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Raya was a grand event..for the first time Atuk's house was complete with all 26 relatives (1 Atuk, 7 daughters, 4 son in laws and 14 grandchildren)...
and yes we Malaysians fasted for a whole 30 days.. unlike my comrades in England who only did 29 .. :D

So its the 4th day of Syawal and Im back in the office.. At the moment theres only 6 people here.. including the cleaning lady.. i guess the others are still busy with their lemang's and ketupats.

anyway, to most Raya means celebrating after a month of fasting and.. about forgiveness and all that... but here is what raya means to me...

Raya is :

i) when all the aunties.. uncles.. cousins.. go out sesudah subuh, to meredah all the traffic to get back to kampung...

ii) when my uncle and and us cousins ranging from 40 years old.. to 27 down to 14 years old play tuju selipar in the front yard while waiting for buka puasa on raya eve

iii) when a giant lipan creeps into the kitchen freaking out all the makciks..and children.. while the cool atuk squishes it with a roll of paper..

iv) when the pressure cooker is tension because it has to cook to much daging.. that it bursts out hot steam ..splatting the walls with pieces of tender meat.. and yet again freaking out all the makciks.. and becomes this years peristiwa hari raya yg tak dapat saya lupakan..

vi) when us cousins get busy hanging the pelita all over the place and even make our own panjutusing bamboo.

vi) when us cousins with some secret help from our dads gets supplies of mercun roket, mercun mancis, mercun naga, mercun lebah, mercun bola, mercun .. mercun .. mercun.. and bunga api and then have a sound war with the next door neighbours.. seeing who can make the loudest noise or the better fireworks display.

vii) when we wake up early on the morning of Hari Raya to have a big family breakfast..go to visit the kubur.. come back and fight over the toilet ...as everyone is in a rush to get ready for the Sembahyang raya..

viii) when we crowd around.. to salam with all the aunties and uncles.. and while the children get green packets.. while u sit there watching... not all the adults give duit raya to u with the excuse that u are already working... when the truth is u havent even got ure first pay check..

ix) when ure handphone inbox is jammed up with all these creative raya wishes ..

x) when u get weird phone calls from all over... such as... "zzzt... krrkk. krrrk... hello... krrk.... kenal.. krkk.. zzzt.. tak..... ni.. zzt.. karem..krk". " hello?? .. zzt. sape nih?...krrk.. hello?" toot.. toot.. tooot.. toot..
or sms's yg berbunyi nada riak.. sbb ada orang raya awal..

As I stand amidst my colleagues as they salam, hugging each other asking for forgiveness… I get a certain ackward feeling..

As they walk out the door…giving their last farewells …
I just stand there…smiling politely..

Yes.. I do salam them too.. I do wish them a hearty Raya..
But the feeling is different… like an outsider.. like a stranger...
..........................................

So have a wonderful eid people...Hope ure Ramadhan was put to full use..
Frogive me for any wrongly writings
to the ones close to my heart.. mintak maap segala... halal kan makan minum eh....

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri

~Maaf Zahir Batin~

Do u guys notice the different smell in the air lately? No .. its not the foul smell of the rubbish swept by the rain.. nor Cik Minah sebelah rumah's cooking.. but. its that RAYA smell.. to be more exact .. Deeparaya..yes the Hindus are celebrating Deepavali on Thursday..and 3 days after that insyaAllah we muslims will be celebrating eid..
Like always.. the dark night sky is decorated with colourful lights and the usually quiet neighbourhood is shaken by the sound of mercun..I dont know whether ive missed too many STAR newspapers but i havent yet read about any burnt fingers or misshapen limbs...
Anyway I cant wait for Raya..I feel like a 10 year old kid.. excited about wearing her new baju kurung.. about the green packets filled with gold...or the ketupats and lemangs..
when the real truth is ...im not even getting any duit raya( yerlaa.. kata dah kerja). I only have one new baju raya.. and Im not even sure wether we will be able to make lemang this year with all the rain going on..but then again.. its my first raya at home.... and the feeling is just a bit different..
################# Its my second week at work.. and today i was given the important task of compiling some documents to form a booklet for our team of directors..Okaylah.. I was part of the compiling team..anyhow it turned out well and I managed to make 8 copies of some document ....i was a bit gabit at first and kept printing out the wrong page.. the wrong sequence..the wrong document.. urgh...but in the end.. after wasting about nearly a rim of paper.. i finally completed the task..
...Ive even received my free copy of the company diary. today. Naiiiceee.........purple colour..
Anyway tomorrow is my last day of working before my raya hollidays.. wee heee.. cant wait..

Its gonna be a good day i think..

[1] for starters.. Ive just figured an ingenious way to get to know my colleagues.. I guess its quite easy to approach them as a majority of them are girls.. but i cant say that having a majority of women colleagues are better then a majority of men colleagues as I have worked in places where i was the only woman. In that case although it was really weird at first but i got to know the guys quite fast as normally they were the ones who would take the initiative to say hi... but with woman colleagues its a bit slower as i have to take the effort to make contact. And although i have a lot of fun with the guys.. but its easy and comfortable with the girls ..So there’s a give and take....

[2] I am now surfing the net freely.. no more hiding. I ve realized that they also know that i dont have anything to do.. so i just do what ever i want. However.. i was a bit dumbfounded just now when the Big Boss came to my desk asking me what ive done so far....takuuuutt...

[3] I think they may have gone tired of seeing me doing nothing but surf the net as they actually gave me some petty job to do..but no matter how petty it may seem i was eager to execute the task.. Anything is better than just playing the internet all day... ( waittaminute... what am i saying??? I may have gone bonkers with all the boredom.. everyone knows how much i LOVE surfing)

[4] Most of the executives here are really pretty...

[5] even my big boss is someone who im sure is pretty handsome during his youth. Even at an old age he still looks dashing..

Scene 1:
Although it may sound absurd but to me one of the worst things about going to work besides having to wake up early is not having anything to do... at all !!
staring at an internet-less computer or pieces of paper which makes no sense at all is certainly mind- numbing..

So here I am.. pretending to be busy..If u think i didnt take any action to solve this problem.... then ure mighty wrong..I actually went twice to my supervisors ( which i would say arent the friendliest of peoples ) for any work.. but was shrugged of with some excuses...

luckily today .. ive equipped my self with a cd of my favourite songs and copy of Bill Bryson's Notes From A Small Island ...

forward scene 1 by a few hours.......

alas .. alas.... I have figured out a way to access the internet.. hellelujah!..so hope is not lost...
I may still survive this one month.....

so here i am.. updating my blog.. while glancing nervously around in case somebodies watching and at the same time clicking on the company's web page every now and again...

next mission : To figure out how to make YM and MSN Messenger work.. Dont worry...Ill keep things posted..