Tonight 8:30 Qatar Time

..I will be sitting in the cramped economy class, minimal air conditioned Qtar Airways plane bound for Malaysia. OOhhhhh seronoknya. Perhaps this is the first time I am excited about going home, even though I have been back twice.

The first, as some of you know was the emergency getaway when my late mum got warded. The second was me going home with jackJack, settling (?) a few things with the office. But now is a real deal. the whole clan is going home. the kids are ever excited. Sya has been counting days from hundreds and today is day zero. I am so excited, I think I am even nervous.

I just packed last night, then there was Heroes so I packed slowly while my eyes and ears are stuck on the tele. I finsihed packing this morning. I think I have put everything except my toiletries. Ni tak mandi lagi pun ni. Lepas ni lah.

I'll be staying for two months in Malaysia but lover is going back earlier. Oh can I do it alone with the kids without my night tuck in?

My immediate plan is probably to eat KFC at the airport itself since I am sure my dad will not whip up any asam pedas ikan parang and plus I miss malaysia KFC. Then prolly we well attack satay muar and mee bandung pelbagai.

On Saturday we will definitely go makan ikan bakar at Umbai. The one that we had HERE. We'll get all my in laws and my nephews and niece.

I will try my best to get at least one facial service in Muar because I know I won't get to do it anywhere else later. And a haircut if possible. Plus in Muar is so much cheaper lorrr.

The plan in line is also to sunat Haziq the following week and nurse Haziq in Melaka for a week (or less). He will probably have to sit back in kain pelikat watching the others panjat pokok rambutan. Alaaa pity him.

We'll drive back to KL on the 6th somewhat for a weekend wedding. My cousin is getting married on the 7th. It should have been my brother's.

On the 9th I'll be seeing some of you if not all at Mid Valley. Ohhh seronoknya. Hitam dan gemuk pun lantaklah.

Then the week will be hectic with us running around to EPF, LHDN and banks. In between I want to take the kids to places that they have never been to like Berjaya Time Square. Syoknya tak yah gi masa weekend. Must go also the "eye on Malaysia". Not forgetting bbokstores to stock up books. Plans are fluid.

Weekends will probably be filled with makan-makan session with relatives and friends. Our Pantai Timur excursion might be cancelled because lover's leave is cut by two weeks. But I don't know. We'll see. Loklak pergi Genting ajele. The kids have never been there anyway. Or Colmar. See firstlah.

There will be a kenduri in Melaka for various aqiqah on lover's last week in malaysia. If you are around give me a tinkle.

I plan to make a biiiigggg trip cari kawan with the kids when lover go back to Qatar. Location is still a secret. Besides that, I would have to drag them around shopping in KL. Grand sale in malaysia now? Lover is worried. He wants me to get the leash.

The bigger target of this trip is to eat as much as I can and stock up on cili kering, ikan bilis, udang kering, mata kucing kering nak buat air, daun kesum, daun pandan, daun kunyit, serbuk kari dan pelbagai.

Hope to get see some of you in betweens.

Woo hoooooooooooo

Hand Throwing Rubbish

As you all know by now, I am the self-proclaimed domestic goddess. I have to admit that despite being place in this stature I still have my days. (I am trying to avoid the word lazy here. Wouldn't want Tony to shout at me. heh heh). But truth must be told, there are times that I really do not feel like cooking. But because of my natural nature as a domestic goddess, I plan these heavenly days. All are calculated, well except when I fall sick.

I usually choose cooking day off on Thursday when we have our fortnight meet up. And plus Thursday is the last day of weekdays here. Still I have to whip up something for pot luck. Ahh the things that I have to do here.

I usually take the kids out to the mall for lunch and do some window shopping and stuff. I do enjoy these trips and let the kids let loose sometimes.

One of the lunches we had there, the kids were playing I-spy. I listened to their game and laughed when the question was too easy and still cannot be answered. Then I feel like treating them for an ice cream. But because I love torturing people, even my own children, I decided to join in the I-spy game.

So I said, "I spy with my little eye a "Hand throwing rubbish"".
Eh?
Hand throwing rubbish.
What is the person wearing?
No person, just hand throwing rubbish.
Hand?
Yup! Just hand.
Is it a word or a picture?
A picture of hand throwing rubbish.


is it near or far?
*roll eyes*. It's near.
clues we want clues.
Those are good enough. Hand throwing rubbish.

Can you guess? If you can, I'll get you one McDonald's ice cream whenever our path do cross.



Picture taken while eating ice cream. Obviously correct answer given. You can get one too.

16 words

No talent. No creativity. Take my job away, I feel i am nothing. Nothing to myself.

A talks about B. B bad mouthes A. C listens to both A and B. Bitches!

Woke up. S-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d. Found him gazing at me. Smiled. You are beautiful, he said. *In love*.

My lame attempt on the 16 words story. It's a competition. Try it. email entries : SSS@apostrophegallery.com

End of Term - Haziq

Haziq did good for this term. He was the top for english. Also an excellent mark for his maths. Hooray!

Generally, he did well for all subjects except for French. He got poor for pronunciation. Oh well.

Here are some photos of him during the prize giving day. HERE

He has always been doing well in his academics I must say. So well such that early this year when he hiccuped, he brought alarm to his teacher. His teacher brought to my attention that he was fooling around in class, not passing up his work when it should be due and even when it is passed up, the quality was clearly low. No effort whatsoever. Last term he wrote a mere seven lines for a writing test.

Apparently he was seated besides this boy who is shall I say quite playful himself. haziq probably enjoying the fun begin to lax himself and his works. His teacher and I discussed this in front of Haziq and made it clear this playing around and neglecting his work is obviously not acceptable. He was actually making jokes out loud even during the exams, to the annoyance of many.

The teacher asked me whether I would want to move Haziq away from this boy. His name is Ali by the way. I answered no! Sound like not a very good move considering that I should be worried about this boy's influence on Haziq.

I said no because I think removing the boy is just a superficial solution. It will only cause resentment and might cause Haziq to retaliate and become worst. I wanted to give him a chance. Telling him I want to trust him and allowing him to prove himself.

I think the root problem is discipline. Haziq's self discipline. Knowing what he should and should not be doing his own self. How not to let people influence you for the worst of you. If he cannot learn it early enough, he will face even worst when he is older. I should know, considering what I went through as a teenage and most of my adult life.

I told Haziq make lots of friends. In the process bring your friend up. Improve each other and not put yourself lower than what you were. What is the point of progressing in life if you regress.

Haziq got a punishment from me that day. He was asked to write an apology letter for both myself and his teacher. I knew he cried. I think it was sufficient.

Anyway both the teacher and I think we made the right decision. For Haziq soared back to what he should have been. He is still playful and can be easily distracted though. Oh please help me to help him with his concentration skills. He is always fidgety. And because of that sometimes he does not listen well. Any suggestions?

I am happy to report to you, that Ali has improved in his academic work as well. Job well done to everyone.

While you are at Haziq's photos during the prize giving day, do peek at his various concert day photos HERE.

End of Term - Sya

It's the end of term for the children here before they brace for summer holidays (which I am going back HOME!!).

Typically before the term ends, there are parents teachers meet discussing about their kids progress and so forth. I must say it has been a good year for both Sya and Haziq. Both of them progressed well, and I am happy.

Remember batrisyia couldn't read when the school started? I am not so much worried because I think she can except that the lapse of time of not attending school adding to a lazy mother just delayed her. She can read fairly well now. And what is great is she is willing to hentam (just do it without care) saja. I value that in kids. Both Haziq and Sya do not mind hentaming when it comes to rading and quite a sport when we tell them they are wrong.

Batrisia also hentam alot when she writes. And she loves writing notes. To my dismay because papers are everywhere. Grrr. Sometimes she writes something, I have to make her read it for I am totally clueless. But still yayyy. So next year this is what I will nurture slowly. I am already starting. last night she wrote. "waht do you luk? (what do you like?). I pointed the "what". And she is writing "what" now instead.

By the way, I was asked to answer that in writing. I answered I like that Batrisyia is a good girl. Look at her beam.

I am trying to teach her BM. She is up to book 6 in bacalah anakku. Of course the teacher i.e. me is lazy. She is reading passages like parrots. So I am beginning to ask her questions about the passage to make her more aware of what she is reading. Next term I will get her to write in BM too.

Remind me that she needs different genres of book to expand her vocabulary and her knowledge too so that she can participate more during her topic lessons. They have topic subject that they discuss various topics in school. She tends to talk more when the topic is about her family, which is fine but she needs to be ready for more.

Her arts are quite detail (that's what the teacher say). And apparently she likes to sew. Eh ikut sapalak tu?

I find her quite a sharp person. The questions she ask me and things she observed caught me off guard. In group of friends, I notice that she sometimes play alone. Among the malayas, I find her always alone. Maybe not many friends her age. She used to mind that and got quite unhappy about it. But now she doesn't seem to care. She would just play together but alone. It's a different case with her brothers though. Then only she is chatty and sometimes mengada.

To Gart : Actually she can't write that well. She can't spell properly. I bet she cannot spell five and twelve and whatever. The thing is the teachers here do not look at that too much. I guess in Malaysia I should be very worried by now. And will correct it slowly. She is just four months younger than Asya.

Malay Male Names

I have put up this entry before but only in modblog. Since I wrote my kids name earlier, I just thought of putting it back. Saja je for throwing ideas purpose and also for my own record keeping. This one may not be easy for non Malaysian to follow though.

I sort of notice certain "traditional" names among the malay men from the various states in Malaysia. Their names would somehow reflect which state they come from. These may not be 100% correct, as it is only a mere unacademic non intelligent observation, I made. But I believe it somehow is true for most people.

If you come from Johor, the southern state of Malaysia, you are probably name Atan, Ahmad, Majid, Wahid and Ibrahim. These names seem to be the common names for the Johorians. OK not everyone in Johor used these names, but the chances that people using these names come from Johor are quite high. 90% probability.

One example of Ibrahim is Tengku Ibrahim of the Johor royalty.

Melaka people favourite choices are Ghaffar, Baba, Hamzah, Dol, Mat and Basri. Famous people dotting this name are Arwah Tun Ghaffar Baba the politician and Hamzah Dolmat the Dondang Sayang guy.

Melaka and Muar are only one hour drive on the modern day driving, so Muarians and Malaccans share these names too.

Now, let's go to the land of masak lemak cili api, the most outstanding name would be Rais. Heard of Rais Yatim and Hishammudin Rais? Try and guess where they are from.

I am not familiar with names from Selangor, so we are going to skip that and go to Perak.

Probably the most typical names for Perakians would be Meor, Ayub, Yeop and Lope. Does this ring something “Kejo! Yeop kejo!” Also people with Megats generally come from Perak too.

Now there are many Habibs in Penang and Syeds too. So imagine Nasi Kandar and gold smith. Other favourite names are Nagore, Hashim and Ahmed. Anybody from Penang to confirm?

Kelantan people seem to like the name Mohamed and Mustapha, so I notice, and thus Mustapha Muhammad the politician.

Do you have friends with names like Jusoh, Ngah, Embong, Mamat, Awang and Shafie? If you do, they are probably from Trengganu or Pahang. Kelantan and Trengganu may have the same taste for the names as well. Awang is also a favourite name in Kelantan. This is not surprising for Kelantan, Trengganu and Pahang are all on the east coast.

My grandfather’s name is Ngah and he was from Pahang. But my great grandfather’s name is Buang. Hmm..he was a Bugis. I can’t deduce anything there though.

Hah! The Malaysian Javanese also has certain name trends. The one that I encountered most are Zaki. OK, you can also be called Zaki but not a Javanese but it’s OK you are still a Malaysian. We tend to take each other's culture names. The Jawa also like prefix of Mas, like Masri, Maslina. Notice it is Maslina not Mzlina. Mazlina is not a Jawa name. Enggak gitu, Kang Mas? And many end their name with Man like Suratman, Saniman and. Sudirman. Not Superman though. That is American.

I have a friend whose father’s name is Gampang. I am yet to ask him where he is from. I think he is a Jawa. Even though gampang has a bad connotation in our culture but gampang really mans easy. His father may be quite an easy baby in his mummy's tummy. But tough for my friend for he is in Malaysia and he remains as anak gampang.

So, maybe you do notice that some of the names here are people you know and they come from other different states. This is not surprising since these are all Malay names anyway. Let’s say you meet a Majid, who I pointed out is a Johorian, but he tells you that he is from Selangor or KL now (everyone is in KL now), maybe his parents are from Johor or his great grandparents or his great, great grandparents. Oh! Well you catch my drift don’t you?

OK some of the names are common like Mohammad..nearly half of the Malay male population don the name Mohammad, but usually people in Kelantan will use only Mohammad or Mohammed and not combine it with other names. And also the name Jusoh, I really don't know that there are Jusohs in Johore unless their heritage does come from the Eastern Coast.

However some of these names are losing out. The modern generation, including me, tend to choose names for their kids, with a more “meaningful” meaning from the Quran, say, and glamourise it with a tint of western taste.

So, what do you think? What is your name? Do comment because I like to note down other view on cultures.

Care for a cup of tea anyone?

I have different type of tea in my house. We have cammomile, earl grey, russian earl grey (what's the difference?), white tea, vanilla tea, forest fruit tea, lemon tea, rosehip tea and verbana. Oh and normal tea. Let me correct, I have different flavored tea. This is all Haziq's doing. He likes them so much, he insisted we get them. Last Ramadhan he even typed out and printed out schedules of tea for breaking fast everyday. I had to negotiate to make milo, chai (tea with milk or teh tarik) and coffee.

I tried masala tea with lover, but he doesn't seem to like it. It is your normal tea with mil, preferably thick ta and evaporated milk. For masala tea, you just add cardamom when the tea is brewing hot. Over here there is even evaporated milk already with the taste of cardamom. I must say it is an acquired taste. Lover didn't like it.

Now lover is so into a new flavoured tea. Mint tea.

Mint tea is just so easy to do. To make it is really as the name suggest. Tea with a few mint leaves. It should be drank hot with medium tea thickness.

And in a hot summer night, after a good dinner, I find this very refreshing.

Any other tea you want to suggest?

Looky Who is Three

Looky Looky
Who is three
Why, of course
It is Zachary!!

JackJack turned three last 7th June. We didn't do much. Someone invited us over to his house and I thought why not buy a good cake and let him blow candles there. That is after all Jack's favourite house to go to. Apparently JacJack has a good new friend there. A cute little Ah Moi fondly known as LoiLoi. Both of them are inseparable. LoiLoi would happily pull JackJack to her daddy's room to play computer. The adults are well too amused with all these. the men all patting JackJack's back saying waaahh JackJack pandai pilih amoi. Here are some photos on that night Main 400.

I just realised that he is the only one who has never played with jigsaw puzzle. They are expensive here. But I bought one for his 3rd birthday. He likes them. Malasnya nak layan pulak.

Keeping my own tradition, I will jot down Jack's progress so when I am old and he is older, we can all look back and remember what he is like at three years old.

He can count to 12.
He knows some alphabets because he likes to ask. I know he knows A, O and X.
He loves me reading to him.
He loves akak reading to him.
He loves ayah reading to him.
He loves abang playing with him. Especially pretend king fu.
He likes to converse only with us not with other adult. He would talk and talk and insert his increasing vocabularies.
He thinks he is making jokes.
Sometimes when I ask something, he would purposely answer differently than I expect and laugh.
He sleeps most of the time when I pick up the kids and can amazingly continue sleeping even when I have to carry him in the hot sun from the car in the dusty sand, open the gate, open the door and tumble on his bed.
He has his own bed now, which is next to mine.
He likes to wear good clothes.
Long sleeves to him is baju pwer rangers.
Jeans is big seluar.
He wants baju power rangers and big seluar.
Someone told me he is always smiling. he looks so sweet.
He is an easy boy to handle.
He doesn't htrow tantrums.
He doesn't cry much.
He doen't hit other kids.
He bosses his siblings though.
The bigger boys like to play with him.
Some uncles adore him greatly. One call himself atok.
He is a lucky boy. He can kick his abang and tease his sister, and they all still adore him.
He likes to follow us pray. Only for a while and climb up on his dad prostrating and sit on his lap during tahyat akhir. He loves prostrating though. And when he does tahyat akhir, he would tilt his head to the side trying to imitate us.
He is till drinking my milk.
He is a charming boy and I am so lembik with him.

Relevant reads
Jack is one.
Jack is two.

Dory

Dory's father passed away this morning. I wish I am there to hug her.

Due is to Allah that which He has taken away and His is whatever He has Given. Have patience and seek reward from Him. May Allah magnify your reward, and forgive your departed.

I feel for you.

Sesangat

Weather Havoc

The weather in Qtar is getting hotter day by day. It even reached 52C on one of the afternoons. At least the one recorded by my car digital thermometre display. At night it can reach even up to 38C. When the wind blows, you can feel the heat scraping your skin. Like sitting in front of the aircond compressor.

In contrary to what people thought, the summer in Qtar is very humid and may even reach 90%. Just walking leisurely (walking in the sun is not a leisure here)will make you perspire profusely, even at night. The humidity is due to most of Qtar being surrounded by water.

The em-basi here had the Agong Day's celebration last Friday, at night, outdoor. Everyone was sweating. I don't even dare wipe my sweat, fearing that it will leave blotches of powder on the face. I had to be dainty and pat it instead. Some babies were crying and the mum had to take of his shirt. Thank god it was not a windy day.

Did you hear about the Cyclone Gonu hitting the coastal Oman? Cyclones are actually rare around the Arab Peninsula. Though rare, cyclones like Gonu are not unheard of in the northern Indian Ocean basin. Most cyclones that form in the region form over the Bay of Bengal, east of India. Those that take shape over the Arabian Sea, west of the Indian peninsula, tend to be small and fizzle out before coming ashore. This, I read it, is the first after 45 years.

Late Tuesday, the cyclone packed a powerful 260km/ hour and wave of 12m high along with torrential rain (I think it is in Category five) advanced towards coastal Oman and along coastal UAE, Fujairah and so forth. Today it is threatening south eastern Iran and will continue to go up north with lesser intensity. Both Oman and Iran have evacuated thousands of people to a safer place. There usually is not much rain in these places during the summer, but now floods are everywhere and rain is forecasted to pour until Friday.

All these are affecting the important Hormuz Strait. One of the world's most important oil route. These obviously disrupt oil exports and the oil price spiked up.

The Cyclone is not forecasted to hit Qtar though. The only thing that affect Qtar (for now) is I think the weather is slightly cooler now. The normally cloudless sky has blotches of clouds, the wind is cooling (in relative, it is still hot) and the highest temperature was a mere 42C. Last night was coldest in these steaming summer. My nose is slightly itchy, I might get a cold. I can feel something in the air, sickly air. Batrisyia has been sniffing since Tuesday. All signs of changing temperature.

As much as I welcome the coolness, I feel for the people in Oman and Iran. So far no loss of life is recorded. I pray that there is minimal damage at all the affected places.

The world is experiencing weather havoc.

Ibu is Sorry My Son

And someone has to tag me with this what you name your kids name. Thanks to screwboy and Nazrah baby. I contemplated writing this post for you will know that I made a mistake. A mistake costing another person's life long identity. :(.

If everyone else write in full glory of what they went through naming beautiful names to their children, I had to live my life slightly regretting how I name them.

First of all I do not have a theme of naming my children. Whatever suits my fancy goes. Perhaps this is the reason the mistake was made in the first place. What I wanted for my first two kids was something which means clever, so I scoured the name books. Haziq seemes like a good name. It means clever. And what more it rhymes with my lover's name. So haziq it is for my first son.

And because my lover had an Abdul, and I wanted to rhyme Haziq's name to lover's even more, add with the feeling of so much love for my lover and such an overwhelming feeling of love carrying his son, I put an Abdul in front of Haziq.

MEGA WRONG!

I feel like killing myself now! Stupid! Stupid me! Haziq is not a God's name (I was told that it is wrong to put an Abdul when it is not a God's name since it means hamba). I had nine months and even more since Haziq was an overdue baby and yet I wascareless enough to put an Abdul in front of his name.

Being in Arab country makes Haziq's name even more apparently wrong. I have received frowns and smirks when I mentioned his name. So much that I just drop the Abdul altogether.

So I am thinking of changing Haziq's. Just Haziq minus the Abdul. I am pestering lover to get us do it. The latest when he changes to IC. The only setback is they would still retain his old name. Then on his new IC and passport and whatever formal documentation would have this Haziq@Abdul Haziq. Like an email address. Bahhhhh!

Stupid me! Stupid me!

Batrisyia, meanwhile, is just Batrisyia. I have no problem with her name. I was worried she would have a hard time spelling it, but she seems ok now. I only had to educate her teachers. They kept spelling it Patricia.

Now Zachary's full name is Ahmad Zachary. Smart now eh no Abdul? I ran out of names which means clever and plus I was so into reading the stories of prophets when I conceived him, and I seem to like that name. (Prophet Zachary) The only thing is nama Zachary ni ramai pulak orang Yahudi guna. We are bias lots aren't we? In fact many of our prophets are Yahudi. Can we not use their names? I am not good at arguing this. Macam threading on thin line and cetek ilmu sebenarnya.

Cuma of courselah we Malays don't name our kids Aaron, Moses, Joseph, david. I understand that it is probably better we use the names yang lebih mirip dalam penggunaan AlQuran. Thus I guess I am guilty of that. And I had to use Zachary. This is because I didn't want to use Zakaria since many of my friends got doses of name calling of the first two syllabus of that name. And I allowed myself to conform to that. I should have known better.

And I admit, i wanted to glamorise that name. *Hangs head in shame* In fact if I had another daughter I would name her Hannah, and Eusoff for another boy. I am sticking to Ahmad Zachary. I like his name.

This is a difficult one to write for I am openly admitting my mistake to all of you. Hope you won't make the same Abdul mistakes.

Let me reintroduce my children to you
Haziq
Batrisyia
Ahmad Zachary

The best thing that ever happen to me.