A wedding I would not miss for anything

Yesterday was historic, and I'm thankful that I get to see Zara on her big day. I would be devastated if I did not attend the event.

Well, actually I was late - I intended to go early in the morning. In time for the solemnization. But the schedule got messed up, so I only arrived at her house after the solemnization. But I still managed to catch them on the dais. It was hilarious, with all the directors behind the cameras telling them to do this and that. But they are a cool couple, and I can't stop smiling. I'm sooooo happy for her.

Mostly I just stood there in her room while she was getting ready for the reception. I did not help much, but I hope my presence there brought some good to her :p

Rare these days.

This is cute.

Were you still nervous at this time?

You, my friend is the best!!!

And I am surprised that her mom still recognizes me. I think the last time we met was the last day of matriculation. Yeah, around 8 years ago. May our friendship continues 80 years more.

Drools alert!!

One month and nothing can be heard from me. By this rate, there would only be less than ten posts in a year. I have plans to go on a long vacation - which exact date and duration have yet to be determined. Mom have been voicing out her wish to get me back to school. Both can only be done if I am to work in another place.
And that also means more time to get my thoughts out here.

All this while I can only soothe myself with food. Yeah, Operation Getting Me Fat. I have two partners in crime now.

Partner A is as adventurous, eat as much (sometimes more) and have a penchant for Korean/Japanese same like me. So we go to eat sushi and Korean food, plus everything else we'd feel like having. But she has yet to get permission to go out of this state.

So that's where Partner B comes in. She can join me for outstation excursion(s) - making me a happy kid when I can eat all those things not available here.

Lunch at Nandos today

Three cheese spinach lasagna

Pizza lover's request

Seafood curry something

Salmon sushi

Ikea meatballs

Love this Double Choc latte

Sukiya's teriyaki chicken rice

My current wish is to have my own food program. I don't even need payment, just give me all the food for free ;D
I'm craving for Salmon sushi now. -__-

happy feet

I had a great day today, if not for a small glitch.

But let's just focus on the nice things that happened today. I think it was in the afternoon that this three person came and looked around at the menu board. Then one of them started to tell me about the bad experience they had at another store. The drinks was not up to their liking. They were wondering what was happening. And they even confided in me that they had intentions to go to another brand.

I told them this, "Please don't go there. Do stay, and I'll make sure your drinks are made just the way you want them."

I tried my best (all within my power) to save the guests from having bad perception about us again.

When I asked if they are happy with what we served them, they told me.. "Thank you very much. You saved Mermaid!"
I can never be happier when I heard that.

And I had lunch with great friends, a bit late and short one..but definitely made my day. Perhaps next time a whole day spend together friends? ;)

two weeks

It's been that long since I entered the new company and the training session started..that is such a short time, but it already feels like a year here. Thanks to the awesome trainer and colleagues. I can't think of the time when we have to part ways at the end of the training period.

If only my convocation ceremony is not on the same day as the last day of training. I'm going to miss them so much. Hopefully all our plans would work out.

counting the years

We live just 30 minutes from each other, but seldom have the chance to meet. Now it's hard too - she don't have to work on weekends, but it's the opposite for me.

I'm just thankful we get to meet again last Friday, albeit it was a quick one. We went to get our coffee fix, some sushi and spent the rest of the time talking. We haven't got enough, but soon it was time to go. I'm aiming for a whole day next time, you better prepare yourself dear. ;)

Image via Zara's facebook

Oh, and the vacation we have in mind..really can't wait for that. I'll get ready the list of food we should eat first..haha.

Note: We didn't plan on wearing the same color, we just think alike :)

awkward

I was working last night when a high school friend came in for a drink with her friend. She called my name and asked what I was doing there. Of course I'm working, friend - I was manning the POS. The sad thing was I couldn't recall her name, until this morning when I flipped through the school magazine. And she was in the same class as me for our final year. I'm getting older, I know. Lol. I tried so hard to find her name in this tight vault of memory but failed - I could only remember her two closest friends'.

The procedure is to jot down the customer's name on the beverage cup. But I just skipped that part and prayed to God that my supervisor wouldn't say anything when he saw it. Just imagine me asking my own high school friend, "And how may I address you?". What a joke.

Another great thing is the number of people (in the senior year at that time) who came from Melaka was less than 10 if I recalled right. Very sad, I know..perhaps I should take Ginkgo Biloba as supplement food too.

This image is spot on, because we do use Sharpie at work..haha.

Image via #hashable

reminiscing

Today is the worst - I'm not in the mood for anything other than listening to this song over and over again. Do you have any idea how many hours it has been? Right after I woke up this morning, until now.

And just now I had flashbacks from the past, of the couple of years I spent in a secluded place north from here. Those times were the best I ever had, first time living far from family and meeting all sorts of people. Some of them are Suraya, Sarah and my classmates: Syed Azman, Nuex, and Shahirah. Suraya, Sarah and Nuex are all MUA, and I hope I'll be able to collaborate with them someday. Azman's a teacher currently residing over the sea ;) and Shahirah's busy preparing for her big day that's coming real soon. Best wishes to her. Of course there are a lot others.

I think our school could well be listed as the place to find love. I'm not pulling your leg, seriously. We were the first batch of students to graduate from there, and we witnessed our own teachers getting married to each other (some of the unions were expected, some we had no idea of) and even our friends who got married - one of the firsts to tie the knot. Recently another couple got married years after being together.

I wasn't thinking about those things actually.

I thought of our barely-equipped science labs, and the fact that we did several experiments when there were supplies. I miss those newly built labs, which of course won't look the same now. And those times we simply slide down from those high stools, to take a much needed nap behind the cabinets so the teacher won't realize :p

Our teachers were mostly young, and we had so much fun with them. Oh I love the time spent with my homeroom siblings and teacher. Nuex was my homeroom brother and Dee that got married to our schoolmate was our sister. We even called our homeroom teacher Papa and he was so nice to us. Those birthday celebrations we had together were wonderful.

The camps I attended - English camp near the waterfall (Ulu Yam if I'm not mistaken), the BTN camp in Perak, the motivational camp around Batang Kali (not really sure) in which our team got the first place. There were many beautiful memories. This picture was taken during the English camp, but I couldn't remember if it's the one that I went to. Our English language teachers were a creative and fun bunch. They organized all sorts of programs for us - English Camp, English Night, SEED (or was it SEEDS?) program etc.

taken from a friend's FB

The school's Sports Day, where I was bullied to join in the track event by a teacher. It was painful, I had to practice running every day before the event..only to end up last (as expected :p) And not to mention our school was new at that time and there were no big shady trees around the field. We ended up going back home red as tomatoes.

Going back home every month on the commuter from Rawang to Seremban, and almost always stopping at KL Sentral because it was our hangout place. It was also because many came from around KL and Selangor, and of course it became the dating place before going home. ;)

just recalled that this picture is available, from FB too

I really, really missed those times.

last Eid celebration

It seems that everywhere is celebrating Eid these week, I saw two of my friends' photos of the celebration at work. And today is our campus' turn.

I went to last year's but not the one before. Last year's was held at a different venue, the parking lot beside the old academic building. Every stall was clustered in one place, so you could go around in one circle and pick which stall has the least people lining up for food food you like.This time it was held at the Admin building - the stalls were everywhere that we had to go this way and that way to see what is available.

And as we've experienced it once where our friends didn't get any food because they went there a lil bit late, we decided to go early this time. Besides last year's celebration was held during class hours (the food were finished up in no time), and this week we're already finished with our classes - you can take a guess just how long the food will be there :p

As early as we wanted to go, we arrived around 10 am and the celebration started at 8.30 am. There  were a lot of food, prepared by each residential college and also the Non-Residents (NR) club. But I didn't look at the stalls' names - only at those tempting yummy food.There were the usuals - nasi himpit, rendang ayam, lemang, rendang daging, Raya cookies, satay...and also other types of food - yong tau foo, chapati, ayam golek, rojak buah, nasi lemak, etc. I didn't get to eat ayam golek and satay...too full with the other stuff and the line was too long.

nasi himpit and rendang

 

I feel that this one is better than last year's because everyone is everywhere and we got to feast our eyes on everyone passing by our spot. There was this one family of 5 or 6 girls (maybe a lecturer's) - that donned the same orange baju kurung. They looked very close in age with the youngest looking like she's 2 - they looked really adorable.

the four of us in line for ice cream

thumbs up ;)

Oh, and our beloved Rector rode a bicycle around the compound - but I didn't take a good look. Last year he rode on the scooter on display :p

Somehow I'm starting to miss this place - even though I can't wait to pack everything up and say my goodbye to this place.

the stars of the event

As I've written here, it's nearing the end of the 3-year term for me and my friends. The 3 years are just for formalities of course, in reality it's just a little over 2 years..but the time we spent together here are full of bittersweet moments.

We were strangers, we shook hands, got to know each other - some become close friends, some fought over something trivial, some swapped friends with others, then we got to know each other again. It's a never ending cycle. A little sneak preview of the world out there. I can be called a veteran already, because I feel like I can understand the gist of the things that happened - well, some of it. If it took that long for me to understand this, what can be said for the world out there? Centuries long before finding the rhythm??

Enough about that. I've been wanting to write about my Pre-graduation luncheon before, but I can only do it now.

The event was held last Saturday at A Famosa Resort in Alor Gajah, Melaka. It was supposed to be held at a different location, but they changed the venue and we had to be content with it. It's nearer to our house and campus..so we didn't have to start off that early.

We had to wait more than 2 hours before the event started though. It's bad enough that we were tired having to wake up early that day, and they had to arrive that late. Fortunately it meant we didn't have to listen to a lot of long speeches.

Some of us

After two speeches and giving away the certificates to those exceptional students, it was time to eat. They prepared a lot of dishes - mutton curry, sweet and sour fish fillet, lemon chicken, buttered prawns, potato masala, squid..but it was as I expected. They emphasis on the quantity and not quality. There were a lot of half eaten dishes left, and not to count those portion meant for all those Mass Communication students that didn't attend because they were busy organizing another event.

That event indicated we're ready to move on to another phase..no matter what we will be doing and where we'll be.

Oh, and I was surprised when a friend told me that I was a candidate for the Best Student for the course too. I thought the others had better chances than me. But she said it was between me and the one who got the title. Blame myself for not being diligent enough and not getting more As in the past..hehe. I wasn't hoping for that, because I knew just how much effort I put in during those times.

That said, I'm happy that I can understand myself better this time. Looking forward to an adventurous future ahead ;)

 

too excited :p

With the Rector