happy new year

CNY lunch over at ichibanboshi Publika today. Food was good and had a good laugh with my usual Japanese Friday lunches kakis. Fine, this is probably by 3rd time hanging out with this set of colleagues but they're nice. We earlier made a reservation at gyu-kaku, then i realised that it's a bbq-concept resto. ugh. i don't do bbq/steamboat. i don't fancy the idea of going to a restaurant but then you have to cook your own meal? next.

Had early dinner in Bangsar today. KGB burger was closed (i think) so we opted for The Daily Grind. Meatloaf for me (not bad) and basic burger for him (mediocre).

Falling asleep as type this. Rumi is next to me coloring his pirate book and Emre is giggling away watching johnny english (whaaat?). Zumba for me late morning tomorrow and probably gonna spend the long weekend attempting to start running. we'll see.

Tiring day for me. our company won a bunch of investment awards (received the congratulatory email today) and i foresee a hectic week next week! make that two congratulatory emails because my universal banking team was selected to make another presentation to the higher ups. so honored! this means they like our proposal. the only thing yang tak best is because I was the main presenter for the previous presentation. i can already imagine my team mates pujuk-ing me to present again. ugh.

i may hate being an emcee but i do enjoy public speaking because i am full of shit and the audience love all the slip-ups and my unstoppable spiel of  merapu-ness haha.

happy new year. came to work today determined to make a big step in life soon. okay maybe after my bonus. i don't know. 

Not again

you can't touch this, a photo by natinski on Flickr.

Once a while I get this urge to own a DSLR again. Go away photographic thoughts!

Mama.

At a lunch meeting today one of my CEOs said to me "I'm truly sorry about your loss" and for a second I thought what loss?

Thing is I am constantly thinking about Mama and while it's starting to hurt less (but I don't want it to hurt any lesser) she is always in my mind. 

Today I am thinking about her obsession with tomato juice. She used to drink it religiously because she wanted to lose weight. Think I was in primary school back then. 

Maybe I should get myself a can of tomato juice tomorrow. 

Lamp at Thistle

I guess great mind thinks alike lol. Amused to see my colleague took similar shot of the lamp at Thistle Hotel. But I think mine is better mih mih mih 

did i miss a week?

Oy vey did I miss a week? Seems that I'm at week 3/52 but everyone else is at 4/52 already.

Guess my next 52 Project will be 5/52 then. This is probably because I missed the first week. Maybe.

3/52

“a portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014.”

emre: imagining dragons with the nebulizer 

rumi: "i'm an alien!" (Ibu doesn't know which one)

Side note: Adik's weight is currently at 20kg, Abang at 15kg. Hmm...

outside looking in

Starbucks, Maju Junction.

No matter how much I love coffee, I've never been interested in the art of making coffee.

(been watching too many coffee-related programs)

the kids are alright

Oh you know, just kids wresting on the floor EVERYSINGLETIME WE GO OUT.

No biggie.

mykuali penang white curry noodle

Terima kasihlah to Leftie for this gift. A nice break from the usual Maggi (is it just me or the noodle for maggi asam pedas has shriveled in size?). *shrugs*

But nevermind, here comes MyKuali noodle, your upscale instant noodle that gives more umph! (God, I do suck at copywriting). Never been a big fan of curry noodle (everytime I say noodle I have this urge to say it out loud Hongkie style, ya know, like Wok with Yan -- Nuuuudel oh nevermind) but man, this is good stuff right here.

Hey.

Saw it on TV few weeks back about how this is the new craze in Penang. Is it available here in KL yet? I danna. I tried looking for it at Speedmart but I can only see the usual instant noodles (and Aaron Aziz staring back at me). Pricier than your usual instant noodle but who cares, imma gonna import them Penang and invite my family to come over and declare HEY I MAKE AWESOME CURRY NUDLE. Or something like that. Yehehe.

Fuel Shack

We don't go out that often, no let me rephrase that, we don't go to klcc that often - too many people, parking cost a bomb and who needs klcc when paradigm mall has everything? Except there's no kinokuniya and what is this? Fuel Shack? Nice or not?

To be honest, the pizza is pretty shit because Modesto's pizza taste better (hey where's the modesto's pizza parlor at cold storage?) but surprisingly the burger is pretty decent. As long as the patty is the type that you can sink your teeth in and has the right amount of juice, I'm cool with it.

Minus brownie points because they didn't have coffee that day. unghf.

2/52

“a portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014.”

rumi: his sporadic english cracks me up.

emre: jaws and jurassic park pretty much sum up his life these days.

fleeting regrets

Ah it seems that January has been a month of misses so far.

Recently, the great Hideaki Hamada, my all-time favorite photographer came to Malaysia. I pretty much begged him (alongside with some KL fans) on Instagram please Hamada-san meet your fans! But of course he was in KL for work, but on his last day here he said he will be in Bangsar in case anybody wanted to meet him. And by some strange twist of fate my phone charger died that day and I couldn't check IG and missed the opportunity to meet him. :(

Hamada-san. Photo from Google. Arigatou.

On another note, today we had brunch at Acme Bar & Coffee (ABC). Saw a super gorgeous lady seated at the table behind my husband. Then the guy next to her stood up. OMG IT'S JERICHO ROSALES. You know?! Pangako Sa Yo, bitches!!! So so good looking in real life. I was contemplating about taking a photo with him because I got shy and I didn't want to intrude on a superstar's seemingly day off. But the girls at the other table managed to take a photo with him and HELLO, HOW CAN I NOT TAKE A PHOTO WITH THE MOST FAMOUS ACTOR IN THE PHILIPPINES. Unf.

Hello you. 

Oh well. I'll get over this. At least I met/spoke to Big Bang's GD & Top in 2012, I keep telling myself. -_-

raudhatul sakinah

My sister took this photo. I have never seen a cemetery this beautiful and thankful that this is Mama's final resting place.

That's Ain, who turns 8 today. Who cried the most when Mama passed away. 

Rumi's locks

My friends on fb can be pretty dramatic, particularly when they saw Abang Rumi's new hair. Tee hee. It'll grow back, it'll grow back the voice in my head yelled. Wasn't expecting his hair to be this short but that's okay. Now the girls in his class won't be confused anymore! Yay!

My siblings and I have been sharing Mama's photos on our whatsapp group. The more I look at the photos, the more I think about how we could have made things better for her. But we've done our best, and now we can only pray for her.

1/52

In 2013, I participated in the 52 Project (not posted here), where you post photos of your children, or whatever preferred subject once a week. It was fun, because time waits for no one especially kids. They grow up TOO fast. Blink once, and you'll miss their progress.

Continuing the 52 Project 2014 here. I earlier wanted to change my subject, perhaps a photo of my husband for 52 weeks? Not sure if he'll like it. Then it did cross my mind about photographing my mother on a weekly basis but alas, God has better plans for her.

Here we go again 52 Project.

“a portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014.”

rumi: pre-school is making him whiny, but also more independent.

emre: wants to go to school badly. perhaps next year.

Random.

These days if you wanna go anywhere it has to be an Instagram-worthy place. Just sayin'.

Monday hues.

Why working here is most of the time bearable.

this school boy

Abang Rumi, falling asleep after school.

Missing him in pre-school (4 hours in total) is far worse than missing him the entire day while I'm at work. He's doing okay so far (I think). Eventually he'll stop looking out the window to look for us and hopefully the girls in his class will stop asking Teacher Angel why Rumi is queuing up with the boys. -_-

I start work tomorrow. "work is work is work" I tell myself. New responsibilities, new drama, new headaches and heartaches. 2014 will be the deciding factor if I want to stay or spread my wings elsewhere. Or stay at home altogether. We'll see.

I think from now on I should jot down one thing that I remember about arwah Mama, arwah Danial and arwah Baba. 

Right now I'm thinking about Mama's ikan bawal percik. She's not even a Kelantanese but Mama's ikan percik is the best. :/

7th day.

27 December 2013

Akhirnya penderitaan Mama berakhir. She left us dengan tenang, with us siblings with her.

Don't know what's in store for me in 2014.

I think 2013 has been painful enough.