Wedding and Mini Reunion

One of my uni friend got married and his reception was held in Restoran Nelayan Titiwangsa, Jalan Gombak on Wednesday night, 13th August 2013. It was a beautiful wedding indeed. It was an 8 - 11 pm event so most of my other friends were already there as early as 6.30 pm!

Anyway, there's a funny story on the night itself. I thought that there's no itinerary for the reception I guess, so I plan to carpool with my Rashid who lives nearby. But since he's quite preoccupied and was still in Putrajaya by the time it was 8 pm, my parents volunteered to send me to the wedding. My mom said that I looked too pretty to cancel going to wedding last minute -__-'. I'm quite sure that that's never the reason behind it.

Back to the story, since my parents were to send me to the wedding, then only I knew that the restaurant is located at Jalan Gombak. Maybe because they still retain the 'Titiwangsa' as their name, silly me that I thought it was located at Titiwangsa, Kuala Lumpur. Haha. I was fortunate that at least we didn't get lost that night. I arrived at 8.30 pm and that's when the bride and groom arrived! -__-'. It was really awkward to walk behind the groom especially when everybody else was looking towards me and wonder who could that girl behind the bride and groom be.

Hmm. Anyway, it was fun to meet my uni friends again. All of us did wonder whether there'll be any reunion after this. After all most of them will embark the new chapter of life being a full-time houseman by next Monday. Best of luck to everyone including me.

Unfortunately, due to the blaring sound system, I needed to scream my lungs out to talk to everyone otherwise they won't be able to hear what I said. As a result, sore throat paid a visit to me on the next morning -__-

Eid Mubarak

I hope it's not too late to wish Selamat Hari Raya! I know that it's already the 6th day of Syawal but better late than never. This year we went back to both of my parents hometown. The journey started on the first day of Syawal to Ipoh, Perak (my mom's hometown) at 1 pm  but the heavy traffic only allowed us to reach our destination at 5 pm! Oh and this year we decided to drive in two separate cars since the one car can no longer fit us all in anymore. 

When we reached Ipoh, the usual visiting-relatives-and-filling-up-hungry-tummy business resumed. Then we went to Taiping and decided to overnight there. Since we were too tired to continue the balik kampung journey, we decided to stay another night in Ipoh and only went back to Kuala Lumpur on the 3rd day of raya. 

Around 8 am on the 4th day of Syawal, the journey resumed. The destination was Batu Pahat, Johor (my dad's hometown). We visited a few relatives and went back to Kuala Lumpur on the same day! Honestly, I never thought that it is ever achievable to do something like that. Haha. 

Speaking of Hari Raya, I did enjoy mine this year. As I'm not even sure whether I can have my raya leave next year. But anyway, the one boy that sure did enjoy his raya this year is of course my baby brother. I got to admit that it maybe because of he is the smallest among us that he got more duit raya compare to everyone of us. Haha. But he's also able to unleash his inner kampung boy spirit during this festive season. By kampung boy, I mean being mischievous 11 year old boy who talks a lot and never seemed to be low in energy i.e. running around and jumping up and down and of course... play some firecrackers and fireworks.

Yup, this one little boy here.

So yeah, that kind of sums up my 1st week of raya. I purposely forget to put up pictures of me in my baju raya. Hmm maybe some other time. Or maybe just never :p

Unfortunate Event

It's so easy to guess. What else could it be rather than the old faithful car broke down? Yes, the car definitely broke down.yesterday. Luckily I wasn't alone. My mom and I went to fetch my baby sister from a funeral in the evening. Her friend's mom passed away earlier in the morning, Al-fatihah. May God bless her.

It was around 4 or 5 pm when we got to the house to fetch my baby sister and her friend. We sent her friend home then supposedly, we were going to the supermarket to buy ingredients for iftar. Only the path wasn't that smooth. Due to bad traffic and the climbing-hill road, the car was only able to move a few meters since the past few red lights. Oh and not to mention, there were lots of red lights along the way. -__-

I told my mom that the road was never a friendly road for drivers like me. Haha. It's just that the road is too challenging for someone who doesn't like challenge at all like yours truly. Just imagine heavy traffic + red lights + overloaded automobiles + climbing hills? And then it happened. The old car wasn't behaving really well that time. There's a lot of the time my mom reminded me to not let the car die in the middle of the road. I swear I tried my best not to let that happen.

Unfortunately, it did happen. But not because it suddenly died. But because suddenly I realized that it was overheated. That the temperature was over the roof. And that there was nothing we could do but to stop the engine in the middle of the busy road -__-

My mom called my dad while me and my baby sister went blank. Haha. Being a not helping hand at all. Then suddenly some good Samaritan pull over in front of us and asked us what had happened. It was obvious that the car's engine was overheated and there was nothing that any of us can do but to push the car to the side of the road so that at least we were not blocking the traffic and wait for the engine to cool down manually. We thanked both of the guys for helping some stranger like us during time in need. 

"Next time, always remember to check the water level in the engine!" that was what my dad said. Haha. Okay fine, we will.

More Than Halfway There

It's already Thursday! Which means that tomorrow will be the last day for school! Which also means that Hari Raya is merely a week away, God willing. To flashback my Ramadan this year, it was well spent compared to the ones I had when I was back in that tiny little island. 

The first thing is obviously about the preparing food for iftar. I can never deny that those hours fasting sure did make the stomach crave for literally anything. Like that one time when me and my baby brother craved for sugar cane drinks. To my surprise, they don't sell sugar cane drinks in a large bottle in the supermarket here. They only have sugar cane drinks in a small soda can. How will that feed 7 hungry stomachs? So we needed to purchase it at a hawker's stall instead.

Also there's this one time, when we were making kuih for iftar, it seemed like everything should be in shades of rainbow. Like this rainbow kuih puteri mandi and this almost rainbow-fied jelly. My mom also made rainbow kuih lapis. Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of that one. Otherwise, I would have a series of rainbow food already! Haha.

We also started making kuih raya. The picture below should be the filling of pineapple tart cookies. We did made quite a batch of cookies. And we ate them all already. Haha. So much to be called as 'kuih raya'. The kuih itself cannot be kept till raya. I guess the only way to make sure that any cookies can last till 1st Syawal is to bake them right on the night before. But I am not sure myself who among us willing to do that.

Anyway, last Friday, the three of us sisters went to KLCC mosque to join this iftar with orphans event. Hence, the baju kurung. Hmm speaking of clothes, my maxi dress for raya has already done. Hope that it will turn out to be just nice by the time I put it on for raya. I'm not really hoping for something glamorous and all. Just humble and decent will do for me.

Anyway, secretly I sometimes do hope that the three of us have a bit of resemblance. Unfortunately, we look a lot like friends than blood related siblings. 

Of Job Interview and Iftar With Friends

So these 2 events occurred on the same day but just let me begin with the interview story first. On Tuesday night 23rd, my mom told me to go get ready for the interview since my dad is going to send me right after Subuh. So after sahur I didn't sleep at all and got ready and off we went to Kuala Lumpur early in the morning.

Thank goodness, we managed to avoid the bad traffic here and there. Meanwhile, my friends had already arrived at Jalan Cenderasari and told me how nervous they were since everybody else were always revising their notes and whatnot. That made my stomach cringed for a while. It has been a really long time since I had that 'butterflies in my belly' moment. And that day, my stomach wasn't being friendly at all.

Around 7.17 am I finally arrived at Pusat Temuduga SPA. There were already around 20 other young doctors came for the interview. I swear I panicked a bit and my face changed but I quickly find my friends and ask them how on earth are we going to survive this today? Haha.

Anyway, we were told to go upstairs and fill in some form, submit it, and then patiently wait for our turns to go into the respective rooms. This part, well everybody went crazy. Oh, I forgot to mention that there were 103 in total of young doctors on that particular day. It was a really big number. Hence, we were called into the room in a group of 5. Which frankly made the process a lot smoother. 2 rooms, 5 person each session, each session lasted around 7-10 minutes. And my name was called after the first few rounds.

I tried hard not to look nervous, but there were no mirrors around, and I really think my face showed it all. Haha. We were asked to introduce ourselves and then the interviewer asked us about our opinions regarding medicine and the career as a doctor, well none of us said anything but me. I said that honestly, I really love medicine and I find that medicine is very interesting, but I'm quite worried because the responsibilities that I carry from now on is huge and I cannot afford to make any mistakes at all.

That statement made everyone else including the interviewer drop their jaws. It was silent for a moment or two. And then the rest was history. By 10.20 am, I was already out of the room waiting for my dad to pick me up and go back home.

Did I mention about iftar with friends? Oh yes I did. So this iftar was held in Laman Gril in Shah Alam. A nice decent place with endless food and people. There were 3 of us who live around Kuala Lumpur and unfortunately none of us got to carpool together because of zero car inheritance. So we decided to go to Shah Alam by public transport! It took me around 25 minutes to reach KL Sentral and about 55 minutes to reach Shah Alam Station from KL Sentral. Then my other friend fetched us and went straight to Laman Grill.

Personally, I am grateful that there is an event like this. We get to gather and meet each other again before everyone moves on with their own life, workaholic doctors, go get married or even pop a baby. Thanks for the memories!

The Maxi Dress Trend

Those flowy maxi dresses that most girls are currently wearing is totally a big trend! Since I haven't been out of the house except only for sending/fetching sister and little brothers from school, I didn't really get the chance to see people who wear those maxi dresses casually. But those online websites gave me enough ideas on how to style this particular outfit. For some people, maxi dresses might look tad boring and accentuates more of the feminine side which I'm sure that not everyone is a fond of it. 

I've seen lots of people wearing long skirts and dresses back in that tiny little island. Anyway, that's because they don't really have their national clothes to wear during office hours except for kebaya. But nobody wears kebaya to work. Kebayas are meant for big events like weddings, graduations, engagement parties, Hari Raya Aidilfitiri and everything else equals to that. And that's why I was never a big fan of long skirts and maxi dresses back then since everyone was literally wearing the same style everyday and everywhere. It really did look boring. 

Anyway, I wanted to try out this particular outfit since I am no longer inhabitant of that tiny little island. Hopefully I won't turn out to resemble like one of them. Fingers crossed.

Last but not least, here is a picture of me and my sister just for general viewing. 

Sleepless Nights

Disclaimer: Some of the contents in this post might not seem appropriate. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

So next week would be the interview week. I can't say that I've prepared myself well, since I will never thought that way anyway. In medicine, there is no such thing as being heavily prepared.There's only choices between barely prepared or not prepared at all, regardless how many times you've spent revising your notes. Or at least that's what most of us thought.

However it is, the main thing that bothers my mind is that being in the working environment again. To be honest, sometimes it is about the people that I work with, the building, and even the parking space. Okay that's just ridiculous. But most of the time it's about the side of me that progressively change into something that scares the crap out of me.

See, I am never good in handling stress. Those 6 years studying abroad didn't really help that much but it managed to make me realize that I'm not one of them people who could manage stress successfully. I  have always wondered if ever I am going to heal from this type of disorder. I am always scared that I might loose my marbles due to stress. That's undeniable.

This is never a monkey's business. Medicine juggles with people; most of the time feelings, lives and times are always sacrificed. To realize that now I have even bigger responsibilities towards a patient's life, it sure does scare me more. I was never a big fan of the 'Dr' title anyway. Bearing the title constantly reminds me that I took an oath of helping others and that it would be my fault for not being responsible.

I really wish that I can download some app to prep myself towards becoming a better person. But this i just me. Sigh.