Bibik at home alone (I should not have done this.I forgot she could not read or write.If anything happened, she nak call polis pun tak tau)

And something did happen.She fell and according to her, fainted for 3 hours with blood all over.Haiyo...we had to take her to the nearest clinic to pastikan no broken bones or apa2 yang terok.We have decided to return her back to the agent.Bahaya keeping her (she fell cos' dia bertenggek atas seat toilet tu and the whole thing pecah and she fell on the floor! I never knew how she did it! Anyone with a maid, better check yours.Cara bertenggek atas toilet ini can kill.I'm told in an email of an Arab guy who did this and how toilet seat tu koyakkan his paha)

I have had berpuluh2 maids sementara nak besarkan Z but I think yang ini yang paling terok! And we didn't get her cheap you know.But I guess with the current difficulty in getting quality maids, agents ambik sapa2 depa dapat je.Yang tak tau baca, tak tau masak, yang pekak, yang benggong.May Allah protect all of us dan lindungi semua dari bencana.

Shahrul's wedding pics

the nieces (of 4th sister who passed away 18 years

ago when these two gals were very, very young)

nephew (eldest child of 4th sister) and his family

nephew (3rd sister's son) and his family

touching moment (Pak Ngah, hugging the groom, his youngest son)

Zafirah, loving the limelight as usual

(reciting Maher's poem to Shahrul and Shamsinar)
* pengapit pengantin lelaki is the groom's brother.Dua beradik je depa ni (2nd sister's sons).

Aiman (my niece's eldest son)

reading Maher's poem

Abi (my bro in law)

doing the silat (atas permintaan pengantin lelaki)

wanita2 jelita...(my niece, a banker but

so good at kerastangan.Dia yang banyak 'mengubal' hantaran)

the clan (once you get in, you can't get out.Hahaha)

3rd sister doing the renjis

7th sister doing her turn

yang ini terlepas from the ward...hahaha (Mek, 5th sister)

Such is life

The long weekends saw a very colourful wedding of one of our favourite nephews (who's the life of the family cos' he's so funny and witty).Z played 3 songs on her violin (2 of the songs the live band tolong iringkan.Nasib baik cos' dah mula nak sumbang.She had not touched her violin for almost a year!) Then Aiman and she read the translated version of a wedding poem (which was a doa actually)Maher wrote and recited in Arabic (I brought home Maher from Yemen and Hassan from Mozambique, to give them the experience of a Malay wedding.They helped carry tembaga hantaran and helped merenjis2 kedua mempelai).

Tak sempat joined the family's postmortem (I heard them laughing so much as they did it.Cerita who was responsible for eating choc. hantaran from Australia and how ibu pengantin ~ our second sister ~ dok marahkankan everyone.Masa the majilis yassin and marhaban at my mom's, byk benda tak kena (don't know where she had placed all the senduk2!).Nasib not so many people for the morning session but the food was good.

Pak Ngah arrived just in time for the merenjis2.Quite touching to see him hugging his two boys (Pak Ngah was my former bro in law.Depa bercerai many years ago.His kids were raised by my mom especially the pengantin lelaki who continues to live with my mom when everyone has left home). Pak Ngah was a good bro in law.I remember how he bought me my first roller skates and who would have guessed that his marriage was already on the rocks on my wedding day (he was the family photographer).His family (mother, siblings) pun came to the wedding (hubungan keluarga kami masih erat.In fact I think my sis and him still love each other tapi apakan daya, masing2 dah kawin lain)

I left immediately after the wedding (bibik tinggal to kemas rumah).I slept early sebab sangat penat (tak buat apa pun except to collect the wedding cake and budak2 UIA tu).So when I woke up this morning to read Mek's sms about my mom's health status, I was really in a shock. She's getting worse and when Kak Ngah rang me up sobbing..I thought she had died.Then she told me what the doc told her in the last check up (before the wedding) and how she was made to keep it a secret.My mom pun tak tau.

I went to work feeling very stressful.Tiba2 tengok someone parked at my carpark pulak.Lagi tensi! Then tengok2 one of the ustaz (a friend quite close to me).I got into a battle of words with him! Then he sms-ed me.I text-ed back.But in the end kami saling maaf memaafkan.Kelakar betul! Tapi jgn main2 bila dah tensi. Kawan boleh jadi musuh. I'm glad Ustaz ni faham my situation (I told him.But at the same time told him lain kali jgn la ambik space orang.He said sekejap je sebab nak angkat barang conference.On normal days, I would have been much more patient.Silap hari daa but he's so kind that he said he'd do a special prayer at the mosque for my mom.Isn't that sweet?)

My sisters will bring my mom to KL.She is not fit to live alone (dah berbuih mulut kita cakap.My youngest kadang2 would just bundle her up and take her to her place in Pekan).I hope we can all look after her.

Sama-sama kita berdoa that she'll live a while longer.I'm cancelling all my vacation plans.Z is so disappointed but I explained to her the situation.When things have settled down, she can go (at least to Singapore)

the power of networking

simply beautiful!

one for the album (alums with rector and former rector of IIUM)

great food, great company, fantastic cruise

With Aadila Teoh of Spore Chapter
(at ISTAC)

I think it's one of the hotels in Putrajaya (the Pullman?)

Lunch onboard a cruise: Shamsul (lawyer at AG's)
and Dr Musa (of China Chapter)

our alums onboard 'Kelah'.Ezam is sitting next to Dr Wan

Alhamdulillah, we had a fabulous time during the IIUM Networking Lunch Cruise despite some delays on the part of the cruise management people (but the delay gave us time to catch up with one another)

A small crowd (about 40 people) but a comfortable number.Each alum spoke on their role in the society.Very impressive indeed.Some pics. (from my cheap phone)

We got to touch base with many others (even though they were not able to join us) Aadila brought home two other alums to my place (one is from Inner Mongolia, the other a revert from Johor and we did solat jumaah masa Maghrib at my place.What a nice feeling this IIUM brotherhood and sisterhood thingy! I felt the ukhwah! A great feeling indeed.Fadhlul shared with us how difficult it is to do biz in Msia tanpa ada orang2 tertentu minta "commission" sana sini.Harga RM50 million, this 'authority" suruh letak RM150 million.He gave up.He's going big on his own now.He's very particular about punca rezeki yang halal.We are happy to be connected.

Poetry reading at ISTAC

Thanks to Rohani Yusoff, I was invited to read my poems at ISTAC today but what a rushed life.Tak sempat nak kendong buku2 I nak jual. Opportunity lost. :) Anyway it was fun.Dgn izin Allah the audience was very diverse.We had scholars from Muhammadiyah Uni, Yogyakarta (Rectornya pun present, babe) and ISTAC scholars termasuk Dr. Omar (American revert tu).I had nice questions and they showed their kind appreciation of my jottings (which I call poems).

I wish I brought my Malay ones but in a world like ours (where the medium of instruction of an Islamic institution is ironically English) I am always doubtful of the usage of Malay in such a setting (can't be sure if the audience would be Malay speaking or not).Isn't this terok?

IIUM Alumni Networking Lunch Cruise