Come Visit My Garden

Fishy sweets

2012-02-06T17:46:00.000-08:00

When I was a little girl, I used to love eating licorice sticks. The shops near our house sold them in the form of thin snakes, complete with snake heads, and in several colours - green, red, black. My favourite was red. I didn't like the black ones much because they were rather spicy but I'd buy them anyway if there was no other colour available. I haven't eaten any licorice in years, but I remember how yummy they tasted. I'd eat them on my way back home from school, or next door at Lucy's house, or even riding my bicycle.

I live in Kota Bharu and Kuala Terengganu now, on the east coast of Malaysia, and licorice is not exactly common here. In fact, I have never seen snake-shaped licorice sticks ever since I left Canberra. The only long and thin food they have here (especially in Kuala Terengganu) are not even a sweet at all, but a savoury treat made from fish called keropok lekor. It is very tasty, even if it is fried in dollops of hot oil, and is even better when dipped into a sweet and hot sauce.

Imagine my consternation when I read in today's newspapers that someone, somewhere, is proposing to create fruit-flavoured keropok lekor! It fairly boggles the mind. Strawberry-flavoured fish sticks? Oh my. That does sound scary.

I find myself hoping that the radical new version of keropok is more like licorice sticks - long and thin and only looks like keropok but made from strawberries and not a single fishy morsel anywhere in it. I can't even imagine eating a fish garnished with strawberries. Maybe some brave chef out there somewhere might want to try to whip it up, but I don't know if there would be very many brave enough to try tasting it...

Sliding into the sea...

2012-01-01T21:21:00.000-08:00

The waves have really been pounding the coast of Terengganu. The edge of the water is not very far from our house, and it feels very creepy sometimes, when I am inside the house but can clearly hear the surf breaking onto the rocks that have recently been put down on the eroded beach. Cranes and tractors and all sorts of other heavy machinery have been hard at work, day and night, for weeks now, laying down a new sea wall to protect the coast. I do wonder though, how will the fishermen get their boats back onto the ocean once the monsoon has ended? It seems their route to the beach has disappeared, along with the beach itself.

When this monsoon will stop is really an open question. From the looks of the waves and the heavy rains that have caused flooding from Kelantan all the way down to Johor, it seems like the monsoon would like to stay here for good.

The photo below was taken last month. It was a local tragedy, seeing the lovely gazebos plunge into the sea, taking a few tall casuarina trees with them. But even that was nothing compared to the destruction that has been caused by the waves since then. In fact, this photo looks quite romantic compared to the ones I took yesterday.

I haven't uploaded the new photos yet. I'll do it later, after I've worked on my Chapter 6. It's been such a hectic couple of weeks that I haven't had time to work on my book.

And oh, by the way, Happy New Year.

A gazebo heading for the bottom of the ocean, as seen early in the morning in Tok Jembal, Kuala Terengganu

Roses and hibiscus blooms

2011-12-24T00:00:00.000-08:00

It's not easy getting plants to bloom at all during the monsoon. My roses have depleted to just one bloom from my red rose bush, but at least the pink hibiscus are doing prodigiously well. Here are a few blooms from before the monsoon began...

This last one is a lizard that I found crawling up the side of my pink hibiscus pot. It's lucky that my cats, Morris and Phoebe, are at my other house, or else it would have been a goner!!

Losing weight the healthy way

2011-12-20T22:11:00.000-08:00

Staying slim used to be a lot easier when I was younger, but now it seems that my metabolic rate has not only decresed but is on a rapidly escalating backward slide.

So this is the promise that I am making myself for the new year, even though it is not my usual practice to have a new year resolution at all. I shall do my utmost to lose at least 5 to 7 kg before I move to my new job sometime in April or May!

My diet plan is quite simple:

1. eat better, more wholesome food

There are so many diets out there, telling helplessly clueless people like me that I shouldn't eat carbohydrates, or red meat, or eat only lentils or olives, and other things like that. Personally, I cannot imagine not eating carbohydrates. If rice is such a danger, then why are there millions of skinny Asians in the Far East? Of course I'm not skinny but I think that's more because of my diet of MacDonald's burgers rather than eating my mother's fried rice. So I'm just going to aim for moderation, eating less oily food like fried bananas or glutinous rice, but I'll stick to the white rice that my forefathers have eaten for centuries.

2. exercise like I was a three-week-old puppy

The best way to burn off those extra calories is by doing fun things, like playing Frisbee and walking from our house to the beach every morning. Maybe I can even walk as far as the stables near the fisherman's cove, which isn't really that far from home. Plus it's a gorgeous walk, especially with the sea breeze, or actually the sea gales that are blowing across the South China Sea at this time of year.

3. think beautiful!

In whatever we do, there has to be an intended destination. So it is my dearest wish to end up with a waist as slim and trim as Gina Lollobrigida's. Of course I look nothing like La Lollo but I think that she is a great role model for a woman like me for losing weight - beautiful, feisty, not a size 0 and not an 18-year-old starlet either.

So that is my plan. There will be no starvation and no punishing myself ie not allowing myself to buy new shoes or a new dress until I lose weight (negativity generally begets more negativity).

Instead, I'll just try to enjoy life more.

Oh yes, one more thing: my husband promised me a new bicycle. Another reason for me to go out on the coastal road. Isn't he just the sweetest?

Total Eclipse of the Moon

2011-12-11T17:26:00.000-08:00

10.30pm Local time: December 10th 2011

A total eclipse of the moon could be seen over Malaysia at this time. The problem for us in Kelantan was that it's also the height of the monsoon season and all that could be seen were massive rainclouds!

I went outside at around 10pm, hoping to see even a partial view of the Earth's shadow on the surface of the moon. I managed to spot one lone star in the sky right above my head, but then that too got swallowed up by the clouds and so we kind of abandoned any hope of seeing the eclipse.

But then at 11.30pm, my husband went outside for a smoke and to see what our Persian cats were up to. After a minute, I heard him calling for me so I went outside too. And there she was, the faintly glowing moon peeking through dense cloud cover, with a part of it covered by a large shadow.

It almost made up for the time when I forgot to look for the planet Mars as it came closer to Earth than it ever had within living memory...

Here's the lovely moon as she sailed over Kota Bharu...

My new bike

2011-11-14T00:32:00.000-08:00

I just got a new bike!

Last night, my husband bought a beat up Kawasaki AR80 for me. And then he gave it to our uber-mechanic with instructions to turn it into a mini Yamaha TZM, complete with modified fairings and also to paint it in whatever colour suits my fancy. Right now I can't decide if I want it to be hot pink or bright buttercup yellow...

This is what it looks like right now:

And this is what I hope it may look like after Din the Mechanic has finished it:

Or maybe even this one, which isn't actually an AR80 but never mind, it's close enough:

I have every faith in Din the Mechanic. Somehow it seems that he can make metal bend to his will... Hopefully, soon I'll be tagging along with my husband's biker group and this time, I'll be on my own ride instead of riding pillion. Of course my bike will be much smaller than everybody else's but then again none of the other bikes will have the word "PRINCESS" stamped on the fairing either...

Gil takes a dip

2011-10-31T21:12:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, my friend Gilberte, who is a retired teacher, said she would be dropping by in Terengganu to visit me. It was to be one of her many stops on her year-long world tour. She'd been doing volunteer work in Nepal from February until July, and from there she'd traveled to Hong Kong and Chengdu, after which she'd taken buses and trains to Vietnam, Cambodia and Bangkok. Bangkok! Of all the places she could have gone, she'd decided to see Bangkok at the height of its massive flooding. She said she saw people wading in knee-deep water and market-sellers crying as they watched their wares and entire livelihoods being swept away by the water. She was greatly affected by the experience and so went looking for more of the same by taking buses to Surathani, Hatyai and Golok, before crossing the border into Malaysia and stopping in Kota Bharu before finally coming to Kuala Terengganu.

The problem was that she hadn't been in touch with me for a few days so I had no idea where she was or if she was coming to Malaysia at all. I'd told her that I'd be in Terengganu from October 25th until the 29th, but then my husband suddenly had to go to Kuala Lumpur for a meeting so I went back to Kota Bharu on the 27th. Suddenly I received an email from Gil, that said she was in Kuala Terengganu. I was frantic! I couldn't reach her because she didn't carry a phone, so I had to wait for her to call me. She was able to finally call me the next day, and so I drove back to Kuala Terengganu and met up with her for lunch. Luckily, my husband was also back from his meeting by then, and had ridden back to Terengganu with his biker buddies.

So anyway, we met up with Gil on Saturday and had lunch, and then we dragged her up to La Hot Springs. She absolutely loved it! The first time she dipped one foot into the water, she immediately drew it up again and exclaimed "Ooh la la!" (very French!) But eventually she managed to take a dip, swimming in the lower pool where the water was still warm but not excessively so. She was the only westerner there, probably because the hot springs aren't very well known.

The next day, our little excursion was in the newspaper. Specifically, in the New Straits Times. Why? Because my husband is a journalist for that paper, so not only did he get a nice dip in the hot pool, he also got a story out of it!

And Gil got a very nice souvenir from Malaysia. It's not every day that you visit a foreign country and have a local newspaper report how much fun you're having! You can read about it here: http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/13jer/Article

Guess where she is now? In Sabah. She says she wants to see the orangutan and to climb to the top! Of what? Mount Kinabalu, of course.

Here she is in the pool. Looks like she's having great fun!

Road trip!

2011-10-24T00:13:00.000-07:00

I made a pest out of myself last Friday and tagged along with my husband and his biker gang buddies when they went on a convoy, heading for La Hot Springs in Besut, Terengganu.

It started out as a small enough affair. My husband left Kota Bharu for Besut at about 10am, with me hanging on behind him. We were then joined by thirteen other Yamaha TZM bikes in Jerteh. That's a modest number for these guys, but they still managed to kick up a whole lot of dust on the road as they rode en mass for the hot spring. I was the only female in the bunch, but I guess they didn't mind so much because I was a wife, not a girlfriend. They don't like having hanger-on girlfriends with them because they'd all have to shoulder the responsibility. But I was my husband's responsibility, so they didn't have to worry about me at all.

I'd traveled with my husband from Kuala Terengganu to Penarik once before, and since it was about the same distance from Kota Bharu to Besut, I thought I'd be able to handle the trip.

Big mistake! Sure it's only 50km from KB to Besut, but La Hot Springs is much further on, and the round trip was almost 200km! My poor aching butt was screaming in agony by the time I got home again, and my thighs definitely did not love me the next day! That's the last time I'm going on such a long bike ride - or at least it is until my husband gets the back seat redone so it's more pillion-rider-friendly...

This is an example of a bike which won't make its passenger in the back want to jump off after a half hour...

Here is my beloved husband, astride his own machine and looking well pleased with himself!

And here are some photos of the hot spring. It's really really hot!!

In fact, it's so hot that you can boil eggs in the water that first exits the spring. The water smells of sulphur too, and is therapeutic especially for people with skin problems.

So next time you want a dip in a hot pool, give La Hot Springs a try. But get someone to drive you because after that dip, you'll be ready for a nap. I nearly fell off the bike on the way back because I was so sleepy!

If I could have a dog

2011-10-17T21:27:00.000-07:00

When I was about eight or nine years old, my class was given some lessons on snakes and what to do if we saw one.

Our second grade teacher, Mrs Jenkins, took us to the meadow in front of our school, where a snake expert, or a herpetologist, would join us. Being eight years old, we'd never heard of herpetologists so we just called him the snake guy. He'd brought quite a few snakes, mostly harmless ones since he didn't want to get in trouble if one of them escaped.

So there we were, sitting around in a semicircle, facing the snake guy and Mrs Jenkins too, as he took out snakes from a bag and handed them out. I was sitting at the very edge of the semicircle, on the left, and the snake guy was giving out snakes like candy at the other end, to my right.

After a few minutes, a snake was passed over to me. I can't remember the girl sitting next to me (probably Harriet or Susan or Philippa, the girls I was usually with) but I do remember the snake that she handed me. It was a skinny little thing, about a foot long, and had a bright green back and a yellowish green belly. It felt cool in my hands, not slimy or wet at all, and the snake guy said that it was a garden snake - quite harmless and easily handled.

I didn't mind the snake at all. I had thought that I'd be scared or that it would feel weird to hold, but it was really quite okay. So I just sat there, with Harriet or Susan or Philippa next to me (I forget which) and regarded the little green snake.

That was when a dog appeared. It was a golden retriever, a beautiful animal with shaggy blond fur and a tongue that was long and wet and pink. He walked around us kids, starting from the other side of the circle from where I sat. He trotted behind all the other kids and me too, and then I guess he decided to join our class because he sat right next to me, to my left. I was no longer the last in the line; now it was the dog.

Sitting down on his haunches and with his tongue lolling out, he was taller than me. I noticed that he was wearing a collar, which meant that he belonged to a family nearby. I guess it was because of that collar that Mrs Jenkins didn't chase him off, and just let him join our class. So there he sat, with that tongue and all that fur, and he looked down at me. I looked up at him. Then we both looked at the snake.

I looked up at him again to see him staring at me. He had his mouth open and his tongue out and it seemed to me like he was laughing. Suddenly, he got up on his four paws, leaned his head over to mine, stuck out his tongue even more and he licked the left side of my face, from my chin clear up to my hairline. I was so startled that I nearly squeezed the life out of the poor green snake. Then the dog turned around and trotted off down a path to a small tunnel near the school, under a road and leading to my sister's preschool. Maybe his human boy or girl went there too.

That was the first time I'd ever been kissed!

I guess it's because of that chance encounter that I really like dogs now. If I could have one (but I can't because my Persian cats Morris and Phoebe would be very very upset) then the dog of my choice would be a border collie. I think it's probably because I watched a lot of Famous Five adventures on the telly back then. After I got licked by the golden retriever, I wished I could have one just like Georgie's on the show!

The Scarlet Pimpernel

2011-10-12T00:42:00.000-07:00

Our choice for October is The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy.

This book is about a mysterious hero called the Scarlet Pimpernel, an Englishman who rescues French nobles from being executed in Paris during the French Revolution in 1792. A beautiful French woman, Marguerite, who is married to the richest man in England (Sir Percy Blakeney) has been blackmailed by the French Secret Service to find out the true identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel. If she does not co-operate, her brother Armand will be killed.

Does Marguerite find out the real name of the Scarlet Pimpernel?
Can she save her beloved brother?
And will she betray the mysterious hero, so that her brother will live?

Read the e-book online (FOR FREE!) at:

http://www.scarletpimpernel.com/

Marguerite St Just, Lady Blakeney

Sir Percy Blakeney

Armand St Just

Lord Anthony Dewhurst

Creative writers...

2011-10-03T23:51:00.000-07:00

A sight for sore eyes...
This is a photo of this semester's creative writing class at Universiti Sains Malaysia Health Campus. They're all very hard at work on their individual blogs, typing up a storm and yet terrified out of their wits that my journalist husband will pick up one of their photos or articles and put them in the newspaper!!
Maybe one of them will be a famous author someday. Maybe one of them will even win a Nobel Prize for Literature, who can say...?

Our new book club

2011-10-03T00:39:00.000-07:00

Great news for all students of USM's Health Campus! We are starting a book club - our very first attempt at attracting all the book-loving students on this campus. Get the information from your English teachers. No fee, no registration and no class attendance required. We'll release the names of books to be read each month, and then you'll get to critique the books on a blog that will be set up just for the book club. (No, it won't be this blog!)The first blog post should be up by next week. The name of the blog and the first book to be read will be posted on the bulletin board at the English department by Sunday, October 9th. Hope to meet many of you online!

I don't get it...

2011-06-26T17:40:00.000-07:00

I don't get it. If Edward Cullen is an undead vampire whose body is hard like marble, how in heck did he get his wife Bella pregnant? Wouldn't he need sperm to do that? Plus some blood to get his thingy to stand up? Does he carry it around fully erect in his pants all the time, if his whole body is hard as marble?
The books are fun and romantic, but this is the one part that I really don't understand...

A cemetery by the sea

2011-05-15T22:17:00.000-07:00

Living in Terengganu is like living at a seaside resort. The interior of Terengganu may be hilly and has tons of waterfalls, but a lot of the state is by the ocean. The state has miles upon miles of coastline. Unfortunately most of the beaches are only decorative and not very safe to swim in, because of the incredible ocean currents and the fact that there are sand holes in unpredictable places. There are places where you can swim, such as the gorgeous islands just off the coast, but the sea near our housing area is definitely not one of them.

Still, it is a very beautiful and peaceful place to live. The locals are sea-going people, many of them working as fishermen. Even the graveyards are by the beach. Take a look at this one, not far from our housing area:

We like to spend Friday mornings at a cafe near the beach in Telaga Batin, if my husband isn't working that is. It's really peaceful here too, and not too many people are around most of the time. I've a feeling that will probably change when the school holidays come around in a couple of weeks, but for now I'll just enjoy the tranquility...

View from the veranda of a cafe that serves fresh coconut in their shells

This is the life... and that's our ride...

Beach living

2011-05-14T17:29:00.000-07:00

How would you like to have this as your front yard?

We've recently moved to a house near the beach in Tok Jembal. It doesn't exactly hug the beach, but it is plenty close enough. Our house is actually the furthest away from the beach in our little housing area, right next to a little creek that slowly waltzes down to the sea. So we are close enough to hear and see the ocean, but far enough away so that we don't have to suffer from the heat reflected off the South China Sea, and the trees lining the creek protect us even more from the hot sun.

This is the road home from the beach to our housing area:

We like to take one of the motorbikes down to the beach and hang out there. The surf is quite strong - it's not a beach to go swimming in, but it is beautiful to watch. The sea wall that was built to extend and protect the nearby airport runway has caused a lot of erosion on the beaches in the area. The erosion is so severe and the waves so strong that a part of the sea wall itself has collapsed, and the locals have been clever in rearranging the stone blocks so that a small protected cove has been formed to protect their small fishing boats. Here's a photo of the sea wall:

I don't have a photo of their cove; I'll go there in a few days and take a few photos to upload here. But here is a photo of some trees that have fallen over in a part of the eroded beach. My husband has been saying its such a shame to let so much lovely timber rot away and has been thinking of getting a chainsaw to liberate them and turn them into garden furniture. What is it with men and power tools anyway?

My first magazine interview

2011-05-10T23:39:00.000-07:00

My very first magazine interview came out this month, in the May edition of the Malaysian Women's Weekly. I was interviewed by Ellen Whyte, and apparently I told her that i'm working on a new novel, a love story to be precise. So it looks like I'll have to actually finish writing it!

Thanks Ellen for such a lovely article!

And this one was taken by my sister after the photo shoot:

Caterpillar on my pot

2011-05-09T21:13:00.000-07:00

It’s that time of year again! Flowers are blooming and caterpillars are busy looking for fresh green shoots to chew on... as I discovered one fine morning this month with the discovery of a furry bright yellow caterpillar on one of my bougainvillaea pots. It was just the right type of caterpillar for springtime, even though I happen to live in a tropical country and the only season we have most of the year is bright summer. This handsome devil was as yellow as the brightest daffodil that ever nodded away in a meadow. It was so yellow that it would have put the yellowest buttercup to shame, and I loved the colour so much that I quickly snapped some photos of it before it decided to climb up onto my bougainvillaea and eat the lovely soft leaves.

Here’s the gorgeous fellow. I don’t know either its scientific name or its common name, so I’ll just call it Butterball.

Headaches....

2011-03-09T18:23:00.000-08:00

Does anybody out there know what to do about a massive, thunderous, heavy-like-an anvil-on-your-neck headache? Sometimes I get this terrible headache just before THAT time of the month... and it's absolute murder...

I was looking around for pictures to illustrate how this headache makes me feel and here is what I found:

Doesn't it just make you feel like screaming...? Oh man...

Marchesa the Froth Queen

2011-03-06T20:07:00.000-08:00

I have recently discovered a new passion... gorgeous gowns! Well, admittedly it's not all that new a passion; I've just never really gone on the hunt for photos of beautiful dresses. And then this year's Academy Awards happened, which featured the lovely Anne Hathaway in lovely, lovely dresses and she even made a tux look good! A quick search online brought forth photos of Anne in an amazing Marchesa gown, with red roses running up her shoulder. I've always been a sucker for roses, so I immediately fell in love with the dress. Evidently Georgina Chapman, Marchesa's designer, has a thing for frothy, romantic, flower-encrusted, lace-lined, architecturally constructed dresses.
And here are just a few examples:

Anne Hathaway in a frothy red concoction, with roses on one shoulder

And here is Georgina Chapman herself...

Love is...

2011-02-07T00:21:00.000-08:00

A funny cartoon I saw somewhere on the net...

Miracle!

2011-02-04T20:05:00.000-08:00

The most amazing thing has just happened... my sister, who is doing her PhD, was thinking of presenting her paper at the Asia TEFL Conference in Seoul this year, and she suggested that I also send in an abstract and an application for a travel grant. I had doubts that they'd consider me for it, since my project is still so new. But I sent in an abstract anyway, with a lot of help from my husband, the genius who thought up the concept of the Reading Farm in the first place.

And guess what? Not only did they accept my abstract, they even gave me a travel grant. Only 3 people in Malaysia received it, out of a mere 20 grants worldwide! Now isn't that a huge surprise?

We're now busy getting materials and books and stuff like that ready before the conference in July, so I can present my workshop without a hitch. It's very exciting and exhilirating, to think that we're about to launch the Reading Farm on an international stage. May it be the beginning of many more presentations to come...

Thanks to all our friends for your prayers and congratulations!

Houses

2011-01-31T02:47:00.000-08:00

We've lived in Kuala Terengganu for a little over a year now. It took exactly a month, to the day, to find a house last year. Before that, we lived in a hotel, with my husband's company footing the bill. (They had to, since they gave zero notice of transfer.) After moving in, we endured two break-ins, when thieves stole RM500 and my camera. And then somebody snitched my husband's shoes from our very doorstep, while we were in the kitchen.

To make matters worse, the rainy season of December 2010 brought rain water into our kitchen and made the toilet back up several times.

After all that, we decided to go looking for a new place.

My husband found an old house, a bit rundown but very big and roomy. It's a very nice house and has lots of possibilities, but then I was scared of it! It's just so big... So we had to let it go because I threatened to dog my husband's every footstep if he insisted on living in that house. It gave me the willies. The dark wooden panelling of the interior didn't help, nor did the overgrown patch of bananas in the back.

So now here we are again, in the house we've been living in for the past year. It's a small place and prone to flooding during (very) heavy rain, but that only happens at the end of the year. We have a few more months yet before that happens again. The walls are a lovely apple green, and we painted them ourselves. There are bougainvillea and sant'allia flower bushes, and ferns, and a runaway cipir (kacang botol) plant on the fence that we share with our neighbour to our right. She's a wonderful lady who weaves songket for a living, and we love her to bits. On our left are a young married couple, who are friendly and so helpful that the husband once voluntarily sprayed our garden with herbicide to control the weeds, while we were away. It was very nice of him, but then he accidentally got one of my cipir plants instead. He was frightfully embarassed about it!

I guess the main reason why I don't want to move from this house is because... it's home.

Before:

After:

Phoebe

2011-01-18T17:14:00.000-08:00

My girl Phoebe...

She has the funniest meow, loves to sit in the middle of a cold, pouring rain but shivers like mad when I give her a warm bath, and she goes to sleep at 8pm and wakes up at 7pm on cool days... In short, she has the life of a very privileged young lady!!!

The world's largest caves...

2011-01-03T21:59:00.000-08:00

Apparently the world's largest cave system is in Vietnam. Read about it in National Geographic, and be totally blown away by the photos on its website.

Personally, I think caves are scary. Maybe it's because I'm claustrophobic, or maybe I'm terrified millions of bats will dive bomb onto my head like Kamikaze vampires. Or maybe I'm just put off by the musty smell. (Not that I've been in a lot of caves so the musty smell bit was just literary license on my part.) But it cannot be denied that caves must have at some point a crucial factor to the survival of the human race. Where else did they hide from stomping woolly mammoths and shelter from vicious storms? So with that in mind, I've decided to make a list of famous caves where people may have hidden before.

1. Gua Niah, Sarawak (the main reason it's no 1 is because it's the first one I learned about)
2. Lascaux, France
3. Maharashtra
4. Mammoth Cave , Kentucky
5. Dragons Lair
6. Blue Grotto, Capri
7. Waitomo,New Zealand
8. Carlsbad
9. Naracoorte, South Australia
10.Caves of Gunung Mulu National Park, Sarawak

Incidentally, my mum says she saw news footage of some Malaysians going on top of Mount Kosciuszko in Australia, proudly telling everyone that they were THE first Malaysians ever to have climbed its peak. Hello. We did that back when I was in primary school. I still have a photo of my sister neck deep in snow, smiling for the camera when five seconds before she'd been screaming to go potty...

Tagore...

2011-01-03T01:28:00.000-08:00

Mention the name Tagore and, for many Malaysians (perhaps most of the older generation) will immediately think of Sharmila Tagore - the statuesque Hindustani actress of yesteryear.

But if only the older generation will automatically say Sharmila to match tagore, then I don't know what people will think of my choice to match the same name - Rabindranath. You must think I'm a contemporary of the dinosaur...
Rabindranath Tagore was the first non-European to be awarded the Nobel Prizr for Literature, in 1913. Truly a remarkable achievement - this makes him a very relevant role model even in this new century of computers and bullet trains and miles-long sea bridges.

Latest....

2010-12-18T22:41:00.000-08:00

YES!!! I have managed to make progress with the latest book - finally finished writing the chapter I'd been stuck on for days.
And another YES!!! for my creative writing students, many of whom have actually continued writing on their blogs and are being creative as only 20-year-olds can be. I think I'll go treat myself to an ice cream as a celebration, even though it's raining again outside and the floods of 2010 look like they may materialize after all...

Book buying day...

2010-12-11T23:26:00.000-08:00

Today I read Awang Goneng's article in the New Straits Times. It made me feel like going out to buy a book... there goes my book budget for this month...

Hari Raya Haji

2010-11-26T02:24:00.000-08:00

It was a wonderful, though tiring, Hari Raya Qurban this year. As usual, Kelantan got 2 days off for this festival, but since the two days fell on Wednesday and Thursday, it became a gloriously long weekend instead because weekends in Kelantan fall on Fridays and Saturdays. Plus it was the beginning of the school holidays. The result was a horrific crush on the roads, and trying to enter the town was a virtual impossibility days before the holidays even officially began.

I have always wondered why non-Kelantanese barely celebrate this holiest of days, and why Hari Raya Puasa is celebrated more joyously, when the takbir is for Hari Raya Qurban is recited for 3 whole days and it’s only recited for just the one day of Hari Raya Puasa. Here in Kelantan, the feast of the sacrifice is a huge occasion where families get together and rejoice and EAT! Luckily my husband was given time off for this Hari Raya – 6 whole days! That’s even better than the 4 day holiday we got in Kelantan.

The first day of raya was spent in Kota Bharu, and the entire afternoon was dedicated to parcelling out beef to extended family members and cooking beef stew, as well as visiting family. At midday of the second day, my husband and I set out south for Johor. We arrived at his parents’ house at almost dawn, and as we didn’t like to wake them up too early – they are a very elderly couple – we napped for about an hour before we called them to open the door, at about 6am, after they had just finished their subuh prayers.

The next couple of days were a whirlwind of activity, spent visiting family and friends, and going SHOPPING! My cell phone up and died on me. Well actually, it was my sister’s; she’d lent it to me. I desperately needed a new phone - I was missing calls from my editors, from a journalist from Women’s Weekly and from teachers at USM Penang, who needed to update marks from the final exams. It seemed everybody else was working except for us. So we went to Giant Supermarket in Plentong and got me a nice Sony Ericsson Vivaz. After that, we went up to the Cash Converter shop in the same building and we discovered an almost brand new Panasonic FZ35 Superzoom camera – an almost exact replica of a camera my husband had once lost except that it was a more recent model and, like I said, practically brand new. And it was being sold for RM750! We bought it on the spot. The following photos are my first attempts (stress on the word attempts) at taking photos:

The next day, we went to Danga City Mall and were acquainted with a sweet little netbook. We got that too, and now my husband has no excuses to not finish the commentaries that his editors in KL have been asking him for.

The moral of the story: Hari Raya Qurban is a holy celebration, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get some shopping done too!

William Wordsworth, Poet Laureate

2010-11-10T22:25:00.000-08:00

William Wordsworth was born 200 years before me, almost to the day.... Below is one of his wonderfully lyrical poems...

A WREN'S NEST

Among the dwellings framed by birds
In field or forest with nice care,
Is none that with the little Wren's
In snugness may compare.

No door the tenement requires,
And seldom needs a laboured roof;
Yet is it to the fiercest sun
Impervious, and storm-proof.

So warm, so beautiful withal,
In perfect fitness for its aim,
That to the Kind by special grace
Their instinct surely came.

And when for their abodes they seek
An opportune recess,
The hermit has no finer eye
For shadowy quietness.

These find, 'mid ivied abbey-walls,
A canopy in some still nook;
Others are pent-housed by a brae
That overhangs a brook.

There to the brooding bird her mate
Warbles by fits his low clear song;
And by the busy streamlet both
Are sung to all day long.

Or in sequestered lanes they build,
Where, till the flitting bird's return,
Her eggs within the nest repose,
Like relics in an urn.

But still, where general choice is good,
There is a better and a best;
And, among fairest objects, some
Are fairer than the rest;

This, one of those small builders proved
In a green covert, where, from out
The forehead of a pollard oak,
The leafy antlers sprout;

For She who planned the mossy lodge,
Mistrusting her evasive skill,
Had to a Primrose looked for aid
Her wishes to fulfill.

High on the trunk's projecting brow,
And fixed an infant's span above
The budding flowers, peeped forth the nest
The prettiest of the grove!

The treasure proudly did I show
To some whose minds without disdain
Can turn to little things; but once
Looked up for it in vain:

'Tis gone---a ruthless spoiler's prey,
Who heeds not beauty, love, or song,
'Tis gone! (so seemed it) and we grieved
Indignant at the wrong.

Just three days after, passing by
In clearer light the moss-built cell
I saw, espied its shaded mouth;
And felt that all was well.

The Primrose for a veil had spread
The largest of her upright leaves;
And thus, for purposes benign,
A simple flower deceives.

Concealed from friends who might disturb
Thy quiet with no ill intent,
Secure from evil eyes and hands
On barbarous plunder bent,

Rest, Mother-bird! and when thy young
Take flight, and thou art free to roam,
When withered is the guardian Flower,
And empty thy late home,

Think how ye prospered, thou and thine,
Amid the unviolated grove
Housed near the growing Primrose-tuft
In foresight, or in love.

Flood!!!

2010-11-06T20:31:00.000-07:00

If you are from Kelantan, there are three things you can depend on: death, taxes - and floods. Or that's how it used to be before global warming happened. These days, floods happen most of the time but there have been a few years when it didn't.

Usually, at the end of the year, wind and rain brought by the monsoon will howl in the mountains and then after a couple of days, a water surge will gush down to the river mouth and inundate Kota Bharu. Most of the time the flooding will be quite 'friendly', if you can call it that. Water will burst over the riverbanks and agricultural areas, bringing with it fertile silt and washing away insects and other pests. This flood water is a blessing in disguise, as it helps to make the land more fertile for next year's crops. In fact, it's considered a catastrophe if the waters don't rise at all, if only to cover the planting areas. One year when a drought struck instead of floods, my grandfather's cousin lost his entire crop of melons to ants. He had risked the planting, hoping that chemical pesticides would help keep pests at bay but after a few months, when the ants had vigorously multiplied their ranks and were confident the river wouldn't rise, they ate practically everything on the dry riverbanks. So for you landlubbers outside of Kelantan who wonder why we so look forward to flooding, it's because the waters are crucial to the farmers here. On a different and more yucky note, in some overly innovative areas, people even open up their septic tanks, letting the river wash away their sewage and leaving it clean again. But that is another story altogether. And one that not many people want to know about just before they step out to play in the flood waters! Yes, it must be admitted that too many people like to play in the flooded streets. Probably because there aren't enough swimming pools in this country, but then that's just my theory. When else can people frolic in the waters if not during the flood season?

However, as with everything else, too much of a good thing can be bad, and this year floods have struck with a vengeance. The irony is that it's struck in Kedah and Perlis instead of Kelantan. Okay, so some parts of Rantau Panjang got submerged but those particular parts sink the instant there is thunder in the sky, so that's nothing new. Kota Bharu is still dry as a bone. And guess what's even weirder? It was our house in Kuala Terengganu that got flooded last weekend.

It was a flash flood, brought on by rainwater and not a river bursting its banks, but it was a flood nonetheless. It happened thanks to two things - number 1: the road in front of the house has been repaved so many times that it's about two feet higher than the houses lining it, and number 2: our landlady's son who lives behind us built himself a brick garden wall, impeding the flow of water from our backyard to his and making the water pool like a lake right at our back door. We literally became an island. The rain was so heavy that the water rose in less than half an hour. So my husband, rightly pissed and ever ready to wreak destruction, took his trusty hammer and whacked at the low wall that had been put up at the side of the house. The water shot out of our impromptu lake like a mini Niagara Falls, falling onto the driveway that led up to the neighbor's gates - and yet not a single drop fell into his property.

Our kitchen was ankle-deep in dirty, silty water. Luckily it barely reached our refrigerator, which was slightly elevated. We spent hours cleaning up all the muck, especially since we also had to wait for the water to completely recede. The toilet backed up, and bless my sweet darling husband for repairing and cleaning up the bathroom. He wouldn't even let me go in while he was cleaning.

And want to know the funny thing? My husband was so apologetic about the flooding, like it was all his fault. He's from Masai, Johor - a hilly place where there has never been any flooding within living memory (you need to go up and down FIVE hills to reach his parents' house!) and he's worried about me being upset over flooding in our house. Me - a Kelantan girl who has been through more floods than I can remember. I remember one year when I was a teenager, when the rains fell so heavy and for so long that the rainwater pooled and came right through my grandfather's front door. We had to scramble to push the furniture to safety. And then the winds were so strong that it blew part of the roof away, and we actually had to use umbrellas in the house. That was hard work, but it was work we did as a family, and no permanent harm was done, except to some books. Can you imagine me being upset over flooding in my kitchen when we once had a swimming pool in the living room?

It must be said, however, that this year's floods have been extra bad, thanks to the heavy rains and floods in Thailand. About half of Thailand is flooded, and now the flooding is seeping into our northern states like water from an overflowing bathtub. There is no point in blaming state governments and saying that they're not ready to tackle the problem. Even Bangladesh can be shorthanded in dealing with flooding, even though it happens there practically every year and with far greater ferocity. What's needed now is some common sense: don't play in the floods because the water is from the mountains and is deadly cold, and don't wait to evacuate to safety because the water can rise so quick that it might be at your toes and then suddenly be at your hips if you so much as blink.

And keep an umbrella handy, even when you're inside the house.

Top 10 things to do on holiday at work

2010-10-26T20:58:00.000-07:00

Yay, classes are officially over for the semester. Now there are only the final exams and exam scripts to mark, before we can go on a month-and-a-half-long holiday. Well, not quite like holidays at universities in countries like England or Australia or America, where they actually do go on a real holiday and don't have to come to work at all. We still have to come to work in Malaysian universities - we just don't have any classes. And that is something to look forward to! I can now sit in my room and do the following:

1. Twiddle my thumbs
2. Play Plants and Zombies til I turn into a zombie too
3. Pretend to be hard at work at a research project behind my desk when people look in through my window, but actually I'm surfing the net and looking for a great place to go over the Christmas vacation
4. Text my husband while he is actually working and wondering why his wife doesn't seem to have anything else to do
5. Do two sit ups, take a breather, then do two more, take another breather, try to do just ooooonnnne more sit up, but then give up and go to lunch
6. Sit in the resource room and read story books, but tell the office that I'm cataloging our collection of books
7. Go to the library and watch TV in the basement with a few other people who have nothing to do
8. Work on my book... which is 3 months past its deadline
9. Look for funny pictures of animals and pin them up on my door
10. Take 4-hour lunch breaks

I think I can hear footsteps coming up to my door... must be students coming to ask for their coursework grades. Excuse me while I hide under my desk.

Status: Holiday mode

A Birthday

2010-10-20T22:04:00.000-07:00

by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these,
Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a daïs of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.

10 things about me too...

2010-10-19T19:14:00.000-07:00

I was reading my baby sister's blog and she listed 10 things about herself. So excuse me Wawa but I'm going to copy your idea coz I think it's a good one!

10 things about me too:

1. I love to eat. Full stop.

2. I love to cook for my husband, even though he's complaining that I am making him fat. He's actually gained quite a round tummy, which I don't think is due to my cooking but because of his habit of eating late at night when he's on his own in Kuala Terengganu and I'm in Kota Bharu. I plead not guilty.

3. I used to have 4 cats but that was reduced to only 3 after some villain (may you burn in hell forever) stole the apple of my eye - my beautiful Himalayan cat, Taffy.

4. If you read yesterday's post, then you'd know that it is my dream to renovate my house and build myself a large, sunny, roomy library, piled up to the ceiling with books, with a window seat facing the garden and a globe in the middle of the room. I'd put a large antique desk near a French window where I can write. And I'd spend all day in the library, either reading on the window seat or writing at the desk.

5. I love the outdoors and would spend all day outside if only I didn't have to go to work.

6. I wish I didn't have to go to work so I could spend all day outside!

7. I think I'm getting waaaaaaaay too fat... but I'm too lazy to exercise. Anyway, I know that losing weight involves changing your lifestyle, or else it won't work. But I'm too lazy to do that too.

8. I love swimming. But there are no community swimming pools in Kota Bharu and I always arrive in Kuala Terengganu after the pool at the Terengganu Equestrian Resort has closed. My backyard in Kota Bharu is large enough for a decent little pool but unfortunately they are way too expensive these days and anyway what would happen when the monsoon hits at the end of each year? I may end up with a whole flock of lost herons or kingfishers and maybe even a crocodile or two.

9. My husband coddles me and won't let me go hiking or climbing or anyplace where there are swarms of mosquitoes or where there is mud. He calls me a "princess", which I think is silly because I've been a terrible tomboy all my life and still have scars on my knee from when I tumbled after trying to do a wheelie on my bike when I was 9 years old.

10. I love my family and friends. But that doesn't stop me from stealing ideas from my baby sister!! hahaha

Dreaming of libraries...

2010-10-18T19:15:00.000-07:00

I've been planning to renovate and enlarge our Kota Bharu house for a while now. Unfortunately I don't have enough funds yet to do it, plus we've been moving up and down the east coast for almost 2 years now and it wouldn't be a good idea to have anything done to a house that you can't monitor constantly. Who knows, the builders might put a skylight in the kitchen instead of the bedroom, or the kitchen might end up in the wrong place, or (yikes!) they might forget to put in that all-important walk-in closet!

But even so, that's not going to stop me from making plans. And the first thing that I am planning is the library.

I have dreamed of having a huge, beautiful and yet cozy library since I was a little kid. That's right - I was, and still am, a bookworm. And I have lots of books, accumulated after three decades of collecting, but not as many as I would like due to the problem with space. Where am I going to put them all, after all? I'm not going to convert a bedroom into a library. Where would everybody sleep then, in the garden? So I put my dream of having a nice library on hold.

But then I saw the movie Inkheart. And I fell in love with the libraries in the movie, particularly Aunt Elinor's library with the large globe. Now I want my own library again.

Mo reading to young Meggie in a library, in "Inkheart"

I already have a mini library actually. But it's in a large room which is actually a library/TV room. As you can probably guess, more TV gets watched than books get read in that room. So this morning I looked up this website: http://www.housebeautiful.com/photos/designer-libraries which has some very lovely ideas for home libraries. Take a tour of it yourself if you are also dreaming of a comfy library to disappear into on rainy Saturday afternoons. I know I am!

A classic library design

Harapan Setinggi Gunung - Black Dog Bone

2010-10-17T18:23:00.000-07:00

Why is it that some English songs just sound better when sung in Bahasa Malaysia? Here's one example:

( ...Inilah hari yang paling sedih dalam hidupku
Demi pertemuan kita ini adalah yang terakhir
Aku tak sanggup melihatkan kau pergi
Meniggalkan aku menahan kepedihan
Selama ini kita terlalu mesra
Tapi kau telah meracun hati dan fikiranku
Duniaku kini diseliputi mendung
Maka tersiksalah aku didalam kegelapan
Aku terpaksa melepaskan kau pergi
Demi diriku tak berharga lagi untukmu
Biarlah kuterima kenyataan ini... )

Harapan setinggi gunung
Berderai menjadi debu
Mengapakah kisah sedih
Yang selalu ku alami

Kupercaya padamu
Dengan sepenuh hatiku
Engkaulah cahaya
Penerang jalan hidup

Tapi kau permainkan ( hatiku luka )
Engkau sakitkan hatiku ( hatiku luka )
Sengaja kau bermesra
Dengan dia teman barumu

Apa daya ku ini
Engkau bebas membuat pilihan
Tak dapatku halang kau kau kau kau kau
Terhadap dalam cinta

hu... hu hu...
Hatiku luka kerna kau
Yang tak bertimbang rasa
Kulepaskan kau pergi
Asalkan kau bahagia ( hatiku luka )
Ketika kau melangkahkan kaki ( hatiku luka )
Jangan kau menoleh kepadaku
Ku tak sanggup ( hatiku luka )
Melihat kau berlalu ( hatiku luka )
Hatiku... luka... lagi...

This song is from "Kiss and Say Goodbye" by the Manhattans. Although personally I think it's ridiculous for the guy to expect this girl who doesn't want him anymore to part with any more kisses. So I guess Black Dog Bone's version makes more sense...

Borneo night

2010-10-17T00:35:00.000-07:00

This Friday night is Borneo night at USM Health Campus.

One of my nursing students, Stephanie, will be dancing an Iban dance. I'm not sure which one, but at a guess, I'd say it will be the ngajat, since it's arguably the most famous of Iban dances. Stephanie is a lovely girl, very Iban-esque, and I am looking forward to her performance. This is only the second time, I believe, that students from Sarawak are organising a Borneon performance, but the first one was many years ago. The third one might be who knows how many years from now, so please do try to make it to Dewan Utama, USM Kubang Kerian, this Friday night.

After 69 days...

2010-10-12T20:47:00.000-07:00

At long last, after 69 days underground, the miners trapped in Chile's collapsed mine are being brought up. The first of them has just been brought back up to the surface.

It's not only their families and their countrymen who have been anxiously waiting their rescue. People all over the world have been praying for it too. It's a testament to human resilience and love, and with so many things going wrong everywhere in the world, it's wonderful to see one small oasis of hope for the human race.

I'm claustrophobic, so living two months underground is an unimaginable ordeal to me. Congratulations to all the rescue workers, all the engineers and health care professionals and coffee ladies and forklift drivers and whoever else pitched in to rescue the 32 Chileans and one Bolivian now being slowly brought back to the surface. They are all the most generous of people, and the miners are the bravest men on, or inside, the planet!

Read the breaking news here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/lt_chile_mine_collapse

Rescuer Manuel Gonzalez getting into the rescue capsule before being lowered down into the mine

(AFP photo - Martin Bernetti)

Video grab from footage shown on TV Chile

First of the rescued miners - Florencio Antonio Avalos Silva (AP Photo/Roberto Candia)

Lines Written in Early Spring

2010-10-11T21:40:00.000-07:00

by William Wordsworth (1798)

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:--
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

The Glory of the Garden

2010-10-11T00:32:00.001-07:00

For anyone who is curious where I got the quote pasted under the photo above, it was taken from Rudyard Kipling's The Glory of the Garden:

Our England is a garden that is full of stately views,
Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,
With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;
But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.

For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,
You will find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all ;
The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dungpits and the tanks:
The rollers, carts and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.                                  

And there you'll see the gardeners, the men and 'prentice boys
Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise;
For, except when seeds are  planted and we shout to scare the birds,
The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.

And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,
And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows;
But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam,
For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.

Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing:--"Oh, how beautiful!" and sitting in the shade,
While better men than we go out and start their working lives
At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives

There's not a pair of legs so thin, there's not a head so thick,
There's not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick.
But it can find some needful job that's crying to be done,
For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.

Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,
If it's only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders;
And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden,
You will find yourself a partner in the Glory of the Garden.

Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees
That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees,
So when your work is finished, you can wash your hand and pray 
For the Glory of the Garden, that it may not pass away!
And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away!

* Except of course I changed "England" and replaced it

with "home" instead!

How often should you wash your sheets?

2010-10-09T23:56:00.000-07:00

I was reading a great page on taking care of linens in order to prevent colds: http://shine.yahoo.com/event/haven/sanitize-your-linens-and-fight-off-a-cold-2396276/

I'm on the tail end of a bout of flu myself - which I have managed to transfer to my poor, loving, suffering husband - so the question of linen care has suddenly become extra-important. The thing is that most of the tips found on the Net are written by mat sallehs (Westerners), who recommend washing linens in warm water. But I live in the tropics. You don't get cold and hot water faucets, not unless you install a water heater in the bathroom. Why not? Because it's summer all year round here, so why bother with warm water when you've been sweating all day? Some days you may even wish for iced water to come out of the faucet!

So right now I'm on the trail of the best way to wash clothes and linens in the tropics. Should I soak them in environmentally-unfriendly bleaches? Or wash as usual and then hang them up in the sunstroke-inducing midday sun? Or both?

Any suggestions from friends out there?

PS: It doesn't help that my ornery cat insists on sleeping with us. And he'll bite anybody who challenges his right to a nice soft mattress...

Blackie, son of Muessa and Whiskers, sleeping on a quilt with a bolster at his butt

The Eve of Saint Mark by John Keats

2010-10-06T21:48:00.000-07:00

The best of unfinished poems...

Upon a sabbath day it fell,
Twice holy was the sabbath bell
That call'd the folk to evening prayer—
The City streets were clean and fair
From wholesome drench of April rains
And on the western window panes
The chilly sunset faintly told
Of unmatur'd green vallies cold,
Of the green thorny bloomless hedge,
Of rivers new with springtide sedge,
Of primroses by shelter'd rills
And daisies on the aguish hills—
Twice holy was the sabbath bell:
The silent Streets were crowded well
With staid and pious companies
Warm from their fire-side orat'ries
And moving with demurest air
To even song and vesper prayer.
Each arched porch and entry low
Was fill'd with patient folk and slow,
With whispers hush, and shuffling feet
While play'd the organ loud and sweet—
The Bells had ceas'd, the prayers begun
And Bertha had not yet half done:
A curious volume patch'd and torn,
That all day long from earliest morn
Had taken captive her two eyes
Among its golden broideries—
Perplex'd her with a thousand things—
The Stars of heaven and angels' wings,
Martyrs in a fiery blaze—
Azure saints in silver rays,
Moses' breastplate, and the seven
Candlesticks John saw in heaven—
The winged Lion of St. Mark
And the covenantal Ark
With its many mysteries,
Cherubim and golden Mice.
Bertha was a maiden fair
Dwelling in the old Minster-square;
From her fireside she could see
Sidelong its rich antiquity—
Far as the Bishop's garden wall
Where Sycamores and elm trees tall
Full-leav'd the forest had outstript—
By no sharp north wind ever nipt
So shelter'd by the mighty pile—
Bertha arose and read awhile
With forehead 'gainst the window-pane—
Again she tried and then again
Until the dusk eve left her dark
Upon the Legend of St. Mark.
From plaited lawn-frill, fine and thin
She lifted up her soft warm chin,
With aching neck and swimming eyes
And daz'd with saintly imageries.
All was gloom, and silent all,
Save now and then the still footfall
Of one returning townwards late—
Past the echoing minster gate—
The clamorous daws that all the day
Above tree tops and towers play
Pair by pair had gone to rest,
Each in its ancient belfry nest
Where asleep they fall betimes
To musick of the drowsy chimes,
All was silent—all was gloom
Abroad and in the homely room—
Down she sat, poor cheated soul
And struck a Lamp from the dismal coal,
Leaned forward, with bright drooping hair
And slant book full against the glare.
Her shadow in uneasy guise
hover'd about a giant size
On ceilingbeam and old oak chair,
The Parrot's cage and panel square
And the warm angled winter screen
On which were many monsters seen
Call'd Doves of Siam, Lima Mice
And legless birds of Paradise,
Macaw, and tender av’davat
And silken-furr'd angora cat—
Untir'd she read; her shadow still
Glower'd about as it would fill
The room with wildest forms and shades,
As though some ghostly Queen of spades
Had come to mock behind her back—
And dance, and ruffle her garments black.
Untir'd she read the Legend page
Of holy Mark from youth to age,
On Land, on Seas, in pagan-chains,
Rejoicing for his many pains—
Sometimes the learned Eremite
With golden star, or dagger bright
Referr'd to pious poesies
Written in smallest crowquill size
Beneath the text; and thus the rhyme
Was parcell'd out from time to time:
—’Als writith he of swevenis
Men han beforne they wake in bliss,
Whanne that hir friendes thinke hem bound
In crimped shroude farre under grounde;
And how a litling child mote be
A saint er its nativitie,
Gif that the modre (god her blesse)
Kepen in solitarinesse,
And kissen devoute the holy croce.
Of Goddis love and Sathan's force
He writith; and thinges many mo:
Of swiche thinges I may not shew;.
Bot I must tellen verilie
Somdel of Saintè Cicilie;
And chieftie what he auctorethe
Of Saintè Markis life and dethe.’
At length her constant eyelids come
Upon the fervent Martyrdom;
Then lastly to his holy shrine
Exalt amid the tapers' shine
At Venice—

The Girl with a Pearl Earring

CONSIDER THE LILIES OF THE FIELD

2010-10-05T19:04:00.000-07:00

by: Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

Flowers preach to us if we will hear:--
The rose saith in the dewy morn:
I am most fair;
Yet all my loveliness is born
Upon a thorn.
The poppy saith amid the corn:
Let but my scarlet head appear
And I am held in scorn;
Yet juice of subtle virtue lies
Within my cup of curious dyes.
The lilies say: Behold how we
Preach without words of purity.
The violets whisper from the shade
Which their own leaves have made:
Men scent our fragrance on the air,
Yet take no heed
Of humble lessons we would read.
But not alone the fairest flowers:
The merest grass
Along the roadside where we pass,
Lichen and moss and sturdy weed,
Tell of His love who sends the dew,
The rain and sunshine too,
To nourish one small seed.

Hari Raya at the Pink House

2010-10-02T22:31:00.000-07:00

Me, River Foo from WorldWide Fund for Nature, Meg Perry from the Turtle Conservation Center, and two of the ladies from Persatuan Wanita Setiu (the first lady on the right is Puan Rusnita, chairperson of PEWANIS)

Persatuan Wanita Setiu (PEWANIS) held a Hari Raya open house last Saturday night (September 25th). They had it at the Pink House, which is their headquarters and where the formidable ladies plan their environmentally friendly programs. They organise trips and activities for the environmentally-challenged. What sort of events? Well, they can show you how to replant mangrove trees. They'll drag you all the way into the shallow shores of the mangrove swamps and show you how to properly plant a young mangrove plant. They will also show you how they run a successful kerepek pisang (banana crackers) business, and it's a green business too, right from the planting, harvesting and cooking to how to dispose of the banana skins. (They feed it to the goats. Apparently it's a great hit with the four-legged waste bins!)

They also have environmental awareness talks about the importance of conserving the local aquatic animals, in particular the greatly endangered terrapins and turtles.

The ladies are what some may call typical, ordinary rural housewives, from a fishing village in a remote area of Terengganu. But to me, there is nothing typical or ordinary about them, or any housewife for that matter. They have taken it upon themselves to protect and conserve their environment, because they realise that if they don't care for their howm, then who will? Now if only the rest of the world will follow in the footsteps of these wonderful ladies...

If you want to learn how to plant mangrove trees or how to make environmentally-friendly kerepek pisang, just get in touch with the ladies of PEWANIS. Or you can message me or River Foo of WWF and we can give them your contact number.

Go visit them in Kampung Mangkuk, Setiu, and be impressed with how they have made a difference!

A cool koi pond

2010-09-29T19:14:00.000-07:00

A small fish pond... full of fish!!

This is my sister-in-law's fish pond in Pontian, Johor. I've been trying to get my husband to do something similar for our houses in Kota Bharu and Kuala Terengganu, but he's been too busy chasing stories and politicians and other things that journalists normally chase. So looks like I'll have to wait a little bit longer.

I'll keep you posted though, once a hole has been dug and the pond starts to come to life!

Me and My Cow

2010-09-28T01:23:00.000-07:00

I love my cow

Our cow's name is Anne Cowin. She's a pretty, white heifer with a couple of sharp horns on the top of her head. She's gentle but playful and will try to nudge people with her horns. The problem is that all the cows being taken care of by our cowherd are female, so there are no boy cows anywhere for Anne to date. Solution? Mum is buying a boy cow... let's hope we'll have a boyfriend for Anne and will be hearing the pitter patter of baby cow feet in the old abandoned paddy field!

Anne Cowin - bachelor boy needed!

Mid-Autumn Festival

2010-09-22T20:55:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again...

Malaysia is a multi-ethnic, multi-religion, multi-everything country. The great thing about that is everybody gets to celebrate everybody else's festival. I have Malay students asking for class to be postponed because bus tickets were sold out so they had to get tickets a few days before the Chinese New Year holidays properly started. I get Chinese and Indian students asking the same thing, but for the Eid festival holidays instead. And everybody wants to go home early for Christmas!

This week it's the Mid-Autumn Festival, popularly known as the Tanglung Festival, because of the beautiful lanterns, called tanglung, that are hung up everywhere. You can see them across roads, hanging from streetlights, on top of trees, in gardens both public and private, on beaches, by riversides, even on hospital balconies.

It's one of the most beautiful of festivals in Malaysia. If you don't live here, then come on over just to see the lights.

As for me, this Saturday night I'll be going down to Penarik Beach in Setiu, Terengganu with my husband to see the local children parade their turtle-shaped lanterns. It'll be great!!

Cooking for a large family

2010-09-21T00:26:00.000-07:00

I married into a large family. No, make that a HUGE family!

My husband is his parents' 7th child, out of nine. During the last Hari Raya, when we went back to his parents' home in Masai, Johor, to celebrate the festive season with his family, almost the entire family descended on their elderly parents, all of them bringing large appetites and empty stomachs after a whole month of fasting.

Guess who was invited to do the cooking?

Luckily I came prepared - I brought all the ingredients needed to cook nasi kerabu, a special dish from my home state of Kelantan, about 700km north of Johor. I'd brought flowers, vegetables, fried coconut, a special Kelantanese chilli sauce, fish... I even brought Thai long grain rice, so that the nasi kerabu would turn out the way it properly should. I cooked it for lunch on the first day of Raya. Since it was a Friday, the menfolk had gone out to mosque for Friday prayers. So did their good womenfolk wait for them to come back before tasting the special Raya lunch? Not on your life! The pot was half finished by the time the men got back!

It was my first time cooking for such a huge family, so I'd made a gigantic amount of rice. And yet, by the next morning, only the hard crust was left at the bottom of the pot and that was mixed with some left-over fish and fed to the cats!

I feel so proud of myself that I could just preen like a peacock... haha

Here's a picture of what nasi kerabu looks like, and below that is a photo of the tiniest fraction of my Johor family.

This is the flower used to turn the rice blue, bunga telang or Clitoria termatea (although in Kelantan, we refer to it as black nasi kerabu, not blue).

A properly laid out plate of nasi kerabu hitam (black nasi kerabu)

That's me wiping my mouth (eating too much, as usual) and next to me are my mother-in-law and my own mum. All tucking in to regular, good ol' Malaysian country food!

Response to the Reading Farm

2010-09-20T00:50:00.000-07:00

The response to our newly established Reading Farm has been overwhelming! I can't believe how many people are supporting it, even though I know I shouldn't be surprised as it is a very worthy cause. Getting little kids to read and to love books is not going to be an easy task, but with so many people supporting the Reading Farm, at least we're on the right track.

If you are interested in donating books to the Reading Farm, please get in touch with me...

Thanks everybody!

A call for books from the Reading Farm

2010-09-14T09:18:00.000-07:00

Dear friends,

I have started an organization called the Reading Farm. Its main purpose is to make storybooks of high quality available to young children, particularly in the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia, where such books are very hard to find.

The objective of the Reading Farm is to inculcate a love for reading among Malaysian children right from the start of their formal education – in kindergarten. Although there are many reading campaigns or programs aimed at schoolchildren, there is a lack of impetus in sowing positive reading habits so that the children will continue reading long after the campaigns have ended.

So why is it called the Reading Farm? Because many children’s books and nursery rhymes are about animals, so we thought it would be a good idea to merge the two, in an effort to get children to love books and reading as much as they may love animals. Of course the Reading Farm will include other books as well, and not focus exclusively on books about animals. We just thought it would be a good way to appeal to young children.

However, we are still severely lacking where it matters most – we need books. We are looking for books that are appropriate for children from individuals or organizations, either from within Malaysia or overseas.

If you have books to donate to the Reading Farm or know of anyone or any organization that may be interested in doing so, please do get in touch with me at chaizani@gmail.com or call me at 012-9002640.

Thanks so much and Selamat Hari Raya.

Regards,

Chaizani Mohd Shamsudin

The Reading Farm

Holiday season...

2010-08-31T20:47:00.001-07:00

It's the holiday season again and the first thing I need to do is find some coconut leaves! Why? Because my husband has decided that he wants to make ketupat.

There are two types of ketupat (as I know them anyway). Here in Kelantan, when we say 'ketupat', we mean the triangular type made from glutinous rice and wrapped in daun palas. They can either be sweet or 'unsweet', ie no sugar added. The sweet ones are my favourite and can be eaten just like that. But the unsweet ones are eaten with either sambal daging or with melted gula Melaka. The former is better known as serunding by non-Kelantanese and the latter type completely scandalized my Johorean husband the first time he saw it. ("How can you eat ketupat with something SWEET?!!" he said, if I recall correctly.) Not only is he Johorean, he's also Javanese, which means he's a chilli-eating machine and can't figure why some people like sugar!

Ketupat pulut (or ketupat daun palas)

The other type of ketupat is made from normal everyday white rice and is wrapped in young coconut leaves. This type is eaten with satay or lontong, and the hotter and spicier it is, the better. It's this second type that my husband wants to make, as he used to help his mum weave the coconut wrap back when he was a boy. In Johor, this second type is known as simply ketupat and the first one, the one made from daun palas, is called ketupat pulut. But in Kelantan, the first one is the definitive ketupat, and this second one made in coconut leaves is called ketupat nasi. Small differences, but it shows how differently we eat.

Ketupat nasi

I have no idea how to weave ketupat wraps. My mum taught me how to make the Kelantan version – several times – but then I forgot again as soon as the lesson was over. So let's hope my darling can remember how to make his ketupat, because if he can't then we'll have lots of leaves and no idea what to do with them!!

However, if his ketupat ever see the light of day, then we'll be having satay and lontong for Raya. Hmmm... maybe it's time I found a recipe for lontong...

Queen vs Lea

2010-08-29T22:24:00.000-07:00

I was getting some teaching materials ready just now. I'm supposed to use a couple of songs as a tool for students to show comparison, using the appropriate sentences, but I don't like the songs given in their books (too old and the kids don't know it). So if I was going to use an old song, I thought I'd pick one the kids would definitely know. At first I thought of Queen's We are the Champions but then I saw that in the same album, there was the song Somebody to Love. Which had been featured in Happy Feet. The other song I'd picked was A Whole New World by Lea Salonga and Brad Kane.

I was just listening to Somebody to Love when I realized that both songs had been featured in cartoons. A perfect choice for my class. I wonder if the kids will remember that one had been in Happy Feet and the other was in Aladdin?

I guess I'll know in half an hour...

Burglarized... for the third time!!

2010-08-29T00:58:00.001-07:00

My youngest sister and I now have something very unfortunate in common. We've both been robbed!

Wawa says that some money was stolen from her purse while watching The Expendables last weekend. Poor kid, I know exactly how that feels. Three times over.

We had moved into our rented house in Kuala Terengganu for only three days when I woke up one day to see that my handbag was not where I'd left it before I went to sleep. I thought nothing of it until my husband, who was supposed to go on assignment in Kenyir very early that morning, mentioned that we'd gone to sleep without locking the back door. I said that's not true, because I know for sure that I'd locked and bolted it before going to sleep. We looked at each other and then I pounced on my handbag. Sure enough, RM500 was missing. The felons had come in while we were fast asleep!

A few months later, my husband was supposed to leave for Kota Bharu, where I was waiting. But he was delayed because a friend wanted to borrow my small camera (as opposed to his big REAL photographer's camera). He didn't leave Kuala Terengganu until nearly 11pm. I thought that he was late because he had gone to meet the friend, but it turned out that he was just pottering about at home. He'd totally forgotten about his friend, who called up the next day asking for the camera, which was still in my dressing table drawer in Kuala Terengganu. When he went back to KT a few days later, he found that someone had broken into our house and stolen – you guessed it – my camera.

And then last Friday night, we came back late from buka puasa in town and had to rush for Maghrib prayers, so my husband just left the gates open (not to mention unlocked) and his shoes at the doorstep. Half an hour later, I opened the door to sweep out some dust and guess what? His shoes were gone! They weren't even new. If you knew my husband, you'd know that no shoe could go even a week on his feet without being dragged into the sea or a mangrove swamp or climbed up a tree or all other sorts of stuff I'm sure shoes dread to do. As a journalist dedicated to getting the story, my husband can't be bothered to worry how his shoes feel when he sets off on one of his investigative pursuits. So the shoes that were stolen, although by no means old or tattered, were most definitely well worn. His response was, "Kasut pun ada orang nak curi?" I told him that drug addicts don't care what they steal, as long as they can get some money from it, even if it's just fifty cents. My cousin once had a bougainvillea plant stolen, pot and plant and all.

Even more alarming, out immediate neighbour says that a couple of kids she didn't recognise had been casing out the house a few days ago. It was one of the few days that my husband didn't lock the gates, because he'd had to hurry to the place where a little boy was killed when his father's alleged firecracker stash blew up. He'd gone out in his car and had left his motorbike at home. Seems the would-be thieves were interested in his bike, but they ran off when our neighbour challenged them.

So, for the umpteenth time, I said maybe we should move. But a bigger problem is where would we move to? Theft and junkie burglars are so prevalent in our society now, especially so in the Kuala Terengganu neighbourhood where we live in. Plainclothes detectives regularly make patrols in unmarked vans, passing right in front of our house. They don't even bother disguising themselves, and let everyone see their dark-tinted van cruise in broad daylight. It doesn't help that the local kids must have noticed that my husband lives alone most of the time since I'm only around on weekends, plus he works at odd hours. Very often, he'll come home at midnight or even later, especially if someone has decided to jump off a building or has abandoned a baby or has fallen into the river.

It seems an insurmountable problem. Is there anyone out there with a viable solution? We're open to suggestions...

Gorgeous cakes and other scrumptious stuff...

2010-08-25T18:38:00.000-07:00

http://elegantcakesandpartydates.blogspot.com/

I've just discovered the most delicious blog... It's a website belonging to Melissa who calls herself a sugar art designer and she lives in Melbourne, Australia. She has the most beautiful creations! Can you believe that the picture below is one of a cupcake? Mmmmmm..... delish......

My creative students

2010-08-24T20:53:00.000-07:00

Gosh darn... (yes I'm being cheesy on purpose!)

I'm just so proud of my creative writing class this semester. Looks like they managed to dig out their muse and are now writing up a storm. Not all of it is grammatical or perfect in terms of technicalities, but damned if they aren't actually writing from the heart, instead of trying just trying to get marks for an assignment.

Here's one example:

I am wide open,
To shield you,
My master,
From the sun,
From the rain.

I am wide open,
You can hide in me,
My master,
When you are in fear,
When you need a place to drop some tears.

I am wide open,
For I know you need me,
Do not worry,
My master,
I will be there for you.

I am reaching the end of my life,
Yet it does not matter,
For I will continue to serve you,
My master,
Till the day,
The day of the end of my life.

Posted by P.Yen Ham

And another one:

No no no , pass not to the red mist lake,
For you are not wrong,
And have never been late,
Whispers of an old man , clung to a cane.

With rush of blood , to his cold head,
The past , the thoughts are never-ending,
Oh God, he wonders, can he ever grasp ?,
Grains of the sacred and pure golden sand.

Just a dream within a dream,
He deeply hopes all these be,
Because when he wakes up,
The real nightmare begins.

Posted by Faiz

Aren't they great? Who says science students can't be creative??

Little notebooks

2010-08-22T00:06:00.000-07:00

My name is Chaizani and I'm a compulsive buyer of pretty notebooks. There, I've said it. It's out in the open!

I don't know what it is about notebooks, but I love buying them and then I don't write anything inside them because I don't want to spoil them. So I keep hoarding and hoarding beautiful notebooks - ones with cartoons on the cover like Disney characters or Bugs Bunny and gang, ones with pretty pastoral scenes, ones with lovely quotations, etc. I even have a huge notebook with matte black covers, figuring that I could fill it up with pictures like a scrapbook. But there it is, still in my cabinet.

Is there any such thing as a notebookholic? Anyway, I've admitted to my weakness, so now on to my resolution! I shall use all my current notebooks before buying any new ones! (Of course, it helps that my husband is a journalist and gets lots of freebies at work from assorted companies.... like notebooks! haha)

A dress a day for a dollar

2010-08-18T21:09:00.000-07:00

I've discovered a really cool blog.It's at http://newdressaday.wordpress.com and it's by Marisa who takes an old dress and fixes it up into fantastic new outfits every day. Check it out!!

The Highwayman

2010-08-17T20:00:00.000-07:00

by Alfred Noyes (1880-1958)

      PART ONE
   I
THE wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding—
Riding—riding—
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.
   II
He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.
   III
Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.
   IV
And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim the ostler listened; his face was white and peaked;
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
But he loved the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's red-lipped daughter,
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say—
   V
"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way."
   VI
He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet, black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonliglt, and galloped away to the West.

      PART TWO
   I
He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon;
And out o' the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
When the road was a gypsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching—
Marching—marching—
King George's men came matching, up to the old inn-door.
   II
They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window;
And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.
   III
They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
"Now, keep good watch!" and they kissed her.
She heard the dead man say—
Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!
   IV
She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years,
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!
   V
The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest!
Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,
She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;
For the road lay bare in the moonlight;
Blank and bare in the moonlight;
And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her love's refrain .
   VI
Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear;
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding!
The red-coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still!
   VII
Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death.
   VIII
He turned; he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it, his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.
   IX
Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.
* * * * * *
   X
And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding—
Riding—riding—
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.
   XI
Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard;
He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred;
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

Understanding what students are really saying....

2010-08-16T22:26:00.000-07:00

Something light for everyone... (and yes, I have had experiences like this!)

To read in moments of sunshine

2010-08-15T21:03:00.000-07:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/14/summer-short-story-special

Follow the link above if you have some free time to spare... you'll find moments of sunshine even though it's raining outside...

A new chain of writings...

2010-08-15T21:00:00.000-07:00

Kudos to all my students!

I see that everyone has started on their blogs and are all hard at work and writing up a storm. It won't be easy at first for some of you (but perhaps a breeze for others!). The best thing you can do is just keep at it. You may feel that nobody is interested in what you write about but that's not entirely true- I'm interested!! So keep writing and finding out more about yourselves, and you'll do just fine.

Don't forget to be a follower of all your classmates' blogs...

Working Monkeys...

2010-08-14T21:47:00.000-07:00

One day, as I was driving down the road from Tok Bali towards Kota Bharu, I suddenly saw the most amazing thing. Traffic was quite slow, so I tried to see what was holding everyone up. Up the road was a small lorry, absolutely filled to the brim with coconuts, and right on top of those coconuts were five pig-tailed macaques (beruk), swaying with the movement of the lorry and looking for all the world as proud as a monkey can be. I mean, they were really filled with attitude. They waved down at passing cars and scratched their armpits and lifted their legs to let the cool breeze fan their legs. They were acted as boorish as the most socially-challenged caveman probably did, and they were obviously enjoying the ride on the lorry.

It was just fantastic, but it was getting dark, and since I suffer from a most inconvenient form of disability - night blindness - I couldn't follow them all the way to their home. It took months of waiting and skulking the roads of Tok Bali before I finally saw another lorry of beruks that happened to be going my way. This time there were just three monkeys, but luckily enough there was still plenty of daylight left for me to follow them and catch them up at a petrol station. I got the lorry driver's phone number, and as soon as my husband was available, I dragged him and his camera to visit the monkeys and take their photos.

Here are a few shots:

The monkeys' names are Mizi, Eteng and Mamat. This big bad boy in the picture is called Mizi. According to the handlers, he is the fiercest of the three and only three men can go near him without fear of being attacked.

Mizi going for a coconut.

Unfortunately, the monkeys were not in the mood for another lorry ride, so we couldn't get a photo of them on the top of all those coconuts. Hopefully we can catch them some other time, riding high and proud.

The young men in charge of Mizi, Eteng and Mamat also kept a forest monkey as a pet. That really got my husband's attention as he'd had forest monkeys as pets when he was a boy. Talk about poles apart... I grew up raising Persian cats! My husband's monkeys were called Chinguk and Juragan. Chinguk was female, just like the one the guys had, and she took to my husband very quick. Here's a photo my husband somehow managed to work out:

Unlike the beruk, the monkey didn't have a name. So we ended up calling her Chinguk.

It was an interesting afternoon. The monkeys were smart and fast - very very intelligent. The handler, Mohammad Noor, called up the coconut tree: "Mizi, muda! Muda!" And four young coconuts fell onto the ground. A gift from Mizi for buka puasa...

After that, Mizi decided he'd had enough and went to sleep. And we went home with lovely memories and even better photographs.

Our place in the world

2010-08-10T22:51:00.000-07:00

The above photograph shows Laurie Marker from the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) and Chewbaaka, a beautiful cheetah who has become the face of the CCF.

Dr Marker is one of the increasing number of dedicated environmentalists and conversationalists who have made a significant impact in the way we all view our world.

According to the website "Nature's Crusaders":

She is a pioneer who has worked out a successful living model of teaming conservation of an endangered animal with a strong economic model that educates local farmers and ranchers and their children in ways to save their livestock while allowing predators like the cheetah to survive.

How many of us show even a fraction of that dedication in sorting out our trash? It's time we all got involved, instead of leaving all the work to admirable people such as Laurie Marker.

Nasi ambeng and other culinary marvels

2010-08-09T22:18:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow is the first day of puasa, so today seems like a good time to ponder on all the good food we'll be tucking into for the next month. Although fasting is supposed to be a time of reflection and frugality and an exercise in appreciating the little things in life, it cannot be denied that it is also the month that everybody gets their recipe books out.

This is because the biggest problem many will face, especially mothers, is trying to stimulate appetites. In the first few days, everyone is ravenous. But after a week or so, appetites decline and people wonder what to eat so they can keep up their strength. But it's so difficult, because your stomach just doesn't want to eat. So you end up stopping at every stall and shop you see, hoping to find something that looks tasty. It's an exercise in futility too, as the problem isn't that the food isn't good – it's that you just don't feel like eating.

That's my theory to explain why so many food stalls suddenly mushroom up in the puasa month. Not that I'm complaining... people need to make a living and others are too tired to cook, particularly after a long day at work. So here we go... my list of favourite food during puasa month:

Kueh like: Onde-onde, pudding gula hangus, akok, bingka (beko in Kelantanese), jala emas, buah tanjung, and my absolute favourite – kueh bunga

Nasi kerabu

Ayam percik

Laksa

Rojak

Tropical drinks like air tebu, air tembikai (air timun cina in Kelantanese), air soya

Sambal ikan bilis

My Javanese husband says nasi ambeng is not a dish – it's an occasion. So you can't go around selling nasi ambeng; that's like selling rice from your wedding feast. But I put the picture up there anyway because it just looks so delicious....

Selamat Berpuasa everyone!

The Wonderful Pudding Tree

2010-08-08T22:04:00.001-07:00

Many years ago, I was on a trip to Penang with a few colleagues. We were headed to the main campus of Universiti Sains Malaysia, where we often had to go to attend meetings as we worked at the branch campus in Kelantan, hundreds of miles away over mountains and jungles and, to me, across incomprehensible roads.

Two of my colleagues were either from or had once lived in Perak, and they had a jolly good time fighting over which roads were the quickest or easiest to take in order to reach Penang. Naturally, with two captains at the helm of the ship (or a van, actually) we ended up taking all sorts of long-forgotten trunk roads. They were so long-forgotten that I didn't even know what being a trunk road even meant. I had the vague idea that they were called that because they were in remote areas and therefore saw heavy elephant traffic. (Elephant trunks, get it?) So there we were, a bunch of civil servants traipsing up and down Perak, trying to find the fastest route to Penang and failing miserably.

As we were driving down what the two captains called the old Taiping road, I couldn't help but be struck by the postcard-perfect view of the countryside around us. It reminded me of those old watercolour paintings of paddy fields and coconut trees, with water buffalo and a serene river snaking towards unknown coasts in the background.

At regular intervals, the square fields of wavy green paddy were broken by a small oasis of shady trees. Palm, coconut and maybe even some fruit trees grew in little groves. They were places where the farmers could stop for meals and to catch a break from the heat of the tropical sun.

At this point, I was quite content to sit back and let my colleagues let us get lost all over the northern parts of the Peninsula. I wasn't particularly keen to get to the meeting, so I ignored their chatter over which highway was just over yonder, and instead observed the intermittent islands of trees that dotted the sea of paddy fields.

That was when I suddenly sat up with a jolt. Right in the middle of one particularly large copse was the largest, hugest, most gigantic pudding tree that I had ever seen. It stood as tall and as large as an oak, a magnificent Codiaeum variagatum with wide, bright red maple-like leaves flapping in the afternoon breeze and towering over each and every coconut tree in sight. Its branches spread out under the sun, each individual leaf waving happily and proudly at anyone who cared to look. I stared at it, my mouth hanging open in wonder. I don't know why but it seemed to me like the tree was smiling. It may sound fanciful to the extreme, but that was the thought that flew through my dumbstruck mind.

The largest pudding trees I'd seen before then were the stringy little plants in front yards all over Malaysia, growing about as tall as the fences that enclosed the gardens and their stems barely the diameter of a finger. As an ornamental plant, they are rather popular, or were at one point in Malaysia's gardening history. They come in all colours and patterns. There are some with spirally yellow-green leaves, or long fingers of green leaves speckled with orange, or curly little yellow leaves with red dots. And there are some with wide red leaves like that tree in the middle of a paddy field in Perak, where the leaves are large enough to use as little fans by kids on a hot day.

The van was going too fast for my liking, and my two colleagues were still arguing about how to reach the island of Penang. I thumped on the seat in front of me and said, "Hey wait! Look at that tree."

They both took a breather from their debating to look in the direction where my arms were frantically pointing at.

"Oh yes, wow, that is a big tree," said Puan Tetian, who was driving and happened to own the van.

"Where, which tree?" said Haji Ismail. "That one? The red one? Not bad."

Then they both looked forward again and continued with their argument.

I turned to Hani, who was Puan Tetian's young daughter. She's a big girl now but then she was about twelve. "Ya la," she said, "besarnya pokok tu!" (Yes, that is a big tree!)

I sighed. How I wished the others were as intrigued and as impressed as I was upon seeing that giant pudding tree. As it was, the only other person even remotely interested was a twelve-year-old. If I had been driving, I would have stopped the car and run all the way to the island of trees, just to stand at the foot of what must have been a truly ancient tree. If it takes years for a pudding tree just to grow taller than a garden fence, how long did it take that giant to reach high past the coconut trees that surrounded it? Imagine all the stories it could tell, if biologists could make careful study of its bark and trunk.

But my biggest regret is not that I could not stop to go and stand under that magnificent tree. What I most regret is that I have no idea how to find that tree again. All I know is that it is somewhere in the middle of a paddy field, between Grik and Ipoh, and if it is still standing, it is the most marvellous pudding tree I have ever seen.

Literature lover

2010-08-08T20:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/marilyn-monroe-and-her-literary-loves-2046497.html

Marilyn Monroe was a lover of not only the silver screen's camera lens but also of literature. The above article in the Independent (which I read via Sharon Bakar's blog - thanks Sharon!) highlights Marilyn's love for James Joyce, Walt Whitman and Samuel Beckett.

Marilyn was no dumb blond. That was just a role that she played in some of her movies. There were some other roles where she played smart, independent women, such as the River of No Return, Niagara and the Misfits. Funnily though, many people back then preferred to believe that she was just for show - a pretty enough girl but nothing of substance. It seems to me that a lot of women have to go through similar elaborate charades just to survive and make something of herself. Why are smart and beautiful women such a threat? And the problem is not just men. Women can be mighty uncharitable towards each other too.

It's high time we celebrate the fact that beautiful girls, like Norma Jean here, can be both pretty and intelligent too.

Where we come from

2010-08-04T22:23:00.000-07:00

This is a photo from about 100 hundred years ago, of a bunch of men outside the old palace in Kota Bharu. Heaven knows what they're all standing around for (maybe a bull fight?) but what interests me is the fact that some of them may be my ancestors. I can't say for sure that any are from my family but as my mum's people have lived in Kota Bharu for centuries and worked in the household of the sultan (my great-great-grandfather was a personal bodyguard to Sultan Muhammad IV), it's quite possible that some of those guys are my relatives.

That's the great thing about knowing your history: to be able to look at a picture and know that you have a connection to the people in it. Even though it's tenuous and not really certain, you are abolutely sure that you BELONG.

And to me, that's what history is all about. It's not only memorising names and events and which kings or prime ministers did what. It's also our personal history and where we came from. It's my favourite kind of history.

The Man Booker Prize 2010

2010-08-03T20:53:00.000-07:00

http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/stories/1427

The longlist is out...

Peter Carey Parrot and Olivier in America (Faber and Faber)
Emma Donoghue Room (Pan MacMillan - Picador)
Helen Dunmore The Betrayal (Penguin - Fig Tree)
Damon Galgut In a Strange Room (Grove Atlantic - Atlantic Books)
Howard Jacobson The Finkler Question (Bloomsbury)
Andrea Levy The Long Song (Headline Publishing Group - Headline Review)
Tom McCarthy C (Random House - Jonathan Cape)
David Mitchell The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (Hodder & Stoughton - Sceptre)
Lisa Moore February (Random House - Chatto & Windus)
Paul Murray Skippy Dies (Penguin - Hamish Hamilton)
Rose Tremain Trespass (Random House - Chatto & Windus)
Christos Tsiolkas The Slap (Grove Atlantic - Tuskar Rock)
Alan Warner The Stars in the Bright Sky (Random House - Jonathan Cape)

To my students who are not familiar with the Booker Prize, it is a very prestigious book award and according to its own website, it is the leading literary award in the English speaking world. Try and read some of these books, in addition to your diet of Cecilia Ahern and the Twilight saga...

Going all out...

2010-08-02T21:48:00.000-07:00

This is a photo of Margaret Bourke-White. She was nuts.

She was also a trailblazer, making her way to the top of her career as a photographer (as you can see from the photo, that's both literal and metaphorical), especially for a woman living in the Depression Era, where such chances did not come easily.

But I still say she was nuts. I mean look at her - sitting on the head of a sentinel on the top of the Chrysler Building. What if a particularly strong gust of wind suddenly blew? What if she slipped? What if a gravity-defying pigeon dropped poop on her head? She could have fallen so far that it would've taken days just to reach the bottom.

I am terrified of heights. And confined spaces. That's nothing extraordinary; everyone is afraid of something or other at some point in their lives. I believe in that so strongly that I even wrote a whole chapter about it in one of my books. And to see someone so fearless, so nonchalant about what she is doing... well, it's just amazing, isn't it? How many of us have the guts to go out so far on a limb (or an eagle's head) just to reach for that dream?

So okay, I don't really think she was nuts. But she really was very gutsy and is a great role model for today.

Blackie's Mojo...

2010-08-01T01:22:00.000-07:00

For some strange reason, Blackie has become the feline version of Fabio... People delight in taking his photo, especially recently. He is certainly my husband's favorite cat. When I asked why, he said, "Because Blackie has character."

Well that's definitely true. Unfortunately Blackie isn't very happy about being the new target for cameras. He runs off the instant my husband reaches for his camera bag. One moment he's there, the next second he's gone in a puff of black fur! And now my sister is getting into the act. See that white whisker? It's the only one he has that's not black. Must be the source of his mojo then...

Summer fruits

2010-07-29T00:12:00.000-07:00

The garden is blooming and fruits are bursting this month... I think I'll take a large mat and spread it in the middle of the garden and eat my fill... anyone want to join me?

The Birds!

2010-07-28T23:53:00.000-07:00

Our garden was besieged yesterday by a horde of birds. There were swallows and finches and spotted doves and bulbuls too. They seemed to be dancing in a frenzy of ecstasy... like a bunch of hippies at a gathering for Flower Power Revival. They were flying about in a part of the garden that badly needs pruning - right under the dragonfruit plants and our straggly pomegranate tree.

We couldn't figure out what they were doing, until one particularly large winged termite flew up into plain view. One of the bulbuls zoomed in like a jet fighter with its beaks wide open and gobbled it up whole.

So that's what they were doing! It was a feeding frenzy in our backyard. It's said that birds bring good fortune... we certainly hope so!!

Meanwhile, the bees...

... or one of them at least, was busy trying to pollinate a dragonfruit flower. We've gotten a pretty good crop so far this year, and most have been sweet and red and juicy - just the way summer should be. And since our garden is one of almost perpetual summer, that's just as it should be.

Taffy

2010-07-15T01:11:00.000-07:00

Someone has kidnapped my beautiful girl...

Taffy is a chocolate-lilac Himalayan cat. She has big blue eyes, a nose that is barely there, and a luxurious cream-colored coat. Her legs, face, ears and tail are a chocolate-lilac color, and she has the loud, raucous meow of all Himalayan and Siamese cats. She's affectionate and intelligent, loves Fancy Feast Tuna, is fond of sleeping on my pillow, even when I'm on the pillow too, and hates other cats.

Some criminal took her from our home, and now our hearts are broken, thinking of her fate and where she is now. What is she being fed? Do they know that she can't eat anything but Royal Canin biscuits?

She's 11 years old already, an elderly cat and unable to breed anymore as she was spayed 7 years ago. To all cat lovers out there, please keep a lookout for my beautiful girl, and drop a word if you feel you have seen her. Apparently there is a syndicate of cat thieves in this country, who steal people's prize cats and sell at shops in Kuala Lumpur. Reputable and responsible pet shops wouldn't condone this act, but then not all shops are reputable or responsible.

I hope that everyone will join me in praying for Taffy's safety and eventual return to our home.

It's a cow!

2010-06-28T01:00:00.000-07:00

We have just celebrated the first anniversary of our life together as husband and wife... by buying a cow.

She's a lovely white heifer, with a small pair of horns that don't look capable of spearing even a banana tree trunk. She's quite a big girl too, despite the fact that she is still young and has yet to bear any calves. She's a tame little darling who follows the cowherd around like she was a kitten looking for her bowl of milk. Absolutely adorable!

My husband has named her Anne Cowin. As in Anniversary Kahwin, which means Wedding Anniversary in Malay. My husband is a polyglot and speaks 5 languages, and little language jokes like that amuse him. It took me a while to get it though. I actually wanted to call her Snow White, as she is so pretty, but I guess my husband's idea is much more fun!

After all, how many people buy a cow for their anniversary?

The Black Cat Memoirs

2010-06-01T19:20:00.000-07:00

Now my cat is getting into the writing game too...

This black cat's name is, of course, Blackie, and he delights in biting people, driving me crazy, talking to my mother on the phone and trying to chase my husband off what he thinks of as HIS bed (the cat's bed, I mean).

One of Blackie's (few) redeeming qualities is that he doesn't mind posing for photos at all. In fact, he loves it; he never passes up on a photo op. You'd think he was a Hollywood cat star in this picture, promoting Mont Blanc pens. He certainly knows how to behave like a diva, or is it divo? He'll meow and meow as loud as he can if he feels that it's too hot and he wants the air-conditioner on. It's like he's saying, "Turn that cool air thing on, and I mean NOW!" And he insists on sleeping on laps. If he wants a lap, he wants it "RIGHT AWAY, so HURRY up and sit DOWN already."

But what is it about animals that draw at our heart strings? Blackie is a finicky, fussy little thing and yet he gives us so much laughter because of his ridiculousness and outrageous demands. It's so comedic to see him run like Wile E. Coyote because he has such short Persian-cat-legs, and he is always skulking around because he's done something wrong and is waiting for someone to find out and scold him, which makes him even more like Wile E. Coyote than ever.

Because of this silly black cat, I've decided to plant some tall grasses in the large yard of our Kota Bharu home. He loves to hide behind the grass and pretend that nobody can see him, even though we can see him clearly enough from inside the house. I guess he likes to think of himself as a big jungle cat, waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting deer, but usually he'll just end up chasing somebody's legs.

I can't quite decide what type of grasses to plant though. I don't want to end up with uncontrollable weeds overtaking everything in the garden, and there is the problem of unwanted, slithery reptilian visitors to consider too. Maybe a shrub with light foliage would be good, one that looks like a small clump of grassy plants. Lemon grass would be good, except that the blades are rather sharp. Or maybe a nice, elegant little Chinese bamboo, with yellow stalks and small light green leaves. Then Blackie could sit in between the shoots like the little devil that he is and fantasize about being a great jungle cat on the prowl...

The Magic of Everyday Things

2010-05-29T21:38:00.000-07:00

Bramasole... yearning for the sun

I read a beautiful book a couple of years ago, called Under the Tuscan Sun. Actually, I saw the movie first on HBO, starring Diane Lane. In the first place, I've adored Diane Lane since Streets of Fire. How I wanted to be a rock star because of that movie! And in the second place, the movie was set in glorious, glorious Italy - the land of Petrarch, da Vinci, fabulous pasta and Sophia Loren. So that was enough to keep me pasted to the TV screen.

The book is a memoir by Frances Mayes; a poetic recollection of living and loving a house in Tuscany. She bought an old, crumbling farmhouse called Bramasole, which means yearning for the sun, and proceeded to bring it back to life. Even her description of rebuilding a septic tank sounded like pure poetry, and it became my inspiration and motivation to write more about everyday things. After all, it is in the mundane that our lives are rooted to. Making breakfast for your family, planting a rose bush that may or may not live to see tomorrow, and discovering a lizard under the bed that your cat brought in but then lost interest in after it played dead. It also made me realize that fixing up a house is a joy to be done, especially with a loved one. My husband and I are currently hard at work on our garden, fighting off a veritable army of ants and weeds to reclaim and tame the garden so that it will one day be a perfect place for afternoon teas and picnics. Not to mention romantic midnight bonfires...

A great blog...

2010-05-29T21:02:00.000-07:00

Wanna read a real cool blog? Visit my baby sister's at http://www.rewritinglines.blogspot.com

A nurse with plenty to say...

From Out-er Space

2010-03-01T21:29:00.000-08:00

It's been a very very very long time since I blogged... Somehow things just always get in the way and it's been a crazy couple of years anyway. First, I did my masters degree, then I got married and then of course there had to be a honeymoon. So anyway, here I am.. back again in the land of binary codes and incomprehensible tech lingo. To me, at least. I'm technically-challenged, so please forgive any slip-ups in future posts.

To cut to the chase, my book is finally published and has a proper name.. "From Out-er Space", published by Marshall Cavendish. I am honored and ecstatic to say that more than just my family members have bought the book!! I thought I'd have to force everybody from my mum to my third cousin twice removed to buy a copy...

2008-06-21T09:10:00.000-07:00

What happened to your bottom?

One day, I was trying on a new dress that my mother had been sewing for me. She’s a real good seamstress, and takes great pride in her work. Only trouble is that it takes her months to finish just one dress, on account of her mad enthusiasm for gardening. She grows anything and everything she can get her hands on – seeds or cuttings or even branches surreptitiously snapped off from a park or road divider. She’s got tomatoes, lady’s fingers, durians, petai trees, roses, bougainvillea, orchids, and hibiscus bushes. Anything that can grow in our hard tropical earth, she’s got it. We have a substantial-sized garden, around a quarter of an acre in all. Weeding a quarter of an acre of garden is hard, tedious work, and as a result, she had been sewing this particular dress for so long that I’d forgotten that I’d ever bought the four metre-length of fabric. She’d taken one look at the cloth all those months ago and declared that it was going to turn into a kebaya. And that was the last I saw of it until that afternoon when she held it out to me for my first fitting.

For those of you out there who are not familiar with Malay dresses, a kebaya is a traditional dress that women in the Malay Archipelago have been wearing for centuries, and it comes in several versions. The top half of it is made of body-hugging fabric, and sometimes the fabric is lace so sheer that you have to wear a bustier beneath it. A real sexy eye-turner, although not that many women wear that style anymore because it’s considered rather old-fashioned. Think 1950s fashion and lung-squeezing corsets. The other version is more modest, with fabric that is soft and not nearly as sheer. The bottom half is usually a wrap-around sarong. The top can be either long, in which case it is called the kebaya Kota Bharu, or short, like how Balinese women wear it. I was standing in front of a full-length mirror, not able to decide if I preferred the dress long or short, when my mother, who had so far been standing behind me and admiring her needlework (or so I thought), suddenly asked, ‘What happened to your bottom?’

I was stunned. Mortified. My hands flew to cover my bum, as though they had committed a faux pas in high society and now had to be banished from sight.

My bottom? I thought. Why? What’s happened to it? I was thrown completely off balance. That is, it threw me off balance mentally, not physically, and so it didn’t stop me from spinning around in front of the mirror, trying to get a peek at my tush, which at the moment was hiding behind my hands. I couldn’t see anything wrong with it. In fact, I couldn’t even see it, not under all the layers of cloth that was to become a new dress to wear at work.

‘What do you mean, what’s happened to my bottom?’ I said, bewildered and feeling not a little bit anxious. Was it lopsided? Did I have a heretofore unnoticed bump on my bum? Or was it already losing its struggle to defy gravity and was beginning its slow yet steady slide towards my heels? It’s not like I’ve got a bum to rival that of Jennifer Lopez. (Mum says J-Lo’s bottom looks like a sarang tebuan - a hornet’s nest. I’ve never actually seen a hornet’s nest but I figured I’d take her word for it.) No, my bottom is modest and unpretentious… every bit as decorous and unworthy of attention as a nice Malay girl’s bottom should properly be. (Tongue in cheek!) J-Lo is quite safe in her position of Queen of Rear Ends. The only hornet’s nest I had was in my head, which was buzzing very busily after hearing my mother’s seemingly innocuous comment.

‘But that’s what I’m talking about,’ said my mother when I pointed out my obvious lack of bootyliciousness. ‘When you were a baby, you had a nice wide rump, and now look at you.’ She opened both hands in the direction of the formerly wide rump, as though she was presenting it as an art exhibition at the National Gallery, except that she wasn’t exactly jumping for joy. And the art in question was definitely not a Rubens. ‘Where did it go?’ she said.

Well, I thought, that made it clear enough. I can now call myself The Woman with the Diminished Rear End. Is there a place where we rear-end-challenged women can check in for support? Sort of like a lonely hearts club for tiny bums, where we can meet other people like us? We can meet up every weekend and discuss how to handle the mental pressure of not having an extravagant behind. After all, there’s Alcoholics Anonymous and clubs for retirees and stuff like that, so why not a Society to Support Women with Unremarkable Physical Attributes?

What makes a good title?

2008-06-21T09:01:00.001-07:00

I wrote a book recently. It was about home truths and getting to the bottom line, and since the first article was called 'What Happened to your Bottom?', I decided to call the book by the same title. Unfortunately, the editors at MPH publishing decided that the title was too racy, and that Malaysians are much too nice and polite (haha) to ever buy a book with such a suggestive title. I've posted an excerpt from the first article above, for your reading pleasure, and also because I'd love to hear what you think.

So please feel free to post your opinion: Do you agree with the editors? What do you think I should call this book?