And so it came to pass that I was invited on another project. This time we were to write and edit an elementary-level English language school book for Perlis. The team consisted of workplace colleagues and a selection of Perlis’ primary school teachers. We had to produce both English and Bahasa Malaysia books, so we split into two groups. Like the previous month, we headed to Pulau Pinang to do our work. On the First and Second Day… I mostly worked, except for when we had to dine together as a team. We stayed at Copthorne Orchid Hotel, at Tanjung Bungah and the view from the hotel was gorgeous. Check out the photos below. Also, in the early evening after my work was done for the day, we went for a stroll at the beach. Previously we were unable to bring Irfan along as he was stuck in his polytechnic […]
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A Translation Project on Pulau Pinang
And so it came to pass I was invited to participate in a project for a team of researchers at the university. My role there was to translate and edit the document they wrote from the research they made. Day One On the first day, we went off the PLUS Highway and took the old Federal road from Gurun all the way to Butterworth, then swung about to take the Penang bridge towards George Town. But before we went to the town, we had brunch at the nasi kandar cafe at USM. Ain thought that USM could be a great place for Irfan to further his studies. Later. Maybe. InshaaAllah. After some photos taken at the university, we headed downtown to Cititel Hotel where we checked in. Later that day I started my translation work with the research team. Day Two On the second day, we had quite a big […]
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Three Cloudscapes in One Day
Although it was Wednesday, I was at home as I took the day off from work. The reason? To work on semester’s grading and keying in of marks. In short, I took the day off work to work. That did not stop us from heading out to enjoy the scenery in the morning and at sunset. There were quite a number of nice cloudscapes we saw that day. Click on the pictures below to view larger images.
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Outdoors After Two Weeks
I have been cooped up at home for more than two weeks. The last time I left the driveway was to fill up the water bottles with the potable water vending machines. Since then I have been spending most of my time planning for lessons, running lessons, uploading online learning material and monitoring the students’ output. This takes up a great deal of my time. I am used to working from home for fives years before I came to work here. I do not mind working from home at all and could happily spend the rest of my life teaching from home. However, the virtual paperwork and other class management duties has worn me down. I have never felt so emotionally and physically exhausted before in my life, without being clinically depressed. Yesterday, the government has allowed two persons from a single household to travel by car. So Ain and […]
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Final Day, No Water
It is the last day of 2019 and we are spending the night at my workplace again. Apparently a water outage that was scheduled to last less than 12 hours has been extended without any official announcement. Again, we appear to be lucky that my office is basically an apartment building. We had dinner at a nearby favourite restaurant of Ain’s. Before we retired back to the office, I took this photo of the last cloudscape of the year over the Kuala Perlis-Sintok highway.
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Year’s End Vacation 5: Evening Exploration
After Atok and Opah rested for the evening, we set off to look for a place that Ain once visited 30 years before: The Boh Tea Plantation. We followed the map up a hill to the north of Brinchang. It was a hillside path which allowed for only one car to pass. Unfortunately, more cars were driving in the opposite direction. We had to part in small alcoves by the hillside to allow them to pass. We also had to jump from alcove to alcove when we could. Soon, the flow of oncoming cars had dwindled. The reason for the outflow of cars, we soon discovered, is that the plantation had closed for the day. I was also looking for the Mossy Forest, which the map indicated was on this particular route. I took a side road and found the way up to the Mossy Forest. We did not advance […]
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Cloudscape in the Wing Mirror
I headed home from class as the red-orange glow of dusk slowly crept across the land. I headed west. The sun was behind me. There was a traffic light stop. Quickly, I took a photo of the view I saw in the car’s wing mirror. I was impressed that the photo turned out almost as spectacular as the real thing. The traffic lights turned green, and I continued home.
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Tasik Timah Tasoh Shines
As I was heading home from classes with Ain, we stopped by the lake. We though that the sun descending behind the hills reflected on the water would look superb. We were wrong. It was not superb at all. It was spectacular.
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Cloudy Return from Padang Serai
Our return path from Padang Serai took us toward Butterworth, the primary population centre of Seberang Perai, the mainland part of Pulau Pinang. This was due to Ain’s love for Jeruk Madu Pak Ali which now faced the new Penang Sentral arcology. After acquiring the pickled fruits, we drove through the Pantai Bersih seaside highway. Dark rain clouds hung spectacularly over and across the waters towards the Island of Penang. They dared us to take a photo of them. So we did. Click on the images below to expand them.
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Cloudscapes over Perlis
I do not normally look out for amazing looking cloudscapes, but in three consecutive days I was able to take photos of epic looking skies over Perlis. Click on the images to expand the images.
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Campus Sunset
One of the most rewarding things about having to teach from 5 to 7 in the evening is the view. Sometimes the sky just lights up on fire. Yesterday, the following view was what I beheld when I was heading home. I tweeted the photo immediately. No brightness or saturation modification was done on the image.
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Rat Disposal Weekend
One other thing that occurred over the weekend was the success of our household in apprehending a rat. We heard it scritch-scratching once in a while in the attic and Ain set up a trap as usual. Saturday evening we took it out to a deserted spot by a main road and let it loose into the wild. On our way back to the house, the sky displayed quite a spectacular wash of bright, lively colours. (Click on both images above to expand them.)
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Last Exam of the Semester
It is the last final exam I have to invigilate in; the last activity with students I have this semester. I will miss this batch of students. Although none of the exams tonight were English language course papers, there were a number of my English students for the semester taking them. Somehow, exam invigilation feels like a blast with these guys around although I myself am feeling under the weather what with the coughing and all.
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The View To Work Today
Today on the way to work, I pulled over and took a picture of the rice fields beside the road because it looked spectacular. Unfortunately I could not linger as long as I would like to as I had a meeting to attend in half an hour. One meeting and one class later, I headed the opposite direction to attend another class. Again, I decided to take a picture of another rice field along the road. The rice plants had yet to fill up the landscape with green and instead became a beautiful mirror of the sky. That is all.
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Sunset Dinner by the Sea
After I returned home from the academic workshop we decided to have dinner at the beach. So we took a trip west towards the sea. Before exiting the car, we had a video chat with Nia Nia on the phone. Then we enjoyed the sun which was dropping fast onto Langkawi Island, from our point of view. The last time I had some seafood here, by the way, I had a really bad gout attack. So, no seafood for me. So with seafood out of the way, I only had “food” to deal with. This one is quite… gravy-ish. The colours splashed onto the sky and sea this evening was unique, not like any sunset I have seen before. Click on the above pic to expand the photo of the non-binary sunset. Click on the pic above to expand the silhouette of Irfan in the fading light of dusk.
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Comes A Nia Nia
Rania and family came back to visit us from Kuala Lumpur during the long weekend. We picked up Ayah Cik Farid and Cikma from the airport and had dinner with them at Kepala Batas. Nia Nia was asleep when she arrived, but woke up just in time for a meal. Nia Nia was still groggy from her sleep, but soon got her head back in the game upon spotting a cat and toddling excitedly after it. At home, Irfan began teaching her to operate his Rubik’s cube. Then suddenly there was a power outage! Thankfully Nia Nia did not give a crap. The next day, we went for a dinner at Kuala Perlis. We hung out at a restaurant across the road from the beach. Ayah Cik Farid showed Nia Nia the incoming tide, and she was impressed (and quite vocal about it too) with the rising tide and the […]
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