~ Gradually coming back to life ~

Cabaran...

2012-01-13T21:00:00.004+01:00

So i've been having a 3-full-day course in the last 3 days. Dan semalam, on the second day, SV blk opis. Dah seminggu tak jumpa, kenala jumpa, lg pulak dia suruh submit poster yg due semlm. So right after the course terus g opis settlekan paper.

Now the content dah almost siap, tp SV nak tgk sbb dia nak edit2 mana2 yg patut. Tp nak tunggu dia ready nak discuss, aduh, punya lambat. Think it was around 9 kot baru start discuss, lepas tu, modify2, then dia suruh pulak our post-doc repair the graphs guna R and proof-read, so tunggu lagi.

By this time, mmg dah rasa mcm nak pitam lapar gila (sbb the last meal i had pon was during lunchtime) tp maintain cool lagi. Yela, my SV ni jenis muka all-smiling and chirpy walopon mata dia dah merah dgn dark-circles and kekadang ckp pon tersasul penat punya pasal. Dah dia camtu, takkan kita yg muda lg ni nak tunjuk penat kot. So pretend ok jela, tp kepala dah pening2 Tuhan je yg tau. Suruh alem dtg, dia lak baru blk badminton, so nak cycle jauh camtu, mmg dia tak sanggup, whateverla.

Then around 1130pm, mamat tu siapkan paper, siap edit sume, so all I did was to upload it terus. Tp by then, bus nightliner yg kena tukar kat train station je yg ada. Dah no choice, terpaksala... Tunggu2, yg bus 1211 tak smpai2, by this time, dgn sejuk menggigil, lapar, sakit kepala dgn pregnant lg... tetiba nangis sorg2, nasib bus stop takde org. Finally, at 1230 bus sampai.

Sampai kat train station, alem ada kat situ with his bike. He told me to ride the bike, bus lmbt lg nak gerak. Mcm tak logik la, i mean, how bout him? Takpe, dia lari je. Huh? Tgh2 mlm ni? Fine, but you have to lead the way, cause i only know jalan bus.

Tapi nasib la suami aku ni lari laju, aku cycle pon terkejar2 gak kat belakang. Tp i cycled carefully la sbb jalan dah banyak ice from air hujan siang td yg dah beku. Tgk dia lari tgh2 mlm camni, tiba2 terharu pulak sampai termengalir air mata. Tak sangka sanggup dia dtg hantar bicycle, and lari dalam sejuk2 yg dah minus 0 degree kat jalan yg licin camtu. Tgh sedih2, BAM! dia tersungkur! Menjerit aku terkejut. Tp syukur dia tak injured and we got home safely sebelum aku stuff myself dgn sambal ayam and daging hitam that he already prepared for dinner.

Sampai umah dah 1 am something. Sooner than when we would've gotten with the bus. Tp camni la life di perantauan, serba kekurangan, tp dah kat sini with a purpose, rasa parah camne skali kena truskan jugak. But I'm very grateful tht alem is here with me.....

Winter Youth Olympics 2012

2012-01-09T18:16:00.003+01:00

will start this weekend here in Innsbruck and the tickets are free!

Selama ni, we've been talking about attending the ourdoor games aje sbb tau tak pakai ticket, konon nak jimat. Apparently, sume tickets mmg takyah beli pon! Rugi rugi! 80% ticket dah abih, starting today, they're giving them away kat booth tgh pekan, too bad alem tgk queue panjang, then trus dia blah thinking kot sampai depan queue, dapat tahu harga ticket and tak mampu beli.

Konon tadi nak google for the price, tak jumpa2, skali kat FAQ kata tix mmg free pon, kalau ada org jual, org tu menipu.

Ni sah2 tix for figure-skating dah abih, teringin nak tgk :( Opening and closing lagila jgn harap. Nampak gaya cuma bole bersesak2 dan bersejuk2 tgk org ski jela kot sbb tu outdoor... sedih.

Presentations in English

2011-11-10T19:26:00.003+01:00

so we had our first session of the Presentation in English course. So this is basically a 3-day thing, and today was the first day, and I have to say it was better than what I expected.

The trainer was an actor, trained in the Royal Academy in London, acted in plays for years, but also did his study in business administrator. He regularly provides trainings for big international companies, apart from our little course in the uni. So you can imagine how it was like, almost like the acting class we see on tv, except this one is to prepare us for the real world.

Interesting guy, really, funny too, but occasionally can be quite intimidating, although i cant really tell whether that's part of an act or... whether that's just him, but he sure got his messages across in his clear British accent.

I sat beside the only other computer scientist in the course, artis yg menang show kat austria ni, i guess dia masuk2, blur, saw me, the only familiar face there walopon actually tak kenal pon cuma selalu la terjumpa, so he came and sat next to me. So first exercise kena interview each other and randomly kitorg kena present org tu. Dia cam interested je with my story about my being a subtitlist, tp dia tak cerita pon psl dia menang show yg cam akademi fantasia tu, and keluar album, masuk sehati sedansa bla2 tu, cume crita dia suka music je, nyanyi, main piano, compose, dgr etc. Takpela, segan nak cerita kot...

So there, syukur, just 3 sessions, although each one is from 9am to 6pm! Cant wait for it to end, nak cepat2 kumpul credit ni, risau, byk sgt yg still tka cukup ni.

Ryan Gosling serves halal food

2011-11-08T14:58:00.005+01:00

Betol, tak tipu.

I admit, i've been watching quite a lot of his movies lately, kalu bole, nak tgk suma sekali, sbb he really hasnt done tht many pon so far. But the ones he did, he did them convincingly.

So while googling for more info on this guy, i found that he own a Moroccan restaurant in Beverly Hills. The name's Tagine (that's with a tdho-huruf jawi tht i dont know how to spell in rumi) and he co-owns it with a Moroccan guy and another guy whom I assume is in-charge of alcoholic drinks (because tht wht he specializes in pon).

So in the mood of gatal2 takde keje and curious nak tau if i can dine there if i happen to be in beverly hills (aminnn!), i emailed them and asked if they serve halal food, not expecting much as 2 of the co-owners arent muslim, only the chef is, plus it's in the beverly hills pulak tu, plus, it's quite mahal and dpt byk bintang. But surprise surprise, this is what i got,

Hi Alem, (malu tak guna name sendiri, plus my name doesnt sound too muslimah :D)

Thank you for your email.

Some of our menu items are Halal, what day were you interested in coming? we can make sure we have halal meat when you visit us!

Best Regards,

Zakaria El Ammari
Tagine Beverly Hills
Director of Sales and Marketing
zakaria@taginebeverlyhills.com
Cell: +1.310.962.0694
132 N. Robertson Blvd.
Beverly Hills, CA 90211
www.taginebeverlyhills.com

-- okla, maybe ayam tak sembelih kot, Tp at least ada effort nak make sure ada daging halal kan, so i take it as a good effort la jugak, and besides kalu seafood, sure ok punya. Dan paling penting, they seem to understand the concept of halal! (kalau mamat nama zakaria ni tak paham gak, tak taula...)

junge-uni

2011-11-04T16:08:00.010+01:00

so there was an open day at our uni on friday and saturday.

The one on friday was called Junge-Uni (young uni) and the one on saturday was also open day to the public. Basic idea was to get people interested in coming to uni of innsbruck.

So we showcased our work... sort of. After cracking our brains trying to come up with something FLASHYYY (yes, this was our group's first open day, let's do it with a bang! Taklah, gambar from last year, nampak muka visitors bosan semacam je), so somebody suggested that we do something with RC cars as some guys here are actually working on vehicular networks, then attach some sensor nodes (ye, itu area saya), and create some games (which is permainan aci ligan - universal betol game simple cam gini, kan? and a demo of VTS which langsung tak dapat nak demo sbb suma org nak main aci ligan je).

And it was a hit! Among boys especially, nope, they dont care about the science behind it, but we managed to attract people. Even the ball-filled pool pon tak selaku our cars (they were a big hit last year), even booth db group yg ada pemenang starmania austria (ala2 pop idol) pon failed to attract as many kids as we did. Ye, mamat tu menang in 2002 when he was doing his phd, then buat album, tapi tak sepopular the second runner-up, so now he's back in school huhuhu... (although we did consider menyanyi dan menari to upstage this guy time brainstorming dulu, esecially when our austrian group member kept on raving on what a good programmer he is, on top being a singer and a dancer, mcmla dia sorg tak buat pape dah cukup nak tarik org, kan?).

So there, unlike other booths where they got kids to sit and a chance to explain their work, we let them kids play and we just changed the batteries when needed, and at the end of the day, the kids still dont know what we do, but hey, our group sure looked cool that day!

In the morning...

there the four of us ~~melepak~~ buat keje. Ok, sorg tu jela paling rajin dok tarik remote nak kasi kat budak lain main...

that was me, pura-pura buat keje... tp kekadang bumper depan keta sangkut, tolong la asingkan diorg. But in this one, pura2 je, kot2 sv tgk, takde la nampak melepak je manjang...

the big hit last year

Around 330 or so, alem came, so we went to the other departments to what they had for the kids....

this was at the physics' dept

another one the some science dept

tornado simulation... real science looks fun, but i wonder how easy it is to find a job in pure science...

shallow water simulation

at the astronomy dept

I think it is a really cool idea to have an open day like this, where we can start encouraging our young kids to be interested in science (and other areas, of course, what i saw was of course limited to the faculties in our area only). Tp masalahnya kalu buat kat malaysia, with the whole uni being open to the outsiders, by the end of the day, sure berlambak barang hilang :(

badminton clubs

2011-10-27T18:50:00.004+02:00

We had a talk today. It was given by an old friend of my SV. So naturally, tonight, SV took him out for dinner, and naturally, he invited us all to join them, and naturally, when there's food, most of us would naturally be available, except me.

Tonight, we're going to visit a badminton club, just to get a feel of the club, and if it is all ok, I think alem would definitely want to join it.

2 days ago, we visited one, in fact, he even played with the other club members for almost 2 hours. It was a pretty friendly club, a few of them speak English rather well, so he had little problem mingling with the other members. But the club we're visiting today... I dont know, the English email that I sent to them was replied in Deutsch, which is all the more reason why I need to go along with him.

If he likes it too, then he can join both clubs and would have something to do almost every weeknight. Which is great for me, albeit the cost it'll incur. For a a guy, staying at home can be too depressing. The guy loves sports, and seeing him so happy when he's playing and talking about it animatedly all the time just light up my day.

So if it means missing a free dinner at a posh restaurant, well... so be it...

birthday bash!

2011-10-17T22:53:00.003+02:00

well, not quite!

But after not celebrating it for 3 years, what i had last saturday was really something.

Well, what we had last saturday was a get-together for bebudak erlangen at christph's house. So SV beserta geng2 erlangen turun la innsbruck for the first time, and me being here, macam takde alasan nak tolak. So i told them tht it was gonna be on my birthday (walaupun sebenarnya tu date yg sebenarnya, tp official date yg nurse tulis is on the following day, terpaksa la cerita cerita sebenar so ada la alasan kalu nak cabut awal).

Skali on friday, fire alarm bunyi kat office, so SV beserta beberapa bebudak erlangen yg datang awal and myself to the nearby supermarket. I told them i wanted to buy some ingredients for a cake that i was gonna bake (sbb sini selalunya trandition kat office is if it's yr birthday, u better bring something sweet). Skali, they told not to bother, just tell the tuan rumah apa nak beli, nanti kita masak ramai2.

Skali sampai supermarket, we ended up termenung depan rak bahan kek sebab resipi takde nak beli apa pun tak tau. In the end, dah lama sgt buang masa kat situ, tuan rumah kata, dont worry, he'll take care of it. Dan sejujurnya, mmg tak confident langsung kek akan menjadi esok tu.

So, on saturday, alem and i went to his house, brought some grapes and apples, met some old friends, and there was no cake. Tak kisahlah, janji jumpa groupmate2 yg lain, most of them dah doctor2 dah. Roommie pon ada, nampak2 je terus peluk beruang, yikes! Alem nampak, at least now he knows i wasnt lying when i told him roommie yg selalu peluk mengejut. SV pulak, terus wish happy birthday dgn suara sekuat2nya. Adoiii... memalukan je.

So sembang2 sampai takde topik, sampai2 last it was just me and alem chatting, duh, like we couldnt chat at home pulak ye? Half of the room dah berkumpul dlm bilik dok selongkar bilik si tuan rumah ni... then around 11 or so, ramai2 keluar, i was thinking dah nak balik dah kot ni.

Then suddenly, sedar2 ramai dok berdiri behind me, and tuan rumah came out from the kitchen with a cake. Aha! Patutla tadi dia block jalan tak bg masuk dapur, instead suruh pegi masuk bilik air.

Comel je cake, ada lilin kanak2, siap guna anggur yg kitorg bawak tht spelled 'eti', then ramai nyanyi, awwww. I was surprised, really! Malu pun ye sangat2 considering tht i'm extremely anti-social sampai tahap kena sound sebab tak join diorg lepak. Skali diorg buat camni lak... and it's not the first time pulak tu, the first was when i arrived in erlangen a week before my birthday, skali on the birthday, ada email ajak makan cake which sv and the other group members whipped out in the kitchen the previous day.

So when i hear stories about germans (ok, there was one austrian that nite, tp dia last-minute guest) kedekut sbb bila buat party, bg makan cukup2 je, i have to disagree with that notion. Sebab from my own experience, manadeee... Okla, kat rumah mamat ni, mmg makanan vegetarian dah nak abih when we arrived, tp chili con carne yg ada daging berlambak lg, plus snack berlambak, and plusss, bebudak lelaki yg masak, what can u expect? Cake tu maybe awek dia kot yg buat sebab mcm complicated skit nak buat 2 layer.

Anyway, it may not sound like anything, but it was a nice big surprise for me, and it was probably the best ~~birthday celebration~~ get-together i had in a while :)

first class session

2011-10-03T21:12:00.002+02:00

so i had my first class today, with my SV. From the course webpage, i knew tht'd be 3 students 2 of which are my roommates, by the way, one roommie is german, the other austrian.

Came class time, we all went to the designated classroom, along with member dr yg ikot from erlangen and true enough, nobody else came, so we just went to nearest chairs and tables we could find and started planning for the course. Just us and SV.

So he started explaining his idea for what we are going to be doing this semester, which is to do some real experiments on interference, which i think is great cause i know zilch about hands-on experiments as all i've been doing so far is only with simulation and nothing else, ok, maybe some analytical stuff as well, but tht's it. And since the other guys seem really apt at handling sensor nodes and RC equipments, i hope to learn a thing or two from them.

So we discussed on what we need to buy and before the end of the 'course', it was decided that we need some WiFi adapters, some channel analyzers, and sensor nodes. So SV asked, "Who'd look for some channel anaylyzers?", one guy volunteered, "wifi adapters?", another guy volunteered and before i started feeling cuak nak kena cari sensor nodes, he continued, "and since we already have sensor nodes, eti doesnt have to look for one." Cam tau2 je aku blur menatang2 hardware ni. Anyway sume gelak, me included, tapi dalam hati, i was like, phewww... mana la tau kot aku suggest node yg tak sesuai kang, then beli, mati aku... at the same time, hampeh, tak caya kat aku langsung, ni cam ada chance je aku nak flunk course ni nanti.

But suddenly, german rommie told me to look for them first, sbb dia kata dia dah pass kat member sorg ni last week, member tu deny, then somebody kata patut ada kat lab, then german roommie insisted patut ada kat member sorg ni. Then SV intervenend, and said, ok, tu keje aku, cari mana nodes tu pegi, tp yg pasti they must be in one of our rooms somewhere. Oh, yes, THAT, i can do.

innsbruck

2011-09-29T14:49:00.007+02:00

So I'm am now almost officially no longer studying in Erlangen. I am now a student of Uni of Innsbruck.

No more Germany, hello Austria. And I'm renting a proper apartment now, one that is 6 km away from the institute where I'm based, which means that I have to ride the bus everyday for about half an hour each way. But what choice have i got, apartments are expensive here and due to the mountains surrounding Innsbruck, flat land is scarce, meaning that they can only build so many.

But I consider myself lucky and blessed, after going to Innsbruck several times in Ramadhan to find an apartment, and spending lots of money, time and energy, shedding lots of sweat and tears, spending a night in munich train station, losing a bike and being interrogated by the German police, I finally got one that isnt far from the bus stop of Line O, which goes straight to my institute (God knows how I hate changing buses). Not only that, He granted me my prayer and I was offered not only one apartment, but 2 apartments out of 3 that I visited on my third visit to Innsbruck.

Syukur Alhamdullillah... and also thanks to u guys and Mom for making doa so that i'd find an affordable place to live here. And also to Ajeng, my kind neighbor who helped me made countless phone calls and translated an email pleading the landlady to pick me (embarassing! but apparently the lady was touched by it), and Sawsan, for helping me deal with the evil dhl people.... dah macam Oscar moment lak.

The apartment used to be occupied by the owner's gradma. She died 5 years ago, which is why the furniture, the bedsheet, slipcovers everything is outdated, but i find it charming hehehehe... Tp apa2 pon kena hati2, takot barang2 dia dah reput, so kena handle everything pelan2 dan dengan lemah-lembut...

nasibla barang2 almost cukup, tak sanggupla nak beli buat dok setahun je...

cute je mats dia siap provide

the view from the balcony

ada sekolah, kalu org ada anak2 besar, convenient la dok kat sini

Workplace
First day I came, i got extremely lost. I found building 21b, b2c, but 21a was nowhere in sight. I asked around, and apparently the building is right next to 21b and it has no sign! Anyway, first thing i did was to look for my SV. Tu pon kena tanya org, sebabnya, the room numbers follow the American style, but the buiding floor numbers follow the German/British/our style with a ground floor. Ntah pape, but this building sure looks modern, with glass walls, windows and what not.

Here, my SV is now kapla of his own new group. So we are now something like the pioneers of his establishment la konon2nya. And I'm a proper student, kena register, amik subject and share bilik dgn phd student lain (this I already knew as my SV confidently added my name as the member of his new group months ago on his webpage, cuak gila aku takot kp* ternampak since my application blum approve lagi).

The day I arrived, the room was bare, they told me the furniture will arrive the following week. Although I wasnt too optimistic (as my SV's been telling me the same thing since August), it did arrive the following week. So everything we got is new. New machines, stationeries, errr... tu je la kot. And in the typical German fashion, they complained that kaki meja yg baru pasang ada scratch skit, sikittt je pon.

Group meeting is now once a week, no more once a month like we used to do, which means I need to spend on lunch 4 times a month on pizza, pizza, pizza and vegetarian food (one meeting is dedicated to vege food as SV is a vegetarian). And as usual, they do lunch at 1130 everyday at the Tech Cafe which is in this building itself. The cafe is like a proper cafe and they think the food there is way better than the ones in the mensa (canteen). I joined them once, and for 6-8 Euros per meal, I think it's not worth it, well not to my tastebuds anyway, plus, the amount is too much for me to finish in one sitting, so I bring my own lunchpacks like I always did. Tapi nak makan kat sini, seganla. The pantry is open, no doors, no room whatsoever, and shared by the whole building, tapi terpaksala, kalau tak, kopakla, just need to make sure tak bawak sambal belacan je la.

Groceries
Mahal nak mampus! I keep finding myself comparing Germany and Austria, which I really shouldnt. After all, the germans produce a lot themselves, austrians probably import more than they produce. But i cant help myself :(

So now, Alem and I eat less meat and more eggs. If in Germany, you can easily find halal Wiesenhof (brand german yg sgt dominant) poultry products in many supermarkets, here, we can only buy them in Turkey shops which arent that many. And because Wisenhof is a german product, bykla sosej, salami, daging marinate yg murah2, and ayam sekor pun cuma around 2 Euro/kg, and they are all halal. Sini, I dunno la, org austria marah kot psl kita kelar leher ayam, tu tak jual kat supermarket (or at least tht's the impression that i got from googling), germans mungkin tak pedulik sgt kot.

Telur, minyak, susu, gula, garam, waffles 4 keping dan lain2 sume mahal dalam beberapa puluh sen gak la. Tapi beras murah by 10-30 sen. Sayur2 n buah2 mmg lg mahal, so takyah cerita! In short, sume pon lg mahal, and mind you, I shop at Spar/Lidl and manchmal in M-preis, budget supermarket je pon.

As for Asian food, there are a few shops, we visited the supposedly biggest one there, and sadly, their selection is not even half as many as the smallest asian shop in erlangen :(

Makan
Kebabs are pretty easy to find. I dont like kebabs, so I dont really care for the taste, but alem seems to think german kebabs are tastier (heh, i think variety sana lg byk je kot).

Shopping
There's no such thing as shopping here. I dont think I will either. H & Ms look empty, unlike the one in Erlangen that's buzzling with people as though there's a sale everyday, okay, fine, they have a 'sale' corner there. And the other shops look well, unappetizing to my empty pocket :P Heck, who cares, I'm not that big on shopping anyway. But i guess they really arent that great as i keep hearing alem talking about visiting erlangan and doing his shopping at adidas' and puma's HQs there one of these days each time he runs out of t-shirts to wear. And sometimes, he even talks about going all the way to metzingen, yikes! Tak sanggup!

But erlangen is ok, I need to stock up on my asian food, some baking products and maybe some frozen chicken as well. Or if I'm not too lazy, I might even follow him to Adidas/Puma and get some cheap t-shirts and sweaters. I'm just so tired of doing laundry everyweek now.

People
are nice and friendly. The women generally have big boobs here, I blame it on the water (germans always seem to buy even plain water). OR maybe, they simply flaunt it more. Hmmmmm, or they're more conscious that more actually go under the knife, who knows. But really, that's one thing we notice about the women here. If i get 10 cent each time I see a small-breasted woman here, bet my Nutella jar wouldnt even be a quarter-full by now.

Also, I notice people smoking and spitting all over the place, but thankfully, more smoking then spitting. Ke jerman byk non-smoking area? tu pasal tak smokers agak invisible. Tak, tak, sini, rata2 sambil berjalan pon smoke, kat jerman jarang lak nampak gitu. That must tell us something about the number of smokers here, kan? I mean, takkanla sidewalks2 pun designated as non-smoking area kat germany, kan?

Anyway, here, many speak English FLUENTLY and some, with BRITISH accent. Pelik tak pelik? Even the 80-year-old lady I met at the bus stop speaks English, she mixed it up with German a little, but stilllll. Too bad my landlady speaks zero english, but kind enough to choose me over the other interested potential tenants. She even doesnt mind using the dictionary when chatting with me, when seeing the confused look on my face hehehehe, so I always have the dictionary by our side when she comes over.

But all these niceties have their disadvantages. One being, they are unfortunately not as efficient as the Germans, and not as law-abiding (rasanya ni lebih apply kat bavarians je kot). Lintas jalan raya (almost) sesuka hati, masuk toilet 50 sen share sorg lepas sorg lepas sorg-and I'm talking about stangers with another stranger here, including myself la ni, urusan over the phone and Internet diorg kurang honor, Internet pasang lambat (kata within 10 day, at exactly 10 days baru telefon nak set date nak pasang) dan lain2, malas nak cerita. Even my SV bisik2 komplen kata sini kekadang susah skit nak get things done.

Weather
Pretty nice so far. More sunny days than cloudy, but hey it's summer (going into fall). But it's been drummed into my ears that winter is colllld, BUT sunny nonetheless, unlike the grey gloomy winter in Germany. But we did get a few rainy days here. 2 weeks ago, the upper clouds was so cold that it snowed! But as the ground was warm, they melted right away. But it was quite a sight for Alem - to wake up to a snowy Monday and to see snow-capped mountains for days.

But unluckily for us, the rennovation work on the roof caused our ceiling to leak. As a result, we had buckets, pots and pans all over the living room to catch the dripping snow/rain water. And by the looks of it, they will probably finish the work much later than promised, but hopefully in time for winter. In the mean time, our apartment will probably look like it's in a warzone with buckets and pots on the floor, and torn wall paper on the ceiling :(

By the way, the first youth winter olympics will be held here in january 2012. Kalau berminat nak melawat, tht shd be the perfect time for it :D

Scenery
Should be pretty, i think. After all, this is a tourist spot, epsecially for those who are into winter sports. I really havent got the time for sight-seeing, so I really cant tell. But tourists are everywhere, so there must be some attractions somewhere. For me, a city is a city is a city, except this one is surrounded by mountains, that's it. But we'll see what i'd think about it a year from now :)

Raya and Farewell gathering

2011-08-31T23:04:00.011+02:00

So yesterday, i celebrated Eid with 2 other Malaysians at the gathering organized by the Indonesians headed by Ibu Suti. It was a lot of fun meeting the ladies, playing with their babies and eating delicious food that I didnt cook myself. I brought some brownies which recipe I got from the back of the cocoa powder container hehehe. It's in German, I understand the instruction but did not read the name of the brownie properly.

I honestly thought I was going to bake a chocolate cake, so I really thought it was strange that the batter was pretty thick, but I figured that I should follow the instruction, and as it turned out it was brownie that I was making, not a cake. But that was fine, and thank God, almost half of it was gone by the time I was about to leave the raya gathering (secretly, i was afraid brownie tak laku huhuhu). Guess kids really like chocolate eh?

the babies with their mothers

with ibu suti

baby with ibu angkat

kesiannya la bebudak tu kena paksa bersalam, ian macam ketakutan je

but they secretly shook hands when no one was looking, cute

In the evening, I went and meet Yurly. My friendship with her is a weird one. It even baffles her husband. Mainly because, I speak very little German, and she doesnt speak English, and yet, we could hang out for hours and laugh like nobody's business. Heck, even I cant understand how that happens sometimes. But she's one sweet but mature young girl, and I made her to promise to come and visit me someday.

And tonite, I organized a little gathering for close friends and my neighbors, sort of like a Eid + farewell gathering. Made some pulut kuning with rendang which I thought wasnt too bad (hehehehe, masuk bakul angkat sendiri, i know) and ayam masak merah that turned my neighbor's face red. And again, the same, but slightly improved brownie (i kinda figured a nicer way to cut it so that i doesnt look as messy as the first one I made)

pulut and brownie

rendang yg mencabar betol nak buat when all you have is a stabmixer, no I don't plan on buying a blender, too bulky, not convenient for a nomad like me.

ajeng, the guy, sawsan, that's donka in red, sawsan's friend, me and roxena (or ramona or something like that)

with ning, indra, and his wife, dede

oops, same bunch of people, but all are 4th floor dwellers

my next door neighbor and gunar, my favorite floor speaker (we have two floor speakers - ni macam floor rep la, he's our favorite)

the indonesians and the malaysian

I really hope they enjoyed the food. The Indonesians seem to like it, ye la, they know what they were eating and how to judge it. The rest, well, with the explosion of spice and heat, some could handle it, some well, Donka thought it was extremely hot that after the first taste, she had to take a deep breath and muttered, "I can do this." and quickly went to get some bread instead, cute. And when I explained why we have pulut kuning- kinda like for celebratory purposes (sorta), she thought that it makes sense because she said that it is bright like the sun. Amboih, comel je description dia.

Ning gave some chocolates, always very thoughtful, this guy. And as i seldom see him these days, meeting him and Indra really brings back old memories, especially that crazy winter trip we had almost 3 years ago. They were among the first few people that I really clicked with, so I definitely gonna miss them a lot.

And I definitely going to miss Erlangen as well. It's a very quiet little town (but with a big-ass Siemens HQ and one of the oldest and largest uni in Germany all over town, and veeerry close to Adidas' and Puma's HQs as well), but it's nonetheless quaint and very self-contained.

I'd definitely will be coming back again someday...

tat nanas

2011-08-25T00:10:00.002+02:00

Ahhhh...... you know it's a perfect pineapple tart when it melts the moment you drop it in your mouth...

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri, people!

And maaf zahir dan batin!

their preception of Malaysia

2011-08-23T17:11:00.003+02:00

So a friend next door came to ask for some advice.
Despite the countless times that I told him that I'm from Malaysia, he wanted to confirm if I'm from Malaysia. Okla, tak kisah.

Anyway, he told me that he'd be going to Langkawi for a conference and wanted to know some 'important' stuff about Malaysia that I'm more than happy to share.

Most of the questions were pretty normal, but then he also wanted to know if;

1. It is ok to dress like he was (in T-shirt and a 3 quarter cargo pants) or does he have to constantly be casually-dressed (which he "thinks" consists of a pair of jeans and a neat t-shirt/shirt) for sight-seeing and sailing (terkejut aku dgr, biar betul dia nak sailing? Gamak nye la kot. Org sini jarang dpt merasa laut)
2. There are certain symbols that he shouldnt have on his t-shirt.
3. It is okay to smile to girls (huh?)

So I told him that he doesnt have to act all weird there. His appearance and demeanor are considered perfectly normal there (maybe extra hensem kot, serious hensem and agak kelakar plus sikit blur). And not to worry too much about interacting with the locals. I'm a typical Malaysian, just take me as an example and you'll be fine.

Bukan apa, dia kata kita negara Islam, tu dia cuak sgt tu... hmmm, patut ler...

Esok lusa dia tak datang, so next Tuesday, dia nak tanya lg. Let's see apa pulak dia nak tanya kali ni...

Panassss

2011-08-22T18:21:00.002+02:00

Serious panas hari ni!

I'm sitting here in my office room, not moving much and my armpit is sweating.
Pastu yg malasnya kalu sembang pasal weather kat org2 sini,
skali je kata panas, they'd be like, "Even for you?!"
Kelam-kabut aku nak cari alasan cover yg ala2 yela panas, tp no biggie la...

Tp serious, panas weh!
Kat Malaysia, panas2 pon, masuk bilik ada aircon.
Sini, masuk bilik, kipas pon tarak!

Hari yang malang

2011-08-06T18:50:00.002+02:00

so i left home at 130am to catch the 2am bus today, a quarter way to the train station, remembered tht i forgot something, went back home to get it. At the station, with 10 minutes left, i quickly went to buy the tix at the tix machine only to find tht it didnt accept the 50 Euro note tht i had. So I took the chance and ran around the station and tried buying from all of them, but sadly, none wanted my money, and I ended up buying an extra tix from the bus driver (the tix tht i was planning on buying would've covered the bus fare).

Then in innsbruck, I got lost. Ok, I always get lost there, they have hundreds of bus stops, and sometimes 5-6 stops at one crossroad, all having the same name but serving different lines, or sometimes the same line but with different directions.

So obviously I got very lost, several times i took the wrong bus, and had to track back to the original stop on foot! whilst carrying my netbook with googlemap on it. And obviously, I arrived very late for my appointment.

Dah penat2 lari all over town today, i took a nap on the train back to erlangen. Tetiba for the first time ever, i was woken up by the police asking for my passport. Yikes!! Aku tak bawak!

So i gave him my student card that i printed myself (our student card mmg cikai like tht), and my Malaysian ic and my 16 year-old laminated driving license. Punya la lama diorg interview aku yg mamai ni smpai la the next train stop. Then, they cross-checked with the immigration and took pictures on my student card, and told me to email them pictures of my residence permit and passport. Dahla residence permit tu dah nak expire ujung September, and i've received reminders to extend it from the immigration office (which i've so far ignored). Bole tahan cuak tahap nak terberak gakla. Ni polis german ni, jgn main2!

But I maintained my composure, walopon mmg aku salah tak bawak passport bile cross border, aku ckp dgn gaya confident, but still diorg call immigration for confirmation time2 tu jugak. My excuse, Oh, ingatkan student card dah cukup utk g Austria sbb dia Schengen country, then he was like, "Well, look at this card" sambil tunjuk kertas lembik yg kononnya card tu (not my fault, my uni wants us to download it and print it ourselves every sem). Tp syukurla diorg ckp baik2, and syukurlah aku still managed to speak in German walopon campur2 English, so cam takla nampak menipu kalau kata tht i've been here almost 3 yrs tp still takleh ckp langsung.

Tp yg pasti, first thing sampai umah midnite karang, aku kena hantar email kat polis tu. Harap2 tak kena saman or kena tangkap or kena record mana2 sbb seriously aku kena apply kat polis diorg for a certificate of good conduct lepas ni. Kalu recorded ni, matila karang tak lepas kat Immigration austria pulak!

And worst of all, when i finally arrived at the Erlangen train station 1230am, basikal hilang!

Summer canoeing during ramadhan

2011-07-26T15:18:00.003+02:00

Memang tak minat nak join aktiviti jabatan ni pon. Dah la bosan, kena bayar 25 euro lak tu.Tp awal2 lg b4 date diorg set, i told them i wasnt going. Takde alasan, just tak nak pegi. And they probably dont care pon.

Tp td, sorg member kepoci dtg blk. Tanya pegi ke idak. So terus jawab tak g. Then he asked, apsal? Aramak, takkan nak jawab tak minat kot. Then suddenly, cam ternampak pulak lightbulb menyala. Meeting lepas diorg kata nak buat on 1st Aug. Wah wah ada alasan.

And terus jawab, takleh sbb hari tu first day puasa. Then bole lak dia tanya, so?
Errr... nanti penat, tak larat nak berkanu... (aiseh, rasa guilty lak guna posa as an excuse)... dan dgn muka confused, dia blah...

once bitten, twice shy

2011-07-04T16:42:00.004+02:00

so today morning, i followed roommie to tennenlohe (a district in erlangen). The mission: to catch my sv before he leaves for innsbruck in the afternoon. They got a meeting with some security guys there and that would be my chance to discuss some stuff with my sv and exchange some documents.

So i waited from around 945 in the students' room. Waited and waited. Close to 12 pm, roomie came, followed by sv, reminding him about me in the room. Apparently he went straight to the meeting and totally forgot about me, and apologized profusely, but tht's alright 'cos i had some papers to read anyway. Only tht I was extremely hungry by then.

On the way back, got lost, checked my phone for the map at the traffic light. And suddenly, an uncle stopped beside me and said, "Eh, takleh pakai phone. Kalau polis nampak, kena denda". "Oh, ok..." (Slowly putting it back into my pocket). And he continued, "Boleh kena denda 20 Euro tau".
Duh... and i swore i tried not to smile when hearing tht. I mean, after being fined RM300 several times, 20 Euro tu bole gagah lg la... But I guess, he detected the smile and went, "Mann kann sparen." (Bolehlah jimat) Errr... ye, pak cik. And soon after. the light changed to green, and he wished me Selamat Jalan... Adoi, dah la sesat, kena lecture lak tu, nasib baik dia ckp baik2.

Anyway, I hope I dont need to go all this way to meet my sv again. Hopefully next time, it'll b around the department's area.

Well... this kinda reminds me of my last sv. That was an adventure. I remember making appointments with her at the parking lot, her MSN office (when she was on loan there), in front of the faculty's entrance, one of the students' colleges, even almost driving all the way to the airport... But she was a great lady. Always busy with her Sukan Wanita and attending to the then Sports Minister. And as her student, it was always nice to get freebies - leftover from the events she was involved in. Now tht she's back in the faculty, wonder if she's still as busy. I hope not, I hope her students wont have to go through what we went through. Funny when I think about it now, but honestly, not something that I want to go through again, and i really hope it wont happen again this time...

i survived my first party...

2011-07-01T21:33:00.003+02:00

ok, not the the first, third kot. Tp yg sblum2 ni hostel parties, yg boleh cabut sesuka hati tanpa rasa bersalah, so perfect la kalu saja2 nak tgk2, or untuk minum for free, minum saja pon yg provided, tu pon for the first glass.

Yg ini, mmg dapat jemputan sbb roommate yg buat, siap dia inform awal2 dia nak masak beberapa jenis vegetarian food tht i know cuma my sv, his wife and myself aje yg sure makan, tambah cheese and bread lg (tu aku pelik sorg akak ni kata member german suami dia buat party selalu makanan simple2 n tak cukup lak tu, member2 aku kalu buat selalu je berlebih-lebihan...)

Tp this morning, tebalkan muka and i told him tak dpt datang, siap dah plan bohong sunat yg gila elaborate kot dia tanya kenapa. Tp sekali dia jerkah nama aku, pastu tgk mcm geram je, aku terus tak sampai hati dah.

So I went, nasiblah, ada 2 mamat group kami g skali from the office. Tp once there, sume buat hal masing2. Arrrghhh, dah la ramai, laki je almost semua, terus aku jd the awkward wallflower yg cuma maintain cool. Think the only time aku bersembang was with roomie's gf, tu pon kejap je before he called her to prepare the salad. Pastu aku mengwallflower balik.

Then it's makan time. Phew! At least bole konon2 buat busy. And it's just so happen sorg mamat ni terpaksa share meja dgn aku. And although we didnt exchange a word pon, i actualy felt relieved sbb tak nampak pelik sgt makan sorg2... gila pathetic. Padahal bukan tak penah jumpa, he used to come to our room cari roommie, and i'd be like, "oh, he's not here right now", "he's out for lunch", "you wanna leave a message"... so bole je kot sembang, tp tah, takde topic, so kami makanlah senyap2.

Abih makan, aku cari sv, sembang2 skit, then i excused myself sbb ada hal yg bohong sunat tu :p before i went to look for roommie to tell him tht i reallllly had to go. But he seemed happy tht i actually came walopon cume utk tunjuk muka and makan :D

Tolonglah, no more invitations, serious aku tak reti la nak mingle2... in Deutsch! Kalau ckp english, ok la lg... but when in Roma, takkan nak ckp Mandarin kot, kan? Yeeessshhh!

missed

2011-05-20T13:33:00.004+02:00

so it was slightly more than 2 weeks ago when we were told that there's no heartbeat. It came almost as a surprise. "Almost" because a couple of days earlier, I felt different. I lost half of the symptoms and I could almost feel that something was wrong, and knowing and seeing how common miscarriages are, I prepared myself for the worst.

But I suppose that's just wishful thinking. I was still heartbroken when the doctor told us that he's 100% certain that I will miscarry as he could not find the baby's heartbeat. And what's worse was seeing alem's face, although he tried not to show it, I could tell that he too was just as sad as I was. I even felt like I have disappointed him.

Anyway, despite the news, we decided to wait for another week as I wasnt passing anything. Fast-forward a week later, another ultrasound and still no heartbeat, so we set a date for a D&C on Friday.

5 days have passed since then. I'm still bleeding, but thank God the cramps have mostly stopped. Emotionally, I think I'm doing pretty ok, not much of a denial, no anger, just acceptance that there is certainly a blessing in all of this that I'm probably not able to see just yet. But I do have my moments, especially when I'm alone and when certain words start ringing in my ears. And although i know there's nothing anyone can do to stop it, occasionally i still cant help but to think of different things that i could've done differently.

Despite the loss, I'm grateful to have friends and families who are very supportive. My sv berkali2 offered to help should i need anything, even offered his wife kot i need someone to talk to. Somehow aku rasa dia saja nak aku open up kot, sbb berkali2 sgt dia offer nak tolong. He even said tht selama ni aku tak pernah mintak tolong apa2 (must be referring to the mishaps i encountered in the past), so jadi mcm ni, jgnla segan2 nak mintak tolong lg... which got my eyes welling up with tears and forced me to ask him to stop and change the topic. But of course, that didnt help much 'cause emotions are not something that you can easily turn on and off. So we talked a bit about Austria, then he told me to take a month off, then dia cepat2 cabut.

I am also very grateful that it happened while alem is here. He's been amazing. He was amazing in dealing with my crazy hormones during those 2 months, and he's amazing still in tending to my physical and emotional needs even now that our baby is gone......

we had...

2011-05-01T23:27:00.003+02:00

mee kari

and ikan keli with kerabu mangga n sayur campur n gulai baki kari n sambal udang terbakar :D

that may not be much, but for me, it was a feast. Lagi pon sekali-sekali je pon....

sleep-deprivation or sleep-overdose?

2011-04-29T15:53:00.001+02:00

so i've been trying to cut my caffein intake lately, and yesterday, instead of going for my daily dose of latte machiato, i had a half-cup of old town instant white coffee.

Apparently, tht's not enough as at around 3pm, i went ot the toilet, and fell asleep sitting on the toilet bowl for half an hour! Yeessshhh!

- i hope nobody was in the next cubicle, else, they would've seen my feet sticking out from under the partition, and THT would've been pretty embarassing @_@

crap!

2011-04-03T14:44:00.002+02:00

so i guess many already know about my circumstances, yup, am talking about my sv yg nak pindah tu.

Anyway, he's been helping me a lot with the procedure tht last thursay, he waited in line for over an hour at that uni's admission office, only to be told off by the lady who was manning the counter.

So on friday, he came to my bilik, hempas envelope containing copies of my documents dan dgn agak tension dok cerita psl the complexity of the procedure. Basically, it sounds to me tak complex sgt, tp byknye songeh nak cop sana sini, and surat ngarut itu ini. Tp kalu banding dgn uni kat jerman yg basically bole admit kita anytime and tak mintak documents sesangat pon, kat uni baru tu mmg nampak leceh.

Lg dia tension sbb pompuan tu treated him and his country like crap. Ye la kan, dia nak bawak student dia yg tgh dok blajar kat jerman, dah tu dia will be appointed as their spanking new full prof and will establish a new chair there (yup, he went there last week to order new desks and chairs, among other things). Alih2, minah tu mcm perleceh dia pulak. So sambil2 kami dok discuss psl the transfer tu, dia tak abih2 dok ckp in such a self-deprecating way (sarcastically la, of course, in reference to tht minah), asyik2 i'm crap, we're crap, this crappy country, crap this, crap tht, crap crap crap sampai aku pulak rasa bersalah. Tp roommie kat tepi ni, bole lak dok giggle konon mcm nak ckp, hah, padan muka, sapa suruh nak pindah lg. Tp takpe, dia ckp nanti nak je dia complain kat bos minah tu, tp tunggu sume setel dulu.

But basically, now wht i need to do is much clearer, and after tht, he promised to help see everything through as much as he can. I just hope experience dgn minah tu tak put him off dah ler... else, naya aku!

masak nasi style german

2011-03-15T11:54:00.001+01:00

so today, a colleague asked me to join them to lunch again. I turned them down, told him i brought rice... as usual. Unconvinced, he wanted to see it. I showed him my lunch pack. Then, he asked if it's pre-cooked. Errrr, of coursela, takkan nak bawak beras kot.

He suggested tht maybe i should jst cook it at the kitchen. We got a stove, water, semua cukup. I told him i dunno how, at home, i just use a rice cooker. Bole lak dia kutuk? siap ajar lg step-by-step cara nak msk nasi, which of course i wouldnt care follow pon sbb penah buat skali dulu n tak jadik. Then, a couple of the other guys came, and tanya apa kami discuss. When he told them dia tgh ngajar aku masak nasi, they were like, "no way, of course she knows, she's asian!".

Tp this guy's adamant tht he cooks the perfect rice, even when we were all arguing over the rice to water ratio (sorg ckp 1:1, aku ckp 1:1.5 or 1:1 pon ok, dia pulak 1:2), he kept telling us tak betol, tak betol, tak betolllll...

Then tiba2 bg general fact tht the first product by sony was a rice cooker, to which i said, "haaaa, kami guna menatang tu la since then, sbb tu tatau masak style manual!" Dah abih modal dia nak gaduh, and he left.

menteri pon plagiarize

2011-03-07T11:32:00.002+01:00

so the defense minister has resigned. Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, namanya.

Why? Well, if you look at the above image, and with black representing pages with one plagiarism, and red with multiple plagiarism, then you can imagine why he resigned.

He still hasnt admitted to the accusation. But with the real authors of the papers he plagiarized condemning him, pressures from the public and the media and his supervisor publicly announcing that he is deeply dismayed by him, i think sooner or later he will actually admit to it. Of course, tht'd be embarassing, but personally i think, people will have more respect for him if he did.

On the other hand, there are still those who are unable to see the implication of his actions and the hoo-haas over his phd thesis and continue to support him to death. Yup, that's what u get for being rather young and charismatic and popular. Kinda reminds me to our own Dr. Fazley, I wonder what happened him now...

muffler pulak kena curik!

2011-02-28T22:22:00.003+01:00

serious tempat ni byk penyamun!

Pg td b4 aku terkejar2 nak g kejar bus, naluri aku berkata, g la amik muffler yg aku sidai kat tingkap luar tmpt sidai baju tu dulu. Tp aku dah terkejar2 so aku pakai muffler cikai yg ada dlm bilik.

Malam ni time nak g kutip, muffler dah ilang, cilanat betol pecurik cikala ni!

Aku tanya jiran aku sorng ni, dia kata dia nampak tghari td, sure ke dah hilang,?aku kata sah2 la sbb stoking busuk aku sume ada, tp muffler wool yg tahan sejuk yg aku sidai cantik2 tu je yg hilang.

Aku mmg hangin ni, skali lg aku curse tahap kalu dia mati ke putus tgn malam ni, all i hv to say mmg ko padan muka!

Sedih, dah kena beli muffler baru. Dok sini, asyik dok abih duit beli barang ganti barang hilang je, kopak aaa kalu selalu camni!

kak limah balik rumah

2011-02-25T23:31:00.004+01:00

i'm not a fan of malay films. Apart from p ramlee's films, i honestly couldnt care less about the rest, yup, arwah yasmin ahmad's included, although i did cry a bit at the end of sepet.

So when mary asked, no, forced me to watch hantu kak limah balik rumah, i actually thought she was joking. But when she told to accept the 700MB file over skype, i knew she wasnt joking (plus, i remembered tht she raved about Rock several years back and knowing tht is another mamat khalid's film, think it's safe to say tht she's a mamat's fan)

So reluctantly, i downloaded it.

Anyway, i just finished watching it, and as expected, it's ridiculously absurd, but you know what? i actually enjoyed it hahahahaha, so much so that i watched it's TMO on youtube. Frankly, i cant remember watching a malay being this funny, heck, i cant even remember the last time i watched a malay film, eh, think it sepet kot...

Now, i'm tempted to watch zombi kg. pisang. But maybe i should check out some reviews first. Found one a while ago, on a swiss's website in German - Zombie from Banana Village (can u believe it? Takde keje betol org swiss tgk zombi malaysia, pastu kutuk tak hengat hahahaha) and it got only 2 1/2 out of 6 stars. Doesnt look too good. Maybe i'll ask mary, there's a big chance she'd watched it...

Oh, and last week, i watched ice kacang puppy love, i likeeeee.... botak's chubby sister the most!

porn education

2011-02-21T19:40:00.002+01:00

rommie is a security guy... so if there's a security issue involving the network, we'd go to him.

And apparently, we're not the only ones.

This morning, he got an email from this one company.
They're experiencing a DOS attack and they need help.
And when he went to check out the company's website, interestingly it is porn website.

The other guys think it's cool (for him, at least. Then, bole la kot tompang skaki lepas tu, and make it open for us, siap chant, 'open source porn' la, ' free porn for all' la). sv pulak suggests panggil dia porn king lepas ni, another friend even suggests tht lepas dah tolong nanti, bole add dlm resume.

Now, at 6pm, he's still working on tht case. What exactly? I dont know. But he's in correspondence with the company, so he must be doing something.

Aku, on the other hand, dah tak amik pusing sbb graphs aku still tak betol.

Nonetheless, this shows how well-aware the german ppl are of the contribution of the research community kat jerman ni (byknya 'of's, malas nak restrucure, graphs still tak siap lg ni, oh, wait, think i already mentioned that). Kalau kat malaysia, sure kita dah g cari security company dah, kan? (while still having absolutely no idea wht all these post-grad students are doing in the uni sampai berjanggut-janggut while still not able to differentiate between a fake Dr. title and one that's obtained through years and years of study sampai keluarga terpinggir and life terbuang, ok, the last part is an exaggeration, but i bet many married postgrad students can relate to it in one way or another....... kot?)

R pulak this time

2011-02-15T17:42:00.002+01:00

so I've been using excel to plot my graphs and it's a well-known fact that I'm the only one in our group who still uses a spreadsheet.

Last week, my sv already told me to use R, he even told me to ask roommie for pointers. I said ok, but i needed to sort out my data first.

Today, he came by my desk again and asked to see how things are going. Told him that i'm sorting the data out, need to do this with perl first, then i'd check the output in openoffice spreadsheet to make sure it's alright (paranoid much, eh?), then only will i plan to plot it with R. But when i showed him the output in the spreadsheet and b4 i could explain tht tht's just the preliminary step, he gave a short lecture on the advantages of R, how to work with it etc. Aisehman...

And reminded me again to ask roomie for help, and it's just so happened tht at the time, chistph melangkah masuk blk. Then sv told me to feel free to ask chistph as well which sent the the guy running out of the room almost immediately. Tp kiranya dia dah bg lesen utk bertanya, heck, dia mmg encourage pon...

Looks like i got another app to learn with a different set of scripts... aduhhhh... good thing i got a expert for a roommate (altho i do feel like i'm bothering him too much sometimes, and especially when i confuse one thing for another and he has to re-explain what he already did 20 minutes ago). But at least, he's pretty patient with me and just does wht i tell him to do, no questions asked. Ada sorg lg member ni mmg suka nak tolong tp dgn gaya yg agak intimidating, kalu aku tanya, mesti dia tanya blk smpai aku lak tak sure apa aku nak buat......

tron and blue valentine

2011-02-12T20:18:00.007+01:00

so i joined bebudak office g tgk tron legacy in 3D last monday. What do i think about it? Mengarut. Ok, should've seen tht coming. After all this is tron. Tp masalahnya, it's too mengarut, even for me who loves filem2 mengarut. So there, toksah la expect a good storyline out of it, but if u like to watch a world tht supposedly exists kat dlm computer (kot), well, this is a good one for u. But prepared to sit sampai bontot berakar as it runs for around 2 hours... So there, 2 hours and 7.90 euros and 8 euros (for dinner) wasted in one night. But even with a crooked bang, olivia wilde is still a hottie.

and 2 nites ago, we had a gathering, they call it weinabend (malam wain whereby diorg minum kotak wain 5 liter sampai abih and plain water for me, of course) kat umah sv. Gi tgn kosong, tp order pasta, another 6 euros melayang and sat there for 6 hours dgr diorg sembang in german. Apsal aku g pon aku tatau, perhaps i was tired of being labeled anti-social kot. But next weinabend, nak label, labellah, tak sanggup dah g duduk kat situ, when my german still tak improve2 gak.

Anyway, just finished watching blue valentine. Now this is one film i read so much about, waited ages for it, and of which i had a very high expectation of and surprise surprise, it surpassed even my very high expectations. First time ever (for the record, watched Inception, read a little about, but expected a lot from it, and usual, found it disappointing). Heck, i even ended up crying a bit when it ended. Ryan gosling sure has grown a lot since his scrawny herculean days and has since made really really good choices. No, no, not talking about the notebook, although i too cried from watching it. But his other films, and among them, all good things and lars.

Anyway, am not gonna give anything away, so i'm gonna stop here. Aduh, my heart still aches from watching it and i think this one film is gonna get me thinking about it for days... tension! Such a depressing film! (moral of the story: pasangan sekufu tu penting, else, takde la emphasis on tht in Islam, ye dak?)

visitors from duesseldorf

2011-02-11T17:15:00.001+01:00

we had some guests today from duesseldorf, brought by my sv so as to encourage cooperations between their group and ours. Seperti biasa, the moment aku masuk je, trus sv announce et tak pandai ckp german, tolong switch to english. Bersalah gak la aku rasa... tp they didnt seem to mind.

Anyway, seperti biasa also, aku menikus je la. Tak reti babe nak komen bab privacy n traffic monitoring ni, tp i found the presentations from both groups interesting. And maybe i'm biased, tp bebudak group ni sungguh la critical, my sv included. Mamat sorg group kitorg yg mulut tak insured tu biasa la komen tahap gaban, tp kat hujung2 senyum2 gakla just to keep things light, yela, diorg ni kan tetamu. SV pon tanya soalan yg related to the application of the proposed protocol, in terms of the feasibility of the protocol, and nampak agak pening gakla diorg nak melayan. And roomie sungguh la sharp tht at the end of prof tu punya presentation, dia tanya soalan yg kinda stumped him. Well, actually dia mmg aware of the flaw (biasala, what reseacher tatau flaws keje sendiri kan?), tp dia dah present the work several times, and sapa pon tak penah perasan, and added, diorg mmg tau, and still in the process of looking for ways to overcome it. Anyway, roommie mmg tere pon bab2 network traffic ni, tu yg admin pon selalu cari dia, tu yg org selalu mintak advice kat dia, tu yg bilik aku ni org selalu kuar masuk, tu yg aku selalu tension tu! But on the bright side, he's always there when i need help with practically everything, nak bukak cap thermos pon included.

Anyway, sv left early as he had to attend a graduation ceremony. Tp diorg still sambung discussion, aku ciao awal, sbb tarak sv, aku rasa biar la diorg relax skit ckp german sbb aku bukan contribute to the discussion pon hehehehe. And besides, biasanya sv yg akan mintak org ckp english pon, so kira dia la lesen utk aku dok menyelit.

Itu je, sekian.

oh, aku perasan geng tu ckp ala2 british, and funnily enough bebudak sini ramai yg pilih american accent... tu aku tatau apsal....

Sedihnya...

2011-02-04T21:22:00.003+01:00

Egyptian protesters' makeshift helmets – in pictures

Demonstrators in Cairo calling for Hosni Mubarak's removal are resorting to bottles, boxes, bits of foam and anything else they can find to protect themselves from rocks and other objects thrown by regime supporters

there must be a reason for everything...

2011-02-01T19:29:00.004+01:00

so i wanted to attend this talk, "Active vs. Passive Millennialism at the Approach of the Apocalyptic Year 1000: Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and Peace of God" by Richard Landes, who is a historian from Boston Uni who specializes in Millennialism, which is a "belief held by some Christian denominations that there will be a Golden Age or Paradise on Earth in which "Christ will reign" for 1000 years prior to the final judgment" (quoted from Wikipedia). This guy is also a strong supporter of the state of Israel, and believes that everything about Palestine is just something that someone made up.

So i memorized the map, pasang niat nak ponteng class deutsch, left my faculty pretty early, and guess what, i got lost. Cycle punya cycle sampai lebih sejam (punya gigih tak putus asa), and googlemap with my ancient phone pon still tak membantu. Cycle pusing dekat satu pekan kot, dengan gelapnya lagi, sejuk bekunya lagai, penat tak ingat, and still tak jumpa jalan. Pusing2, asyik2 sampai kat hospital, tepi hospital la, depan hospital la, belakang hospital la. Benci benci benci!

Dah la pg bgn awal ada dept meeting, then keje skit, ada presentation, then minum espresso, dgn semangat siap, punya excited nak dgr talk in ENGLISH (bukan selalu ada tau). Frust gila beyond words, nak nangis pon ada, and dgn sabarnya, aku mencarut dlm hati je. Nak marah pon bole marah diri sendiri je pon.

Dah over sejam, i decided, tht's it, balik! Then i turned, cycled a bit, nampak entrance to tmpat parking ambulance. Hospital lagi! Arrrggghhhh, what is it with me and the hospital eh? Nak balik pon sesat.

But finally, i found my way home, and along the way, i tried to look at it from the bright side. Yela kan, ada la tu hikmat kat mana2. Mana la tau, kot i managed to attend it, tah2 bole terpro-zionist lak, plus balik umah, sempatla buat subtitle skit, dpt duit skit.

Tp dah terminum 2 cawan espresso ni, i'm like extra-hyper-active and this makes rasa geram tu even worse.

*still in geram mode*

opposite or complementary?

2011-01-30T21:55:00.007+01:00

so i was introduced to this blog yesterday by a fellow colleague and my first reaction was, "ok, dont think i'm gonna be here longer than 5 minutes." 2 hours later, i was still there, going through all of the posts and even most of the comments.

Now, i know many of us have friends who are into MLMs, or are in it themselves. But I for one, dont like it. Was dragged into it a couple of times, felt wrong about it and dropped out. And what i hate most about it is when it dupes old friends to try to dupe us into it. You know, they call you up out of the blue one day for teh tarik, you cancel your plans for the day, thinking it's a great time to catch up on an old friend, and bam! you're stuck for 1 and half hour listening to a marketing pitch on a product that doesnt seem to make sense, but you have to pay in order to sell it (okla, you can get it for a slight discount) and surprise surprise you also have to convince others to sell it too... or something like that- but you already know the story.

now that MLM thing is one thing, another that really pisses me off are those fake doctors... and dont get me started on that!

so i was reading it the whole weekend and tonight i told alem about it. Sure, we disagree on some things. Happens to all of us, right? But this is something that i feel very strongly about. So i ranted on and on and on (ok, i'm easily exciteable on some issues), telling him why it's wrong, excited that i've found this guy online who shares (most) of my sentiments yada yada yada. He, in turn, voiced his opinion, told me to calm down and to jangan cepat melenting, which of course, got me more melenting than i already was.

And while i was melenting, fighting my case, babbling about God-knows-what, i was also preparing my dinner. And when i was about to go to my rice cooker across the room, i somehow tripped over the corner of my bed and almost fell which could've caused the plates, mugs and glasses to fall on head, yikes! There! A lesson from God right there and then for you to learn.

And in the background, i could hear alem reminding me of my earlier actions, and in between laughing at my own silliness and pleading my case against the MLMs, i made sure i inserted a "sorrryyy, tak buat lagi :D"

but in all fairness, when one is too calm, shouldnt the other be a little erm... hot-headed? Not that that's the thing that i'm going for. I mean, why would i wanna have a trait that's the opposite of a good one? But then again, sometimes, i just cant help it. And i'm sure it's normal in many relationships, i dont know who's the hot-headed one in yours. But if it's you, i'm sure your other half is the complete opposite. After all, aren't we matched to complement each other?

and btw, thanks to the pictures (that i drooled over) from a gathering my friends at work had at lia's house, i decided to make some sambal sotong and rebung daging masak lemak cili padi.

tasted so good i only remembered to take picture of it only when lunch was almost over

new year feast

2011-01-28T21:03:00.008+01:00

in the spirit of jumping the bandwagon and posting every little thing that we eat and cook, I'm gonna start posting mine, be it a disaster or a success, so that I wont forget what I've made, in case i suddenly feel like reminiscing my past (heh?)

so we had a long xmas break, and i think i made a nice little feast for myself

wake up!!!!!

kuah kacang peanut butter, not too bad, I'd have to say hihihi

and of course satay (yg kurang manis, need to add more sugar next time)

also made some spätzle (not from scratch, of course) which is possibly the best german food i've ever tasted, which unfortunaltely haven't been tht many sbb byknya tak halal, with a piece of very forgettable grilled chicken

then, it was new year. went to bake some muffins, saw my neighbor there and we tried to pose with the whole firework thing going in the background. This is what we got after the third try. Interesting thing about those fireworks, they installed it all over town, and one was firing just outside our hostel. We could see from our balcony.

If i hadnt been too lazy, i would've gone downstairs and take a picture of it right in front of my face. But i was, and my muffins were to precious for me to leave them on their own in the oven (excuse excuse *yawn*)

then found some mangoes on offer, bought some and made my favorite mango salad. Good thing the mango was just right, not too sour and still pretty crunchy

blurghhh... why am i posting this here? like i need to be reminded of something that i eat practically every week...

made some wantan too, from scratch. And i dont think i'm gonna do it again. Too much work n effort n rolling involved. In the end, not all of them ended as wantan. I used some of the dough to make pan mee. That was much much easier. Anyway, this tasted just like wantan, albeit the skin a bit too thick (got too tired of rolling and finally settled for a thick skin)

and what is this? Oh, orange chicken with potato dauphinois. The chicken was, well, orangy and the potato was hmmmm... creamy, but i never really liked potatoes, and i just wanted to get rid of the the whole sack that alem bought before he left for malaysia, so yeah, potatoes will forever taste like one.

aha, i was making something there...

and it's a tiramisu.... yummy yummy yummy. Made it every week, and kept some for me to enjoy practically everyday for about a month until i got bored of it. Now, i dont want it anymore. But it was really good while it lasted, and super easy to make. Plus, because i made it myself, not alcohol was involved :)

a close-up look. It really isnt as bad as it looks. Food photography is tough, ok?

babee

2011-01-26T11:58:00.006+01:00

astaghfirullah

and they were tasty, and filling especially late in the evenings when i really needed some food to give me the strength to cycle back home.

and i really thought they were halal, most of them usually are around here, but I forgot that it's from Spain as clearly printed on the box.

It was really my mistake. I should've been more careful...

Oh, God, please forgive me...

so where do we go from here?

2011-01-25T16:18:00.002+01:00

so we had a group meeting yesterday, and discussed lots of things, but mainly about how to proceed with things now tht our SV has a pretty fixed date on his move. So dah confirm, 3 stay, 3 campur dia, nak g sana. Yg stay dok cuak sbb dia plan nak angkut server g sana. Rommie ckp takpe, dia akan clone apa yg perlu n take responsibility of the new server (sbb masalahnya sini server tu byk tak ikot policy, tu psl sv nak angkut bwk skali sbb kalu tinggal biar bebudak sini pakai, dia tak nak tanggung masalah pape since dia pon dah tak affiliate dgn uni ni). Another cause for cuakness was the espresso-machine, sbbnya diorg beli dgn project sv ni, tp budak yg worked on the project stay, so tu satu lg 'masalah'.

Kat sana pulak, sv dok risau nak cari admin yg berkaliber sbb nak handle network pakai linux ni payah sbb bebudak group kami yg tere2 stay (serious tere, diorg berani buat lawak kutuk2 admin lg dah admin pon selalu cari diorg tanya itu ini). Pastu bole mamat sorg ni excitedly tanya kot SV nanti dpt secretary dgn gaya mcm dia nak apply, confused sume org.

Tp yg paling scary was tht tgh kami dok gelak2 kat mamat sorg yg akan ikot ni (sbb nanti dia la post-doc researcher, dia la tutor, supervisor, demo sume keje dia kena buat), sv tetiba kata all courses will be in English. From the corner of my eye, i saw mamat tu dok tunjuk2 kat aku, and tetiba sv kata yg kat sini aku free sgt (ye ke?) sbb the courses are in German. Jap, let me process tht.... Oh, shit! And immediately, suma bebudak dah tak gelak kat mamat, but instead gelak kat aku pulak... maksudnya maybe aku pon kena buat keje2 tu gak la *mati aku*

****************************************

Anyway, today, ada discussion keje sikit followed by the details yg kami kena work out kalu betol aku nak g sana. I voiced out my fears sbb aku serious tatau camne nak proceed. Dah la sini, aku ckp cam takde je graduate school, mana nak sahkan credit ni, dah la sini aku x amik class. Takat class audit n class german sure x kira punya. Kat sana tu kan diorg ada a proper graduate school. Dgr je perkataan proper, sv aku gelak besar.

Ye la, sini betol tah pape. Nak enroll bole, jd staf bole, tak nak buat dua2 tp menggunakan equipment n space kat sini pon bole. Aku enroll la, byr 42 Euro satu sem sbb rasa bersalah dok guna segala free2, else rasa cam pendatang haram la pulak, parasite pon ye gak. Tp nat kat karlsruhe cam staf, dpt benefits, tp tak kena tax, syok gak tu. But then again, dia bukan dok kat uni, affiliate je, so bolela... Tu pelik system kat sini. I came here pon dgn letter sekeping emailed by my sv kata aku admitted, pastu dia sendiri sign (u*m terima lak tu). Admission letter dtg sini baru dpt bila enroll, tu pon kalu nak enroll.

Anyway, he assures me he'd find out the process and the thing about the credit transfer by the end of next week, and we'll proceed from there. But in the meantime, keje yg td discuss setelkan dulu, next week lepas dia blk conf, dia nak tgk... ok ok ok

hot

2011-01-19T22:34:00.004+01:00

so we know in general typical westerners dont take hot food very well, but these guys here, they are anything but.

so today, our orders of hot chilli sauces arrived. Everybody excitedly came to our room to collect their orders. Looking at their orders, all i can say is they're crazy! I ordered the mad dog sauce, hot, but bearable (hotter than the hottest peri2 at nando's). Roomie ordered 95% PAIN. One tht they say tastes just nice. Another guy ordered the same thing with another concentrated sauce in a small bottle. When i asked him about it (sbb aku tau dia takla tahan sgt), roomie was saying dia saja nak tunjuk macho.

Another guy bought the same sauce as mine plus another one. He was the one who introduced me to these crazy hot sauces late last year when he brought them to our group meeting for us to try them with our pizzas (Actually, 2 years ago, rommie asked me if i'd like to join them in buying some hot sauces, and i gave it a pass thinking, "pedas apala sgt, i'm a malaysian, ok?" Little did i know....)

So basically, what we bought are very very hot, but there's this one sauce called blair's DEATH which was also included in the parcel. It was ordered by this one guy in another department and it's the ultimate heat. The hottest on the website and even came with a skull key chain. And funny thing is mamat yg order tu jenis yg mcm senyap sopan cute je, or at least tht's my impression of him based on the 3-4 times tht we met. Tp dia mmg suka makanan pelik2 kot. At one time kami g open-air concert ni n i bought some kulit popia+seaweed yg goreng jd ala2 kerepek ni, aku perasan dia sungguh2 gak aaa mkn.

And by the way, our cili padi (50k-100k on Scoville Heat Units) is nothing compared to my mad dog sauce (made from bhut jolokia 850k-1mil on Scoville). Oh and nando's peri-peri is also a no biggie at 175k on scoville.

so there, think it's quite wrong to generalize them now. I know roomie keeps sambal oelek at home (cam cili boh la tp versi indo yg ada cuka bg tahan lama). And honestly compared to these guys, i'm a real wimp, and i dont mind admitting that i am when it comes to these hot sauces that i so underestimated, so much so that i no longer care about getting a "Come on, u're a malaysian..." (nada perli) each time i gave it a pass.

R.E.S.P.E.C.T

2011-01-17T20:45:00.010+01:00

so we had a git presentation today.

Ni special request, sbb adala beberapa staf yg nak blajar, n students pon ramai kena tau, so dia buat in one go, well, at least for this semester anyway. Next time, bila students baru masuk, i guess lain kira la kot.

Git ni basically cam svn. It's a distributed version control system. Kiranya kalau ramai2 are working on the same project, cam linux os ke, omnet simulator ke, apa2 ke, nanti bila nak upload codes ke, articles ke etc kat central repository tu, ada la some control over the version. Kalu ada yg tersilap, nak amik yg code sebelum2 ni or yg paling2 ori pon still ada. Tu kira habis basic la xplanationnya. And unlike svn yg kena store kat server (local server bole la, tp kena la setup pulak), git ni save je kat mana2, local pon bole.

So ada la sorg ni tanya, kalu dia work on some files, and member dia working on the same file, and and then member tu upload (i mean to say commit here, tp takot ada yg tak paham lak, svn users shuld know tho') file yg buggy, tak ke dia masalah nanti? So presenter pon explain la consequences n solutions dia, n kalu tak puas hati, g heart-to-heart talk dgn org tu. Sbb bole sebenarnya sapa pon nak force commit (cam overwrite gitu) and just add option -f yg stands for force or [nama supervior kami sbb it starts dgn huruf sama - lawak la tu].

Then sorg groupmate kitorg (yg sebenarnya dah expert git) casually tanya, takkanla ada malaun yg sanggup force commit benda tak sepatutnya kot, kan? And also, casually, mamat presenter tu bole jawab, well, it depends on who you are on the food chain, lawak la jugak tu, lawak sgt sebenarnya. Group kami terggigle2 la, budak2 msc diam je, staff yg bukan groupmate kami tak faham (kot). Tp tu la betapa involvednya sv kami dengan student-studentnya.

Tp tu aaaa selambanya budak2 ni dgn sv. Respect tu mmg ye. Aku penah nampak diorg kena sound dgn sv, and diorg responded in a respectful manner. Tp kalu buat lawak ke, perli ke, selamba kodok je buat depan2. Tp dia pon selalu melayan la gak.

Dunnola, maybe sbb diorg pon staff/researcher kot (tp still buat phd dgn dia). Tp as an asian, and as with his other asian students, we find it quite difficult to find that balance between respect and keselambaan tu. Tu psl until today pon aku cam cuak2 je kalu nak jumpa dia (tolak time dia masuk mengejut dlm bilik, tu x sempat nak rasa apa2). And i know feng pon cam gitu, sbb dulu tobi penah tunjuk slides showing differences between asian and german cultures. And ada satu ni tunjuk bos sama size dgn staf dia (german ppl), and satu lg bos ni cam gergasi dgn staf2 dia (asians), and feng confirmed that that is indeed the true. Jadi, betolla kat situ, tp tatau pulak karim camne sbb dia palestinian... hmmm....

overwhelmed...

2011-01-13T00:10:00.000+01:00

aku rasa tersgtla bodo kat sini...
kalu kat mesia, tahu some programming languages pon dah cukup, sini aduhhhhhh....
tau program aje tak cukup, kena tahu svn, git (gui, gtk), wiki (bukan sekadar pakai, ok?), gdb, bash-related stuff (nak panggil apa menatang tu?), R-related stuff, regex (kalau tak, susah nak sort data utk R), dan tentunya perl utk pakai dgn regex, tu tak masuk pakai linux yg mmg aku x tere sgt, and not to mention the prog language utk buat keje, in my case, c++ yg tersengguk2 aku nak phm sbbnya aku kena study code org yg pening aku nak chk, aha, also not to forget latex yg nasib belum perlu sentuh, tatau la bole ke idak kalu aku insist gak nak pakai wordprocessor.

i think by now these guys mmg dah tau mcm2 aku tatau, but to wht extent, other than my rommie, maybe diorg tak sure sgt kot. Selalu one of them bg pointers nak buat itu ini secara shortcut, and i could see rommie gelak besar kat belakang... jahat, or they see rommie teaching me something, and they'd be like, "alaaa... suruh je eti pakai ...{command tertentu}" (sbb kekonon cara itu mudahla bg diorg) and rommie'd be like, "eti?" (dgn muka sgt sure aku tatau nak buat n have no idea what they're talking about)...

hari ini jd lg. i asked member sorg ni for help. Dia email me the so-called patch for this one class object. Skali aku bukak, it's a git diff file. Apekebenda ni? I know it shows the difference he made to the file, but not the modified file itself? Mamat tu dtg bilik, aku tanya, "so this is the change u made?" And dia pon, ye, patch ajela...
Dan aku tanya lg, "but it's the git diff file?"

Rommie kat blakang dah gelak besar n suruh mamat tu ajar aku apa yg file tu tunjuk and how to do the patch. Mati2 time dia kata nak email patch, aku ingat patch cam executable file yg akan automatically patch certain2 files or maybe dia bg je trus those files yg dia dah modify... hohoho silap budget. But at least, now i know wht they mean by patching, masalahnya byknya benda nak kena tau, tu blum kira lg kira si thesis. adoiiiii..... no wonder la last monday, time belek muka kat toilet, terperasan sehelai rambut yg 98% dah color uban kat bang depan ni, kat belakang tah2 dah segenggam dah.... huhuhuhu

ice-skating on the road

2011-01-06T11:31:00.005+01:00

so i saw kak nash's status on fb about how the car driven by her husband slid to the side of the road this morning, and i was thinking yikes! But i've cycled on an icy road b4, think today should be ok.

Yeah, right? 5 meters down the road and BAM! Together with my bike, I fell flat all-four, with the stomach and face on the road. No, not fell, slid. And worse, i couldnt arbitrarily stop myself from sliding. And when i did, i found myself struggling to get back on my feet again, not due to the pain, but the ice. Imagine trying to get up on an ice-skating rink without wearing a pair of ice skates. And when i did manage to stand properly, i found myself struggling to just walk, and to make it worse, the icy road rendered my bike super-uncooperative.

Tp bgn2 tu, sempat gak pusing kiri kanan, kot ada org nampak, malu weh jatuh dgn gaya yg sungguh tak graceful. Tapi malangnya memang ada pon. But my fall must've been a common sight for him, as he simply carried on with his chore, and simply shouted to ask if i was ok, and warned that the road was slippery as if i didnt know it already.

So i pushed my bike and myself back to the hostel and contemplating whether i should take the bus instead, but later decided, nahhh, i'll cycle. It's easier, faster and not tied to any schedule that's kinda unreliable in a weather like this.

And i continued cycling very very carefully, while replaying the incident that had just happened in my head and BAM! i fell again. This time, i fell butt first, so it wasnt as bad as far as getting up was concerned. But i couldnt say the same for my bike, sbb impactnya punya teruk sampai seat bicycle tersenget2. So terpaksa la buat operasi mengetuk kat tepi jalan.

But thank God, lepas tu dah tak jatuh dah. Lukanya mungin tak ada sbb seluar berlapis2, tp lebamnya sure merata2 :(

So how's day today? :)

Merong Mahawangsa

2010-12-19T11:00:00.004+01:00

so i chatted with lina today, and she told me about this new movie coming out in March and excitedly gave me the link for the trailer and my God! Being a Kedahan, I feel so erm... violated.

ok, clearly, I'm exaggerating. But I've always been under the impression that Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa was about Raja Bersiong. But then again, i didnt study the hikayat, so what do i know? And besides, it is after all, a 'hikayat', a myth, so if they wanna say, our kings are the descendants of Iskandar Zulkarnain, go ahead. Nobody is gonna refute that, but i doubt many are gonna stomp their feet and say, "Yes, they are!"

But myth or not, it came from a written text, whose writer is unknown. Blame that on Malay humility. Had it been a Greek or a Roman author, it would've had his name plastered all over it and people would've thought that the story was real (read: e.g Plato and his Atlantis- i seriously thought Atlantis existed when I was 8), never mind the fact that it was probably written only around 3oo years ago.

And despite my feelings mentioned earlier, I am curious to see the movie when it comes out. According to Utusan, Germany and UK are interested to buy it. All the more reason to watch it eh? And i'm also curious to hear how Rahim Razali is gonna sound like speaking in German :D

Whatever it is, kudos to KRUstudio for this huge undertaking. Looks like they made a really good use of the govt's grant money.

The reception

2010-12-12T11:06:00.002+01:00

You know how sometimes people say, "it happened so fast" and how you start to think, "is she for real?" and how cliched it sounds. Well, you're gonna hear it again, and i really mean it when i say, the whole wedding thing happened so fast it almost feels like it didn't happen. In fact, i don't even feel married. Maybe because i'm back to living here alone like it was before, or maybe i was so overwhelmed with work that whole week that i actually cant really recall what went down. Seriously, i don't remember much, wasn't really nervous or calm, was just hmmm... tired. Now, I'm just waiting for the vids, hope it will bring back some memories.

In the mean time, i got some pictures which fortunately help a little.

Oh, i know most of you have already seen them on FB, but i figured, wtheck, just post them again here, just in case FB go bust one day (with the hope that google is still around then) :D

And i've also given up on haloscan, i lost the copies of those thousands of haloscan comments when i formatted my notebook, and i sure wasnt gonna post them one by one, so.... oh well...

"it's like raiiiiiiiin on your wedding day..." keeps playing in my head each time i look at this pic ;p

Thanks to everyone who helped in making it happen (eh eh, cam oscar moment lak :p), sedara-mara melaka and perlis, friends especially kak wani and mary who are like part of our family dah sekarang (sampai mak alem tanya apsal mary tak dtg time bertandang), my siblings yang berbulan2 buat itu ini and my parents yg byk berkorban and my mom (yes, i know i already mentioned her) who worked very very hard to make this fussy little daughter of hers happy *terharu*

I am fat!

2010-12-08T10:03:00.001+01:00

No kidding.

I've been at 50kg all my life, ok tht aint true, but i have been at that weight since i was in Form 5, and that was more than 10 years ago!

so 2 months ago, I got married, and I am now 54kg! Last week, I was 52kg, late last week, i was 53kg, the next day, i gained 100g which made me 53.1. And now I'm 54kg. Gosh, at this rate, or whatever rate this is, I'd be obese in just a month!

I just want 55kg, that's all, no more. Looks like i might be getting it after all, and MORE! Yikes!

I guess it's true what they say about getting fat after marriage. But why and how? I mean, I still live alone in the same hostel, eat roughly the same food as before. Ride the bike everyday, and if anything, riding it is much tougher now that it snows every week, and it's normal for me to arrive, panting and even sweating, at the office these last couple of days. So what wrong?

kenduri di pejabat

2010-11-25T11:37:00.002+01:00

Sempena raya yg mulia ini (or rather saja nak jamu since diorg wish n bg bunga bagai), last friday, alem n i berhempas pulas masak rendang, kuah kacang, nasi impit, popia sayur n kerepek bawang (ok, ni beli form malaysia aje) versi express n main shortcut, for my collueagues at work. Express ajela, penah weh, balik 8pm++, nasib alem dah setelkan rendang time tu.

And on the next day, Alhamdullillah, sambutan baik, walopon ada yg tanya mana ada garlic sbb dia tak suka (hmmmm... lebih kurang sume la dia xleh mkn) and ada yg masuk sikit rendang dlm mulut, korek balik kuar sampah sarap (did he not know sampah2 tu yg buat sedap n it's edible la weh). But most of them curious nak tau ingredients, n secretary jabatan suka enough to email mintak recipe sbb dia nak feed laki dia dgn makanan gitu (feed! their choices of english words so cute la, and she spells my name, iti, the way my mom does!)

(last minute) veil

2010-11-25T08:56:00.000+01:00

so i was asked about the veil. well, like most of the other stuff, we diy-ed it. Well, it's not exactly diy as my mom sews, so kira mcm hantar kedai jahit la jugak, except that the kedai is at home.

Anyway, it's a simple veil and pretty easy to make, as long as u got the lace. But, being here and my mom being in kedah, and my sister in kl being 24/7 busy and my brother being... well, a boy, i had no choice but to find it online. So i scoured in net and found some nice websites. (Yeah, yeah, i tried ebay and etsy too, but couldnt find what i really wanted).

So i tried Sposabella (in NY), but the shipping alone is so *$#@ expensive, also tried bridallaceandfabric (in the UK), but they dont have the scallopy-type that i wanted, so in the end, i ordered the lace from timeless trims. Think it's a mom-and-pop shop in Bucks County Pennsylvania. The laces look cute enough, but the amounts are limited, what they got at any point of time is all they got. But their service was prompt and friendly, and shipping was very reasonably-priced (but it took them 4 days to ship it out), but it arrived in Kedah in less than 10 days, so that was pretty quick (tp tu dgn Priority Mail International Parcels, kira lembap la jugak).

Anyway, mom agreed that it looked nice although the bulu-bulu is not too long (mana la nak tau, tgk dlm internet je time nak order tu). But for the price, i think it's a pretty good deal, plus, because it's just trims, for every meter buy, you got 2, so it's not too bad, eh?

So, once it arrived, mom cut that net-like piece of cloth (dont know what you call it, tulle?) and prepared the trims. She didnt sew it just yet and waited till i got home as she wanted to get the exact length that i wanted, mind you, i wanted a fingertip-length veil, but the problem is that my arms are superlong that i held the record for jangkauan melunjur in my class for several consecutive years.

should've taken more pics from the back, hmmm...

But as everybody was swamped with other tasks last couple of days that iw as at home, it was only completed like the night before the solemnization. Now, I was very happy with it, i thought the Alencon lace was enough to not make it too plain, but on the morning of the reception, big sis decided that it needed some extra bling bling, so she and her friend, kak wani, added some beads on it that morning itself, and like 3 hours before the reception, it was finally complete.

wordful wednesday :D

2010-11-24T13:19:00.008+01:00

so i nervously (mainly sbb segan la, am usually look super-sloppy on a daily basis, plus groupmates ni kuat mengomen) showed some wedding photos to my sv and groupmates today, and it sparked some discussions over the differences between the civil, christian and muslim marriages. They questioned the involvement of the bride in a marriage, as to whether she can say no if she doesnt want to be married off to the groom. And frankly, i didnt have a solid answer as to show that the bride does have a say if she doesnt want to be married to so-and-so (eh, memang tak boleh pon kan?). But I added, that if i couldnt make it home, at least they can proceed without me *_*. Oh man, talk about being in a hot seat.

Anyway, one guy complained that those are just pre-selected photos, those are the nice ones (of course, i selected them :p). He wanted to see all of them, especially the ugly ones. Like I'm gonna let you :p

Anyway, being guys, except for rommie yg semua gmbar dia nak belek smpai suma org tension, they didnt really look at the details. They only looked at the major stuff, like the separation of the women n men during the solemnization ceremony, the ceremony process itself, me covering my hair, but strangely, they noticed the keris n the bunga on, or rather of alem's sampin.

They were asking me what it was, told him, it's a short sword-like thing. Then one guy asked if it's like a jaggedly dagger as he seemed to know about it. Surprised, i told him yeah, it's called keris, they immediately wikied it, and off he went, "Yes!" Again, surprised, we all asked him how knew about it. Apparently, he knows it from a computer game hahahahahaha

And of the bunga on the sampin, they thought it looked like a muffin or was it because it was late in the afternoon and everybody was complaining that they were hungry and everything looked like food to them @_@

the keris and the muffin

And when looking at the outdoor pictures, yikes, that was the worst. You know how we normally pose according to the photographer's instruction while pretending that it's all natural, one guy yg mmg mulut takde insurance commented that they looked staged. Told him that of course, they were. Then he asked if the wedding was staged as well, chetttt!

The one they said looks like there's a party under a big mushroom.

But overall, i think they found it... errr, interesting and different, i guess. Roomie thought Alem looked like a king ;) Looks like we managed to achieve the Raja Sehari look on him. But me, well, they all, except my sv, seemed to think that i definitely look different. One of them (okla, the same one that knows the keris, commented about the posed photos, the mushroom and byk lg la yg dia komen) thinks that in the photos, i look like a matured married woman :D (which was supposed to be a compliment la, according to him), which makes me think... what exactly do i look like in real life?

Does he look like a king? Errr....

By the way, i weighed myself on Sunday, and the scale read 53kg woohoo! That's a first above-51 ever! Heaviest I've ever been, 2 kilos closer to my ideal weight. But today, I'm down to 52++ :(

so i got flowers again today!

2010-11-17T21:09:00.004+01:00

from the chair with a card from the dept. And for those who know about the predicament that I'm currently in...... well, let's just say that this nice gesture makes me even sadder :(

- arent these germans generous with flowers....... uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

The nikah

2010-11-06T10:39:00.001+01:00

Friday, October 01, 2010

omg, us being super-late is fast becoming a norm.

this time, again, rombongan laki came while i was being made-up. Initially, we wanted to have kak ram over at our house, then mom decided that i should go over to his as our family would be arriving in throngs that morning, so it's better that we do it at his house in order to avoid the chaos, if u know what i mean, plus, kak ram also prefers to do it at the comfort of his home.

So, at around 830-ish, mary and i went to his house. we thought sempat la kot siap b4 11, dengan janji melayu lagi, we thought ada kot start around 1130-ish.

Came 1045, sister called, rombongan dah sampai. What?? Makeup tak siap lagi ni! So kelam-kabut semua makeup2 and cabut.

Sampai rumah, saw alem hanging outside the house. Called my sister, asked her to invite them in so that i can enter through the other door without being seen by them. She said they already did, bored, they went back outside. So terpaksala dgn muka tembok yg dah dilukis2 and with my baju selekeh jalan masuk rumah laju2... malunya!

Once in, lari naik atas, cepat2 tukar baju, pakai tudung, and i think at one point i got like 4 people working on me. Dah pakai tudung, rambut terkeluar, bukak balik, and then pakai balik with whichever anak we could find.

Tgh2 kelam kabut, someone came up, panggil turun, imam dah sampai. Everyone told me to go down. Go down where? I didnt even know where to go and sit. Belasah jela...

And the rest, i dont really remember what happened. It almost like... it happened in a split second. No such thing as enjoying the moment or sebak, sendu, syahdu or all that thingamajig, but we'll see what the video managed to capture...

*The pics below were taken by our OP, mary, my niece, kak wani, my sisters and my mom (official pic belum siap lg), and some were ciloked from my OP's website*

i look oh so calm (not!)

that's my dad giving me away

ppl say that i didnt smile enough tht day (malu weh! aku kayu depan photographers), tp time dpt gelang, sengih smpai telinga hahahaha

kak ram silap tone kot, i look too dark

(apa aku ngarut ni?) good thing epikt adjusted the tone to match the natural color of my complexion

the sistas, without whom, apa pon takkan jadi

sorg lg sista

who was also my pengapit

my backup photographer, kesian, ujung2 baru dapat makan :D

and here's a pic as a tribute to my sister who handled all the fresh flowers for both events

Tuesday, October 26, 2010 - Venice

2010-11-03T20:56:00.008+01:00

i like venice, cool city. Macam best je, bukak pintu umah nampak air. Saw two kids on a date, bf hantar balik umah naik boat, cool or what? But it's super-crowded (typical of a big city), unless masuk ceruk celah2 umah, then u see nothing but narrow cobble-stoned alleys which i like a lot, kinda reminds me of lijiang, china.

tak naik gondola, amik gambar pun jadila...

di celah2 rumah

at the main square

when feeding them birds, i realized that i actually have a fear of birds (think i was afraid of catching bird flu kot)

him, on the other hand, enjoyed feeding them

that's the main canal (ye ke?)

one thing we noticed there is that there're lots of chinese. This restaurant apparently is owned by a chinese couple and from the toilet, we noticed that the chef is also chinese. chesss, tertipu...

what did we get from milan? just a pair of masks

A few days later, we went back to milan and jalan2 semata. Went to Serravalle, tak best sgt pon.

train rosak on the way to milan, lambat gila sampai!

back in milan train station

And in short, as far as what i saw, northern italy is pretty, but the people are rude (those working in the service sector). Toilets are dirrrrty, not that i cant tolerate it as i've seen far worse than that in rural china, just that it's a surprise from the rest of europe. BUT what's cool about them is that u need to step on a lever to flush, and to turn on the tap, again, step on a lever. AND in the hotel bathrooms, both in padova and milan, they have this bidet like thingy next to toilet, so senang nak tadah air, nak amik wuduk pon senang.

they have lots of horses all over milano. Bet they represent something, wonder what is it...

that's another one

and another one in blue

and a solid green

and another

and one even has a friend with him

2 days later, which was a couple of days dulu, tired, balik erlangen. :D

the magnificent view of the alps, masya-Allah!

Saturday, October 25, 2010 - Lugano

2010-11-03T20:55:00.008+01:00

Then, together, we went to visit Azri in Lugano, Switzerland.

We hung out in Milan for a couple of hours, then went all the way to Lugano. There, we went to San Salvatore which is said to have a nice view of lake lugano, but too bad, the weather was so so bad we could see almost nothing. The next day, we went up monte bre, but the view was just so-so. So in short, we walked around lugano, naik funicular, makan piza and bought lots of swiss army knives.

milan

dunno what this is. saw lots of ppl doing it, so i did it as well, kinda like a wishing well kot

burung layang2 in milan

the milano train station

let's go up the salvatore!

kat san salvatore, serious, tak nampak apa2!

so kami tunggang caterpillars

lin

at a park in lugano

testing my humble lumix

getting ready for monte bre

the view from monte bre

Lusa, lin left for paris, but due to the strike, her train didnt arrive on time, ke tak datang langsung, i dunno and she took a flight to paris (punya la gigih nak g paris) and we went to padova. Stayed at the B&B Hotel, which i believe is a budget hotel sbb murah. But the service is good, amenities cukup cuma location is bad. But then again, padova is close to venice, so from there, we went to venice.

Friday, October 22, 2010 - Wuerzburg

2010-11-03T20:54:00.005+01:00

Then, we came back to Erlangen and the next day, lina left and lin came.

With Lin, we went to Wuerzburg. As usual, we went to see the famous residenz and climbed up the hill where one can get a panoramic view of the city, and visit 2 museums there for a fee. Museums weren't in our agenda, they're expensive and boring, but there, there was this nice man and he gave us a free ticket to the museum 'cos his daughter was getting cranky and he didnt wanna waste the ticket. But since the tix is for 2 adults and some children, we took it and decided to pass it along to these 2 girls who like us, seemed like they too didnt know what to do up there.

the residenz

still the residenz

Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - Pangkor Laut

2010-11-03T20:00:00.007+01:00

The next day, we hopped on a boat and off we were to pangkor laut. Tons of people have reviewed pangkor laut, so i'm not gonna do the same, except that they disappointed us in one aspect, I gave them a feedback and they redeemed themselves.

not the prettiest nor the cleanest, tp ada privacy la

we got ourselves the 3-days-2-nites package, ingatkan makan tak cukup, turns out banyak tak ingat smpai makan sampai nak termuntah2

Then we went back to kl, saja syok2, we stayed at the spanking new hilton doubletree yg design minimalist cool and bantal punya banyak choice yg bg cookie gedabak yg yummy yummy yummy!

yummy!

Monday, October 11, 2010 - Mangroves

2010-11-03T19:46:00.001+01:00

The following day, we went to some mangrove forest to see some monkeys. There's also a short canopy walkway for visitors to climb and from there you can see more mangroves and monkeys!

there's one

and more monkeys!

Sunday, October 10, 2010 - Bukit Busu

2010-11-03T19:04:00.000+01:00

well, alem's house is very close to the sea. And somewhere in that little town, there's a hill that the navy uses for their regular practice. One afternoon, after we ran out of places to visit, we spontaneously decided to climb it... oh, it was so not sweet as honey, penat lg ada.. and we didnt make it to the top. I wasn't fit enough, plus it was getting dark, but we did get to an area where u can get a scenic view of the navy base (tatau la nak kata nice ke tak, but maybe nice to some people kot).

taking a short break

the view

the climbers

the bukit

september weddings

2010-11-01T10:11:00.005+01:00

yeowwww... this has got to be the longest hiatus ever, ok, tipula, probably the second or third longest kot.

anyway, was back in malaysia a week before october started, and attended nawal's nikah, met soooo many bloggers. funny how it didnt feel awkward at all. I was anticipating the worst (dah la aku ni malu2 kucing), even agreed with natrah and zara (whom i just met for the first time tht nite) to just stick together kot2 malu nak mingle2, alih2 rasa tak pelik langsung meeting the others. almost like i've known them for years.

with zaraeverafter

ni aku yg snap, hence, am not in it

Too bad i didnt get to meet nawal personally... tp takpela... perhaps some other time. Actually, i didnt get to see her at all, but everything else was perfect, the house was soooo amat wangi. Eh, terjumpa kamal sufian la, dia pon main photography la skarang, ingat dulu aceed sorg je. Anyway, dia dah tak dok fak dah, dah pindah g institut mana tah. Aiks, dah off topic.

But seriously, it was a fun nite. The following nite was also as fun.

Maria had a malay reception in Shah Alam (shah alam lagik). She already had a korean/english reception back in the US, so balik buat another one tp yg malay-style. Tp out of the many YESes on facebook, many didnt make it huhuhuhu. Sempat ambik gmbar dgn normi n family je.

the more i look at ann's hair, the cooler it looks.. 'ala 50s punya film star

mit normee

Aiseh, aku terpakai baju sama color dgn bride weh! Teringat entry lawak moose on why brides should wear white.

alhamdulillah.....

2010-10-04T02:54:00.004+02:00

considering that these were taken by my 10-yr-old niece (thanks noris! for pointing out the mistake), i'd have to say that she's actually not too bad at it...

INVITATION TO OUR RECEPTION

2010-09-28T23:09:00.005+02:00

Assalamualaikum wbt…

Kami dengan rasa berbesar hati ingin menjemput Tuan/Puan/Encik/Cik ke majlis perkahwinan kami yang akan diadakan pada hari Sabtu, 2 Oktober 2010.
So please email me at sickgordy@gmail.com your address (and email address as well) so that I can send a proper invite to you and your family.
Semoga kehadiran Tuan/Puan/Encik/Cik akan memeriahkan lagi majlis kami ;)

Violated!

2010-09-03T23:47:00.004+02:00

Sungguh tak guna! &^%#%@#$! Bencinya! Malunya! Tensionnya!

Aku tgh mandi dan kena intai! Benci gila!

I know it's definitely not asian cos the hair was brownish and the complexion was definitely not asian (as in chinese la sbb sini byk chinese). But i panicked and didnt get a look at the face, i only managed a meek "Hey!" before dia cabut mcm pelesit! Tp i didnt notice when exactly dia panjat cubicle sebelah and menempek kat dinding tu, and hence, aku tak tau berapa lama dia mengintai before i caught him in the act.

Benci gile!
Pkir balik, rasa cam mimpi. Like, did it really happen? But i know it did, just wish that it didnt!

Nak track mamat tu. Good luck jela. Tmpt ni sunyi and i bet nobody saw him! Aku teraniaya and want to wish him bad things, tp bulan posa, nanti berdosa lak menyumpah2. But one thing's for sure, aku sedih... sgt2 sedih :(

Eid on Sept 9th

2010-09-03T14:21:00.002+02:00

Pelik! But true...

No new moon, nothing, and yet they've decided we'd be celebrating it on the 9th, not tht I'm complaining, just tht it's a bit strange that we started a bit later than Malaysia, but celebrating it a day earlier. But hey, when in Rome...

Anyway, thanks so Lina's Indonesian friend, we've managed to find 2 other Malaysian ladies who are married to German Siemens' employees. Siemens, what are the odds, huh? So anyway, tht's like yay! But Malaysian students, kelibat belum nampak lg laaa... Jgn jd mcm last time dah, 7 bulan baru kenal mamat tu, and it turned out that selama 7 bulan tu, his apartment was right across mine, bukak tingkap terus nampak!

Reminder

2010-08-30T14:39:00.003+02:00

ok, so i'm probably the last person to know about this guy... but when we talk about knowledge and sharing and reminding each other about things that we might've forgotten, there's no such thing as being too late.

So i started watching his videos last night, and couldn't stop watching them ever since. The topics are simple simple stuff, in fact, i dont think he has any intention to talk about the serious ones, but as he often mentions at the end of his videos, he's only trying to remind us in case we forgot.

Eh, betul ke Napoleon of outlawz reverted? And Loon? And Busta Rhyme? Busta Rhyme?? (ok, so i was a little into rap, so what?) Considering that he used to rap raps that were insulting to Islam (according to some, dont know which one that was), masyaAllah......

pancake ketayap

2010-08-21T21:49:00.003+02:00

So i've been crashing at lina's place since the beginning of ramadhan, partly due to the distance of my hostel, and partly due to my turn to take out the garbage, also at my hostel, which i loathe so much considering that i dont even know what i'm touching when carrying those heavy bins full of metals, glasses, paper and biodegradable bios. Yeah yeah, i know, i'm running away from my responsibility, but hey, it's summer holiday, many are on holiday and arent taking out the garbage as well, so i'm doing the same, kiranya, i'm on holiday gak la sekarang ni! Holiday at lina's house!

Anyway, over here, lina and i are always experimenting with kuih-muih recipes. And one, day i suddenly felt like eating kuih ketayap. So we made some, ok, this wasnt exactly an experiment as i'm made some before, but never during ramadhan. But at the end, it turned out ok, and we gave some to lina's landlady. That was a couple of days ago.

Today, she rang lina's doorbell, and gave us 2 pieces of cake. I was praying at the time, but i could hear her say, "Oh, here are some cakes for the both of you. Thanks for the pancake the other day......." Aik, kuih ketayap tradisional aku tu dia ingat pancake! Aisehhhh....

sakit kapla

2010-08-09T16:55:00.001+02:00

tension - sakit kapla

nangis - sakit kapla

lapar - sakit kapla

sakit kapla laaaaa! sakit kapla!!

another apartment entry

2010-08-06T19:25:00.007+02:00

...he said he'd call, but no calls today.
I guess they've chosen someone else then...

I'm giving up.
I've visited wayyyy too many houses, cycled hundreds of kilometers, missed so many classes, all for nothing...

Come October, looks like I'm gonna be be sleeping under the bridge... :(

Who is she?

2010-08-04T21:49:00.003+02:00

I've seen this picture being used everywhere without any real credit being given to the lady. Bet each of those bloggers wanted to, but nobody really knows who she is.

All i know is that it was taken at a solemnization ceremony in 2005, that's is. Fatihin.com pulak is a broken link. ~~Plus, aku pon malas nak google~~. Mysterious betulla pompuan cantik yg evergreen ni...

Wanderung 2010

2010-08-03T18:37:00.007+02:00

So we went for a little Wanderung again about 2 weeks ago. Basically, wht we did was berjalan tak stop2. Haram tak fun, tp kalu bukan sbb wajib, jgn harap aku nak g. Dah la jalan berjam2, boleh sesat pulak tu. Dah tu, sakit kaki smpai berhari2.

Tp, syukur gak la, jln dlm 3 jam je, last yr, jalan ada dkt 5 jam. Plus, ok gak kot sesat, otherwise, sure dpt mkn awal, pastu sure kena buat city tour lak, jalan lg! Tp sbb dah sesat berjam dlm hutan, sekali makan, suma melepet, then trus balik.

bosan tak bosan jalan camni berjam2?

taking a break

sesat no 1. yg pegang map tu guide kami a.k.a setiausaha jabatan. Kesian dia, cari jalan sesorg, yg lain ngikut je. Tp takpe, sesat sama2...

sesat no 2

aku ngomel tak ingat, feng dah separuh mati dah tu...

yg depan camera sume tak ready, yg paling hujung pon posing lg cun

group photo yg paling cantik, yg kat kanan pon cam tak ready gak. tgkla, omputih ni takde la tinggi sgt pong... lebih kurang tinggi aku je

mkn smbil sembang2

And the hightlight of it all, mestilah time balik hehehehe. Takla, seriously, time balik kitorg pecah into groups of 5 sbb nak share tiket. So tak la trapped dgn the big group, so relax skit, dpt sembang ngarut2. And it turned out tht sembang ngarut2 psl binatang liar pon bole jd fun. Aku pon excited cerita monyet hidung besar and buaya and ular sawa (boleh aku terlupa ular sawa in english, it's Python! Juga a type of a programming language. Jgn lupa tu!)... Itu saja... sekian.

me - yg dah almost tinggal rangka

more DIYs

2010-08-02T21:55:00.011+02:00

Nope nope, not by me, but my parents.

So the slipcovers are almost ready, all hundreds of them. So if the chairs were in the nude time engagement hari tu, skarang diorg dah ada baju. Tadaaaa....

Baju baru siap la tapi, belum kanji, belum iron, belum cukup siap. But basically, mcm ni nanti, tp ni pon still serabai lg. But this is for the plastic chairs yg pakai time nikah, yg slipcover for the banquet chairs kat dewan takleh nak demo sbb... well, we dont have those chairs at home...

My aunt from kl said she'd come to kedah to help with the ironing this weekend... huhuhuhu, terharunya dengar.

Ni pulak is my bedspread. Cant really see much, all i can see are the laces, lain2 gelap sgt.

Pastu, when i told dad tht i want trees for the decorations (sbb paling simple nak decorate, i hope la). This is what he got me. Ayah aku ni suka bertukang. So kalu ckp je nak pelamin, esok tu dah beli papan. Or in my case, belum sempat nak cakap tak nak pelamin, papan pon dia dah beli, so terpaksa la ada pelamin.

Batang pokok resting on the wall of the house that he built in our kampung in Perlis. Ayah aku ni dulu cikgu, tp suka bertukang. So after retirement, he got bored, and opened a shop, but his insatiable desire for bertukang wasnt fully satisfied, so he googled for tutorials on how to build a house, and with mom as his assistant, they erected this house on the land left to him by his father. Cute seyyy tgk org tua2 keja sama2, mak tolak troli simen, ayah pasang brick sebijik2, siap pakai cap lg. But that was several years ago. Rumah tu pon dah complete skarang.

Anyway, batang pokok tu ingat nak left it as is. But dad insists to have it in white (dah kata theme white/off-white, terus he took it literally, ingatkan nak biar je natural color, biar sume org senang keje, tp dah rajin cat, lg bagus). So he brought everything into the house, and painted them in front of the TV, sebabnya luar hujan, dan agaknya boring kot cat sorg2 luar umah.

This is just the 'prototype'. Rasanya ada lg kot kat kg yg blum ready for their debut.

Ni pulak pokok anggur. Dah makin rimbun, nanti kena trim, else, anggur takde space nak berbuah. Takde kaitan, tp nak cerita gak :D

what i've been up tu: edisi lambak

2010-07-26T21:44:00.011+02:00

this is another non-studies-related entry, so guys, feel free to skip it. This is also non-apartment-seeking-related, so you can stop puking now, this is also non-language-related, so you can definitely understand it (unless you understand german, and in which case, excuse my german, ich bin noch lernen), but this is another hochzeit-related entry, just to remind meself of how much i've done or havent.

So, I got almost all of the hantarans for alem. Initially, considering the distance, we made a pact that we'd buy our stuff ourselves (who pays for what, blakang kira), but i couldnt help myself, buying stuff for him is more fun. Plus, i'd be getting a little less than what i'd be giving him, tolak kuih, kek, buah... how many'd be left? Really, what else is there to get for myself when i really dont need anything ~~fancy~~?

hasil buruan

last i checked, he was about my size. So i did his normal pose, and i think, the pants will suit him alright (i hope he'd like it, i know he likes khakis). Abaikan kicap, minyak, kunyit, garam yg tonggang terbalik in the background, i hv all of them in here- takot kena curik lg...

Other than that, I made thank you tags. Took me weeks gak ler to finalize the design (ok, i'm not blessed with creativity, i just know how to use coreldraw huhuhuhu), cut the paper, punch the tags, paste them together and let the glue dry (this, especially after i ran out of my glue stick and had to resort to the normal liquidy type).

gotta say that tools for crafts can look pretty mind-boggling sometimes, either that or i'm just not very imaginative.

I also designed the card, konon nak jimat. Limited myself to just 2 colors, black and purple, 'cos some bloggers were saying that the printing price goes hand-in-hand with the number of colors you use. True, but not in our case. The bf was too busy plus malas (seriously, i think pompuan je suka survery2) to look for the best deal. Went to a couple of shops, stopped at lhcreative and called me up. Turns out, the number of colors for printing dont matter, chitz! Told him to hold up, lemme chg the design a lil' bit, or maybe we can just choose one from the available designs (kalu dah lg murah tu kan?), and told him i'd call him back, as i was on my way to class at the time. Balik umah, found out that ha had already proceeded with the order, despite the price yg mahal for the VEEEERYYY simple design that we have yg konon2 nak jimat tu. Had we known, we'd just take the available designs, lg cantik, lg murah, and jimat MASA! So there, this is the one thing that i thought i could save a lot on, but turns out to be the one yg agak pathetic dan membazir. Lg2 when he called earlier today to tell me that he had already collected the cards and "kad kita tak cantik....." (gulp - that's me, by the way) ................................ hahahahahahaha, thank God, i am still to see the hilarity in all of this, although geram at the same time, and worse, alem forced me to accept the free banner that i so dont need (or dont want actually, no offence, tak minat je, tatau apsal...) Anyway, kad yg buruk dah siap, and you've been warned.

second draft yg dah nampak keburukannya...

Other than that, made some paper flowers from tissue paper for the nikah. Mati2 aku cari actual tissue paper awal2 dulu, but google sana sini, leo rata2, and found out that it's actually seidenpapier. So bought them in bulk from ebay, sampai terlebih2, tatau nak buat apa. Color striking gila, nothing like what i expected, even roommie took one look at it and buat muka sedih. Anyway, dah terbeli, so purple and fuschia and pink will be the theme color.

with natural light - siang lagi

With artificial yellow light, dah malam la tu maknanya. Anyway, at last count, i got 41 fuschias, 26 purples, 8 (kinda) pink, hundreds of white

And inspired by si petite, i bought a Selphy printer. Syok gile main print with this tiny little cutie. Too bad it doesnt come with a credit card cassette, that, u have to buy. But it does have the postcard-sized cassette, with papers and toners, so it can ony print around 100 normal normal-sized photos (unless you buy more papers n toners), which isnt great 'cos my guestbook is quite errrrr small, paste a photo there, and the space that's left is probably enough for a "Selamat Pengat" and a signature. So now, I'm contemplating whether to bring it home, or to leave it here (yes, i'm not very gigih)

testing the selphy

Other than that, the 10-kg acrylic bead chains have arrived safely. The lace for the veil has also made it safely to Kedah and I managed to convince my mom to let me hire a decorator, at least for the hall. Bukan apa, i got a family high on diy. Mom finished more than 100 chair covers, my bedsheet complete with our initals, new curtains for my room, bajus for herself, my sister and brother, auntsssss, dad and me (almost), oh, and alem, of course. Dad had completed the platform ages ago, like a week after they decided on having a pelamin and b4 i got to tell them that i didnt want to sanding. And when they told me they wanted to do all of the decos, i was like, dowannnnn, i dont want that pagi2 kenduri bapak pengantin2 lain get ready pakai smart2, but my dad pulak sibok pasang platform. So after weeks of gado2, we reached a compromise, half would be DIYed and the other half, will be done by a decorator, and by no means does this mean i'm not grateful, I AM, but I am very worried that they'd be overworked that they're gonna hate me later....

Anyway, got some photos from home. That made me feel sooo much better. If some entries earlier, i sounded depressed, tht was because i felt so left out. I didnt know why i was feeling as such, i just heard them telling me this and tht and i saw nothing, and hence, i felt nothing. Now that i saw the chaos in the living room, and the kains in different shapes and colors and sizes, and although i cant touch or try it, at least i know that insyaAllah, i'm getting married.

apartment lg

2010-07-20T11:57:00.003+02:00

so i lost another one today, and this time it's with an agent. Nak byr agent kat 1k euro pon still xde rezeki.

Visited it last friday, told him tht i needed to think about it, although i was actually dead-set on renting it (waited 'cos i'd be visiting another smaller apt today, tp mmg sebenarnya dah satisfied with tht one). Checked the website today, and it's off the list... sedihnya... quarter of the day, nangis dlm toilet. Half a day, otak tak leh function, got another half left, still cant function properly, baca apa pon dok terbayang2 apt tu je n how to deal with the future, tolong la jgn SV dtg cari pulak. Only God knows how berserabut my brain is right now...

today, 2 more apartments to visit, both with agents. I'm not positive i will get it, but we'll see how it goes...

Pray for me, people...

2010-07-09T21:00:00.004+02:00

so i visited 2 houses this week, and one, i contacted via email. Two days ago, got a rejection via email, and for the other two, no calls/emails today which means i got rejected by both. And that's just in this week alone. Kalu since I started this search almost a year ago?

Penat la... I've seen berpuluh2 umah, emailed berpuluh2 manusia, i check several websites several times a day, no, make that several times per hour when I'm in front of my computer, but still to no avail. I hate to say that this has an effect on my studies, but it IS a contributing factor....

To make it worse, my hausmeister dah warning, dia kata, if i wanna move out, do it before september, else kena stay sampai lepas winter around march next year, sbb winter dia payah nak cari tenant.

Dah tu, i got a friend visiting in October. Initially, I thought, kalu dah tarak pilihan, sumbat la dlm bilik ni skali dgn alem, and i thought he'd fine with it. But no! Silap besar. He's totally against it. Okla, i understand la bila pikir2 balik. I mean, what if the situation is reversed and dia sumbat member laki dia skali dgn kami dlm bilik 11 square meter camni. No idea how big that is? Imagine the bathroom in your parents' house, ha, besar tu la. And susun meja kerusi, katil, fridge, cupboard and satu sink. Kalu org tinggi skit bole split, kaki sure bole sentuh both walls.... That's how big my room is......

Ingat nak tumpangkan my friend kat umah lina, but lina might be going back like a few days before my friend arrives. And i dont hv any other malaysian friends that i can rely on, or any other nationalities that live in a proper house... adoiii, camne la nak host visitors kalu camni...

How la am i not depressed? Too many problems to settle, too little options... I'm sad, I'm very very sad.....

cabaran berpuasa

2010-07-04T11:49:00.003+02:00

so i fasted yesterday. And my God, it was such a challenge! No I didnt go out at all, I watched the match on tv, and did some diy, and that's about it. But about an hour before break time, I started feeling dizzy, so dizzy that I had to lie down.

Came 10pm, woke up and immediately drank some plain water, but the dizziness didnt go away, and worse, the pain got worse, no kidding. So I ate some cream puff (made rice and ayam masak merah, but think it was too hot for my stomach), that didnt help either, ate some fruits, no difference. Then, I knew, i must be dehydrated. Seriously, it was bad, so bad my eyes felt like they were gonna pop out, i felt like throwing up, head was hurting, body weak like i cant even find the words to describe it that i was thinking of people i can call should I need to go to the hospital.

Eventually, I figured "tak boleh jadi ni", 'cos the longer i waited, the worse it would definitely get. So I got me some salt, licked some and googled for "dehydration treatment". Some half an hour later, i felt slightly better. Now 12 hours later, I feel much much better, but my head still hurts a little.

Such a scary experience. I wonder how I'm gonna get thru Ramadhan mcm ni with the cycling to the office and back and the heat in the office lagi... panas panas kat malaysia pon tak penah teruk macam ni :(

veil with alencon lace

2010-06-26T12:34:00.003+02:00

yes, I've been busy, was somewhat depressed, but better now.

Busy with what? Well... stuff. Studies is as usual, nothing great. No paper anytime soon, too busy with the language course and of course, preparation for the wedding.

Dad's been pestering me for the card, yes, yes I'm working on it, nak lukis map susah tau. Mom is well, working on the curtains now (she even wants to have our names embroidered on the bed sheet, comel seeyyy). Eh, wo's mein Kopf? aku dah terkeliru curtain dgn bedsheet. Ni satu lg problem, aku selalu lupa macam2. on top of tht, i'm always getting this &^^$#@ headache all the time.

Monday, am going for 2 house visits, expect more disappointments. Visiting and failing to get the house is already a routine for me, so like... whatever... if i get it, i get it, if not, try again.

anyway, just spoke to me mom a while ago. told her i didnt want any veil, tp lepas kena sound., i googled googled googled, now i want one with alencon lace yg ada bulu2 halus kat edges tu like this one.

mana nak cari pon tatau. This one is from etsy, the guy sells the veil, no, dont want it. Tak kemas sgt. I just want the lace. But have no idea where to find it in Malaysia. Mom also has no idea where to find it (she lives in Kedah, by the way). Buy them online? Hmmmmm... the shipping cost is probably not worth it. Mana nak cari ni? (Mesti mak aku nyesal paksa aku pakai veil, lepas ni sure tak paksa aku pakai tiara dah)

sut sent

2010-06-25T10:36:00.001+02:00

I spent the whole of (literally) yesterday working on "sut Mesin Peperangan, sut Whiplash, sut Mark II, sut kulit, sut, sut, sut" that i came to the office, looked at my own handwriting and tried to decipher the logic of "Time from Data sut". What the heck did I mean by that? Looked and looked and looked from different angles, and then it was like, "ooooooooooo, Time from Data sent"

Adoiiiii, ada ke org pedulik nak baca dvd extras nih?

i'm feeling depressed...

2010-06-01T17:08:00.001+02:00

How does one decide on a wedding dress?

2010-05-25T11:45:00.009+02:00

Beats me!

But I need to decide on one pronto!

Before coming back to germany, i basically browsed 2-3 magazines, one of which was bought in indonesia and decided on the design of wedding dress that i want for all 3 events. One of them is inspired by one very beautiful design by poppy karim. Inspired je la, sbb kainnya nmpak mcm tak siap, tak lawa. Tapi baju lawa la, albeit byk berkilat2. Am not a fan of kain byk sequins2, beadings2, tp kalu x buat, my sis bising lak nanti, selekeh, cincai, tak grand (nak grand kebenda, bukan artis pon). Tapi since tht's the only baju berkilat that I really like, so bolehla.

Baju tandang, dah tak ingat rupa camne. I let him choose from tht same magazine. He flipped 2-3 pages, and practically just pointed at a picture with his eyes half-closed. Design sama, color nak lain, okla. Tak kisahla...

Now I realized that both of them are kebayas. Dont get me wrong, I love kebayas, that's like my work uniform. But... but... bosannya!

So I told my mom, hold up, give me until the end of may to come up with something. 5 more days to go, and I aint got nothin'.

Google punya google, I found that it's not abnormal not too wear kebayas in malaysia these days. So I've decided, no kebaya for my reception. Tandang maintain.

So I'm thinking of wearing a gown (gosh, talking about gowns and kebaya is soooo menyegankan :D). The top part is not so much of an issue, but the bottom part is still unsettled.

I like

From here

From here

From a chinese wholesale market that took it from here (kot)

Guess it's pretty clear that I am leaning towards an empire cut dress yg flowy2. I think such silhouette is very forgiving for us, normal mortals. Tapi google punya google, while it can hide the perot pretty effectively, if seen from a wrong angle, it might appear like a sarong nangka, or worse, make you look pregnant (malu weh mak bapak aku).

So kalu model pakai lawa camni

From here

Bile manusia biasa pakai, tak ke nampak preggo 3 bulan?

Taken from http://syphotography.net/

Preggo or not, memang there's no denying semua jenny packham punya baju, i like. Banyak yg cut at the underbust and flowy2. Tp tu la, if i'm built like a model, lain la cerita.

So I'm back at the google drawing board. Nak empire cut tp ada silhouette yg tak bg nampak perot tp still flowy2, camne tu?

Update: I know what i want. I want this!!! Walo alem kata I'm sooooo old-fashioned, I dont care, I so want this.... Tapi rasanya dalam mimpi je kot. For starters, mana nak cari kain camni. Nak beli? Tak mampu. But if I could get something similar, I know I'd definitely wear it.

From here

unplanned!

2010-05-24T16:56:00.014+02:00

So we had a nice little unplanned overnight trip to regensburg yesterday. For the uninitiated, regensburg is actually quite far from here. But we were motivated to go nonetheless, because nat in karlsruhe told me tht she was going to this malaysian gathering there and so I said, "ok, nak gak join!"

Then suddenly, on friday nite, she told me that she cancelled the plan, but i didnt get the mesg, and called her on saturday morning, asking for the meeting point. So nak tak nak, she pulled herself out of bed and we decided to meet at the main train station in regensburg.

So that's how our little adventure to Regensburg began. And by adventure, I really mean an adventure. It was almost as if everything was against our going to regensburg, but still, we persevered.

We know that to get there, we needed a minimum of 2 trains, Erlangen-> Nuernberg. And Nuernberg-> Erlangen.

1. So at 9 something in the morning, we walked to the bus stop, missed our bus only by seconds (sedih wooo tgk bus lalu depan mata). So we walked to another (further) bus stop, took the bus there, made it in time for our train.

2. Naik train, camne tah, confused by the itinerary, instead by changing trains when it stopped in Nuernberg, we waited in the same train (thinking it'll take us to Regensbury) and sedar2 we were on our way back to Erlangen, dang!

3. Now that we're back in Erlangen, takpe. We'll give it a second try. So instead of waiting more than an hour for the next train, we took the bus and a tram to get to the main train station in Nuernberg. There, we found we had more than an hour for the train to Regenburg, so we went for lunch, and b4 we knew it, we were too late for our train.

never knew nuernberg had such a lovely sight as this...

No idea why the crab is so big, weird decos they got there eh?

mana tak lambatnya, nampak benda menarik skit, stop, pastu nak kena amik gmbar lak tu

At our favorite japanese restaurant

on the escalator at the ... where else, train station

4. Too lazy and tired and full to run, we decided to take the next train. We knew there's a 2-hour gap between each departure. So berani la budget time yg gerenti bole smpai before nat yg dtg all the way from 5-hours away (by fast train, ok?).

5. So sampai kat train station, got the time for the next departure, we went to the platform and waited for the train. Waited and waited, train x sampai. Hampeh. Called Nat, she told me mungkin gak kot sbb ni minggu Pfingsten (aku pon tatau amende). Aramak, dah cuak dah ni.

at the train station

6. Xpela, nak buat apa, cuba lagi. so we went and checked the timetable for the next train, and went to the platform. Tunggu punya tunggu, train xde gak. Geram dah ni, we went and asked the staf at the station. He told us that we waited at the wrong platform. ^%#$@! (marah diri sendiri). Skarang ni kalu amik the next train sah2 mmg sampai lepas nat la ni!

another one at the train station

7. Xpe cuba lagi, so we went to the correct platform, got our train, and slept all way to Regensburg, no kidding! Penat tak ingat.

Finally, in Regensburg!

In Regensburg, all of us, nat and her Syamil took the bus to the Regensburg. The original plan was to take them back to Erlangen for the night. Esok bawak jalan2 la. Problem was, we arrived in Regensburg close to 8pm. The event only started at around 8. Masalah gak tu nak kejar our 9.26pm train.

That's me trying to swallow kari yg tak serupa kari...

It was at this gathering that I met the biggest number of Malaysians in Germany ever!

By the time we finished our meal, we were confident that there was no way we could make it back to Erlangen. So tercari2la hostel or sapa2 yg nak tumpangkan kami for the nite. And by God's grace, dpatla gak tmpt tidur (hostel byk full sbb monday cuti). And dgn sehelai sepinggang, and ubat gigi pinjam nat, we stayed the night in Regensburg.

Esok, jalan2 Regensburg, too bad kedai byk tutup.

confidentnya aku pakai baju terbalik

this was taken along the river. At first, we thought of taking the boat ride to the Walhalla (temple made by King Ludwig). Last2 x jadik pon.

no idea why they hv this in the middle of the city, but we took a picture of it anyway 'cos it looks so white and cool

tgk pon tau pakai self-timer. No idea what this is either, nat thinks it's a cemetery, tp tu pon lepas kami puas berposing

the boys

and the girls

all of them

gambar yg motifnya pompuan bawak laki naik basikal ramai2

a well in middle of the city also deserves to have its picture taken

gaya tersendiri

gaya random. Why random? Because out of the blue, in the middle of nowhere, syamil actually told us stop walking, take our cameras out because he wanted to pose.

Gambar happy dpt makan lepas sehari tak mandi, gila berkilat dahi! By the way, thank you soooo much nat for the kipas udang!!! Beratnya ko angkut dari karlsruhe. Terharunya aku!

last kopek. Again because syamil wanted it. Susah nak suruh budak2 posing, tp ni kes pelik sbb he told us to snap it for him.

Pastu on the way back, lina noticed the label on my top, and she went, "Apsal label ni kat tepi" (as in kat tepi collar baju). "Tah, fesyen kot." She suggested that I'd try to wear it backwards. At her house, i did just that, and realized, dang! Selama aku pakai baju ni kat malaysia, jakarta, germany, rupa2 aku pakai baju terbalik, chetz, nampak sgt aku buta fesyen!

Bergkirchweih II

2010-05-21T17:30:00.003+02:00

the beer fest is back!

I was there last year. And this year, as usual, our chair is organizing a trip to the fest. Well, it's not exactly a trip. They basically reserve some seats, and we'd all meet there for some drinks. I'm not keen on going. Reason being, well, i dont drink and the rides arent that fun, the only thing good about it is that we get to hang ut together. But then again, they do that all the time (aku je manjang malas nak join).

So today b4 rommie left, he reminded me that monday is a holiday, and we got that trip on tuesday, and he asked, "you're going to the beer fest, arent you?" Aramak, aku dah selalu sgt x join diorg ni lepak, so instead of a, "hell, no!". I said, "We'll see" (hahaha direct translation from 'tengoklah'). Thought that was sufficient enough, but instead i got a "EEEETTTTTT" with squinted eyes yang menjeling tajam. Aisehmannnn, takkan dia x perasan aku selalu bosan time melepak dgn diorang kot?

Btw, the thurday after the next is also a holiday. Yipeeee! Got a reminder by a friend here. Tp yg hampehnya, bole dia sambung, kata that it's not important for me, sbb aku menghilang pon tarak sapa perasan...

Uni trip to Kelheim

2010-05-16T20:18:00.008+02:00

Ok, so I went for a trip last week. It was nothing to shout about, really. Saw some big birds and got on a relatively big boat. The nicest thing about it was probably the boat ride and the butter pretzels we got for lunch.

But i'm creating an entry for it, nonetheless, utk kenang-kenangan.

So we went for a bird show, t'was in deutsch, obviously. Couldnt understand much, but the birds were pretty big and somewhat scary.

The bird swooped right above my head, scary. Turns out that was part of the show. The trainer was right behind us, patut la it flew towards us.

group photo b4 we got on the boat. there were so many of us i cant even find myself in the photo

on the boat with yurly's husband (too bad yurly coudnt make it), indra and his wife.

that's where we were headed, weltenburg, the place where the oldest (?) church in germany is located

saw this guy on the way there

another gambar bukti

bored, i went to watch this kid throwing pebbles into the river. Tere gak budak ni, he got them bouncing off the surface of the water at around 5 times or so, and he did it several times. I tried too, but only got them to bounce twice, max.

and another gmbar bukti, the last one, as a matter of fact, and i swear by then, i just couldnt wait to go home.

pudar...

2010-05-13T20:02:00.003+02:00

...never fails to make me smile :)

today is Christi Himmelfahrt, which is essentially a public holiday.

Being at home, with nothing to do (byk nak buat, tp saja tak nak sbb cuti), i got bored. Ran out of movies to watch, watched a clip instead, well, short clips, to be exact, of us having fun. Of my awkward moves and metallic teeth, sal's graceful joget moves, ina's... huh, i cant even find the right words to describe her moves, too selamba and yet at times, somewhat saturday night feverish and noris' possessed eyes. Tp possessed pon, she's the only that never missed the turn after the first round of the chorus hihihihi...

those were the days eh?
i wonder why life never seems to get 'funner' as we grow older, or am i the only one who fails to see the fun in it all?

kamell's available on the 25th of Sept

2010-05-10T09:36:00.002+02:00

geng study - just skip this entry

am doing a friend a favor... ;)

when loneliness strikes...

2010-05-03T19:03:00.000+02:00

...I went for a cuppa, with yurly. The cute young Venezuelan girl that i first met during one of the university-organized trips. And this is no lip service, she's really cute. One *crazy (?)* old man even asked her out for a cuppa today. Saw that happening as I was approaching her, thus saving her from that harassment.

Nice thing about hanging out with her is the fact that her english sucks, and my deutsch is just as bad. So that forced me to speak in Deutsch, albeit with gagap2. Really, I cant understand why she'd hang out with me, macam la aku ni interesting sgt. So when she suggested that we go out for a cup of coffee, i was thinking, dah takde kawan lain ke minah ni? Alem even suggested that maybe she's an MLM agent, and lg pelik, i even wondered whether she was really serious about coffee?

No that I dont like coffee, I luuuurve coffee, but here, it's always beer beer beer, and I dont go out for coffee, I go out for a complete meal. Tp tadi aku mmg minum cappuccino je and had a small piece of cake... and i even had a good time. Bukan apa, i was initially worried that things might get a bit boring, dah la our age gap is almost 10 years, aku lak x pandai2 deutsch.

But despite her young age, she's seems very matured, probably because she's married kot. Aku ni gak cam kanak2, which is why when i told her my age, her jaw dropped and we started laughing like crazy. Mana taknya, kawan dia whom i assume must be around her age asked about me when he saw our picture together. If only he knew how old i am, ada kot dia lari sembunyi bawah katil...

Tp tu la, all these while. I couldn't really pin-point the reason as why i've been feeling so lousy. Sure, alem and i chat almost everyday, but sometimes that's not enough. Sometimes, this feeling of loneliness can be so severe that if i werent a muslim, only God knows what could happen. Strange, considering that i once defined fun as being alone with my computer and super high-speed internet connection. But now, physical presence of a loved one is apparently a big deal for me, benci. It's almost as if I've lost that love for solitude that I once had (but thank God, i havent lost my independence, and pray that that would never happen, and if i'm anything like my mom, maybe it wont).

Lagi pulak, I havent really had a nice break in quite a while. So that little Treffen was a super nice break that i totally didnt anticipate that left me with a smile on my face (kalu org nampak mesti ingat aku sewel) as i cycle back to my dreaded hostel...

**I started Turbulence Training today, the introductory level bole tahan penat gakla. Then, suddenly I felt like browsing thru the whole package and found one that's probably the one most suitable for me, 4-week Turbulence Training for Women, terus teruja. Checked out the list of exercises, aiseh, slightly easier than the one did earlier. Then I re-checked the title of the program i did today, and it reads " Turbulence Training for Fat Loss". Patutla penat gilossss...

noob at fitnessstudio

2010-04-26T20:20:00.003+02:00

so i went to the fitnessstudio today for the first time. That's a gym, by the way. A gymnasium here is a secondary school.

Anyway, that being my first time, blur gila weh. There's sooo many equipments and sooo many jantans. So first thing I did was to look for... well, girls. But only just to see which equipment they're using and how they're using them so that I can use 'em too. 'Cos seriously, I'm not familiar with gym equipments, and to me, they look like some machines you'd find in a factory.

So I started with the kuak dada type, simply because the machine makes sense the most, while checking out the others. But my position wasnt high enough, so I moved to the stationary bike, haaaa, there, I got a better view, so I cycled for what felt like ages (not that i was keen on cycling, but it was the only way I could see them operating those strange machines), then, with a better idea on what to do, I moved to another and another and another.

Overall, think I spent around 30 minutes je kot. Penat weh, tak sangka. Plus, rasa cam nak terkentot je, so quickly, i left the gym. Smpai umah, rasa nak termuntah pon ye gak, nampak sgt aku tak fit!

Another apartment entry

2010-04-22T14:05:00.002+02:00

i thought i almost got it, one that's quite close to the uni, and affordable. Dah call, fax document sume, then got a friend to give them a call, skali rumah tu dah tak available... but then again, what else is new?...

penatla mencari, nak give up je la, sedihnya... :(

Supermom

2010-04-21T17:20:00.006+02:00

so my mom met a vendor yesterday, and she told me that chair covers + table cover for a table is RM50. Multiply that with 20 dah 1k. And we will be having more than 20 tables, i told her I am aware of tht, tu suruh tanyakan tu. But she still thinks tht's expensive. Then she came up with an idea.

She wants to sew them herself! There, DIY to the max, terkejut aku!

With 5 months to go, she wants to sew them. On top of that, she'll be making my dresses (yg dah 5 kali aku revise, and maybe revise lg nanti), alem's, my dad's, sis', bro's, aunts' (yep, several aunts), mary's, the flower girls, my bedroom's curtains, bedsheet and ape kejadah lg. And maybe the curtains in the living room as well, and curtain for the pelamin (unless we find one tht we like la). Tu tak kira lagi table covers and maybe a special one for meja bersantap (is tht what u call it?). Tu pon dia tanya, nak buat seat untuk buaian kat umah tak? Aku ckp toksah! (Tp kalu nak, think I will ask my sister to do it instead hehehehe) Terkejut badak aku dgr. Her justification is tht my sis and bro will need them in the future, kalu x pakai pon, sewa la... and kalu x sempat siap, balance tak cukup tu, amik je kat vendor (but knowing her, that'll be the very last option).

Tu baru bab kain. Kek favors dia nak buat gak. She got this recipe of a nice cake (yes, i tasted the one made by her friend and mmg sedap) and tried it a couple of times, and she wants to bake them too.

Adoiii, ambitiousnya mak aku ni, aku lak yg risau!

Fun fair and such

2010-04-18T22:31:00.008+02:00

So we went to a fun fair in Nuernberg. Met like 7 Malaysian students, 7 OK? That a lot, the biggest group of Malaysians i've met in Germany so far. Syok gak. Naik ride pon best gak, cup, best sesangat! :D

Oh, and before that, lina and found this little japanese restaurant run by some chinese lady (arent they all) tucked in some corner in the innenstadt. We had bentos, and we swear it was so worth the price that if we ever crave japanese food again, we'd go there, no question about it. Mmg craving sesgt la time tu sbb we just had pasta for lunch, found the place at around 3, tp dah gian, makan gak walopon x abih. It was 9,95 (price slashed to half for no reason) and it was A LOT!

Ok, back to the fun fair, apa lg eh. Oh, syok la makan cotton candy, ni berkobar nak suruh my mom cari gak candyman smpai jumpa... er, ok, i'll just let the pictures do the talking.

waiting for the ride

suka betol naik terbalik2

nampak sgt aku dgn lina kampong betol (mmg dari kampong erlangen pon). camera kat lain, kami posing kami posing kot lain

Then, tht nite itself, penat2, we decorated our cupcake yg sungguh x lawa dan x sedap. But hey, we wanted to give then to lina's boss and my old neighbor, so the taste aint important, it's the thought tht counts, right? So buat smpai kol 2 mlm. The next morning, delivered some to lina's boss, and his daughter had one, adoiiiii, terseksanya budak tu makan. I mean, the cake was tiny, but she took forever to finish it, at one point, it looked as if she was just chewing and chewing and trying to swallow it, tp lama x swallow2 gak, betol tak sedap la tu gamaknya.... arrrghhhh, xpe, first try. Then we had a nice indonesian lunch made by his wife. Kenyang, we left for the second delivery.

Hanna's house! We got there, chit chatted a little, seronok tgk anak2 dia actually. No, I'm no pedophile, I just like looking at the kids playing, sopan betol, sekor2 tu character mmg lain2 betol, comel lak tu. Then she invited us to lunch, aramak, makan lg ke. So nak jaga hati, kena la makan her spaetzle, egyptian soup and grilled meat (yay!) Syok betol la mkn daging bbq ni, lg2 when it's already grilled and free. Tp nak terburai gak la perot as she kept adding more and more when she saw our plates were almost empty. Tu la middle eastern (african?) hospitality at its best.

Lagi best, I saw the eldest boy had 2 cupcakes, TWO! Hahahaha, ada jugak la org sudi makan... Takpe, lain kali try lg...

Note to self: finester zucker is NOT fine enough for the frosting. MUST get icing sugar. Tp tatau la kot, maybe anak dia tu suka rasa krap krup time gigit icing tu yg dia makan smpai 2 ketul tu hehehehe

Discover Magazine

2010-04-15T19:25:00.002+02:00

I was a loyal subscriber for several years until the day that I had to come to Germany. Then I stopped for like a year and made a new subscription in February.

And guess what? I still haven't received the first issue!

Lg best, when I contacted them, they said that they dont have it on record. Whattt??? I have it on my credit card statement, ok? Furthermore, Citibank have charged me U.S. DOLLAR 38.95 and yet, they say they did not receive it. Lg geram, I offered to email the statement, nooooo, they dont want it, they want it faxed to them, whattt?

Well, if i had a fax machine, tht probably wouldnt be a problem, but I'm just a low-life student, where am i supposed to find a fax machine (fax machine kat office nak pakai kena bayar huhuhuhu :( ) Setan betol la...

Photographers: Settled!

2010-04-15T17:41:00.004+02:00

Wahhhh, today has been pretty productive for me ~~(what, simulation dah bug-free ka??)~~

MUA is almost settled, i hope that she had already send her account no to alem.

And I've finalized the deal with my OP. Punyala lepak mamat ni... kalu ikut dia, bulan july baru dia nak deposit. But being me, it has to be done TODAY, 'cos i've dedicated today to buat keja2 kawin selepas berhempas pulas for monday's presentation. Dia sebok nak settle euro-travel-tour workshop dia kot, says tht they'll be crossing several countries taking pictures. Sounds interesting eh? Kalaula aku ada DSLR, and not just an LX3, nak gak join, bule discuss n tgk portfolio skali ke apa ke. But then again, aku tahap amatur blum smpai, dah tu time pon belum tentu ada, so forget it la...

In case anybody is wondering who they are, this is their website (yg punya la jarang update) and bisness website (yg juga jarang update, fb je selalu update). Ingat nak gak shutterspeak cam nahwal n yaya, tp tgk quotation, bole tahan nak terpengsan gakla and the shutter guy would only be back from Sydney the day before my reception, errrr, takpela. I want my OP to be well-rested for work ~~ceh, alasan, ckp jela nak murah~~, plus mamat epik ni pon cam baik dan sopan dan selalu online tgh2 malam. Futhermore, I like their pictures, walopon he seems to post more pictures of cars than wedding pictures, thus even tho' I dont get to meet them personally and go through their portfolio, I'm convinced that I've made the right choice :) insyaAllah...

source : http://zulkefly.epikt.net/

And some post-wedding shots.

source : http://radinaminurasyid.epikt.net

Nota kaki: Mak aku punya la pelik aku nak import org from KL, mcm la kt kedah xde yg ok2. Serious, xde, or kalu ada pon, MUA nyah or they hv no internet presence, aku rasa kalu betulla ram ni ok, nak je buat blog sebijik utk dia, ni nak cari no tel pon payah, padahal jalan kaki g umah dia pon bole smpai.

MUA: Settled!

2010-04-15T12:00:00.000+02:00

so i made several bookings today.

airberlin for meself, alem and dlyn to milan, and from there, we're gonna find a way to go to lugano... yay, jejak kasih! Thanks to Dlyn, if it wasnt for her, tatau la bila nak g melawat azri tu.

AND think i already got meself an MUA for the reception... well, almost! Tons of muchas gracias to alem for making numerous calls to MUAs for me. I mean, it's not tht big of a deal if we were to call them ourselves, but for a guy to call MUAs and discuss make ups, hmmmm... just listening to them talking to the MUA on skype pon mcm lawak. So really, I'm touched tht he'd make the effort to call them repeatedly to settle this thing that has been plaguing me for weeks, no, make tht months now.

So now, we're just waiting for her details so tht i can make the flight, hotel bookings n pay the deposit. But just to b safe, I'm still gonna book Kak Ram for both events. Kalu x pakai for myself, maybe i can get him to do my mom n sisters... (to do? mcm x kena context je ek?)

Phew... finally, I'm gonna be able to sleep soundly at nite again. ~~Duh, pg ni tdo smpai kot 10 tu tak soundly asleep lg ka?~~

Presentation

2010-04-12T22:25:00.004+02:00

So we had our annual Klausurtagng today. Tu lebih kurang cam suma org kena present kerja masing2. Aku cam biasa, present cam bangang, believe or not, aku tak practise langsung, pastu ckp gagap2... in short cam bangang.

Anyway, it's no secret byk bebudak kat dept kami sponsord by Audi, yes the company car. Dia nye plant kat kat sini je, nak visit pon bole. So diorg nye fund mmg dtg from Audi. Tp sorg budak ni, bukan sekadar fund dia Audi bagi, tp kereta pon dia bg, okla, utk research dia gak la, apa tah namanya, travelution camtu aaa, aku pon x faham sgt sbb dia present in german. Tp yg hebat nya keta tu lastest audi from series apa tah yg worth 110k Euro, enough to buy a house even here in germany. Tu yg bebudak lain cam impressed tu. Siap dia bawak2 boss naik jalan2 lg td lepas mkn.

Anyway, tu je nak cite. Lunch, ada la vegetarian meal, noodle with cheese, dgn gravy paprika campur terung campur apa tah tp sedap! Malam lunch kat restoran italian yg aku cirit last week tu. Tp kali ni makan piza je, x habis bungkus bwk balik, rugi dept belanja, jgn bazir2.

Time sembang tu i congratulated sorg member ni sbb dpt tahu dia kawin last month, tu pon sbb ex-awek yg skarang dah jd wife dia prego 3bulan, so aku tanya berapa ramai g kenduri dia. Oh, dia kata biasa2 je dlm 12-13 org. Aiyo, kalu la ckp kita kenduri melayu 1000 org, mesti dia ingat kenduri kita ni ala2 buat fun fair kot...

Anyway, speaking of funfairs, weekend ni nak g fun fair kat nuremberg, hoping to meet some malaysians there, ahad nak buat cupcake bg anak2 jiran mesir kat umah lama dulu....

Nah, dah jd cam diary bosan cite activiti2 harian, but hey, pasal la....

search and make money

2010-04-10T19:13:00.001+02:00

i just an email from a friend.

Apparently ada search engine baru whereby ko search and pastu accumulate duit.22sen for each search, aku try search satu benda, then dia tunjuk total amount 22sen, tp kalu nak cash out nanti tatau la camne. Benda ni baru sebulan launch, so tatau la bole caya ke tak.

Tapi aku register gak hehehehe.
Here's the link myLook <-- ni dia

bachelorette trip & hanimun

2010-04-09T15:10:00.005+02:00

God help me!
aku ada presentation next week, but i'm getting bitten by the travel bug lak tetiba ni... aisehhhh.

memel is going to london, aku gatal nak join, last time i was there, mcm x best je london ni. This time, ada syamil yg cute miut tu, maybe lg best la kot. Best deal bole dapat is 119E, bole la kot layan, janji bulan ni berjimat cermat.

lg satu benda aku dok surf for the past two hours or so are hotel2 kat pulau2 kat utara (konon2 for hanimun la...). Told alem, i want pangkor laut. Dia malas nak g sbb pangkor is just depan umah dia (he lives in manjung, btw), biasa sgt... tp bole try pujuk lg kot.

But one island is not enufff. I want more! Right now, I'm googling the northen islands, especially langkawi as it is the closest to kedah (penang tamau sbb pantai kotoq). Best ke langkawi ni? Apa ada kat langkawi pon... hmmm. Org kata langkawi mahal, coklat je murah, but if it's worth the price, xpe la...

Aku sanggup je squeeeeze celah2 schedule yg amat packed itu.
First week : HIV test & settle paper nak kawin & last discussion dgn vendors + apa2 yg patut
2nd week : nikah & reception & LANGKAWI (sempatkah?)
3rd week : bertandang & PANGKOR (sempatkah?)
4th week (yg cume beberapa hari jek) : settle keja2 kat uni

kawin prep half pon belum settle, dah gatal nak fikir hanimun, ape kejadahnya?
isssh, enuf, sambung study :(

pegi mampus! II

2010-04-09T11:53:00.003+02:00

think maybe somebody here hates me, strange considering that i'm not here more than 60% of the time, and i dont mingle a lot, and i try to stay invisible most of the time.

BUT today, when I went to wash my rice cooker pot in the kitchen, i couldnt find my liquid dishwasher. MY DISHWASHER, ok??? Tu pun nak curik ka???

I dont know if it's because my drawer is the most accessible (it's the top drawer) or is it because somebody thinks my property is harta wakaf or if somebody REALLY hates me.

Whatever it is, i've moved everything, spices, pots and pan n knives n plates and everything except the sponge and some empty plastic bags into my room. Takpe angkot barang sume susah payah nak masak, aku sanggup, janji dah x hilang dah (jgn dia smpai curi masuk bilik dah!)

balls

2010-03-31T16:00:00.003+02:00

i think i once mentioned about bebudak kat sini yg suka melepak bilik aku n main stress ball as though it's a football ball, and how at one time, this davd guy baling and hit me right on my head, ingatkan dah insaf skali tu.

But today, he did it again, he was throwing it to another friend's head and it bounced straight onto my table and knocked my cup off my hand, jatuh seberang meja. Dah satu keje aku kena masuk bwh meja utk kutip cawan, pastu nak kena cuci lagi. Tension betol. Macam budak2. Camne la nak concentrate keje. So if u find me masuk keje tgh hari n blk midnite, well, tht's me avoiding kanak2 yg belum sunat ni.

melayu in erlangen

2010-03-30T22:37:00.004+02:00

so this evening, hungry, pening, penat since the last couple for weeks, I gave lina a call and asked her if she'd join me for dinner. Told her that I wanted to treat myself with a proper meal in a nice restaurant recommended by my rommie. She agreed as she's been working like a dog herself in the last 2 weeks and needed a break.

So we went to an Italian restaurant called the carpaccio which is supposedly one the best restaurants in this small town. So we ordered pasta, I also ordered soup ikan yg kalu masuk spaghetti sure jadi laksa johor, and coke. Dan berborak berjam2.

Tgh2 makan, came this one asian lady and a german male companion, they sat at the table in front of us and she sat facing me. Time sampai2 je, she saw me, she smiled and nodded, and I was like, "eh, do i know u?" But u know how it's like here, if u see an south east asian face, be it an indonesian, filipino, sporean or a malaysian (blum pernah jumpa lg other than lina yg dah lama ku tunggu2 sejak last yr lg), senyum je la. So I smiled back.

Habis makan, while passing her table, she asked, "are u a malaysian?" Uish, tere tu dia teka. And I was like, "yes, are u?" Tak, she's a singaporean. Tp, come on la, serumpun. Pastu sembang2 la x stop2 mcm dah kenal setahun, dia pon friendly bebenar. Apparently, she, or Liza has been living here for 10 years as her husband is working/living in erlangen, or maybe is from erlangen as he said that he's been here for the past 40 years.

Liza ni jugak balik singapore 2-3 kali setahun, so dia pon fasih lg ckp melayu. Lagi lawak, dia dok paksa husband dia tu sembang ckp melayu with kami with his, "saya nak makan cola", and when we told him it's "minum", he changed the sentence to "saya nak makan pisang goreng." tah pape, buat lawak jer, padahal kami dok kat germany ni :p

So we chatted for like 10 minutes or so, and I found out that there are malaysians here, but they're mostly from the siemens' family, meaning either the husband works or they themselves work for siemens, and many dont live here over a long period of time, like herself. But i jot down my number for her, and she promised to give me a call kalu ada minum2 kopi.

Happynyaaa aku. To think that it was pureeee chance that we chose today to makan2 kat restaurant. Seriously, i dont do this very often. This is only my second time out at a proper restaurant here without a german friend helping me with the ordering and what not (the first was with alm at arabesque), and we met a melayu. And who knows, maybe more after this. God, I really hope I wouldnt alone this Aidilfitri...

and another one

2010-03-29T12:16:00.002+02:00

last saturday, went to check out an apartment.

Apparently, it's in the same building as my roommie's, so i got him to accompany me, so tht he could do some talking for me and hopefully, his presence would give me an extra advantage.

TAPI, the apt is SOOOOO in demand i doubt i'm ever gonna get it :(

- headache -

2010-03-26T22:05:00.005+01:00

so i've been blog-hopping...

and the no 1 thing that's been bugging so many b2b, me included, is the MUA. (Aisehhh, segannya aku nak mention, considering aku bukan pakai make up sgt, beli pandai la, pastu simpan dlm laci)

Lagi2 aku telah dilarang menggunakan MUA laki/nyah atau yg jantina yg x dpt dipastikan, for obvious reasons la kan yg sendiri patut tau tp buat2 tak tau. Tp masalahnya diorg ni la yg tere2, and yg female MUA tere2 sume dah x available. Or if available, sgt mahal nak mampus, tahap rm1500++ kalu nak import g kedah.

Sungguh x logik, lmbt lg pon majlis, bukan cuti pon time tu, tp skarang pon dah x available. Ingatkan aku dah abih awal la ni...

Lagi pulak, kat kedah mana nak cari MUA ni? tak IT-literate ke sume MUA kat kedah ni, or penang,or perlis for tht matter. Brides kat kedah tak blog ke psl vendors diorg? The ones I've found pon pakai *kak* ram, others, tgh pening2 dok cari.

benci la, tension, kepala sakit... simulation buggy, aparment stil x jumpa lg, benci, oh i said tht oredi :(

pegi mampus!

2010-03-24T21:55:00.005+01:00

i'm pissed, so fucking pissed!!!!

wht's wrong with these ppl??
Stealing stuff like they own it! cilaka!

ok , this is wht happened. I got home, hungry, went to the kitchen to prepare some food. And lo and behold, my big expensive chopping board was missing. Sabar lg...

Got my old tiny board, memotong la mcm biasa.
Tgh2 masak, looked for my kipas udang, TARAK!!!!
dah ilang! ci^#$%$Q@i cilaka!

ingat senang ka nak import kipas udang from malaysia. Aku punya la pakai sikit2 sbb sayang, skali kena curik! Ingat senang ke nak dpt, kat malaysia pon payah nak carik!!!

Sakit hati betul!
So far I've had my cheese (twice!), veges yg blum bukak, chopping board, kicap stolen, apa lg nak curik???

I hope the thief dies a horrible death tonite!
okla jahat sgt, I hope the thieves' hands putus tonight!
update: so I got lectured by some unknown guy here, bagus la dia bg reminder jgn marah2. I've cooled down since I posted this entry, and now aku redha je hilang barang2 tu. But I wonder how he'd feel if the same thing happens to him...

Halls in Kedah

2010-03-23T18:00:00.000+01:00

Ok, so I dont like to write much about the prep for my wedding, sebabnya prep pon serupa tahpapa. I know it's months away, But I'm far away, so I gotta start early.

Anyway, one of our main concerns was the venue. Mom n dad memang dah tak mau buat kat umah, penat. Betollah tu, and they're like super keen on this one clubhouse kat Jitra. Dad, cause most of his current good frens now live there. Mom, sbb tmpt tu selesa. Me, tak sure kononnya rasa cam tak personal and kecik. Tp pikir2, wedding melayu kan org keluar masuk, janji takde 300 dtg serentak, muat la kot. And the personal bit is outweighed by the penat nak mengemas, aduh teringat time along kawin...

But we still shopped around, just to get an idea of wht's available in Alor Setar as I insisted nak jugak kat AS, Jitra jauh, kononnya la. Dah bandar kecik, 15 minit drive tu jauh tau!

So we've compiled a few.

Dewan Bukhary, sangat besar. Mana taknye, tmpt students amik exam. Bgn baru, so cantik, kemas dan bersih. Nak decorate kaw2, lg la cantik. My fren's wedding yg grand masuk nona hari tu buat kat situ la. I didnt attend it, but knowing just how extravagant it was smpai celebration berhari2, I bet mcm2 can be done with this hall to suit anyone's taste of grandeur. Parking senang, tp tak byk gile. Toilet bersih. There's a small room on the side, bole sewa, buat tmpt bersiap, tp org selalu guna buat bilik vip lepak b4 the main event in the main hall.

Ni bilik kecik yg sebenarnya org buat guna gak buat kenduri, then sambung kat luar kat foyer, letak kerusi, or canopy kat luar, tp main hall taknak amik la, tatau la apa pasal. Macam2 fesyen la org kedah ni.

the entrace to the main hall

time ni ada exam, hence the chair arrangements. Besar giler aaa, tamau aaa, guests mungkin tak ramai sgt. Nanti kosong lak hall.

Then there's the Dewan TNB. Punya la susah nak cari jalan masuk. Confusing skit. Besar, murah dan tak cantik. It's an old building, so you can imagine. Tp kalu budget besar, bole je deco kaw2, but then again, kalu budget besar, why do u wanna have it here when u can choose dewan bukhary (unless disebabkan dewan lain tak available la kot). Lantai tu mmg la parquet, but they'd install the carpet utk kenduri kendara.

toilets

kekadang ada permainan badminton kat sini

besar gak, tp cam kotor, but u can always do something about tht

wht u cant do anything about is the exterior. Takkan nak tukar atap kot?

Dewan Al-farabi, kat kompleks pendidikan. Dah kompleks pendidikan tu, bole la kot imagine a typical govt punya hall with dinding kayu yg mcm parquet tu. Lantai pon parquet, toilet tak chk lak. Kenduri hari tu g mkn then blk, lupa nak chk. U can book the hall n the hostel nearby. Senang, family bertandang bole tidur kat hall tu. Nak book, kena buat awal2, sbb decision sume KL yg buat. No, dont hv the pics, they're in my mom's camera.

Dewan MBAS, jalan kolam air. Looks pretty nice from the pic on the website, but mom rejects it awal2 lg, sbb parking payah. Dia serik g kenduri tgh pekan sbb penat pusing2 cari parking, so she wouldnt want the guests to go thru the same predicament, I agree. Tp kemas aaa, and mahal gak ler kot, compared to the others, tp tak la semahal kat kl rasanya. Kalu kerja dgn MBAS, bole dpt discounts. Nak sewa pokok bunga pon bole dpt discounts.

Dewan Wawasan is big, i think. Nampak ye dari luar. Tp dah jauh skit from alor setar. So forget it la kot. Tp nak buat grand2, situ lepas la gak.

Anyway, I didnt get the rental rates sbb harga kat Alor Setar ni affordable. But of course, dont expect anything like wht u get in a 5-start hotel in KL. Heck, we dont even a 4-start hotel in Alor Setar, ok? 3-star pon x sure ada. Holiday Villa 3-star kot, but I didnt bother to chk their hall pon sbb dia betol2 sebelah Dewan MBAS kat tgh2 bandar, and besides, mesti mahal n mcm2 lg reason yg dah mentioned awal2 td.

So we chose this. Kolej Heights Clubhouse kat Jitra, well, not exactly in Jitra, but rather hampir2 ke Jitra, so still dekat dgn Alor Setar. Dia under Country Heights Holding yg buat Mines tu. Apa pasal Kolej, aku pon tatau, logik pon x logik. Rumah byk x wujud, so hutan lg.... harap2 la org x sesat.

Nak smpai, cari bgn ni...

apehal tah diorg suruh susun mknan kat tepi sini, tamau dalam kotor kot. Tp kalu pakai dalam luar, tht makes sense la... Tht's dad chking out the hall, time tu org tu baru pegi amik kunci.

Luar xde atap, ada palang2 je

Tolong la jgn ujan...

Pelik tak pelik. Hall bentuk L, siap ada counter lg kat tepi tu. Aduh... Tp the counter might come in handy kot on tht day.

Anyway, bole amik hall or luar or both, and kerusi meja dpt skali. Tahun ni dia charge RM1800. for both, meja dpt 26 (hall) + 10 (luar). Hall dia bentuk L, pelik siutz, sis was complaining dulu dia g kenduri situ x nmpk pengantin sbb diorg dok kat the other end of the L shape (ye la, takkan nak dok kat penjuru kot). Need to figure out somehting with regards to this. But the toilets are clean, or so I was told. Parking berlambak. And luar pon cam comel, harap2 tak ujan je la... And harap2 xde terjatuh pool. I saw one youtube vid, the ceremony tu tepi pool, kira background biru menawan la, then time bestman dtg nak bg cincin kat groom, kaki dia tersadung, tertolak bride masuk dlm pool, sedih siout...

Another apartment entry

2010-03-22T18:41:00.002+01:00

so after some mulling over over the weekend, i decided to gv tht apartment a pass, 'cos I found a better one (macam la nak dpt...)

Anyway, sent the lady an email, and got an invitation for a house visit on saturday bersama beratus2 manusia lain yg berminat :(

So i went to the opis, told roommie to karang an email kata i want tht apartment walopon tanpa memvisitnya, n nak beli skali barang2 yg dia jual, nmpak desperate pon desperate la. Memang desperate pon. Roommate took a look at the ad, read the email she sent me, and tergelak. Dia ckp tu apartment kat bgn dia, dia tatau lak ada org nak pindah. Anyway, we wrote tht email, malangnya, dia cuma available on Saturday, so terpaksa berebut2lah nmpaknya dgn manusia2 lain then...

Oh, well, wish me ~~luck~~ rezeki :)

boys

2010-03-19T23:16:00.002+01:00

Apala nasib aku dok sebilik dgn budak laki...
Bukan sebarang budak laki, this one likes to buy toys pastu attract bebudak lain lepak sini. Every day tau. Salah satu obsession suma org (aku pon termasuk sometimes) are these small magnetic balls.

Diorg suka bina bentuk mcm2 with the balls, baling2, td diorg lukis circles kat whiteboard, pastu ramai2 baling ala2 main dart. Bisingnya toksah cerita. Hari ni, abih main, diorg nak bina a cube, then terperasan sebijik dah hilang. Terbongkok2 la diorg mencari satu bilik. Menatang tu kecik je, so it's like searching for a needle in a room la. Aku chk keliling meja je sbb sure takdenya kat island aku yg kecik ni. Sambil2 cuba membantu tu, aku terperasan something, cepat2 ngelak pandang tmpt lain. Mana taknya, diorg merangkak2 satu bilik, chk bawah meja, kerusi, beg sume, seluar abih terlondeh. Roommie sopan lagi, tertarik sikit je, yg student dia ni, merangkak2 betul2 sebelah kerusi aku ni, smpai nmpak lurah bontot, cepat2 aku pura2 tgk screen.

Nasib not long after diorg jumpa bola tu melekat bawah rommie's CPU. Dpatlah aku sambung usaha nak concentrate buat keje amidst hiruk-pikuk dlm bilik aku ni...

Dilemma: New apartment

2010-03-18T19:31:00.008+01:00

So I've seen 4 apartments so far (minus yg tunggu luar pintu, then kena halau sbb apartment had already been taken, or kena stood up).

Anyway, yg betol2 tgk. Well, forget about the first one. Buruk n umah org, and layout pelik.

The second one, which is my favorite, is located near my current hostel. It's a proper apartment, with a balcony, 42 square meter. 4th floor with an elevator. About 3 km to the uni, 3 km to the city center. Has a cellar for the bikes. Washing machine and dryer at the top floor. Rent costs 420 Euro, without electricity. Heating cost probably will be recalculated at the end of the year. No provision, or broker fee, brokerage fee? is tht wht u call it? Damn, my English has gone haywire!

Third apartment, the biggest of all 3, 43 square meter. A bit dark. Looks old. Secnd floor, no elevator. Bathroom, my God, small!!! 3 square meter or so. But kitchen is big. Living room in the middle. And the bedroom at the end, all lined up nicely. Pelik seeey, nak g toilet, kena lalu dapur. But honestly not bad as rooms are separated perfectly. BUT, there a 2.38% provision which means 737.8 Euro hangus pergi ke agent. Monthly rental dlm 405 Euro, all in, but on average je la. As usual, all will be recalculated at the end of the year. Location, cantek! Close to the city center.

Fourth one, the smallest, 38 square meter, but also the cheapest at only 365 Euro, all in. What's missing is an oven. It's in the basement of someone's house. Toilet separated from the shower, but yg peliknya, the area that houses the toilet n the shower punya la besar, buang space betol! And there's no door, sungguh tak paham. Wht's ever weirder is tht it's next to the kitchen. So sapa2 mandi bole ditonton oleh mereka yg sedang memasak atau yg nak menunaikan hajat di toilet di sebelah. Living room/bedroom is supercute, ada design2 bunga kat dinding. Kat luar garden, ada rabbit gumok. House is fully furnished, towel2, cadar, pinggan mangkuk pon ada, vacuum cleaner pon ada. Tapi cuci baju leceh, tp bole share machine dgn owner. Kalu kita nak bwk family lepak, nak ubahsuai bilik bole saja. Owner dia sgt baik, laki bini with a sweet-16 daughter, siap td husband dia tunjuk jln naik beskal smpai bridge ke opis, jauh tu! AND that is the only main problem, jauh from the city center. Tapi bus stop ada la. NORMA (cam supermarket) ada, farmasi, pizzeria sume ada la, tp dia kira sub-suburban bg erlangen yg mmg dah suburban tu. Masuk anytime, deposit sebulan pon bole, kalau duit tak cukup.

living room, tu sofabed, selimut ada siap

belakang tu kitchen

Dilemma ni, well, actually, i can forget the first one, as i've not received any calls from the current tenant, sbb dia nak tenant masuk 1.4.10. skarang pon dah 19.3. Kalu yg last, bole masuk May/June tak kisah. Yang second May.

Camne nak decide ni?
Hati berat to the 3rd one. Tp kalu nak g bandar, 7km tu! Lg kesian kalu org dtg, naik basikal smpai 7 km, unless naik bus la, kena byr tix lak. Penin2 nak mintak sapa advise pon tatau...

jalan-jalan cari makan at ourika

2010-03-16T23:20:00.006+01:00

so i blogged about my sis' restaurant here and here.

Well, last Sunday, the new season of JJCM started off with a BANG, cewah. The BANG tu is ourika la. Tp kejap je pon, like 10 minutes gitu. Tu je nak cerita.

I just watched the catch-up show a while ago. Lawak gak la si serina ni. She's definitely cuter than raja dulu tu, and methink, she makes a fine JJCM host.

Anyway, if u wanna watch it, u can go to www.tv3.com.my, but u need an account to watch the video. Funny how everytime me or my sis appears on tv, of all ppl, pyan mesti tertengoknye, ni sejak 15 thn dulu punya cerita, on tv2 lak tu, tp this time tak pulak. Zaman2 skarang dah bz kot...

OR, u can watch it on youtube

Credit to TV3