Pahang Darul Makmur

Bismillah, Assalamualaikum

So I am about to start a new phase in my life...

I am about to work!

as an English Teacher!

In Pahang!

I have to be in Temerloh on the 13th July 2009 and only then will I know where I will be situated.

It sure is creepy!

I have never imagined that I could get Pahang, it was always the notion that Johore is in dire need of English Teachers thus the niggling feeling that I could possibly get Johore. It was never even Pahang. Sometimes the lecturers would insert in our heads that Sabah Sarawak wants us and that we're in demand over there so we freaked out but again, Pahang never came up. Furthermore, Pahang was never in the list of adventures, it was always some other states because the only place of escapade that I could think of was Cameron Highlands and I've been there, huhu

No offence to Pahang-ians' or izzit Pahang-ites'?! but Pahang just never arise from me or even my coursemates for the record. So when I got Pahang, I'm like wwwhhhaatt!!


And then, there's a tug of war within me:

Another side of me don't even mind that I have to work in Pahang at least for 5 years because it's not like I'm not used to going to and fro from Shah Alam to some place far.

It could be a whole new adventure for me! Whee~

But another part of me wants to be a rebel-without-a-cause-kinda-thing and this is because:


Pahang is big and I could be anywhere at all whereby I will be so unfamiliar + alone + worried...
[but then again, it's not like I can't survive]


I want to do my Masters.
[have to use own money but InsyaAllah money is not an issue. I badly wanna do it at least around next year so that by the end of my contract, I can get to be a lecturer easily and proceed to do my PHD overseas. Moreover, doing Masters when I am single is so flexible]


I'm not being manja or whiny that I want to be near home, so please stop assuming and that I am grateful but I have commitments, emm :s
[yes, everybody has commitments and if you really wanna know what mine is, then contact me personally]


I know that you can always say that some other person out there has it much worse than me but the fact is, everyone is different and that even if I am grateful but if I can change things for the better then why not? Anyone in whatever situation is different but we should always put things in perspective.


So you can tell that I have such a dillemma



With Allah is the decision, in the Past and in the Future: on that Day shall the Believers rejoice―
Ar-Room [30:4]

Rest In Peace

Bismillah, Assalamualaikum

The title is not at all about MJ, couldn't care less, what he done again?

It's time he went anyway, dah ajal die.

R.I.P. means more than passing away and I meant to write a farewell bid to someone whom I don't even know, like I never knew him at all. The thing is, when I read about the tragedy that had befallen Ammar bin Zulkifli, my heart automatically reached out pouring sympathy and sadness towards not only him but also to his loved ones. My curiosity was piqued by fellow bloggers who wrote tributes for him and I felt like I wanted to, not because everyone was doing it but because when I say Rest In Peace to him, it means that I pray that he will indeed find God.

It's amazing as I don't even know him at all but he touched me and my tears flowed because of him as well as fear of the reminder of death. Even though I don't know him but I know for certain that he is a good person from a great family and from my readings of him through others and his blog, I know that InsyaAllah he is amongst those with the para syuhada' as he died in seeking knowledge and Allah loved him so much more.

Do read his blog and may you cry when you read of his mother's writings now as there are so profound you feel like it happen to you and you cry because you can't help it when your chest hurts of the turmoils of emotions you get and pray that it will be a wake-up call for you that death is so near.

So there are absolutely no similarities between MJ and Allahyarham Ammar bin Zulkifli because the latter was a true fighter to the religion and the country and so much more significant rather than the former so why are some Muslims still mourning for an entertainer?

I pray that when I am gone later on in life, I too will be like this wonderful and magnificent person who left an impact on MANY people, countless whether they knew him or otherwise, how cool is that?!

I end this post with words written from him in his blog as he described himself as:

"Jiwa mereka yang hangat cintanya mencari akhirat. Laksana anak-anak akhirat...melihat dunia dari jendela akhirat".

Oh how I pray that my soul will be just like this, like his...

http://kalam-puncak.blogspot.com

Coursemates for 6 YEARS!

Bismillah, Assalamualaikum

I wish I could write something beautiful on my 6 years of friendship with my coursemates but because I can't, not right now anyway therefore I dedicate Miley Cyrus The Climb for the 24 of my coursemates

I can almost see it.
That dream I'm dreaming, but
There's a voice inside my head saying
You'll never reach it
Every step I'm takin'
Every move I make
Feels lost with no direction,
My faith is shakin'
But I gotta keep tryin'
Gotta keep my head held high

There's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be an uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose
Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waitin' on the other side
It's the climb

The struggles I'm facing
The chances I'm taking
Sometimes might knock me down, but
No I'm not breaking
I may not know it, but
These are the moments that
I'm gonna remember most
I've just gotta keep goin', and
I gotta be strong
Just keep pushing on, but

There's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be an uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose
Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waitin' on the other side
It's the climb

There's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be an uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose
Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waitin' on the other side
It's the climb

Keep on movin'
Keep climbin'
Keep faith baby
It's all about, it's all about
The climb
Keep the faith, keep your faith, whoa

It may be that Allah will grant love (and friendship) between you and those whom ye (now) hold as enemies: for Allah has power (over all things); and Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

Al-Mumtahina [60:7]

3 days in Paris is not enough, boo hoo

Bismillah, Assalamualaikum

On the last day of our stay in Paris, we had a mission! and that was to cover ALL of Paris main attractions! Even though the weather tried to hold us back but we didn't falter and know that we must walk as much as we can until mission accomplish!

Sadly we made a mistake to arrive a little bit late to the Eiffel Tower whereby there was already a loooong queue to the top, sigghhh. Not to be deterred, we tell ourselves, what the heck, this is a once in a lifetime experience thus by all means, we talked and cracked jokes until we found ourselves moving and then waiting to be brought up towards the very top of the Eiffel Tower!

Views of Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower...

Trocadero and this place has the BEST view of the Eiffel Tower. The Trocadero is the site of the Palais de Chaillot, an area of Paris in the 16th arrondissement, across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower. The hill of the Trocadero is the hill of Chaillot, a former village.

The Arc de Triomphe is a monument in Paris that stands in the centre of the Place Charles de Gaulle, also known as the Place de l'Etoile. It is at the western end of the Champs-Elysees. The triumphal arch honors those who fought for France, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars. On the inside and the top of the arc there are all of the names of generals and wars fought. Underneath is the tomb of the unknown soldier from World War 1.

The Musee du Louvre or officially the Grand Lourve, the Louvre Museum or Great Lourve or simply the Lourve is the national museum of France, the most visited museum in the world and a historic monument. It is a central landmark of Paris, located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement (neighbourhood). Nearly 35,000 objects from the 6th century BC to the 19th century are exhibited over an area of 60,600 square metres (652,300 square feet).

Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is kept here but we didn't went to see it as it would take too much time. If there was a next time then I wouldn't mind though...

The Lourve Palace is an almost rectangular structure, composed of the square Cour Carree and two wings which wrap the Cour Napoleon to the north and south. In the heart of the complex is the Lourve Pyramid, above the visitor's center. The museum is divided into three wings: the Sully Wing to the east, which contains the Cour Carree and the oldest parts of the Lourve; the Richelieu Wing to the north; and the the Denon Wing, which borders the Seine to the south.

Paris offers a bike sharing system called Velib' with more than 20,000 public bicycles distributed at 1,450 parking stations, which can be rented for short and medium distances including one way trips.

Notre Dame de Paris ('Our Lady of Paris' in French) is a Gothic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France, with its main entrance to the west. It is the cathedral of the Catholicarchdiocese of Paris: that is, it is the church that contains the "cathedra", or official chair, of the Archbishop of Paris. Notre Dame de Paris is widely considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture in the world. It was restored and saved from destruction by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, one of France's most famous architects. The name Notre Dame means "Our Lady" in French, and is frequently used in the names of Catholic church buildings in Francophone countries.

We found a mosque in Paris! Alhamdulillah! We had so badly wanted to freshen up!

The jardin (garden) inside the mosque was so beautiful!

The Sacré-Cœur Basilica Roman Catholic basilica is a popular landmark in Paris, France, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The basilica is located at the summit of the butte Montmartre, the highest point in the city.

View from the top of the our final destination in Paris, the Basilica and it was raining but who cares!

PARIS and DISNEYLAND

Bismillah, Assalamualaikum

Paris has never been on my 'gotta go!' list of places because it was always 'I want to go around the world kinda thing' and so there were no specific places of interest but Paris has always been there, if you know what I mean, in my mind and my readings hence the anticipation and it just boils over when Mai Sis said that I could go to Paris!

We took the EUROSTAR, a high-speed railway passenger train service in Western Europe connecting London (St Pancras Railway Station) with Paris (Gare Du Nord) and Brussels. All Eurostar services cross under the English Channel via the Channel Tunnel, owned by Eurotunnel.

How cool is this! Unfortunately, I slept like a log from London to Paris due to being so fatigue, sigghhh. Nonetheless, I did stay a bit awake from Paris to London but when I saw that it was just dark outside, I dozed off again, huhu

The weather in Paris was cool, calm and breezy and it just fits the atmosphere that we're in because the wind swept us away mesmerized by the beauty of Paris

To get to our apartment, we had to attained the key in another place just like Amazing Race!

Our apartment was on the 7th floor and there were no lift! Just imagine everyday that we're in Paris, we were so worn-out and adding insult to injury was that to get to our beds, we had to trudged slowly panting 7 flight of stairs just to get to the very top!

This is a miniature Eiffel Tower pasted on our apartment wall, cute huh!

The first time we saw the Eiffel Tower, we were like, so this is the Eiffel Tower, w h o a!!

That afternoon was bliss indeed, just lepaking under the view of the Eiffel Tower, ahh...wish we could have stayed forever in that park and have a little picnic.

We went on a cruise from the afternoon until sunset right to night time. It was freezing cold but we had loved every moment of it shivering. On the cruise, there were loving couples (rolls eyes :p ), old tenderly couples (aaawww), and then there were US enthusiastically listening to every commentaries on every place that the cruise passed by and it was sooo fascinating that I looked up on each and every place on the internet! Told ya I'm an experiential learner :p

The Eiffel Tower at night, wah...

and the Eiffel Tower glitters at night too! Pwetty!

I found out about Panini looking at Rachel Ray Show, she's a celebrity chef and very entertaining indeed! I loved to able to modify what she cooks up! Anyway, there were paninis' in London and Leicester and I pestered Mai Sis to let me taste but Mai Sis was not to sure on what is Panini and the fillings so she couldn't relent to my whims and fancies. However, in Paris, we were so hungry that night and there was a Panini stall at the corner from the Eiffel Tower that I couldn't help myself and ask on the filling for vegetarian. It was only mozarella with tomatoes and button mushrooms and the sandwich was pressed by something hot and sizzling that the mozarella melted right into the ciabatta bread. Not only was it hot but eating it while sharing amongst the 3 of us on a cold night was SO DELICIOUS!!

The next day, we went to La Defense, a major business district for the city of Paris.

This is Disneyland! My family grew up watching Disney movies and cartoons so Mai Sis and I were excited at seeing all those characters come alive! Hey, that's Marie from The Aristocats! That's Mulan and so many more! We were like kids and rode ON ALL THE RIDES! Mai Sis was BRILLIANT in the planning. What she did was she planned that because Disney Studio close at 7pm then we should cover the whole of Adventureland, Discoveryland and Frontierland before 4pm and moved to Disney Studio and afterwards come back to Fantasyland since Fantasyland was all kiddie stuffs so even if we wanted to play, it wasn't a priority but we did managed to cover most of every land. We rightfully followed the plan with Mai Sis monitoring all the games that we have played and what next and well, she was just too GOOD!! *wipes tears* :p

We rode on all 4 of every roller coasters in Disneyland and I had such an adrenaline rush! This was by far the coolest because it was slow at one moment and ZZZZOOOOOMMM!!! at the next moment leaving my breath behind!!

This is 'It's a Small World' where they showcase a variety of cultures from around the whole world with cute mini dolls singing 'It's a Small World'. There weren't Malaysia though...

I feel like a kid playing wheee on the Mad Hatter's Tea Cups. The story behind this game was that just before the tea cups started whizzing, a chubby cute Malaysian boy came up to Zahrah and innocently ask, 'Eh awak ni org Malaysia kan?' Hahaha!! Zahrah told us and we laughed our heads off because that boy was just too cute! Subsequently, we caught up with the boy and said,

kami org Malaysia, awak?

Saya org Malaysia jugak.

and I forgot the rest of the conversation because we finally talked to the parents of the boy, hehe :p

The Place I once Lived Years Ago

Bismillah, Assalamualaikum

From London, I am to go meet Mai Sis at Leicester where she is studying Medicine in the University of the Year, University Of Leicester. Before that, Zah & I was supposed to meet my dad at Victoria Coach Station to board the National Express Bus to Leicester.

On that day, Zah & I confessed that we did lingered at Holloway Road because we were so tired as a result of the nonstop sightseeing the day before and that both our feet inflamed with pain, ^sob!^ but of course we suck up the pain as pain is secondary to what we had achieved in completing all of London's main attractions.

We took an advice that we should take the double-decker as it would head straight to Victoria Station but too much time was spent waiting for the bus, and then there was the traffic along the way and finally we decided to take the tube so we thoughtlessly alighted in the middle of who-knows-where but still in the London City Center and then we were gobsmacked right after we stopped as we didn't know where the nearest tube station was, huhu

When we finally found the nearest tube, we saw Victoria Station and was actually temporary relieved but to our horror, that was the terminals for trains and so we had to ask soooo many people and they never gave us DIRECT & SPECIFIC DIRECTIONS!

It was always...

"Just walk straight and turn left".
"After the traffic light, turn left". [There were 2 traffic lights ok!]
"Turn left".


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! Tension!!!

Seriously we were like the contestants from Amazing Race EXCEPT the major difference would be we had HUGE BAGS WITH WHEELS!

and we missed the bus, just 2 SECONDS LATE! I am not kidding! Imagine our frustration when we could actually see the bus directly in front of us driving by, huhu

But that's ok, our only consolation is that it wasn't time that we wasted but money because that bus was 1 pound instead of the normal rate of 16 pound. Imagine Mai Sis got it for a song for a 2 hour and a half journey, way cool!

Apology for Abah, we learned our lesson though,
NEVER TAKE THINGS FOR GRANTED!

Victoria Station is not the same as Victoria Coach Station!


Still we made it to Leicester so this is Leicester. I think someone copied the slogan One Leicester to 1Malaysia, hmm :p

This is the fire brigade, who would have thought it coz it looks like a museum but actually the fire trucks are tuck inside.

In front of Mai Sis Medical Building. Don't we look like sisters? hehe

There is a prison in the middle of the city! No kidding!
and Mai Sis tells me that sometimes she has to pass this building back from the university, wuu, gives me the creeps!



Went to Loughborough, my old hometown. Its similar to Shah Alam except this place is so much calmer and peaceful and I had loved schooling in this school. Went back to trace old memories~



This is our 3rd home living in England years ago and the best house amongst the 3. It was situated near Abah's university, Along's high school and our primary school. I remembered the snow was so deep in front of the house and that Mama would take lil Mawaddah for a walk playing in the snow.



The next day, us 3 girls sent abah to Germany at Birmingham International Airport, byebye Abah~



After that, Adventure Starts!

So what is in Birmingham? According to the BEST guide in the whole wide world, MAI SIS, that would be Cadbury World.

Cadbury World is basically one of Cadbury's factory made into an attraction. We were enlightened on how Mr Cadbury made one of the finest chocolates ever and then how chocolates were made, the history and the process in the factory and get free chocolates admist all the tours.


We got to make our own chocolate, yummy! But I am not that fanatic over too much sweetness.

The last day in Leicester was spent on shopping! and it was the SUMMER SALE! and there were not much time to indulge, uwaaa!!


Oh well, this is a performance from the Pocahontas tribe, haha, nah, it was just guys all dressed up playing soothing music from their musical instruments in the middle of the city. very entertaining indeed! If I didn't want to go to every store, I would have stop and appreciate the tune more ;)



We did relax in Leicester as we stayed in Mai Sis very comfortable Oxford Court and cooked fried rice, pasta, baked quiche, toast crumpets and drank lotsa fresh milk everyday!