SAHMs Again!

Image courtesy of http://cuddlypix.blogspot.com/

Today we had another great get-together, this time at Lia's place in Bandar Utama.

On my way there, I stopped over in Kelana Jaya to fetch June. This mini get-together (MGT, as we call it) is in a way special because this Friday June and her cute baby Matthew will be flying to NZ@kiwiland to be together again with her hubby and kids there.

LDP after Kelana Jaya was crawling, but thanks to June, she navigated me to drive through some shortcut to BU.

I knew Min had to go back early since her Adam was not feeling well, but when did Justina leave??

It was nice to finally e be able to meet Sheela, one of the key-members of the e-group.

I'm still waiting for Lia's Pix to be up on the Internet, before I can curi and put them here!

Thank you to all SAHMs who made it to the MGT, I will never get bored with all of you!
And finally, thanks to hostess Lia for making the MGT possible, and also the delicious "date loaf"!

Meeting Tuan Haji Hamdan

During the SEMESTA AGM last Saturday (yesterday!), the highlight was actually the arrival of Tuan Hj Hamdan Ab Rahman, our 3rd principal (read more here).

After leaving the school in 1978, this is the first time most of us who knew him met him!

As for me, the last time I met him was when I went to Pusat Perkembangan Kurikulum in early 1984, when he was attached there. (I went there to look for some relevant material for my project entitled "Mathematics Education in Malaysia". That project was part of my honours year requirement in the Dept of Applied Mathematics, University of Adelaide.)

Actually earlier that day, Tuan Haji told me that he may not be able to attend our Raya-do, since he was so busy with other activities and commitments, so it was indeed a very pleasant surprise to me when he actually made the effort to show up. Many of us, who were his students couldn't resist getting out of our seats to welcome and greet him - it was in the middle of the performance by the group "Brothers"!

Only much later we remembered to snap some pix with him, which I have included here:

Tuan Hj in kopiah

Hilmy, Tuan Hj, SEMESTA's Presiden & Rusli alias@Slipiah

Note: this post is in-progress. Can't spend much time today, got other engagement. I'll come back for more remarks, and hopefully more pix.

Oh! AGM..

Last Saturday, our Alumni was supposed to have our AGM cum Raya Gathering for members and ALL almuni of SMSTMFP.

I was really hoping that this time it would be as grand as the one that we had in 2003, when we also launched the "Tabung Masjid". AGM for 2004 and 2005 did not manage to attract as many alumni as 2003, but this year I was REALLY hoping that it would be otherwise.

I had sms-ed to almost all friends abt it (minus those who I think are actively reading messages in our e-groups - both semesta_smstmfp and smsk7579).

Note: Since the following part is mainly for my fellow almuni, I've decided to continue my blog in BM.

Oleh kerana dalam hati kecil saya ada sedikit perasaan yg merasakan tidak ramai akan hadir, saya pun membuat beberapa panggilan peribadi. Saya cuba hubungi rakan2 karib saya...

Rata2, ramai yang menyatakan tidak dapat hadir, dan sebab-sebabnya terbahagi kepada beberapa:

1. Beberapa org rakan yang memang ingin hadir, tetapi berada di luar Lembah Klang kerana kerja, terpaksa menghadiri kenduri kahwin keluarga terdekat, mahupun bercuti dengan famili.

2. Segan untuk hadir.

3. Mereka memang duduk jauh, seperti di KB, Johor, Kuantan dan Utara.

Walau bagaimana pun saya masih menaruh harapan agar ada 'kejutan-kejutan indah' (mat salleh kata "sweet surprises"), seperti kehadiran tak diduga daripada rakan2 yg berada di Kluang, Melaka mahupun P Mas!!

Nyata harapan saya hampa....

Namun, tak apa lah... masih ada yang sudi hadir, dan sempat saya rakamkan kehadiran mereka:




Menambahkan seri majlis kita itu ialah persembahan daripada kumpulan "Brothers":



p:s: more later...

SAHMs at Ikea

SAHM stands for "Stay At Home Mums" and I'm a member of it. We have an e-group here.
Today some of us decided to meet up at Ikea.

I arrived just before 10 am, thinking that I was early (we agreed to meet up at 10.30am). DH actually dropped me on his way to work.

Initially I just walked around the showroom, but soon I was feeling hungry, so I headed towards the Cafe - and I had a pleasant surprise - the cafe was bustling with patrons.. And you know why? The breakfast meal was served at RM2 only for a choice between 2-half boiled eggs and bun, or nasi lemak with half serving of boiled egg and a big piece FRIED CHICKEN! You can't get any better deal elsewhere in Klang Valley. I was then told that the cafe opens at 9am, and if you come before 10am, you'll get coffee for free!! And today, I had to pay RM3.15 for my coffee (of course with freel refills la - but I only had 2 servings. How much coffee can you take anyway!).

Lia arrived while I was having my nasi lemak. Apparently Alice was already there, but both of us didn't recognise each other.

Soon, other mums turned up one after another. I forgot to bring my camera, but Lia and Sharon_P (we have another Sharon in our group) did.

Here are some pix taken by Lia (courtesy of Cuddly Family, where you can see more pix):
From left: Me in green, Sharon_P,Badiah, Alice, Ai Lian and Min

Kids at Play

Initially we were sitting near the window, but soon we figured out that it was better to be near the kids, so we shifted!

Badiah, Alice and Sharon

Me, Min and Shanti

There were many more SAHMs, but when we eventually remembered to take pix, some of us had already left :-(

It was so good that we have agreed to meet up again soon... :-)

Jejak Kasih....

Today(Sunday, 19 Nov), I visited Kak Nurul Huda (she's only 1-yr my senior, mayb I can drop the "Kak" title). She's recently moved into her new home in Subang Alam, so I guessed it was Raya do cum house warming..

There I met 4 other friends who eventually talked me into visiting another friend (whom I've not seen since 1979!):


Huda was very busy with the guests, but we managed to pull her aside for a group photo (never mind that the pix was only taken in her kitchen, of all places!):


So, soon after that, I abandoned my poor hubby to join the four ladies to visit Husnayati's house.

The journey was just as fun and entertaining as the destination itself, since NONE of us had clear idea on how to get to Hus' place in Sri Damansara! Poor Yusri, she had to drive round and round a couple of loops due to our poor navigation.

After a few phone calls and u-turns, we finally reached Hus' place. Here's a candid shot when we first arrived:




There we also met Hus' twin brother who also used to study in the same school as ours (AHA has corrected me on this - Husnan is 1-yr older than Husnayati, but she was in express class, so she ended up in the same exam yrs with him. Pls see comments). Here's the latest pix of him:


Unexpectedly, I also met 2 friends of my Adelaide days (in early 80s) there! Unfortunately, I forgot to snap any pix of them :-(

Before we said goodbye, we had a final pix with the hostess:


Note: I'm not putting any name to any of the pix - that's for those who used to know these people to guess/figure out, :-)

P/S: I forgot to add on that on the way home we stopped over at Roselina Hussain's house for asar. Then, it rained heavily that we had to do maghrib prayers there too. WE had a good round of colek pauh too :-)

Rafflesia in Ulu Dong

Please click on each pix for better resolution

Sooooo proud to finally be able to meet the Grand Lady!:

How it got started.....

On Friday (17th Nov) I got a call from Pak Din, the Rafflesia expert. He said that there's one in bloom somewhere in Raub, and asked me if I'd like to come along (I let him know much earlier of hubby's and my interest in seeing the bloom).

After a quick call to hubby, I confirmed back with Pak Din that we'd be following him the next day (saturday).

We met up at the new Petronas station along the Karak Highway, just before the Bentong exit:

Pak Din chatting with me, with his graduate students in the background

We drove in convoy further on until we reached Kg Ulu Dong (Remember Mona Fendi? ;-))
Hubby managed to track our path:

Soon after we passed the land where Mona Fendy's bungalow once stood, we met up with a local guy (for a quick chat):



We arrived at a very nice water fall, Lata Jarum where we parked the cars.


But then, we were there not for the waters, but for the exotic flower, so we just moved into the jungle - tracking for abt 45 mins (the GPS estimated abt 3km into the secondary forest) to come face to face with R.

There were so many shots, but as my gratitude to Pak Din, I've decided to put up the one taken with him here:

My pix

My first encounter with the Grand Lady!!




A very happy lady in Hakone, with Mount Fuji in the back- ground. This picture was taken in August 2004 when I went to CICC, Japan for a 7-week training on e-Learning.