Back and Forth Part 1

Been going back and forth to the same place all these while and I already feels familiar with Kota Marudu. I had three field trips altogether. The first trip was without my boss, so I have to lead the team (which was driving me crazy!). The second trip was before Raya Haji and we continue on the third trip shortly after holiday. I must say, for the last two trips, it was the most hectic phase of my life. Got back to KL on Friday, then balik kampong Kuala Kangsar and Kuala Pilah for Raya Haji until Monday, spend two days in the lab packing and preparing reagent for the next trip and fly back to Kota Marudu on Thursday.

For the first time, we flew with Firefly during the first trip. I guess it was okay for a short trip but spending two hours and a half was really troublesome. The flight was shaking more vigorously compared to MAS which caused our BFMP slides broken. And of course the food is hella expensive, so I pretend to sleep while they serve food, lol. We flew with MAS for second and third trip and I hope for the next trip too~

Anyway, same old routine work at different/new kampong. Bla bla bla…. Let me just share a few random shots of what we did at the Kampongs.

Meeting to discuss our schedules for the whole trip.
We usually went to village with recent/most malaria cases

Crossed the river to get to the village.

Changing the tyre. We didn't realize our tyre has flatten until
a villager told us about it. No wonder we were
shaking like mad (-__-);;

On the last trip, we were more organized that we take turns to do the works (registration, finger pricking and BFMP, rapid-test) so everyone can learn everything. But everyone's favorite will always be doing the rapid-test because it's a cool job, kekekek. The hardest would be the registration because of the language barrier, and sometimes we got scold from the children for writing their name in the wrong way, hehe.

I'm doing the 'coolest' job: taking blood for rapid-test.

Listening diligently to my boss instruction.

Then play behind her back, kekekek. (just joking)

With Pitas team.

The best part was to chat with the children :P
Some of them were really curious about our work.

Me: Dah besar nanti nak jadi apa?
Kids: Polis. Sebab saya nak tangkap orang main mercun.
Me: Oh, cutenye reason, kekekek.

When I should lose weight for working hard, I actually gained a few kgs because we have some sort of food festival almost every day! There’s this café right beside our hotel which cooked pretty much everything we ask them to. When we visit Pitas, we went to Kanibongan to buy crabs and brought them to the café for them to cook.

At Kanibongan to buy some crabs

Happy face, probably because they know what's for dinner!

Went to Tamu (a weekly market) and my boss bought local fruits like cempedak, jackfruit, rambutan and banana. Send the cempedak to the café to fry them and we got a tray full of cempedak goreng and we couldn’t stop eating the whole day! We also tried Sabah’s local fruit called Tarap which not available at peninsular. It looks like cempedak with soft outer skin, you can just peal it with your hands. I love the taste but it smells like after-fogging? Sorry, couldn’t find the word to describe it but the smell is not so pleasant but not as stink as durian (oh durian, I still love you even though you stink :DDD).

Aaannddd.... I'll continue on the next post the fun part of the trip, which is more exciting than the foooooddd~

This Girl Was Born

Just a quick update on my birthday celebration. Received a lot of warm wishes through FB and text message. Really had the urge to reply to everyone but it was too many~ so, I just wanna say thanks to everyone who remember, I really appreciate it~ I hope I’ll not forget yours!

Mum treated me to a birthday dinner at Sri Ayutthaya in Damansara Heights. I always have this silly cray cray for Thai food, so yeah. The place is nice and well decorated, totally Thai style. I love the food there, though it was quite pricey. I had Kerabu Squid, Fried Asparagus and Seafood Tom Yam. Before that we tried the appetizer called Miang Kham. It have various ingredients such as roasted coconut meat, ground roasted peanuts, slices of ginger, lime, onion and hot spicy chilies - which we had to wrap it in a leaf and topped with a sweet sauce. Aaandd.... I love the taste of it! Like I can have this forever! Okay, maybe not forever. Anyway, it was awesome and I really recommend this!

I also tried their Thab Thim Grob (dessert in coconut) but meh, it was lacking of everything that was supposed to be there. Because I often had this (there’s a Dr from Thailand at my workplace who is excellent in cooking, so we always order this desert when there was a farewell party) so for me, there was not enough sweetness in it and the chunk of the jackfruit was very little. Hmmm…. It is actually pretty easy to make, maybe I should try making it at home? We’ll see…

And here’s a few photos (too bad I didn’t bring Sam along and my BB is dead by the time the food come, so not many picture) taken by my dad (who is not very happy with his new camera, lol).

Time to learn some Thai

Happily trying the Miang Kham

With the waitress who were very friendly :DDD

With my beloved mum <3

Will be going to Sabah again tomorrow for a field trip (seriously, I’m too old for this haha). So until then, thanks for reading~ and ooh, Happy Deepavali to all my Indian friends :P

Baby Aydan

Okay, this is WAAAYYYYYYY long overdue. Went to visit Dina and her newborn baby, Zabi Aydan with Ju-are on the last week of raya. But I just had to post it because I decided to show the world that I am NO LONGER scare to hold a newborn baby!

Have any of you have this fear to hold newborn baby? It constantly scares me cause they seems breakable and so delicate. What if I really break them? So I just avoid holding them. But when I saw Aydan, I have the urge to try to hold him and Dina was so confident with me that she let me hold her baby. Though, I didn’t pick him up (cause I don’t know how to give his body full support) and well, it was Dina who put Aydan on my lap and gosh, the feeling is…. urm, wonderful :D 

We girls chit chat up till almost midnight while Aydan sleeping peacefully on Dina’s lap (cute gile). We listened to Dina’s labor experience and preparation, making me both nervous and excited. I wonder if I can be a good mum…. though I should focus more on finding the daddy first, heh.

Cut!

Eheh, sebab takut jadi saya kena duduk :P

Ju-are ni kira dah expert, jadi dia boleh berdiri :DD

What do I do to make this fear go away? I just hope that when my time comes, this fear will be long gone~

Till the next update, bye~

Those Glee-full Days

It’s no secret, I watched Glee. Been trying to avoid it for the whole first season because there's no hot guys on the show I thought it was lame. I started to watch it from the very first episode after I saw Brittany doing cover for Britney’s I’m a Slave For You. And I got totally hooked! And I just didn’t care about all those WTF-ness that happen in its plot (last week’s episode Quinn was all over Sam and the next she change her mind and want to get back to Finn?) because sometimes it’s really nonsense. I watched it for fun because the way they make it happen is really enjoyable.

This is out of nowhere but whatever... Here is my top 10 moments of season 1 and 2, in no particular order.

  

1.       Santana crying her heart out.

Santana is known for her bitchy attitude. For the most part of the show, Santana was in full-on bitch mode – being frank as she’s like to put it. (Santana Lopez: Just because I hate everybody, doesn't mean they have to hate me too). But when the frankness finally come back to bite her, she appear just cool but once the class is over, she’s balling her eyes out.

“I just try to be really, really honest with people when I think that they suck.”

2.       Puck trying to distract Sue.

Puck attempts to distract Sue in order to get Artie to spike the Prom’s punch. Despite the WTPuck plan (which failed miserably) that dance Puck makes when he’s trying to distract Sue is really cute. Well, at least it manages to get Sue’s attention from the punch for a moment.

3.       Sue and Will arguments

Sue is the best one-liners on the show because her scene is most likely having a really amusingly offending verbal sparring with Will. One of my fave would be when she called Will "SpongeHair SquareChin" – awesome! And her never-ending jokes on Will’s hair, ‘As a going-away present, here’s a spray bottle of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter — keep that head merkin looking buttery fresh.’ And  ‘I don't trust a man with curly hair. I can't help, but picturing birds laying sulfurous eggs in there and I find it disgusting.’ – Ouchh!

4.       When the boys wearing the wig in Hairography episode. The hair itself already got me rolling into deep on the floor.

  

5.       The whole 'Comeback' a.k.a Bieber Fever episode

Not because I love Bieber or his songs, but because this episode contains the most hysterical scene ever! Or maybe because it got something to do with the hair.  It started with Sam singing Bieber's Baby (seriously, his version is so much listenable) and making the girls melt. It’s really funny to watch how the boys were looking pretty lost when the girls started to enjoy Sam’s show. And because the boys of Glee are having some off-time with their girls, they decide there is only one way to win back the love and admiration of their gals, is through the Bieber Experience – Bieber Fever! So the next they, the boys (minus Finn) walk into the class with Bieber hair. But Puck just win it all!

Gotta love Sue's line while watching Sam's performance, “I gotta get that girl on my Cheerios.”

  

6.       Can’t Touch This

Love love love this performance so much. Artie, Tina, Kurt, Mercedes and Brittany bust some move in the library to get some bad reputation in order to be famous. Instead of being cool, I think they look ridiculously cute. And Artie rapping is so so cool!

'Can't Touch This'

7.       Will trying to seduce Sue

Gosh, I can’t even watch this because it’s embarrassing.  It’s was one of Will’s get up for revenge on Sue – that is to make Sue fall in love with him. It was the meanest thing I thought Will would never do but the scene! It was hilarious! I could never blame Sue for making Will’s life suffer after that!

8.       The Brittany ‘take it away’

Actually, if I were to be bias, my fave moment of Glee will be just  Brittany (played by Heather Morris) and nothing else. She just plain funny with her stupid one liners ("dolphins are just gay sharks") and her left hand/right hand confusion. But the best moment of her would be during the Hairography episode when Will asks her to show how to spin their head. After some explaination, Will turn to Brittany.

Will: Brittany, take it away.

Brittany: *Confused* Take what away?

And then she went with her own explanation, ‘So, Hairography. It works best when you pretend like you're getting tasered. It's like cool epilepsy.’ LOL.

9.       Sue is angry

When Sue isn’t busy verbally attacking Will’s hair or chin, she will make me laugh with her epic tantrum that involves throwing everything that’s she can find – that’s includes the students. Okay, maybe watching people got angry weren’t something that we should cherish, but this is an exception. Someone should just send her to the angry management course or something.

 

10. And finally, my fave moment would be when the glee club is performing a fast track number with intense choreography (and yes, this means when Mike Chang or Brittany get the camera focus on just them) because I love watching people dance. The memorable scene is when they did the flash mob scene in the mall for Barbra Streisand dance – that was totally fun! 

Now, I just can't wait for the season 3. I hope they will give Puckerman to sing Robbie William's Rock DJ and my life will be complete, heheh. And get Artie out of that wheel!

Alrighty, till the next update! Take care you guys~

Oh Lemang, Where Are Thou?

Assalamualaikum,

Hello everyone! How was your raya celebration? No matter how you celebrate your raya/holiday, I hope you guys have a wonderful one. As for me, I’ve spent the first day of raya in KL, and then went back to my mum’s hometown in Kuala Kangsar, Perak.

And with all those raya foods that I’ve stuffed myself with, I’ve gained 1.5 kg (gasp!). I just couldn’t keep myself away from tart and chocolate chip cookies, humph! But, I couldn’t find lemang anywhere this year. It’s so weird. 

Anyway, let me just share a few pics from my raya days. I have to say, we have a few weird activities going on during our raya celebration, teeheehee.

Family photo is a must!

I'm always go with baju kurung for raya.
But this time I decided to try kaftan :D

A pic with national flag in conjunction of
Merdeka and Eid Fitr celebration, kekekek~

Went to my uncle's new house and he own a snooker table!

With cousins~

Wore a kaftan from Qala Qisya. Been dying to wear it
ever since I got my hands on it! :D

And went to fish some Keli (catfish) for BBQ party that night~

Dad is so happy with what he caught :P

Yup, went there with my gorgeous kaftan. I must be out of my mind!

At uncle Nuar house. Besides the yummy jelly....

... they own a studio. Cool!

I could be the next Ana Raffali, kekekek!

And this is Mieyra, the talented craziest drummer ever! 

Making of the band: Amatt (drum), Mr Dad (guitar) and Deela (lead singer).

 And that's all for now~ Sorry for the randomness.

My Sophisticated Cats, Sort Of

While we were busy preparing for upcoming Raya celebration, Keket and April were busy trying out their Baju Raya. Hehe.

Keket: Are you serious? Shouldn't I get baju kurung for raya?
Me: Out of stock, sorry. Maybe next year.

Keket: It's not even my size T__T
Me: It was your size when I bought it! Maybe you lost weight during fasting?

April: Thanks kak Ina!
Me: Glad that you like it. It's a new arrival!

April: But I thought I saw a teddy bear wearing the same outfit somewhere...
Me: You were thinking too much!

When I first show the picture of April to my dad, he went, ‘Macam pondan!’. And I was like, ‘What pondan? She’s a girl!’ The thing is, sometimes we forgot that April is a female because she likes to play rough and doesn’t want to be hold. So we think that is the reason why pink stuff looks so awkward on her. Hehe.

I’ll be spending the first day of raya in KL, before going back to my mum’s hometown in Kuala Kangsar in the evening. Just in case, I won’t be able to update this blog, I wanna wish you Selamat Hari Raya 2011 and Happy holiday to all my readers! No matter where you are, I hope you have fun with your family, relative and friends. Have a safe journey alright? 

Ce repas est delicieux!

Have you ever go through a cooking book and all set to try some recipes but ended up making your own recipe? I found this really simple potato gratin recipe in my mum’s Marry Berry’s Complete Cookbook when I was looking for some pasta cream recipe. There are two dishes called Gratin Dauphinois and Potatoes Lyonnaise originally, but I ended up putting those two into one dish. Ce repas est delicieux!

So here is the recipe if you wanna try it out.

1 spoon of butter, extra for greasing

1kg potatoes, thinly sliced

1 large onion, sliced

1 can of button mushroom, sliced

1 box of thicken cream

Salt, black pepper and some oregano

Grated cheese

1.       Melt the butter in a frying pan, add the onion and cook until the onion are softened but not colored. Set aside.

2.       Lightly butter a shallow gratin dish.

3.       Layer the potatoes slightly overlapping and season them with salt, black pepper and oregano.

4.       Sprinkle with onion, mushroom and grated cheese. Pour some of the cream on top of the layer.

5.       Continue layering the potatoes, seasoning, onion, mushroom and cream.

6.       Finish with a neat layer of potatoes and cheese on top of it.

7.       Bake in a pre-heated oven at 190^oC for 1 hour (or until the potatoes are tender and the topping is golden brown). Serve hot.

You can also add some other vegetables like tomato, spinach and eggplant if you like~

So that’s it. Let me know if you have tried it!

p/s: Ce repas est delicieux! means 'this food is delicious' in French~

Salam Ramadan

Peace upon you my dear reader~

Alhamdulillah, it’s the sixth day of Ramadan and I hope that everyone have had an effortlessness experience with the slight changing in your daily routine. Like every year, Ramadan brings me a special feeling of emotional excitement and spiritual passion. It’s the chance I get to bring myself closer to the Allah s.w.t by doing the obligations. This is the month to strengthening my willpower and seeking forgiveness and also the time to reflect myself…

And talking about reflecting myself, last night, I went to perform Tarawih prayer in our small community surau. So being my first time going to community surau, I smiled when I entered the woman’s area. The surau has the usual green and mustard carpet that reminds me of SMAKL’s surau! I almost cry while listening to the zikir before Isya’ prayer. Just how much I missed having to perform prayer in jema’ah like this. Back then, I used to rebel against the school law that make it a compulsory for us to pray at surau for every prayer time. Well, we won’t miss the water till it’s gone right? T__T

Anyway, it’s my first Ramadan since I started this blog. I am truly grateful to be given a chance to go through another Ramadan. I wished to increase my devotion (insyaAllah) to thank Him for all His blessing, although I know it will never be enough to thank Him for the boundless benefaction He had bestowed me with throughout my life. Thank you Allah!

Ramadan Kareem

And so I hope that you guys will have a beautiful Ramadan as well. Don’t let it waste. This might be our last Ramadan - who knows we may be there or not to experience it again next year? So let’s take this opportunity to gain from the special blessings and forgiveness throughout this month. Let's make it the best ever!

Happy fasting everyone!

Image credit: Saihat99@flickr