Off to Kelantan

GO TEAM!

I'm off to Kelantan tomorrow for 4 days with the rest of the debate team including Puan Mag and Puan Koh. We have worked very hard for the last 12 days and did our best. Whatever happens in Kelantan for the next few days will be beyond our control.

Win or lose, trophy or no trophy it won't matter much because at the end of it all we got more than what a debater could ask for. Experiences, friendships and a good addition to our CV ;)

It's nationals and please oh please let us be in your prayers. We'll try our best to make you proud.

So wish us all the best!

happy deepavali!

HAPPY DEEPAVALI!!! I celebrated today by going to an open house of my dad's friend Datuk M. Good food but the people who were there was even more interesting. I met Teresa Kok, the woman who was detained under ISA with 'security measures' as the excuse (pfftt!).

We were enjoying our food when a DAP politician came and sat down at our table. My dad sort of pulled his leg when he started questioning DAP's policies and then the guy started talking loudly, to the point of shouting, like what our 'dear' Malaysian politicians normally do at the parliament house.

Ughh so uncool. People want to celebrate unity and multiculturalism on this festive day, they opened up the politics issue at the table pulak. As if we don't hear about politics enough -_-

But anyway HAPPY DEEPAVALI again to all who celebrates it. May the lights bring you the joy =)

The ambience of the open house

Teresa Kok and I

This is what we do, this is US

DJ's debate team has less than a week left before the national competitions start and we have been working our butts off. Discussions start from 7.30 am and last all the way till 4.30 pm, speeches are being written and re-written everyday to ensure our caselines are watertight. Mock debates are held every 2 days so we could find out the flaws of our arguments and patch up the gaping holes.

Things are getting intense now as we are running against time. But our discussions are not intense all the time. We're a bunch of crazy debaters who know how to work and have fun at the same time.

We would have to have sweets and lozenges and whatever stuff that is edible to keep our 'hyperness' in check so we can last all the way till late evening. We even have keychains with our names on it as our 'good luck charms'. Except that for my 'good luck charm', it says 'NICK' instead of Zafirah because there isn't any with my name on it. So the closest is 'Nick' because my first name is 'Nik'.

And we couldn't find Jay's name either on the keychains so the closest to his name is 'Karen' which was the last syllable of his last name 'jay karunaKAREN'. Lol

My beloved teammates is one of the reason why I love debating. It's more than just a competiton to us. It's a way of living.

This is what we do, this is US.

We're all in this together, even when it comes to sweets =)

Our stash of sweets

After long hours of discussion, we can't help falling asleep

Good luck charms!

At the end of the day, posers will always be posers. LOL =D

when the heart cries

Sometimes I think you're expectations for me are too high that I may not be able to reach them. Sometimes when I come back home I want to share with you my daily debate stories from school but I'm afraid I'll get your look of disinterested and disapproval. The thought of disappointing you scares the soul out of me.

And there's no absolute guarantee that I would live up to your expectations. But at least let me fail now rather than later. Let me fail now so I would know how painful is failure. Let me learn from the pain so it'll make me better in every aspects so I could attain the dreams that you wanted me to.

I'm exhausted of all these too. But at least I'm exhausted from something that I actually enjoy doing and at the end of the day I hope I can prove to you that I am capable of reaching the biggest dreams possible.

And things would be a lot sweeter and easier knowing that you will always be behind my back, supporting me through this challenging but hopefully soon-to-be-valuable moments of my life.

Because there is nothing more I need right now other than the support from the person I care and love the most in life.

A 2nd chance to relive the dreams

Daryl called the other day with news that I wouldn't have expected to hear. NOT in a million years. Selangor Wira debate champ, USJ 12 just backed out of the competition and since DJ was the 1st runner up, automatically we would be replacing them as the Selangor representatives at Wira national levels.

How freaking cool is that??? A rare, golden opportunity like this hardly comes by everyday. Heck, it hardly comes by anyday! And that's why we're going all out, all the way this time around because this is our only chance in bringing back the prestigious trophy back to DJ.

But of course now the debaters will have double workloads. We gotta prepare for the motions (4 of them all together) and on top of that we still have to prepare for the upcoming final exams. Whew! The debates will be held in Kelantan where we will be competing with states all over Malaysia.

DJ's Wira debate team is back and wish us all the best, people!

WE'RE BACK!!

My Raya open house

I had a small Raya gathering at my house today. Invited a few friends over, my classmates, close friends and half of my debate team (only Daryl and Keefe could make it) and we ate nasi briyani, nasi impit and tiramisu cake and ice cream as desserts.

I don't believe in big, crowded gatherings and instead I prefer to have a small, intimate one so none of my guests would feel left out. And even with the small number of guests we had plenty of fun. Ashiqin suggested we played some Saidina (copycat version of Monopoly) and then we walked around the neighbourhood, making convos and jokes all day.

Here are some of the pics

My honourable guests

Girls + Syamir gone smiley

Ready to play some serious Saidina bussiness

Concentrating hard on the game

Money crazy!

Yummy!

You know who's that =D

a night of german youth orchestra

Last night was a night filled with classical, beautiful music for some of us. Alia, Nunu, Ellya, Faiz, my parents and I went to a classical music orchestra performed by the eminent Westphalian Chamber Youth Orchestra at IIUM, specially flown from Germany.

Young, hot German youth played classical pieces from Mozart to Bach to Bartholdy beautifully and the crowd was lured by their performance. One of the orchestra members on violin was actually a Turkish. He's living in Germany and I tested my Turkish skills on him and he was like "Oh your pronounciation is very good. Very nice". *blush blush*

Last night was more than listening to classical music but it was also about exposure. Exposure to the music world that made today's music what it was. Music had always been an evolution but it all started from music like Beethoven's and Mozart's.

And living in today's plural society this kind of exposure is very much needed so that when others talk about these classical composers at least we know what they sound like and not stare back blankly when we hear names like Tchaikovsky, Baron Britten etc.

Now I really know how good-looking Germans can be but the Turkish guys are still the best. Tee-hee!

The orchestra at their best

On Violoncello

The girls on violin (if only I could play as good as them)

German musicians with me and Ellya

The very sweet, pretty, talented German girls

And this is the Turkish guy I was talking bout earlier. Burak and I

A joyous Eid

This Hari Raya/Eid Mubarak was by far the most memorable and joyous one for my whole family. Mainly because we shared it with strangers that at the end of the day turned to be a part of our family.

Eid was celebrated along with my mum's foreign students, Adnan (Bosnia), Mahmoud (Palestine), Sabri (Kenya) and Ali (Central Africa) and boy, was it mirthful. We showed them how to make 'lemang', brought them around the kampung, ate the local delicacies and treated them like they were one of us.

All 4 guys were the talk of the small town in Raub because each and every one of them were skilled in their own ways. For instance, Ali was one heck of a talented guy who knew how to recite the Quran beautifully, danced his cool African dances, kung-fu and on top of that he's very pious. One of the most talented persons I've ever met.

We had a lot to teach and show each other and it had been a truly joyous Raya that you could hear constant howls of laughters of us enjoying ourselves in my grandma's house.

Again, HaPpY eId MuBaRak and MaAf ZaHiR dan BaTiN!

In the Kampung on the morning of Eid

My aunty's deer, Benny

the 'Fantistic Four' (from left: Mahmoud, Adnan, Sabri and Ali)

Adnan the 'orang putih' preparing a lemang