Madrasati

I was driving to work yesterday listening to Era.fm ('cos I love their morning crew!). They were asking people to call up and sing their school songs. Which got me to thinking about my school... and realising that after 12 years I still remember every word of the freakin' school song!! Of course la.. I only had to sing it every Monday for five years. And oh my God.. I totally hated my school when I was there. But isn't weird now I'm okay with it and strangely enough.. kinda miss it?

This is my alma mater, far away in the wild wild jungles of Raub, Pahang. It's a sekolah berasrama penuh, one of the more ulu ones in my day. Haha! Back then, to get there you had to take a bus from Pekeliling or Pudu which took about 3 hours. There was no convenient MRR2 then. You had to go through Setapak to Gombak to the Karak Highway and endure endless turning roads along deep ravines until you finally got to the little town o' Raub. The best thing about the town was the yummy nasi ayam behind the bus-stop and the local 2-storey Jaya supermarket where we did our shopping. Other than that, there really wasn't much else! From there, you took another bus trip (which cost only 55 sen!) to the school. Or you could get a taxi for RM5.

Everyone who's been to boarding school knows about prep. You know, the time you're supposed to be studying and doing homework but instead you read Taiwan comics, listen to Pilihan Bersama on your walk-mans hidden in your baju, gossip, nap and sometimes play Chess? And lining up to get your grub at the dewan makan. Apart from the infamous nasi kawah, ours served such exotic dishes such as ikan surat khabar, ayam masak kuning, ikan jaket and sotong tin. We also enjoyed kicap Besta, bread from the local factory across the road, extremely sweet tea and tasteless coffee.

Our dorms were a 10 minute walk along the gajah menyusur from school. The water pressure in our toilets was unpredictable so we usually ended up mass bathing around the kolah. Behind the kolah and clothes lines was a chain-link fence which separated us from the secondary jungle from where we were treated to a regular weekly show from the crazy flasher from the nearby village! Hmmm.. I could go on and on about that school. How I loved and hated it from the moment I set foot there on 15 Dec 1990! But it's getting late and you probably have better things to do anyway than read about me rambling on about some obscure place.

Oh, and for the record, here's my school song:

Inilah sekolah yang tercinta
SEMESTA itulah namanya
Mendidik dan membina anak-anak negara
Mencapai segala cita-cita

Kepada para guru semua
Jasamu tiada tandingnya
Bekerja dan berusaha
Tidak mengenal masa
Demi masa depan kita

Berilmu, beramal, berbudi setiap masa
Pada Rukun Negara
Kami akan setia

Oh Tuhan yang Maha Kuasa
Jayakanlah kami semua
Selamat dan sentosa
Sihat setiap masa
Berjaya, SEMESTA, berjaya!

I Wanna Be...

I have just realised that I have a week left of maternity leave before I go back to work. I'm due back at the office on 27th Nov. The horror! Despite my brand new work outfits hanging in my wardrobe, I'm so not looking forward to rejoining the rat race. Besides my monthly salary, I do not see the point of dragging my sorry behind to sit behind a desk for a minimum of 8 hours a day making other people rich. It's certainly not fulfilling for me. Despite that, I've been putting off quitting and finding a new job over and over again because of new commitments every year that require the money my job brings in. Argkh!

I never envisioned myself working where I am when I was younger. Do you remember in primary school every year they had you write down your top three choices of profession on this card that went into your school file? When you're a kid, all jobs are cool. You'd get answers like askar, anggota polis, ahli bomba, angkasawan (a friend of mine put angkasawati - feminism rears it's head even at that tender age)... plus the standard ones of guru, doktor, peguam, doktor haiwan and wartawan. Whoever heard of a kid putting down eksekutif bank as their ambition? I sure never did. For the record, my answers year after year were pegawai tadbir dan diplomatik (my dad's job), guru (my mom's job) and doktor (my mom's chosen profession for me). Shows how I lacked the imagination (or was it the effort?) to come up with new professions each year.

Anyway, going back to work means leaving behind TWO babies now. Depression time again! When I went back to work after having Eez I didn't have hubs to support me 'cos he was away attending a conference in Bali. Now when I go back to work he's not here again 'cos he's in S'pore! My mom will be taking care of the boys, so at least I don't have to stress about them being taken care of by strangers. Poor Eez, he's gotten used to seeing me in the day time unlike before. I'm going to miss him saying, "Hey, Mom!", "Watcha doin', Mom?", "Shayaaaaaanggggg Mama!" every ten minutes. I'm probably going to turn into one of those mothers who call up their kids from work and talk in baby voices loud enough for the entire office to hear, God forbid. And I'm going to miss little Ray with his gorgeous baby smell which never fails to cheer me up. If I could bottle that special baby smell and sell it, I'd be an instant millionaire, I tell you.

Who knows what the coming new year will bring, though... maybe I will quit my job after all. I might move down south if the conditions are right. I might start that business after all and make boat loads of cash so I don't need to leave my kids. We'll see..

The Sound of Music

This post is a spin-off from Mommy at Home's post on how she met her husband. It may or may not be as interesting, but since I've got nothing better to do except stare at the walls waiting for labour to start, here we go...

I met my hubs, R thru a trustworthy source - my oldest and dearest friend, Ms M. He was her chat buddy from mIRC (those were the days...a/s/l?). I'd actually met him before once in 1999 I think... he drove us to Puduraya to buy bus tickets to Pangkor. Masa tu not much of an impression la since we were all nerdy uni students and I was strictly banned from having a boyfriend while I was still studying. Haha. I completely forgot about him afterwards.

Fast forward a couple of years to 2003. Ms M and I were checking out the sales at Lot 10 when she got a call from R telling her that he'd just got back from Langkawi and would like to meet up with her. I'd been accompanying Ms M to meet her chat buddies loads of times so I didn't mind.

I'd just come out of the fitting rooms at Guess with this really cute skirt which I ended up buying (and must slim down enough to fit into again), when this tall guy in an orange football jersey and cap came up to me and said, "Hanna kan? I'm R. Ms M's friend?" I was like, how did he recognise me? (He later told me he had a hunch! Haha.) Later the three of us headed to Dome where Ms M and R chatted while I remained mute (as usual) and concentrated on my chicken & mushroom pie. Honestly, I must have said about 5 words the entire time. I'm like that with strangers, I guess.

A week later Ms M called me and said R had invited us to a show at his then workplace, here. It was actually a dinner show where the entertainment was a group of mat sallehs who performed songs from The Sound of Music. The dinner was quite good, typical Austrian fare I think, and the show was great. At one point they picked members of the audience to join them in dancing on stage and of course R got picked! Later he treated us to supper at the coffee house where again I was painfully shy and contributed about 3 words to the conversation.

I remember Ms M asking me later, "He's nice, isn't he? U suka dia tak?" I replied, "Err.. he's ok. U go out with him la." Then Ms M said, "Eh hello, I'm engaged okay. Remember?" Oh yeah, right.

The next day at work I got a text from R. It went something like this: "Hi. R here. I got your numer from Ms M. Is that OK?"

Me, being sarcastic: "Err... ok. Bukannya boleh pulangkan balik pun."

R: "If you don't like it then I'll just delete it."

Me: "Yeah, right. It's ok, really. I'm really busy right now."

R: "Sorry. I'll call u later. Can I call u later?"

Me (what's with this guy?): "Yeah, ok, whatever."

10 seconds later, Me: "You gave my number to R????"

Ms M: "Why not? He said he likes u. He asked if u had a bf. I said not at the moment."

Me: "Oh God."

R did call me later that nite and we talked on the phone for about 2 hours. My parents were both away at the time which made it much easier. He asked me out the next day and I shyly said yes. He drove all the way from Ampang to pick me up and we ended up going to Rasta chaperoned by Ms M and her then-fiance, F. We went out nearly every nite after that, mostly to Rasta, Sri Hartamas... makan² type places.

Our first proper outing about 2 weeks after the SOM show we went to Mid-Valley Megamall where we watched Johnny English (starring Rowan Atkinson!!), of all movies. Later over dinner at Nando's he gave me 2 silver rings which he'd had engraved - one with my name and one with his. He sort of proposed that we go steady (so high-school) and I actually agreed. I thought my heart was going to explode, I was so surprised!

The next day he took me to meet his mom at a friend's shop in Hartamas, which was totally unexpected. I almost died from nervousness. And again a few days later when we "bumped" into his whole family at KLCC.

My family of course were all kecoh² that I finally had a boyfriend. My aunts especially had been pestering me since I graduated in 2000... you know, all that crap about workaholics and andartus and stuff. In fact I remember my kakak saying before we went out on one of our dates : "You're going out with a guy? I don't believe it! If Hanna's going out with a guy then you can kerat my little finger!" (which she still owes me, by the way). So you can just imagine my reputation among my family.

It turned out that my mom's family knows his mom's family since both are from JB (kampung sebelah-sebelah, uncles played footie together, grandmas pegi mengaji together, yadda yadda yadda). Even my dad's family knew his dad's family from Penang. R was in the same school as Ms M's fiance. And so on and so forth. Dah jodoh, as the old people say.

We got engaged the same year in December. I can still remember the suspense when he sat down to formally ask for my hand from my dad. He still won't tell me exactly what my dad said. "You know, the usual." My aunts were ecstatic... their niece was laku after all! They immediately set about planning my wedding with my mom right down to the dresses my little cousins were going to wear.

Our wedding was in August, 2004. We had our nikah and reception at my parents house in KJ and the bertandang ceremony here. My hantaran was done by my paternal grandma, Tok Kecik while the groom's side was done by R's mom. I'll dig up my photos some time and post them.

You know.. I could go on forever about the early days of our relationship. I remember practically everything. How we woke each other up in the morning to go to work. How on his days off he'd drive all the way to KJ to pick me up and send me to work, even though I had a car. You know how couples sometimes dress alike, with matching shirts? We did that! I know it's cheesy but I thought it was so romantic at the time. We still do actually, except now with our son included.

So that's my story... It's fun to get nostalgic once in a while. We've been married for 3 years already with baby #2 due anytime soon. How time flies!

I might be taking a short break from all online activities to welcome the arrival of #2 so I'll see you guys when I see you!