Competition

Now everyone starts thinking of doing business after seeing my sandwiches decorating the brick wall in front of the computer lab. Oh no... maybe not all, but at least everyone has a second of blink thinking of it. After sandwich, what’s next?

There it came last week; one-ringgit hotdog competing my sandwiches. Its sale goes quite well, so do mine alhamdulillah. Now customers (including makcik cleaners, staffs, lecturers and students of course) have three choices; tuna sandwich, egg sandwich and hotdog.

Then new paragraph of the story is written. Yesterday, I was quite shocked, two more competitors existed - air kotak and jambu batu. No, no... I’m not afraid of competition. That’s normal in business field. I’m okay with their presence. Welcome open-handedly...

In a way, I don’t really care, up to you la whatever you want to put there. The business “center” isn’t mine, neither anyone. It belongs to the kulliyyah. In other way, I’m afraid if the authority will take charge on this actually-illegal selling. If today there are 4 items sold, what if next week, what if next month (year will do also)? They are evolving! Sure. Then there is unofficial kiosk established in front of the computer lab. This may affect my sandwiches selling! Only then I do care.

So what’s next? Sweets? Canned soft drinks? Roti Gardenia? Let’s see... People, guess! What’s next? :D

*the above was vomited on Wednesday. I couldn’t post it because of the problem with internet connection throughout Malaysia.

Yesterday on Thursday (since there’s another yesterday above which refers to Tuesday), two more competitors existed. They sell biscuits and cakes. Argh!



There they are~


I'm thinking of putting this picture as the background of my next blog layout. Not yet decided...

Aku Bengang!!!

That was last night's story. However, when I woke up it's gone. Forget it, and I learn this - don't put full hope on people who are not as eager as you are. They don't have the spirit, and they don't know how the beautiful the spirit is. That's why... that's why they don't know, they don't understand. Keling!




Ciri-ciri Odah yang Berjaya~ :D

These 2 pictures have nothing to do with the first paragraph. I'm cool now. (Read: WAS)

Wet Wet Wet...

It’s been a while when about half of the Peninsular Malaysia is attacked by continuous rainfall. There are few locations flooded with two death cases reported so far. Kuantan is un-except-ed! Fortunately, this campus doesn’t flood although the rain keeps falling almost every hour.

I thought this is normal here in Pantai Timur since it’s already end of the year where the monsoon is switching. I used to reading news on this matter when I was in Selangor. No, no... I was wrong. This is not a normal weather.

For your information, this is my first time living far from Selangor of the entire of my life. Flood in my kampong did occur, but it’s very rare. If there is any, it’ll not last too long. If there’s rainfall, it’ll not in every hour! Today, here, it’s already the fifth of continuous rainy day (even while I’m writing this, the rain suddenly fall, again). At the night, I prefer not to turn the fan on and not to let the windows open because it’s too cold and windy; although I have quite a wide layer of adipose tissue underneath my skin... Hehe...

The further you travel, the wider your experience - this really applies on me.

Poor to those who live in some part of Johor, Pahang, Negeri Sembilan and Melaka with massive flood. Be patient, this is only a small trial that He gives to us. Just imagine those who live with bullets flying like rain, security assurance is none.


Landslide next to my block I


Landslide next to my block II


The kulliyyah when the rain falls


The kepompong. Kesian pokok tu, habis daun-daunnya~


Beluncas. Motif species ko tiba-tiba muncul time2 hujan camni?


The mahallah. It's already dull, but when the rain falls, its worse!


Do you see the waterfall? I'm thinking of capturing pictures there. Wait ah~


Nothing to do at the room, i do designing using Photoshop.

For your information, i'm currently establishing the Sciencess's blog. The address is http://sciencess-iium.blogspot.com where reports and news regarding Kulliyyah of Science and the students (and staffs if possible) will be loaded into it. I'm not the one who will be in-charge of writing entries in it. I give the task to my sub-committees while I just monitor their works. Any KOS students who would like their addresses (blog, journal etc) to be advertised in the blog, please let me know. Maybe I'll expand the links to science-based students all around the world.

Son of Business-Minded Parents

I still remember when I was in primary school, I used to selling my mom’s nasi lemak to my friends. They booked their orders then the next day I came to school bringing a big plastic bag full of nasi lemak packs. I got 20 cents of each nasi lemak biasa sold out of the 60-cent price (that time stuffs weren’t as expensive as nowadays’).

Then when I moved to SAMBEST, I used to selling chocolates and cookies in my dorm where my roommates were my business target. I just put them on the rack and left them there, putting full trust on the roommates. Maklum la, sekolah agama~

Next, during matriculation time, I sold top up cards. That was only after a friend of mine, Thaqif Ilman promoted me to join his business. They weren’t like cards that we used to see, but it’s ‘virtual’. The modus operandi was easy; I sent particular codes to the company via SMS, then I received a message telling the pin numbers to top up. It was that pin numbers that I sold, not the cards themselves. It’s easy right?


This is Thaqif Ilman, SAMBESTARIANS know him right?

Now, when I move to this calm-but-dull Kuantan campus, I have lots of time to do business. I sell sandwiches! Yes, sandwiches! The idea arises when seeing that the café of KOS is situated quite far from the academic building. So I see business opportunity is there.


Sandwich anyone?


The basket.

Preparing the sandwiches does not acquire too much time. I spend about an hour after Subh prayer to finish about 20 sets of sandwich containing 4 pieces of cut-to-half-bread. There are two types of sandwich I prepare; egg sandwich and tuna sandwich. The earlier one is usually sold out. Again, I use the concept leave-and-trust where I just put the sandwiches in front of the computer lab (where most KOS students will spend their leisure time) at 9 am and I’ll take the usually-empty basket at 5 pm. Alhamdulillah I gain some profit everyday. Well, that’s the aim of doing business right?


My cupboard packed with breads and eggs.


I hate this picture actually but I have no other choice. Just want to show how choosy I am when it comes to selecting breads with high quality. I look like mak nenek with that opened-mouth. Hehe~

Since my business targets are among my kulliyyah-mates, I face a problem that I have expected earlier. They know me so they tend to ask me to ‘belanja’ them. What can I do is just smile and go away. It’s because if I treat any of them, the rest will demand the same. The point is that, I have to be fair no matter they are friends or customers and I have to be clear to distinguish between business and other social life. Business is business beb!

Being a son of parents who are technically business-minded does not allow me from avoiding the inherited gene to be expressed. It’s in me and from time to time the phenotype is articulated and consequently practiced. You know my mom owns a restaurant named “Warung Ucu” right? Well, the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. himself encouraged his followers to do business, didn’t he? I’m actually doing ibadah besides gaining profit, alhamdulillah...

Ok, stop. It’s maghrib already. I need to take bath and then bring friends including a visitor from Gombak to dinner outside campus. Out!


The girls who directed us to this restaurant, located at Jalan Bukit Sekilau near to UiTM Pahang branch.


The friend who came from Gombak campus intending primarily to meet his girlfriend. Owh that's so romantic. :D


Hazami as ambassador of bandung cincau drink.


Two sizes to choose. Anyone thirsty?

A Week of Unofficial Holiday

Yes, it was an unofficial holiday last week because the administration wasn’t done with the schedule for the semester. While some of KOS students spent their time back home like Kak Arshana, or at friend’s home like Asmawi and Safwan who went to Jay’s home, I can only stay here because I wanted to do some research on how to build portal website.

Actually I’ve been appointed as HeadComm of Information and Communication Bureau of SCIENCESS because the previous person had to resign due to personal problem and he recommended me to replace him and the President accepted it. In a way, I was quite skeptical and rasa tak sedap hati because the rest of the members of the board were selected by vote, while I took this job after being promoted, not voted. But when I blew out this to someone, he told me this – as long as you do your job, people will be happy with you.

Well, I accept that and that’s it. No more skepticism and and rasa tak sedap hati. It’s time to do my job. Among my job scopes are: to serve any welfare related matters involving KOS students, to establish bulletin weekly, to build SCIENCESS’s blog and SCIENCESS’s portal website.

I found that it’s not easy to build the portal. I’ve read the tutorial and many things have to be installed and the installation is not as easy as installing software in the computer. There are many pre-installation things to do, registration here and there, argh! Adlan cepat ajar aku!!! As an alternative I’ve asked few friends if they know anybody who’s good in establishing portal web and this is still in progress.

Besides doing research, I spent my days watching movies, indoor-ly. Haha... the loan hasn’t been banked-in in my account so I can’t spend (to waste actually) my money so much to watch the Cicakman and Cinta which are now hot in the cinema. Besides, I have lots of movies saved in my hard disk that I got from friends. Pergh... it’s been a week and I haven’t done watching them all!

Last Friday Asmawi and Safwan returned from Jay’s home, bringing lots of buah salak and buah ciku. Eating them, sure but that’s not my point here. The buah salak has big seeds and Asmawi was creative to make them as batu seremban! The joy and laughter during playing it really made our day. I didn’t play (tangan pengkor kata orang jawa) so well although I used to play this traditional game during child-age. It’s among the topics discussed when we played and Asmawi was quite impressed to know that there’s another game similar to it with only 5 batu’s and it’s stricter and complicated than batu 7. Since it’s traditional game and is not standardized thus every people have their own rules and method, but the name is still called batu seremban. There’s nothing weird when boys play batu seremban right?

The biji salak...

Look at their hands. They are so fast...

And the most enjoyable activity we did last week was visiting Teluk Cempedak, which is located about 20 km from the campus. I used to visit rivers with full of gigantic rocks, but not on the beach. Teluk Cempedak has them a lot! And I used to throwing my sight to the sea facing Selat Melaka, but not sea facing Laut China Selatan. So, “Jauh Perjalanan, Luas Pemandangan” is practically meaningful here. The scenery of Teluk Cempedak is breath-taking and scenic, provided that I overlook the rubbish scattered almost everywhere surrounding the huts. Fortunately I didn’t found any condoms because this place is allegedly popular with couples doing sinful activities – you know what right?

Trying to be cliche - jump and capture tapi tak jadi.

Sedang berzikir - subhanallah~

Blur~

The gigantic rocks.

Good's and Not Good's

It’s Friday again today. I reached here at Kuantan last week on Friday, which means I’m in the early of the second week staying in this new campus. New things? A lot! It’s just a matter of whether good or not good (not to say they are bad) the things are. Comparing them with what I used to have in Gombak is unavoidable. Let’s list them out and let’s see which overweighs which.

Good things.
1. The mahallah provides condusive accommodation which to me is better than mahallah at Gombak. The building is still virgin and we are among the first to destruct the virginity. Haha... Although there are still few problems on some facilities, but we can cope with them. But here it’s quite weird that they pronounce mahallah as ‘mahallat’.

2. Mak cik cleaner named Kak Som working in my block is soooo friendly. Although someone has stolen her broom, she kept smiling and still in her friendly mood. Actually I’m the last person who borrowed it and I’ve returned it to the place she asked to put but the next day it wasn’t there. Poor makcik... Besides her, makcik cleaners at the kulliyyah are also friendly. Orang-orang Kuantan ni memang peramah agaknya.

3. The café in the kulliyyah is as good as er... don’t know who to compare with, but the price is affordable, the meals are delicious and the workers are friendly. As starting, they only open 2 stalls out of 4 available but to us that’s enough to provide us breakfast, lunch and perhaps dinner.

4. The location from this campus to the Kuantan city is actually closer than Gombak campus to KL, thus time spent to drive from the campus to the city is actually shorter. This also means that the campus wasn’t as remote as rumored before. Giant supermarket is the most popular shopping place among UIA Kuantan students since it’s the most reach-able compared to others.

5. Now I see that there’s no reason for all Kulliyyah of Science students not to get closed to each other because we share the same road to- and from the kulliyyah. So whenever we go to- and back from class we’ll see each other more frequently. Besides that, the rooms are divided by batch and courses, meaning to say everyone get classmates as roommates. It’s all up to everyone to build and to strengthen relationship and ukhuwah each other then.

6. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no prejudice shown directly or obviously by Kuantan campus students towards KOS students. To me, they treat like I’m not stranger, maybe because we were in the same course during matriculation time so we already know each other. I don’t know how about others, but at least I experience this. Thank you guys for accepting us as your university-mate open-handedly!

7. There are quite few numbers of old friends who talk about this blog just right when they see me. They confessed that they read this blog and some asked me further on activities that I joined at Gombak. Even there’s a friend of mine telling that his father read this blog. Ahaha... Being a blogger is sometimes unexpectable!

Not-good things.
1. Pedestrians have to bring umbrella or else their skin will be burnt by the sunlight during day-time. This is because there’s no susur gajah (don’t know the term in English and I still wonder why the word ‘gajah’ is there although the susur cannot be walked through by elephant!). But there are buses provided every 15 minutes as alternative to transport students to- and from the kulliyyah especially when it’s rainy day.

2. Although the environment here is calm, but in the same it’s also dull. Maybe I haven’t got into it yet, maybe later but the quietness here sometimes made me sick! That’s why I put my sub-woofer to the maximum volume and sing out loud like I’m in karaoke box. Haha...

3. The statement made by the Principal of the mahallah during briefing session last Sunday is somehow unacceptable to me. It’s like he wanted to say that KOS students will increase social and disciplinary problems in this campus. Try us! Let’s see ustaz...

4. Still about the Principal, he has to learn to give speech in English more fluently, not only during briefing, but during kuliah also. Now that KOS has quite a number of international students who don’t understand Bahasa Melayu, so he has to get out of the box and entertain all students evenly no matter where they from. As information, previously this campus has only few numbers of international students, but when KOS moves to this campus, the number increases rapidly.

5. Poor to international students who do not or cannot eat Malaysian food. The only choice left is roti canai, because of its bread-based recipe. Now that they have to learn to eat local foods or else they will face lack of nutrients later. Hehe...

6. The café in the mahallah (or mahallat) does not satisfy most of the students. Besides the forgetful worker (short-term memory deficiency perhaps), the meals like nasi goreng (for example) are relatively insufficient to suit the RM2.50 price. Now I miss nasi goreng Farouk. Argh!

7. The administration! For your information, we haven’t started any classes this week. Plus we actually just did course registration (with few problems) this morning after 2 times being postponed. Looking at the schedule gave us hint next week we’ll have no class because in the schedule it does not state any time and venue for the subject. There is also rumor saying that no lab session for this few weeks ahead. Hm... We come here to study la, not to wait and wait. Kalau camtu baik dok rumah je, budget saved!

Ok, it’s even – 7 good things and 7 not-good things. However this does not mean that I’m not happy here because when there’s problem, there must be solution and not all affect me directly. Being patient is the key here. So far, I still can stand it and I hope this ends not. Amin...

New Template

Yes, it's me. It's just a new template. Don't worry, this is still me - szakif. What do you think about this new layout? Thank you to blogger template. This one really suits my taste and FYI this has nothing to do with the last entry on James Boon thing. It's co-incidently happened.. I'm now finding the suitable area to put chatbox.

I'm James Boon :D

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Angklung Performances during Taaruf Week

These are videos on our performance during last Taaruf Week for the intake of Semester 2 2006/2007. All these while i kept saying that i joined Angklung Club activities without featuring our performance. Now I want you all to listen to the songs sung by angklungs. Enjoy!

New Life at Kuantan

It was my first experience driving car inter-country-ly with two and half hour nonstop journey (with only 4-hour sleep preparation the night before). The direction to the campus wasn't that hard as i thought ealier plus that Jay and Asmawi were with me to read the signboards for me.

I don't have to tell what we did after we arrived at the campus with registration and carrying stuffs to the fourth level of the mahallah (now i have reason to do more exercise!), meeting old friends and all. I was quite impressed with the structure of buildings of the mahallah which are a little bit different from those at Gombak campus with open-air cafe, sound-impervious TV room (which means people from the outside cannot hear the sound inside), big size musolla and of course they are surrounded by breath-taking environment.

However, the room is excluded because of the lack of rack to put books and other stuffs. To overcome it, Safwan, Asmawi, Jay and I went out to Giant Kuantan to buy racks. It was a 15-minute driving to the shopping complex from the campus, which means the campus was not that remote as expected plus that the roads in the city are full with traffic lights and one-way roads.

After all, i'm happy to begin new life here after eliminating the prejudices that hounted my mind. Wish me all the best ya?


One of the block, view from my room.


Macam mahalah Usman. Ade sungai merentasi mahalah...


This one takde kat Gombak. Floating cafe kaedahnya~


The open-air cafe, not like kat Gombak di mana kalau keluar dari cafe mesti baunya melekat kat badan!


The rack bought from Giant Kuantan.


My compartment.


The cupboard.