Rings

Went in search of betrothal ring (couldn’t find the right words) and engagement ring yesterday at KLCC. I asked Anne to accompany me at first, realizing my inability to differentiate between beauty and beast. Ayu decided to join in without knowing that I’ve already broke-up with my ex. Of course when she knows about it, she decided to team-up with Anne, complaining to me about getting married without introducing my future wife to them. Well, I couldn’t say much to that, she’s in a land far far way from here, of course, with the closing and all, even I doesn’t have the time to meet her frequently.

We ended up at Habib, they do most of the talking and again complaining to me about my indecisiveness to choose between white and gold. I tried to call my girlfriend but my phone suddenly decided to play prank on me. The line just wouldn’t connect. I SMS her and the decision was made. I ended up with two gold rings after considering their opinion on each ring that I chose.

Adi will be back from Hanoi this weekend, deciding to celebrate Chinese New Year here after his invitation for us to go there went in vain. Well, we’ve got at least two more years for us to go there to visit him. I’m interested to go there, there’s a lot of historical places and artifact from what I heard. Hmmm… maybe I will be going there next year, maybe.

Last 2 weeks I went to Kelantan to attend Shy’s wedding. It’s a long trip to Kelantan, took us about 7 hours to get there. We traveled using Bob’s car (5 of us), make a couple of stop to relieve our legs. We were dead tired when we arrived at Shy’s house and went straight to bed. It’s hard for me to sleep, as Shy’s cousin, in the same room, still awake playing Black Hawk Down with his PS2. It’s not about the noise that bothers me, my gaming instinct refused to sleep, nagging me to join in. I keep on reminding myself that I have a long day ahead, and finally my nausea took the lead, dragging me to sleep.

We woke-up early, have a quick shower and breakfast. I ate rice for breakfast as the custom of the East Coast people. We accompany Shy along with his family (3 cars) to the masjid for the vows ceremony. Shy’s face was decorated with the feeling of nervous (he still maintained his poyo smile though) and it took a while for him to answer all the Kadi’s question. However the important thing was, the vows was recited once, and relieved soon took over Shy’s face.

Shy’s family went back home after having breakfast at the girl’s house (rice, again). Pejol and me helped Bob arranging the gifts for photo shoot. We’ve been offered by one of Shy’s uncle (he worked at the local religion body) to have a free wedding.

“Mu bawok gewe mu, pastu mu call saya, saya buat tangkapan, berehhhhh. Xpo, ayah die bising saya handle”

Yeah,it was tempting.

Shy was late 2 hours for the evening ceremony. It was frustrating, combined with the ulcer in my mouth, but it end-up nice. Au joined us later after his family check-in at the local hotel. The plan was Au would joined us together during the road-trip, but after he told his dad about the plan, his dad decided to tag along, with his mom and aunt, they haven’t been to Kelantan for awhile, it’s their kampong by the way. We decided to join his family at the hotel for that night, since there will be a match involving Liverpool that night. We took a room and Au invited us to join his family for a night-out.

We went to somewhere in KB, I couldn’t remember the exact location. The town has changed since the last time I’ve been there. It’s been almost 8 years. We satisfied ourselves with Nasi Kerabu ( RM 2 per rice, where in KL can we find that price?) Ayam percik, some chicken’s stomach and some sala (fish mixed with coconut). I’ve forgotten the taste of the real Nasi Kerabu and that night it did reminded me of the good old days. It’s a pity I couldn’t taste it lavishly thanks to the ulcer but it was good nonetheless.

We went back to KL reluctantly on Sunday morning. Instead of Gua Musang, we took the the Grik route. We managed to reduce the traveling hour by 1, making it 5 ½ hours to KL. We stop by Tasik Banding for a bite to eat (you could see some of the beautiful scenery at Banding using the link to Bobimages). Yeah, it was fast, I would recommend that road if you want a fast one. However, it is a very dangerous road, on Saturday, a rider lost his life on the same route that we’ve taken. Therefore, be extra careful when driving through the mountain. We exited at Kuala Kangsar before taking the highway straight to KL.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a happy long holiday for those who works in Kuala Lumpur and a happy new year.

Gunung Tebu Part 1

This story happened during year-end school break 1995. It happened in Besut, Kelantan on a mountain called Gunung Tebu. There were many versions of these stories, the most famous was told by TV3, 3 nights in a row, of how 97 students were lost during their descend from the mountain. The story was a bunch of crap andthe interviewed has been doctored by the interviewer. Of course, we were kids then. I never believed in the news since. Let me tell you the real story, after exactly ten years after the story begins, exclusively brought to you by one of the participants…me.

It was almost school break. I was one of the students of MRSM Kuala Berang. Every year during school break MARA will organize at least 5 events to be held to fulfill any interested students who wanted to participate. The events included biking in Langkawi and two mountain climbing (Ledang & Tebu). I chose Tebu as my destination, attracted to the words “survivor camp”. With me, there were 8 others, 4 guys and 4 girls. When the day comes, just before my dad send me to MARA, a feeling of creepiness started to crawl down my spine. I cannot describe the feeling, it was like something held you back, doesn’t want to let go. I remembered calling my ex at that day, telling her about how I felt at that time. She said that it doesn’t mean anything, maybe I was already homesick! Little did we knew that the feeling I felt at that time was actually a sign that something big was about to happened.

We took our bus (MRSM Pengkalan Chepa bus, the organizer) from the MARA headquarters situated at Jalan TAR in front of Pertama Complex. Several other students from PC itself joined us. I couldn’t remember the girls, but the boys (we became very close after) were great. There were 4 of them, Ah Seng, Ayeh, Giant and the “Scotland guy”, Irman (I miss this guy, where are you hah?). The journey took us about almost to 10 hours of bumpy bus riding. However, it was a great journey, of course, we were boys then. There were about 20 people on board at that time. We stopped at a place or two to stretch our legs and for Jeff, Manjoe (both were from my school), Irman and me, we managed to catch a smoke or two, secretly, of course.

We arrived at the base of Gunung Tebu around 8 PM. It was already raining at the time of our arrival. The rest of the participants were already there. We set up our tent, quickly and chaotically (we just did anything, each tent could filled about 30 people, with the ground as our bed, we sleep closely with each other, I don’t even knew who was beside me at that time). I couldn’t sleep well that night. Before my departure, my whole family was having fever, except for me. Now, the illness has creeping in, with the long journey and the tent set-up under heavy rain (it’s November, and it’s in Kelantan), at first I thought that’s the reason for the feeling that I felt before, I was wrong.

We were “asked” to wake up around 4 AM. The rain has already stopped. We make our way to the river which just beside our tent, and we took a bath there. Have anyone tried swimming in a river directly descend from the mountain at 4 AM? Please……don’t try. It didn’t take any effort for my hand to brush my teeth. My hand’s shivering was so severe that it took care of the brushing for me.

It started to rain again after Subuh’s prayer. We were instructed to jog by the Sergeant. The sergeant was our guide to the top. With him, a teacher from PC (a teacher? Weird right? To compare with almost a hundred students), some facilitators who consists of ex PC students that just took their SPM test, the school guard and two medics, each of them brought a brother aged 11. The boys arrived unannounced. The teacher (I couldn’t remember his name, but he was one of the heroes to the event that later unfold) doesn’t even knew that there will be two 11 years old kids that will be joining us ascending the mountain. Their brothers assured him, saying that they were locals, and I don’t know much what have been said among the three of them, but the teacher agreed. There were other teachers as well, but they just come and go, and didn’t join us ascending.

We jog under the heavy rain, the coldness of the morning breeze seeps into our bones. I couldn’t remember the distance, but it was a long one, we managed to keep ourselves together (the KL team). When we return, we were told to run full speed upon a hill and speed back down. We were grateful that we only did it once. Our clothes and shoes were wet as we did the activities. We were not allowed to change our socks, not that it makes any difference anyway. We were asked to form a group of 8. I was separated from the others and was put under a new team.

I think it’s better to put the stories into parts. It was still a long way to go, too much to tell. Next :- My new team. A new problem arises. Advice from an old man and a doctor.

Infant

I've promised to post about my encounter with "something" in my next issue, but the thing is, the material is still underway. I've spent my time lately with a book of battles with the titles "Battles" (hmmm....) and I've reached the rise of the Ottoman empire two days ago which heighten my battle lust, end-up with me buying Call of Duty 2 and Star Wars Battlefront 2, which I played for the whole two days (minus office hours of course). Which, in turn, ends-up with me, right now, currently, in the office, with a running nose, my sweater wrap-up around my body and body screaming all over asking me to find a hotter spot, not to mention my head. I have to come, being replacement for my colleague who was 1/2 day MC yesterday and given birth today.

Yesterday, I've got two SMSes from two totally different people bearing the same news. During lunch yesterday, after rescuing Shy from his own house (he left his house-key in his car), James SMS me, his wife has given birth to a daughter. That was his second, and now he got a pair, two years apart. Night-time, while I was driving my Crusader searching for Panzers in Tunisia, Joe SMS me, Mimi has given birth to a daughter too, Qistinia Safiyyah. Beautiful name right?. This morning, my colleague called us and she's given birth too, to a son, her second and a pair too.

Wow, I've never experience something like this before. I mean, usually, there's a gap of a day or too for my friends, but right now, three babies in two days? I know, we couldn't choose on which day to have our baby right, if those thing happen, happened, right? It was a happy moment for them all, and yeah, I'm happy too.

I don't know when will I continue my reading on "battles" again. It's a good book actually, starting from the first war ever recorded in history of mankind till now. However, it lacks the tactical information of each battle. I NEED tactical info, what strategy do they used, what trick did they employed. Could someone out there refered me to that kind of book. However, this book does shows the pictures of weapons and armours of those days. Yeah, it satisfied me too, but it would be better to have them both, don't you think?

Hempap

Went to Penang a day before New Year eve. It was a sort of road trip. After escorting Zul and Sheikh rightly after work to meet Abg Mus, I went straight to Sect 2, after receiving several calls from Acid and Pejol, asking when to start the trip. The weird thing was, it was my idea, and they were the one that were totally excited to go, hmmm….I wonder why?

After making a quick pit stop at their house, we started the journey. It was approximately 2 AM. I was behind the wheel at that time. We talked a lot during the trip, with Pejol occasionally woke up from his sleep, joining me and Acid for awhile before went back to sleep. Instead of highway, we opt for the beach road, going through Sabak Bernam – Teluk Intan. The traffic was way cool, of course, we almost had the road to ourselves. When we arrived at Teluk Intan, it was around 4 at that time, we opt to take the highway. The plan was to follow the old beach road till Taiping, but my eyes betrayed me. We were at Ipoh at that time, Acid noticed that the car went slow suddenly although the road was clear. The conversation between him and me goes sort of like this

“ Apsal Sent?”

“Ntah, macam ada tiang jer blok jalan”

and that’s that. He asked me to pull over, and he himself took over. I immediately went to a deep slumber as soon as my head hits the seat. That’s me I guess, I’m not good at long trip without stopping. Around 6 AM, we pulled up at Sg Perak R&R for prayers and a bit of snack. We talked (we do talked a lot, don’t we?) and one of the topics that interest me was “kena hempap”.

I never knew this word. I mean, I heard about it a lot, but I don’t know exactly what’s it like. In Malay culture, “kena hempap” is a term used when someone was asleep, and when he woke up, although he was aware of his surrounding, he cannot move and speak, though in some cases he can still hear clearly. It was the working of the spirits or so they said. I’m not saying that I don’t believe in this sort of things. Oh yeah I do believe in them, before and after my encounter (I will tell you all about it in my next story). Now, when I heard about this description, it was sort of a deja-vu kind of thing, I thought about it a lot but still question remains, have I experienced it before but didn’t realized it?

I’ve been through a lot during my 26 years of living, or sleeping if you preferred. I’ve always referred it as an out of body experienced. Up until last Saturday, I thought I was the only one that experienced it, but now, I know most of you out there did. Have you been, when you want to get up from bed, which you did, or thought you did, then suddenly you see yourself on the bed again? The process goes on and on until you really woke up and you sure for certain that those thing couldn’t be a dream, which in fact, it’s not. That’s one of the symptom of “kena hempap”, which I just found out during our conversation on the trip to Penang. The other symptoms include hard to breath like someone was on top of you. Sometimes you feel like someone pinching you so hard that when you woke up you can still feel the pain. I’ve experienced it, and I’m sure you guys did too.

There are several reasons that I did not believe that those things come from the spirit world. Firstly and the far most importantly, it did happened during Ramadhan. Now, all the devils in the world, inside or outside were chained during Ramadhan, and we knew there’s absolutely no chance for any of them to break out of their chain during that month. Secondly, I’ve seen the pattern of the phenomenon, to me of course, don’t have time to study the others. It will happen to me if either I was so damn tired or if I went to sleep above 3 AM. I believed that all of this could be explained in scientific term, and yeah, I’m correct.

Actually, what I found out is that our eyes and brain sometimes doesn’t work together, especially when we are so tired that it would take a lot of effort just to raise our limbs. The symptoms will happen when our eyes were already awaken, but our brain was still asleep. That’s why we are aware of what happened around us, but our body couldn’t react to it. We want to lift our head, but we can’t. We feel that hours have passed when experiencing the symptoms but if you were to check your watch, you will see that only minutes has passed. Interesting part is that you will only experience it when you’re about to sleep, right?

The only thing that we could do is chill out, and let those thing pass, because you will eventually wake up right? I used to jump around every time I experienced it, but it resulted in another one of those symptoms, grew tired of it eventually.

After Sg Perak, Acid continued until Penang. We went to sleep, in my car, at Juru R&R till we’re awaken by a group of Mat Rempit, it was 8.30 AM. We went to have our shower in one of the masjid in Penang, have breakfast in Butterworth and went straight ahead to meet my……..(you figure it yourself laa :-)) house. We have Mee Udang for our lunch, specially cooked for us and for dinner, curry and some sprouts, also specially cooked for us, and we went back to KL around 9 PM on the same day. It’s Pejol turn to drive, during the first 20 km, Acid already lay down on the back seat, and I only manage to accompany Pejol until Ulu Bernam, after I started to forgot what I’ve said though I haven’t finished the sentences yet. Yup, it’s tiring, but I’m the most happy person on earth that day nonetheless :-)

Closing

They said today should be the end. The ending of the pain that we’ve endured for the past three weeks. I hope they are right, I really hope, though the possibility of it was very thin. This was the third year-end closing that I’ve been through with this company. It’s getting worse every year. With the diminishing of workforces employed and the increased in workload, it certainly doesn’t help with the “timely” arrival of my new boss. With him, it’s getting worse every day, haha. Till now, I’m still wondering who’s the bloody idiot that hired him? Yeah, I just found out he doesn’t know how to recon either. Hmmm…. So what does he knows exactly? (In accounting point of view, I mean).

Tomorrow, unknown to my staffs, as what I’ve faced every single month, I’ll be facing the firing squad. Though Alhamdulillah the frequent of the meeting is getting less, but the feeling of having to wonder whether I'm going to get shot or not is killing me, seriously. I still have the feeling that I’ve left out something, though how much I checked, how many times I revised, how many times I viewed, it’s still there. What I know right now was that I’ve entered everything that supposed to be entered, prayed and….tawakal, hahaha. Don’t care la, kena pun kena laa, xtahan oooo.

For the first time, I saw all my staffs stayed back. Other departments walked in awed as if seeing something that should have extinct exactly 5.30 everyday suddenly still here, working as if there’s no tomorrow, which is true, by hook or by crook we have to finish it by today. Of course, if the firing squad ask me to the line tomorrow…….It’s good to have the feeling as if I’m still at the old department, 2 years ago. We were very happy at that time, although we went back late but our spirits were high. Since the new COO entered, most of our friends from various departments left. Last two months, the topic that been spoken at the beginning of every meeting was, “who’s left?”. It was a very dark period for us here, though the numbers were slower this time around, but people are still leaving…. for good.