LET'S TAKE A DEEP BREATH, OK ...

Dear Diary,

There are times when God loans you happiness just for a simple while. He then takes it back, and when you go too deep down into sorrow, He fairly pulls you up again. When you are up there, it’s either you thank Him and be grateful over the position he set you into, or, you get yourself lost in the midst of that contentment. The cycle continues. The duration to complete a cycle will depend, of course, as He determines it.

There are also times when you feel like your adrenaline to work was so high that you start to believe that your life is meant to be dedicated for it. Then when you are too high with that adrenaline, He fairly drags you down too. Perhaps so that you will remember that work is not everything. Work is not your life. Work is temporary. Work, if it’s a person, actually, doesn’t even notice you’ve drowned too deep, or soared too high. Work, if it’s alive, has no feelings. It doesn’t care. Work, if it has a body, will simply open its mouth, and all it cares is you, feeding and nutritive it with good food. Whose food, work doesn’t care. Even if you starve yourself to death just to feed work with your own foods, it still doesn’t care.

Then you start to feel like the unworthiness eerie, gloomy feeling starts to creep in. You feel at lost because what you believe is so true, is actually so untrue. What you believe is so sacred, actually is so awfully secular. That is the time when you also have 2 options, either to calm down, or to scream and fight. Truthfully, it’s extremely difficult to do both, and that’s the reality. You feel trapped and suffocated. You feel like you “have” to go. No longer “wanting” to go.

Notes – The walls whisper. He knows. Up above, and with bona fide intention, action and reaction, good points will be scored. There’s no visible Account Books on these points. We can’t check on the balance of the points we scored (or slashed, for that matter) – Or we will be overtly obsessed with scoring the points. And becoming KPI oriented. With God.

~ Taking a deep breath – inhale and exhale. Checking from time to time on intention, action and reaction. Meanwhile, the cycle continues. And invisible points scored, hopefully.

SILENCE IS GOLDEN

Dear Diary,

HP quoted this some 4 days ago in his FB, and I "liked" it :-

"Sometimes we let affection go unspoken, sometimes we let our love go unexpressed, sometimes we can't find words to tell our feelings .. especially towards those we love the best."

Him being him, he asked me cheekily why I "liked" it?

Well HP, it's not easy to vent out your feeling, ain't it? It could be love, as you well put it, but it could be hatred too. It could be frustration. It could be sadness. It could be anger. It could be everything we felt in our heart. The  point is, it's not easy to tell. To say out loud what's boiling inside your heart.

Someone whom I felt deep frustration and anger gave me the unexpected chance to let-it-all-out recently. Even in my emotional, frustrated, angry state, I knew it wouldn't do me any good to flare everything at him.

It is just not easy to tell. It is not easy to open up. I decided to leave my feelings unspoken and unexpressed.

Well, part of it, at least!

This photo has nothing got to do with this post.
I want to vent my feeling for this photo though - I just love it. Every single thing about it.

SO IT GOES ...

Dear Diary,

So it goes, something like this ...

Everybody needs inspiration

Everybody needs a song

A beautiful melody when the night's so long

Cause there is no guarantee that this life is easy

When my world is falling apart

When there's no light to break up the dark

That's when I look at You

When the waves are flooding the shore

And I can't find my way home anymore

That's when I look at You

Kan ... ? Nice piece.

CORRONATION STREET

Dear Diary,

It's 10 mins to 2 am Saturday nite. Me staying up to finish up some unfinished business. Office business of course.

I've been doing this stay-up thing for quite some many weeks already. Many weekends. Bring home office work almost every day, staying up after the kids were tugged in bed.

I'm quite tired and bored over this actually.

Tired. Mentally and physically.

Bored. To death.

Never ending. Like the English soap - Corronation Street.

Taken en route our journey to the highlands - Berwick upon Tweed
Most Northern part of English soil. Nearing the Scottish border.
Am quite close to my border too now. Oh God, please help me.

ONCE UPON A TYNE ....

Dear Diary,

The thing I heard in Red FM last week, got me laughed out loud all the way from Klebang to Sungai Udang - Sarimah Ibrahim said, if "cucur badak" is to be translated into English, it would be "pop hippo". Hahahaha... pop hippo??!! You're crazy Sarimah! It's a hilarious name to be given to Malaysia's most famous traditional delicacy, huh! I imagine those hippos popping up in hot oil, and I, would happily swallow them up seconds later ... yummy hippos! Actually, we do have another traditional delicacy with the word "badak" in - "badak berendam". And what would that be in English, Sarimah? The "bathing hippo"??? Hahaaha....

By the way,.... amongst her other hilarious morning stunts, Sarimah imitated some Scottish accent in her show. She said no one borthers the fact that her Scottish accent sounded like a mixture of Scottish, Irish and a bit of Newcastle. Haaaaah..... That word "NEWCASTLE"!! Ahaaa..... it rings a bell, doesn't it ?!

Sometime in December last year, I got the chance to go to Newcastle. Again, after so many years! Not alone like last time. I went with my whole family. It was almost an emotional day for me (obviously it's just me who was overly excited!). Hahahaha.... !

Northshield - Southshield ferry. The ride's a must! Teloq and I enjoyed it more than the kids for the obvious reason - memory lane ...

The main reason how I ended up choosing this city - NUFC! That's St. James Stadium, just opposite Leazes Terrace. There's that chanting by NUFC supporters I remembered "Newcastle...Newcastle...Newcastle... [repeat for another at least 9 times !]"

Leazes Terrace - Home sweet home!!! E110.

We played tennis here in summer. And I played snow here in winter too ..that's to avoid rolling around on dogs' poo scattered everywhere on the grounds of St. James Park, you see... Ahaa... I remember also, Gina lost her room key here after snow fight with Zafri and I. Kena tunggu snow cair baru dapat balik. And that's what...berapa hari kemudian???! Hahaha!

The graduation photos were taken here!

This was the surau. I'm not sure what it is now though. Amongst the thing which I remember distinctively about this place was when I was approached by a person here (a Dr. sekarang) "so you are ....  daughter ... from ..... come, join me .... ". And that was only my 2nd week arriving in Newcastle, I think. Ahaa..  Somebody knew me in this foreign land!!!! As best as I could, I tried avoiding him since!! Yeah... I was not particularly friendly, was I? hahaha...

For some stupid reason, no matter how I tried to paste this photo, it remains horizontal like this. I am just not good with computers! Bend your head a bit peeps (and any advise how I can remedy this ???)

Well ... I learnt about friendship in Convent, learnt about maturity and love in Maahad. I learnt about survival in MRSM. I learnt about adapting in Banting. And a bit about being bad and naughty too (wink..wink..!). I learnt to work hard and to shut my environment off just to concentrate with me, myself and I in PPP. At Newcastle upon Tyne, I learnt about ALL THAT, in one go, in one place.

Diary, with what I learnt there once upon a time, I wade my life through it all today.

Thank you

Dear Diary,

This post is dedicated to my little kids - thank you for keeping up with me. I supposed I have done some fairly good job as an employee, but I know am lacking a bit here and there as a mom. But my children have always been there for me, through thick and thin, ups and downs, laughter and tears.

Thank you for being my boyfriend, Ziad; and thank you for being my best of friend, Zarith.

Love you most, Mami.

MOM'S BOUNTIFUL BOUQUET

Dear Diary,

This post is attributed specially for mom, for her hard work maintaining the garden. They are beautiful, aren't they, Diary?

This is my favourite. Very rare indeed!

This one got style! Love 'em too.

I've always asked mom to have more of this. The first thing you 'll notice when you have a peek at the garden in the morning.

I think this is Mom's favourite!

Abundance of beauty!

Sweet ...

This one is cute in this picture kannn...

Mom got more in her garden. These are merely few ones that I managed to capture, under Ayah's glaring scrutiny and excrutiating remarks on my crappy talent with cameras.

Yes Ayah, I know where the sun is, ... and yes Mak, you have great talents with these plants!