July 30, 2009

30 Minutes Walk to the Past : Part 2

[As promised, Part2. Drew lots of energy and saliva to dig out the histories... May it worth!]


Out of the blue, Mak went to ask Abah a question, “Do you still remember the crab? I wonder if it’s still there.” Crab? What crab? Somehow it’s too hazy for the brain to decipher it. “Hmm…perhaps they’re closed already. So many restaurants here!” his head searching near far like a submarine periscope. “Cah, do you still remember the crab?” now the question is thrown at me. “What crab?” the fogs were still covering my head. “Oh…that crab!” I recovered from my search. “Yeah, a Chinese restaurant. They have this huge crab statue in front of the premise.” Her hand carving the air showing how big the crab was. “There! Look! It’s still there!” all of a sudden she drew our eyes towards our left side. Yeah, that’s the crab. “Hello Mr. Crab!” I greeted the crab with a smile and waved as if it were to reply me back.


Our walk continued. From the both side of the view we saw fields, but not any ordinary fields. Jet ways. I turned my head to the right. Mak still doing her job, “That’s the TUDM airbase. Hey, the barracks are still there!” she explained eagerly. Pity it’s dark. Pitch black. We can see the hangar during the day and I bet there’s lots of fighter jets sleeping under it. Cool… And I saw Abah’s smile as his eyes stuck to his left wondering the view. I couldn’t read what he was thinking at that moment.


Then ahead of us, a flyover we couldn’t recognize. Well- not really a flyover. 1 heading towards Shah Alam and the other 1 leads to Kuala Lumpur. But surprisingly, Abah took the 1 to Kuala Lumpur. Heck? “Abah, I think you’ve got the wrong lane.” Aie voiced out. “Yeah Abah. Are we going to Pahang?” me. Joking. But he kept his silent mode. Sometimes it’s just hard to figure out his thoughts. Then, there’s AIROD [Mak said that’s the airplane’s workshop, belongs to the military or something like that]. But a few minutes later, a huge building on our right seemed to appeal in our view. That, looks, familiar… “Hey I know that building! That’s the airport! Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport!” Aie screamed as it pierced to my ears. We’re not exactly 10 miles away, okay. Yet, another smile from both Abah and Mak. I remembered once when our flight to Terengganu was cancelled, due to lack of seats. But free tickets. What do you expect? Available only when there’s open seats. I don’t know how Abah got them. Maybe from his ‘insiders’. Abah requested for cockpit seat, or jump seat if I’m not mistaken. I can’t really recall the term Abah always address the seats but it’s in the cockpit. Meaning, we can see the pilots doing their job. How cool is that! Not many of us know about this. But unfortunately, the attendant told us that there were trainee pilots using those seats so it’s not available. What other word describes this best? Devastated. But that’s another story happened in that airport.


My pondering was interrupted again by that rowdy brother of mine shouting about the government’s aviation department on our left or something like that. Not far from that, a place that used to be my ‘playground’ when Abah took me along to do his job. The Malaysia Airlines head quarters. I looked deeply to the post guard where Abah used to greet them [the guards were his friends too] and drove to his office. How long had he work there? Yep, for 25 years right after he finished his SPM. But now he had retired for a couple of years. He worked in the airport for 10 years, and then transferred to the head quarters and work there for the rest 15 years. Now it all made sense why Abah is really fond of airplanes and fighter jets movies, and things revolved around them. He lives it. He once worked with them. Observing, to be precise. And he never gets bored when talking about them. He is so attached to them. If it weren’t because of his illness he would probably still with his ‘friends’ now… And somehow that gen is inside me, instead of Aie. I'm really proud of our nation's Sukhoi SU-30 MKM! [Heard that the military labelled it 'N' somewhere like SU-30N or SU-30MKM N or something like that; to imply INFINITY and that it belongs to Malaysia] Don’t know why… But I love it anyway!



Whenever I get there I always set my eyes on the Terminal 1 site. It was no longer there since they already brought it down long time ago. Yep, that’s the site we were rambling about later. Mak has always been furious about how moron the Selangor government was to demolish Terminal 1. She got her point. That was the actual and the first airport ever before they built Terminal 2 and Terminal 3 existing now. Mak added that it was caught on fire once but it only damaged barely half of it. So, what’s the relevant of destroying a piece of legacy the country holds? And the sweet legacy behind it; that was the place where Mak and Abah first met. Yep, their love story. Well- not really a love story since they were not really declaring their love to each other. Mak has a lot of admirers back then while Abah was rather a timid guy. But somehow they had feelings towards each other [I should’ve use ‘have’ instead since they still love each other until now]. They were friends but till one day- since Abah was too shy to ask for hand in marriage, Mak told him that someone was going to ask for it soon. Find those keepers! That definitely gave him a shot in the heart. So, without further a due, Abah sent his ‘mercenaries’ to do the job! A few years later, that barren site had turn into hangars. Still new.



Yep, those were the things that kept us…how to say… Who we are today. Yep, we are very attached to that place even though it has been years ever since. And they all took 30 minutes in our heart, in our mind, in our eyes. 30 minutes of walk to the past, 16 years of baby steps to the future. Diving back to the past was a piece of cake, but crawling 16 years to the future is…painful. We experienced a lot after 4 years of living there. But hey, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. That’s my parents. That’s who we are today. Boy, how that will always remained spring for the rest of our lives. And we’re proud of it. And I hope that one day, I will continue AND create that legacy and make them proud of me...

Amin...

July 29, 2009

30 Minutes Walk to the Past : Part 1

[This took me sweats and tears to finish it. The 2nd version from the one excidently shut before. Watch out for part two soon!]


Big Plate. One of our favourite family dining spot, famous for its mushroom soup. When was the last time that we ever get together like this? It’s been really hard since all of us have our own agendas. Me and my lectures, Abah and his daily basis, Mak with her job in the office and Ijat [sometimes I called him Aie] preparing for his SPM. A slight shine of heaven like this had definitely made me happy. Then, Mak went for the washroom, Abah gone to foot the bill, me and Aie pulling each other’s legs on the table. We got back to the car and put on the seat belt. Safety first! Abah in the driver’s couch suddenly uttered, “I feel like driving to our old house.” He definitely froze the time from whatever we were doing at that time. So watch out Kg. Melayu Subang, here we come!


Yep. I can feel the blood rushing down my vein with excitement at that moment. The rusty pages from the old diary started to flick, one after another out of the head, slowly, calmly, wrapping up our air, wrapping up our emotions. Yep. 16 long memorable years… “There’s the road to our house!” Abah said abruptly pointing to a space that appeared to be a road leading to another place. But the car strolled straight ahead instead. “Just a sec. I thought we’re going to that house!” frantically the rest of us moaned in disappointment. “Just a sneak peek!” Abah replied.



The drive was rather bumpy, constructions going here and there. New shops and old shops crowd together. Vehicles bustling in and out of the town. Airplanes flying up and touching down the lane. It’s normal scenery for the rest of the people living there. But to us, long after we had left that dear place of us, gazed in awe as a red Fokker, perhaps Fokker-50 manoeuvred lowly to the ground, indicating that it’s about to land. “Awesome!” Aie stared at it, jaws dropped, not even a blink of an eye as it tailed the plane down the jet way. Poor Aie. He was too small to remember those days. He was barely a year when we left the place. And me. Sweet little 4 years old pony tail with a hell of a mouth. I wonder where that mouth had gone to.

Stayin' alive

The title almost sounded like the Bee Gee's song.
[The name ma ruumate gave to my car]

Yep.
Tryin to keep this thing alive..
Most of the time I write in my own diary but then again,
y not share it to the public rite?

Tonite's....
tonite's wat r?
I can't find that word.
Hmm...'kejadian' in english is wat r?
Adoii...
Better of you write in Malay la.
I'm not very fond of using market language.
Wat kind of a teacher will I turn to then?!
...but I guess it won't really hurt kan?
hohoho....

Yep.
Hari berlaku sesuatu yang membuat ku nak menaip sangat2.
Susah nak dapat mood ni tapi sekali dah dapat siap la ku membebel tak habis2.
Padan la muke sape yang membaca!
Atas nasihat seorang sahabat [mekasih anda] daku pun mule la meng'update' blog ni.
Terbengkalai akibat penyakit M dan buat sebab lecturer yang suruh mase dulu.
Tapi mungkin masa akan datang berguna untuk bahan mengajar dan contact ngan students kan?

Yep.
I'm struggling to recounts back that moment since it's precious.
It's 60% finished but due to human error [that's me], I lost it.
Those beautiful words I wrote!!!!
Now it won't be the same as before...

So, gonna post it soon..
Only time will tell..
Hohoho.....

July 6, 2009

No more speech PLEASE!!

I hate doing speeches.
I just hate it.
I'm not a 'talking' kind of person.
I write.

This 9th of July will be my turn to do the speech presentation.
And I'm not exactly prepared.
I hate it.

Luckily I've finished writing the text.
Maybe it need some minor changes.
Yeah...
That should do.

I hate doing speeches.
The day before my speech I have another presentation.
...which, I haven't really start a crap.
Crap, not even a crap.

But then again...
I've learn not to let these 'miscellaneous' things burdened me.
No.
That's just not me.

Yeah...
I'm off now.
Going to start that crap.
And making those minor changes.

Perhaps this will change me...
To a better person.