I am going to send off my eldest daughter to boarding school tomorrow. She has just got the offer to register as Form 4 at Sekolah Menengah Sains Hulu Selangor (SEMASHUR). After coaxing  her to accept the offer, she finally agree to go. I am excited for her since I too studied in boarding school once. Unlike her, I entered the boarding school, Sekolah Tun Fatimah, since Form 1. And the school is many many many miles from home. My daughter is considered lucky since SEMASHUR is just 30-40 minutes away from home.

 

Anyhow, I survived 5 years of schooling in STF. And I dedicated some of  these survival skills to my daughter...:)

 

1. I labelled my personal things with my name to prevent them from missing. Over the years, the label Norazlina Mohamed changed to Leena punye.

 2. I made friend with the bell. Bell for breakfast. Bell for every learning session. Bell all the time. We even have this tagline Hidup tak bermakna tanpa loceng.

3. I often woke up early to be among the first to use the shower.

 

4. I quickly learned about the booking system for the shower. We used to have towel booking system or pail booking system. More towels/pails at the shower mean more people queuing for that particular shower. So when I woke up late, I looked for shower with the least number of towels or pails. When I was extremely late, I learned how to brush my teeth and shower simultaneously...:P

5. When ironing school uniform, I saved time by only ironing the visible part. Ie only iron the bottom part of my kain baju kurung.

6. When hand-washing the clothes, I avoided wringing the clothes thus less wrinkles, thus save time to iron. (Something I learned when I was in matriculation... Not too late to learn...)

7. Laundry room was often full. I had to find time when there was minimal usage. I used to skip lunch to do my laundry or do it in the middle of the night. Skipping lunch especially when the menu was not that appetising.

8. I made prep hours bearable by having friends to chat with. I also listened to music during prep hours. I used to have walkman (those were the old days when we didn't have ipod or whatnot). Couldn't remember whether bringing walkman during prep was illegal or not.

9. Supper was the highlight before bedtime. Me and my friends often lingered around the dining hall after everyone has taken their supper. Then we went around and salvage what was left. Biscuits were nice snacks to be eaten in the dormitory (err again... Illegal ke ni?) Of course, entering dining hall in the middle of the night was considered extracurricular activities and illegal (but keep you survived...)

10. After lights off, study rooms were available for staying up to study. But can be limited too. There were always corridors with ample light to study. I had few corridor study-buddies who owned spots in the corridor.

11. I enjoyed the flora and fauna around the school, flowers and fruit trees. Sometimes I studied under a tree. Sometimes I walked around the school compound with friends. And sometimes we spiced up things a little by having middle of the night missions of harvesting mangoes and jackfruit from the trees. :D

12. We had TV room to watch favorite TV shows. But sometimes the favorite TV show was aired at inappropriate time such as during prep hours and we just had to sacrifice the prep hours. And avoided being  caught by wardens or prefects...

13. Outings were something that we looked forward to. As if prisoners being released from the prison. The shopping spots that were famous back then in JB were KOMTAR and Kimisawa.

14. I had a hobby as my stress management kit. Collecting rock songs cassettes of various groups. Search and Wings were top in the list then. Of course, I have friends with the same passion.

 

15. We had water coolers to quench our thirst. At times of extreme measures, the water cooler was used to prepare instant noodle, served cold. And hey... we survived...

 

16. During weekends, I had to be alert for spot-checks by wardens and ready to made the bed  in a jiffy and stuff anything unwanted into the locker...

17. Made friends and not enemies. The friends from the schooldays made the activities that I joined fun and enjoyable. Be it academic, sports, weekly Yasin recitation, fasting month with Terawih prayers, weekly movie etc. Those are the friends who still get in touch with each other and we shared more than just memories. Friends until jannah, inshaAllah.

 

I am really happy that my daughter will experience this and hope she will treasure every moment of it. Even though she will forever be labelled as Budak Form  4 baru, I hope she will embrace the label and regard that as the unique thing about her. I also hope she will make full use of this opportunity and focus on study. And on top of that, don't forget to have fun. After all, school is supposed to be fun... And sometimes, rules are made to be broken...;) But try not to be so obvious eh... Ha ha...

 

Finally, remember that the boarding school is a small community. Even though small, the same principle of hidup bermasyarakat applies. Be good to others, mind your manners and display good attitude.

 

Bak lirik lagu Joget Pahang "Kalau baik hati, nanti orang pun sayang..."

STF batch 85-89 held a reunion dinner recently with the tagline Fantastic @40. It was a blast and I had fun. Prior to the dinner, organizing committee was formed and committee members were elected. Surprise..surprise...I was assigned the task of entertainment together with Hemy. Nowadays, besides singing lullaby to my kids, the one thing that I do which can be considered entertaining is giving lectures. Oh yes, those in the receiving end were sometimes completely entertained that they fell asleep. Ha ha...

Anyhow, Hemy and I planned for slide shows to be shown during the dinner. And we started compiling pictures of the past and pictures of the present. We had to stalk so many FB pages to get those pictures compiled and we had fun giggling over the old pictures yang muka masing-masing sungguh la innocent.

I wanted to arrange the slides using movie maker. I have watched my students did their movie during presentations complete with songs embedded and I was impressed. Thus I intend to impress the girls who are going to attend the dinner with similar kind of movie. Cheh... macam bagus sangat. Unfortunately, I have never used movie maker before. And I had to ask one of my students which program did they use for the movie. Rabun IT betul.

The date of the dinner approached and suddenly it was more or less week away. That was the time baru terkial-kial nak start belajar guna Windows movie maker. Luckily it was easy enough. And I love how easy it was to put in audio files and how I can edit the audio clip to match the slides transition. However, I learned some knowledge the hard way.

1. Creating a project file in 1 computer and trying to edit it in another computer caused frustration. The 2nd computer will fail to find the source files because the source files are in the 1st computer thus the files imported earlier will be shown as ugly big red Xs. Sungguh sakit hati.

2. Windows movie maker sometimes hang on me. Thank God for autorecovery, if not, I most probably had banged my head on the wall for not saving the work earlier. You know when you were so full of enthusiasm over your work and forget to save? Happened to me quite a number of times.

There are some other things that I learned along the way. As much as I enjoyed doing the movie, I had my moments of exasperation.

Anyhow, managed to complete the video. Here are snippets of the pics and movie that Hemy and I put together. Tak de le pro mana, sebab yang buat pun tak pro. :) 

The vids have been edited and shortened. Tak boleh tunjuk semua sebab videos ni kategori 13SXF. (Sex female above 13 je boleh tengok). ;)

Here are some pics from the dinner.

It was held at Crown Plaza Hotel, on the 30th floor. Tingkat paling atas. 

The banner

The room

The deco, arranged by our own girls.

The theme colour was purple hence we have lots of things in purple:

The cupcake

The gift bag

The cake

It was a very nice rainbow cake.

This was what I ate that night. There was a range of buffet menu however I only got these. Wasn't feeling that hungry anyway, seronok catching-up with the girls and bergambar sana sini. 

It was a night to be remembered. And some of the girls have already suggested for it to be a yearly event. Ha ha... And Hemy volunteered to take charge of the entertainment again. Ewah..ewah...

I met with some of the girls from my old school for breakfast few weeks ago. It was a very rare occasion where the RCK members gathered so early in the morning. Well, it started with me wanting to meet one of the girls Zarina Abdul Rahman aka Eena. Haven't seen her for years. She was one of my classmates during Standard 4, in MGS Raub. She was there only for a short while. Tak sempat nak kenal hati budi..he he... But there was one incident which I remembered until now. We had Art class that day. The task, to draw a portrait. Eena was a very cute little girl then (she is still cute by the way) so the teacher, Puan Norsiah? Puan Norasiah? asked Eena to sit in front of the class, and the rest of us had to draw a portrait of her. I am terrible in drawing. And when I finished, the teacher took a look and could not contained her laughter. Tersenggong tau cikgu gelakkan... Tapi the drawing memang terrible!! Anyhow, the question is: Eena tak yah lukis portrait ek that day?? Ha ha...

And few years after that, fate brought Eena and I together again, in STF. (Sungguh drama statement ini...:P) We were in different classes for the first 4 years so I don't think our paths have ever came across. Blok pun lain, society pun lain. But, we were put in the same class during Form 5. And we 'clicked'. After school, we lost touch and was only reacquainted by FB recently. Tu yang berkobar-kobar nak jumpa tu...

Since Eena has a narrow window of free time, preferably in the mornings, after the kids are all in school, we decided to meet for breakfast. And the venue, Uncle Lim's at Subang Parade. 

And of course, geng2 RCK yang lain pun join sama. Emy, Kaza, Meque with her 2 kids, Zie, Aiz, Iderk and baby Zafira, Mas MS, Yus, Ein, Elin, Noni with baby Ain, Zaira with Udyn and Nor with Marsya.

The appropriate breakfast dish:

Toast

and egg

Porridge

Nasi lemak, boleh la... yang makan tu, Kaza, very the slim one.

But I had this. 

With milo followed by this 3 layer drink.

Breakfast ke lunch ni? But as the saying goes..breakfast like a king queen...

The breakfast carried on until lunch hour. And we later moved to Secret recipe.

Iderk and Kaza shared this cheese cake.

Hemy ordered these dishes of starter.

Elin had pasta.

And Nor and her daughter had fish and chip, this drink and ice-cream.

I had this black pepper lamb pie.

Lunch like a prince princess?

Mujur tak sambung sampai dinner. Can't guarantee dinner like a pauper. Coz most possible, dinner like a king queen again.:P

On another day, Ein, Eena and I had another get together. Mission: shopping tudung di butik Maira.

We had breakfast at Ubi Kayu.

I just had kuih 2,3 ketul. No breakfast for king queen this time.

The mission continued after breakfast. We were joined by Iderk when we were at Maira.

Bought a few pieces of tudung. Masa beli, I was wondering, which baju to wear this tudung with. But the others said, beli dulu, matching belakang kira. Ha ha... Worst case scenario, kena beli baju baru.

Besides tudung, they also have blouses.

 Pic with the owner.

Later, we had lunch at D' Serambi.

Ein had this set.

Eena had this.

I had this.

Definitely fit for a king queen or prince princess.

And recently we had another breakfast meet. With Eena and Ein. Ein or Azreen Ahmat was my classmates for 4 years, from Form 1 until 4. And Ein and I shared lots of memories together during schooldays. I am positive that she sat besides me in class during Form 4. Unless I have worse degenerated neurons than I thought. And again, years after school, FB reunite us again.

We had breakfast at Dome in Subang Parade.

Ein ordered scones.

Eena ordered bruschetta. A vegetarian dish.

I ordered this spicy olio.

We shared the dishes amongst us. The scones are nice. Bruschetta pun sedap unless you don't like the soury tomato taste. Olio memang sedap.

We also shared this fruit salad with yogurt. I don't fancy the sour taste of yogurt so kurengg sikit.

Ein and Eena had English tea. Masing-masing tunjuk skill tuang air.

I had this honeycomb goldrush espreski. Dengan alasan, ibu menyusu kena makan and minum banyak. But coffee?? isyh... But the drink is nice. I love the honeycomb chunks.

A few weeks ago, my family and I went to Malacca. My sister who resides there held an open house in conjunction with Eid celebration. It took us about 2 hour drive to get there. Less if we did not make a stop along the way.

My kids met their cousins and had fun playing together. However we could not stay for long. We still have few other places to visit. And I knew how badly my kids wanted to stay and continue playing.

Anyhow, every time I went to Malacca, memories of years ago came rushing back. Malacca was declared as Historical City on April 15th 1989. I made my own history in Malacca shortly after that .

After completing SPM in Form Five, I was offered to do matriculation/pre-U in one of the schools in Malacca, namely Sekolah Sains Muzaffar Syah, famously known as Mozac. And there, histories were made.