~3 years ago & now (Part II)~

Day 1 (Continued)

[Continued from the previous blog post]

Out of the Luxembourg garden, we saw a map and again we found out we were going on the wrong direction. We finally reached the Panthéon after a few minutes of walking.

We didn't manage to get inside the building though. Tak tau kenapa, the guard refused me in and I didn't understand a word he's saying.

Finally for the day, we went to the Arc de Triomphe. ^^

At last dapat gak pegi situ. It had been a dream for me once upon a time to get there.. and I can't remember why. Not the Eiffel tower, not Versailles but the Arc that I really wanted to go to. Pelik lak rasa.

Izzit just me or am I getting more berisi? =S

The sun set after a while, so I took the opportunity to take pictures of it before calling it a day and went back home with sore legs and an exhausted body:

Sunset in Paris C=

Oh. It also was our first sighting of the Eiffel Tower since we got here, but since it was already late and our legs were screaming in pain, we decided to go there tomorrow.

Eiffel tower berkelip2 di waktu malam.

On the way home, I came across a librairie, and suddenly remembered something. I went inside and asked the shopkeeper for a particular book as a souvenir to a certain bookworm I know of. As expected, they have it. But I didn't buy it yet since I don't know if that certain bookworm already has that book or not, if yes then it would be a waste. So I decided I'll ask la bookworm if she already has one before buying.

Day 2

Last night's sleep made our body feel more refreshed. We went on according to plan and the next stop was: Eiffel Tower ^^. So we went to le Tour de Eiffel station, tak ingat by RER or Metro, but we had to change trains in between. Oh I guess I didn't tell you that one of the trains was a double decker train? Naturally we just HAD to sit at the top floor seats x). Upon arrival, we had to walk a bit before reaching the base of the Eiffel Tower.

2nd floor of RER train.

 The base of the Eiffel tower

We bought the tickets to the 2nd observatory floor (the first has a cafe if I'm not mistaken). Puas menangkap gambar situ I bought another ticket to go further on to the summit. Faisal refused to follow though, since he wanted to conserve his euros and that floor is already enough for him.

 Panoramic view of Paris, with Musée de la Marine at the middle

I got back down to where Faisal was and bought souvenirs before we went back to ground level. We walked on to the Parc du Champs de Mars (on the opposite direction of the panoramic picture above) to get a full picture of the tower (the third photo with Eiffel tower above) and we reached (I think) the Ecole Militaire.

I don't think we can get on that building though.. even though I wanted to. Anyways we then went back and I looked for another Librairie since la bookworm said she still hasn't obtained that book yet. I found the book at a different store, and for a better deal: €0.50 more for a hard cover, brillant. This is the book in question:

I don't understand heck of what is written there except for a few simple words. I bet that particular bookworm is reading these with glee and excitement..

To La Bookworm: Sorry for previewing it already ok? I just want to torture you a bit by giving you a sneak peek and making you teruja dan tak sabar menunggu xP. It will take quite some time before it starts its long journey to Malaisie.

We got back, rest for a bit, solat and I went to the McD for some internet. As the sun set at around 8:30pm (local time) I got back, solat and we went off to see Paris at night. Well more like Eiffel Tower at night:

Day 3

On the third day, our destination was only one for the whole day, Disneyland Paris ^.^

Our 3-day Metro+RER ticket is only valid to Zone 3 and the stop to Disneyland Paris is at Zone 5. So we got off at the edge of Zone 3 and bought return tickets to the station.

And there we were, at Disneyland Paris. ^^ It was FUN indeed. Much better than Genting I would say (and that is to be expected). Rides dia best and the place was magnifique. Unfortunately Faisal has a problem with motion sickness, so he refused to go on any of the roller coasters. So I had to ride on them alone <.< .. kesian gak rasa but... whattodo. He also refused to go on the Tower of Terror (kinda like a Solero Shot but with a theme and in a building) even though I tried convincing him that it doesn't have anything to do with motion sickness since it won't involve any sharp swerves or 360-degree spins. His alasan this time? Gayat. Oh well. The ride should have been better if not because of this group of kecoh french people at the back row bising2 and menyanyi2 at times which ruined the fun <.< Even the staff had to give an announcement to us (which can be translated) to jangan bising sangat. I don't think it's gonna be easy to describe how our trip there was, and since a picture is worth a thousand words anyways, I'll let them do the talking:

More pictures will be posted on Facebook for our Day 3 and Day 4 trips. I'll put the link here after they're uploaded.

Day 4

Our final day in Paris. The train will be departing at 9+ pm so there was ample time to go for another trip somewhere. We checked out of the hotel and went to Gare du Nord to keep our bags in lockers. We then took the RER to Musée d'Orsay, crossed the river there and walked on to the Musée du Louvre. You guessed right, our final destination was to visit one of the largest museums in the world. We planned on visiting each part of the museum before going back.

..but they weren't kidding when they said it's one of the largest museums in the world. After finishing up to the 1st floor (it has floors -1 (LG), 0 (G), 1 and 2) exhaustion and leg cramps prevented us from moving on, so we skipped the whole of the topmost floor. It was TOO. BIG. We actually planned on "ok kita pergi Musee d'Orsay lak kalo sempat lagi lepas habis Louvre". It's not about time, it's about getting yourself killed by nonstop walking. The trip was ok, although the Islam exhibition was closed that day.. Here are some pictures of the exhibition, and again I'll put the album link here after I upload the museum pictures on Facebook.

After Louvre, we visited the Paris Mosque. Heh seronok lak nampak masjid.. Since Cambridge doesn't have one.. We went there for Zuhur and Asar prayers, but we didn't manage to find the place to take our wudhu'. Tried asking the keeper there but he doesn't speak English when we asked him, and he asked if we can speak Arabic instead. At least I studied Arabic during my school years and not French.. so I chose that as our medium of communication with that man, and yeah we got to where the wudhu' place is, performed our prayers and went out for a very late lunch.

The Grande Mosquée de Paris.

When we got back to Gare du Nord, we thought our train was at 9:30 or 9:55 pm and sempat buat benda lain dulu, before we found out it was at 9:13 pm. We rushed to the station, through the counter and through the UK border control in order to catch the train. We got down and realised we were at coach 18, which was 13 coaches away from ours @_@. We had to run and got on in time... PHEW. Got to London around 10:30++ pm and got back to good ol' Cambridge the next morning.

Good to be back in Cambridge. "Yeah where else can you find cows in the city centre other than here eh?"

....the taxi driver was not kidding:

There ye go, COWSSS!! Doesn't that scream KAMPUNG to you?

So that was my 4-day trip to Paris. One thing I'd say is, in my opinion it's a city where you'll most probably want to visit just once in your lifetime. If I do have to go there again in the future, I'll go see Versailles, which we didn't manage to during the course of the four days.

Au revoir Paris.

~3 years ago & now (Part I)~

It was three years ago. [Well, kinda.]

A boy looked at the Place Charles de Gaulles, Paris, from above through the monitor of his laptop. Utilising the free innovative Google Earth (TM) software, he set his eyes for a bird's eye view on that certain spot in Paris to look at one of France's national monument, the Arc de Triomphe (de l'Étoile). He was somehow awed by the triumphal arch which dated back to the time of Napoleon. It sat majestically at the focal point of twelve roads which meet at a roundabout circling about it, amidst the complicated network of streets and roads all over the city. The sheer complexity of the road network in Paris can be compared to a spider web, or more like cracks fully propagated across a whole windshield of a car (yeah, I know the comparison sounds terrible). He looked at the satellite view of the historic city over and over again... from a monument to another historical monument.. from the Arc to the Eiffel Tower.. and he wondered if he will ever reach that part of the earth, thousands of miles (and RM) away from his home country.. thus he just sat there and stared at the image on his monitor in admiration and envy.. [it sounds sad, or even pitiful, I know].. for he believed he might never be able to set foot on that land.. but little did he expect what God had planned for him.

Though nowadays we can just use maps.google.com. We can even get street views.

Three years later.. [Roughly.. kinda]

He walked (and even managed to get a bit lost) through the (crazy) network of roads he had seen years before. He saw the Arc he was so interested in years before..and he confirmed its existence using his three senses (two were irrelevant. No prizes for any correct guesses to what they are). He was.. in Paris.

Never had he expected to be able to get there, but he actually got to just a few days ago =]

To see the monuments with his own eyes, to feel them, just being there, and most importantly getting there with his own strength (accompanied by a friend, Faisal) is like a dream come true. He might not be a history enthusiast like some people he knows of but he can't help admiring the tales behind the objects of the past and the art portrayed by them. It took a great amount of time, hard work and creative minds to produce such results which survived through history.

The author in front of the Arc de Triomphe, Place Charles de Gaulle, Paris.

Ok that was a very long introduction from me. Long story short: I got to Paris and had been to almost all the historical places I've once dreamt of going.

It was a four days three nights visit from 19th to the 22nd of April last week, me and Faisal (who happens to be my kakngah's classmate when they were in Standard 1/2, the bro-in-law of a friend here in Cambridge, the son of my parents' kenalan when they were still at Sheffield, and the cousin of a friend of my bestest friend).

Faisal Badaruddin, my Paris travelling partner.

We stayed in a hotel near Stade de France. Although people were unable to come out of the UK due to the volcanic ash incident, we were able to, thanks to Eurostar trains and rails which were unaffected by it. Unfortunately my bestest friend did not manage to come although she planned to on the 20th due to that particular incident =[.

Overall in my opinion, Paris is not the cleanest city in the world. Every RER and Metro (the underground trains) stations I went to have some sort of pungent smell in a corner. The stations themselves did not look like it had been cleaned regularly.. Memang nampak agak kotor jer..
and most people I saw are quite rude. In the train I saw people putting their feet on the seats opposite them, and refused to put it down when another person (with a huge suitcase) gestured politely so that he can sit [more like ignored him totally and not even looking]. I know I can't make conclusions just from the behaviours of some people I saw there, but that was the image I got from them. I did meet a lot of polite and nice people there though.
It is also expected that most people there can not (or would not) speak English. I had to communicate quite a lot with few French phrases and sentences that I learnt from that small Collins French phrasebook. Some of the most frequently used were: "Vous parlez anglais?" (and hoped for the rare and relieving "oui" as the answer or "yes, I do") "Je ne parle français pas", "combien?", "merci (beaucoup)", "oui/non", "bon jour/soir/nuit", "excusez moi", "pardon". I can't expect to know how to speak french just from 4 days of staying there anyways.. unlike someone I know of who learnt it at the Alliance Française years back.

Day 1

We arrived at the Paris Gare du Nord station and got a teeny bit lost walking and looking for our hotel. Turned out it was FAR away..and we were walking on the wrong direction anyways... So we got back to the station and took the RER to La Plaine-Stade de France and to our hotel. We got out right after settling in, got to the McD nearest there and used its free WiFi (the hotel only had paid WiFi, which was very expensive) to plan out our sightseeing destinations. Faisal wrote on the map while I searched for any relevant information [and getting the much-needed dosage of YM and FB].

The first destination? The Notre Dame Cathedral.
Yeah it's a cathedral. The only reasons I find it interesting to visit was of the art both inside and outside the place, and that it was the setting for the old Disney classic The Hunchback of Notre Dame which I've watched countless times during my childhood days.

Notre Dame Cathedral (Top) and the Disney Classic Hunchback of Notre Dame (below), where you can see the cathedral at the background.

Getting inside was free, but I don't think it is if you want to get to the top floors, so we only toured the ground floor. The art was interesting, but the longer we are there the creepier we felt, so we just took pictures around the building and got out. We were walking towards the station before we found this:

*Gasps* a crypt? Just for your information:
crypt [krɪpt]

1. An underground vault or chamber, especially one beneath a church that is used as a burial place. [thefreedictionary.com]

A tomb? Creepy yet interesting... We hesitated but I managed to pull Faisal with me down the stairs and we reached the front gate. We pushed and pulled. It was locked.
Then I saw a door at the side, with a card reader.. "Might be the staff entrance" I voiced out. Our curiosity was pushing us to get in.. and suddenly the door opened and someone came out and went off the stairs. I blocked the door from closing, and asked Faisal nak masuk tak? We decided it was worth a try, if somehow we were found and told off that it was not a place to be visited at that time we will just oblige and get out, no big deal.. and the guy who got out cam tak heran pon ngan kitorang. After experimented a bit with the door to make sure we will not be locked inside, we walked through the passage. It was quite brightly lit, and near the middle I smelled some sort of perfume.. at the end was a turn to the right.. and I didn't know what to expect. It was already getting eerie with all the drawings on the walls of the passage... We went on and we saw them...
..arranged beautifully in rows..


rows and rows of...


....

.... cars.



We had apparently stumbled upon the Notre Dame carpark. Fun indeed.

Hati terasa geram tatkala merasa diperbodohkan.. Walhal ia adalah salah kami sendiri..

Can't deny it was very funny at the time.. we got out while cursing to ourselves and the innocent designer of the place.

Next we went to our next destination, le Panthéon near Luxembourg. Mula2 tersalah jalan (again) though, and got to the Luxembourg garden (Jardin du Luxembourg). Ok la gak, dapat tengok the Senate building and a LOT of people bersantai.. either lying down on the grass or sitting down on chairs provided while reading a book, studying or just chatting with friends.

Blood-red tulips 8)

 People in front of the Senate building.

They even have donkey carriages!

*Oops. Gotta rush for lunch at the house of a visiting Prof from UM to Cambridge.. a bus ride away to Longstanton. Cerita terpaksa cut short here, will continue when I get back.*


[End of Part 1]

~New Life~

I bought a new sim card, Lebara which allows me to have low rates for international calls and it charges 5p/min for calls to Malaysia. Why? Because I realised I need some way to contact my family other than online methods. SMSes take time and due to its "Short" Messaging System we will always try to cut out words, leaving out information in the end. So I figured out I need cheap international calls. Kinda troublesome to use though, since I only have 1 PDA, so I have to swap with my usual O2 sim card each time I want to call Malaysia.

My kaklang had been pregnant for quite some time and had been warded due to complications for more than a month. I kept wanting for updates on her condition, but knowing my family, they rarely did. I had to keep asking and the answer will always be the same, "dia ok jer". So I called her last Friday evening (her midnight) just to ask about her and talk to her. The call ended after 55 mins, one of my longest phone calls ever, but it was worth it. I can tell she was happy hearing from me and sebab dapat gak gosip. Bosan gile kot duduk kat wad sebulan lebih... She was scheduled for a Caesarian section on Monday the 19th so I wanted to have a long talk with her before that day.

That night I was packing up for my Paris trip, crossing out items from my list while browsing stuff (mainly Facebook and chat) when suddenly I got a message in my Yahoo! Messenger from my bro Zayd. He said that kaklang had just been brought to the operating room. I panicked for a while. I knew I told her not to laugh that much during our 55 min call, nanti terberanak situ gak kang... and there she was that night, heading to the OR. Kakngah called me and I called her back using Lebara. She expressed her worries because kaklang was bleeding quite a lot, and they were going to have an emergency C-section. It should also be mentioned that no one from the family was with kaklang at the moment. My parents and siblings were at home, my bro-in-law was in Penang, my grandparents were in Parit Buntar and kakngah was at Johor. I pressed them to go and accompany kaklang there while I was sitting on my chair, tak keruan. I prayed for her, did solat hajat and read Yasiin for her, so that everything will go smoothly, successfully and safely for her and her baby.
After so many minutes which seemed like hours, at 7:50 am Malaysian Time 17 April 2010, my first nephew was born. Abah and mama's first grandchild. A new life born onto this earth. Alhamdulillah.... I was very thankful it went fine.. and now I'm an uncle. =D Congratzz kaklang and abang lang!!! A hectic night indeed...

The next day I went to London and then to another city at the South East of the UK to see my bestest friend, spent the night there and back to London (where I am currently). I'm spending the night here before going on my train tomorrow at 6:55am to Paris with Faisal.


-Oh. Another thing. Referring to my previous blog post under "Small World". When I thought the world might just not be any smaller than that, I was told something yesterday which . It seems that the friend of a friend that I was stalking before on FB and met in London was actually Faisal's COUSIN. @_@'' And I'm sleeping at his house in London with Faisal..

The world is just too small.


So that should be it for now.
Au revoir.

~Of the world and depression~

Small World

It's nothing new really, but the world is indeed a small place. Even when you're aware of it, it is still hard to believe at times.

A friend of mine here suddenly asked me whether I want to go to Paris (a month ago). Apparently he wants me to accompany his visiting brother-in-law who wants to tour UK and Europe, but since he's attached to a hospital he can't accompany the said bro-in-law. I've known this friend for quite some time, he's doing final year Medicine, and he's a former senior of a UNiM 'junior' of mine back when they were in KMS (i think). Since dah kenal him and his wife, bila dia ajak tuh I didn't really think much to accept. Then I got to know it would only be me and his bro-in-law berdua. Oh well, takper la..
Then came the interesting part. Rupa2nya Faisal (the bro-in-law) knows my kakngah. They were classmates waktu darjah 1.. and rupanya his mum (the wife's mum gak) was mama's kenalan waktu kat Sheffield dulu. Kakngah tak ingat him but abah and mama still kenal the parents. 


Last Sunday I went bowling with some more friends, and Zetty suddenly asked me: "Your sister dulu kat KMKP kan dulu (Kolej Matrikulasi Kuala Pilah)? Zunayrah ek nama dia.. I rasa I kenal lah your sister tuh.. Tersedar waktu nampak gambar dia masa komen dalam FB. Dia tak kenal I sangat kot, dia kat blok A dulu." .... another one who knows kakngah. Kakngah apparently tak kenal though, as Zetty expected.. but yang paling rasa tak tahannya semalam suddenly kak Airina (another friend here) asked me about KAKNGAH. @_@ pohal ekau popular sangat nih? Again, they knew each other when they were in KMKP jugak... she said she kenal sangat kakngah... She and her husband were in KMKP too. Haven't asked kakngah about it but.. as kakngah said it: "pehal suma orang kenal kita tapi kita tak kenal diorang ek?".


A long while ago I stalked a friend of my friend on his FB. I heard quite a lot about him from that friend so I got curious. So banyak gak la tau about him from my friend and also hasil stalking. After a long time, I came to the UK and went to London for a makan2 session at some friends' house... and who do you think was one of the people yang menyambut my kedatangan? That unknowing (stalked) friend of my friend tuh. x)
Masa mula2 nampak dia I dah kenal dah, and an evil [nakal] plan concocted in my mind. So mula ah berkenalan ngan dia and rapat sket, then when we went for a walk at London, I started revealing stuff I know of him, little by little.. Heheheheheheeheh. If you asked me he did look a bit freaked out (who wouldn't?), but he insisted he's not, he's still cool jer. ;P


Another case was also during a FB stalking of my old schoolmate, a 'twin' of mine who's studying in Ireland. I checked out his photos and then I saw a photo of him and his friends, and one of them whom I sooo recognise, my jiran depan rumah back in Malaysia (yeah, you KA =P). Rupanya diorang belajar kat tempat sama.. found that out from their FB info. When I saw that I figured I will not be shocked anymore of any other 'small world' incidents. The world is indeed, small.




Back to normal, everyday life


Nothing special happened today, except that my supervisor gave me work to do which he said it would be excellent if I were to finish it by the end of the month. You can guess it will not be easy, doing stuff in C++ and incorporating it inside another project (collaborated with other group members), using my mediocre knowledge of C++. Then after MK went off from the room for something, I continued discussion with my other group members.


I was depressed. I sat through the discussion and the postdoc and the other group members started talking about stuff, with jargons like NURBS and isosurfaces, and a LOT of other stuff. I realised that I know so little compared to them. I know they have been in this business for years, and have even more experience and knowledge of the outside world.. (one of the PhD student has worked in wall street for 30 years.. yeah, he's as old as my dad, which made me respect him even more), and I've been there for less than 3 months minus all the time I needed to get settled in and read more basic stuff.
It's also amazing to see how they can sit through a talk (which can be so boring and easy to not understand anything) yet can still ask questions about the talk as if they had been dealing with the topic for a long time. It shows just how much knowledge and experience they had over the years...
But you know what, even though it was depressing, I get more excited and eager to do this PhD thing. The thought that I will become as knowledgeable as that becomes a motivation to me. I want to learn more..

Call me a nerd or whatever. I don't care.


À bientôt. ;)

~Another day at the lab~

Pagi ini motivasiku menjunam.

Aku terasa begitu hopeless dan clueless kerana merasakan tidak jelas apa yang perlu dibuat hari ini, hatta untuk seluruh minggu. Kebingungan melandaku sepanjang pagi.. Badan terasa lemah, otak terasa kosong, dan hati resah dan gelisah. Ya Allah mengapa diriku menjadi sedemikian rupa? Mungkin aku tahu apa sebabnya, tetapi itu tidak patut dijadikan alasan.

Setibanya di lab aku masih tertanya-tanya dan memikirkan tentang kerja... menunggu ilham yang tidak kunjung tiba...

That was what I felt the entire morning (which frequently happens every Monday). It's really irritating having a very fluctuating motivation level. But the thing is motivation will not come down suddenly to you from high up above. Self-motivation comes from your own self, no other people can motivate you unless you yourself want to. It's merely the difference between going with the wind and fly where it is directing at, or harnessing the wind to direct oneself to where he/she wants to go.

Anyways, after a while someone brighten up my morning (as usual) and pushed me to start doing work. But even so I was still in a blur of what to do...

 The solution? Just start/continue whatever you have left behind [yeah. obvious really.]. So i started opening my lab book and open a few files, read a bit, baca balik To_Be_Done.txt kat desktop tuh.. then realised I have to send my predecessor an email to clarify something, meet a groupmember, plot graphs and everything just flowed from there.

What had I learnt? [well more like forgotten and got self-reminded]..

When you have no clue what to do with your work, just start doing something with it, anything. Reading something about it, fiddling with whatever parts of it you can get a hold on.

Bila dah start, gelisah again. Rasa tak senang duduk lak. Oh well since dah elok pukul 10:45 naik la atas amek free tea kat atas and bawak balik.

Tapi still gelisah. Senyap sangat pulak... switch on some music? nah.. the tune will only make me lose focus and limit my thinking, lagi resah ada lah. So i switched on my Qur'an playlist, baru la rasa lega. I can't do work sangat while listening to a song, but I can while listening to the Qur'an. It calms me down and causes my heart to settle down in peace. While doing that I can also revise what I've previously memorised. Call it 'three birds with one stone'.

Then I had to attend a two-hour talk by a visitor student from Queen Mary. Adoi. Dua jam tak paham mende pon >< Sakit kepala cuba paham menatang Optimisation problem dia tuh.. Yang peliknye orang lain boleh lak tanya soklan lagi pasal benda tuh.. supervisor lagi ah he was soo into it. Seb baik dio tak suruh den toghangkan.. Mampuih kalo tak.. Pukul 5 habis, and I went solat at 5:15. Planned to go with Tee to watch 'How to train a Dragon 3D' at 6:05pm, and he wanted to meet at 5:45. Pas solat masuk lab jer pkl 5:25, aiseh MK kat situ lak.. [kalo saper2 dah lupa, dia adalah my supervisor]. Nak keluar waktu tuh memang cari nahas la.. Then he went to my table and asked about what I'm doing. So I tunjuk ah a few very much acceptable graphs and explained to him something about what I have to do. Then he asked (ordered) me to have a meeting with a few groupmates, RS, MS, TST and SS. Oh well, I MSN-ed RS schedule meeting esok, and 5:46pm chao.

Woot I liked the movie =D I saw the trailer quite some time ago, and the whole movie was up to my expectations. Fun and funny. Keluar cinema pkl 8pm and it was still bright outside.. Oh well dah maghrib ah but still... cerah.

...and now I'm back. Luckily I cooked two pieces of salmon yesterday so I don't need to do any cooking.. Masak nasik and pusing2 microwave oven knob. Then I need to do some reading.. well.. A LOT of readings. I hate not knowing stuff and feel really clueless.. But reading at home just won't work I dunno why.... Ergh.

Oh well, I have to paksa myself..

~Weekend~

A few days ago I read in the Yahoo! UK news that the UK is expected to face the highest temperature of the year this weekend (i.e. yesterday and today), rising up to 18-19 C. My first thought was....... 19? Tak heran kot, Malaysia's is double that, consistently. And memang pon tadi bila kluar takder ah rasa panas sangat pon, boleh tahan ah.. normal spring temperature. According to Windows weather gadget Cambridge is 12 C now, but my thermometer is indicating a temperature of 26 C. Biar betul.. I think it's because I opened the window and since the thermometer is right at the other side of my window my room temperature affected it. Seriously it's quite impossible to be 26 even though the sun is shining ever so brilliantly.. The winds from outside felt colder than that.

*kejap.. cerah sangat lak matahari nih.. my room's facing the setting sun... kena tutup langsir*

Yesterday a friend here organised a majlis do'a selamat for his first newborn son. Most of us went including me. The event also coincides with the 35th anniversary of his parents-in-law (whom were there too in Cambridge, looking after their first newborn grandchild). They were so funny and sweet x). I so want to be like them in the future inshaAllah..

Haji Zainal (the father-in-law) officiated the ceremony with a do'a before we started eating (the already prepared) lunch. Rendang ayam and bihun, hoho quite a while since I last saw them =P.

That's the baby we're celebrating at the right, Zarief Aydean, on his proud father's lap. Omg he. is. too. cute. Comel gilerrr!! Rambut bukan main lebat daripada waktu lahir.. Congratz Hakimi for such an adorable and healthy son!! I have to say I envy you =T

It's gonna be quite a long time before I'll get married.. let alone becoming a father.. InshaAllah if I have the rezeki nanti..

We also planned for bowling the next day (i.e. today), and quite a lot of us dah semangat nak main. Tup2 tadi only 4 people came (well, 5. Tapi Zetty tak main, sakit belakang [?] katanya). So in the end only Hefni, Fendi, Tee and me played three games each. Adoi teruk ah performance.. Sungguh tidak konsisten. Tee and me decided nak pegi tengok movie How to Train a Dragon 3D tadi (the cinema is at the same building as the bowling place), but only waktu nak beli tiket we realised the 4:30pm show is for 2D, 3D's over for the day.. We postponed our movie watching to tomorrow, ada pkl 3:40pm or 6:05pm. Most probably I'll have to opt for the 6:05pm, unless I can get away somehow at 3:15pm.. The thing is my supervisor wants us, his grad students (particularly me since I'm quite the new guy) to do 8 working hours at the lab, excluding breaks. So that means it should be coming in at 9am and going back after 9 hours (1 hour allocated for breaks), at 6pm. Oh well, I'll try being early tomorrow.

..now that reminded me. My sister is gonna have her C-section on the 19th.. =S Huaaa my first nephew is gonna be born and I'm here thousands of miles awayyyy =[

She's already been warded there for quite some time, and it seems that my former classmate Nihlah pon is at the same hospital, waiting for her C-section gak on the 12th. Dua anak sedara with a week gap ><..

and I'm here thousands of miles away..

I considered going back at May, just to see my nephew =/

I could also see Nihlah's baby...

..and I can even surprise my former uni classmate and one of my besties apiz and attend his wedding on the 22nd of that month..

..but I've just got here.. just started doing work.. takkan nak balik dah.. If I go back home it won't be just for a few days, of course I want to be there for 2 weeks or more.. that could really set back on my work here. PhD is nothing like undergraduate. Of course you have a bit more freedom but if I loosen up now I have a feeling I won't be able to make it. I have a first-year dissertation (CPGS) to be submitted on early December and 4 journal papers on two different fields to be written in the whole course of my PhD, and aiming to finish it in 3 years will require lotsa work.. like LOTS. I want to at least produce something by June so more than a week break is really not allowable for me.. and return tickets are more than £500. I still have funds but it will be a few more months before I'll get a consistent monthly income from Mara so I don't really want to exhaust it too quickly.

..but that can't prevent me from going for a break right? =P

I'm going to Paris on the 19th for a few days. 8D

[Yeah, only for a few days, mmg tak cukup but takper ah, first trip to Europe (selain UK)].

Informed my supervisor about me not being here for a whole week, and he seems fine about it (MK: "Oh well I won't be here that week so it should be ok"... kalo tak dia bising kot). I need some pointers on French from a friend of mine. (If you're reading this tell me bile nak buat kelas ek =P. kalo tak baca pon don't worry I'll look for you xD..)

So, kata penutup: Semoga kaklang dan Nihlah berjaya melahirkan cahaya mata masing2 dengan selamat InshaAllah. Ku di perantauan ini akan mendo'akan kesejahteraan kamu berdua...