I ordered a set of cheap dice from Lazada. They arrived just before I came home from work today. I was stoked to receive things through the mail and I am stoked to use these dice some day. Sigh. Some day.
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A Registered Student Once More
I never thought it possible even three years ago, but now I am registered as a postgraduate student at my workplace! (It helps that I work at a university, obviously.) I would like to thank my family and friends who supported and encouraged me one way or another. I would have never reached this point if it were not for them. More news to come, I would wager…
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Overnight at the Office
One Friday morning we woke up discovered we had a water outage. We did not know how long the roof tanks would sustain us because driving through the town of Mata Ayer (ironic name in this case) nearby we noticed that the repair work being done, digging into the street there appeared to be major. I thought that this would be a good time to have a sleep over at the office which was not affected by the repairs. After Irfan’s Bahasa Malaysia tuition, we headed for the office with our overnight bag. Also I actually also brought over some work from home back to the office. I signed in with the guard and all. The R&R restaurants in front of the office were open, so we took away some food from there to my office. Soon we made ourselves at home at my office. The office is laid out […]
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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.
Continue readingSome Salam Lebaran From Sitiawan
For Eid, we were at Sitiawan taking photos with Atok and Opah. We also visited Marina Island near Lumut to see what the artificial island was like these days. Sometimes friends visited us. Sometimes we visited friends. We also took a trip to Ipoh to visit Wan Cu’s family.
Check out the photos in the following gallery:
Some Salam Lebaran From Sitiawan
The day we wore lavender for some reason
Before long it was time to head home.
Pre-Aidilfitri in Pasir Mas
After our journey through Thailand to get to Pasir Mas, we finally arrived just in time for buka puasa at the dinner table with the family there. Nia and family were already there to greet us.
Here are some photos of the fun times over the days before we drove to Sitiawan for Aidilfitri!
Pre-Aidilfitri in Pasir Mas
The days before Eid when Irfan played with his cousins
Perak beckons.
A Northern Route Back to Kelantan
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED. Yesterday, we travelled out of the country as a family for the first time. Granted it was only over the border into Thailand, but it was something that all this while was out of our ability to do for fiscal reasons. It was almost time for Aidilfitri and we drove from Padang Besar to Rantau Panjang via Thailand to reach Tok Bah and Tok Ma’s home in Pasir Mas! Ain did a lot of legwork done beforehand, getting the Thailand vehicle insurance and such, days before we departed. We mulled over acquiring some Thai currency although we did not plan on stopping anywhere to buy anything. However, we stopped at a currency exchange and converted some ringgits into bahts. It was lucky that we decided on it as we had to pay some sort of vehicle tax at the border. We used the phone’s Map app to navigate. […]
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A New Place to Eat
We are always looking out for an affordable restaurant with delicious food. Luckily, there are still many places that surprise us in a good way in Perlis. South of Kangar towards the highway, while looking for a nasi mandi restaurant, we came across this good Thai restaurant for iftar. We parked by the fields which had been prepped for sowing. It would not be long before a more lively field of green would grow and cover up the brown mud. We discovered that the nasi goreng Thai here was delicious. It has a side of soup and sambal. The nasi mandi restaurant was right across the road. We might return to it later. Here is Irfan posing with the multicoloured lights that marked the restaurant’s location and illuminated the its signage.
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A Ramadhan Weekend in Sitiawan
The previous week, just after one of my classes I was informed by Atok Irfan that Opah was hospitalised for a because of dengue fever. We headed back to Sitiawan to check up on her in the weekend. After breaking fast in the car along the highway while passing by the Gurun rest stop, we decided to have our dinner in Sungai Petani. Fortunately, Opah was on the mend although the doctor forbade her to continue her fast until she was checked out. Later, we went on a drive around town and watched Solo: A Star Wars Story at the Aeon mall – a second viewing for me since Kuala Lumpur. Hey, it be my old school! Weird thing is that besides very small bits and pieces of it, it no longer on the whole looks like my old school. Yay for progress? This used to be a happening place […]
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A Solo Return to KL
I got a call from Shide with whom I had several work adventures with years ago who needed me to return to Kuala Lumpur for some minor business. He graciously footed the travel bill for me, so after we decided on a flight ticket. So yay! I get to ride on one of these new-fangled flying machines again. The ride was rough enough through storm clouds that some passengers exclaimed loudly. At the airport, Nia came to pick me up. (Aided by Cik Ma and Cik Su of course.) Being the month of Ramadhan, we all went to buka puasa at a Middle Eastern restaurant in Cyberjaya. I kind of like this stuff. I rarely get to sample such food. A post-meal photo was taken. Thankfully I was able to do jama’ ta’khir prayers because of travel considerations. The next morning I drew stuff for Nia while waiting for Shide […]
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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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BBF: The Day The World Burned
The second RPG session I ran during the Geomatics Carnival 2018 at UiTM Arau was DwD Studios’ BareBones Fantasy. This session had even less prep time than the Star Wars session I ran earlier in the day. However, it turned out to be one of the most hilarious sessions I have ever had he pleasure of gamemastering in recent years. BareBones Fantasy The Day the World Burned The day began like another day for the two adventurers the elven thief Mus and human warrior Kazuma (both at Rank 1) and their hireling Aqua, an archer, who were travelling through the wilderness on horses. Upon Kazuma’s shoulder was his faithful hawk. The Blood in the Standing Stones The light woodlands ended and a wall of dark twisted trees and dense thickets blocked their path. They were considering what to do when they heard a scream from beyond the wall growing before […]
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EOTE: Rescue on Crait
The first RPG session I ran during the Geomatics Carnival 2018 at UiTM Arau was Fantasy Flight Games’ Edge of the Empire/Age of Rebellion. The players, who were UiTM students, used the Legends of the Galaxy pregenerated character sheets I used in class previously. Edge of the Empire Rescue on Crait The YT-2000 light freighter Sitichepa (I’m… sure this is an in-joke between the players) dropped out of hyperspace off the Crait system. Aboard the ship are a group of rebel operatives in search of fellow rebels whose ship disappeared near Crait: the star-pilot who was born and raised on space freighters and barges Kreepo, the sharp Twi’lek engineer Byt, the droid assassin FLAM-O who was bristling with weapons and Malea the Force sensitive warrior who had a lightsabre on her belt. Kreepo brought their ship closer to the desolate planet so Byt could scan its surface for signals. The Twi’lek […]
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Gaming at the Geomatics Carnival 2018
Today, the Centre for International Languages was officially invited by Zainee to UiTM Arau nearby for their Geomatics Carnival 2018 exhibition. There was a hobbies exhibition section where I set up shop with tabletop RPGs with my colleague Bazli. I would talk to visitors about using RPGs as a language learning tool. Also, to run games if and when I can. Sharnizan of Serious Games UUM was also present to introduce and sell his product the Ace of Maths game to UiTM students. Though at this point he was explaining the card game to Bazli. There was no dearth of visitors to our tables when the exhibition started. The exhibition organisers even provided Bazli and I with a packed lunch. My usual suspects line up was arrayed for display at their table, eliciting enquiries once in a while. I ran two game sessions for visitors. I ran the Edge of […]
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Breakfast at Gua Cenderawasih
Sundays can be a great time for picnics. There is no lack of picnic spots here in Perlis if you knew where to look, and we have looked at many over the last three years or so. We decided to visit Cenderawasih Cave Park. It was close to Kangar so it was not out of the beaten path. Cenderawasih translates to “bird-of-paradise”. Sadly there were none present at the park this morning. Here are some photos. Later, he sat on a boulder because it was a cool thing to do.
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Multicultural Night
With Ain away at Pasir Mas to take care of some things there, it was just Irfan and I at home for the weekend. After spending most of the weekend binging on The Terror, an excellent show by the way, we would have nothing else to do until the weekday rebooted itself. Thankfully, I had bought a couple of tickets for the Multicultural Night 2018 at the university great hall. After dark, we both drove there not just to check out the event, but also to hunt for dinner. What awaited us there was something that blew me away. Here are some Twitter posts, videos included. It’s the university’s Multicultural Night 2018. pic.twitter.com/zpzSGIsByq — Khairul Hisham (@hishgraphics) April 29, 2018 Who choreographed these students? It’s pretty awesome. pic.twitter.com/95oIn0uJI8 — Khairul Hisham (@hishgraphics) April 29, 2018 The Somalians have the stage! pic.twitter.com/LgpcbmyJlp — Khairul Hisham (@hishgraphics) April 29, 2018 The Indians […]
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