The Surprise of The Year

Assalammualaikum!
I turned 21 yesterday...

But, 4 days before my real birthday, I received a surprise!
It was a normal Saturday, and my youngest brother went for his extra curricular activity in school. Aisyah, my sister has been busy baking since the night before, for a reason she will not tell me (in fact, she rarely tell anyone anything so I weren't really frustrated when she did not answer my question)
Wasil, another younger brother said he was on evening shift so he will start working at 6.30pm, instead of 1.30pm like usual.
And I studied muscles of lower limb, attentively.

The day before, my mother said she's planning to bring me out on Saturday, to help her choose a gold bracelet for Aisyah's 16th birthday this April. At 3.30pm, I was ready to go out, my mum stopped me at the door. She said I wore "too simple" and ordered me to change into a "more beautiful" suit; according to her it's unfair that I wear nicely to campus, but very casual to go out with her. So, I obediently changed my attire.

Throughout the shopping process, I sensed something. I sensed and started imagining a surprise birthday party for me arranged at home. Meanwhile, my mother's phone rang every 20mins. That made me even more suspicious. But I played along. At 6pm, we went back home.
I noticed my house has became very clean, tidied up.

30 seconds after I entered my house, suddenly a lot of people appeared from the kitchen, and when I say "a lot", I really meant "a lot".
I saw Hui Fong, Louis, Siew Huan, Radhi, Nani, August, Shin Yun, Lii Chyuan, Slyvester, my cousins, uncles and even Aunt Denise.
Louis came up and popped the birthday popper (I dont know what is it called, but it gives out colourful ribbons and a very loud "pop!" sound), and Hui Fong started spraying white snow on me.
I was really surprised, and speechless.
Then I saw a couple, not so young but not old nevertheless. I couldn't recognise them so I smiled and continued smiling to other people. They then started singing "Happy Birthday", with me standing near the door. *that awkward moment when everyone is singing Happpy Birthday to you, and you do not know what to do...*

Although I sensed and imagined something like this, I did not imagine it will be attended by that many people. And guess what, the couple I did not recognise was Louis' parents!
And a cake was brought forward, specially baked and decorated by Aisyah!
And when I walked to the kitchen, I saw that our backyard was already ready with barbeque and steamboat sets. Awesome!

I thanked everyone for coming (no, I did not give a speech, I talked to them personally), and ate with friends.

Then Wasil and my other siblings came bringing packets of presents and gifts.
With that, I opened the presents one by one.

The first was from Hui Fong and friends, a pink winter cap.
Then from Aisyah and Amran, a winter scarf.
Then from all family members, a custom made tshirt! Haha..
The tshirt had our pictures on it, and a "Happy 21st Birthday!"
Wasil made me promise to bring that tshirt oversea, so that I won't forget to come back home. :)

Then Wasil gave his most expensive present; a necklace with key locket. More shockingly, it was a silver necklace, coated with white gold! And he wasn't kidding, my mum saw the receipt. But all of them refused to tell me how much it has cost him. *so touched!*
He said the promoter selling the necklace was shocked that he said he's buying the necklace for his sister, not his girlfriend. =D

Aunt Denise gave a globe with geography quiz (what a cool and appropriate present for me, since my geography is very bad!)

After Maghrib, we started playing card games, Lii Chyuan teaching us new games.
It was fun and lovely.

And the night was ended with a beautiful prayer led by my uncle, praying for our safety and success.

Of course, there were photoshoot sessions throughout the whole event.
Credit to Lii Chyuan who has used his new superb Canon camera for that night! :)

THANK YOU TO WASIL FOR CONTACTING MY FRIENDS, AND ORGANISING SUCH A TERRIFIC PARTY, AND SUCH A COOL NECKLACE! :)
-AkMaR-
http://nur-akmar.blogspot.com

Malware Detected!

Malware Detecte!
That's the warning I received since yesterday when I tried to access my own blog.
Funny leh... And the malware, apparently came from Tun Mahathir's blog (chedet.co.cc)
That's really surprising...

How come his blog can be infiltrated with malware?
Pessimistically, the first thing that came into my mind was "sabotage".
Could it be that someone is trying to sabotage him, due to his style of speaking (and writing).

I waited for one day, thinking Dr M (and I suppose, his IT assistant) might be able to overcome this malware problem but till today, the problem was still there.

And when googled, quite a lot other bloggers are facing the same problem with me, their blogs announced as a security threat, due to the link to chedet.co.cc on the blog.
So yeah, I have just removed the chedet.co.cc link from my blog and my blog can be accessed like normal and you, can read it now. =p

Come to think of it, now since I do not have his link on my blog, I won't be reading his latest posts anymore, because the feed will not come to me.
And if everyone did what I did, means the reader of chedet.co.cc will reduce substantially.
If this is a sabotage, the sabotage succeeded in reducing the amount of readers and thus, the influences of Dr M's writings.

But of course, as time passes, I'll re-visit chedet.co.cc and when there is no more malware problem with the site, I'll re-link it here. =]

p/s: I wanted to put a hyperlink to chedet.co.cc but can't because if I do that, google chrome will detect the malware again.

-AkMaR-
http://nur-akmar.blogspot.com

Crazy Semester 5

Hahah! No laa.. It's not that crazy yet. We are still in Musculoskeletal (MSK) System, and it's ending next week. Then Central Nervous System will start.

I've just finished memorising the muscles of upper limb, eh no, the muscles of the shoulder, not yet the whole upper limb. And I'm still kicking!

Well, life has been hectic for me the past few weeks, with a lot of PMS matching forms to be handed in, research write up, survey report, article to be written, studies to be done, and on top of all that, an IELTS to prepare for!

Yup yup, I did my IELTS in my A Level years, before entering IMU. And since then, more than 2 yrs have passed, and my IELTS result, no matter how good it was, is already invalid.
To get into UK, I have to have a valid IELTS result (as told by the univ to us).
For that, I registered to take IELTS and paid RM570! And the exam will be one week from now.
Haizz..

I am now quite relaxed actually.
Despite having a lot of things to do, I somehow managed to do them peacefully and happily. Thank God for that blessing.

Honestly speaking, 4 weeks have passed since MSK started, and I am still revising first week's notes, and have been sleeping through all other lectures. So it is actually the time for me to freak out now, but I have not.
I think I have the hormones to be blamed again. Excessive endorphin in the circulation, perhaps due to the bars of chocolates I've been stuffing myself with lately? :D

Anyway, it's almost 1am, and I gotta sleep now (even though I don't really feel sleepy but, I pity myself, staying up so late till 1am).

Goodnight!
Assalammualaikum. =)

-AkMaR-
http://nur-akmar.blogspot.com

MACMA Selangor 2011 Youth Camp

Assalammualaikum!

My blog has been dormant for quite some time.
After that emotionally unstable post, my mood got better 2 days later and has been good until now, Alhamdulillah!

Anyway, this post is specially to talk about the youth camp I organised for Malaysian Chinese Muslim Association (MACMA) Selangor branch. And of course I did not organise it alone, I organised it with my IMU friends! They were Radhi, Atieqa Inani, Louis and Kevin. And of course, my mother and brother. Although Radhi could not join us for the camp itself, but she has been of great help in organising the camp!

The camp was held during the second (last) weekend of the school holiday (18th to 20th March 2011) and a total of 39 students participated.

Being "kakak" and "abang" throughout the camp really taught me a lot, and I believe my friends felt the same.

The activities were:

1) Telematch

Only me and Louis were there at that time. And honestly, both of us could not control those kids! They actually cheated during the telematch! =.="

2) Talk; "Our Role as Khalifah"

This was a beneficial talk delivered by Cikgu Mahadzir, the operator of the campsite. It was on the 4 worlds we live in, World of the Womb, World We Live In, World of Death, and World of Qiamat. Many of the girls cried after the talk, touched and scared.

3) Talk: "Heroes of The World"

Kevin was the speaker for this one while Radhi and Nani were the slide preparer. The talk emphasised on the successes of Sultan Salahuddin Al Ayyubi, Sultan Muhammad Al Fateh and Admiral Cheng Ho. Most of them did not know that Cheng Ho is actually a Muslim!

Fun fact: Cheng Ho's voyage around the world consisted of 200 large ships while Colombus' ships were minute compared to Cheng Ho's. And 1000 yrs after Cheng Ho's voyage, Columbus claimed to be the first man who discovered America.

4) Jungle Trekking

We started trekking at about 10 in the morning into the forest of Hulu Langat. I dared not look at my legs and ankles, fearing the leeches. I would not feel any leeches on the skin, but once I saw them, I'll start screaming. So I only dared looking at my ankle when we reach the river, an hour later. And I found one leech half the length of my ring finger! And later when I reached home, I noticed there were 3 other wounds. So I guess the other 3 leeches were already full that they fell off on their own will. Now, these 4 wounds are very itchy!


5) Obstacle Course

Solely conducted by the campsite people. Me and friends were just the spectator and cameramen. Oh, except for Kevin who joined some of the obstacles.

6) Movie Show and Discussion; "Children of Heaven"

This movie truly is a good, full of morale movie. Eventhough the subtitle was in English, the kids watched it attentively and were even able to participate well in the discussion after the movie. They presented the good values they observed in the movie and clearly enjoyed it.

7) Treasure Hunt

Louis was the coordinator for this game and he truly did a terrific job. The flow of the treasure hunt was really smooth, with all difficult challenges. It was the biggest event in the whole camp, the game with the highest mark.

The marks for each group for the whole 3 days were recorded and the champion received a super tall hamper. Of course, we gave hampers to all the groups, even the last one.

All in all, I truly enjoyed this 3 day camp, despite the fact that I did not touch any of my lecture notes for 3 days. And having 2 other batchmates in the same camp, enabled us to revise our subjects, superficially. Haha...

Anyway, let the pictures do the talking from here!

The telematch. The students have to pass rubber band to their team members using a straw in their mouths.

Urgghhh.. Why is this boy so short? I had to bend a lot just to pass this rubber band to him.. Heh...

Kakak Atieqa is explaining about our heroes. This happens when Abg Kevin got stucked. :p

At last, we reached the river after the jungle trekking! At this point of time, I was still ignorant of that leech on my ankle!

ALMEC in our hearts. =) Post jungle trekking.

No no, this is not a controversial picture (ahem ahem) of Louis and Atieqa.

Kevin, me and Louis.

Obstacle Course. Go Adib Go! He was the biggest sized participant, and he won the Best Participant due to his jolliness and enthusiasm.

Another obstacle course. They had to dance while standing on the bricks, trying to balance themselves.

Kevin joining the participants in the obstacle course

Muddy muddy...

Kevin pun nak join skali.. He's famous amongst the participants

Louis, enjoying tai chi lesson by Tai Chi master from China

Yes, let us all Tai Chi!

One of the challenges in the Treasure Hunt

Smile ppl, smile!

We, the facis had to stay back to clean the hall after all the participants went back. But of course, we did it enjoyably!

Barisan fasilitator yang berwibawa, berkarisma dan berjaya!

=)

-AkMaR-
http://nur-akmar.blogspot.com

Hari Yang Cari Gaduh

Tak tau la kenapa.
Hari ni emosi saya asyik terganggu, asyik nk cari gaduh je.

Macam semua orang ada buat salah.
PMS ke?

Dapat mesej 3 ayat pun, boleh cari byk point untuk gaduh, just from that message. So, baik jangan reply, lagi teruk keadaan nanti.

Hari ni pkai kasut yang berbunyi2, jadi jalan bunyi macam garang.
Kadang2 tu, sbb mmg tgh geram dengan orang, maka saya jalan laju, maka lagi kuat la bunyi heels kasut, jadi la bunyi mcm cikgu disiplin, cuma bezanya sy pegang botol air, bukan rotan.

Pagi2 lagi dah ada orang mcm nak cari pasal, sedih sangat.
Hari ni sy banyak belanja, beli makanan dan minuman.
Sebab nak menggembirakan diri sndiri.

Beli cappucino mahal la, beli NIPS la, beli cheese tart la, beli susu la... Nasib baik x beli coklat lebih2 kt EMO.

Sekarang dh lewat malam, sy kena tido.
Esok ada lecture muscles of lower limb, oh! Gler punya lecture..
Pagi tadi muscles of upper limb, mcm bomb! Dengan mengantuk lagi...banyak hamba2 Allah yg bergayut kt kelopak mata. Bila tampar pipi, sendiri sakit, bukannya diorg yg sakit.

Okay, jom tido...
Harap2 mlm ni x mimpi gaduh dengan orang.
Kak Ra kata sy pernah mengigau gaduh dengan org, bila dia tnya sy tengah gaduh dgn siapa, boleh pulak tengah mengigau tu sy jwb dia sy tgh gaduh dengan ___*ada la*_________.

Esok sy nak bangun happy, walaupun kerja yang menanti boleh kalahkan ketinggian KLCC.
Sy tetap, mesti dan kena bangun dengan happy.
InsyaAllah...

-Kerana hidup adalah ujian-


-AkMaR-
sedang merapu dalam Bahasa Malaysia

http://nur-akmar.blogspot.com

Great Commitment by Great Committee!

Assalammualaikum.

Even though the "Gaza, We Care!" week in IMU has ended, I still can't get it out of my head.
All of us have been thinking and working for it since last year so, there is no way we can dismiss that much memories of effort and time in just a day or two. :)

So, while pondering over it again, and recalling all the planning effort we made, I found myself very amused with all the committee members, and the commitment shown by them.
I've never worked with such terrific group of people before.
Even while organising the Grand Dinner in my A Level years, I know some of the committee members were not really working, neither did they put their hearts in the project. But of course, the whole dinner pulled through beautifully, since we have a lot other responsible people in the organising team.

But this time, I admit I'm touched by the sincerity and responsibility shown by the whole team.
Everyone worked so hard...

We are the best team I can ever imagine, in organising this event.
Alhamdulillah...

And despite all the hardships we went through, I can't be happier being in this team.
I honestly, am happy and proud to work with them.

With that, this post is a personal tribute to these great people.

1) Mukhlis Rahimi - secretary + opening and closing ceremonies event manager
2) Diana Rizal - treasurer and MSOC fund-raiser.
3) Nabilah Zakaria - Exhibition Bureau and MSRI stall boss
4) Farahin Ruslan - VPM stall boss and money keeper
5) Hisham Hasan - publicity, the ticket-man, the fund-raising man
6) Khomeini - Speech Bureau, food-man and doughnut caretaker
7) Louis Pung - MERCY stall boss and MC.

Thank you friends!
:)

May we meet again.... for a good cause.
:)

Monday 10.31pm
4 days after GWC finale night.

-AkMaR-
http://nur-akmar.blogspot.com

What I've Learnt

Assalammualaikum.

"Gaza, We Care!", a 4 day Palestine humanitarian campaign in IMU has just finished last Thursday 10th March.
And I've truly learnt a lot during the process of organising it.

The idea of this Palestine campaign came about in late 2009 (yeah, 2 yrs ago), but at that time it was still very vague. At last in July 2010, the "more serious" planning started. I was in semester 3 at that time, just about to take my semester 3 exam. Right after my exam, we started recruiting committee members, the vertebrae of the week (nerdy sentence, I know).

But due to lots and lots of "kerenah" of lots and lots of ppl, the awareness week had to be delayed and delayed, what more when it was not approved at first. Lucky enough, my friends who were also the committee members were very supportive and optimistic. We'll wait, we'll wait until we get the green light. We'll do what we can, so that it will be approved.

It wasn't approved due to some principles held tightly by some party, and to make matters worse, an internal war ALMOST happened. Luckily, things did not turn nastier. Sometimes, keeping silent is the best thing we can do.

Viva Palestina Malaysia has agreed to support even when the whole campaign was still an imagination, and in November 2008, MERCY Malaysia agreed to join. With that, "Gaza, We Care!" (GWC) got its approval and will be held on 7th to 10th March 2011.

The ball started rolling, emails were sent, calls were made, IPTs were invited, the drama script was written. And the rest, is history.

February 2011, my semester 5, final semester in IMU started, I found myself caught between a vry tight class schedule, "Gaza, We Care!" (GWC) and Community Medicine nutritional research. On top of that, a final exam that will determine whether or not I can graduate from IMU and continue to partner medical school is coming in 3 month time.

By then, Malaysian Social Research Institute (MSRI) agreed to help us too, thank God. The drama however, has not started their practice, and it was less than a month for GWC to kick off!

Then came the last week of February, one week before GWC. Even though everything was under control, I cant help but got tensed up. I was afraid things do not work out well. And I know, the committee members have the same feeling, but they were all bottled up inside, nobody dared to "explode" in public. Unavoidably, some final changes have to be made. From only exhibition, we added "VPM stall" in the tentative. Then came in "MERCY stall", and by the end of the week, we had "MSRI stall", "kuih stall" and "our stall". Lucky enough, the committee members swallowed all the changes with open hearts, we took the delegated tasks happily, being the bosses of the stalls.

Finally.....Monday , the 7th of March arrived.
Having class early in the morning restricted us from putting up the exhibition as early as planned. But due to the efficiency of the organising committee, by 11am, everything was fantastic. The opening ceremony which was scheduled at 12pm, was delayed due to some unexpected problems. I have to admit, Monday was an unexpected day. Fewer than expected number of students turned up for the volunteering talk by MERCY. It was a very good and interesting one, but too bad, people just found more interesting activities to do.

Tuesday and Wednesday went fine. There were only talks and stalls.
The stalls bosses; Nabilah, Diana, Farahin, Louis and Hisham were busy counting money and stock. Khomeini was busy with his own class and talks, food and gifts, and Mukhlis, was busy organising the closing ceremony.

Thursday came....the BIG day.
Atikah arrived, at last.
And I found myself constantly on my feet that day, running here and there. For what exactly? Ntah la, but time were very jealous of us, it flew too fast. Poor Atikah, had to follow me run everywhere.

8pm, guests started arriving.
The closing ceremony started, and ended nicely, Alhamdulillah.
Of course, we received lots of compliments but critics were a lot too.
But anyway, we've done our level best, and I'm extremely proud of my friends who never got tired and decided to pull out, like some people I met in the past.

Throughout the planning and execution of this awareness week, I've:

1) Learnt how to drive a manual van! I'm not sure which one is worse, the van or the manual gear but when combined, I found myself almost crying of joy when I finally reach my destination, with my hands cold, trembling. But I still can't drive well. I'm always unsure of which gear was I in. Was it gear 3 or 5? If I push it down, will i go to gear 4 or REVERSE? And I'm always afraid I might jump from gear 2 to 5. Sweat!

2) Learnt that some people just do not want to admit their mistakes. They'll keep finding other people's fault and picking on other people's weak points (in their eyes, those points are the weak ones).

3) Learnt that there are a lot of terrific people in IMU. :) They do not mind contributing their money, at all. I know one friend who bought 5 drama tickets for her alone! Because she knows the profit from the drama tickets will be channeled to Palestine cause. And despite selling all our 200 tickets, less than 200 people came to the closing night. Thus the hall looked not so full (it was quarter full) but that shows that some people prefer to buy, for the sake of charity.

4) Learnt that there are a lot of people who do not know what is Palestine and Gaza. And of course, I am not joking here.

5) Learnt how to communicate with people. Truly, this was a good training for me. I had to deal with a lot of people, to get things done, the way we want it to be.

6) Learnt to cut my sleeping time by half. Urghh.. I didnt even reduce my sleeping time for study!

7) Learnt a lot other interesting lessons!

And I'm very glad...
Though the awareness week has ended, I hope the awareness will not fade, or forgotten.

Oh yea! One of the students was actually sad that the awareness week is ending.
She asked one of the committee members not to bring down the exhibition panels yet, because she has not finished reading them. I was so touched!
And so, we left it there for one more day (another reason was because we ourselves do not hv the time to take them off, :p)


p/s: Someone told me we do not create awareness within 4 days by organising awareness program, as that's funny and unreachable.

Now, I beg to differ.


So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu!

-AkMaR-
http://nur-akmar.blogspot.com

Tomorrow is the BIG day

Assalammualaikum.

Tomorrow is the BIG day, the climax of "Gaza, We Care!" week in IMU.
And tonight, I find myself very tied up!
From readings for PBL, to coordinating tomorrow's flow, to completing the financial statement, and to get approval from IPT bureaucracy, to many many other things.

Oh Gouty Arthritis, why can't I just sleep on Papa Patho tonight, and have everything transferred into my brain by osmosis, so that I can just present well during PBL tomorrow? :p

Oh yea, my phone....has been ringing non stop.
A real hotline I have here. ;p

I pray that everything goes smoothly tomorrow.

-Because Life is a Test-

-AkMaR-
http://nur-akmar.blogspot.com

Finding Faults

What is "cari pasal" in English?
Is it "find trouble"?

Type A People

Some people I know, are very "peaceful"
Peaceful in the sense that they let everything or anything happen. They do not want to fight, they keep silent.
When there is anything wrong, they keep their mouths shut because they just do not want to stir any kind of problem. They either endure seeing the wrongs, or quit and not see them again.
This type of people, lead very calm and peaceful lives. They have very few enemies, if at all.

They don't take sides.
They are neutral.
They are proud of it.
They make good friends.
And they live in tranquility.

Type B People

Some other people I know, fight back when they see wrong things.
They tried to make things right, they voice out their views and opinions.
They think, and act.

But at the same time, they are able to accept people's criticism. I like this kind of people.
But, in the process of course, they met with type C people (explained below).
So, they made enemies. They find people who disagrees with them.
And some times, things turn sour and nasty.
And their lives, are not that calm and peaceful. They made good friends, and good foes.

Type C People

Few of the people I know, always think they are right.
They think they are right until to the point that they do not want to accept any suggestions because, their decisions are the best.
When dealing with type A people, this type C people are happy.
Because they dont face any problem. Their work runs smoothly.

But when unfortunately, they did something wrong, and unfortunately again, they did it in front of type B people, then an aggressive discussion starts. Type B people won't just keep quiet while this C people, keep emphasising their points as the best points ever.

So, things turn nasty for both of them.
Type A people will look from afar, and say "I'm lucky I'm not in that discussion. I do not want to worry of too many things. You guys go on..."

And type B and C people keep discussing, trying to prove they're right.
Until when?
Either until the type A people starts telling both of them off.

Or, type B people just get fed up of type C ppl and walk off, up to you whatever you want to do. I'm tired.. Bye!

Or, type C people gets a revelation and he suddenly realised he's wrong.

Or...many other possible outcomes.

But for what?
The type B and C people get tired, while the type A ppl live peacefully, avoiding any type of discussion.
Isn't it easier to be type A?

But, can you really live peacefully when you know something clearly wrong is going on?
So, you want to be type B?
But, what can you do when this type C ppl just do not want to listen?
How do you know you are not type C? How do you know that what you were fighting for is actually the right thing?

Thus the cycle continues...

Now....which type would YOU want to be?

Oh, and then there is this type D people

Type D people know something is wrong. But they do not voice it out.
They kept quiet but they sided type B.
They are the intermediate type between type A and B.

Type E People

This is the worst.
They don't voice out.
But when B and C are discussing, they side both of them, at different times.

They are like lalang (tall grass)
When B talk to them, they sided B.
When C talk to them, they sided C.


p/s: There aren't these 5 types of people only. This is just a generalisation, from what I've seen and heard so far.

-AkMaR-
http://nur-akmar.blogspot.com

Gaza, We Care!

Friends, there will be a Palestine humanitarian campaign; "Gaza, We Care!" in IMU starting this Monday up till Thursday (7th to 10th March 2011).

Do come and get to know unexpected facts!

-AkMaR-
http://nur-akmar.blogspot.com