SO LONG, 2020

That said, 2020 finally come to an end. Though the elephant in the room (read: COVID-19) is still around like it will never going to leave us anytime soon, but let's not overlook and still be thankful on the good things that also happened this year. I often hear people say that "2020 is cancelled" because of the pandemic. However, i don't think we should think about it that way at all. We should somehow feel grateful than ever because we are part of this pandemic in 2020 and we are still breathing healthily until today. Alhamdulillah. 

To recap, 2020 taught us that we humans are fragile by ourselves. Our strength lies by being part of the community. The virus simply does not choose from one to another. Which showed us how we are all so equal to each other. Like, even if only one person or one small group fail to adhere to the SOP, in turn, it can and might result in an exponential surge of new COVID-19 cases which affect everybody in the region and the country. Crazy how this pandemic really 'forced' us to finally listen, to care, to respect and to tolerate others and everything. Needless to mention, the new norms that already the norms in our everyday basis. The online meetings, work from home, 1 meter apart from each other, wearing face mask all the time, and etc, you list it. And yeah, 2020 was really not just about ourselves. 2020 was about and for all of us. We can all claim that. 

As for myself in person, 2020 is definitely my special year because it's the year i got married to my main man. Other than that, it's the year we got us a new car, Bezza and my first year of running half marathon. Of course there are more little things that were achieved and lost this year. But yeah, Alhamdulillah for everything. I read somewhere, no matter how we ended the year, whether we're running into a bright season or limping across the finish line or crawling our way out of a tough calendar, we are enough and we did it. 

May 2021 be the year we achieve more goals for life and for the hereafter. And may 2021 be a year fully loaded with happiness and success for all us and our families. Here's to a wonderful 2021! InsyaAllah. Bismillah.

HALF MARATHON FINISHER #KLSCM2020

 

I ran my first half marathon! Yayy! What a way to end my 2020! (Though 2020 still have like 17 days to go hehe). My initial goal for 2020 was to participate in run (10km) for at least once in a month. And yeah, because of corona virus, the goal was literally just gone with the wind. Lol. But since i signed up for the gym months before i got married, so i did joined the virtual run, did it on the treadmill and earned myself like 2, 3 medals. 

Thanks to Armira for asking me join the Kuala Lumpur Standard Chartered Marathon 2020 Virtual Run (KLSCM 2020). Tbh, i already saw some of my colleagues, DOSM friends and runners posting here and there about their practices for KLSCM 2020. But you know, you just couldn't care less especially when nobody was asking you to participate haha. And suddenly Mira texted me and asking me to register the run with her and told me that our mutual friend, Puyi already signed up for HM. She also told me that she will do HM as well. 

So i was thinking, since i always told my husband that i feel like i didn't achieve anything new this year (except from getting married), and i also been doing 10km few times already and all okay with it, so why not this time i try to finish 21.1km? I can also do it in my own pace since there's no cut off time as well. So, i persuaded my sister to do it with me and yeah, we signed up for HM. Needless to mention, my sister hated me for it lol. She is actually not really into long distance running especially when she is now already has her own bike that she prefers to cycle more. But whatever though haha. 

We started our practice two weeks before the date. Not everyday but slowly starting from 2km per day, up until 10km. Thanks to Kak Nisa for accompanying me while doing the 10km practice one day before the real deal. Honestly, previously when i was first doing 10km, i never practiced at all. I just signed up for 10km and did it on the day of the event. But that was only 10km. This time it's 21.1km. My mind can be saying that i can do it like crazy, like now or never whatever. But my body might be responding otherwise. So i had to train my body for it so that it will not be shocked like, "the hell gurl? Are you trying to kill us?" hahaha. 

I knew it will take at least 4 hours for me to finish this HM. Honestly, i am not that kind of person who can run fast and non stop for such a long distance. Most of the time i will just brisk walking / walk as fast as i can without stopping. And i am well aware that my pace is nothing to be proud of. But i was and am not even trying to lower my pace at all at this moment. Because i wanted my pace to be steady and correlate with my stamina. I swear i'm no fit as fiddle haha. Plus the main goal was just to double the distance. 

So i started my half marathon at around 8pm. My sister was joining me doing the HM but she was riding her bike. It was raining lightly. I was praying hard for God to let me finish the HM that night and please don't let it rain cats and dogs that we had to stop the activity. Alhamdulillah the weather was good enough for a night run. The first 10km was a-okay. But after the first 10km, i accidentally stepped in a puddle of water that my shoes were all soaked. My feet was also melecet out of the blue maybe because of the size of my socks. But i can still keep on doing it, keeping my goal straight until i reached at 17km. Haha. I swear that was my cut off point. At that time, my positive mindset was all over the places, my feet started to tell me to stop and i also felt like the running apps were not functioning well. Hahaha. I mean, you were already super tired, of course nothing is no longer right or okay for you. 

Somehow the KLSCM 2020 app was a bit off. It was literally like 1.5km behind compared to Strava. Strava recorded that i already done with 21.1km but KLSCM app said that i was not done yet and still have about 1.5km to go. Hm. Deep breath. Lol. Alhamdulillah i finished my first ever HM at around 12.20am. It was all worth it and i am so proud of myself. Phew. To avoid severe sore muscles or to be sick on the next day onwards, that night, i promptly ate two bananas, pop a panadol (because it was raining), drank glasses of water and applied Yoko Yoko on my feet to relieve muscular aches. Alhamdulillah everything was well and okay even on the next day. 

Here's to more positive achievements and good memories. May we always have the will to do and experience new things in the future. InsyaAllah. 

HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY AS A HUSBAND!

 

Happy 27th Birthday & Happy 1st Birthday as a husband to my person! I am grateful that we managed to spend the birthday weekends together though i was kinda pissed in the beginning because we supposed to have our staycation at Cyberview Resort & Spa but the the resort didn't mentioned to us earlier that they don't accept any bookings during this CMCO. Thank God we knew about this when we were still at home since i was absentmindedly browsing the resort's website at that time. Or i will be more pissed. Haha. We ended up having our staycation at Marriott Putrajaya instead. The foods were good. Our tummies were good, so we're good. 

We also got to celebrate your birthday with your very closed friends, Senyumers at Blonde, Damansara. Were planning to surprise you but obviously i was the who screwed it all hahaha but whatever. I am beyond happy that you have your small circle of friends who are very closed and dear to you since you guys were kids until today. And i also feel lucky because they too accept me to squeeze in the circle that we get to blend very well together. May this friendships last forevermore. Amin YRA.

So, happy birthday to you, Affiq Emara! One year older and wiser. The best things are yet to come. InsyaAllah. Amin YRA. I definitely owe you black pepper beef but till our next meeting with each other xx

P/S: I'm so homesick at this moment. The last time we balik kampung was on the day we got married. That was literally like more than a month ago. I never even once balik kampung to Batu Pahat yet. This RMCO sucks, but may Allah ease this pandemic for us all. Amin YRA.

HOW IT ALL STARTED

Everybody has their own version of how their relationships started. Some may have already known each other since kids, some just met and suddenly get married, some got married because their parents match them together and many other versions of love story. I've always wanted to write it here about how me and Affiq Emara met. But i guess, the best time is when we already got married. Hehe. So yeah. Here's our story.

So, Emara told me that his first time saw me was actually on our mutual friend, Shazana Hashim's Instagram account. He saw me in a picture probably taking selfie with Zana but he didn't do anything at that time. Instead, he tried to approach me on Twitter and pretended as if he first saw Zana on one of my tweets. Haha. That was his very first move i guess.

Zana was Emara's primary school friend and she was my Diploma and Degree classmate. At that time, i remember asking Zana about him and Zana was like "tak payah lah piqah dia ni" hahaha. I've always believed in Zana's judgement so yeah, nothing about him deserved my attention at that time. Especially when i was also on a phase that i was way too comfortable with being single and not in the mood of being with anyone at all at that time. 

Over the time, all Emara did was replying to my tweets one after another. But being my old self, i felt nothing but annoyed with him. He was like, always there every time i was on Twitter. I saw his tweets asking about statistics lah or replied to my tweets like yknow. I even hated him for a while back then because i was so rimas with him. But somehow, i still replied to his tweets occasionally and never blocked him for real which i never know why.

And oh, after we were already together, Emara told me that when he asked me about where i live and i said that i live in Rantau, he said that he actually Googled on Rantau to ask me about the Eco Park just to keep the conversation going. Lol. Okay now suddenly it's cute. Kbye. 

Tbh, the "udara ni tak segar tanpa awak" is one of the most things that i remember about him. It was cringed af at that time but it just stucked on my mind. I swear at that time, i just see him as someone who was just playing around and if i rejected him, one way or another, he will surely go to chase another girl and i will be gone from his mind in no time. That was my solid opinion about him.

I can't remember how long he was trying to get my attention on Twitter. But what i really remember was, he moved on from Twitter to Instagram where he suddenly followed me on Instagram and i followed him back. On Instagram, he was far less annoying since he was not trying so hard to hit on me like he did previously on Twitter. All he did was just replying to my Instagram stories as a good friend and asked about random things that our common friends will ask. So i had no reason to hate him at that time. And yeah, we became friends somehow. 

Until one day, when i was doing my part time job at Shell, Emara suddenly dm-ed me and told me that he will be coming to Shell to see me the next day. And i was like, "erk, no (?)" that i didn't even reply to his dm hoping that he understand my silence and never came. Because dude, we barely know each other and what conversation do you expect us to have when we are looking in each others' eyes? Awkward. So, no. Just no.

But he was persistent. The next day, he really came to my workplace. Lol. The moment i saw him from afar, i just ran into the store room to hide like a freak. Hahaha. I remember how my Shell friends were all confused of what happened at that time. I even monitored him from the CCTV hoping that he will leave ASAP, but he ended up waiting for me for like an hour, idk. It was one of the longest time in my life. No lie.

I even called Sarah and Zana and told them like, "Emara is seriously no joke lah man". At that time, Zana even laughed and teased me saying, "tak apa, nanti ada juga kenangan untuk cerita kat anak cucu". And i was like, "Hell no Zana! Please lah no!". Hahaha. How time is a funny thing. And so, on that day, Emara just went home without seeing me at all. Poor him and i did feel sorry about him but i don't even feel like apologizing to him at all at that time. Sigh. I was such a monster. 

Time passed by, and suddenly on 2018 when my birthday was coming, Emara dm-ed me and told me that he bought me a birthday present, which was obviously nothing for me to be excited about. Lol. It was out of the blue, so i just thanked him and told him to just post out the present to me. But he insisted to meet me and give the present to me by himself. After contemplating with Sarah whether to see him or not, and Sarah also insisted me to see him, so yeah, i decided to just do it and go see him for dinner. 

Our first meeting was at Pak Li Kopitiam, Seksyen 7, Shah Alam. He gave me a Naelofar Sajada for my birthday (which we still use until today). And i gave him a luggage tag from Typo. I bought the luggage tag because i don't want to just meet him and let him go home with empty hands since i already knew that the purpose we were seeing each other was for him to give me my birthday present. When i bought that luggage tag, i remember having a thought that, if this were the first and the last time i meet him, at least i was not going to be the bad, ungrateful girl who just receive things and never give anything back.  

But turned out the meeting went really well that i absentmindedly liked him and his personality right at that time. And yeah, i learned something on that day. All of these times, i saw him as someone really really annoying and i thought that there's no way on earth i can even be close with him. But when i met him in person, i realized that he is actually a good person and easy to talk with irl.

And our first face to face conversation was not awkward at all unlike from what i predicted to be. We had our good small talk that evening and before we went home, Emara asked for my number (because all this while he just reached me through Twitter and Instagram).

And the rest as they say, is history.  

This photo was taken when Emara graduated with his Degree on 2018. It was one of the earliest photos of us together. Here's to more photos of us in the future and here's to the rest of our lives. Thank you for approaching me in the first place and never left ever since. I love you, husband. 

AFFIQ X AFIQAH

We are married! Alhamdulillah! I've been anxiously waiting for this day since forever. It's not just about getting married itself but also because of the Covid-19 pandemic. I was really worried if the lockdown is happening right before our wedding date that we have to postpone our wedding. But alhamdulillah everything went really well and smoothly.

My wedding preparations were not all plain sailing. I believe that everybody had their own hiccups with their weddings and mine was the preparation. The initial plan was to invite a total of 1700 guests but due to the pandemic, our guests were reduced down to only 300 guests. And the initial plan was also to nikah on the Friday night (2/10/2020) and the reception on Saturday (3/10/2020). But in the end, we combined both ceremony only on the 3rd October 2020. And alhamdulillah everything was all okay, almost perfect and i couldn't be happier about it.  

Thanks to our Tok Kadi, Ustaz Shamsuri as well for being as supportive and ease everything for us regarding the nikah matter. All we did was just submitting the borang nikah to him and then just meet him on the nikah day for the solemnization. Simple as that. No tricky questions for the groom, no fuss, no nothing. May Allah bless Ustaz Shamsuri.

Also thank you to our family for being so understanding about the pandemic situation. We had to cut down a large number of people who can actually attend the wedding. The feeling was awful but we had to it for the sake of everybody's health and safety. Many thanks to those who helped us with the preparation of the wedding, gave us wedding presents and everything. Thank you to our family and our closed friends for being there. I appreciate every one of it. May Allah bless all of you for eternity.  

To my family; especially my dad, my mom and my sister, do not worry for i am still the same me. There's no such thing as me going somewhere else or to the other side of the world just because i got married. I will still love you the way i was (even better) and pray that i will grow to be a wiser and stronger woman starting from now on. InsyaAllah. Amin YRA. To my in laws, i promise that i will take care of Affiq Emara like how i take care of myself. And i will make sure that his love for his family will never go any lesser. InsyaAllah.

To my husband, Affiq Emara, may our unity makes us more of we are and not less. May our love grows each day and we lift each other's soul for the better. May we both tolerate and complete each others' life until the end of time. We've come a long way and have a longer way to go. I pray that this marriage will hold us to our darkest hours, encourage us through days and nights, may we forever see each other as a blessing and may this marriage unites us in Jannah. InsyaAllah Amin YRA. 

And for our honeymoon, we decided to just go for 3 days staycation of sun and fun by the sea at Avillion Port Dickson and Lexis Hibiscus Port Dickson. It was worth every penny. And we were both really happy. Though all we really did was just eat and eat and sleep. Hahaha. We are not going to live together for the time being since i'll be at Putrajaya and my husband is working and living at Melaka until i don't know when. But we will get through it together. Please pray that everything will just be fine for both of us. InsyaAllah. 

MY BACHELORETTE PARTY

My most anticipated bachelorette party was finally here! And it was exactly like how i imagined it would be - full of happiness. Thank you to my bestest friends, Sarah Yazmin, Maryam Sabri, Anis Syafiqah, Farhah Adilah and Fatin Aluwi for making it happened. They rented a whole condo at Parkland Residence, Melaka. They decorated the condo, bought me the plain hot pink baju kelawar that i like the most, put me on the black lacey bride to be sash, cooked for me and served me with lots of foods and cakes, and finally, surprised me with the most awaited wedding present which is the steamed iron and the ice blender. Thank you my girls and may Allah shower these girls with his endless blessings. 

We also celebrated Paah's birthday on that day and celebrated Sarah as she will be a mom very soon (May Allah ease everything for Sarah's pregnancy. Amin YRA). It was a all stress free and gave me time to really have that 'last' fun weekends with my girls as a bachelorette. Thanks to these girls of mine. Can't wait for the next bachelorette party and sleepover. InsyaAllah. 

Just when i thought my bachelorette party at Melaka was all i can get, Ainul and Anis sent me this bouquet and cute cake at my doorstep right after i came back from Melaka. Baby's breath is definitely my favorite flower and the look at the cute cake! It's like, okay, i am really going to get married guys. This time is for real haha. Actually i already knew about this surprise because my sister literally just told me about it hahaha. But i was still surprised though. I thought Ainul bought something from Shopee (idk) and sent it to me. And i didn't expect it will be from Ainul and Anis both. Haha. But either way, i love the surprise. Thank you Ainul and Anis. God bless you two. 

And last but not least, thanks to my colleagues for celebrating me and gave me wedding presents before my wedding. Haha. Thank you to Kak Asmeh, Kak Ies, Kak Wani, Asma, Ainin and Farhana for the air fryer and tudung saji bertingkat. Honestly before i was getting married and seeing people who got married getting their wedding presents one after another, i always thought that nobody will ever give me wedding presents. I was like, it's okay though. At least i still have my closest friends for me to 'force' them to give me wedding presents lol. The rest doesn't really matter and i shall be okay. Haha. But alhamdulillah for these good people of mine. It was a total surprise and i am really thankful for them. Not forgotten, to Ainaa, Kakwin, Kak Nisa and Ezzati for buying me a dinner and celebrating me as well. I love it all; the chocolate air balloon, the bride to be sash and the cute flower crown. They have been planning this since last week but all of us had been busy with everything so yesterday it is. Alhamdulillah. Jazakallahu khairan. 

P/S: Me and my fiance will be getting married in 10 3 days time. I pray that the wedding day goes very smoothly and i hope it will be a blessed day in every way. May Allah ease the wedding for us. And may He protect the solemnization and the wedding from anything harmful and anything that we hope to never happen. InsyaAllah. Amin YRA.

POPULATION AND HOUSING CENSUS OF MALAYSIA

So, everyone at my workplace has been busy and are all busy at least until end of October 2020 because of the Malaysia Population and Housing Census (MyCensus 2020). For those who never heard about this, MyCensus 2020 is a census project that will be carried out in all housing and residential areas throughout Malaysia in the year of 2020 which is this year. It is the sixth census carried out since the formation of Malaysia in 1963. The main objective of MyCensus 2020 is to compile the total coverage and profile of the population, households and living quarters in Malaysia with a wide range of demographic and socio-economic characteristics to the smallest area. The latest and comprehensive census data will be a key and important source for the preparation of the National Development Plan. 

There are two phases of MyCensus 2020 which are; virtually (7.7.2020 - 30.9.2020) and face to face (7.10.2020 - 24.10.2020). The virtual phase is which the respondents will answer in the questionnaires either online (e-Census) or by Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI). For e-Census, it's either you will receive a postcard at your home to tell you to login to the web and answer the e-Census questionnaire before 30.9.2020. Or if you didn't get any postcard at your doorstep that you wish to do e-Census instead of the face to face interview, you can also log in on your own at the e-Census website. And fret not, if you didn't get the postcard or even don't feel like answering the questionnaire online, the enumerators will come to your house starting from 7.10.2020 until 24.10.2020 for you to do your part to being a good Malaysia citizen and complete the MyCensus 2020. 

There are many more details about this MyCensus 2020 that this blog might be like at least 10 pages long if i explain all of them here. So, if you want to know and read more about this census, you can either browse the website or MyCensus2020 Facebook page for daily updates. If you are Malaysians, or already live in Malaysia for at least 6 months in 2020, make sure you are counted because your data is our future. And please don't worry about data breach because all information collected are strictly confidential and will not be disclosed. #StatsMalaysia #MyCensus2020 #LeaveNoOneBehind