Iftar invitations all weekend

Didn't do much this weekend other than going to 3 houses for iftar (2 on Saturday and 1 today). Next week insyaAllah it'll be Eid. This time will be my 7th Eid away from Malaysia. ven so the celebration is always as exciting and eventful as in Msia partly coz of the Malaysian community here. Most of the postgrad will conform to the Msian tradition of having their 'open house' where everyone is invited to drop by and eat and most importantly celebrate Eid with the hosts. We won't be officially having an 'open house' but we're more or less having a pot luck 'open house' which will be held at Shahrein's house on the morning of Eid. Then we'll all make a move to the postgrad houses.

Anyway for iftar today I cooked 'pengat pisang' coz both Shah and I love it. It was my 2nd time cooking it and I have to say this time the result was better. The first time I made it, which was yesterday, it was too thick so it wasn't that nice but edible. Today's 'pengat pisang' was rather spot on. Hehehe...excuse me while I give myself a pat on the back. I also made 'bubur kacang hijau' coz I felt like eating it. It turned out fine but I prefer the 'pengat pisang' coz it's much nicer and sweeter.

I'm actually surfing the net to find Eid e cards coz I'm thinking of sending them to some of my friends. But I can't seem to find any nice ones. Shah suggested I create my own Eid e card and send it off to them but I can;t find the time. Wish I'd thought of that much earlier coz it would have been cool. As usual Sunday nite is kinda boring coz tomorrow will be Monday. Back to work. I've got to run some more simulations to show my supervisors on Tuesday. So after iftar tomorrow I'll be heading back to the office to get my work done. What else is new eh!

I guess I'll stop now. Got to have some rest. Maybe have a look at one of my thesis chapters in preparation to write it out soe time this week.

So nite nite guys!...

I'm waiting for 4pm to come

I'm at the office and my boss wasn't in today cause she's sick. So one of the ladies here whom I have helped before gave me some other work which was not too difficult. I enjoyed doing it. Didn't have to use my brain too much..just looking up stuff from the catalogue and putting in the prices.

The weekend will be starting soon (even though I have to go back to work after iftar) and this will be a busy weekend as it has been ever since Ramadhan started. We've had friends over for iftar since the 1st week of Ramadhan (Didi & housemates plus Aryss & housemates on the first weekend and 1st yrs from Rayleigh park and Broadgate last weekend). This weekend, on Sunday, it'll be the turn of Shahrein and housemates. Next weekend will be Eid already. So to those who we couldn't invite for iftar...do come to our house on Eid weekend. We'll certainly be cooking for Eid so just come. Hopefully we'll cook nough for everyone. Tomorrow we've got 2 invitations for iftar. One at Azreena's place and the other at Aryss's place. We'll go to Azreena's first coz we promised her to go there before Izat told us about their iftar plans. So I won't have to cook on Saturday. I'm thinking of baking some chocolate chip cookies tomorrow (Saturday) to serve when people come over for Eid. I hope I can make some pineapple tarts too but we'll see how it goes. Tomorrow morning when we go grocery shopping I'll certainly get all the ingredients for the choc chipcookies and buy a pineapple or two to make the jam for the tarts. If I have time I'll make the jam tomorrow. Ooooo..I've certainly got lots of things to do.

I know I haven't been putting in entries to this blog. Everyday when I get home from school I have to do more work especially writing me thesis. I've made some progress on the thesis though. I've handed in 2 chapters (chapter 3 and 4) to my supervisor. Hopefully, when I meet him next week he'll have some feed back for me. I've also started on chapter 2 which I have to complete by next week. Now I work part time from 12-4pm and then go to iftar at the Uni straight away. After iftar, at approx. 6pm, I usually go back to my office and run some more simulations. So I usually reach home with Shah at around 7:30pm. Shah has to accompany me to the office coz it's dark by then and I'm afraid to stay at the office alone ever since the building has been a hot spot for people to commit suicide (well, only 2 people have actually jumped off the building so it's not really a 'hot spot'). I don't want to get in to the details of the 2 incidents so if you wanna know more come and find me and I'll tell you face 2 face.

Anyway, it's like 4 mins to 4pm and I should stop now. I've got to find someone to lock the door to this office and then go back to my school to see if my simulations gave any good results. So far most of my results have been a dissapointment.

Bye people..will write again soon!

Taking time out...

I am at the office now. Should be doing work the Business Manager (we'll call her Ms. M) told me to do. But I've finished them. I need her to sign them before I can proceed but she's in her office with someone so I won't want to intrude. So I decided to put in a post. I know I shouldn't be doing this but what else can I do now.

Anyway, the weekend was quite fun although both Shah and I ended the weekend feeling very tired. On Saturday, Shah and I had Didi, Sya+Zul, Maya, Aryss, Izat & her sister+fren and Lisa over for iftar and dinner. We cooked mutton curry, daging kambing goreng, fried niblets and stir-fried vegetables plus tiramisu for dessert. I have to stress the 'we' in the previous sentence coz shah helped alot. We always cook together every time we invite guests over for lunch or dinner. Didi brought tuna lasagne and Izat brought a Millies Cookie cake coz she wanted to celebrate her sister's belated birthday. We all ate alot and after that we chit-chatted and they played games on the PS2. It ws real fun. It's been awhile since we had people over to the house.

On Sunday Shah and I went to town to go to the Robin Hood Pageant. The pageant is held every year in October and it is to showcase the life of people during the time Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham were alive in Nottingham. I've never been to the pageant ever since I've stayed in Nottingham and since this might just be my last year here, I decided to pester Shah to go yesterday. It was very interesting and fun and I certainly enjoyed my time there. We took lots of pictures and I need to go and send them to the shop to be developed. I forgot to rechrge the batteries for the digital camera so had to resort to the old-fashioned film camera. When I've got them developed I'll certainly scan them and post the up in my online album. We met Didi, Sya, Zul and Maya there. Anyway, after that we headed home coz we had to pray zuhur and Shah wanted to go watch the big football match between Man U and Arsenal. He went over to Syahrin's place to watch the game while I stayed at home and cooked some dessert to bring over to Syahrin's place near iftar time. We got to ate lasagne made by Syahrin. It was lovely! Well I never complain whenever I'm given lasagne coz I really love it.

I think that's all about the weekend. I've got to get back to work. See if Ms. M is done with her visitor. Bye guys!

I've got a job!!!

Yesterday was my first day at work. I have now got a part time job. Well more like temporary but who cares! At least now I'm earning money meaning I can go shopping during the coming winter sale. I just hope I don't abandon my PhD. It's abit hard coz I can only do my PhD work in the mornings until 12:30pm before starting my job at the School of Pharmacy from 1:30pm to around 5:30pm. The work is not too stressful or tiring..so far. I have to check and file the claims forms handed in by the staff and resrach students at the Pharmacy School. Next week I'll have to do work on Excel. Probably putting in figures regarding the claims. I hope the job doesn't get too heavy or else I might have to stop. However, this also means that I'll have to put in extra time at nights and during the weekend to finish up my thesis and run my simulations. I have to work extra hard now. I pray that I'll be able to handle it.

Last Sunday was Shah's birthday. It's bad of me for not putting in a special entry for him. But he knows I love him. We went out to the city looking with the hope of me getting a present for Shah but he didn't find anything he liked. There was a prepaid mobile phone which he wanted but we didn't get it coz we were afraid it was locked to the service provider so he won't be able put in his current sim card. But I'll keep looking for something for him. There is currently and offer at Currys for a Gameboy Advance with a free soccer game. I might get him that coz we've been meaning to buy one for awhile. At least if he has that he can play it whenever we're travelling on the train or bus which means that I can sleep more instead of 'layan'ing him. So bad of me, rite? But you know the train/bus movement realyy rocks me to sleep.

My birthday is coming soon. Well, not soon soon but its in 2 months time to the date (almost). I've been hinting to Shah that I want a new digital camera. Shah says he might just buy it for me coz we've found a really nice, practical and quite versatile camera. It's the Canon IXUS 430 and currently there's an offer online at Comet. I really like it and I can't wait to get it, insyaAllah.

Anyway, wnough babbling. I'm starting to feel sleepy now. Very tired...eyes closing...head throbbing...

Nite nite people...xxxOOO

Love is...

I have to confess I didn't know what to write today but I really wanted to write something. While searching thorugh Google, I thought of searching the 'Love is..' cartoon. The one with the little naked boy and girl with messages on love. I remeber when I was younger I used to love the 'Love is..' cartoon which was featured in one of the major English newspaper in Malaysia. Anyway, while I was searching in Google, I found a site about the cartoonist responsible to continue the cartoons which was orignally originally created by Kim Casali as a way of expressing her feelings for her husband. I really miss reading the cartoons and I wish I had collected them coz their messages on love were very meaningful, touching and quite true in fact. But it looks like the people who created these cartoons had also compiled them into a series of books (Love is...:For Her,For Him and Forever) available from Amazon. I hope I would be able to get at least of of those books coz I'm sure it'll make me feel better when I'm down and help me reinstate my faith in love if ever I need to.

Anyway, enjoy this 'Love is..' image I found from the site of the person chosen to continue the work of the original creator of this cartoon feature.