Ramadhan at my office

We welcome Ramadhan with Ihya Ramadhan programme. Tazkirah, congregational prayer and Tadarus session with the Hon Minister.

(Photo : Nora)

I didnt expect we are going to receive these generous gifts. Alhamdulillah. Tafsir AlQuran, a few kitabs, dates and bubur lambuk. 

Thank you Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Foundation of UAE for the dates.

As usual, we have Tadarus session everyday. I was in the same group as last year. 

There are weekly ilminar as well. But I havent had a chance to attend any of them yet. 

There was bubur lambuk giveaway by the Hon Minister and the rest of the top management. The bubur lambuk was extremely tasty!

Second week of Ramadhan, my office had organised Majlis Iftar for the whole organisation. No photo for the session. If anyone happened to take a photo that night, please email it to me. 

Apart from that, my office also provide iftar on daily basis for officers who need to stay back at the office to finish their work. How thoughtful is that? There is tazkirah session before iftar and they will perform Maghrib prayer together.. 

The Khatam AlQuran session will be held this week. I hope I can make it in the afternoon since baby Nazmi's monthly check up is in the morning. Have I told you I work in the best office ever?

Kedah : Love Letter #2

As I packed my belongings and gifts for my kids, pretty excited to go home, I noticed this cute note from Nabil. It was there at my luggage from Day One.

I slipped in my business card in that clear slot before we departed for the airport. He must've slipped in the note while we were in the car.

 He is still confuse between Kepada and Daripada.

Kedah : Meeting

I am in Alor Setar, Kedah now.
It is already 12 midnight. Still in the coordination meeting. I am freaking hungry.

And I have to be here tomorrow, Sunday at 8am.
For the actual meeting.

I love the interior of Wisma Darulaman. 

Love Letter

Nowadays, I received love letters from Nabil on daily basis.

Let's wait until Nazreen and Nazran could write properly. I will get triple the amount of love letters from them. 

#Useful tip - snap a photo of each letter. Keep them only in digital format. 

Medan : The food

I apologised for publishing food photos in the month of Ramadhan.

These are the food I had during my short stay in Medan.

My lunch. Nasi ayam penyet dengan cabe ijo with hot lemon juice. 

My dinner. Nasi ayam penyet *again* with mango juice. Takeaway.

The next day, me and my friend, Lim had our lunch together.

I had bakso with soursop juice.

Lim had soto with avocado juice.

I bought these. Anyone wanted to taste Luwak Coffee, let me know. I am giving them away for free since I bought plenty. I think I have another two packets left.

A 15-minutes cookies

I made cookies using a cake mix. 5 minutes to mix, 10 minutes to bake.

Sports Day 2013

I love going to the kids' Sports Day. I love to watch the colourful march past, the sport teams' tents decoration and of course, the track event! Primary school students nowadays are so tiny. When you see those cute tiny little kids (I am using three adjectives, I know) running really fast, competing against each other across the field, it is beyond cute.

Nabil joined the march past for the opening ceremony.

Nazreen competed in 3 sport/games. 

Nazran went back and forth between the field and food stalls.

Nazmi stayed at home with my mom since my husband was away for a photoshoot in Perak.

Nazreen won 1 silver for 4x25m and 2 bronzes for telematch games. He was so proud with the medals and he didnt took it off the whole day. No one else could touches the medals, except for baby Nazmi.

Medan : Signages

One of my favourite things to do abroad. Taking photo of signages.

Medan : The Meeting

I had mentioned in a few entries about my trip to Medan, Indonesia. I was attending an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Workshop on Attaining Bogor Goals, one of the workshops/meeting in conjunction with the Third APEC Senior Officials' Meeting or SOM III.

They were a lot of banners and buntings all over Medan, promoting APEC's SOM III.

Look for this trishaw and you can get a free ride around Medan city. They turned their ordinary rides into official becak using only buntings.

Come on! SIX more!

It is going to be 70k after I published this entry.

(EDITED)

NOT EVEN ONE MINUTES.

Cat and cake

(Click on the image to enlarge)

One of the Cake Bros (passionbite) is my best friend. 

Google them up and order some delicious cakes now! 

For you or for your cat.

The truth is...

The truth is, I have prepared for Raya long time ago because I didnt want to do a last-minute preparation. 

I had re-arranged our dining area, hobby area and living room. The floor is spotless clean and shiny. The cushion and sofa covers are clean and they smell like lavender. I took out all cooking and dining wares and clean them because I plan to re-locate them, to give way to our new oven and deep freezer. Everything. We have done everything.

BUT. 

A few roof tiles were broken during a thunderstorm in May and our roof was leaking. 

It was so bad that you can see the sky when you stand in our hobby area and looked up. Yes, THE sky. Now, imagine how it will be during heavy downpour? 

Have you seen waterfall? Or perhaps a broken pipe where the water is running very fast and you couldnt stop it?

That was what happened in our hobby area. And hallway/reading area. And the third bedroom aka our walk in wardrobe. FLOODED. Like really flooded with filthy i-dont-know-why-it-is-so-black and smelly water.

There goes two sofas, all CLEAN cooking and dining wares, bookshelves, ALL CLOTHES INSIDE THE BEDROOM - WE ARE TALKING ABOUT 8 WARDROBES, two cute reading sofas, tables, laminated timber flooring, ceiling (notice the broken ceiling in the hallway, in the photo below?).... And the list goes on. 

After learning that cleaning the mess is not an overnight work, we just packed the necessities and went to my parent's house. We cant let the kids move around in this dirty house.

We went back to our house more than a month later, just because I was worried the authority will start the cloud seeding process to produce rain, to combat the haze. My husband repaired the roof with Aril's help. My other neighbour helped to clean the whole house (below). That's what neighbours are for. Two days after they repaired the roof, it started to rain....phew.

Out of three areas affected, only one area is still leaking. I guess my husband and Aril had done a good job saving the hobby area and our walk in wardrobe. We still have problem with our hallway/reading area... Anyway, life goes on. WE JUST LET IT BE. I have another 30 days to make the house looks good again.

I really hope to get the house ready for Raya, of course, with the baldi in the hallway :)

HAPPY RAMADHAN EVERYBODY!

Sharing Experience in Myanmar & APEC book

I have attended a talk by Tan Sri Razali Ismail, the former United Nation Secretary-General's Special Envoy in INTAN. He talked about his experience dealing with Burmese junta’s military occupation of Kokang and his mandate to facilitate the implementation of the UN General Assembly resolution 54/186 (google it up).

I never failed to visit the bookshop every time I went to INTAN. Upon entering the bookshop, I experience goosebumps, as usual. Has anyone else experienced goosebumps by looking at huge amount of books? Please leave your comment here. I need to know whether it is normal (whether I AM normal).

I bought this interesting book since I need to attend an APEC workshop in a few days. I read it at the airport. 

In the flight, all the way to Medan. 

And in my hotel room.

I met the writer of the book in Medan. He was one of the speakers for the workshop :)

Lafarge's 60th Anniversary

I had an opportunity to prepare a speech and accompanied my Deputy Minister to the 60th Lafarge Malaysia's Anniversary Celebration last Saturday. It was held at Lafarge's Rawang Plant.

I came early because I am not familiar with Rawang. I parked at the visitors' parking areas and they provide a shuttle to the venue. Their meet and greet staff as well as the drivers are so friendly. 

It was truly a joy listening to the Deputy Minister's speech. *cough* I drafted it *cough*

It was a well-organised event with excellent MC (Yasmin Yusoff) and good food. I didnt take photos of food that day because we were busy discussing about cement during lunch. Cement is such an interesting topic!

And it was in the news the day after. ngeeee....

I suffered from a gravelly, hoarse voice after I came back from the plant. I totally lost my voice yesterday. Although it is getting better, but I still cant speak properly today. I think the whatever dust at the plant augmented the problem of hoarse voice. People told me to drink a lot of plain water and tamarind juice. I will do that.

I hope it will heal soon. I really need to talk.

Medan : Nasi Goreng Gila

At first, I thought it was just a gimmick.

But it turned out that this food is actually exist all over Indonesia. They topped the fried rice with a huge portion of stir-fry vegetable and beef / chicken /  fish, hence the word "gila".

Nasi Goreng = Fried Rice
Gila = Madness / Crazy

Rp11,000 = approx. RM3.50 / USD1.15

Welcoming the month of Ramadhan

This morning my office had organised a makan-makan to welcome the holy month of Ramadhan. 

I made chocolate moist cupcakes with Snicker bar inside (I ran out of Milo so I need a chocolatey substitute - Snicker bar is the only thing available at 1am, apart from chocolate chips), mashed potato (I planned to bake a sherperd's pie but I didnt have the main ingredient, so let's just eat the topping!) and apple crumble.

I bake the cuppies and boil the potato before I went to bed. This morning, I made the rest - apple crumble, topping for cuppies and added in butter & salt to the mashed potato.

One patient Atuk with Ben 10 and aliens

It is not easy to live in the same house with Ben10, Humungousaur, Spidermonkey and Swampfire because they have different superpowers and abilities.

It is more challenging when one of them has a mix of Swampfire and tiny Superman's DNA.

Afternoon Matinee Show

I just came back from an Afternoon Matinee Show at my office. The hall has been transformed into  a dark and cold mini theatre.

For those who wanted to relax, they opted for bean bags. 

For those who prefer to sit, they went for comfortable settee, huge sofa, office chair or banquet chairs. These are my friends who just joined this office this week - Karimah (brown), Fatima (blue) and Lim (the shy guy). Welcome to this cool office!

They also provide tables at the back for people who came in group. Mamak-style. You cant see much, but you get the idea.

Since I have a lot of work to do, I just sat at the back with the technician and watch the movie from their screen. I didnt want to interrupt others with my [bright] laptop. I know you cant see much there but the screen up there is the technician's and below is mine. I manage to complete a speech for the Hon Deputy Minister during the show.

The best thing about this show is.... THE FREE FLOW OF...

Popcorn. Of course. 
And cotton candy.

Ice blended beverages.

Takoyaki. Om nom nom. Free flow. I repeat. FREE. FLOW.

And pizzas. They are from a pizzeria at the ground floor. (yes, we have a pizzeria at our office). You can just take one box and eat it anywhere.

I just love my office.