My Graduation Day

Last Tuesday was my convocation day. Finally. Fuh! Held in University Kebangsaan Malaysia, it was the 41^st Convocation ceremony for UKM. I was scheduled in morning session of the last day. Since it was on a week day, only my parent could attend. It was raining that morning and we have to park our car quite far from the hall. The only bitter moment on that day was when I need to cross the field in my graduation robe. I ruined my shoes!! 

I didn't attend the rehearsal, so I was quite lost of what to do when I reached the assembly place. But the staffs there were very helpful so I managed to not freaking out. I was given a smart card when I went to collect graduation robe earlier. It contains my information that would be displayed on the big screen when I walked on the stage to get my scroll - which I gave to the announcer just before I went up on stage. Pretty systematic huh? I wonder if other local university have implement such system.

Anyway, graduating alone was a little awkward. I mean, during degree we all graduating together with friends from the same batch. But with master, it was a bit unlucky that me and my friends didn't get to graduate together. But it wasn't so bad. Because everyone was happy and happiness spread like a disease, you know? Hehe. So yeah, it was bearable. I shouldn't be nervous about it since it was my second time but I was! Especially when we were queuing up right beside the stage, I couldn't stop thinking of all the embarrassing incident that could happen. But it went just fine, phew! It was over before I knew it.

With my beloved mum <3

With my beloved dad <3

#acahacahbusy

With my friend zurazura! Thanks for coming darling!

Finally, after four years, I managed to obtain Master in Science certificate. My journey have it’s up and down. I met quite number of excellent people, learning a whole lot of new things. I’m grateful to those people who have helped me throughout this journey. It was a great experience for me. Thank you and may Allah bless you.

p/s: FYI, I ruined not one, but two pairs of shoes. Urghhh~

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

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.

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

I Missed June!

Hello,

It’s been while since I last update this blog (I have a feeling that I’ll be using this sentence a lot in the future :P)  So how about sharing what I’ve done last month in one post? Anyone complaining? Nope? Yeay!

In the beginning of June, I went for another field trip to Kota Marudu (2 hours away from Kota Kinabalu) for 10 days. Again, been doing the same work routine but this time, we were lucky to get a few malaria samples. My boss was so happy that she let us have a half day off on Sunday. So we took the chance to go to the Tip of Borneo to see the sunset.

It was around 5pm when we reach the place and the sun was still way up high in the sky. We had to wait for about 1 hour before the sun set. We practically grill ourselves. And oh, this time, we have an additional team member from UK, Dr Robert Moon, who is an expert in monkey malaria.

While waiting for the sun to set...

Unfortunately, there were too many clouds,
so it's just me without the sun >.<

This time, there even a study site that couldn’t be reach by our four wheel drive, so we have to walk up and down the hill to get to them. Though it was tiring, it was a really fun and memorable one~

With Umi

My Kungfu shoes...

Also, we went to screen a Rungus village. Rungus is one of the ethnic in Sabah famous for their traditional clothes. They are pretty modern nowadays, but there was this old lady who's still wearing their traditional bangles and necklace. So we couldn’t missed the chance to take picture with her~

Dah macam celebrity makcik ni... :P

Speaking of Rungus, I had an experience wearing the traditional clothes when I was young. I was chosen to be a representative of Sabah’s ethnic in 1996 Flora Festival – had to sit on the car and waves to people like a miss world, heheh. I was just a kid and I had no idea about all this ethnicity in Sabah at that time.  So I got hyper up when I can actually met Rungus people in person after err….  15 years? Gosh, what a big number….

On the last day, we had a chance to go to the dairy farm in Kundasang on the way back to Kota Kinabalu. It was the highest land in Sabah (well, need to confirm this info :P) so the weather was cold and windy. And the scenery was great too, with beautiful meadow green grass scenery and the sound of the cow mooo-ing, I guess pretty much like in New Zealand, eh? Kekekekek…. 

The following weekend, me busy with all the experiment, processing the samples, writing my thesis, blablabla….

Fast forward to last weekend, I went to jungle tracking with Prem, Sarah, Robert and his fiancé at FRIM. I’m so excited for the canopy walk but it was under construction. So we just went through the normal track and I decided that we have to find the waterfall which supposed to be at the picnic site. We have the map and  we still got lost somewhere. I dunno... one moment we were in the jungle, then suddenly we were already on the main road. I didn't have breakfast and it was past through the lunch time already and my stomach just couldn't take it anymore, so we had to abort the waterfall mission and looking for cafe instead!  

First time meeting Dr Maria~

Stop to watch monkeys eating durians~

Managed to find a small river~

The kids were trying to catch fish for lunch :P

After lunch, Robert asked us to suggest places to go. Since he already been to all the places nearby, we decided to take him and Maria to Putrajaya for the cruise. I'm really excited cause it was my first time too. But I think the fee is a bit expensive, no? 

Nampak tak muka excited tu? :P

My little sister with Sarah

And that was all I did last months apart from movie marathon on Saturday nights and my weekly window shopping. And, I've been really into internet shopping nowadays since there were so many awesome blogshops with tempting goods and I just can't control myself~