Getting ready to school

I'm five!..and I'm three years old!

First day at school

Today is Maisarah's first day at school and she is very looking forward to play new toys and meet new friends and teachers. We went to the school at 10am in a quite chilly day (5 degree Celcius) but she is not complaining. She seems to like her new classroom which is definitely far bigger than her previous one in Lancaster. Her teacher told me that they have two more Muslim kids from Azerbaijan and Egypt. The kids were generally nice and helpful. They tidied the play areas when told without much fuss. I'm quite impressed really.

On her first day we took her around the classroom so that she know where is the toilet, snack room and play areas (art, sand, water, computer, books, kitchen and outside areas) and the session ends at 11.30am right after story telling and singing session. 

Tomorrow she will go to the school together with Ilyas at 9am. And she will be wearing her new school jumper that I just bought her this evening. I bet she can't wait for tomorrow.

If the world could vote

I received an email today giving a link to a website where you could cast your vote on who will be the next President of the United States of America, hypothetically of course. If you want to give it a try, you can go to www.iftheworldcouldvote.com and you can see yourself what the rest of the world are thinking about those two candidates.

EBay

My wife has started to sell few things off the EBay. She's making a tidy profit at the moment. I've already asked her to list my extra PS2 controller yesterday and already it has one watcher. Hopefully it will turns into a confirmed bid.

Mission Accomplished

Finally I managed to get my Terminator gold medal. Since I have obtained all gold medals for Assassin, Standard and Terminator settings, I'm only left with one more map to conquer (Charleston) in Conquerclub.com and after that I'm done. (Yeah, right)

Yesterday we received Raya visits from our friends from Lancaster and Reading. The weather was fine and the children were quite happy to play together especially Maisarah since her former classmate Danial and his big sister, Isha were here also.

Today I bought Ilyas his football kits (which include an England shirt and short, boots, socks, shin pads and a tracksuit). At first I couldn't find a blank England shirt as all that available were Terry, Lampard and Rooney printed at the back. I cannot imagine Ilyas wearing any of those shirts when training in Liverpool FC Academy but luck was on my side when I saw one blank shirt, and it is a long sleeve one too! (Think David Beckham). So when we arrived back home, Ilyas was pretty much excited and so we practised kicking and stopping the ball for half an hour. Tomorrow will be a dribble session.

New Conquerclub Maps

Just as I finished winning all maps in the Conquerclub.com, they put up 3 more new maps! Somehow I don't think this is just a coincidence...hmmm.

The Liverpool FC Academy

I just received this letter today confirming that Ilyas will be attending football courses conducted by the Liverpool FC Academy. He will be starting in two weeks time so I guess I'd better get him some football gears as he haven't got any proper football boots and socks yet. And it's about time to use our back garden as a training pitch. Let's hope this is the beginning of a future David Beckham (!)

In the back garden

City Mogul

Once again I managed to win all the maps on offer in www.conquerclub.com Right now they have 103 maps with one map being withdrawn due to some technical issues. I have also won 400 times so far with a success rate of 23%. The only thing to target now is a gold medal for Terminator setting.

Smile!

My Fifth Tournament Wins

So far I have won Zippy Oner, One Pointer, Three Pointer and Tortoise Threers tournaments. Now to focus on Nack and five pointers tournaments.

Al Fatihah

Today I received news that my former neighbour in Kajang, Iswa Norazwa has passed away. We used to play ping pong together when I was 14 years old and although he is one year younger and quite stocky, I could never managed to beat him. From what I heard, he had trouble breathing for the past few days and it's getting worse today but by the time they rushed him to the hospital it was just a little bit too late.

I can't remember when was the last time I met him, it could well be more than 10 years ago. I heard he's already married but I'm not sure if he had any children or not.

My university mate, Shahrol passed away almost exactly one year ago. He was also 31 years old at that time. I guess good men die young.

New Venue

Last night I played badminton for the first time with Malaysians in Liverpool. They usually had their matches every Wednesday night and they invited me to come along. So Awa and I went to Kensington Community Sports Centre around 8.30pm and we came across several undergraduate students going home after a futsal game (hmm that's a thought). The badminton matches started at 9pm and there were 9 of us and two courts were booked. But it is more like a family outing because there was a couple joining us and several children were also playing next to the courts. And they were using plastic shuttlecocks (shock! horror!). I promptly took out my Sea Lion tube from the bag and put it next to the court. That's much better.

Overall we had pretty decent matches although I can say standards in Lancaster are slightly bit higher than here. But then on the way home, one of the guys told me that they have one Indian guy who used to represent state back home and always winning each and every sports meet organised in the UK and there is another guy who is also quite good but didn't play that night. But that doesn't stop me from wondering who will win if there is a friendly match between Lancaster and Liverpool. Hmmmm.

Raya Visits to Our House

Hafiyy

Nasi Dagang

The men

The ladies

The children

Little Princess - 30 September 2008

Mimpi Balik Machang

This video was forwarded to me by my cousin, A'a. Although it is really an amateur effort but it's quite funny especially when the characters speak in Kelate.

Our home in Liverpool

Master bedroom

The wardrobe has labels for each type of clothing like pyjamas etc

Ilyas and Maisarah's bedroom

Kitchen

Living room

Back garden

Life in Liverpool

Finally I got a broadband connection in my new home today. Tomorrow I'm going to have my first meeting with my new supervisor and we are going to finalise my registration as a PhD student with Liverpool John Moores University. I think I'm going to be working under the new European Centre for Corporate Governance and really looking forward to it. Hopefully I can finish my study in within one year.

Ilyas is already enjoying his new school and making a couple of new friends. Maisarah will be joining him by the end of this month and it's a good thing the school is situated just behind our house.

On the first day of Raya we visited three houses of Malaysians living in Liverpool. Two families even visited our house during the night. Last weekend we went to Lancaster and managed to visit 10 houses organised by 13 families. I think my wife is inviting several of our Lancastrian friends over to our house this coming weekend to extend the celebration of Raya.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Fitri