Selamat Hari Raya

Sorry for the long break.. Hopefully we can meet Ramadhan again, InsyaAllah. Since Syawal has arrive, doesn't mean we can go back to our old way of life. Let's grab the opportunity of the 6 days fasting in Syawal, I'm sure there are lots of benefits, InsyaAllah. Taqaballuhu minna wa minkum..

Winter Trip

Assalamualaikum w.b.t semua,

Alhamdulillah winter trip berjalan dgn lancar. Saya sgt bersyukur kerana masih ada masa lagi utk memperbaiki diri ini. Masa makin singkat tapi usia makin meningkat. Jadi lebih byk yg ingin diterokai sblm ajal memanggilku.

Scr ringkas tntg winter trip tu, sy sgt bersyukur krn dpt mentarbiyyah (mendidik) diri dgn berbagai ilmu, cbrn, pengalaman, ukhuwah dan risalah. Byk yg telah ku tinggalkn tanggungjawab kpd diri, famili dan shbt krn terlampau asyik dgn duniawi. Yg penting ialah saya mesti imbangkan dunia dan akhirat. Saya juga bersyukur dpt bljr di sini krn apabila dibandingkn dgn Christchurch yg byk gempa bumi xmungkin sy dpt bljr dgn aman. Walaupun Sydney kdg2 sejuk, sekurang-kurangnya xlah sesejuk di NZ.

Oleh itu, bersyukurlah dgn apa yg ada krn Allah akan menambahkan lg nikmatNya.

Arina.

Alhamdulillah~

It had been a week since I arrived in Australia and there're lots of new people, places and languages to be explored. I'm very glad that Allah helped me throughout the whole journey. From airport to accomodation, food, enrolment, classes and friends. There're just too much to be mention here.

Anyway, I personally cooked my first meal here and it was almost a disaster. Since lamb was available at kak ellin's kitchen, I thought of making "daging masak merah". I hardly ever cooked meat before but I'm willing to try out. After chopping, frying, blending and boiling the meat, suddenly the alarm goes off. Oh dear~ this is so not good. I'm alone at home and I was a little bit confused. Then, I simply turned off everything and prayed for the alarm to go quite. Around 5 minutes of ear splitting moment it finally stopped. Alhamdulillah~ Later, I continued cooking ^_^! The taste was quiet good!! What a day~

Got Off In Penang

I'm glad that I get the opportunity to visit a friend in Penang. The transportation issues gave me a headache at first but I had to admit that it was easier going there by a bus than a train. It's much more convenient as it's nearer to Butterworth Jetty. Once there, friends came by to pick me up. (Lucky aren't I, I'd probably got lost without them once in Penang ^_^!)

On the very first day, we went to Queensbay watching Tron and hang out by the sea side. Then, we went to Botanical Garden. The Lily Pond actually got many tortoise hiding under it's leaves. When I opened my eyes widely, I saw around 10-20 of them. They really like to play hide-and-seek. The monkeys are cuter than the ones at BMI. They ate loads of leaves. I saw three of them and I think they saw me too. My camera was making lots of noise. When I approached one of them, it didn't ran away as I suspected but they kept eating leaves. I guessed it was quite used to human presence.

After that, we saw a bus coming and we made a run for it. Luckily, the bus driver said it would be another 20 minutes before we can board it. Thus, we make another run toward a nearby mosque. That night, we went to "Pesta Sungai Nibong". At first, I saw lots of stuff being sold at cheap prices. What really caught my interest was a book shop that sold books at 20% discount price. Unfortunately, there's no discount for comics. I was hoping to buy them, but I had second thoughts.

Somewhere around the corner, I saw this wicked looking games. Genting Highland was nothing as extreme as they do. Everything rotates 360 degree either the most extreme game or the mildest one! The craziest of all was the "Bone". I'm not sure of it's real name but it looks like that. It was 4 storey high and has 4 seats at each end. There's only two ends. When the Bone rotates the seats rotates with it. I felt like puking when I watched them from below. In the end, we tried the "Car Bumper". We'd just crazily bumped into another car and get bumped as well. I felt sore after one ride let alone two rides!!

The most meaningful event was the "Quadratids Meteor Shower". It was raining the whole day and very cloudy. My heart sank when I saw that the sky haven't cleared yet at 12 a.m. Subhanallah, the sky suddenly cleared an inviting us to observed them! At 2 a.m. we packed our stuff and walked all the way to a USM Muzeum. We laid out the carpet on the field and make ourselves at home. I saw the Orion Nebula, Gemini, Sirius, Venus (that looks like half moon), Saturn (with its cool ring) and Showering Meteor!! We counted around 30 of them on 4th Jan 2011. I learned a lot from my friends and Dr Chong.

Although we didn't get to see fireballs I'm really thankful to Allah for this chance to experience wonderful events. I made new friends, learned new things and of course tightening the bond between my friend. InsyaAllah, I'll explore more on astronomy. They're very fascinating!!

Virus of death

I'm not kidding that this virus is almost like H1N1 except that the virus didn't affect human being as much as it affects animal. The victims are cats and dogs. I don't know what this virus is called yet.

Anyway, almost all of my cats died from the virus. The first death was perhaps on 3rd Dec my Panda; the mini cat. Next, was its mother on 10th Dec my birdy sound Mok. 5 days after the death of its mother, the other three mini kitty follow suit as they didn't have enough antibody to defend themselves from the diseases. The three mini kitty were Mei; the white cat, Nia; the spot nose cat and Oren, the round face cat. It really makes me sad to see them dying. However, I'm glad that at least they rest in peace and we shared moments of happiness.

The symptom that I noticed occurred were :

1) Strange behaviour from my cats

a) They went to the toilet (I wonder if they want to cool themselves)

b) They were not active as usual (They sat quietly and don't respond to my call)

c) They hardly eat (They just drink water)

2) They fell ill

a) Fever

b) I noticed there's bubble on their mouth

The veterinarian told mom that it is the virus season. I want to find out what the cause is, the solution so that I can prevent it from happening, more symptoms and etc. To those that has pets, take care of them well. I'm glad I still have another one surviving cat, Kur. Nevertheless, one of her siblings, Kem had disappeared the moment he found out the mini kitties exist. I hope he's alright. InsyaAllah.

Nagareboshi = Shooting Stars

Truthfully, today is my first time watching shooting stars or meteor shower like what a friend of mine told me. While I'm typing, I'm sure the Penangites are still counting the number of stars. We'll see the news tomorrow to see the total number of stars. Currently, it's up to 564 stars! I'm glad I can see it from my home. The stars shoot out throughout the sky!! Thanks to a friend of mine that remind me of it. Thank Allah that I slept earlier and longer than usual to see this breathtaking scene! Hopefully the stars would come over earth again ^_^!

By the way, Happy birthday Mum!

Nov Recap & Kerabi, Thailand

Let me just recap some of the major events that happened throughout this month. After Final Exam was over, I could feel the tension rapidly cease away from my shoulder. It's time to celebrate with TDP dinner!! The dinner was splendid especially the "udang galah" that were juicy and mouth watering. I couldn't help for more!!

Then, it's time for raya haji. Well, my family went to "kampung" at my dad side so I stayed home and celebrated with my friends in the morning, alone in the evening and with my family at night. It didn't sound too lonely at least. I'll be facing the same situation in the next few years perhaps so I'd better be prepared.

Of course, with the upcoming Harry Potter 7 Part 1 on the loose, who would want to miss it. The movie was awesome! I liked the part where there's multiple Harry.

Nevertheless, all those sweet happiness vanished once I heard that my grandma was in critical condition. My family and I went to a hospital for a visit. Grandma looked really sick. The doctor examined her condition and said that her brain is shrinking. Mum explained that she had a stroke before back in 1995. I'm horrified at grandma's condition and felt guilty about leaving her. Her hands felt cold and that's the first time I'd ever held a dying hand yet I had to leave.

That night we met our long lost relative that lived at Padang, Indonesia. Surprisingly, grandma had lost contact with them for almost 70 years. Grandma migrated to Malaysia when she was young. Our relative worked as a maid in one of the most respectable leader in the old days. She invited us for dinner and showed us grandma's family pictures. There she was around 25 years old I think. Hopefully, we can get in contact with the others too.

The very next day was our flight to Kerabi, Thailand. Thankfully, the hotel that we're staying was a muslim hotel so we wouldn't had to worry much about halal food. However I was being extremely caution with food. I did not dare to take chicken meat for fear of it might not be halal. Thus, for four days I've been eating shrimp and tom yam seafood. Back in Malaysia, I got so sick of chicken now I'm so sick of seafood. I'm still glad that I can enjoy both food unlike others.

Anyway, mostly we went out at night for shopping at Aonang. Then, we snorkeled in the clear view of the sea. Although I almost drown since the goggle that I wore was loose, I managed to get used to it. The fish were very playful and cute. Nature is just amazing! I can't describe it in words!!

After that, we went for an elephant ride. My siblings and I got to ride a huge elephant while mum and dad got a 27 year old elephant which is smaller than the one we're riding. It felt like riding a galloping horse especially when it ran. We had to hold on tight or we could be thrown out of our seat. Well, our elephant's guide was quite strict with it since it always ate whatever food came to its view. That elephant could eat up to 200- 300 kg of food per day. That's a lot of food!! The most special event was that I got to ride a baby elephant. I hold on to its chain tightly when it stood up. It was scary but I got the adrenaline rush at the same time!!

We also went to waterfall at National Park. There are 3 levels of waterfall so my dad, brother and I decided to explore the highest waterfall. The pathway was easy in the beginning but it became treacherous the higher we go. I felt that we did rock climbing with no safety harness and that was really awesome!! I almost wanted to glue myself on the rock when I went through steep paths. Believe it or not, my knee was shaking when I went back going down all those paths. However, the sweat and exhaustion paid off once we reached our destination. The waterfall was great, the water is clean, cool and rejuvenating!

On our way home, we saw a really tall guy almost 3 metres in height. WOW! He looked like giants except that he isn't fat. Well, there are lots of people in this world and I'm seeing only little of it. The whole journey was thrilling. Thank you!