It was a solemn ceremony alright.

In the absence of my parents and all other siblings (all of my family are over at Alor Star for cousin Yazzir’s wedding. I’m still bitter, but that’s another post altogether), we decided not to take the kids. It was 6:30am when we left home, anyway. We’ll take a family picture, I said.

So, robe in hand, I arrived to a sea of people. There were only 25 of us, Master graduands. The other 400 odd graduands were the diploma holders. So, we stick out like sore thumb with our cyan sash and robe and the mortarboard. The diploma holders only have the robe.

Anyways. During the assembling stage, we joked around and we laughed, reminiscing how unreal this moment was, looking at the hardship we all went through to get here. The sacrifices and the lost sleep and the worrying. But we got here alright. I was sad to learn that my 3 other friends didn’t make the list. That left me the only Perempuan Melayu Terakhir. Ha ha ha. Isaac, who’s the best student for 2008, who was also my best buddy in almost all the modules I attended was cracking jokes every few steps. Very much the same Isaac.

I was robed. Mortarboard placed behind my turqoise awning. Procession began. I felt pride, I had goosebumps, walking down that aisle. I am here. I made it. I made it.

When my name was called for Master of Science in Engineering Business Management, it was unreal. I walked up, shook the hand of Amanda and we exchanged pleasantries and I stepped off the stairs safely and walked around the hall to admiring faces along the way. *perasan*

Yay! My only regret was that my parents weren’t there to witness this magical moment with me. Part of the motivation for the Master was to have my parents watch me and be proud of me, when they didn’t have the chance during my first time in Manchester. But, hey .. I think they’re proud still. *bitter still*

Anyway. This is very out of character for me to be posting my own pictures in this blog. But due to the overwhelming demand, who am I to resist? Ha ha ha.

We came home last night from the Masjid, eager to dig into the soft kaya buns I bought from my office and me, to plonk myself on the sofa watching Lipstick Jungle.

It was a short drive.

When we entered Kubah area, it was pitch black. Hmmm..

Driving into our street. Still pitch black and some neighbours were already outside, escaping the heaty indoors. A blackout!

Daymmmnnn !!

I was in telekungs, hokeh! And it was getting hot. Chitchatted with Raz and then after a while, I went and changed into a tudung instead. The street quickly turned into a street event with parents chatting and kids with torchlights laughing and chasing each other in circles.

It wasn’t really pitch black as the moon was very bright. It was 16th Ramadhan and it’s full moon. Alhamdulillah. We could see the surface of the moon clearly and it was an awesome sight. When was the last night you gazed at the moon, marvelling in its glory ? I couldn’t remember.

Anyhow. By 11:45pm, Adani was already sleepy and clingy but the lights were still out. So, we decided to take a drive around to just knock the kids into slumber in the air-cond. Alhamdulillah, by the time we reversed the car, the lights came back on! Lega!

Night night ! I love you, my air-conditioner although you’re taking too much of our budgeted 400kWh a month limit!

Weekend was very hectic for us.

Saturday morning saw me blitzing to complete the cuppies and by mid afternoon, I felt very content. Was supposed to meet up with MissKLSentral and Lollies for a chat at MissKLSentral’s house and then sit by the pool watching the kids splash about. But filial duty beckons.

Mak Ndak’s doing a kenduri doa selamat for Azimah’s going off to Medan for her medicine study, Pak Ndak’s well after the 8 stitches upon hitting a glass door and Azfar’s wedding two weeks ago. It was more party makan-makan to me. Had Nobita’s Imran & Annissa with us cos Nobita coulnd’t make it. Noisy car with 6 kids.

Anyway. We ate laksa, soto, pulut kuning and about bucketful of durians. APparently Pak Teh bought them at RM1 each. Dang! Tis the season alright.

Sunday.

Insisted that MrGart accompany me to the Pasar Tani since I got sick of making excuses why my lazy hubby never accompanies me to the market whenever I meet friends and neigbours there ,which is like every few steps.

But instead of MrGart, all 3 girls were up too and off we all went. Minus Ariz.

Coming home, by noon, we’re off to the friendly neighbourhood dentist. Aliya has 3 loose tooth that bugged her bad enough that she offered to go see the dentist. She needed to have 2 pf teh teeth pulled out, one of them molar but after the first extraction, she got cold feet and made a promise to come back next week for the other one. Hmms!

Adani has a small caries on the molar which needed a filling and the dentist recommended a jab to numb the drilling trauma. I said yes and once it was all done, Adani was smiling away. With a “gemuk pipi”, she said. That was so brave of her.

Ayisha for once, has no problems with her teeth. It’s just the in the next few weeks, she needs to have her temporary pink-filling replaced with prolly a coloured filling permanently. Hmms! Yay!

Treats time.

We went to Tesco and the PohKong and got all three girls’ ear lobes pierced. But just 5 lobes instead of 6 cos Aliya’s left lobe is already pierced. For the record, we’ve been here 3 times.

FIrst, when Aliya was 7. Cold feet and tears. Out we went.

Second try. Aliya was 8 and Asha was 6. All went well except that they wore a cheap earring one day and all 4 ear lobes flared up and pus-ed out and closed out. In fact, we had one incident when Asha’s ballooning with pus earlobe in a clinic, screaming bloody murder when we had that cleaned out. Sheesh! Some girls never learn!

Third try. I thught Aliya & Asha learnt a hard lesson. Except that this time around, Adani was doing the push-overs. All because a certain Arania friend has hers pierced. Peer pressure. Since they were really good at the dentist, I thought, hmm bagi je la.

So, there. All girls are now eyeing fancy earrings and every now and then flips back their hair to admire themselves. GIRLS !!!