37

"Oh Tuhan ku cinta dia. Berikanlah aku hidup. Takkan ku sakiti dia. Hukum aku bila terjadi ... (Sampai Menutup Mata, Acha Septriasa)"

37 tahun, Alhamdulillah, syukur kepada Allah yang masih mengekalkan aku di duniaNya ini. Aku berdoa moga masih dipanjangkan umur untuk 37 tahun lagi, mungkin lebih, untuk aku terus memberikan kasih sayang kepada anak dan isteri. Untuk isteri, walaupun pelukan makin berkurangan, walau tiada ucapan cinta, dalam hati suamimu ini, cintanya masih sama, harapannya masih sama untuk kita terus kekal bahagia. Untuk anak-anak, Papa sayangi kalian seperti Tok Abah yang sentiasa sayangkan Papa. Papa harap untuk terus hidup, melihat anak-anak Papa membesar dan terus memeluk kalian sepenuh kasih sayang Papa dan Papa berdoa kepada Allah moga kalian tidak hanya tidur seperti anak kecil di dalam gambar di atas. Aku berdoa moga masih diberikan kesempatan untuk membalas jasa Ma dan Abah yang setia membantu selama 37 tahun, terutamanya di saat susah, di saat semua yang lain mendiamkan diri. Aku ingin terus hidup untuk sahabatku dari kecil, abangku yang satu,Yie, untuk kami sama-sama menjaga Ma dan Abah suatu hari nanti. Untuk adik-adik, Ida dan Ina, Abang Ha harap untuk terus menjadi contoh untuk kalian semua, apapun, abangmu ini tetap manusia biasa.Untuk kedua mertua dan ipar-iparku, aku berdoa untuk terus hidup, untuk terus menyayangi anak atau adik atau kakak dan cucu kalian, dan kesayangan kalian, Adriana Damia dan anak kami yang bakal lahir. Aku juga ingin terus hidup untuk terus bersahabat dengan sahabat-sahabat sekalian, sahabat yang dekat maupun yang jauh. Yang lama mau pun yang baru. Sedar atau tidak, kita berkongsi sebahagian kehidupan kita dengan pelbagai kenangan.

Terima kasih semua untuk ucapan-ucapan hari jadi yang memeriahkan hidup aku untuk sehari ini... terima kasih untuk kasih sayang.

Nota: Gambar dari laman Facebook Wardina Safiyyah. "Gambar yang amat menyentuh hati..seorang anak yatim melukis gambar "mama"nya dan tidur bersama lukisan itu :( Ya Allah sekiranya kita ternampak anak-anak yatim berikanlah mereka bukan hanya barangan material seperti makanan, tapi pelukkan & ciuman yang jarang mereka dapat tetapi amat diperlukan dan dirindui....http://www.facebook.com/WardinaSafiyyah"

Salam Aidil Fithri

MA & ABAH, YIE & KAK LONG, IDA & ADI, INA & MIZI dan anak 2 buah yg comel dan nakal .. AUNI, ALYA, AMNI, HAZIQ dan FATINI, Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Fithri Chachu ucapkan. Tidak lupa untuk MAK dan AYAH di Tawau, DELI & KARIM dan anak 2 ADAM & SHASHA serta adik ipar 2 yg diingati selalu, NANA, POE, IJAM & LINA, Salam Aidil Fithri dari Abang di sini. Juga untuk saudara mara dan rakan 2 di Malaysia, semoga bergembira di hari yang mulia ini. Rakan 2 yang senasib beraya di negara orang, banyakkan bersabar dan carilah kemeriahan Aidil Fithri di mana ada walaupun kemeriahan Aidil Fithri pastinya jauh berbeza di sini. Rindu pada keluarga dan rakan 2 di Malaysia hanya Allah yang tahu dan moga Allah memberkati kita semua dihari kemenangan ini. SELAMAT HARI RAYA AIDIL FITHRI, MAAF ZAHIR DAN BATIN ...

Adriana 3rd Birthday

Today is Adriana’s 3rd birthday. Alhamdulillah, I am thankful that my little girl is here with me and I am also glad that I am here with her too. She is the most precious gift life gave me so far. I am just happy to be around her and she is making me so happy just by being around.

She can throw her tantrums when she wants to, but overall, she is my little angel.

Her ‘Greatest HIT’ … so far:

1. Adriana loves the word ‘No’, her favorite word at all time and everybody around her know about this 
2. Always saying ‘Please’ and ‘Thank You’ and ‘Sorry’. She’s really good with using ‘please’ to get something and she says it quite convincingly (she does get our attention because of that).
3. Very good with ‘Cover Line’. When she noticed that we are angry at her, she will ask us, immediately, whether we love her or not. “Papa sayang Mia?”, “I am sorry Papa”…
4. She's able to brush her teeth, put on her clothes and now she sleep alone on her new bed, but off course sometime she still needs a little help or encouragement from us.
5. Her teacher at pre-school called her ‘a little genius’. Adriana is very good with numbers as she counted up to 12 with confidence and now starts trying to counting numbers beyond that. She’s very clever in recognizing shapes and colours too. She recognizes an animals and able to named them correctly. She’s able to use a computer keyboard to type A, B, C to Z as she already know all the letters both upper case and lower case.
6. She is good in her Quran class as well. She can recognized and read ALIF, BA, TA … YA.
7. Adriana loves music, singing while playing a variety of musical instruments, dancing, painting, drawing and watching YouTube. Now she’s able to select and play her favorite video on YouTube.
8. As she enjoyed drawing and painting, Adriana know how to draw a face with eyes and mouth, spell her nick name ‘MIA’ and she can grasps a pencil between her fingers. She can spend hours doing his art works.
9. Her English is better than us, I think, especially with her vocalizations. She keeps surprising us with her ability to use the correct words for the correct situations. “It’s not funny”, “I like it”… but sometime she still combined English and Malay, “I want tengok Tom and Jerry first …”
10. She loved me more …. I am the top on her list, ;-

♫ HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADRIANA, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU …. ♫

Papa sayang Mia …………..

Good friends we've had, good friends we’ve lost...

Facts of life — you lose touch with people.

And last week was a Facebook trip down a memory lane for me.

It is nice to catch up with your old friends, actually it was kind of fun to catch up again. Great feeling comes when you meet or talk or re-connect to your old friends, old school friends are the hardest to get rid of, and they haunt you at every corner of your live.

I was completely surprised to touch base with some old friends of mine especially my school friends from SEKOLAH MENENGAH HAMZAH (SMH) via FACEBOOK. Thanks to one of my best friends for his efforts, thank you NASA. I don't know why I never kept in touch or why I lost contact with these guys since they were truly friends of mine for the seven years I ‘lived’ at SMH and now I've reconnected with these guys after nearly two decades (AIYAAA!! I am getting old). Absolutely superb!! We laughed about all of the stupid pranks we pulled during school day, the silly middle school things we did, life when cell phones and Internet didn’t exist (or we didn’t know about Internet), and hanging out at the ‘RESTORAN PATTANI’, and so much more. I’m still laugh about the old days ... School friends really give me good memory.

It’s good to see the net being put to such good social use! Relationships like these are priceless.

Now the ‘TAK best SANGAT’ story, I only heard from them last week that not one or two but at least four of our best friends already pass away. I am very sad indeed and I think it is okay to feel sad.

Untuk Alumni SMH - “Moga kita semua dipanjangkan umur dan dipertemukan sekali lagi untuk sekurang-kurangnya bertemu bertanyakan khabar. Betul lah kata Nasa, aku ni makin tua kerana selalu terkenangkan kawan-kawan lama dan suka mengingati kisah-kisah lama terutamanya zaman persekolahan. Mengingatkan masa yang dah terlalu jauh ditinggalkan.”

Homesick!!!

We have been here in Lancaster, UK for more than two months already. Another three years and 10 months ahead, at least ... HUH!!!

I hate to admit this, but I am homesick, slightly homesick actually, especially during Eid Adha last Friday. Yup, I’m a total family person. I grew up in a family where it means everything to have family around. I’m seeing my parents who live 400 km away at least every two months. Now I am here, far away from them, across the ocean, and not seeing them will be hard for me. Not just the fact that they live so far away from me, but from my daughter. I miss the missed opportunities. I wish we were closer so that they can watch my daughter grow. I wish we were closer so they talk with my little girl who is now talking a million miles a minute, although the words are not all clear, she seems to understand.

But I know that it will get better over time when I’m homesick. I just feel that at least that is the right decision for me. I am so thankful for this opportunity to be able to spend so much time with my daughter (as you guys already know, she is my reason for anything) and I do really hope that this is for the better future of us.

And this is where I am at in this moment of time! No matter what the day brings or how much I miss the things I miss, I am thankful. I am thankful everyday for my health and I am thankful that my family here and in Malaysia are all healthy. I am thankful for wonderful friends here, who are helping us get settled in, you know who you are guys ... thanks a lot.

ALHAMDULILLAH

35 Years Old. Kicking and Alive

Yesterday, I turn 35 years old. When I was young, that seemed very old. Someday, I’m sure it will seem very young. But for now, it feels just right. Yes, I do indeed feel 35 years old. I continue to struggle with my body weight since my body always thinks it needs more foods. I listen to SINAR FM (Malaysia) and Smooth (UK) radio while driving instead of others music stations, and I know more about popular music from the 80’s or 90’s than the music from the decade that we’re currently in.

But 35 are still young. Thankfully, I don’t have much joint or back pain and can still play with my daughter. I do see an occasional white hair on my head, but it’s more of a curiosity than a cause for concern.

Okay lah, I’m old now, but I am happy to be where I am. I think that’s the key to happy living is enjoy the moment you’re in now. You can look back at the past with nostalgia and look forward to exciting things in the future, but if you don’t enjoy the present, you’re not fully living. So I embrace my 35 years and look forward to the next 35!

Moga hidup lebih diberkati ALLAH. Cheers to life!

Genap Sebulan di Lancaster, UK

Hari ni genap sebulan di Lancaster, UK. Selepas perjalanan yang memenatkan dari Machang, Kelantan ke Ipoh dan terus ke KLIA. Kemudian bersambung dengan penerbangan tanpa henti selama hampir 13 jam ke Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam. Kami akhirnya sampai ke Manchester menaiki KLM dari Amsterdam yang hanya mengambil masa selama kurang satu jam.

Dari Manchester International Airport terus menuju ke Lancaster University dan selepas sejam perjalanan menaiki Ford Mondeo, akhirnya sampai dan menjejakkan kaki ke Lancaster University.

Sedar tak sedar dah sebulan berlalu. Ramai yang bertanya bermacam-macam soalan tentang pelbagai perkara, jadi di sini antara jawapannya:

Umum:

Lancaster ni bandar kecik je(bolehlah diibaratkan macam Bandar Baru Bangi kepada geng2 yang belajar kat UKM dulu). Bandar lain yang terdekat ialah Preston (macam Kajang le kot) atau Blackpool (Serdang may be). Yang lagi besar mungkin Manchester or Liverpool (tak pernah sampai lg except Manchester Airport). Tapi bandar Lancaster agak menarik dengan bangunan2 lama dan bersejarah. Tapi selama sebulan kat sini bukannya sempat discover semua pun. Yang paling ketara, kat sini banyak ladang-ladang besar yang buatkan pemandangannya nampak cantik.

Yang best:
1. Ramai gak kawan 2 se-Malaysia kat sini. Kawan sekampung pun ada, so tak terasa sangat jauh dari Malaysia. Diaorg semer baik 2, ramai yang membantu setakat ni.
2. Suasana tenang jer kat sini, tak terasa kelam kabut masa kat KL or PJ dulu.
3. Makanan halal pun tak susah nak cari. Dalam Uni ada beberapa restoran yang halal dan daging/ayam halal ada jual kat Preston (30 min perjalanan). Nak sembahyang Jumaat pun tak susah sebab ada surau yang buat sembahyang Jumaat kat dlm Uni.
4. Ada beberapa barangan yang mahal kat Malaysia but murah/agak murah kat sini. Contohnya kereta, hand phone, notebook, pakaian, dll. Kalau ada duit memang syok shopping ... but ada gak barang 2 yg mahal, lesung jual kat sini harga > £10, mahal tu ..
5. Car boot sales ... hehehe, ni paling best so far. Kalau pergi memang habis duit ..
6. Tak de semut kat sini, boleh sepah 2 kan mknan without takut semut menyerang .. ni anak aku la yg best

Yang tak berapa best:
1. Terasa gak jauh dari family, kekadang le.
2. Kalau cuaca sejuk dan berangin, memang tak selesa. Kulit pun jadi kering kat sini. Hujan pun selalu jadi banyak masa terpaksa memerap kat rumah je.
3. Susah nak jumpa Doctor. Kena buat appointment dulu baru blh jumpa then bukan dia bagi ubat pun, dia bg prescription jer, then pi cari ubat kat pharmacy.
4. Buka akaun bank sampai berminggu2 baru dpt semeu. Byk kali appointment baru settle. Kalau kat Malaysia sehari jer.


Itu je lah dulu. Mungkin ramai yang tak tahu lg, aku blm lg mendaftar sbg student kat Lancaster Uni. dah minta defer to next year dan Uni dah approved. Ambik giliran jaga anak, so my wife proceed first while aku dok rmh jaga anak. Hopefully sempat kejar utk grad sblm visa tamat pada 2014.