rambling on my mind..

They say time flies when you are having fun. Emm, well, I do have fun but not all the way it is fun for me, okey. But yeah, time flies like a jet plane, faster I guess, now that I only manage to pen down the ramblings on my mind since the turn of the year. 

kan..

At the beginning of the year, just like the last two years, my family and I, minus iliya, were in kuantan coz my boy abil was going to enroll for his third year at MATA. So we stayed at Swiss Garden, courtesy of my wife’s membership there. It was fun for the children and my wife. And yes, I too had fun. We went around Kuantan: the zoo, the mall, the dinner at the stall along the road to cherating, lunch consisting of nasi minyak and satar at pok su peramu, the swim in the pool and the walk along the beach. And we celebrated arief’s birthday as well, which was on the first January, on a moderate scale

Once school started for the new year, I had my hands full with, yup, you got it right, sports activities. As usual it was mini marathon in January, sukaneka and acara awal sukan early February and before February ended, the school annual sports day was over. Phew! It was very hectic but thank God I managed. Alhamdulillah. Right before school break in March, the spm result came out. It was not that bad but it was not that good either. Only 10+- students managed to score A in English. Nevertheless, I was thankful. At least the percentage of passes didn’t dip below 80%. If that were to happen, haha, the principal would definitely skin me. Figuratively je la.. 

d  girls at puncak 300

Oh, before that, right after the sports day, me and my girls, nia, lisa , iliya and my wife went to puncak 300 for a climb. Happening jugak la, considering it was the first time for them. And when school holidays appeared, I took my family ( iliya and abil were left behind) to krabi and Phuket. We drove there and it was a fantastic experience. The only thing was that while we were there, I was informed that mak was hospitalized for pneumonia. Ya Allah, I hoped she would be alright. Once we came back on Thursday, the next morning I drove down to pj. Mak was admitted into Kelana Jaya MC and my wife and I stayed the night there to look after her. That’s the least I could do. Thankfully two days later she was discharged but she was still weak. At the end of March once again I drove down to Pj to meet my parents. But this time we went to a niece’s wedding reception as well at Pullman Hotel. It was a grand occasion, I must say. Alif Satar was the host for the event and Nia had a photo taken with him. Hehe.. 

alif satar delighted to take a pic with nia!!

d under 18 2017

For the month of march till early april, I was busy with football training. Actually the training started from late January but it was only in march I started to push the team to the maximum. I had targeted for both under 15 & 18 to be champion this year. when the tournament began early april, the under 15 played first. They were very good and I anticipated them to be champion come final. During the semi they thrashed their opponent, Pangkor, 3-0. But in the final they were not playing like their normal self and the game ended 0-0. During the penalty shootout with Bt sepuluh, they lost 1-3. I was gutted especially so after knowing that right after the semi, the boys went to the beach looking for seashells when they should have been at home resting. Takpela. Just wasn’t my day, I guess. And the following week the under eighteen started their tournament and played really well, full of discipline and were favorite to be champion after they beat Voke in front of the opponent’s home crowd during the quarter. But alas, just like the under fifteen, they disobeyed my instruction, played snooker and was at the cyber café when it was their resting time, and in the semi, I let them play without my suoervision and they lost 0-3. All this while they had only conceded a goal, and that too was from a set-piece. I felt disappointed with the boys attitude. I was feeling down for a few days but life had to go on, right. In life @ sports, it’s either you win or you learn. And in this year tournament, I learnt my lesson.

Once football was over, mid-year examination was just around the corner. Tired as I was, I soldiered on, preparing my students for the upcoming exam. I knew it wasn’t enough but at least something was better than nothing at all, kan.. one good thing about the exam was that English was one of the earliest subjects to start. I could start marking early and hopefully finish off everything a week or two before the semester holiday. In between the exam, it was teachers day, and as usual I belted a few songs, namely La Bamba and Mungkin Nanti. Layan.. bila lagi, kan, nak layan kepala.. and as I anticipated, I finished marking early. Alhamdulillah.

A week before the holiday began on 26^th May, I was free of school chores. What a relief haha. I felt sorry for my friends who had to mark during the holidays. When the holiday started, I went back to pj to see my parents, especially so coz my mum was not feeling well. Stayed there for three nites and mak was looking better on the Thursday that I left. But alas, the next day she was so weak that she had to be admitted into the hospital. And last Tuesday, once again I drove down to pj to see her at PPUM. Alhamdulillah the next day, right after I left for home, she was discharged.

And now here I am putting my thoughts and stories and moments into words though not as detailed as I thought I would. School will open in a few days, and we are now in the midst of the fasting month. I still have the oral marks to prepare before I get to school next Tuesday. I do think that I am not as industrious as I was last year, perhaps due to my age kot.. haha but I still maintain my work rate especially so in sports. Well, I need to do it so that I am healthy enough to do what I wanna do and to eat what I feel like eating without worrying about the side effects bla bla bla. So far, and hopefully forever, I do not have any illnesses. None that I know of la, kan hehe! But I know I am not getting any younger and grey hair is abundant already but the problem here is that in my heart I still feel young. I still feel like playing football with the boys during pj, which I actually do, and I still run 10 to 15 laps with the football players during football training and I play the guitar with my students for our jamming session in my room. I still crack jokes, have fun, be full of sarcasm with my students, teach them lessons vibrating with enthusiasm  though my teaching approach is rather old school, and always animated when telling them stories or giving them lectures now and then. What I gather here is that I feel alive when I am around my students, when I am at school. Thus, when I contemplate of retirement, I always look back and can’t help to feel a tinge of sadness and become melancholic. Still, everything comes to an end and I should get myself ready, physically, mentally and spiritually. But for now I just wanna rock and roll like I used to but at the same time not forgetting that death is approaching fast, thus as a believer, preparation for life hereafter is actually an on-going process, which if I were to be honest, started more than a decade ago.

Does this mean I am ready to meet my Maker? Hmm, a good question, kan. I will deal with this in another posting in shaa Allah, coz this is a delicate matter but as a mortal, we need to be on guard all the time coz we never know when the angel of death will make an appearance. Maybe soon maybe later but surely he’ll turn up.

Is this what they meant by mid-life crisis? Hahaha perhaps, perhaps.. : )