Busy weekend

Husband is working his locum shift as pall care resident over at Sunshine, while I am at home trying to avoid the scorching heat today. It’s expected the temperature could get as high as 34 today and we don’t have any air-conditioner . It’s been a rather busy weekend lately and I’m pretty exhausted.

Hubby was working a night shift last friday and the next morning, one of our neighbours called to invite us to visit someone in Roxbourgh park for Maulidur Rasul. I wasn’t very keen, neither was hubby but because they’ve called and offered a lift, we thought we should just go and meet some new people. It was a long 40 minutes drive and we thought that the event would merely be ‘makan-makan’ and chit chat then finish-but we were worng! They were reading marhaban and unfortunately hubby had to recite what-god knows arabic text in a quran like book. I wasn’t very happy having to sit in a marhaban-because it’s bid’ah and the fact that people are reciting marhaban without knowing the meaning was making me very uneasy. Do you know the transalation of marhaban? I don’t. After one hour of reciting marhaban then people started to eat-caught up with people I rarely met since the last year or so.

Sunday afternoon was a family day for the Malay community in the west. The event took place at Werribee park, near the coastline where hubby sometimes goes fishing. The food MasyaAllah very heavenly- BBQ flounder (never eaten flounders before- but it was yummy!), squid, chicken etc to anything fried, to variety of desserts. The weather was hot but because the wind from the coast was cooling, Alhamdulillah it wasn’t a bad day to hold such event. Hubby was appointed to be the cameraman for the day so we had to stay until the end. The exciting part was when the activity for the kids began. Have a look at some of the photos below, it was definitely a fun activity well organised.

After 4 hours we decided to go home and got really exhausted, and my feet were swollen again from the long stand and the heat.

Yesterday was also an early start as we had to go to the city at 7 am to have our medical check up for PR purpose, the went to IBC coburg to grab some new books. I’m so happy to get some new books-haven’t bought one in a while now! Also bought the marriage maintanence DVD-raising children by bilal abdul kareem- dissapointed with the content as it was so boring! Luckily I only bought one.

New books! Yeay!

I wonder whether this book is worth buying? $35

 We went back to the city to have Ais Kacang at kopitiam but only to find out Kopitiam is shut down for bussiness! Unexpectedly- the restaurant is always full and overflow with customers but still struggling to strive -I don’t really know the reason why it’s being shut down- it’ll be replaced with papparich-still mamak style cafe with rotis but probably the choice of food wouldn’t be as many. Luckily secret recipe was nearby and it was actually a good call to go there for lunch as there was a CNY promotion in which we get one free meal for every main meal purchase-woohoo!

Then we went for my 36th week antenatl follow up-alhamdulillah everything is looking good and the baby’s head is engaged 4/5 now. Just look at how fat I am now:

Fatty me-36th week- gained 17 kg, appetite like an elephant-Is it true if you carry a boy, u'll eat more? No stretch mark- one thing I'm happy about

Fatty Mun sat on a swing, Fatty Mun had a great fall, All the king's horses and all the king's men, Couldn't put Fatty Mun together again.

The day was still dragging as we had to go and certify the remaining documents for our PR application. Finally got home at 3.30 pm and my feet got fat again. I slumped myself onto the bed-exhausted, whilst hubby did the piling laundry. We got our BM results and Alhamdulillah we both passed.

Just a quick point here: overheard a father asking a favour from the ustazah to gove inspirational talk to the teenage daughters as he was concerned they’re being brought up in a western culture BUT how much could an outsider do(especially to teenagers- would they listen)? How about tarbiyah by the family members?

My concern is the Malay community in the west is not mixing with the locals- few or none knows about alkauthar and AAIC. I’m slowly inviting them to come along but to pull someone outside of their comfort zone is not easy, isn’t it?

منيره

Work Station

Was on the phone with payroll office this morning because I didn’t get paid for my maternity leave. Apparently the stupid MWU didn’t send the form to HR department so I only got paid for the 1 week. Grr!!! After got it sorted out, turned around and looked at our messy ‘work’ room.

His work station: papers/books/drinks/phones/dusts

Oh yeah, messy-occassionally I nagged him to clean and tidy up . But look at mine:

Foldable table with sofa bed-currently the sewing machine displaces everything

Messy too hehe…but that’s sewing right…threads and leftover materials are supposed to be scattered.On the contrary, he doesn’t nag me but says he’ll vaccuum the area once I’m over with sewing…

The luxury of having the place out of order before the arrival of the little one…Gotta be neat after this rite??? Setting a good example… hehehe

منيره

Sew makcik sew

Drawstring bags for layth, in a few days insyaAllah you’ll get it in the mail Aliya…

Then the leftover material was sewn into a set of neck pillow for my car…

We were invited to a birthday party for a neighbour’s son and farewell dinner for Ustaz Khairul last thursday. Apparently the community here organizes weekly quran recitation class (3 times a week) for the kids here, and on thursday night for Yasin recitation (why yasin?) and the parents have to come. It’s a good community effort especially when you see the kids compete with each other for marks for the groups (girls vs boys) who memorise better. The food was MasyaAllah fabulous!!! If only I didn’t have early dinner before coming I would have eaten more. Well we have to eat the food our neighbour gave us the night before or else it’ll pile up. Neighbours have been very generous with food Alhamdulillah.

On Saturday there was a get together in Geelong and again food! We’re quite sleep deprived and had headache so we decided not to go and rested. Later in the evening we visited one of our neighbours Uncle Surani, whose wife was kind enough to cook laksa for us. And there I met Nadiah who was the daugther in-law, married to his son Adib. I wasn’t close to her but yeah I knew her before from my student years and my involvement in futsal. She recognised me straight away but I had difficulty recalling her face because I have poor visual memory, but my memory was refreshed after few minutes of catching up. What a small world! Her husband is sick but stable at the moment. I sincerely pray that Allah grant him health and recovery, for a young person to be tested with such illness is very devastating. And again, we got laksa to take away.

Right now, hubby’s deeply asleep now as he finished his ED locum shift at 10 am. And I just baked him his favourite almond brownie to wake up to.

p/s: Arghh it’s so tempting to pick up locum shifts but damn I can’t because I’m on maternity leave.  The rate of pay is soooo blingilicious..

منيره

It’s easy to blame others

I was waiting for a call from my GP training provider in front of my husband’s computer, so I ended up browsing facebook to entertain my boredom whilst also watching random movies. I came to my old friends’ pages; some in Australia and some in Melbourne. I came to notice that they have all changed they’re appearances but I wonder are they still the same people I knew?

My friends in Malaysia seems to be putting on hijab although quite poorly since for them hijab is still a piece of fashion. When I see the various styles of hijab they’re wearing- I’m not entirely happy but still I’m happy to see them wearing the ‘hijab’. I guess because in Malaysia, wearing hijab seems like a more acceptable way of the society, hence it’s easy to promote this culture but I really hope that they understand that it’s more than just fashion and it’s actually part of their responsibility and more importantly their identity. If you lose it, you lose the better half of you.

My friends in Australia who are working here; on the other spectrum seem to lose their identity/hijab. I used to know them as people who are very affectionate about Islam but maybe it’s because they’re distancing themselves from the Muslim community, mixing with the friends who mainly non-Muslims, they seem to forget that wearing hijab is part of their identity, not merely a piece of cloth to warm your neck/head. I feel sad and suddenly poured with a sense of loss. Before I blame them, I’m blaming myself first for not doing enough but having to say that; I don’t really know what else I could’ve done- but the problem is I have done nothing! Perhaps I’m not being a good friend. But we’re all adults and we choose our own pathways, and I sincerely pray from the deepest of my heart that one day- Allah will give you hidayah for you to love Islam.

Similarly the recent hot news regarding the unfortunate students/family who have been on the front pages of the news in Malaysia, if you have been reading the news- the hot issue on the scholar who turned gay and the girl who dressed sexily (if you know what I’m talking about). Not surprisingly these news have been on discussions both in newspapers and also the internet and people are condemning these people for their ‘lowly’ acts. Because these people are scholars and people actually look up to them for inspirations, no wonder they received many attentions and criticisms. But does the society know that condemning them and embarrassing them wouldn’t help the situation a tiny bit except by making it worse and harder for the family to cope? Have they ask the ultimate question themselves; have I prayed for these people to be return to the rightly path of Islam and have they actually done enough/anything to help the situation? Remember, as you point your finger to blame a person, there are 4 fingers pointing back at you!

منيره

Pregnancy diary

I finished my hospital term last week and began my maternity leave. Still getting use to having ample time for myself. I thought I had it all figured out by planning on my sewing frenzy projects, reading and etc. Surprisingly I finished my sewing projects quite quickly: I’ve sewn 2 sets of table runners, nursing covers and bean bag in the last 4 days! I didn’t think I could finish everything very quickly. I’m just super excited to use my new sewing machine! Anyway, still have plenty more projects planned ahead.

Runner for the dining table

Matching set

Runner 2

Nursing cover-one of them. Made of sari material and has adjustable strap. Has a rigid part around the neck to allow mom to see baby whilst nursing.

Bean bag for little one-still need to buy another bag of bean to fill it in

We went for my antenatal appointment last Monday. Alhamdulillah my baby has turned and he’s cephalic now. I hope he remains that way. I’m entering my 35th week now and I could feel my baby has descended since I’m having frequent pressure pain on my pubic and for the fact that I could see  my tummy is lower than before. Hence my reflux and burping have significantly decreased in frequency. Still have it but now as severe as before.

Last weekend my brother in law from Sydney came to visit, and we brought him to the first Silat Cekak event in Epping. It was a 45 minutes drive- so long! But because we haven’t been meeting them- Kak liza’s family (they’re my elder brother and my sister in-law’s friends) for a long time, we thought we should pay a visit. What’s so funny about it was that the silat activity was only for an hour but the after snack was excessively heavy- Mee Rebus, Rojak, cucur udang! What a futile effort to practise healthy lifestyle when the calories that you make is way more than you burn. Anyway my tummy was happy to be fed. Hubby even got some cucur udang to bring to work that night.

We recently got our results for Student Guild- not surprisingly we failed our kitabul tawheed exam since we didn’t put as much effort into studying it. Personally I found that concentrating on the subject is really hard partly because lack of interest (compares to fiqh study) and there are just so many arabic terms I have to memorize. I thought by just reading the book it would suffice but apparently none of it registered in my mind since I needed the notes. I remember back in med school where we had to learn this boring and futile subject-HP but I still managed to pass the subject every semesters. I could say the syeikh’s teaching is not as interesting bla2, all the excuses in the world-but shame on me! I should’ve put more effort into it. We’re still waiting for Bulugh Marram result, insyaAllah we’ll pass the subject.

Well tonight is hubby’s last night as an intern, Congratulation dear You’ve made it! We’re (him alone really-I’m just tagging) planning to do some locuming jobs (all depends on how quickly he could get his general registration/certificate of intership completion). May Allah swt grant us more rizq insyaAllah.

منيره

The blistering hot Lake Bullen Merri

It’s the year 2012 now, and what a blast of heat it started with. We had a few days of nearly 40 C weather here, and to top it off, our place doesn’t have an air-conditioner – which we thought wasn’t essential when we chose this place last year. I mean, we’ve been here for 7/8 years, surely we know the summer here can get that hot (apparently in 2011 – a town in WA: Roeburn won the award of 2011′s highest temperature at a sweltering 49.4 degrees on December 21), but staying indoors can’t be that bad based on our previous experiences. Then the heat wave came, and we can feel the tremendous heat even from the comfort of our house. There was one night where the temperature didn’t actually drop during nighttime, so it was a sweaty night, and we both had trouble sleeping.

Last Saturday, wifey accompanied me to Camperdown for a fishing session in Lake Bullen Merri, which, together with Lake Purrumbete are renowned for their good trout fishing. Lake Bullen Merri It is actually a deep crater lake (deepest point is 66 meters), formed by a maar volcano many millions ago, one of many in Victoria plains. Remember when we went to Blue Lake in Mt Gambier, SA last year, this lake, along with nearby Lake Gnotuk and Lake Purrumbete are similar in nature, except these lakes here in Camperdown, well, according to fishos’ reports are teeming with brown and rainbow trouts; and Atlantic salmons, and they grow to good proportions here. And so, lured by stories of giant trouts, we headed down there early on 4.30am on Saturday (after Fajr). It was a foggy 2-hour journey, my visibility went down to just about 20-30 meters, and wifey continued her sleep beside me.

We arrived on the Southern Beach shore of Lake Bullen Merri on 6am, and the bright sun just came out. We made the early dash as we saw the forecast for that Saturday was going to be upto 35-ish degrees and we were planning to leave as soon as it gets hot. We saw a couple of other people still sleeping in their tents/campervans, and there was only 1 boat inside the whole lake. We had the jetty/boat ramp to ourselves, and things are looking quite promising. Wifey however needed a bit more of her sleep, so I was trying my luck first using some powerbaits for trouts. An hour later, as wifey joined me, there was not even a nibble on the fishing line, and it started to get warm around us. I decided to go up to the north rim and took few pictures from the top of the hill overlooking Lake Bullen Merri on one side and Lake Gnotuk on the other side. We found a more secluded spot through the tall grassy area with thousands of small orangish butterflies, but it was occupied, and no other actual spot to cast the lines in from. We moved the an old jetty, but it was getting wayyy too warm to our likings – and after just 1/2 hour of mainly eating our sardine sandwiches that wifey prepared earlier, we decided to call it off.

Wifey went back to sleep, and I decided to stop at Port Campbell which was only 50 kms away from Camperdown. This was the first place we went camping together with 2 other friends, and a place famous for its beautiful Loch Ard Gorge and the twelve, or rather 8 apostles. I napped for about 1/2 hour here and went to look around the jetty – plenty of people swimming and snorkeling, also saw an angler who caught a nice big salmon. It’s still hot outside, and we decided to make our way back, and I decided to take the longer seaside route – which I regret after an hour onto that route. Wifey became very nauseous to the point we had to stop for a while, and I had to call off my earlier plan to make a quick stop at Lorne and took an inland route through the Forrest town instead. And so we reached home about 4pm without any fish inside our esky

Us on the Southern Beach Jetty/Boat Ramp of Lake Bullen Merri

The beautiful surrounding, yet a weather too hot

Lake Gnotuk from the rim

The next day (while it was still searing hot at 38 degrees) we visited our colleague/friend – Nazri and Lina who just had their first baby boy – Muhammad Fatih in Brunswick. He was only 6 days old, and he’s a very gorgeous looking boy. We made a stop earlier at Mothercare to buy few things, and wifey again marked her territory with some (or rather all) of her stomach contents. The same afternoon, wifey (undeterred with the nausea and vomiting episodes) and I visited our neighbour Abg Azizan and Kak Zety’s place – just around the corner of our place. They invited other 4 Malay families living nearby, and we had the chance to sit together and talk about many things, while enjoying the sumptous food prepared by Abg Azizan and Kak Zety. And to top it off, there was an ice crusher as well (I was told it was bought off ebay for 120 dollars) that made good ABCs! We enjoyed our time (errrr we stayed for about 3 hours) and Qistina, abg Azizan’s 1 year-old daughter was so friendly.

Wifey with cute Qistina

I have 1 more week of Gen Med nights to go, then I’m finished with my internship (hurrah!) and wifey have another few days of Pall Care then she’s off for her maternal leave (already 8 months and a half now)..

٩͡[๏̯͡๏]۶  -Zizi-

Sweet and simple

Block letters made by suami tersayang on my birthday😘

Pregnancy updates

I am now into my 33rd week and it feels like forever. I can’t wait to have my maternity leave in 2 weeks. I’m doing Pall Care atm and yet I’m doing more hands on compares to other rotations. On thurdsay, I got to do a pleural tap on my patient and on the same day an ascitic tap, the day after, the same patient wanted a repeat ascitic tap since he wanted more to be drained out… tiring but fun! I get tired quite easily now, maybe it’s partly because I’m working and also because it’s the 3rd trimester. Oh yes, 3rd trimester invites another package of symptoms on board.

1. Last week I caught a cold from hubby (he’s so sharing and caring) and as a result, I coughed (or barked) the whole week and as a result, I threw up and worse even, I was doomed with stress incontinence. Luckily I took the cough syrup which helped a lot.

2. The frequent visits to the toilet is back as the belly is growing  and my strong baby is kicking all the time. One time, I got so tired to get out of bed that I accidently wet myself (embarrased!). Shamefully I told hubby, expecting he would laugh at me but instead he comforted me and he washed the manchester. In fact, he’s taking over all of the house chores now (except cooking-but he helps with the preps and washing despite being very tired from his night shifts). Thank you dear.

3. My growing tummy is causing me reflux, and when I get reflux I throw up. Not everyday though, perhaps every second day. On Monday I went to work and felt very quesy, got into the lift and threw up but managed to catch my vomit with my hand and rushed to the toilet, and all my brekkie went down the drain. I had to lie down for an hour, luckily the ward round only started at 9.30. I’m trying to find the balance between hunger and satiety. I have to stop eating and drinking 2 hours before sleeping or else I’ll have reflux but when I wake up in the morning, I’m starving! When I’m hungry I get nauseous huh…

4. Baby’s kicking strong and hard…which is a sign that he’s healthy BUT giving me a restless night. He’s doing summersaults and kick boxing most of the time. Last week he was kicking my diaphragm but now my bladder, which means now he’s breech. I hope he’ll turn around soon Sometimes I try to do ECV to encourage him to turn but it’s hard to it on myself LOL.

I’ve gained 15kgs so far and I’m pretty sure I have the potential to get to 20kgs. Well at least I know that any weight gain after this is no longer fluid weight, it’s actually the baby’s weight No stretch marks nor leg edema so far but that can all change in the coming weeks! I’ve got some leaking from breasts which is common, but I’m so excited! At least it tells me that my body is getting ready for the arrival of the little one.

منيره

Beware of The Phone Scammer!

For the past 1 week, we got disturbed by these phone calls to our home phone. When I first answered, the conversation went as following:

Mr. X: (With a very heavy Indian accent) Hello, I would like to speak to Mr. Mat please.

Me (‘Mr. Mat’): Yeah I’m Mr. Mat (haha I can never understand how can I pick up my wife’s surname), how can I help you?

Mr X: I’m …(was it Joseph something).. from Microsoft, how are you (and bla bla greetings). We received a lot of messages containing viruses and errors from your computer recently. This is very dangerous (bla bla goes on forever)…

So for the first 2 calls, I was a bit busy/not in the mood to talk to someone on the phone (as I was a little bit too sleepy from working the night before) – and I told him few times – next time, please call my wife, she’s Mrs Mat, or next time, call me back at 6pm – when I wake up (which surprisingly he did!).

However, we’ve been reluctant to pick up the last few phone calls (where the displayed number was private) as we knew it was him trying to get back to us, and honestly we don’t have much time talking to this man forever about computers. Yesterday after we got back from a quick shopping session at Werribee Plaza, this man called again (after I told him to call back at 6pm once again) – and told my wife to answer him. This Mr X, however, insisted to speak to Mr Mat (who is obviously me) and I, becoming slightly upset now, gave up.

Me: Yes.

Mr X: (with again, if not heavier, thick Indian accent) (Bla bla same thing as before your computer is infected and sending us thousands of messages). Could you turn on your computer?

Me: Which computer are you referring to? The PC or the laptop?

Mr X: Doesn’t matter. (At this point, it raised another alarm – PC is mine, and laptop is wifey’s, and how can you say whichever is sending the messages if you don’t know which one is which)

Me: PC is already turned on.

Mr X: Go to my computer on the bottom left (as if I’m that illiterate in IT, or gap tek – gagap teknologi as one of my Indonesian friends say) and can you see my computer or computer button? (Obviously don’t know which windows OS I’m operating on, which is Win 7). Right click on that and click on manage.

Me: Done (Opens a computer management window).

He prompted me to go to click on event viewer tab > custom views tab > admininstrative error tab – which yeah showes me 21,531 errors (which I don’t care), and proceeded to tell me this is very dangerous, if it reaches 500 (what 500, I’ve already have 21k lol) it will cause the system to shut down.

Then he prompted me to install a 3rd party remote access site – Event Viewer to gain access to his technician who will fix my computer. I consented, as I won’t leave my chair when he is doing this. For the next 2 minutes, he kept talking about how dangerous is this, opens up prefetch folder which showed lots of temp files (again stating its very dangerous, if this fills up by another 5mb, your computer will crash), he even had time to laugh at my free avg (yes I know I’m cheap and don’t want to pay for those anti-virus programs). Then after that, I took my excuse – saying that I’ve to go to work NOW.

Mr X: This will only take another 15 minutes.

Me: No, I need to go now.

Mr X: Okay, can you leave the computer open while you go to work, and we will fix your computer.

Me: No, I won’t do that. Call me again tomorrow around 10am

At this stage, I’m very upset with this man trying to scam me, and I believe hundreds of people have being scammed by this man and his group. There are few obvious clues:

1. Odd time to make a call from ‘Microsoft company’ – once at 8am, and always call me at 6pm when I told him to.

2. Answers that he is from Microsoft, repeating himself many times when I asked him who he was and where is he from (doesn’t want to give out any number to call back)

3. Randomly chooses between my PC and wifey’s laptop (obviously mine is the old one, always making errors now and then)

4. I’ve never reported any error to microsoft (Plus I’m using an OS which is not so legit hahaha)

5. Biggest clue – prompting me to install a 3rd party remote access, I thought windows have their own intelligent app? Plus saying random stuff like only 5MB left before your PC crashes.

Anyway, he’s going to call me again at 10/11am today, I’ll play along with him a bit more and try to gauge further information, and then maybe finally gauge out his eyeballs as well ~__~

For my friends/family members/colleagues please beware of this type of scam, it has make its rounds in the UK, US and Canada since 2009, and now its flooding Australia as well.

For further information:

Sydney Morning Herald article dated 30th June 2010 : ‘Pay up or your PC’s toast’

Whirlpool forumers reporting similar incidents

Microsoft Windows Forums with 42 pages of answers relating to this

and many other forums, just do a google search if you desire.

Copyright - Original artist, taken from http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/e/email_scammer.asp

٩͡[๏̯͡๏]۶  -Zizi-

Summer is here

Today’s temperature is 28 degrees. In the coming weeks/months, surely it will be 40 (or more) again.

I haven’t written much since the past few months – as I realized wifey was doing all the writings – as the name of this blog suggests. I am currently doing General Medicine Nights (my last rotation as an intern, hurray!) and I can only say, I enjoyed the 1 week off – I am rostered to work 7 nights straight, then I’ll get 7 days off, but the workload at night time can be incredibly busy. For the last few nights in the last cycle, I had no sleep at all – not even for 5 minutes for the whole 12 hours shift (9pm to 9am). And people tend to get sick / pass away at night time. Anyway, 3 more cycles of night to go then I will be done with internship. I’m still waiting for my rotations for next year – hoping to do anaesthetics/ICU with the mix of ED as well.

Last Monday (5/12/11), I went to Ocean Grove myself to do some quick fishing. It wasn’t a disappointing session to start with – I managed to get 5 australian salmons (+ 1 pufferfish) but they were all too small and undersized, and the thought of gutting those tiny fish wasn’t appealing to me. So they all went back to the water to live longer (and to be caught by another angler). My final chance came and went, when I felt a very strong pull, managed to get it close to the jetty, but then the line went heavy as a stone. An old man came by, told me he saw I was fighting just now, and thought it was a stingray that has sucked itself to some surface. He told me to keep the tension of the line as it is, which I did for the next 15 minutes. After that waiting game, I lost my patience, and immediately made a big sudden pull, which of course, snapped the line entirely.

Lesson learnt – always be patient while fishing. I’ve been fishing for few years, yet once I hooked up a fish, I always reel in the line as hard and as fast as it gets – snapped few lines and lost a couple of fish in the process. Oh, and don’t forget to renew your fishing license, the fisheries dept guys seem to be doing checks quite often these days – I’ve been checked both during my last 2 fishing sessions. And mine will expire in 3 weeks time.

٩͡[๏̯͡๏]۶  -Zizi-