Maal Hijrah 1430

Satu Muharram detik permulaan
Perkiraan tahun Islam hijrah
Perpindahan Nabi dan umat Islam
Dari kota Mekah ke kota Madinah

Atas keyakinan dan iman yang teguh
Kaum Muhajirin dan Ansar bersatu
Rela berkorban harta dan nyawa
Demi menegakkan Islam tercinta

Hijrah itu pengorbanan!
Hijrah itu perjuangan!
Hijrah itu persaudaraan!
Hijrah membentuk perpaduan!

Oleh itu mari semua
Kita sambut Maal Hijrah
Tingkatkan semangat
Tegakkan syiar al-Islam
Untuk sepanjang zaman!
Untuk sepanjang zaman!
Untuk sepanjang zaman!

Selamat menyambut Awal Muharram 1430 kepada semua umat Islam di seluruh dunia. Semoga tahun hijrah baru ini membawa keberkatan dan menguatkan semangat dan iman kita semua. Amin.

Merry Christmas... Not

I heard a really sad thing on the radio on the way to work this morning. It was one of those call-in segments on the morning show where listeners called in and let the whole wide world know their Xmas wish, and the deejays would do their best to "make it come true". Which is a good thing, sort of a M*ke a Wish foundation type thing, right? Unfortunately, in this case it turned out to be a Xmas wish gone wrong.

So, this girl called um, lets call her X, and said she had a Xmas wish for her ex-bf (let's call him Y). Apparently, on her birthday he took her out for a nice dinner. After wining and dining her, Y popped the all-important question to X, to which she responded with a heart-breaking, "Ummmmm.....". Que sound of breaking glass and rain drops trailing down a window. Needless to say, their relationship sort of fizzled and died from that point. But then, earlier this year Y started texting X again and sending regular emails. Now, I don't know what was in those texts and emails but it seems that X got the impression that Y still had feelings for her and wanted to rekindle the relationship. So, X being a woman (we are entitled to change our minds, after all), thought long and hard and decided that she did love Y after all and wanted to propose to him for Xmas. On air. For the viewing pleasure of thousands of Malaysians. Which is where the radio station came in.

The deejays were asking her was she sure that Y reciprocated her feelings and how sure was she that he'd say yes. X was like all confident and was sure that he was still into her, based on his texts and emails. So they called him up. She was like "Hi honey!" and he went "Hi babe!". After dithering on a bit, she popped the question. He went, "Is this some kind of prank?" She said it wasn't, she just wanted to propose to him for Xmas. He was all errrr-ing and ummmm-ing and then said that she must have gotten the wrong impression, he had been texting and emailing her AS A FRIEND (three killer words that have doomed many a relationship, IMO). And he wanted everyone to know that he was getting married next year. X said in a small voice, "Heheh... to me right?" To which Y resoundingly replied NO. Apparently, when they broke up, Y met someone else and had subsequently proposed to the new gf, and was accepted.

X laughed fakely and tried to pass it off as a joke. She was all "Oh I knew about this but I just wanted to play a trick on you! Ha. Ha. Ha." Y asked repeatedly if she was ok, she said, "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I don't want to talk to you anymore." and hung up. The deejays assured Y that they'd try to fix things and called X back. She was all sobbing and cursing. "That SOB. Why didn't he tell me? *bleep* *bleep*." The deejays tried to pujuk her, and lastly before hanging up one of them said, "There's plenty more fishes in the sea." Insensitive or what? Fishes, I tell you.

Poor, poor X. As a fellow goddess, I totally sympathise. Don't you think that Y was a bit of a bastard as well, leading her on? A listened texted into the show later and said "Women always get the wrong impression." Guess the sex of the listener? Natch.

So that's one poor soul who'll be having a crappy Xmas. If he's got any heart at all (though I doubt it, judging from how fast he bounced back from being rejected), Y might be having a not so merry Yuletide as well. All I can say is, think long and hard before baring your soul on live radio and never, ever put high hopes on the strength of a text message or email. He might be typing with one hand and hugging another girl with the other for all you know.

Happy Christmas to my Christian friends! Be merry, but more importantly, be safe!

Whirl Wind

My life is such a blur these days... I honestly don't know where my time goes. Every day is just a mad rush to get things done. I'm a working mother of two with an equally busy husband (who comes home after work and promptly falls asleep in front of the TV, leaving me to wrestle with the kids over bed-times and last bottle feedings and diaper changes and ironing of clothes for the next day and last-minute dish washings)... ummm but I digress. As I am prone to do. Haha.

Anywho, since the landslide last week and the subsequent declaration that my building was "unsafe", I have been shipped off to Bangi to set up office in my bank's training centre there. It's just behind Un*ten and the daily commute is fantastic! Even though it's like 25km from my house and I have to pass through two toll booths (bwargkh don't even get me started on the tolls!!!!), the half hour journey is just great 'cos there's no traffic jam!! I luv it I luv it I luv it! A colleague of mine car pools with me in the mornings and chips in for petrol (thanks, Mary!). The parking there is free (yay!!) and my office looks over the golf course behind Un*ten. A few days ago we got to watch some poor bloke wade in the pond thingy and fish out sunken golf balls. And we've recently discovered that Alam*nda is just 10 minutes away....

Yes it was all rainbows and roses for the first few days, even more so 'cos half of my department is stationed in KL (including my boss.. :-D). However, after a while the novelty of working in the sticks is starting to wear off. My poor lovely husband sends the kids to KJ every day on the way to work and picks them up after, so I get less quality time with them. The extra expenses (toll, petrol, lunches) incurred is really getting to me, too. We're trying to negotiate some kind of travelling claim but the prospects don't look too bright. Latest news is.. well, we might be there 'till January. Gak!!

It's all I can do at the end of the day to get my kids snugly into bed, finish my chores and collapse into bed. But what to do.. rezeki halal perlu dicari, put bread on the table and all that. I have the weekends, right? Guess I've just gotta stick to my guns and face it. Insya-Allah, it'll work itself out in the end.

The Ground Beneath My Feet

First of all, my deepest sympathies to all who lost their family, friends and valuables in the recent landslide at Bkt Ant*rabangsa. Al-fatihah..

You know something is seriously wrong when the ground beneath your feet moves faster than you do. Yours truly is also a landslide victim, albeit one on a smaller scale than the BA one where the only casualties were 11 cars parked in an unfortunate spot. Still, whether there were lives lot or not, the landslide which happened right outside my office window really shook me.

There we were, happily banging away at our respective key-boards at 5pm and anticipating going-home time in an hour or so, when we received an IM flashed across our computer screens.. something like this: "Slope along Jln So-and-so is unstable. Please move your cars." Not even a minute or two later, there was this loud SNAP sound (probably the divider breaking), a louder whoosh followed by a sickening crunch and a small tremor which was felt throughout our building. Someone shouted "Bukit dah jatuh!". I thought it was a joke until everyone rushed up to the windows and someone else screamed. I squeezed my way to a window and what I saw really turned my blood cold... a huge stream of soil, rocks and debris flowed from the top of the retainment wall down to the parking lot below, crushing the cars beneath. Earlier in the week, D*KL had cordoned off the parking bays at the top of the retainment wall after the ground sunk a few inches. But apparently no one warned those who used the parking lot below between the two buildings.

People started grabbing their belongings and running out of the building. In the confusion, I managed to save my work, switch off my PC, text message my husband, grab my handbag and even retrieve a tupperware of strawberry tart that I'd stashed in the fridge. I held hands with one of the kakak from my department all through the lift ride up and manged to walk calmly to the emergency evacuation area. We had to walk past the fallen area.. almost half the road was gone! A friend from another department called me to check on me (thanks Alina). The security personnel were urging us down the hil to safer ground and I just went with the flow. I did not know that there were so many people in the 3 buildings! Suddenly I realised that I didn't have a way to go home as my husband would only finish work at 6pm, and given the horrific traffic jam already happening below he didn't have a chance in hell of getting there by 8pm. I quickly called another kakak from my office who managed to get me a ride to the LRT station in her friend's car.

In the LRT, I texted my dad and called my mom to teman me because I was feeling weird and n shock. Who knows what would have happened to me in that state, right? I would've probably missed my stop and gotten lost. At the interchange, I called my BFF when I boarded the monorail to Bkt *. She entertained me with various gossip all the way to P*villion where hubs was already waiting for me. To cheer me up, he took me for a nice, comforting KFC meal. Comfort food, indeed.

Later that night, I got a text from my boss telling me that our SM had granted my department a free holiday the next day as we didn't have a designated offsite office. Yippee!! All through the night and the next day I received countless calls and texts from concerned friends and family. My grandma called me three times, she was so worried and excited! Haha.

This morning I reported to the first building which was declared out of the danger zone. My building and building #2 was declared temporarily closed for a tentative 2 weeks-1 month! I went to my office to collect my belongings and saw the stream of mud had flowed down to the entrance of my building. 2 weeks indeed. Hmph.

I'm being relocated to Bangi tomorrow. Jauhnyaaaaaaa...