THE YEAR OF PANDEMIC

Hi everyone! It has been a very long time since I wrote the last blog post.

Now it's year 2020, a year when people imagined that they will live in a futuristic life. But it is not going to happen. Not for now as we are all affected by the global pandemic caused by Covid-19 virus. People can die because of the virus and we still don't have the vaccine for this pandemic. So all of us need to live with Restricted Movement Order (RMO) and have a new norm while waiting for the vaccine and we really hope that Covid-19 virus will disappear.

Talking about how most people hope this virus will disappear, I stumbled across a tweet that pointed out how the disappearing of the virus is similar with the person that we thought we will marry but in the end, we won't. That is funny but I need to agree on that because I know it is true for me. And it will take years for that. Isn't that what the media said about the virus as well?

In my life so far, there were only three women that I really thought I would marry as they were the ones that I ever put their names in my prayers. The first one was someone that I knew as a good friend that I shared many things with her. The second one was someone that was nice to me in many ways but she decided to reject my affections just because I would go far away for two years. The third one was someone that I liked about 7 years without her knowing that I have affections towards her.

There are reasons why all of them are not in my prayers anymore. The first one is because she rejected me very hard that I turned into a bitter person towards love relationship. The second one is because she was someone that made me think that it is not worth it to put so much hard work in a relationship if it is just one person to do the work. The third one is the best woman I ever like because of her character but I decided to put a stop on this one sided love because past experiences taught me that if I am not ready to give my best, I should stop before I get disappointed by my own actions. And she is a very good girl that it makes me feel embarrassed for dreaming to be her future husband.

So, like the virus, all of them will disappear one day. They won't disappear now and they won't disappear forever in my memories like how all of us will always remember this pandemic, but at least they will disappear from the pandemic in me that so much affected in building my characters and ways of life. Until then, learning to make peace with my past is like making a progress towards the vaccine that everybody is hoping for.

SWEET MEMORIES IN SMKA NAIM LILBANAT!

I realized that this could be considered as a very late entry. However, as I considered today as the official day of ending my semester 7, so I decided to write about my practicum memories.

On Sunday, July 10, 2011, that was the first day I entered the school - Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Naim Lilbanat. One week provided for School Orientation Program and there were 12 weeks provided for practicum, which means doing teaching and learning session in class. 

Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Naim Lilbanat is a single gender (female) Islamic religious secondary school. It is also one of the schools among 50++ high performance schools in Malaysia. I came to this school with two practicum partners, who were:

Ahmad Syazwan Bin Ahmad Azmi

(Starting from July 10 until October 13)

 and

Amirul Hidayat Bin Abdul Bashir

(Starting from September 5 until October 13)

Teaching at a SMKA Naim Lilbanat was actually a great relief for us, the practicum teachers. It is because we did our practicum at a high performance school and the students were very good in learning. As the school is also an Islamic religious school, the students' attitude is controllable and as the students are all female students, problems created by the students could be lesser compared to the other schools.

So, these are my first students in SMKA Naim Lilbanat:

This is my Form class - 2 Ummu Aiman

This is my Form 1 class - 1 Ummu Aiman

These are pictures of Ahmad Syazwan with his students:

With his Form 2 class - 2 Ummu Kalthum

and

With his Form 1 class - 1 Pintar Quran

Unfortunately, I could not get any pictures of Amirul Hidayat or Sir Amirul (the hottest practicum teacher) with his students, 2 Ummu Habibah and 1 Ummu Habibah. However, I got some pictures of me and him with Form 5 students of SMKA Naim Lilbanat, as they invited us for their last annual dinner at the school.

During the practicum time, I also involved in assisting Kem Kepimpinan among chosen Form 1 and Form 2 students at Kem Etnobotani Gua Musang.

And the most remarkable event for our practicum in SMKA Naim Lilbanat was the English Language Camp 2011 for all Form 1 and Form 2 students! We had Sir Amirul as the mastermind, SMKA Naim Lilbanat as the organizer and IPGM Kampus Kota Bharu as the co-organizer, our juniors and friends as the facilitators, and Form 1 and Form 2 students as the participants.

Madam Wan Rosnah Binti Wan Abdullah - She is our mentor in SMKA Naim Lilbanat. =)

The big boss of the day, Sir Amirul. XD

My friends - From right - Mohamed Nazri, Saiful Azrin and Siti Safwanah

My friend - Mohamed Rizal

Our juniors as the facilitators:

And our beloved participants, Form 1 and Form 2 students of SMKA Naim Lilbanat:

To be honest

When I received SMKA Naim Lilbanat as my practicum school

I was afraid

I was worried

Because

I did not like single gender school

I am not good enough to enter Islamic school

I am not good enough to enter high performance school

However

Everything went very well as I entered the school

Isn't that very lucky?

Especially for a practicum teacher like me?

Yes

And I always feel grateful for that

As God gave me wonderful students

For a weak trainee teacher like me

I guess this is once in a life time experience

I will go other places after this

I do not know what will happen next

That's why I will remember those sweet memories forever!

:'D

ANNOUNCEMENT

Ello everyone! There are things that I want to share with all of you. First is:

AJ's Music Choice!

I have lauched my second blog, which is AJ's Music Choice. AJsMC is actually a collection of my favourite songs in particular years. I started AJsMC on 2007. I was so enthusiastic in listening to music since I was small. But only in 2007, I had a chance to be active in downloading and getting various songs from my friends. 

However, I didn't have any laptop during that time! I mean, MY OWN LAPTOP. So, I collect any songs that I like or recommended by my friends, and I put them in a folder in my thumbdrive. That folder is now called as AJ's Music Choice.

In the beginning of AJsMC, I categorized my favourite songs into four categories which are Malay songs, English songs, Indonesian songs and Japanese songs. But started from 2010, I added three more categories which are Korean songs, Chinese songs and Other songs (for Thai, Hindustani etc).

AJsMC started as a private-based-music-collection but as I got the songs from my colleagues, I guess it must not be private. I'm always ready to share but still, the choice of music is within my TASTE.

AJsMC was spreading around my classmates' laptops while we were in IPGM Kota Bharu. But when we arrived in UiTM Shah Alam, many of us thought that AJsMC is dead. That's not right! AJsMC still have its breath, but in a different form. Starting from this year, I will spread AJ's Music Choice through BLOG.

In AJ's Music Choice blog, I will review my favourite songs by providing lyrics or the list of best songs by certain singers or anything related.

Please click here to view AJ's Music Choice.

Second thing that I want to share is a simple review about my first blog here:

1. The age of this blog is 6 months already.

2. This blog is a bilingual blog. I prefer to write in Malay or English language.

3. There will be various labels of blog posts in the future, so check it out!

This is the last entry for this month and we will meet again in new entries in the future hopefully!

MY FIRST LOBSTER EVER!

You know what? I was one of the people who came home very late after exam. I went home on May 10th, feeling very grateful that I would get a better food since I didn't have any money in my pocket to buy any food. Thanks to my uncle who managed to bring me home as soon as possible. And that night on my arrival at home, I was very happy because my mother cooked Laksa and Mee Hoon Soup. I chose Mee Hoon Soup, of course, because I preferred soup rather than Laksa. That was the story for May 10th.

On May 11th, my father went home from his outstation at Papua New Guinea and he brought:

LOBSTERS!!!!!

Actually, my father brought back 3 lobsters. Among that 3 lobsters, there was a small size lobsters, a medium size lobster and a big lobster. And they had no head and big claws. My father said that those heads were sold separately from the lobsters' body.

Then, my mother cooked all 3 lobsters for masak lemak cili api. And the result was:

TADAA!!!

How is the taste of a lobster? In my opinion, the taste is the same as the taste of usual prawns. But the texture of a lobster is very thick as you take a few bite from the lobster and then you will feel like 10-20 prawns in your mouth! (You can get that kind of feeling just if you take one of the lobsters in the picture, hold it in your hand like a chicken drumstick and bite it into your mouth like I did.)

So, I took the medium size lobster. My father took the smallest one. My mother and my sister took the biggest one.

See? If a normal shrimp, we hold it just with two fingers but with a lobster, we need to use all fingers to hold it properly.

The lobsters had a hard outer shell as crab. You might need to open its body with a big and strong knife. Maybe with a parang, if you want. And from the picture, you can see how was the end of a lobster in the hand of a carnivorous person like me.