Nina oh Nina

Nina came home from school yesterday with a note from her school nurse. The note read : "Fainted after deep breathing exercise. Bruise with swelling to right side of head. Cannot remember the incident. Awake, alert response at all times. Pupils equal, reacting, light." (the last two words were my own assumption as they were rather ineligible)

Being a rather blunt person I am, even in my role as a mum, my immediate response was : "Mmm... that shows life is short. Anything can happen, we can die anytime. So it is important that we don't miss our solat, we don't show disrespect to our parents ......"

She looked rather upset that I did not sympathize. So I reminded her of what had earlier happened in the morning before she went to school.

Her dad gave her a 100riyal note to pay for her Alice in Wonderland "party" tomorrow and told her to be careful with the money. Her reaction was very nonchalant with her eyes glued to the tv, like her dad was not talking to her. Papa repeated again what he said and again, this anak bertuah continued to be deaf. Then she said something that was not making sense to us mature we-have-lived-longer-than-her adults like we her parents were stupid or something.

That really ticked me off. And understandably, her dad too. Of course, she was scolded by both of us. And as she put her $$ into her bag, she looked pissed and kind of shoved her bag angrily.

My last words to her was to stop her rude manners because what goes around comes around and not to forget Allah, The Almighty.

So when she related her fainting incident later that day and how her friends thought she was going to die because her eyes were all white etc, all I could say, yet again, Allah is Great.

I don't know why she fainted really. She wasn't in her PE class, and it was after lunch hour. Since it was a Music class and the teacher was teaching them how to breathe correctly when singing, I figured she must have done it wrongly, causing a sudden shortness of breath.
Alhamdulillah, it only caused a small swelling in her head. It did not kill her appetite! :)

My latest toy

I bought a pasta machine two weeks ago and has since then, used it once. Made mee kuning and it turned out great. Nothing beats fresh noodles, the soft texture makes it so darn delectable. I loved it.



I remember my mom used to have a noodle machine but back then, it did not come motorised. So it was a bit troublesome really, with one hand holding on to the flat dough sheet and the other operating the rollers. But this one only needed a touch of a button, and the dough sheet turns into noodle strips. Cool. The funny thing was, I almost contemplated to get a refund upon finding out the instruction leaflet was all in Arabic! I was like, oh no! how on earth do I operate this?? But thanks to You Tube, I got the hang of it in a second!

So now I have a pasta machine. It's cheap and it works. Next on my to-buy toy list is this :




Currently I have something that looks similar but it ain't THE ONE.

Sometimes love, Sometimes loathe

Cooking and I do not really go so far back. It is still a novelty to me really. Growing up, I hardly cooked. Blame it on my mom or was it just me? I knew how to cook rice with the electric cooker when I was 11 or 12. Then I was taught to peel onions and that kinda the only thing I knew up until I left home for college! Yeah, sure I cooked the occasional maggi mee, fried egg and that tasty sambal goreng kentang my big sister concocted but that's about it. In my household, cooking was more my parents' forte and my big sister's too and in later years, my other sister (who's 6 years younger) would follow suit. It was never me. While THEY were in the kitchen, one can find me either in front of the tv doing my homework or in my bed, reading a book. To say my mom was accommodating to my "lifestyle choice" is an understatement when she was quite a nagger back then. But my absence from the kitchen never bothered her. As long as I have done my onion peeling duty, I can be excused from the kitchen!

So I left for college and the first two years in Shah Alam, I did not have to cook. Warung food everyday! Then came the US and I finally cooked! Strangely I don't remember much what I cooked back then but I knew I had a few recipes I took with me to the new land and I think I cooked a really tasty ayam goreng tomato. But other than that, I could not, for the life of me, recalled what else had I cooked during that time. Ayam goreng, ikan bilis goreng, ikan goreng etc .... were they nice or not, I don't remember.

Working life in KL, I ate out most of the time but I did remember cooking beef paprik and one my roomates commented " mmm... this is good Rozi. Tastes like the one we buy in warung." Mmm... was that a compliment?

Anyways, then I got married and cooking was yet to become a fav pastime. I mean, cooking for two ain't easy. Most recipes are meant for 4-6 people and that would meant a 2cm of ginger needs to be divided by 4?? And I hated Maths.

Fast forward 6 years, my daughter was 6 and boy she loved to eat. So eating out is not really a good option anymore as it can be quite costly. Living in the UK at that time did not help too. So I had to cook. No other choice but that. And thanks to the Internet, finding tried and tested recipes was a breeze. So my culinary journey began in a foreign land ..... and surprisingly I enjoyed it very much. You can say I kind of fell in love with cooking and even baking.

And that continued when we came back to Malaysia. Cooking for four is easier than cooking for just hubby and myself. And I kinda enjoyed it especially when you have a child that was quite the Alam Flora! But living in our own homeland, we are spoilt with a lot of warung choices. There are days, we can opt not to cook and just tapau. No harm there what.

But now? I HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO COOK!!! EVERYDAY! And it is making me SICK! Seriously. A stay-at-home-mum in Malaysia would be a different story. A SAHM in a country where women can't drive is a torture. Day in and day out, I have to think of what food shall I prepare for my loved ones.

Imran just asked for nasi 30 mins ago and I told him it's too early for lunch. So he asked for milk and I scolded him because he has had too much milk today. But I made it anyway and he drank it and now he has dozed off, probably dreaming of his nasi! Kesian.

I have thawed chicken and calamari but I still have no idea what to cook .... I love cooking really but there are days I just LOATHE it to bits. And that day is today. Help!

I am back!

See, I knew it! I know keeping a blog is not such a good idea because I lack discipline! It has been three months and I have been neglecting this blog. But that's just me. Times I do have ideas on what to write, I am too lazy to go the laptop, or too lazy to on it or when I do on the laptop, I get engrossed with reading online news or I simply got stuck on the Facebook page. Then all those IDEAS I had in my head to blog about just disappeared into thin air.

And today, I thought I'd give my blog a check, a bit hoping that after three months, the page may had just been closed due to inactivity. But oops! it's still here! and now I feel obliged to write away..... and Imran keeps saying he is hungry. See.... the time to blog for me is never right.
So I will make this quick. And I will be rambling, most of the time, I anticipate...

My in-laws were in town last month for three weeks. So I got off cooking for yes, three weeks! MIL cooks and hubby, being mama's boy loves mama's cooking. So I let him have his way and I had mine. :) Thanks MIL! When they were here, we went to Mekah twice and Madinah once.

I have been busy with the Internet - watching my fav tv shows online, learning to improve my recitation of the Quran online etc. Sounds blissful eh? Maybe but if you ask me, I'd rather do all this in Malaysia. Gosh. I so miss my country.

I began this year - 2010 - with a promise to myself that I will become a teacher to Imran, to prepare him for his reception year this September. It's almost the end of February and I am nowhere near to becoming Imran's teacher! Supervising the homework of the older two pun dah pening kepala....

I also wanted to lose weight. By end of June this year, I want to lose 8kg! Yes, I said it. 8kg you!! Its February and I have less than 5 months to lose the unwanted, undesirable fat. So I had started a 3-day/week walk brisk regime since two weeks ago. Not sure if I had lost weight or not since then because eating is still a big yes in my life!

Okay.. what else is new? Oh, the past week I have had a Meryl Streep marathon week of some sort. It's Complicated, Mama Mia, Doubt, Julie Julia --- Ms Streep has been wonderful and I am a big fan.

So, I have to go now before Imran dozes off while waiting for his rice with telur. Gosh, it's good to be back. Not back blogging but just back typing away like this .... (sometimes I just miss being in the newsroom.)

Handphone madness

Two weeks after we got here, I subscribed to a new local mobile number, and two nights later in the middle of the night, I got a call from an unrecognised local number.
I said: "Hello"
The caller (female) said, whispering: "Assalamualaikum. Who are you?"
Erk... sapa yang call sapa ni?
I said : "Who ARE YOU???" Then I hanged up. She called again five minutes later. I did not answer. And called again and again like 5 times after that!! Crazy or what? Minah desperado hungry for some midnight, kinky chat ke?
Since then, my handphone kept getting these weird calls from Arab-sounding people. Even after I said they got the wrong number, they did not budge. They just kept calling, and one even used the F word, after I hanged up on him when I told him that I have no idea where HIS brother was!!
These happened so frequent that I even saved their numbers and gave them not-so-good names so I can easily identify them when my phone rang. Hubby had to intervene and since then, it has been a month since these crazy people called me. Phew!

But out of all that craziness, the called I got tonight topped them all. I recognised the number because just a week ago, this person texted me in a language I thought was somekind of secret code from a friend or sibling. You see, the number was a Malaysian Celcom number.

His text was : Khlil tumi kemon aso.Ami asa kri allahah rohmte valo aso. Ami valo asi. ami arakti sim no dilam. 2ti sim amar ok. no..0060132231844..?...k hlil tumi amar kase pondiben.ETI..NAZIM (..MALAYSIA..).

I have a nephew called Amil and a sister called 2t and a cousin called Eti. For a while there, I seriously thought the text had something to do with them!! Later, I totally forgot about it.
Until I got his (Nazim's??) call tonight.
He gave me salam and I salammed him back. Then he mentioned some name to which I said, you have a wrong number bro.
He: "Is this Saudi Arabia?"
Me: "Yes."
He: "How are you?"
Me : "Huh?? Who are you looking for?."
He : "I call from Malaysia. I am Bangla and I look for you."
Me : "WHAT???" Then the line got all static and a second later, cut off. I figured his Xpax's credit sudah habis. He thinks it's cheap ke nak call Saudi Arabia?? Calling Bangladesh would be a lot cheaper, bro.
So, does anyone know Bangla or is it Bengali and translate the text for me???

Rain, ice cream and the Budimans

Woke up this morning to the sight and sounds of raindrops, lightning and thunder. For a second there I thought I was in the warmth of my bed in KL. The children got so excited to see the downpour, a rare sight for us since we moved here. Called my aunty who is performing her hajj in Mekah and she said it's overcast there but no rain yet. Should it rains later, it will be a wet experience for the pilgrims in the plains of Arafat.

(the view from our living room of the wet condition outside. It rained so bad, heard some roads were flooded)


And since hubby not around till next week, this mummy has become so lazy. Nasib baik lah last night (am not that lazy when it comes to making sweet stuff) I baked bread pudding and made HOMEMADE vanilla icecream (my first time ever and it turned out really good). So today's breakfast, you guessed it - bread pudding and icecream! Not exactly a healthy one but filling enough to last them till lunchtime.

(vanilla icecream --- made from milk, sugar, whip cream and coffeemate.)

Today, we are saying goodbye to the Budimans, one of the first few Malays we met when we first arrived here. And living in the same compound, the kids got quite attached to their bubbly, chubby and ever so adorable Dani. We will miss them no doubt. Adi and Yani, in my personal opinion, are one of the warmest and kind people I have come to know and I am so glad to have met them. They said this is not goodbye but see you real soon (their open invitation to those coming to Singapore) and yes, we can't wait to see them again. Maybe next summer eh? I am going to miss you Yani. And Dani too, your slobbers and all.. :)

(imran taking a photo of Dani)

Amir's biggest sceptic - his mom

Yesterday, had a meeting with Amir's class teacher. Since Amir has only been in the school for a month and a half, I came to the meeting with no high expectation. So imagine my surprise when I was "presented" with wonderful news about my playful and very manja 9-year-old son. Amir is apparently clever, bright, outspoken and very popular too! "Quite an achievement for someone so new in class," she said. Oh boy oh boy! This is despite his limited fluency in the English language. His teacher said, even his English has improved a lot. That bit I had noticed at home when I hear him reading his books. His only weakness, said the teacher, is his inability to "write on the lines." ??? I really see nothing wrong in that as long as he is writing in straight line. But obviously, it is important to this school. Whatever....

But coming back to Amir. He is quite unique. Everytime I attended a parent-teacher meeting regarding him, I always came out a bit surprised. He never failed to kind of impress me. Even in his exams. (Ask him what he learned in school today? His classic answer is : "Mmmm... entahlah tapi adalah belajar." )

This is my boy who only knew his ABCs (only A to G, mind you) and numbers 1-10 when he was 3.5 years old. Never interested to speak in English. Not interested in books, no matter how colourful they were. When he was almost four, he attended a playschool in England for 3 months and again surprisingly, the teachers told me how participative he was in class. Again, despite his very limited English, he somehow thrived.

Then when we returned to KL, we decided to send him to a newly set-up kindergarten, just behind our house, ran by a Malay lady as we thought we did not want to burden him with too much stress (read:homework) if he was to attend schools like Q-dees, CEC or Smart Reader. We wanted things to be easy for him. But the Malay lady turned out to be a thief. After collecting the fees for the second half of the year, she decided to close the school and ran away with the money! So, Amir never did learn anything from that short 5-month period. He never liked the school in the first place and dreaded to be sent to another school. So we let it be and he was free of school for the next 6 months.

The next year, he attended Smart Reader and again being a playful boy he is, he "graduated" from the school with little knowledge but a lot of friends. He entered Standard 1, still "crawling" in his reading, both BM and English. He was put in the last class after the school assessed him. We were not surprised. For the first six months, he was struggling with his reading and writing but he was good with numbers. Shockingly, came July 2007, just out of the blue, he began to read so well, I was like SHOCKED! By the end of the year, he was number 2 in class and got "promoted" to the second top class for Standard 2. And he continued to do well, always in the top 6 and got promoted again to the top class in Standard 3.

I really don't know how to explain him. When doing his revision at home, he ALWAYS asks for help, as if he knew NOTHING. He hardly had homework. He read Doraemon books, period. But his teachers would comment: Amir seorang yang cerdik.....

When we came here, enrolling him in a Brit international school was a bit worrying. So when the school suggested that he takes ESL program, we were all for it. And amazingly, he is doing good and settling well in school.

I might always be sceptical of him and not easily pleased, despite what others said of him, but let it be known I am always so proud of him.