Things just come and go. (Part 1)

First, you are anticipating for its arrival. Next, its all over.

 

If you're picturing the above scenario, I have nothing to say.

Ha..Ha..Ha..

You know how you always anticipate something for so long, yearning and wishing how you can leave your distressing existence behind and just go anywhere to let you hair loose.

Yet when the day finally comes, time, money, interest level, they all deter you from doing the stuff you always wanna do. And when it eventually ends, you lament that  you could have done so much more.

Almost a week now since school reopened, only now have I the time to ponder whether I had spent my holidays wisely.

YAA! I'm talking about holidays idiot! I know what you're thinking cause in akulahalfi.com, great mind thinks alike. Hehheh. What crap.

Anyways, 6 weeks of holidays... Is gone. My my, how it zoomz so fast!

So many things to do, so many skills to look forward to, and so little time (though I was given all the time in the world) to update this bummer blog.

And to pay back for all that, here I am stealing some time to show you some of the more boring things I did during the holidays..

The holiday begins after the end of my Computer Operating System exam on 2nd September.

COS being one of my least favourite module, I'm having a pretty tough time revising cause I havent really paid full attention during the lectures. Consequently, I'm struggling to stay ahead of the game and totally forgot that its my birthday!!

I would like to say a big THANK YOU to all who had put in so much time and effort to make my special day a si bei special one. Cheers to Pravin, Usheruff, Hidayat, Radin, Siddiq, Kanesh, Ameen, Fiza, Sufyan, Haiman, Hazim, Fadli and Nana. :D

The subsequent days was less eventful. In fact, its one of the most tormenting moments of my holiday. Because everyday, my ears swell from plaguing nags and badger from my mom who keeps pestering me to clean the house.

Because its Ramadhan at that point of time and Hari Raya is just round the corner. Being the only soul who had been paroled from exam clutches, I'm victimised to be the maid domestic servant of the house. Which sucks because its the first week of holidays!

But being smart as I'm naturally am, I conned duped my mom.

Just how did I do that?

Did I hide??

Nope, I'm too smart for that.

Did I time travel??

Nope, that's too smart for me. Hehe.

Well, being a student, we do what we do best in class and that is... telling tales.

I told her I'm an exco of a mega cycling event and would therefore be extremely busy planning and preparing the race.

Which is all a big fat lie!

White lie. At least I escape doing all those house chores so yeah.

And so, my friends and I went on a cycling trip to West Coast Park.

Under the scorching sun and having disrobed the privilege to eat and drink, its indeed a challenge for me and my muslim friends to cycle that far.

Which gives tenfold advantage to that Milo Dinosaur to reach the destination first.

But at the end of the day, everyone else is the winner.

While the rest of us return home safely, this moron's bike need some love and affection.

Cause the gear having some complications (well, according to him)
But according to me, "your gear sucks bodo!!!"

Spoil already dont act cute say got complication la, sand come in la, never grease la, blablabla..

Then again, when you burned your pocket for a bike worth half a thousand bucks, nothing will keep your ears cool when someone ridicule it right?

Here is Pravin's all-time backtalk:

For the effort (to make yourself happy), I'm convinced.

****

Psst! Hey guys, I've uploaded all the photos nicely in one page. To view, click Gallery on the black horizontal panel above. Be a fan of akulahalfi!
*****

I'm dying..

Whoah whoah whoah! 3 days had past since school reopened. I thought it was 3 months already! Maybe more. I dunnoe. And I cant care how long. Its just pure bullshit if you wanna compare 3 months to 3 days when 3 days IS 3 days.

So.. 3 days it is. Am i still alive?

Of course, hanging onto a string that's always there for me.

It's very bad, for a start. Because usually the first few days is still the honeymoon period for most of us. Well, not for me. I'm engaging myself in many stuff which I hope can stretch myself and expand my personal portfolio. And yeah probably benefit my studies as well.

There's so many things to look out for and I guess I'll share it here with you guys.

Okay so first and foremost, its my passion for writing.

Having akulahalfi up and running for almost two years now, I realise that penmanship is always the best modus operandi for me to craft my thoughts and ideas. Sharing my imaginations, and making Barney proud of me.

I mean, it never gets too old for me, nor too bored. Its just a lil teeny-weeny bit of my time, abit of idea and there you go!

Well, this post exist because of time. And the fact that Alis found my blog and apparently she just saw her nude photos which makes me wonder how the hell did she found my blog. Then I realise that I haven't update and so here I am :D

Anyways, back to my point.

If you're a student by day and dreams to be a writer by night, fret not because NUS Literary Society wants to give $500 to anyone who can impress them with your mythical realm of chimera and gargoyle.

Click picture for more details.

So hurry, if you think you can transport the judges into a wardrobe full of talking creatures, or laugh air bubbles in the underwater world of bikini bottoms, or be the director of your own play, seize this opportunity to exercise your gray matter and take home some cash!

Fuel your thoughts and keep the idea flowing. In times when you're stuck, in times when you're out of luck, remember, the resuscitator word is:

Gagaga! You see it first in akulahalfi.com. What the f%k.

Secondly, its my passion for design.

Being someone who admires beauty and creativity, it came down to me that the world is lacking of crews in the arts & design department. So I feel like its my obligation as members of the pubic public to contribute my own.

So I'll start small. Probably redesign akulahalfi first. And if everything turns out smooth, I'll move on to the next level. I dont wanna say my plan here first because I'm scared it wont turn out how I expect it to be. So we'll wait.


Thirdly, I'm joining Microsoft Imagine Cup.

Being the designer, I'm doing most of the design. Like duhh!

Okay, so I'm suppose to design a logo for the team and I havent got any idea. The only logo I can think of right now is

Please support. :D:D

Fourthly its my passion for drama.

Nothing much for the time being but I can predict it'll get busier during the production times. But its gonna be fun!

So having all this, isnt it not death? It's total suicide I tell you. You will see me on the newspaper yea.

Well, that's my life now. Just the first week of school.. JUST the first week of school..

And I'm already dead.

17 Syawal~

For many of us, the thing we love most about Hari Raya is of course,

the Duit Raya.

Known as tithe money, Duit Raya works the same way as our Chinese friends' Hong Bao. The only difference is that the giving of Hong Bao signifies the transmission of good wishes and good fortune.

But for us, giving Duit Raya is like Hari Raya perks.

Sometimes, I dont understand why people use money as a bait to lure people to come to their house and visit them. I'm sure many of my Malay friends have experience this ordeal when their relatives will say,

"Alfi! If you want your angpau come to aunty's house ahhhh...."

It always provoke me when my relative, especially my aunties, say those discomforting words to me. Cause now, I dieDIE need to come to her house to claim my prize.

Its threatening, its intimidating, I feel blackmailed.

So if you think that we Malays are so lucky to be given one whole month to celebrate Hari Raya and spend that time essentially to collect fast easy cold hard cash, think again. My friend, its si bei sian. (Oh wow! That rhymes)

Especially after you had toiled and struggled and endured standing long distances in the MRT just to stay ahead of this rat race,

and all you get is a 2 dollars chipped in one corner.

Is that decent? And people say Hari Raya "setahun hanya sekali". Kalau setahun sekali, sepatutnya kasi lebih-lebih kan? Heheh..

Well, I'm not trying to be a d%k but I realise one thing... I'm getting older.

And as I get older, chances of me getting duit raya will not go up, but instead, slides down. I remember when I was younger, I use to get close to $500. Now, its half of that!

Worse still, very soon it'll be my turn to give duit raya. Aduhhhh... How to face all my young cousins? Cause all my bigger cousins start giving duit raya when they're 20. So in 3 years time, my aunties will be expecting the same.

Now I feel the pinch whenever my dad give out so many duit raya to my cousins and friends.

How I wish we can follow the Chinese tradition. Until you get married, you're NOT ALLOWED to give hong bao. No wonder Singapore's population is at stake. Many Chinese girls rather be spinsters and collect hong bao every year. Hahaha..

But now that I'm still 17, all this responsibilities is off my upper hand. Cause now that I'm still 17, I'm still entitled to that license to get duit raya!!! :D:D

Which is why last Wednesday, my friends and I went out for jalan raya.

We went to Usheruff's, Siddiq's, Hanizah's, Zahidah's, Tirmizi's, Hidayat's, Daifi's, Rahman's and my house.

From all this jalan raya, again I realise one thing..

That as we grow older.. You're expected to have a big stomach, you must be able to eat a lot. And I do mean A LOT!

For the whole 9 houses that we went, we've been chomping food like its crazy. We had a light lunch in Usheruff's, heavier lunch in Siddiq's, dinner in Tirmizi's, dinner AGAIN in Hidayat's and supper in Rahman's.

We begin at Usheruff's where we had Mee Soto specially prepared by.. Usheruff's mom of course. Heh.

We then proceed to Siddiq's where we were serve with MORE FOOOOD~

There's satay..

Spaghettis..

And manyMany more.

Then at Tirmizi's and Hidayat's, we had mee goreng.

Probably by now y'all would have notice that something's amiss.

Nope, its not the fact that Usheruff had dutifully wolf down all the kuehs that had been served for all of us.

And its not because we had drawn out Radin eating a banana to substitute for his absence.

But what is that hairy gargantuan tailless orang utan doing in our homes when its neither Deeparaya nor even close to Deepavali yet?

Better still, who is that blardy 2 meter tall upsized charboiled whopper burger??

If you're thinking what I'm thinking, then you're probably right.

Cause he's there to help us finish up all that smorgasbord of food, and because he is big, and because he's a six-stomached cow, and because he can.

Teehee :) Selamat Hari Rayaaaaa~

Psst! Hey guys, I've uploaded all the photos nicely in one page. To view, click Gallery on the black horizontal panel above. Be a fan of akulahalfi!

Selamat Hari Rayaaaaa~ (Part 1)

Siddiq: There has been a perpetual and virulent lack of discipline upon your blog, why?
Alfi: Aku sibuk ah sekarang..
Siddiq: F%k that.
Alfi: F%k euu..

Good morning Singapore! I really miss you lots like who's gonna care anyway. But what I know is that people have been asking me where have I been because of the "Will continue once I return to Singapore." in my last post.

Well this year, like any other year, I celebrate Hari Raya in my kampong at Muar, Malaysia.

This is my kampong. 

Celebrating Hari Raya in the kampong is different than celebrating it in Singapore. But many people can't tell the difference. And so today this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna help you tell apart celebrating Hari Raya in the kampong and in the city.


Duly speaking, there isn't really much noticeable difference of celebrating Hari Raya in the kampong and in the city. Like in the city, our day begin at the crack of dawn where we will rise and shine for a brand new start after a month of denying indulgence. But of course, we were woken up not by alarm clocks but...

ROOSTERS!
 

As early as 5am, the whole household was woken up by their deafening morning assembly. So noisy! That's a pretty bad start of the day I must say. But I reckon our school morning assembly is worse than that. Hahaha.. And from there, we kickstart our day.


Every year, my family and I will wear analogous baju kurung for the first day of Hari Raya. If you think it symbolises unity or family togetherness, my friend, please switch your frequency - cause I think different. I think we look like boy scouts or brownies preaching relatives' house for quick and easy cash. =)))) 

This is last year's family photo..

And this is this year's.

Amacam? Can you ever get that kind of shot in Singapore? With banana and durian trees as your background?? Ahh.. Classic sial~

Well, about wearing the same colour for baju kurung as a family, its getting more and more practical these days. As a family, of course we wanna show that we're from the Lee family or the Chang family. Its all about "Family Identification". If not later confuse sial.

Cause I think if everyone starts to look for their own baju kurung, and everyone's wearing different "colour-codes", won't that make that family looks like Power Rangers?

So please take my advise. If you're wearing something anomalous from the rest of your family members, start wearing something similar cause we don't want our Hari Raya to be like Halloween.

And so, after we all got ready, we proceed on to the surau for our Hari Raya Prayers.

Again, this is different from Singapore because in Singapore, we have our prayers in mosque. Surau functions similarly to mosque but its much more smaller and has limited space. Usually, one kampong will have one surau for all the villagers residing in that area and it can only hold about 200 people in it.

And if you look closely, you can see that the surau is made of bricks, ceramics and tiles. This is usually not the case in most kampongs because in my kampong, we're slightly fortunate to enjoy all this modern luxuries. Back then, just like any other surau you can find in any kampong, ours is also made of wood and zinc roof and tree trunk.

As soon as the prayers are done, we visit the graves of our beloved deceased to pay our tributes. During this part, the graves are tidied and adorned with flowers, with recitals from the Holy Quran. This is done in order to obtain blessings from Allah for the deceased.

This ritual or should I say obligation is similar for both Singapore and kampong. But since I'm at my kampong this time round, I'm visiting the grave of both my Opah and Atok, parents of my mom.

I remember when I was younger how both my grandparents will keep their big house clean to welcome us for Hari Raya. I feel that its our duty now to continue keeping that house clean, and at the same time keeping their present home tidy.

That is why, Hari Raya is a day of joy and merriment, but we should also not forget the love ones who had gone before us, unable to coalesce on this blissful day of emotions..

sentiments..

 and memories..

A (late) Selamat Hari Raya to all.. Will continue this soon. Maybe 2 months time? I dony know. Very busy sial now.. Teehee.