Being Busy

It’s been a while I haven’t updated this blog. To be frank, it took me quite minutes to finish an entry in English. As I’m not that good in this language, so that’s why I am pretty slow when it came to writing in English. Back to the point, that’s why I didn’t update this blog because I have got to spend at least 30 minutes to write but unfortunately I didn’t have it as my time was spent for many other urgent matters.

It’s already the fourth week of the semester and therefore study is getting busier yet tougher. Assignments, lab reports, discussions, co-curricular activities – all those consumed my time that put me away from the side of my blogging world. Besides, the weekend also has been filled with tiring but delightful and enjoyable activities. Up to now, all my following weekends have been set with least tentative activities. Let me list them down:

3-5 August – A special RM70 package holiday to Pulau Tioman
11-14 August – Jobmarket programme held somewhere in Klang Valley
18-19 August – Expected to be filled with angklung training at UIA Gombak
25-26 August – Expected to be filled with angklung training at UIA Gombak
1-2 August – Expected to be filled with angklung training at UIA Gombak
6-10 August – Going to Bandung for the festival (these are weekdays though)

Ok, what can I do now is to pray to God for my days will go on smoothly and I hope those activities will not affect my academic running. Thus I have to be really unbiased between the two of academic and non-academic fulfillments. Ameeen..

Went to Cherating, Pulau Balok, and Club Med in one day. Basically and personally, they weren't as nice as what people describe.

Hm~

I've cut my hair. Ok, better word - "trim", not cut.

Visiting Jay's House

I used to reading stories about one inviting his friends to his hometown during fruit season when I was a child. But I had never actually experienced what I read, until last weekend.

It was Jay’s house, situated at Jengka, Pahang where Awi, Safwan, Zubir and I spent the 3-day-2-night. What we did was nothing but eating, sleeping, going out and sleeping again. Haha... maybe the cold environment of the remote village induced us to sleep more than required.

But hours before we departed from Jay’s house back to Kuantan, we spent some time at Jay’s backyard to look for fruits like mangos teen, rambutan, durian and buah salak for friends there in the campus. Not much we got, but the experience of going through bushes and small trail really made me feel like home. It felt like I am no one but budak kampong who has trees and mosquitoes as his best friends. Haha... but time has passed that separates me from such things. I used to following nenek to the backyard during my childhood till that I accidentally chopped my own right leg with a sharp parang, leaving a big scar.

Ok. That’s all about that. I think the trip should be more fun if friends from Gombak could join, but since they had something else to do, so... :(

Apart from that, I’ve been invited by Angklung Club to join them for the performance in Bandung next early September. I’ve confirmed my participation, so do Awi and Safwan thus I’m looking forward for that. So now I have to arrange my schedule carefully because we might need to go to Gombak frequently for trainings every weekend. The distance between Kuantan and Gombak is already a problem, but what makes it worse is my academic schedule. I have class every 2 weeks on Saturday starting from this weekend, 28th of July. So Angklung Club, please take note ya?

Sometimes I question how can I actually get so scenic picture just by using my phone...

Going to the hutan.

See how Jay dressed to hutan. And see how long my hair has been.. Haha.. I'll keep it till the Pak Guard sound me LOL.

Yummy durians..

Introspection - My Album

Get the original copy from the shop nearest to you...

Featuring Songs:

1. Present but Invisible (featuring Mooloot)
2. The Loss (in memory of Adipose Tissue)
3. Cycle of Life
4. I'm Handsome, So What?!
5. Fooll Sabturday
6. Disabled Lip
7. Semalam Bermimpi ke Bandung
8. Poco-poco Terajana 2007 (featuring Angklung Club IIUM)

...and few hidden tracks.

;p

The Change II

Zaki! What happened to you?!

Ape yang ko buat ni Zaki? Ko dah kurus.

Ape yang berlaku ni? Kenapa tiba-tiba berubah?

Zaki! Ko dah kurus! Akak kesian dengan ko~

Those are some reactions I got from people during this first week in Kuantan after the 3-month break. This is also the eighth week of the change of dietary intake I did since 21st May this year. But people don’t get me wrong. I don’t avoid carbohydrates (or also simply called carbs). It’s just that I avoid rice from my daily meals. So to say that I’m doing Atkin’s diet or what so ever, is also totally wrong. Even the word ‘avoid’ doesn’t perfectly suit what actually happens in me. I don’t have the appetite to eat nasi putih anymore but I do have it for nasi goreng kampong, my favorite menu. Plus, if I take nasi putih I tend to eat more and more and that actually is the cause for extra bumper around my waist. Huhu...

I love it when people ask me “till when that you want not eating rice?” I’ll reply, “till it’s 3 months.”

Then they’ll ask further, “after that, what would you do? Eat rice like usual?” And I’ll reply “We’ll see.”

Considering the Ramadhan is around the corner which is going to be in the middle of September so I’m thinking of continuing the diet till then.

One reason that I forgot to mention previously for the change of dietary intake is for the health’s sake. It’s almost true to say the gene of diabetes is in me taking into account both of my parents are diabetics and so are my late grandparents. Thus, as prevention is better than cure, where am I wrong with this change of lifestyle?

Ok people. I’m open to suggestions and comments. Let’s be supportive! Hohoyeah!

The New Semester Starts Rocking!~

I started the second semester here in this new campus in Kuantan with mixed reactions. I felt so happy because I can see my friends, lecturers and most importantly I can gain more knowledge here. But it’s also sad when I have to leave my parents and the rest of my family members there in kampong, living their live without me (again). Sob sob...

What I love most above this first week of the semester is that we can start the lectures from the very first day! (although I was absent from it. hehe…) I don’t know the schedule has been pasted on the office bulletin board, so I just took things for granted and assumed no lecture in the first day. But when the lecturer sent a message to a friend of mine that morning, only then we knew it’s time to get started – lectures and study! This proved the kulliyyah has been ready to serve the students despite the difficulties we faced last academic year when we moved to this new campus. Clap clap clap...

This semester I’m taking 4 core courses which are Pathology, Biostatistics, Immunology and Pharmacology that count for 13 credit hours. Another 3 credit hours are for the subject named Management for Non-EMS student and one credited co-curricular subject, Volleyball I. Summing them up, there are 16.5 credit hours to be completed this semester. Wish me all the best for the coming 4 months ya?

Apart from that, although the classes have started, but we still have many empty slots to be filled with activities especially in the evening. Last Monday, we went out for shopping and most memorably, we went to bicycle shop! Huhu... Yes, Safwan bought a retro-looked bicycle after being instructed by his mother to buy one so that it can be used to go to classes. The next day, we went to the nearest lake next to the campus for eye-and body-exercising. Hehe... and being typical Odah members, snapping pictures was unavoidable. Enjoy the pictures! :-)

During accompanying Safwan buying the bicycle.

Safwan was "rambang mata" when choosing the best bicycle that suits him.

Riding bicycle is not allowed in the park, but who cares? We don't hit people! Huhu~

As if stepping on the hill, but not so la~

Let's guess how tall is this tree?

We found these kids hanging their bodies soooo effortlessly. We were amazed!

Tak nak kalah! But I succeed from end to end i tell you! This prove how light I've been. ;p

This kid is sooo cute. Anak sapa la ni~

Besides the flexible upper, I also have flexible waist.

See... I can do lower level than that. That's why I always win in Limbo Rock! Owh yes, don't forget my height.

This is faqar's retro-looked Kodok car. Comel la!

Safwan and his bike. Also comel!

No comment. I've seen this picture before this but when seeing it by my eyes, I now believe this shop's name is not a lie!

Gigam

Gigam refers to "gila bergambar" which really describes how maniac angklung club members when it comes to capturing pictures. Owh OK, i also join angklung club, although I'm not certain about my membership status but I still join their performances. That means, I'm also gigem and I'm OK with that. Hoho...

So, what? Here are collections of pics during last 3 performances that I joined with Angklung Club during the end of the semester break.

After performance for Higher Education Ministry's program.

No caption.

The Angklung Club members.

Who? Disabled?

Spoiling the pic.

Performance during Taaruf Week for the intake July 07/08.

Waiting before commencing our performance.

During performing. I enjoyed it very much!

As if the umbrella is blown by air.

Want more?

Spoil la that side mirror!

Before rehearsal. Do I look thinner?

Waiting waiting and waiting for the slow-moving technicians. Then what they do? They sing Pahang's official song.

After the performance. What else? Capture pics till you turn exhausted la! Huhu~

Present but Invisible

*picture has been deleted. Sorry*

Let me talk about friendship. Few occurrences happened that brought me to question myself; where am I situated in my friendship? At what level am I?

The friendship I mean here is the relationship with those living fleshes with brain and heart called human whom I spend most of my time with, whom I am comfortable with, and whom I put love and faith on. It’s not virtual friends whom I never or rarely meet face to face but I could interpret their intellectual behavior via their written words, but real friends whom I put my body and heart close to.

In relationship, people always use the word of wisdom which says “sedangkan lidah lagikan tergigit” to suggest that close bodies do hurt each other, whether intentional or not. There must be party who is hurt inside, and the blisters are actually more painful than physical sores. And here is a pinch of black story of my friendship with people I call friends.

Basically, I treat my friends equally. What do I mean by that equality? It’s simply that I don’t put any level of friendship between them thus I trust, treat and love them equally. I don’t label any of my friends as best friends or whatever, purely because they are all my friends, the best in my heart. But that few occurrences were really a matter for me that blinked me to think; am I invisible? It’s small matter for some people, but still it is a matter that I take as personal.

Imagine these situations:

1. One of my friends is choosing stuffs during shopping and somehow he needs opinion whether they suit him or not, whether he should take it or not. Instead of asking me who is nearest to him, he chooses to ask others far from him. Hello, am I invisible? Am I brainless that you can’t ask my opinion?
2. 4 friends are in one situation. One of them is hungry and needs friends to accompany him to the café. He asks the first friend but he refuses for some reasons, and also the second one. I am the third person he supposes to ask who is ready to accompany him but I am just waiting him to ask me friendly. But unfortunately he does not ask me. Hello, am I invisible? Where am I lacking that you don’t see me?
3. Few friends and I are in a room where suddenly a new hot story that is out of my knowledge is loudly propagated repeatedly between them. When I ask what it is, they avoid me and made me like I am no one to know it. Hello, am I not your friend to know it also? You just make me feel like I am complete loser stranger!

Here is where I started asking myself; where is my position in the friendship? Can’t I get the equality of friendship I have shown? Where am I lacking that we cannot share things? Aren’t we friends?

I know I am not good in everything to share my opinions. I know I am not always available whenever they want me. I know I can’t expect everyone of my friends to tell me all secrets they have. But please consider how I would feel if situations like above, and many more, happen. Not once, not twice, but more than that. It’s like I am present but invisible!

Here, I am not questioning my friends’ credibility and trustworthiness as so-called friend, but I am questioning my position in the friendship. At which level am I situated in your heart? Where am I lacking that made me sometimes feel like I am invisible among you all? Maybe it’s my fault that I overlook due to my own weaknesses. Or maybe it’s only me who is sometimes softhearted when it comes to friendship and easy to get hurt inside.

It’s actually constantly hurt when I keep thinking of this matter. I can’t help it but to say that I badly need friends to make life colorful. But don’t paint it black! I hate black on my silk of life but few dots were already there. I did see this thing positively, but I couldn’t stop asking myself – am I not a good friend?

Footnote: Please don't think I have problems with my friends now. This entry is nothing but a release of thoughts for those occurences that happened not in a day, but the past friendship period.

Forced

My mum said:

Mak nak ko sebelum balik Kuantan, makan nasi sekali.

Baikkkkk....

I'll start my seventh week (starting 2nd of July) of abstinence from rice in my daily meal with Nasi Lemak cooked by Emak and that's going to be the first time ever since I started the change of dietary intake. Hehe..

Aku bukan anak yang menderhaka.

Apart from that, as a show of how eager I am to go to Bandung with Angklung Club for the festival, everyday I spend at least an hour listening to the mp3 of Terajana and Poco Poco while imagining that there's angklung in my hand. Can uh?

Angklung Again...

What is the difference between attending workshop/talk/program that attracts your attention and the one that does not? Yes, you don’t fall asleep!

That’s exactly what happened to me last Monday when I went to a workshop organized by Angklung Club IIUM where the night before I only had a 4-hour sleep which is typically not sufficient for my body to recover the energy. But since the inputs gotten from the workshop are basically interesting and really into me, I had fun with them and I didn’t fall asleep throughout the day.

The inputs are generally all about angklung; the history, the development, the types etc. All these while, what I knew when I played angklung was just to shake it. But after the workshop, I appreciate the uniqueness of angklung as another type of musical instruments. Moreover, I am grateful for being introduced with this great creation of Allah called bamboo that has various usages from food to musical instrument. Besides that, now I realize that bamboo is like coconut; the older it is, the better it will be. Older angklung sounds better than the new ones and even the process to make it takes years for it to sound right in tune. Subhanallah...

Besides that, the workshop was also as a preparation before Angklung Club members are sent to Bandung this early of September to take part in a festival held there. As far as I know, I’m also listed for that matter but the distance between Gombak and Kuantan is a major problem because we need to practice in group because this type of angklung we play is about performing as one group. And this time, what makes it more challenging is that we need to memorize the notes instead of seeing it during performing. But after all, I think I won’t mind if I need to go to Gombak every weekend just to practice with the rest of the members, Pak Dadang and Cikgu Zahir. Please don’t exclude me!!! I want to go to Bandung too!!! Wish us all the best ya? Amin...


The OBGYN members from Bandung performed that day and it was amazing!

Although the songs played that day were not familiar to my ears but they sounded great! I enjoyed it very much.

Their sarong is a very characteristic of them. Although it looks cliche, but still it's nice. So what?
More info about the workshop and the performance a day before (I don’t like to talk about this for few reasons), visit angklung club’s blog.
Read also: AWI's (angklung-web-institute) website.

The Change

It’s almost one month that my tongue hasn’t had any contact with rice. I’ve been motivated through my readings that people who actually avoid rice from their intakes would have their weight decreased. To name few; Awal Shaari, Aznil Nawawi, Ziana Zain and Dafi AF5. And they who I am referring to are celebrities who have reason for doing that; they must look good in the television, or more precisely in shape enough to look good in front of camera. But how about me? Do I have any cameras to stand in front of them, or do I have any people to look me in the television? Absolutely no. However this change of diet of mine is due to the awareness of how far my body has been from the healthy BMI range.

Let me reveal this. My height is about 1.80m while my previous weight before I started this change of dietary intake was 90kg or ++. Thus, the BMI value would yield 27.778 (weight in kg divided by height in meter to the power of 2) which is in the range of fat people. The fit people have BMI values within 20-25. Therefore, for me to reach at least 25, I have to decrease my weight up to 81kg, which is to some people still sounds scary. However, taking into account my height, it is considerably fit.

For the benefit of monitoring my weight, I’ve bought a scale. I’ve measured my current weight; it is 88kg, which means I’ve fruitfully reduced about 2kg for one-month avoidance of rice. But back to the main topic, is rice the absolute culprit?

Actually, rice contains complex carbohydrates which will yield a lot of glucose after being digested. Thus, foods containing complex carbohydrates like rice must go through levels of processes which take time before the yielded glucose can be actually used up to produce energy, and most importantly the digestion usually produces extra glucose. It is this extra glucose which will eventually be converted into fat for energy storage if they are not used. That’s the basic idea of how rice makes people fat. However it has to be stressed here; rice is NOT the mere culprit but since it is the most common meal for Malaysians, it has to be listed as one of the culprits though.

However again, it’s not all about the meal, but the energy use also. It is as simple as this; 1. Input More, Output Less = Fat
2. Input More, Output More = No Change
3. Input Less, Output More = Thin
where the input is the meal intake, while the output is anything that uses the products from the digested meal such as working, thinking, and exercising. If you eat more but you do activity less, how do you expect you will be thin? So to accelerate reducing my weight, I do some light exercises like sit-ups and lifting weighs. Owh... it’s not so accelerating considering only 2kg per month, but I believe I’m not torturing my body so much with this change.

With this change also, there are some social changes and conflicts occurred. For example, my mom continuously pleads me to eat rice but I have to refuse and that hurts her. She can’t stand it seeing me not eating rice. So does my abah. Poor mak and abah, but please understand me. Besides that, I who are not used to consuming biscuits, have change. I buy hi-fibre biscuits and to replace glucose intake, I choose fruits, breads and chocolates. Yummy! And how about seeing me doing sit-ups previously? Hell no! I used to considering my daily works as ample enough to replace the exercise, which was actually only an excuse to keep the “mim alif lam sin”. Hoho...

Along this period, I only miss nasi goreng kampong which is my favorite meal, but not nasi putih to accompany the lauk-pauk and vegetables for my lunch. Owh ya, I don’t take heavy meals for dinner also. Sometimes it’s only a cup of tea and a bar of chocolate. I hope I can continue this “revolution” for few months more before I can actually taste rice again. Hoho... sorry rice. We’ll see other time ya?



Do you have any advise for me regarding this change of diet? I would love to hear it. Let's be supportive!

My toes are big enough to cover the scale aren't them?

See... 98 88kg.