Days Before Raya

Quote for the day (picked up from Jamie Yeo's show on my way to Stulang Laut)

Do not explain - your friends won't listen and your enemy won't believe it anyway
The point - Don't waste your breath

Nostalgic

The thing was like this. It was before Ramadhan and then of course, friends who have been communicating through the mailinglist was asking if anyone wants to have a gathering for this year's eid. Everyone - at least those who are actively going through warisan agreed. The 'bidan terjun' organizer - yours truly and appointed assistant, Qis. The venue that we thought of was teh school hall or someone else's house that is strategically located in JB.

I went over to school today, just to look around and meet up with the people at the administration office. I saw Cikgu Fawziah Simon exiting the office - though I recalled her name few minutes after she went to her class. Too many new faces around and so one of the teachers ushered me to the GPK's room and met up with Ustaz Fauzi. He is one of the new teachers and I didn't know what came over me that I was speechless clutching the proposal letter in my hand.

Maybe its just the school. The office was still there along with everything else and I am impressed with the small pocket park adorned with Royal Palm. Ustaz Abdullah is still the Principal and the office is now air conditioned. Had a chat with Kak Kam, our clerk since KTAM years. Boy, I really miss the good old days. Guys, look at our school now.


Beautiful isn't it? Last time we only have tarmac at this area and that was the girls toilet - usually very congested after PE

Look, they put a stage on the foyer

The Umar Abd. Aziz Hall. The building next to it is the girl's hostel - where we lived for... 2 years and a half after the old KTAM building behind Convent School JB

Months After

It was 6.30pm when I reached home. Abah was no where in sight - yikes! which means he would return with food he bought at the always crowded pasar ramadhan. I bought sayur lemak pisang (banana cooked in coconut milk) which surprisingly caused up more addition to the food on the table. You can't eat that without the whole gang of fried salted fish and sambal belacan. It was near to 7.oopm and the Maghrib prayer call for JB could already be heard. We waited a bit because Pontian is a few minute later than JB. Then my mak said, "Kenapa tak ada bunyi siren?" (why is there no siren?) because usually during fasting month the siren was turned on just to mark the maghrib time before the 'muazin' (person who performs the prayer call) doing the azan. Convenient way for him to drink and eat right on time. I agreed with mak.

My abah casually replied, "Siren kan dah terbakar" which means the siren was burnt.

We both forgot, the mosque was already burnt *smack forehead.

Memoir of a Buruk Lantak

1st year in KTAM - all my friends who known me since then knew that I was the one with the worst case of homesickness, hehehe. Surprisingly enough I stayed and those who didn't show excessiveness case of homesickness changed school. Funny.

First year - the school cook was Abang Din. He was there until my second year when everyone of us did a boycott on him because of cleanliness. Then again, I was such a 'buruk lantak' that when I got home for the school holiday that strategically fell on the month of Ramadhan I gave a list to my mak. List of food that I want to eat for the whole fasting month. Though I know that most of the food in the list was made of mee goreng, mee kari, all sorts of mee. Mak complied and was I so happy, hehehe.

The school cook changed again in my final year as a KTAMian (I think) and that time it was for good. Hostel food is hostel food, soggy vegetables, ikan jaket (trademark for all hostel) but it still taste good. We called our cook Mak and in a way she was like our mom, feeding us at school and all that. My favourite day would be Friday when they serve special menu like nasi minyak, chicken rice, etc. My favourite breakfast day, easily sunday. Its nasi lemak day. We seniors always went down for breakfast really late and we get to add up as much as we want up to 3 servings of nasi lemak. For supper during fasting month, we were served mee goreng, mee bandung, oh what a joy. I even 'tapau' it back to the dorm along with my dorm-mate, also my food storage mate - Deej, Ziha and Cepot. We had a closet full of instant noodles of various flavour, bread, heater, our mom's preserved food, cookies and lot more. When either parents came we would carry the whole basket off to the dorm or the common room and share the food with everyone. I remember hounding Ina (Mazlina) for her mom's mee goreng and sambal tumbuk. My mak was always so happy to bring all the leftovers from 'kenduri' at our home the day before visiting day.

Such a very good topic on the first day of Ramadhan, hehehe. Happy fasting. Next month we raya :D