Dr Umi called me this afternoon telling I should prepare for the mock presentation of my project .. tomorrow! >.<
So now I’m preparing the power point slides.. though for past 3 hours I’ve been stuck at the very first slide.. T_T
…
Although I had no space to write in the Acknowledgement, I must also not forget my dear little friends, Bunny, Pucca, Garu, Camque, Ellgina, and Moo-moo.. for accompanying me in this boring deserted campus for past 1.5 years. I cant wait to get out of here already! >.< Thank you from my heart & my soul.
Yours truly.
Let me tell you one of the proofs that my mind isn’t working properly these days.
After a few private messages back and forth with a few online sellers at LYN forum, today I found a rather good deal of Lumix TZ10 model, and even better, he got one in stock with brown color. So I was confident that I’m getting it, despite I didnt aim for TZ10 before this as it was the most expensive currently among the TZ series and I dont actually need the GPS function. But anyways. And my serviced apartment business is getting well lately and I’ve actually gained some good bucks with customers I got from my website whom I outsourced to some other apartment owners. I mean, apart the amount deserved by my mum as the owner of ours, the rest is totally my wages! :D So that’s the reason I feel the itch to get a rather neat camera now, especially I want to declare it as a gift upon finishing my master’s project ^_^ (or maybe, it’s our (me and Az) gift to ourselves.. as he apparently wants to pay half for it :P)
Okay the thing I meant to tell you was, this seller didnt provide delivery by mail, so I was thinking to ask Az to pick up the camera at his shop in KL. And when I was replying his msg, I wrote “Okay, after I do payment I will ask my bf to collect the camera as I’m in Penang.” and I paused, thinking should just I write friend instead of boyfriend in this message? Nah, he’s my boyfriend lah so I’d just write bf ^_^ and sent the message, got reply from the seller that I need to describe my bf when he comes to collect so that he wont pass the camera to a wrong person, etc etc.
And I called Az happily telling that I was determined to buy the camera now, and I told the same thing I wrote to the seller.. “I informed the seller that I’d ask my boyfriend to collect the camera, bla, bla, bla.. so you can go sg wang or not?, bla, bla..”
Okay, and 4-5 hours passed, and only just now I realized.
OMG, he’s not my boyfriend, he’s my fiance T_T
OMG OMG. I have a fiance, why I forgot one? Adoi..
I cant even be sure that for these few hours I’ve forgotten the fact that Az has been my fiance since almost two months.. maybe I have always forgotten it all times!! >.< except only when I was reminded in a way or another during our phone conversation, or the wedding stuff my mum has been talking to me, etc etc, but I have to admit that it’s not firmly registered in my mind yet, the fact that I’m engaged to Az. Does this happen to other people too?
Is this a crime, this silly forgetness? And does it actually matter? Maybe not much, but suddenly I cant help but feel bad, for forgetting such simple thing yet BIG fact, especially I know that Az likes to mention every now and then, addressing me as his fiance.
Or maybe I’m just too overloaded with Fuzzy readings and writing right now so I myself have been fuzzified with transition of having a boyfriend and having a fiance. (though when I think again, it was also fuzzy during transition of friend and boyfriend before, no?).
I do feel sorry, to anyone who has a fiance like me.. and to Az, I’m so sorry and it wasnt intended but you have to face the fact that you have a forgetful fiance. I just hope that it wont happen in future that I would forget that I have a husband.. heh. Otherwise it would be really weird, I guess.
I’m thinking to get a new camera, or actually, two cameras at the moment.
First, Holga 120CFN, which I cant help but fall in love with lomo square photos that it makes with 120 format film. Examples you can see on Ana’s tumblr. It took me alot of studies on internet to find out the features of each and every Holga model gives you. I know that it might be hard to develop 120 format films here (and in fact, it’s been AGES since we stopped using the old school film camera, no? We no longer go to photo shop unless to take a passport photo :P) just now I feel the itch with these lomography thing, and a Holga looks so fun to play with! It’s a toy camera afterall ^_^
I have to get Holga 135 film adapter kit as well in case I’d like to use normal 35mm film, and developing printing for regular format is cheaper too. Developing a film roll will be around RM5, and a RM7-RM8 to let them scan the negative and burn into a CD or your flash drive. It’s not about printing the photos yet. I learn that printing a 3R photo (regular size) is less than 40sen, but a square photo would cost you RM1 each! Then again, I can choose only best square pics to print. Yes, I need to print my photos! What’s the point of doing analog film photo if I keep only the digital images of its negative scans?
Holga close-up lens kit. I dont know why but I want to experiment with these :)
All above I’m getting from HolgaCamera.Net at USD73! (no, not buying yet, still holding on >.<)
And second, a digital compact. After my first Ben-Q digicam got broken, I’ve been using my 2mp Nokia camera phone for 2 years for all quick snaps and it’s been perfect (almost all pictures you’ve seen in this blog thanks to my Nokia). But it’s time I need a new proper camera. I found out these TZ models from Valerie who owns a TZ5, and the TZ series are best known for the superzoom, as I want great photos that are close to ones taken by a DSLR, minus the need to drag a bulky heavy camera bag along the way. I only need just a handy compat camera.
Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7 in brown. But this model was produced in 2009 so it’s hardly available now.
Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ8 in black or silver. No other color choice :( so unless I managed to get a brown TZ7, this will be my camera. Pricing is from RM1150 – the cheapest I found from someone at LYN forum. Probably will get this soon.
You can tell that I can only relocate a time to continue making posts about Hajj only when the Hajj season is in the atmosphere. If I were to write the ‘Hajj for Dummies’ book, it may take me 10 years to finish it. Yes, long live procrastination.
My previous posts I wrote about Hajj trip in 2008 can be found in this category.
Therefore, continuing the last post when we were in Muzdalifah during the eve of Eidul-Adha. One of the requirements of the Hajj task that we need to spend half of night at Muzdalifah, hence the stop-over and and having a kind of huge “picnic” under the night sky, whilst picking up small stones for the Jamrat stoning rituals.
Around 4am, buses came to fetch people to go to Mina, our next stop of the journey. And we were tens of thousands of Malaysian pilgrims alone, and again queuing for bus was like something you really had to face, and cant complain about it. It was rather a regret that we brought like a huge bag from Makkah to Arafat with food and clothings and now it was a pain in the ass to drag it along the rough way.
Location of Mina from Makkah and Muzdalifah. Full view on Wikimapia.
The whole area of Mina is practically nothing but a desert area filled with tents for Hajj pilgrims.
Two pictures above were taken when we visited Mina about 2 weeks before the Hajj days. It was almost empty, only the camps were ready to house pilgrims when the time comes (which is, today, 10th of Dzulhijjah, when were heading to Mina and were expected to stay there while doing the Jamrat stoning).
Arriving Mina, we were placed at one of the camps reserved for Malaysian pilgrims, which is located in among the Southeast Asian pilgrim area, therefore tents of Indonesian and Thais pilgrims were our neighbors. The Eidul-Adha was spent in unusual way, wandering around the street near the tents here. Because from the Hajj guide schedule, our group will be brought to do the Jamrat stoning only after night. So all we had to do was to get a rest in the tent before the time comes. Some independent people who still had the energy, already went to do the stoning early morning upon arriving, and even some were quick enough to catch the Eid prayer upon returning to Masjidil Haram in Makkah. You can go independently at your own risk if you know where you’re heading to, but bear in mind that millions other pilgrims were about to go for stoning and heading Makkah at the same time hence for safety the pilgrims guides had their different schedule to bring people by groups.
The typical view inside the tent. I know it looks like almost a nightmare, but that’s the point of this Hajj all about, to train you to be patient. You may not stand crowds like this in other place, but in here, you dont have choice but to accept things as they are, to be patient and keep the reason of why you’re here. Everyone is equal no matter how rich or big you are back at home. Then again, it’s easily said than done. Even my mum was having her hardest time queuing for toilets (which she can tolerate the least among all things). And I wasnt feeling the best of health at this time, even since Arafat actually, was having bad cough nonstop and uneasy to be in packed crowds like this, worrying that I might be disturbing them. Therefore, we chose our own way to go back to hotel in Makkah, independently.
We left the Mina camps earlier before the group, bringing our smaller suitcases (with trolley) and leaving behind the huge bag with food stuff in the camp. To reach the Jamrat place, one should go through this long tunnel (almost 1km) and another few more kilometers walking for almost 2 hours.
The nights here people were on street, along the camps of other countries we passed by (I dont know how they arrange the camping area for different countries in Mina, but it’s obvious that ours are rather far, but there are still ones that are farther away. Though we do notice that some camps closer to the Jamrat place were ones housing VIPs, kings and ministers etc, as well as those rich people who went on a more expensive trip package. Anyways.)
The Jamrat place building during Hajj season 2008 was still under construction, they were making 3 floors of stoning places, hoping to distribute the millions of pilgrims into several different place to avoid crowds and incidents. The event can be said real dangerous: imagine you’re in the middle of huge crowds where each and everyone was throwing stones to a certain somewhere, and the stones may instead hit people’s head instead of the aimed target. Needless to say, there were reports of death of pilgrim at peak time of stoning.
We chose the first floor to avoid the crowds – people tend to go to the ground floor, though in every floor of 3 floors the jamrat structure was rebuilt to be huge like this. The area was also made more spacious. There are three jamrah altogether – Big Jamrah, Middle Jamrah and Small Jamrah, to where we had to throw the stones one after another. (The jamrat place was in open air like in this and this before they built this 3-floor terminal building.)
Luckily there were not many people at this hour and on 1st floor, so we did the stoning at the most ease. For those who dont know, this stoning act is practiced in Hajj for remembrance of the event when Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) was going to sacrifice his son Ismail, and how he met devil who appeared to stop him from continuing his task, therefore now pilgrims are throwing small stones to the very place where the devil was believed to have appeared, as if we’re stoning the devils themselves. The stoning act can also be seen as to ‘kill’ all the badness and evils in a man himself.
And as soon as we’re done with it, we exited the building and gathered in the street. Pilgrims were given a place in Mina camp (even though it’s pathetically crowded) because were are supposed to STAY there for next 2 days to complete the 2nd and optional 3rd round of Jamrat stoning, but my parents, me and a few other colleagues decided to go back to hotel in Makkah to seek a more comfortable overnight there (you go back at your own risk, and your own expenses on the transport, AND you have to come back to Mina again tomorrow for 2nd round of stoning). But we had to wait until midnight (12am) stay in Mina area as it was part of the requirements.
And while sitting and waiting I managed to buy some food at a fast food outlet. Good thing about buying food there, where there was like very long queues of men, but they have express-way for ladies with no queue at all!! :D (coz perhaps, more men were expected to have the task of buying food than women are) but it gave me a real good feeling! (too bad I forgot to take picture of the food outlet and the queues). And at another counter to buy coffees where huge men were hardly queuing, and instead pushing one another (!) it was almost impossible for a small girl like me to get through, but out of the blue I was offered by a neat gentleman to buy coffee on my behalf :)
ilyani was here, the Jamrat place in Mina, right after the first stoning ritual on the night of 10th Dzulhijjah. It was hardly seen as celebrating Eidul-Adha afterall, but 10th Dzulhijjah in here was even something. While people at home in Malaysia was celebrating the Eid and eating food, we were experiencing extraordinary challenges in order to complete the Hajj task in here.
As soon as it hit midnight, people started leaving Mina to go back to their places, and we were walking towards Makkah, getting a van, and eagerly waiting to reach our hotel to end this really tiresome day quickly.
This is a pretty long post for Hajj season this year. Selamat Hari Raya – Eidul-Adha mubarak from ilyani.net, and you may have to wait until next year’s Eidul-Adha when I can make next post about my Hajj trip :P