NoGAPS 2013

NoGAPS stands for National Gathering of Pharmacy Students. It's an annual event and this year my uni is the host. It's a 4-day event involving pharmacy students from almost all universities/colleges in Malaysia which offers pharmacy course. And for the first time, I had to be a facilitator. Punyalah tak rela.

The registration day arrived and to my fear, only few group members turned up. 3 couldn't make it. 1, due to technical error, she was in another group. 1 is a MyPSA member and apparently was an invited speaker and moderator so he didn't join us much. So 7 out of 15. I was well, slightly, who wouldn't be, demotivated :P Then another one arrived justtttt before the registration period ends. Then another one arrived justtttt when the ice breaking starts. And one more arrived on the second day. Alhamdulillah.

Day 1 - Day 4

They are such lovely people and in contradictory with my paksarela feeling having to be a faci earlier on before NoGAPS started, along the way till the end of NoGAPS I just feel lucky to be a part of my group - Nice Neisseria. Truly gonna miss spending time with them, pulling through the Pharmtastic Race, accompany them practicing for an assigned task till 2 AM etc. There's always hikmah for everything and I guess through being the faci, Allah gave me the chance to meet such beautiful people - Archanaa, Haziq, Winnie, Yeoyo, Hidayah, Sazza, Shima, Jessica, Wei Jiun, Arthini.

There were much more memorable stuffs about NoGAPS. The 'rombongan cik kiah' with fellow committees to pasar malam Sungai Dua, eating laksa in tau fu fah's container, the encounter with a cat who jumped onto my study desk from the window, being that particular someone's roomie, encounter with Kak Ainina after so long, nasi briyani sedap during community outreach project and so many more including falling on stage during a theatre performance during Gala Night because I tripped over a friend's leg, so glad the lights were off at that moment =.="

All in all, am truly glad to be part of NoGAPS 2013 as a committee. Learned much. Experienced much. Breaking walls, building bridges are always fun :) May Allah guide us all in every step we take, may Allah make us all those who pleases Him in everything we do, may Allah bless everyone.

Full story : Pharnomena - NoGAPS 2013

Eid 2013

Atuk (Aug 2013)

Such a late update about eid but I don't wanna give up writing. I'd say Eid 2013 was the most beautiful eid after mama's going back to rahmatullah. For the first time after years, everyone in the family was there. Dearest sister and family came back to Malaysia this year for nearly 3 weeks. They filled the blank :) Love was in the atmosphere. Home felt soooo home.What's even more exciting was the fact that an aunt or Mak Uda as we affectionately call her, staying in Saudi also came back for raya this year with her 4 little heroes. 

For this year's eid, I'm not embarrassed to declare that I made only one type of cookies. It was the nestum cookies I made last year, got the recipe from a classmate, which was alhamdulillah a success and within 2 weeks of raya the few containers of my nestum cookies have been cleared. The kids loved it. It was a very wise choice of mine, I believe, to bake only that becauseeeee sampai harini ada banyak lagi kuih raya haven't habis which came from friends and families who came over or who we visited. Alhamdulillah, our rizq :) Kalau I baked more, I might just add more to that existing pile which is not so favourable. Dear father's comment on the banyak-banyak cookies tak habis was - tahun depan tak payah buat kuih dah. Hahaha. 

As for khatam-ing quran in Ramadhan, Alhamdulillah, khatam-ed with fellow tadarus-mates from last year, only one makcik missing, khabarnya jaga cucu. Others still remain - aunty rosni, aunty salmah, makcik murni yang buat all of us tak kering gusi, mak cik ah and mak cik sham and shilz. The last few tadarus days, kali ni tak feel sangat, perhaps because my heart longed to be home more than almost anything. Kakak hardly can come home, flight tickets aren't cheap, and God knows how much I missed her and thus every single moment with her was superduper precious. You know you really miss someone when you woke up hoping they would come knock on your door even though you know they are somewhere on the airplane on their way back to somewhere far. Well that's what happened to me the morning after kakak's flight back to Florida. Missed how she came knock on my door ajak pergi pasar beli daging etc, how we planned what to do everyday because she didn't have much time here in Malaysia, how she made sandwiches and brought them to my room along with warm water and paracetamol because I wasn't feeling well enough to get off the bed to get those myself, how she made chicken soup for the sick me (well having her around is like a chicken soup for the soul already..haha), how we enjoyed laksa together...ah countless precious moments.

Moving on, second week of raya was more to 'going places'. The plan was made since before kakak arrive in Malaysia. We went to Malacca (it was my first time here!), KL then Taiping. Malacca visit was all about checking out places, shopping and sight seeing. We stayed in a villa in A Famosa Resort. 'We' were 3 families, a couple and the solo me. The place was nice and comfortable. A Famosa Safari? At the moment I might not want to recommend that to anyone but who knows they'll be upgrading it anytime soon. The elephant show was great, I must say, nevertheless. Other than that, we went for a boat ride along the Malacca river which was enjoyable. Met an elderly couple from Sarawak in the boat who sat in front of me. I was sitting with my brother, my niece -Ainur and one Mak Uda's son, Basit (Ainur and Basit are that two homosapiens in the picture below). Everyone else sat quite far from us. Anyway, me and brother went into a conversation with that couple. They were telling their past experiences visiting Malacca and this time they came with their only child who was on his/her semester holiday. The child is currently studying medicine in Russia. We came to a point when the pakcik said that his child is 22 years old. On reflex, I simply said "Oh samalah, saya 22 jugak.". The pakcik's reply to me simply just brought me and brother to a big laugh - Anak saya 22 masih belajar lagi, kamu sudah anak dua.

After the supershort Malacca vacation, we all went to brother's house in Sg. Buloh. The next day we ladies went to that one place most women love to go - Jalan TAR. Shopping. Kakak wanted to get some stuffs. Well, there's no Jalan TAR or anything alike in Florida. Couldn't spend much time shopping though since there are quite a number of plans for that particular day. Later in the evening we went down to some air terjun in Ulu Yam because we promised the kids. And that night was all about visiting people and being visited.

Taiping. That's where my aunt's staying. She has an Avon shop there. Aunt and uncle was in Shanghai during the first few days of eid so they couldn't come over as always. Not meeting is a big no-no. We'd visit them during CNY and they'd visit us on eid. Basically, we'd meet every year at least during those 2 occasions so yeah cannot not meet! So, we dropped by Taiping for a quick visit on our way back to Penang. All this Penang-Malacca-KL-Taiping-Penang thing occurs in 3 days and lebih kurang a half. Rush hour gitu ha. Monday - Penang to Malacca. Tuesday - Spend time around Malacca + Malacca to KL. Wednesday - Spend time around KL. Thursday - KL to Taiping + Taiping to Penang. Friday morning - Kakak's flight back to Florida.

Eid 2013 was filled with so many beautiful stories, countless beautiful moments, precious experiences which....I don't know, sometimes it gets hard to put those into words. Some things are just best felt. Nevertheless, all praise be to the Creator for the chances to experience beautiful moments in this temporary dunya.

Quitting writing

She gave birth to twins last night :)

 At one point, couple of weeks back, I had this feeling of deleting this blog. Sort of lost the ability to write as before. Experiences, they really do have a great impact on one's perception, sometimes emotion and sometimes personality. Experiences, they can change people. And I guess sometimes, experiences can rob one's ability to write (despite the experience have nothing to do with writing). Boleh macam tu? :) It's just that, I guess, at some points in life, things happened which could poetically make you  jatuh terduduk dan fikir panjang what on earth are you doing to your life. Told a friend I couldn't write like before and she was like 'Patutlah you ambil kelas Pronunciation!". 

So, pronunciation class. Choices were limited. Father, sister and bro-in-law was highly recommending Spoken English class as it'll be a good practice. Well, I have stage fright and thus I didn't have the sufficient inclination towards that kind of class that could make me register. And considering my will to write is being like Chipsmore - now you see it, now you don't, I even more feel like going for pronunciation class. Father was being very motivating though. When I was saying I'm sort of afraid I might not do well in presentations, father came with the quote 'Every failure is a success'. Sister was like 'haa tudia, pak keluar quote dah..hahaha'. So influenced by my dearest family members, I decided to register for the spoken english class and guess what, enrolment quota is full. Told them about that and bro-in-law wrapped up the discussion of Pronunciation vs Spoken English with the line - "God has spoken." :P So yeah, I registered for pronunciation class which I know no one else that I know registered for that class. Redah je lah, Khadijah (oh it rhymes! =.=").

Anyway, I decided not to delete this blog. And I decided to try and write again. Suddenly. But I guess this thing about 'me' and 'blogging here' has become much like a friend's theory about resuming a relationship after a break-up - the feeling is going to be different, things won't be the same anymore. But I guess that's a little bit better than totally giving up on blogging here. And speaking of giving up, sometimes...sometimes.. it is the best thing to do which you'll find yourself thanking the younger you for doing so on something or in some cases, someone.

So...yeah, experiences, they change perceptions sometimes. As I grow older (cewah...), sometimes I find myself laughing looking at things I used to write and sometimes feel so embarrassed that I wrote what I wrote and sometimes I simply just dislike very much (hate is too strong) what I've written like maybe months or years before. And who knows maybe 2 years from now I'd find myself disliking what I wrote or how I've written things here now. Well, growing up is a process...though in a way, I sometimes think, if there's a uniformity in my thoughts/perception, that'll mean something like I've reached a stable stage of character development or something like that. But well, life is unpredictable and since I'm living a life so I can be unpredictable as well, no? :P

All in all, I endlessly wish that my faith would stay as strong....or become stronger with time. Because at the end of the day, it's iman that guides us in things we do and of course, the ultimate guidance comes from Allah swt. May Allah guide us all in every step we take.