Taekwondo acts

Aksi Irsyad sms ujian taekwondo sabtu minggu terdahulu. Terkejar2 aku balik dr USIM nk hantar dia, rupanya dia ikut tati celebrate bday irfan. Panik kejap aku takut dia x dtg test. Call tati x dpt2. Last2 gi tpt taekwondo rupanya dh ada kat sana. Irsyad lulus dn dpt green belt. Paling gempak si nabil dpt double promotion, tego 2 terus...tak sia2 sponsor dia.

ELSP in USIM

As I prepared to leave my house on a saturday last two weeks, I kinda regret tht I hd accepted this task of being a facilitator for this program since I hv to leave th kids n x able 2 spend th weekend w them. But as th day went by, I actually enjoyed spending time helping th stds to get prepared 4 MUET as I had liked them. They were polite and nice; eventhough they were sleepy, they tried to hide it from me. He he. There were abt 28 stds in my class. Most r weaker than my FKP students last sem, but they r just as cooperative. Overall, tching in USIM hs always been a nice experience for me n I'v already planned to teach here again nxt sem. B-)

Today's theme: A floral visit

Paying a visit and a closer look to all the flowers in my front yard that I've been neglecting for quite some time, today.

Luckily, you guys still bloom nicely to give me a nice welcome home greetings!




I don't really know what's the name of this plant or what people call the flower, but I like it anyway... :)

This is an exotic tropical flower... again I don't know what its name, but I call it 'pokok pisang' (banana plant) since the leaves look like banana plant. Orange has always been my favourite colour.

I used to plant the white version of this flower back in Kulim. Somehow, I prefer the pink ones now. The white ones remind me of my late dad a lot. I always remember how I tried to plant the white lilies on my dad's grave but somehow, it wouldn't grow there like it used to grow in my frontyard.

This larger orange lily was given to me by sis Tati when she was moving out fro her house in BB Bangi, and has been planted, and replanted, potted and out for a few times since.

I used to think of this plant as 'pokok rumput', something that I'm not so keen to have in my garden. But Irsyad liked it and had actually brought it home and planted it. So now it's there, and has given us so any flowers that I finally think that it's quite charming in its own way...

The name? Again I fail!

This 'kemboja' plant has been with me for a long, long time, since kulim if I'm not mistaken, and it's my only bonsai attempt that has ever survived. :)

This flower that looks like the malay 'siantan' flower tht my late grnma used to have in her frontyrd hd caught my eyes when I first moved to work in Cyberjaya. There were so many of this flowers alongside the road near Ericsson tht it made me crazy of wanting to own it. I found this plant first in a nursery in Seri Kembangan, but somehow it died aft I'd bought it. This one I found in a nursery in BB Bangi, and this time I made sure I asked for tips on how to take care of this plant. Alhamdulillah, this one has survived being in my possession for over two years now.

This one is called 'bunga mahkota' (direct translation: crown flower). I used to feel so impressed when I first saw this plant, that a cacti can produce so many beautiful flowers! Oh wow.

This one is really, really 'bunga rumput'. Nevertheless, it has nice purple flowers that look like buttons. This one is planted outside my house. I don't remember how it has reached my house but I guess it must be another Irsyad's project somehow.

Maka terhasillah...

Naufal's self-taken photos!

Gaya si irsyad merakam gambar diri sendiri

diperhatikan oleh naufal...

Pengaruh Ben 10

Dh 2-3 hari naufal x lepa dgn jam ben 10 nya sejak babanya kena ketuk di hentian awan besar.

Lutut budak nakal

Dahi budak nakal

Inilah akibatnya apabila anak kecil berlari-lari menyeberang jalan...hmm...

"Kan Ummi dah kata..."

Finally...after 9 days

As I left for work ths morning, I saw piles of BN's flags and posters along th road. 'Finally, they r cleaning up th place,' I thot. Tru enuf, I didn't c any (am exaggerating) campaigng stuffs on my way home. All Pak Lah's posters on th trees were gone! He he... But I did c 4-5 small posters of Khir Toyo still stuck on a few lamp posts. Th price of being famous, I take it. Hvg ur nice smooth face being exposed to th sun n th rain... Even eating tempe can't help in that sense, now tht th face is on posters, i mean. He he...

Nice view in Cyberjaya 2day

Pabila mentari sembunyi di balik awan...

5 days aft election

At my place, sampah PAS langsung x nampak. Looks like they r pretty efficient. 2 days aft they won, terus dh tak nampak any posters or flags. Tinggal la BN punya posters reput saja kat tepi jalan. My guess is PAS resources are limited so they quickly keep their campaigning materials to b recycled in th nxt election. As 4 BN, they just couldn't care less. They r th gov, they hv lots of money, so come nxt election, just print new ones. But then, where's ur social responsibility of keepg th environment clean? Pandai put things up, pandai la take them down. Kenapa biar th posters get down by themselves and create eyesores for ppl?

BN menang tipis

I would say it as menang teruk. It's not kalah teruk but it's a third class kind of winning. I've read and heard mixed reactions on this matter.

"Kesian Pak Lah. This is the time we should give him our support, kuatkan semangat, not asking him to step down. He's already very sad."

"Serve him right. Kaya rayakan anak menantu. KJ= Kaduk naik Junjung."

"Pengajaran for him sbb sleeping on th job, suka orang puji, dan degil tak nak dgr cakap orang."

"Kalau Pak Lah nak selamat, Khairy should back off from politics. Anak Mahathir pun tak bertanding masa Mahathir jadi PM."

"Bodoh orang yg lepas geram kat kerajaan dgn pangkah pembangkang. Habis la ekonomi Malaysia lepas ni... sure slow punya. Nak buat apa pun tak boleh sbb sure pembangkang disagree. Tak dpt majoriti 2/3".

"Pak Lah kena tegaslah lepas ni, tak boleh lembab2 lagi."

"BN kalah sebab ramai orang UMNO boikot tak turun mengundi sbb calon yang diorg nak tak naik."

Tu semua wat ppl said lah... Tp paling best sekali...

"Abuya kata keadaan politik akan terus berkecamuk sehingga daulah abuya naik."

Tetiba je...

Hmm... My opinion? I would reserve it to myself. Undi adalah rahsia wat!!! ;)

But I'd read something that make sense in the Promuda discussion by Suresh Yegambaram:

"Dear All,

First lets see why BN got a very big majority at 2004.

1. Promised a clean goverment
2. People will be given freedom of speech
3. Transparency in goverment tenders
4. Badawi as a Mr Clean factor

Lets see if any of those really materialized.

1. Clean goverment - Surely No. Perhaps more
corruption now.
2. Freedom of speech got better but still the same
especially in local medias and major newspaper still
have very big BN influence
3. Tranparency - Surely no.
4. Mr clean not so clean after all. His son in law is
a big reason for this.

Now let's ponder what is the real message here.

1. The public needs uncorrupted policians who work for
people

2. People need goverment to work for the benefit of
the public. COntrolling inflation, make more effords
to increase their income, controlling increase of tol.
That seems like only empty promises by the gov.

3. Business - not much happening as a whole eventough
allot of thing promised 4 years ago.

4. Racial decriminations - Eventough many like to say
it's not as bad as what was projected by the ethnic
groups but if 100k indians can go out and protest they
r not happy.. that means they r not happy. The way
goverment dealt with it shows they dont respect other
race's problems. Directly made indians to vote against
and indirectly gave signal to chinese to vote against
because it could happen to them anytime.

5. Repesentatives from other races not allowed to talk
in parliment - MCA reps certainly dont do much talking
and the few MIC reps who talks will be punished. Is
that y people need to appoint them as their reps in
parliment? Even one minister can call another person
racist when they are just voicing the problems. So
they want a balanced reps in the parliment.

So all in all.. the promise during 2004 was not
fullfilled. The best way to teach them that Malaysians
are not sleeping, we are not bunch of idiots, to
demand we want to have better life is by denying 2/3
majority to the current goverment. It happened exactly
what was wished for."

Smartlearning camp

Irsyad, going 2 th camp organised by hs school in kolej kelima UPM ths morning. Hope he wl gain stg tht he wd practice in his study n his life, amin...

Now war of rubbish

Was th war of posters

On th election day

Yesterday was the election day. Since my sis, Tati n I haven't changed our address in the register, we had to vote in our hometown. We left to mom's place at abt 9.30 am and reached her place at slightly after 10 a.m. We waited for my brother, and another sis, left the kids at mom's with the maids and left for the election place ard 11 a.m. The place was very near mom's house.

There were a lot of people there. The contesting parties actually set up their camps outside the school. They had ushers to escort us to the main entrance of the school and doing some last minutes of campaigning to gain votes from voters like us. Of course the government parties were more daring than the rest. ;). They even had some kind of cheerleaders from Putra UMNO to shout campaigns for Barisan Nasional. Compared to PAS cheer leading boys, it showed that UMNO has more money cause they were able to provide the boys (yes, they looked like school boys to me) and the other ushers with uniformed t-shirts, caps, umbrella and fans printed with BN's logo , while the other party had just put on their daily wear and hold their flags (*regret not taking photos).

Mom had to go to Channel 1 coz she's a 'warga emas' while all four of us had to go to Channel 5. There were rumours that our new Prime Minister are more transparent in this election, that he would have transparent balloting boxes, and they won't have the serial number of our voting paper written next to our name in the register. And oh yes, the box ws transparent alright, and the serial number was not written next to our names, instead they were PRINTED next to the names! Well, you can check who hd I voted, please yourself.

It didn't take so long, we didn't have stand in a long cue like the last election day 3 1/2 years ago. After voting, we went to a shopping complex, had our feet massaged, and he he... since they were having sales up to 70% discounts, we shopped for handbags. I needed a larger handbag to accommodate my new EeePC (that's a real excuse, mind you). Then sis Nana bought us drinks and pizza ( we took it as an act to apologize to us or something, but we were okay anyway). Not bad for not changing our voting place, we got to gather as a small family and spend some quality time together. I thought it was even better than Hari Raya.

Went back to mom's at nearly 3 p.m. It was sis Tati's daughter's birthday, as well as bro Wan's daughter's, so Tati bought a cake to celebrate it. End up staying there till 6pm before we left for our homes.

Celebrating Nurul's and Irzaty's bday at mom's.

Sweet memory

Found this in Ummiku Sayang archives - what a fuss breastfeeding was, yet I would give birth again just to experience it again.

** From Ummiku-Sayang Yahoogroup Archives **

Dear Ummis,

Thanks for all the congratulatory notes I got from Aidu, Intan, Hani, Ummihafiz (Yati?) and Norliza. Do I miss anybody?

I've been back at work for two weeks and am trying to continue giving breastmilk to Naufal. During Irsyad's time I didn't do it since I was teaching half-day and school's staffroom do not have the convenience of a refrigerator. Now, since I work 8-5 I try hard to continue supplying my breastmilk to Naufal eventhough I am away at work.

I've tried the manual pumping only to find out that it takes such a long time to produce not so much milk. I've bought the cheapest battery-operated breastpump by Care for RM120 stg, which is better in the sense that it cuts down half the time and able to extract more milk, sometimes up to 5 oz in 20 minutes. However sometimes it's painful and it uses a lot of batteries. The Energizer AA batteries can only be used for pumping twice and they are already weak by the third time I try to pump out my milk in the day. That means I have to spend like RM5.50 per day to change those 2 AA batteries. Some friends recommend the AVENT ISIS pump. I reckon that it's a bit expensive for me but I have read some good comments on it on the net and I thot I'll give it a shot. Anyone here has regretted buying it?

Hope you can tell me before I spend my next salary on it!

Secondly about this milking at work thingy is that people ard me have not been that encouraging sometimes. Mom has been nagging that I should have started feeding my son's formula even during my confinement period so that it won't be hard for me when I go back to work. Sister has been a kinda spokeperson for Similac IQ. She gives her daughter this brand of milk since Day 4 or so and d lil' gal is developing very fast that she's already turned ard on her tummy since 3-month old. So she's kinda promoting the formula and puts down my own milk, saying things like my milk causes him to have colics and not that nutritious since it doesn't look as thick as the formula and so on.

At work it's quite tiring to sneak out to express my milk too. I have to find a place that enables me to extract the milk in discreet. Since I'm not the boss, I don't have the luxury of having a room for myself. Now, students are in their sem break so sometimes I'm able to go to one of the empty classrooms and do the job there. Even that, there would be ppl who need to enter the c/room and would be knocking and trying to turn the knobs and causing me to become agitated.

Toilets are limited and shared by so many people, males and females, so besides being unhygienic, people will be very irritated should I spend 15-20 minutes inside. And I'll be carrying my little pail with bottles and hot water inside here and there to look for places. Then after it's done I'll be carrying the filled bottle to the staffroom's refrigerator. Some colleagues have already asked "until when will this have to go on?". It sounds just like a disapproval to me. I just can't imagine once classes commence and I have to rush milking in between classes and preparing for classes. It certainly would be exhausting for me to juggle everything.

It'll be easy to consider it to quit but then I'm all into breastfeeding. I am aware of all the benefits that both the baby and I will get out of it, and the most important thing is I love doing it. I love having the baby in my arms and the bond that you feel when he's feeding from your breast is priceless. Providing him with the breast milk, though I'm away makes me feel like I am actually there for him, and that's cure my working mom's guilt feeling syndrome. Furthermore, when we really think of it, the babies have only a short time of their life to be breastfed by their mommies. Irsyad had my breastmilk only for 6 months due to some technical errors and my inexperience as a new mother, and I do not want to make the same mistake with Naufal. Sometimes I wonder whether I should take a long break from work to provide Naufal with exclusive breastfeeding, but the fact that the family do need my contribution of salary and Irsyad starting primary school in Jan., wipe out all thoughts of it. Hah... so much easier to be a working father than a working mother!

I would be interested to read what others' experience has been. Has anybody here been successful continuing breastfeeding and working at the same time? Thank you in advance.

Wassallam,
Mima
_________________
UmmikuSayang.com
"Celebrating Motherhood, the Islamic Way"

Scales in seri kembangan

More rockets

Th view in seri kembangan

Rockets in Cheras

My guess ws correct. In th aftnoon 2day I saw ppl still climbing ladders to put up more posters in Cheras.

A day b4 election

Somehow I feel that there are more banners n flags added evrydy. Just yest I thot I saw only a string of posters on this road, but 2day there are more. I hope those who pay people to put up all the posters up, wl pay to put them down after th election day. Tired of seeing my country looking so messed up in rubbish aft evry election.

Pak lah sepanjang jalan.

Lepas tu nampak...

Bulan sepanjang jalan...

Mula-mula nampak...

Demam pilihanraya.

Mula dh perang poster, lps tu jadi perang sampah.

My two handsome but 'comot' boys

Picture taken last few weeks at Kuala Sg Baru in Melaka, right after we had some seafood for dìnner. Food was umphh! But service was so slow one could have dinner twice elsewhere. There were tons of people hvg dinner there though, so can't really blame them. Price? Very affordable, lots cheaper than in KL or Penang.

Naufara

We were imagining what their sister would look like shd I hv a baby girl, so we had naufal putting on th new head cover my sis gave me. Tara... We guess this is how she wd look like.

My beginner students

Feb class taken on the last day of class, today.

This was the first time I had taught beginner students and I actually loved the experience. I used to think it would be very difficult especially when you don't share a common language. In this picture, you can see Maeen at the back, from Saudi, Alpha from Guinea, Abdul Aziz from Saudi, Seyed Reza and Morteza from Iran, Bing He, or fondly known as 47, and behind him He Zi, from China, Mohamed Abdal Mutal from Saudi, and Cui Xe from China.

The teaching satisfaction I've got from teaching this level is truly incomparable to all the classes I've taught before. This is where you can see the biggest progress of the learners.

Given the chance, I would do it again anytime.

Note:

There were other students not in the picture. I got Mamdooh, from Saudi whom I don't think is a beginner, since he argued a lot with me (in a nice teasing way). There were Saadi and Khalid, and two brothers, Adam and Hassan Naji who were somehow missing from my class in the last two weeks of the month-long program.