Everyday Snapshots

just a random collection of photos of everyday stuff, featuring Ilhan The Invincible.

ilhanisms

wait...before i start on this only-mummy-and-uncles-and-aunties-and-neneks will appreciate post...I GOT MY IELTS TEST RESULTS!!

remember i mentioned this test thing, the key to a lot of things i need to do here? well...it was quite stressful, cos the last time i took a test/exam was like what...7 years ago? and a lot of things hinges on this test, and i must get Band 7 (out of 9) for each of the 4 papers. otherwise it's AUD$300 to re-sit the test. the essay part was something on the effects of faceless communication. i thought i wrote nonsense, even rambling on about Ilhan and his webcams sessions with the neneks.

it was a nail-biting 2 weeks waiting for the results. The Hasbern opened it for me cos i can't bear facing failure and rejection (i have a HUGE problem there) and....alhamdullillah! alhamdullillah! alhamdullillah!

ok, on to ilhanisms.

1) After being
explained that babi is haram, and KFC over here tak halal, Ilhan watches a
Barbie ad on TV and proclaims like a cleric “Ni
tak bagus tau. Hayam. Allah mayah.”

2) Everytime
he learns a new vocabulary, he’ll explain to himself “*new word* maknanya *something that he already understands*”

Example:
"oooohhh….orang utan maknanya monkey lah", "oooohh...spaghetti tu maknanya mee lah"

3) Baba: Haram tu maknanya apa?

Ilhan: Hayam tu maknanya masin.

Oh dear.
And we thought we got it right.

 
4)We’ve been
telling him how we cannot buy toys etc
sebab ibu tak ada duit. One day he said he wanted a piano, but added with a
concerned look, “Ibu ada duit tak?”

I love my
son.

4) He doesn’t
say Assalammualaikum. He says Waalaikumsalam.

Me: No Ilhan, sebelum masuk cakap
Assalammualaikum.

Ilhan: Waalaikumsayam.

Me: Bukan, cakap 'assalammualaikum'
dulu

Ilhan: Waalaikumsayam.

5) He doesn’t
say Bismillahirahmanirrahim.

He says
solemnly, “Minah Rahim” before eating.

Minah is my
nenek, and Rahim is my atok.

Hmmm…

 6)At home he
calls us ibu and baba.

After
playgroup,  we become mum and dad. I want juice, mum. I want to watch this, dad.

That day at
mengaji class, with all the anak-anak indon, I became mama.

 

At 18
months

Us: Ilhan dah besar nak jadi apa?

Ilhan: Nak jadi momok!

*Apalah aku
dah buat sampai anak aku nak jadi macam ni….*

 

At 20
months

Us: Ilhan dah besar nak jadi apa?

Ilhan: Anonot!

*his nenek
managed to convince him that being an astronaut is a better vocation than being
a hantu*

 

2 weeks
ago

Us: Ilhan dah besar nak jadi apa?

Ilhan: Cook! Macam ‘Ready Steady
Cook’! (this 2pm
cooking show we watch on Channel Ten everyday).

*and he starts singing that really awful kari masak Babas advertisement jingle we are subjected
to on channel suria….”Babas, Babas, Babas
Babas Babas…”*

 

Actually
Ilhan can be a prompter when he grows up.

Before
jumping/rolling/carrying a glass of water – “Ibu
cakap be careful please”

Selepas
terjatuh/terhantuk sebab terlompat-lompat/tergolek-golek – “Ibu cakap are you okay
please”

Sebelum
buat salah – “Ibu jangan mayah eh. Nanti
Ilhan sedih tau”

and as of today, Power Rangers are banned in our household. this 2.5yr old guy seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of them, be it in the (in chronological order, he tells me) Ninja Storm, Dino Thunder or Space Petrol Delta variety. *aku tengok semua sama je* anyway, we think it contributes to his level of hyper-activity - he bounces of walls, and really thinks he's Blue Ranger (he drew his own face with blue highlighter the other day) with all the bicycle kick moves and all. sudahlah.

Baba: "Ilhan, no more Power Rangers for you ok. Ilhan tengok Power Rangers Ilhan jadi very naughty; you kick and jump here and there."

Ilhan: *thinks over his argument for a while* Tapi kan nenek ajar Ilhan skipping, yang lagu teddy-bear teddy-bear turn around, teddy-bear-teddy-bear touch the ground tu. Kan Power Ranger skipping and jumping kan?

mana logic dia ni?

i guess you can't really argue with a 2.5 year old.


Blue Ranger dijumpai bermuka biru dan menangis sebab takut kena marah.

on hugging and kissing

aha...bet i got your attention there :)

since we've been here, we've met many people and have revolved in several social circles. at the risk of generalising, i see them in 3 very broad categories - The Have Arriveds (by their definition), The Comfortables, and *ahem*...The Strugglers (no prizes for guessing which group we are in :)). i could write a long entry on this, but i'm sure it'll be heavily censored by The Hasbern, who's always mindful of things and reminding me to 'think first' and 'not write things you'll regret'.

so, about my title. no it's not hugging and kissing of the erotic sort (sorry to disappoint :)). i'm referring to that very female ritual upon meeting/leaving people.

as kids we were trained to salam and cium tangan the elders. as you get older you do the salam to the heart thing when you meet new people, while with the elders the cium tangan part still stands. and then when i was in Darul there was this awesome sisterhood where we went a step closer and hugged and kissed. but then again i always wonder...2 or 3? then there are also friends i'm really glad to see, and with whom a bear-hug comes naturally.

when i came here, i've been in several hug-and-kiss situations. one was with a mak datin, who kissed the air behind my ears like 3 times. and then once we went for dinner with some malaysian yuppies, and upon extending my hand for the salam, i was (stiffly - me, not her) pulled for a hug-and-kiss. again...2 or 3?

and then again i've met some wonderful ladies in playgroup and mengaji, and some will pull and hug-and-kiss me, some not.

you see, i'm not a touchy-feely person. my whole family's not touchy-feely. i dread hellos and goodbyes because i have to participate in this ritual. normally i'll just stand straight and salam, and then there'll be that awkward pause where i try to gauge if the person will pull me towards her for a hug-and-kiss. and then there'll be another pause as i quickly try to guess if she'll stop at 2 or 3.

this hug-kiss thing is quite a dilemma for me. just when and with who do you do it? and who do you just hug, and who do you hug-and-kiss? and how many kisses? 2? 3? and what is it actually that you kiss? the cheeks or the air? is this a mat-salleh thing or an arab thing or an islamic thing?

it's mind-boggling, really. you can just imagine my agony as all these questions race through my mind in the above-mentioned very short awkward pause. the whole thing is very stressful for me.

can anyone help provide me with clear guidelines and help end my misery?

 

rokok tembakau

i was listening to the radio the other day and there was this discussion on olfactory memory - a smell which triggers off a memory from some point in your life. i was thinking about it, and was thinking of writing an entry on it.

and then today i read Mak Usu's piece on Atok here, and it struck a chord in me. it' a moving post on someone dear to me, and it's interesting how different a person can seem when seen through different eyes.

my earliest olfactory memory is the smell of tobacco from Atok's rokok tembakau. i must be about 5 or 6, and i'd watch with fascination as Atok spreads the tobacco over the organic sheet of paper (i dunno what you call it), roll it up and store it in his tin rokok. i loved the smell of tobacco then, that rich, somewhat sweetish smell. nothing at all like noxious ciggie smoke.

the Atok i knew was someone who was firm but loving. he was the one who kissed and tickled me with his scraggly chin. he had a rokok gulung perpetually jutting out the corner of his mouth as he clicked-clacked away on his typewriter. i think he wrote letters for the orang kampung, probably some administrative/bureacratic thing that they'd ask him to help with. i spent hours amusing myself climbing about at the berandah as he typed on that typewriter.

 i spent a lot of time at rumah johor, days when my parents couldn't find a babysitter when i was younger, and school holidays when i started school. and then i remember there was this brief stretch of time when he was a security guard at some blocks in Marsiling Lane, just blocks away from my old house at Marsiling Drive, and i'd go there and sit with him after school. he'd buy air batu (those long frozen thing) for me and listened as i chattered about school. i must be 8 or 9 then.

whenever i'm in trouble (which i got into a lot as a kid), i still baca-baca this zikir which he taught me. i baca-baca it for all occassion, like when the school bus was late in the mornings, or when i forgot to bring a textbook to school. it was like a cure-all for me, and somehow it made the trouble go away.

i loved him because he was on my side when Mak refused to let me play in the air pasang (the house was near Selat Tebrau, so everytime it was high-tide, the kampung will be like Venice, and its great water-fun for us city kids). he woud let me ride on his back as he brought me to deeper waters.

i used to fight a lot with Abang Hakim (may Allah bless his soul) because he annoyed me by calling me 'idah boyot' when it was clearly a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Atok would then threaten to marry us to each other, and that would effectively shut the both of us up.

when i was about 11, Atok was debilitated by stroke which left him paralysed down one side of his body and with slurred unintelligible speech. i remember at the early stages how he used to furiously scribble pages and pages of letters in Jawi, which sadly no one could decipher. my last memory of him was at the Hospital Sultanah Aminah, with his hand in mine, and looking into his eyes. he passed away days later. i was 13.

Atok appeared in twice in my dreams, both times before big events. the first was when i was taking my O Level exams, and the last time was a few nights before i was to get married. in both dreams he looked well, sans bedsores and signs of illness, and smiled to me without saying anything. i heard that's a good sort of dream, like their ruh visiting us in our sleep.

reading Mak Usu's post, i realise now how different a man can be in the multiple roles he plays in his life. but you are right, Mak Usu, he loved us as only he knew how.

so yes, that's my earliest olfactory memory - the smell of tobacco. a whiff of it will take me through this whole span of memory of the man i call Atok.

Driving in WA

 

while i had the luxury for my dear trusty maroon vios back home, over here we drive a beat-up 17-year old Holden Barina hatchback. a small dented car with no power-steering.  if i put the photo up here you'd think i got the car from the junkyard ...ahaks! but hey..it's only $950 and most importantly, it moves :) and alhamdullillah for the car, for we have neither the patience nor the discipline to survive on the public transportation system here which runs on a timetable (as in the bus comes like sejam sekali and got to change so many buses just to get to one place) with no taxis to flag down.

i've been doing a fair bit of driving around here, mainly to playgroup and to mengaji and social visits, especially to sofia's place for the last few weeks before she left. here's the thing - these places i drive to, they are located South of the river, in suburbs like Langford, Thornlie and Lynwood. Very simply, Perth is somewhat cut into North and South by the Swan River. I live up in the north, and the journey each way is about 22km. that's like...from bt panjang to eunos?

yes, back in singapore i'd be crazy to drive all the way there and back 2-3 times a week just for a 2-hr playgroup for Ilhan or for a class or to visit a friend (my easterner-friends like Lina and Hariati can testify to this...those sunday darul sessions tu kirakan ku gagahkan diri tu..haha). but over here, well i guess distance is relative, and it's either the long drive or ilhan and i have our four walls as company.

and after a few weeks of taking a long route cutting through the City, i tried out a route to get there via Tonkin Highway, Leach Highway and Albany Highway. yes, that's 3 highways for you.

now...the highways here are not exactly wide 3-laners that i'm used to back home. they are 2-laners with a speed limit of 100km/h and are travelled on by mighty Speedy Gonzales-es. i was one too back home, but that's with the security of driving a shiny new car and the urgency of being very late for school.

over here, my Barina coughs and splutters and pleads mercy when we hit 90km/h. the scariest part is, the Tonkin and Leach highways are travelled on by many many trucks. not our friendly-looking Nissan pickups, but monster, BJ-And-The-Bear kind of trucks. like...18-wheeler kind of trucks.

i hope these pictures appear, so you can have an idea of what's racing against me on the road. yup...you read that right...these monster trucks race. as in over here, the left lane is not for slow-coaches or large vehicles. to my horror, these monster trucks and other huge vehicles yang sewaktu dengannya go at at least 100km/h, over-take you if you are going a tad bit slow, or tailgate you to get you to move faster.

being in a beat-up old car and looking at the rear-view mirror to see a big fat boy trailing my a** is not a comforting sight, i tell you. and i'm on the LEFT lane, mind you...nak aku pergi mana lagi?

and once i got lost on the Roe Highway (i was supposed to go left but i went right). i stopped at the road-shoulder and flipped through the street-directory with trembling hands (not very helpful, i tell you). why trembling? cos as each of these big fat boys zoomed past me on the narrow road shoulder my car trembled and shook from their sheer speed and power. damn scary i tell you.

but you live, you learn.

and i start each drive with lots and lots of du'a and baca-baca along the way. :)

 

 

This One's for the Neneks - Ilhan at Play

or was it a kereta tank?

hehe..yup...the title's similar to the previous post, but while that one shows him in 'organised' play, this one sees him at free range (macam free range chickens pulak..i see these in the supermarkets and their eggs are supposed to taste better cos they have more freedom and hence happier...hahaha).

where was i? oh yes...Ilhan.

ok, in these photos you can see him at play at home and at some carnivals we went too where he got his face painted. The painting-lady didn't quite know what the requested Power Rangers-look looks like, so forgive the inaccuracy. Anyway neneks, beginilah keadaan rumah kita sekarang - macam Ilhan's Workshop.

This One's for The Neneks - Ilhan At Playgroup

these are made by putting blobs of paint on the paper and then folding the paper in half so the colour spreads. now, if you look closely at the butterfly open the left, nampak 2 roosters tak? i didn't until ilhan told me...genius! :P

Very long overdue pictures, sorry neneks. I must be blogworld's laziest mum-photographer. Very lazy to take the camera out - if I bring it in the first place - and then very lazy to upload onto the laptop, and then lagi lazy to post. tsk tsk tsk....anyway, gambar-gambar ni tak bagus sangat sebab ambil guna handphone (what else? :P)