Living with Sarah

Every time jumpa mesti ada kata-kata yang buat hati terasa. Selalu wonder, kenapa lah bila bercakap, ayat-ayat yang keluar mesti berbisa. Memang lah tahu, kadang-kadang unintentional. Tapi kalau dah setiap kali berjumpa terasa hati memanjang, apa pulak halnya. Itulah sebab bila berjumpa dah tak da rasa nak bercakap atau bersembang. Diam saja. Sepatah tanya, sepatah lah jawab. Dalam hati berdoa semoga conversation akan habis begitu saja, janganlah dipanjang-panjangkan. Sebabnya? Nak elak dari terasa hati. Bila dah terasa hati, nak hilangkan bisanya makan berminggu. Yang selalu keluar ialah bab-bab berkait dengan financial status. Dulu masa keadaan kewangan sangat kukuh, pakai Volvo, tak pernah pulak tanya business ok ke tak. Sekarang pantang berjumpa asyik bertanya. Mula-mula dulu selalulah meluahkan rasa - dengan harapan dapatlah minta pendapat, paling-paling pun, nak bermanja. Tapi baru cerita 2-3 ayat, kata-kata dipotong dengan ceramah. Ceramah pulak bukan mendatangkan semangat, m...

This Ramadhan has been a very quiet month. Most of us are focusing on mysa. We are still working on paperwork to submit. Our agreement has not gone through yet. A simple letter has got to go to the panel for approval. And that will take what? Weeks? I pray everyday that everything will go easily and speedily. Reason for the delay? Change of project advisor. I'm trying to fit the new advisor in for a couple of roles too. We need child education psychologist and instructional designer with experience in children software development. Both were raised during pitching and yet we could not amend the budget for the new requirement. I repeatedly told myself - JK Rowling didn't need a child psychologist to verify her books for them to be bestsellers! Seriously. Why can't creative content be let loose for creativity instead of bogged down by "experts" opinion?

I'm just mumbling. About life, work, love, hate, likes, dislikes... I must admit, I am not perfect. I expect too high of other people, I expect perfection, I expect people to change. While I myself don't even achieve that high expectation or perfection or even change. For that I apologise. Because standards are high in my books. And the struggle to achieve the standards will turn out to be rewarding. Painful but rewarding. After all, why be a normal person when you can put yourself a notch higher. I guess this tendency to push myself is simply an escape from the harsh reality of bad experience and memory. I have very good memory. Especially painful memories. And there are just too many people hurting that every day I wake with a prayer - that Allah will make this day easier and better for me than yesterday. Nowadays, I believe that prayer has started to be realised in the way I approach life. There are many things that I don't care about now. Some people have been totally...

A huge thank you to my Angah for the buka puasa treat last Saturday. Just our two families. I brought along Linda - 2-in-1 sekali dengan our little company makan-makan. Alhamdulillah... pun dibelanja juga :). Semoga murah rezeki dan dirahmati Allah selalu. PICC buffet spread? So so wide variety. We stuffed ourselves like crazy. When the stomach couldn't take it anymore, I told myself - "I am so never going to this kind of Ramadhan buffet anymore!". Yeah, right!  Aliyah dengan Kak Ekin dia. She took one huge plate of spaghetti and finished it off. Lepas tu terus kenyang nak makan other food.  Meja dah penuh dengan food & drinks. Azan lama lagi... That's my plate of nasi ulam dengan lauk kampung - puyuh goreng, patin masak tempoyak, sambal belacan kedondong, ikan pekasam, kerabu daging, rusuk asam pedas... All in one plate! (Mak ai, kecur air liur bila teringat!)  Angah's family memang "kaki" makan kambing. Anak beranak usung pinggan penuh ...

Suka hatilah... or whatever... I am so over caring. And doing things for people's sake. And putting other people first while my needs and wants are put aside. Because more often than not, when things don't go the way people want it, you get blamed. Oh, I make faces. I said the wrong things. I don't let people eat or drink whatever they wished. I don't let people buy whatever they like. What about the things I always put up with? Other people making faces? Other people saying the wrong things? The sacrifices I make so that life can go on the way it should be? I will give you your wish. And good luck with that. Because the moment I say "suka hatilah", it means a huge chunk of caring has been just cast off and thrown into a ditch. Know what, look into the ditch and you can see a few huge chunks I have thrown before.

Alhamdulillah, bertemu sekali lagi dengan Ramadhan al Mubarak. Doa paling simple untuk bulan yang mulia ni - semoga ianya lebih baik dari sebelum ini. Kalau tahun lepas rasanya lebih baik dari tahun sebelumnya, maka tahun ini kena usaha supaya lebih baik dari yang terbaik yang dilalui tahun lepas. Pagi tadi sahur yang sangat simple - tomyam ayam dan telur dadar. Aliyah pulak makan kuew teow goreng dari pasar malam semalam yang dia tak habis sebab pedas. Pagi ni panaskan semula tambah kicap manis. Hopefully kurang pedasnya. Quite worried juga ni sebab I don't think the food is that filling. Semoga Aliyah tahan untuk berpuasa penuh hari ni. Macam tahun lepas, petang ni insyaallah pergi beli satu lauk berkuah kat restaurant blok ni. I seriously don't believe in buying lauk from pasar Ramadhan - especially from those yang berniaga cuma setahun sekali ni. Then, maybe cari kuih sejenis-dua. That's it. Balik masaklah sayur + satu lauk goreng. Cukup. Yang penting perut kenyang ...

Mimi gave birth to another set of kittens last Sunday morning. Bangun pagi, intai kat dalam carrier, tengok-tengok ada 5 little kitties. Tiga white & yellow, the other 2 grey & black. This time around I memang dah tak larat nak jadikan toilet bawah sebagai hospital ward. So, they are all outside at the patio. So, Mimi - ni last OK. Udah-udah la tu beranak! Sangat-sangat fragile lagi...

I have so much to do, I just don't know where to start. It all stemmed from a fruitful Saturday last weekend. We conducted our first activity for mysa - brainstorm session. Invited guests were mostly ex-colleagues who represented roles of "parents" and "researchers". My nephew Ijjul came with a friend - they provided good point of view from "students". The session gave very good insights on what kids of our target audience might be interested in. We also got comments and feedback from showing our storyboard - there are a lot we need to improve especially the flow of content. I hope our hospitality - drinks, cakes and pizza - compensated their willingness to spare almost 3 hours of their Saturday free time to make mysa a better product. Plus some token and gifts. Alhamdulillah. I need to document all my scribbles. Going back a few hours - the day actually started with my good friend Yatt coming over. After breakfast, she stayed to sign some document...

Selalunya lepas Aliyah pergi sekolah (Abahnya hantar), I will spend a few quite minutes watching the remaining of Muqqaddimah on TV9 (from 6.50-7.00am). I think it is such a brilliant program. In just 30 minutes, there are always a lot to be learned and shared. Walaupun dapat tengok hujung-hujung saja tapi selalu ada recap. And the credit would have a nice song :). There's one episode, I can't remember who delivered the talk, on the topic "Bersyukur". Ustaz Mohd Hanafiah kot. Apparently, macam mana pun kita selalu bersyukur, selalunya memang tak cukup bersyukur. Seriously. Setakat ucapan Alhamdulillah bila benda baik terjadi memang biasa kan? Tapi kalau benda buruk terjadi? Patutnya kena bersyukur juga sebab ada banyak hikmah disebaliknya. Contohnya kalau demam - kena bersyukur sebab Allah tarik sebentar nikmat sihat supaya kita selalu bersyukur dengan kesihatan baik yang kita miliki. I read Prof Mohd Kamil's blog - anak dia tak dapat 5A pun for his UPSR. Malah ...

Entrepreneurs memang jarang ada hari cuti. Weekends pun kerja. Tapi kadang-kadang weekdays pulak tak kerja :). Since Aliyah was off to her camp, I scheduled a meeting with an instructional designer for our mysa project on Saturday morning. Such a good meeting. An eye-opener on a lot of stuff especially on e-learning and courseware development. I decided that she must come on board for our project to oversee the implementation instead of just consultation. Insyaallah if her fees are alright. On Sunday pulak, time to work on baju kurung for kids business. My SIL tempah baju untuk anak-anak plus dia sekali. So, off to buy the materials. Alhamdulillah ada stock lagi.  Aliyah came back on Sunday afternoon. How I miss her! She seemed to have such a good time. Nasib baik dia balik tanpa pasir penuh melekat kat baju. I already thought I have to spend the weekend getting rid of sand from her clothes. Insyaallah semoga berjaya dapat ilmu while having fun with her friends.