Cerita-cerita Zainur

As Salam everyone...

Eid Mubarak to all my dear sisters & brothers wherever you are now. Warga Malaysia semestinya beraya hari ini. Setiap tahun mengikut kiraan kalender. Tak pernah nampak anak bulan! But we in Gong are celebrating Eid tomorrow on the 31st August. So it will be double celebration- Raya & Merdeka. But too bad, we are not in Malaysia.

Some part of Ausie are celebrating it today. While for us, the imam said tak nampak anak bulan. So, dengan berpegang kepada hadis sahih, maka kami berpuasa lagi sehari. So, cukup 30 hari! Aihh... tak kisah la kan! Semoga Allah menerima ibadah kami semua. Ameen!

As for hari raya preparation... ermm...nothing much I could say. Seriously until this moment I don't feel like celebrating anything. Mood nak memasak rendang pon tak da wey... Nak update blog? ni mujur.... Nak pergi kampus?... jangan harap! And until now, I hardly heard any raya songs... haha... Mungkin takut syahdu syahduan kot... Tak pun meleleh air liuq and air mata di kala dengar perkataan lemang, rendang, ketupat, lodeh, aneka kuih raya, baju raya, kampung halaman dan sebagainya....

Sabar ajelah... First time beraya as wifey. First time juga beraya away from family. And on hari raya day itself pon hubby kerja.. sob sob sob....


to be continued....

It has been a while since my last update... How's your Ramadhan? Have you managed to seek for Al-Qadar? Or been busy with raya shopping? Now, Ramadhan is towards the ends and Syawal is coming. I know mostly people in Malaysia are busy preparing for the big celebration. Friends have started updating status about balik kampung lah, kuih raya lah, baju raya lah which seems to be kind of irritating. Hahaha- Owh please forgive me!

You just have no idea how does it feel when you are thousands of miles away from your family. Yep, for the last 9 years I have already been an independent person and leave far from my family. But that is different because we are all still in Peninsular Malaysia. And I have never failed to come back on the first Syawal. But now.....

I don't care about not having baju raya or what so ever. I used to recycle back my baju raya pun. I don't even care kalau tak dapat makan ketupat, rendang, lodeh, lemang or what so ever because I can cook (cheh bajet pandai!) but the only thing that I care is....

I just wanna hug my parents. Kiss them. Telling them how much I love them and miss them badly... I want to thank them for everything that they had done for me. I want to ask for their forgiveness for every mistakes and faults that I have ever made that might hurt their feelings...

But I just can't....

It's different when you just can call instead of talking to them straight to the eyes....
It's different when you can only watch them through video call than seeing them in front of you..
It's different when you can touch and feel their rough hands rather than touch their pictures on photos....

So guys, be grateful that you can still do that. Because you just don't know how long will you have that moments with you.. Show your love and appreciation to your parents and love ones because it's either you or them will go first. And by that time it's just too late.

In this opportunity, I would also like to extend my sincere condolences to SK for the loss of her beloved father. May Allah SWT have mercy on him and place him in Jannah. I also pray that may Allah SWT give you and family the strength to accept this unbearable loss. Al Fatihah...

It's Monday blues again...haiyyahhh... Nobody loves Monday rite? I used to look forward for this day but not anymore since it becomes a day with Mr Supa @ supervisor heh! Anyway, let's just forget that for a moment. Today, I would like to share my experience and two cents knowledge on how to cook in less than 45 mins? Woww... it may sounds impossible especially to those who are not 'yet' expert in cooking. Just like me!

Mari kita buka sedikit rahsia! Honestly, saya memang tak reti masak! But that is not the reason you can't get married, of course! Haha.. All you have to do is to know and learn the basic skill of cooking! Masa first time belajar masak dulu I take approximately 1 hour 30 minutes to cook rice with 2 dishes. Owhh.. sila la gelak kan saya! Seriously I'm not that expert! I always do thing step by step. But now since I'm able to do multi-tasking I can cook less than a hour. Sometimes within 30 mins aje! Acehh...gila riak! Siap lah kalau habibi baca statement ini. Haha..

So what's the secret? There's no secret at all. It's just a few tips and skills...

Fisrt, if you plan to cook chicken/fish/meat, you need to defrost them first unless yours are fresh from market. Usually on Monday, saya akan balik lewat. Time berbuka adalah jam 5++. So akan kelam kabut lah nak memasak and what so ever. So before I go to collage, I will take out the chicken out from the freezer. So by the time nak memasak, ayamnya sudah lembut dan mudah untuk dipotong and dikerat-kerat. But if you have microwave, than you can use it to defrost. In my case, I don't have a microwave (pity me!). But watch out ladies, jangan defrost sekali dengan plastik-plastik unless that plastik or tupperwares are microwave safe!

Secondly, get things ready. This will include the kitchen utensils and the cooking ingredients. Imagine kalau periuk belanga you tak berbasuh, you will take extra time to clean it first before you can use it unless you have a lot of others pots and pans. That is totally different case. But me, I have 2-3 pieces only. So haruslah I basuh siap-siap before going to collage. But if, I have lots of pans pun I tak suka tengok dirty pans bertimbun-timbun memenuhi ruang dapur, nanti terus hilang selera nak masak! Especially kalau dapur rumah kecil! As for cooking ingredients I takda lah nak sediakan satu persatu macam rancangan memasak pula. Tapi if you have stock bawang yang dah dihiris, cili yang dah siap di'blend' and etc it will make things easier. Trust me!

Luckily in OZ, the people here just love cooking and make things simpler and easier. For example they have their spices all ready in a bottle tube. All you have to do just picit-picit jer masuk dalam periuk. You just name it lemongrass (serai), garlic (bawang putih), ginger (halia) and a lot others. Takda la macam kat Malaysia nak kena kupas kulit bawang, blend sendiri, ketuk-ketuk batang serai and what-so-ever lah. Haha... this part memang I like it very much. It really help busy woman like me... Acheh! macam la busy sangat kan!

Another tips is you have to be multi tasking! Masa tengah tumis bawang tu sambil-sambil tu potong la sayur ker or tanak nasi. Tapi watch out jangan sampai hangit pula kuali uols! Tapi, kat sini sayur pun ada yang dah siap potong. Sangatlah senang! Ada duit beli saja. But for me, I don't need it. Semua benda nak mudah aje mana boleh nanti your skill memasak hilang pula!

Last but least, try to make it simple. If you have limited time janganlah berangan nak masak lavish dishes. From my observation, mat saleh ni dia biasa combine aje sayur dalam apa jua masakan. Meaning that, kalau masak sup ayam janganlah letak ayam semata-mata tapi you can add potatoes, carrots, cabbage flowers (bunga kubis), celery and others yang relevant lah. So, in just one dish you have all the diet balance. But if you have free time like weekends ker baru lah try recipe yang boleh kecur air liur.

All this tips is just for a beginner like me. To those yang dah expert tuh mesti awal-awal lagi dah close page ni. But if any of you have others tips please share it here. You are the most welcome. It might be useful to others and me.

Okay, I think that's enough. Next time I will share more. So girls, if you rasa tak tahu masak, don't be sad because I'm just one of them. But, as day goes by you will master it and be like a masterchef!

psst: Owh did I mention to you guys that most of the tv's programs here are all about cooking?

Cheers!

Aloha! It has been a while since my last update. I have been really busy. I just started my first lab work last week which is on the 2nd day of Ramadhan. At the same time, I still need to complete my first proposal & my weekly progress report as usual. So, it's kind of hectic..

Apa taknya, balik aje dari Uni kelam kabut nak memasak untuk berbuka lagi. Tambahan pula sekarang musim sejuk so waktu berpuasa singkat. FYI, NSW is 2 hours earlier than Malaysia. Around 3pm waktu Malaysia we all dah berbuka puasa. And by 6pm waktu Malaysia we all selesai berterawih. Cepatkan? Usually after Iftar mata dah start mengantuk..after terawih memang terus rebah dalam lamunan mimpi. Then around 4 am dah bangun and start the day..... (edisi bebelan!)

Enough of those babbling!

Ramadhan in overseas are no different than Ramadhan in Malaysia. Except for the shorter time period of fasting compared to Malaysia. But that will depends on the season. Lucky we, it's winter so our days are the shortest and the nights are the longest! But if Ramadhan appeared in Summer, it's the other way around. However, in overseas we don't have PARAM (which is known as pasar ramadhan). So it's fair and square. But as for me, I don't really enjoy going to PARAM because the place is usually crowded with people and I hate being in crowded places. Furthermore, I don't thing so all the foods there are yummies even though they look tempting with different shapes and colours but normally the taste are the same and some are awful (This is according to my experience and no offense on others!). Some of the unethical sellers even 'recycled' back their unfinished 'lauk' that they sold the day before. And some of them biar aje their foods terdedah sana sini. Dengan lalat, batuk, bersin, manusia can you just imagine how many bacterias are there and what if we termakan?? And again, I have no offense on any buyers or sellers. I just express my feelings based on my experience or probably I'm just too hygienic? Even my family prefer the home cook. Normally we just buy soya itu pun not so often. But if you are a fan of PARAM than I suggest you go and buy earlier masa stall baru buka and go to the stalls yang clean and covered their foods. That way, will reduced the possibility of buying contaminated food.

Owhh...I'm babbling again!

Anyways, we have an Islamic community here. There are quite a numbered of Muslim people especially those from Arab countries and we also have a mosque nearby. So normally we perform isya prayer and terawih at the mosque. They do have iftar everyday but, we prefer to break the fast at home. Sometimes I feel homesick and I miss breaking fast with my family members. But the feeling of homesickness disappeared when someone (Malaysian community) host an Iftar event. Everyone will bring their own foods and drinks and we share among us. We break the fast and pray together. It makes me feel close like one big happy family.


Whatever it is, I'm glad that Allah has granted me another opportunity to experience this holy-month. This time around with my beloved habibi. Hopefully, I can make the best of it as I'm not sure if I'm lucky enough to be in the next Ramadhan.

And in this opportunity I would like to ask for forgiveness if I ever hurt any of you through my writing. I'm just a normal human with lots of khilaf. I wish Ramadhan al Mubarak to all of you and may Allah increase our Iman and accept our good deeds. Ameen.

AsSalam ladies and gentlemen..

Welcome on board flight RAMADHAN 1432 to SYAWAL..I'm MUSLIM your supervisor and your commander is ISLAM.. Our flight will take approximately 30DAYS. Eearly breakfast will be served around 5AM & dinner will be served around 730PM for d next 30days.. For your AFTER LIFE safety and comfort, please exercise regularly during TARAWIKH n read the AL-QURAN everyday.. We wish u a pleasant journey n please call on ALLAH S.W.T if u need any assistance.. Thank you for flying with RAMADHAN airways.. Wassalam.

Yesterday meeting went well... Alhamdulillah. But my SV want me to speed up more. He told me that my structure writing was perfect but I need to write more and not just 3 pages per week. Aiyyoo... The truth is, I spent a lot of times to create a good structural writing with less grammatical errors as I'm not really good at English. I can write more pages but I'm not sure how good can it be....

Sometimes I'm wondering, how come I score high marks in ielts? The same marks as Ms X used to get. She's damn fluent in English and was graduate with first class hons in US. The moment she starts to speak I hardly pick up as she talks very fast with some 'weird' accents. Haha- *Blame me* I envy her. Yes I do. And I envy those people who can speak and write fluently.

Anyways, I'm grateful that Allah has given me this chance to pursue my study in oversea. Something that I always dream of. With this opportunity, I'm going to give my best not only to gain PhD but also to master my English.

Language is not something easy to learn. You have to read, listen and speak everyday. The best way is to communicate with other people. You'll need a lot of time. But, people say, "practice makes perfect". That's why I change my normal bahasa writing to english writing in order to learn not to show off my weaknesses. But then, I started to lose my regular friends in this bloggie world... Eermm is it because of my bad english or people are just not interested in english reading? No offense-

Whatever it is I'll keep on writing and I hope that one day somebody who have good command in English will came across my blog to support me, to give good comments and encouragement and be one of my sincere friends. And I pray to Allah some day all my hard works will be paid.

For those, who are still visiting and reading my 'two cents of writing' thank you. I welcome you. It doesn't matter if I don't have many followers because all I need is just a friend! Sincere ones!

Good morning everyone! How was your weekend? Anything nice? Hopefully everyone is enjoying their weekend. I wish my weekend is longer and and and.. I don't have to meet my SV every Monday! *sigh...* because it makes my weekend stressful especially when I noticed that my progress was SLOW for the week.... *sigh again*

Five hours more till I meet my SV but still have time to blogging...hehe... Macam habibi cakap, "Buat apa takut jumpa SV. Bukan nak jumpa hari ini aje tapi setiap hari Isnin selama 3 tahun! Itupun kalau tak extend!" Haha.... This is what we call a motivation of the day. Adat lah tu kalau sekali sekala kena marah, kena tegur, kena puji...dah namanya pun student kan? Dulu masa ko mengajar student pun ada juga time marah-marah, membebel, memberi nasihat, semangat, pujian and etc kan? So, sekarang turn ko pula la rasa apa yang pernah student ko rasa! Itulah putaran dunia. As most people always say, "what you give you get back!" So make sure you give good things to others if you want good things in return.

Okay, enough of this crap!

I just watched this pre-wedding video by CST production for Nurul Syuhada's wedding! Nice ones! They used stop motion technique. So more than 3000 pictures were taken in order to create this wonderful video. I like it very much. Terus berangan nak buat video ala-ala gini even though my wedding is already past! Haha... but we have anniversary to celebrate each year, so why not... ahaks!

Anyway, enjoy your watching. Credit to CST production and Oh bulan for this amazing video and info.

Actually, there are 4 places where you can go for ski, snowboarding and toboggan. The famous one is Perisher but we chose Thredbo. Sebab confirm school holiday ni Perisher packed with people. Luckily, the weather was fine- sunny and frost cuma tak adalah snowing. Thank God sebab I pun tak tahan sejuk. Huhu...


Because we went there just for a day so we don't have enough time to learn and play the ski or snowboarding. So we played toboggan. It was fun and tiring as you have to climb the hill before you slide down.




We also take a lot of pictures while playing in the snow. Jakun lah katakan...hak hak hak... When it started to dark, we packed our things, return the clothes we hired, stop for a dinner and straight away going home.



InsyaAllah murah rezeki, next year we'll come back! And we are planning to stay there... yehaaa...so we will have time to play the ski! ( more pictures @my FB...hehe Malas nak upload )

The end-

psst: Habibi, ermm... next stop?

Actually we have planned to go to Snowy Mountain on the 2nd July but due to some circumstances we have postponed it to 16th July.

The week before was quite hectic for me and habibi as we had guests, (a family from Brunei) at our home. The wife has just finished her first degree and they are going back to hometown for good. So, we had helped them packing things and cleaning their rented house and let them stayed with us for two days before they fly back. Moreover, Habibi has just started his new work as a mushroom picker which is a tiring work but with good pay (Oo yeah that is just another great story to share!) and I still have some writing progress to be submitted to my supervisor before 16th.. phewww....What a tiring week....

But, Alhamdulillah we manage to settle everything and even had time to go for our last minute shopping. Hehehe.... So that night, we packed our things and prepared some foods. At 3.30 am we departed from Wollongong. During the 6 hours journey, we stopped at several places for a rest and to perform our prayer. By 8.00am we arrived at Cooma which is not far away from Snowy mountain.

Here, there are a lot of ski shops where you can hire all the ski stuff, such as parka, pants, boots, tire chains and etc. Me and Habibi just hire the pants and boots as we already have the parkas and gloves. A parka is a windproof jacket with a hood, designed to be worn in cold weather. And of course it has to be waterproof as you don't want to get wet in icy water.....

In this small town you can also find great accommodations if you wish to stay here for a few days or just an overnight. Some of our friends who came earlier, stayed in one of these beautiful pant house. So, we stopped by to reheat our foods and had our heavy breakfast there.

Owh... I'm just supper lazy to keep on writing so let's jump to the pictures...







O-ooo.... times up! Need to go to campus. InsyaAllah more pictures to be uploaded soon! I promise! Till then, take care everyone!

p/s: Pls ignore the broken language....saya budak baru belajar...

Just a sneak peek... I will update soon...very soon....with lots of pictures and stories. So stay tuned guys...