Life is wonderful

This morning I was reading my friend's message in my whatsapp group.  She had written a beautiful story on her encounter with an-86 year old man at a post-office.  After reading her story I became motivated again to write and I checked my old blog.  Wow!  I was really surprised that the last time an entry was written was in 2013! 

I used to write quite often until I created an FB account.  Somehow my interest in FB has diminished too so it's time to revert to this page.  There are many events that are worth mentioning but my brain refuses to think on a beautiful Friday afternoon.  Maybe I should take a nap, play squash, and then a gush of ideas will probably fill my head.

See you soon.

The Pied Piper of Happiness.

                Once upon a time there was a town called Boring. Everyone in the town never had anything fun to do. All they ever did was work, work, work and work. Later a kid said, “This town is so boring! There is nothing to do in this town. How about we call the Pied Piper of Happiness?” All of the kids agreed. Then the next day they all went to the house of the Pied Piper of Happiness.

       After a couple of days, the kids returned with the pied piper. They were all dancing! It was an amazing sight. All of their parents watched them dance. Then, one of the adults nearest to them started dancing. Then another one started to dance. Soon, the whole town started to dance!

       After a few hours of dancing and playing, the pied piper told everyone that he was leaving. “But, we are bored. We need you to play music for us so we can dance and play,” said one of the kids. But the pied piper assured them that they will never be bored if they can just find something different, new and interesting to do every day. And the pied piper was right.

       Not long after that, they changed the name of the town from the Boring town to the Dancing town and they were never, ever bored again

THE END.

Salam and hello,
 Wow!  when was the last time I wrote in this blog?  Never mind.  Let's talk about now. I would love to be a prolific writer but there are so many things around that need my attention.  So I have made a decision to hand over this blog to my sweethearts to continue writing whatever they like.  It's quite hard to maintain 2 blogs especially when these blogs have to compete with FB :)  Ok kids, take good care of this blog.  Good luck!

End of Semester Party

I love surprises especially when it involves food! On the last day of our class meeting, my students from EOP section 34 gave me just that, a surprise end of semester party. In the beginning of the semester, everyone showed up on time but as time went by the trend started to change. At first only a few started showing up later than expected and then the number kept growing. So, on the last day, almost half of the class was late. I was wondering why and when I asked those who were in the class, they gave me the usual answer "they are on their way". Normally I would say something like " never mind, let's start and just ignore those who are late" or sometime it was harsher than that. Luckily on that particular day I didn't say anything harsh because later on I was told the reason they were late (mostly boys) because they were cooking! How sweet. Like I said, I am glad I didn't say anything bad because if I did I would have felt really terrible. They took time and great effort to actually make fried rice and curry puffs. Yes! Those boys made them! I was informed that Faisal made the curry puffs and Epi (Firdaus) made the fried rice. I am sure the others helped a lot too. Since the girls live on campus where they are prohibited from cooking, they couldn't cook anything but they provided drinks and I believe they bought a big brownie from the Secret Recipe too. Anyway, I was and still am very touched by their gesture. We had a blast on that day and you can see it through the following pictures. Thank you very much kids ;)

Above: the wonderful brownie

Epi's fried rice

Faisal's curry puffs

Syamil (our photographer) was busy taking pictures

Everyone was excited to get something

Look at Syamil, still busy taking pictures when everyone was going for food

Me, with the girls

Me, with the guys

The guys posing for a rugby magazine:)

MOHE Briefing

All good things must come to an end. I am not sure if working with company X is entirely a good thing for me but it certainly is coming to an end. But before the end is here, I was sent to attend MOHE's briefing on student data collection at PICC yesterday. The session was specifically held for all private higher learning institutions. Last year they did it according to zones and I attended the one for the east coast zone which was held in Terengganu. Due to financial reason the Ministry has decided to do it annually at PICC only.

In the letter of invitation, it was stated that the session would start at 8.30 am and end at 5.00 pm. The driver picked me up at 5.30 am and we raced to KL in the darkness of the dawn. As expected we were stuck in a jam at 3 places along the highway between Ampang and Cheras. The driver was not happy with the jam because he didn't want me to be late. Surprisingly I was more relax probably because I had a hunch that the organizing committee would serve breakfast first and I was also confident that I was not the only one to arrive late.

Sure enough, when I arrived around 9 am, every body was still enjoying food in the lobby and I was told that the briefing would start at 10 am. Well, patience is always a good virtue. Since I was starving, I helped myself with a plate of fried rice noodles and lots of fruits.

The first session was quite interesting and many participants asked questions at the end of it. Then all of us adjourned to the next ball-room for lunch at 12.30 pm. The letter said the lunch break would be from 1 to 2.30 pm but it was changed to 12.30 to 2 pm instead. I am not sure whether the second speaker was boring, or I was too full, or I was just sleepy because of starting the journey so early, I really had trouble keeping my eyes opened through out the afternoon session. I wonder if anyone noticed me nodding many times. Finally at 2.45 pm the briefing session was over. Guess what? There was more food! Many people die due to starvation around the world but in Malaysia people die due to the opposite reason.

Since I was still full from eating lunch, I remained seated in the hall with a few others in the row behind me. A few minutes later a guy who looked like a technician at PICC told us to go ahead and take the fressh flowers which were used to decorate the stage. He said " If they are taken, they will be thrown away". I thought the Ministry had financial shortage but why such wastful thing to do. They were beautiful peach colored roses and yellow daises. I took 6 stems of the roses home and they are in my kitchen at the moment.

Since I thought I would be ready at 5 pm, I told the driver to go to wherever he wanted to go as long as he came back by 4.30. He decided to go to our HQ in Cheras and I had to wait for an hour or so for him to get me. It was not too bad because I had a chance to talk to my colleague from different branches. It was raining really hard on the way home but thank God we arrived safely in Kuantan around 7.30 pm.

Free at Last

Teaching will not make us millionaires but it certainly gives more satisfaction than money can buy. After doing it seriously for the past 3 months, I finally finished grading the finals and keyed in the grades into the system which the University uses. Overall, the grades are fine and the curve looks normal. These are the wonderful students I taught last semester and I hope to get more of the same kind next semester. Happy holidays kids.

Exam Workshops

Usually workshops for final exam preparation would be held in KL due to its central location. However, this time around it was held in Kuantan, at the Grand Continental Hotel from March 5 until March 7. Between 60 and 70 lecturers were involved and I was selected as one of the secretariat members. The schedule was packed, from 8.30am until 11 pm, with short breaks in between. I thought of commuting from home to the hotel for the 3 days it was held, but it was kind of silly because KPTM provided us with rooms. It was such a torture looking at the refreshing and inviting swimming pool which was right outside of our workshop hall! Below are pictures of some of the participants. Any faces which are familiar to you?