12 days had passed

since the passing of my father.

Never in my life I cried 4 hours non stop which I did the night we drove from KL to Damar Laut. In my head I kept trying to remember my earliest memory of my father and me. Everytime I closed my eyes, my mind would subconsciously playback all the scenes in the pages of my life which were connected to my abah as if to test how far back I can remember. The truth is I guess ... I'm so afraid that I will forget him.

Being the eldest and the only daughter in the family, we both had so many memories together.

at 5 yrs old -abah took me along 'fishing' for 'siput sedut' (escargot?) I cried my lungs out when I had to manouver an aging bridge with gaping flooring all on my own while he was way in front of me, smiling!
at 6 yrs old -abah carried me and walked in between other passengers knees when we were in a army caribou airplane bound to Peninsular Msia, bcos I want to pee. Mind you, all 30 passengers were sitted facing each other like soldiers in the plane. So it was not an easy task.
at 7 yrs old -abah forced me to read a comic entitled 'Jerung' (shark) where I had to spell and repeat words all across the length of our house corridor and back until its pronounciation is fully fluent and I had to read the paragraph all over again until I came across the word again. We were living in an army quarters house in Sarawak modelled after the long-houses of Iban. Trust me, the corridor is long and to walk back and forth ... I can't tell you how much I hated that comic book and our after dinner routine. Ironically due to that I was reading faster than anyone in my class and soon was out of materials to read. Childrens books were so scarce back then in Sarawak and abah bought me story books whenever he had the chance to go to Peninsular Msia - 2 for me and 2 for my brother but my brother's book will ended up with me and I would read it from cover to cover for many, many times. If I'm lucky, I might get one or two new story books a year. And until today my love for reading has never stop.

I guess what I'm trying to say is ... thank you abah ... for everything
I will always love you
We miss you very much
and May you rest in peace, insya allah. Ameen.

Kembali ke Rahmatullah

Arwah Hj Ahmad Marzuki b. Hj Mohd Tahir (with 2 of his grandchildren)

My abah (father) passed away last Friday evening on Feb 27, 2009. Words can't describe the emptiness we felt. For the longest time I was wondering how should I begin to write this or where shall I start? The truth is I don't know how. I will continue when I know and ready to do so. But for now, I just want to grief and remember this wonderful man that me and my brothers called abah. May Allah bless him and place his soul amongst the forgiven. Amin.

Because its written - Slumdog Millionaire

I watched the movie last night. It is good. I emphatized on what the local riot is all about when it comes to the said movie. Nobody wants their country to be potrayed as such but I didnt look at the movie that way. The whole thing can be an utter fiction. No such TV show called 'Who wants to be a millionaire', no slum exist, no religion tension, no biggest call center still it cannot hide the movie's charm. It had a way to portray harsh, difficult, cruel, lifes of two orphanage siblings into something charming, sweet, moving and worthwhile to watch. Remind me of this book I read called 'Angela Ashes' whereby I cried and laughed so hard at the same time. And charming as it is, it kept you at the edge of your seat till the end. That's how clever Danny Boyle is. I am happy that the two child actors picked/chosen by Danny from the locals 'reportedly from the slum' will be able to experience their first aeroplane flight to the Academy no less.



I did watch Curious Case of Benjamin Button too, a few weeks ago. I liked it as well. These two movies are up against each other in the Academy Awards for best movie. Nevertheless, I'm hoping for SM to win. If it wins, maybe because it's destiny.
(a line from the movie ^_^)

Busy Satur..day

My son received a token from the school for his academic achievement last year. He did pretty well for both mid and final terms which was a pleasant surprise to us the parents. I mean to us to be in the top ten is good enough but he managed to be at the first top two position which made us really proud.

Anyways after the school function, we then rushed to get ready for a wedding (hubby's friend) at somewhere in the middle of KL. Hubby lost the map to the place which lead us to one or two wrong turns before we reached the place in the middle of hot afternoon sun.



After the sumptuous lunch which was accompanied by beautiful songs we had roughly about 30minutes to rush back home before my son's tuition class starts at 3:00pm. Luckily the journey back was a breeze. Only minor traffic jam in KL. My son was 5 minutes late and told me he was just in time when the tuition master called out his name for attendance.

We had a late tea of 'keropok' (traditional fried crackers) which spoilt our appetite for dinner. We went out for light dinner and followed by (previously rain check promise for the kids) ice cream at Swenson's at 1030pm on a cold night after 4 hours of rain. Hmm ... busy Saturday indeed.

Happy Belated ... everything

Happy post Valentine's day people!!
I'm just dropping by my own blog to say that yes I'm still pretty much alive but just too busy to write. I am so stressful with work deadlines that this morning at about 5:30am I noticed that I have a facial muscle twitch on my left cheek just above the upper lip. Yup, that's stress symphtom alright or is it due to too much caffein??
Anyways, I forgot all about it at work but the twitching started again during dinner. Oh well... Okay must go - gotta finish some work.
Have a good week everybody.

Let start from here -Joanna Wang

I finally managed to find Joanna Wang's CD. The one that I bought had 2 CD in it English and Chinese (limited selections). Typical me, I found myself enjoying the Chinese version more - the one which I dont undertstand the lyrics :)

But I'm starting to like the English version too now. Here's let start from here. Enjoy.

Isabel's Daughter by Judith R. Hendricks

So what do I do when my eyes were just to tired to face the computer screen at night for the past few weeks? I read my book of cos'! Sometimes, well most of the time it would fell onto my face and glasses leaving mark on my face and hubby has the duty to remove it from my face together with my spec bcos by then I would already be deep in slumberland.

Back to the book. It was a slow start. I dont expect too much of it bcos I just recently read a really good book .. you cant be lucky twice can you? Wrong!

Avery James the main character in the book was 'almost' self-centred. She is all too aware of how unfair life is to her (she was abandoned at a basement stairs at birth) proceed fiercely to face life not trusting/wanting any type of kindness showed to her. Kinda - it's okay to be mean to me, I expect you to be. So it was a big lose to her when she cant recognise genuine love towards her bcos she is so wrapped up in her own idea of how people should treat her. But despite that, I found myself warming up to the character pretty fast. Her character reminds me of the young Scarlett Johansson in Horse Whisperer. So I kept picturing her as such.

Somewhere at chapter two, the story picked up its pace and from chapter four onwards it's race to the final page for me. Her escape from orphanage, her living arrangement with a complete stranger, her first love, her 2nd run away and her face to face encounter with a potrait of a woman of her splitting image - her mother in a posh home.

All that got me glued to the book for two nights in a row. I found myself pushing 'okay one more chapter, one more page, one more line. Only to be sleeping at 3:30am and the second night at 4:30am when I finally finished the book.

Guess you can be lucky twice - when it comes to reading a good book :)