First purchase for My Precious

Upon entering my second trimester, my baby bump started showing already, which also means.. I need maternity pants!

Very unfortunate for petite like BFF Maria and me, Mothercare and Modern Mum do not have our size! Discrimination!!

But fortunatey, BFF Maria got pregnant first before me. So she knew where to buy stuff already, I just follow her lead.

Since I'm getting better nowadays, Love and I shopped for my maternity clothing at Alamanda on Saturday. But then, we saw this..



Baby cot idaman sebab colour putih and adjustable and cost us ony RM200! Kat Carrefourre ok!

So terus beli :)

The next day, we went to Baby Fair at Ampang Point.

And we found this Nike romper, comel bangat!



So.. there goes, the first item and the first baju..

Kapal and Ikeen Fly to Seoul

I just got back from Korea, y'all!!!~

Of course travelling as a pregnant woman makes it a bit harder (plus the threatened abortion I had), I had a bag of medicine to bring with me, but Alhamdulillah, I was so fine there. I vomitted only once during my whole journey, syukur.

Our initial itenary could not be used due to my condition. So i let mum in law (MIL) and her brother, Wey Samchun (WSC) to decide our itenary. Here goes..

First day

6 and a half hours of flight using Air Asia X for pregnant woman made it very tiring for me. Lesson learned: First, hot seat for more leg room. Second: Seat near toilet due to frequent urination. Third: Day flight makes me constantly hungry and the food provided were not sufficient for me, probably cuz I ate for two.

I got stucked for almost half an hour in immigration due to what they called "computer error". Had to undergone a thorough checkup, it seemed that the immigration in Korea is a bit strict, but Alhamdulillah.. I managed to get through.

We stayed at WSC's house, have to get used of the floor's and the bed's heater. Temeprature was 7 degrees celcius the first day.

Second day

National Museum of Korea

Admission is free. It is divided to three floors. First: historical gallery. Second: Fine arts gallery and third: sculpture and craftwork gallery. I wouldn't say it was really that exciting, but I just love museum, so if you're not a big fan of museum, you'll find it as just another ordinary museum you ever visited.

Lunch

The restaurant inside the national museum does not served any pork. Mind the word restaurant, not 'foodcourt'. We ordered bibimbap (rice with all sorts of vege and eggs) and seafood pancake. Price ranges between 7000 won to 10000 won. (Exchange rate: 1000 won = RM3).



War Museum

Admission is also free, maybe more exciting than the national museum, my verdict.




Ittaewon



We were given exactly an hour to shop by WSC in this place which for me is the equivalent of our Sg Wang. I found one (and only) halal restaurant here in Korea. I bought my winter boot here, some strawberries, some shirts and jerseys for my family and Love bought his socks and his extremely big shoes since we couldn't find his size in Malaysia. His size is US 15 btw.

Winter clothings are way cheaper here compared to Malaysia. Zara pun murah. But surprisingly, the price of Korean strawberry here is the same as price in Malaysia :( Mahal! Good news is, Ittaewon is THE ONLY place where the salesperson can speak English.

Dinner

Had dinner near WSC's house in Seoungnam. Noodles with lots of seafood, pedas!!!

Third day

Korean's Folks Village

Highlight of the trip!!! Korean's folks village :) My favourite. Must goooo!!! Admission is 15 000 won for adult.

Lunch

Korean's folks village's foodcourt. Organic shop, so they don't serve pork. We had some Mee suah and again, seafood pancake (the best!)

E-mart

Shop around WSC's house. Tengok ni, no plastic bag, no shopping bag, pack your stuff with the box prvided.



Dinner

Again, at Seoungnam, a restaurant where they served only fish. We had grilled mackarel together with MIL's sister, Immo and her daughter and MIL's cousin, Komo.

Fourth day

Drizzling the whole day. According to the news, the rain was contaminated with radioactive from Japan. Tawakkal..

Namdaemun

The cheapest place to buy souvenirs (in bulk). But they don't speak English at all, pftt.. So I was like, "Olmayeyo?"(How much). And when the salesperson mentioned some numbers in Korean that I did not understand I'd be like, "Omma!! Help!!"

Lunch

Had lunch at one of the stalls in Namdaemun that sells vege and seafood (tempura).



Visiting relatives

Went to visit one of Love's grandmother, Komo Halmeni and one of his close uncle, Majangdong Samchun, where we fell in love with this little girl, Na Hyeon.

Dinner

Dinner at Majangdong, Bono-Bono Japanese seafood restaurant. This one is on the house since the cousing worked there. Tengok ni, they ate gold (real gold).




Fifth and final day

Our last typical breakfast. Kat sana pagi, petang, siang, malam makan nasi. Nasib baik dah familiar with all the food there, MIL selalu serve during weekend bila she's in Malaysia.




Had Domino's for lunch, the only pizza we found without meat. Even the seafood pizza pun ada bacon. This is vegetarian pizza with tapioca, pineapple, tomato and corn, weird combiation, tapi best!

Had the rest of the day for just the two of us. Walked along the Seoungnam street, had some coffee..

And finally we had to say goodbye. Sedihnye, both of us cried in the airport. Everyone been taking a good care of us. Tak naik bas sekali pun. Semua WSC hantar :(


If in Singapore, I lerned to respect, because the people there are super duper friendly and very respectful to others. In Thailand, I learned to appreciate what we have in Malaysia. In Korea... I definitely learned to love. Regardless of the different language, the different skin tone, I feel so loved here.


I WANT TO GO THERE AGAIN!


Thank you Wey Samchun, thank you Omma for everything. See you in Malaysia very soon :) This journey brought me closer to my MIL and Love's family, Alhamdulillah.

Preparation to KOREAAAAAAA!!!

Since my last entry sucks, let's talk about something fun.

Another exciting news I received after I got back from Columbia Asia is that I am allowed to fly to Korea!!! Went to Az Zahra for a second opinion, and yay!!

4 more days to gooooo... Right after receiving the news, Love and I went to Winter Time to do some shopping.

According to MIL, it's still snowing in Korea, can you imagine, it's March already. Last Friday, it was -6 to 4 degrees celcius. :( I was not a big fan of winter. With 18 degrees pon, I'll be in my sweater and pashmina and socks and still shaking.

Some of the stuff I bought last Sunday..

Can't waitttt!!

The only thing that might hold me back is the fact that I'm gonna miss my boss a.k.a supervisor's farewell party.

Don't worry she's not leaving anywhere, just that she got promoted to deputy dean and hence no longer our HOD.

Sedihnyeeee... How could I miss such party for one of the most important person in my life... :'(

One thing for sure though, no one can ever ever EVER EVER replace her. What should I buy for her in Korea?

Btw, Kapal's phone akan roaming kat sana, if ada anything nak order from there, just drop us a message!

Enough

Very TYPICAL reasons students come and see lecturers after final examination..

1) Minta markah kesian dengan alasan, "I lost my loved ones this sem, so I couldn't perform." Every single semester mesti ada without miss.

2) Minta markah extra dengan alasan kawan2 yang lain semua tiru masa assignment, dia buat sendiri walaupun markah teruk. Berani kutuk kawan depan lecturer you, nampak sangat backstabber!

3) Begged for marks sebab CGPA teruk, kalau turun lagi scholar tak dapat sambung.

4) Tak dapat hantar thesis sebab busy sangat dengan final. Ye, memang lecturer you semua tak pernah kena hantar thesis lepas final ye.

5) Haritu tak hantar project sebab thumbdrive hilang, computer reformat. Baru terhegeh2 nak hantar sebab dah tau final susah. And so, I end up with this..

Tu pun masih ada yang ketuk non-stop nak pecah bilik, berani sungguh.

My precious

I was born an engineer.

I knew I would end up in engineering one day, so in high school, instead of taking Biology like what people normally did, I took Lukisan Kejuruteraan.

Downside is I am totally helpless in stuff like estrogen, progesteron, chromosome, whatever fancy terms that even the name sounds scary!

And having a husband who took biology, who somehow ends up totally clueless like me is not at all helping.

So we were glad that the fate brought us to Dr. Silvam, a specialist in Columbia Asia hospital. (Our first option was Az-Zahra and An-Nur, both were fully booked last Saturday).

And as an engineer, nothing I love better than numbers and statistics and graphs and those were the things that Dr. Silvam managed to present in order to explain to us about the very basic thing of pregnancy and morning sickness.

He said that once you're conceived, chances are 85% it will formed perfectly, so regardless whether you're bleeding or what not, by God's will the baby will be delivered safely. Another 15% are the chances that you will have a miscarriage because the baby is not formed as norm.

And after a long thorough nervewrecking check up, our baby falls under the 85% category because..

.

Awww!! Can you see the head (on the left hand side) and the body (on the right hand side) inside the black thing that looks like peanut (my uterus i guess). The heart is beating ever so healthily.

While the doctor let us watched this precious for what seemed like the best moment of my life, the baby actually moved to various positions, letting us see his/her every angle. The placenta, the food ring.

My eyes were fixed at the screen, the heartbeat!! Who would have thought a two months old baby already have a heartbeat!!.

That's my baby.. growing inside my tummy.. *wipes tears*.

The last final

Had my last final paper on Tuesday. Hopefully this is really the last because during undergrad, I thought I had my last paper already, but then after about 3 years without any major examination, I had another one for PhD.


My last exam ticket

Anyway, the question for my exam last Tuesday was nothing technical. More of like asking your opinion on Ethics, on leadership in doing research, etc. Then write an essay about it.

One question caught my interest though. About whether you consider an academic achievement as the main requirement to undertake a research project.

Hmmmpphh... Tough question.

I answered yes but not the only requirement.

I personally think you must also have really strong determination, equally much (or maybe more) than your academic achievement.

I don't consider myself as a brilliant student during undergrad. I skipped classes whenever the lecturer bore me, I even skip classes now that I'm doing my PhD and a lecturer myself (not proud of it). I sat at the very end row, I hated exams and I only received my Dean's list once during my final semester which I believed my FYP project contributed much for that.

Truth is, you can't judge a student by his or her examination marks. I mean, our exam questions are too memorization-based. Which engineer in the world would still memorize that long equations once they are working, we still refer to Dr. Google anyway. Understanding the concept in a whole is more important, and hence you can't hundred percent judge a student by their marks.

And the ability to understand and analyze are so important in research; you have to consistently ask yourselves why this and why that. Many of my students seem to understand a concept just the way it is. Like the fact that wireless network is more fragile than wired network. But they never asked why. Hence, they just memorize the fact that way.

How are you going to do a research if like that? In research, curiosity helps.

Passion helps. The first time I started to do research, I was given two options; on RF and on Optical, I fell in love with the one in optical although my basic background is more to RF. Eventually, when you love something, you'll be curious about something and you always want to learn more.

Determination helps. You must want something that badly to have it. Because even if you're clueless about something, with determination, you can have the spirit to go on.

To end this, for me, academic achievement is not everything. What matters is your effort in everything pun. And doa pun termasuklah dalam part of the effort. :) Just my two cents.

A little nudge..

Had a tiring day last Friday. Been busy with appointments from my students. Had to skip breakfast, accidentally skipped some medication, had my first meal around 12.30, rushed to presentation’s room where all the drama became too overwhelming, I just had to go out of the room for a while.

Done with presentation, Love was there waiting for me since he worked half day. Bought some tea, rushed home and headed to IOI to watch Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa which was superb btw.

9.30pm, still no dinner yet. The only food I ate for the day was my lunch and some fried banana. Which was unusual because my pregnancy and morning sickness demanded me to have at least 8 meals a day.

I started feeling sick on the way back from IOI. The moment the car stopped outside the house, I vomited like I never did before. Over and over without any sign of stopping, then I felt a tummy cramp that hurts like hell.

Held to my seat belt and said to Love, “Sayang.. I tak larat..”

That was when I felt some discharge.

With all the energy I had left, I rushed to the toilet and felt like my world turned upside down. I went out of the toilet, held Love’s hand and said, “Sayang.. Bleeding..”

We tried to remain calm. Doctor once told us to quickly lie down if such thing happens, I did as he said while having some meal for my dinner. Then, we rushed to Az Zahra.

And during the long silence journey, I started to lose it. Tried calling BFF Maria, no one picked up. Started crying, and called Mum. Mum was in PJ, she said she would meet me at the hospital. And I cried the whole journey.

Love tried calming me down but I was down with my own thoughts. I couldn’t bear the thought of anything happened to my baby. I wanted this so badly..

Arrived at Az Zahra, I was attended in less than 5 minutes. Did ultrasound for the first time. To my relief the Dr. said my baby is still there. But he couldn’t give predictive value as on how safe the baby was. He couldn’t give any medication also. He needed me to rest. As of that time, threaten of miscarriage was very minor, but he asked me to monitor if bleeding still occur for another 2 days. "If the blood looks fresh, it’s not a good sign. If it’s black in colour, then you're getting better."

I have to be warded for two days.

But, I told the doctor I’d rather rest at home. At that point, there was nothing I wanted more other than support from my parents and my hubby. Being warded would not help that much.

Of course mum and Love were not happy with my decision.

But, Alhamdulillah, today is Day 2, and I’ve had enough rest, both baby and me have been healthy. Doakan.

My mum in law threw a visit this evening with my favourite Korean dish and favourite dish from my grandmother in law. She told me, “To get a baby, is not that easy.”

I know now.

And I will fight until my last drop of blood for this.

But whatever it is, it could have been worse. This is after all just a little nudge from the Almighty. And for that, Alhamdulillah..