Kursus Kepimpinan Pensyarah

I have been selected by my dean to attend this course which was held at INTURA, Sungai Petani, Kedah. Around 100 lecturers and tutors from almost all IPTAs in Malaysia attended this course. The first two days are filled with lectures followed by one day of group exercise which is quite fun. We even managed to have a football match between the INTURA staffs which we won 5-2, thanks to two assists by me. The fourth day is spent by trekking inside two caves, Gua Itik and Gua Gendang in Perak which is quite challenging because these caves have a river running through them and they are very dark inside! I encountered two snakes along the journey and one of them is a python. In the end it was a good course and although I am physically tired by the end of it, it was quite an experience.

Alif Satar - Cukup Indah

Congratulations Reilis and Shareena

I'm very happy today because one of my ANSARA Taiping football players is getting married today. After having meal at their wedding reception, I apologised to Reilis' wife in advance because we have to 'borrow' him from time to time to play with us during the weekend. I also found out that she supported Manchester United and considering that Reilis is a Liverpool fan, I'm sure their marriage will be a lively affair. :)

Balloon Air Festival, Pavillion KL

I had to attend a course today so unable to join the fun with my family who decided to go to Pavillion and join the activities of the Balloon Air Festival. There is a huge balloon where the kids can have a ride on it. Ilyas looks a bit scared but Maisarah enjoyed it to the max. Tina and Enol met them there and they had lunch together. Ilyas and Maisarah also bought two balloon pets which I think is quite creative.

Balloon Air Festival, Pavillion KL - The Balloons

A Visit by Shima

Shima, Jo's old uni friend, came over to our house for a visit. Since today is workday, we don't have anything in the kitchen so we took her to have dinner at the PappaRich restaurant. Afterwards she spent some time in our house with Jo while I went out to play futsal. When I came back Jo told me that Shima bought some of our garage sale items. I hope she will be happy with the stuff that she bought.

Akademi Syarahan FEP

I received a call from my department few days ago asking me if I want to participate in the annual event hosted by our faculty, Akademi Syarahan. This event follows the format of Akademi Fantasia, the famous entertainment reality show in Malaysia. However, instead of singing and dancing, the participants in Akademi Syarahan had to give lectures of their subject matters in front of the audience. The audience will cast their vote and in addition there will be three judges to cast their professional votes. Since there will be prizes for all participants, I agreed to compete. Besides, I could learn on how to better my lecture presentation. There are four participants, representing four departments in the faculty. 

I didn't realise that it can be tough to present your lecture and these judges from the Education Faculty managed to point out lots of mistakes that I made. I thanked them and when the results was announced, I got third place. For that I received a certificate, a souvenir and RM100. Not bad for a 10 minute lecture of your subject.

An Exciting Friendly Match

I received an invitation to play a friendly match with my old friend's team. Nik Shazwan suggested that we play in Shah Alam but we were a bit reluctant because it was too far away. Thus I was surprised when his team are willing to come over to Serdang to play with us. 

This time we got 15 players so I decided to become supersub. The match started quite disastrously for us when we conceded an early goal in the first minute. However we were back on track when Jose equalised by doing a nutmeg move on the keeper. We thought that will give us a breather but their striker has another idea. A fine volley towards the edge of the goal post is simply too much for our keeper so the opponent maintain their one goal lead towards the end of the first half.

The second half started like in the first half; we conceded another early goal, this time through a free kick. I have had enough and decided to get into the play. Few minutes after that we managed to get a goal when one of our midfielders managed to beat their offside trap and slip the ball between their keeper and the goal post. Another goal came for us when our defender managed to squeeze in the ball from a tight angle. In the end we finished the match with a 3-3 draw. We are quite lucky not to lose this match because our keeper has been superb by saving lots of point blank shots and attempts.

Launching Our Online Garage Sale

Our house is getting crowded as we took some of our UK boxes from Mama Tok's house into ours. So we decided to sell them off at a very low price because the priority is not making a profit but making more space to our house. I have posted pictures of around 40 items in my Facebook photos and they are mostly Maisarah and Ilyas stuff. Jo haven't posted her stuff yet. And I'm not sure if I have my own stuff to sell...(sayang.....).

Visitors from Pusing

We had visitors today from Perak. Teena, our old schoolmate, and her family called Jo this morning if they can come to our house. We immediately said yes and the next hour we cleaned up our house from top to the bottom. What a really great motivation for us to tidy up the house!

Breakfast at Old Timer Cafe

We have been breakfast at 'Mamak' stall for many weekends now so I decided to the whole family to this new cafe, Old Timer Cafe. Their specialty is 'lempeng' with 'sambal'. We also decided some other food there like 'nasi lemak', 'meehoon sup' and 'roti bakar'. Their 'lempeng' and 'nasi lemak' are quite delicious and I like their 'sambal' because it's not too spicy.

The Opening of A New Garden Plot

Before

After

Today is the launching of a new garden plot in our back garden. Some of the plants in this plot are three types of chillies, chives, watermelon, lettuce, turmeric and two types of beans. Maisarah helped me planting the seeds this morning and Mama Tok did the honour as the first person to water these plants.

Maisarah and her Zinnias

Today another bunch of Maisarah's flowers have started to bloom and she is quite excited because this time it is the pink Zinnias. She is still waiting for the bees to visit her flowers. So far I saw a dragonfly, not as exciting as the bees I guess.