Girls' Day Out

The girls from my office all took leave (applied in advance) one Monday in the month of January. All of us synced our leave that it left our Head of Department a little puzzled wondering of there was anything he was missing out. Yeah, our Girls' Day Out, that's what tee hee.

So we started the day with our brunch at Dotty's, and of course, the girls made a beeline for the infamous Salted Egg Yolk Cronut. In case you are wondering what a cronut is, it is a dessert in the shape of a donut, but made from a croissant-like pastry. The salted egg yolk is the 'frosting' that goes on the donut, much like salted caramel (sweet and salty). I'm not too crazy of sweet desserts (the sugar goes straight to my brain and I get a headache almost instantly), but the main menu was great. We ordered lamb stew, salted agg yolk pasta, wild mushroom sandwich with fries.

The next activity we did was - SHOPPING. It's kinda sad that we'd rather go shopping than hiking or rock climbing, or paintballing, or at least bowling (these were some of the valid suggestions we came up with). But we all went shopping instead. We kinda did actually need to take leave to shop for clothes and other womenly stuff, as work and family took a lot of time from us young moms to squeeze in clothes shopping in. Sad or not, last time I checked, everybody was happy by the end of the day, so a happy girls' day out indeed it was.  Encore!

Chinese New Year in Muar

Last weekend we went back to spend time with Tok Abah in Muar during the Chinese New Year holidays. We love to see the lanterns (tanglung) decorating the town. Muar never disappoints in terms of food. Just as much as Wetex Parade never disappoints in terms sales and discounts :D

We had a great time at Kampung. It was worth the 6-hour trip back (5 p.m. untul 11 p.m.) stuck in supermassive traffic along the PLUS Highway, inching at 30 km/h on most of the stretch (on a normally 2.5 hours trip at most) T_T

A House Fit for Barbie

Aisyah and her play time. A make shift house for Fake Barbie and her friends to come sleep over. She's used items she's found in the house, all carefully created by herself.

Always amusing. 

Always neat. 

Always the Creative. 

That child has a strong penchant for arts. If she has it her way, every night is crafts night. I go on the guilt trip every other night for failing to provide or spend more time with her doing crafts, but folding dried clothes is just about what I can manage after dinner. I hope my lack of participation doesn't dampen her spirits, but act as a catalyst for her to treat it like an individual study of some sort. May she one day learns to uses the resources she has, to do things she wants to do. 

Surgeon, I Am Not

A couple of weeks ago, I was presented with the opprtunity to follow (and learn) the Computer Graphics and Computer Vision Research Group at my work place to attend a half day workshop at the UiTM Sungai Buloh Campus (Medical and Dentistry). We were looking forward to meet up with our collaborators, Prof. Dr. Zamrin Dimon and his team of surgeons, and also our partners from the Industrial Design Department, Faculty of Design and Architecture UPM to see where three fields (medical, design and computer science) and merge together to benefit others. 

I am grateful that senior colleagues in my department are always generous in extending the invitation to us juniors (in age) researchers. This workshop were focused on brainstorming mock prototypes for cardiac surgery. Indeed, I had a great time that afternoon learning something new, although if I'm honest I did get slightly heavy headed towards the end of the evening (the air felt thick in the room as we progressed - too much neurons being fired simultaneously from all partcipants, maybe. Plus the combination of hot coffee and the disastrous trip home was enough to give anyone a two days worth of headache.

Nonetheless, if I contributed nothing else that afternoon, at least my appreciation for doctors and surgeons in particular, has gone up several notches too. The session made me understand a bit more about the problems they face daily with some of the current medical devices they are using (which we are invited to solve - thus, the purpose of this workshop). Me being a scaredy cat, turned down their invitation to see how the devices work first hand, in an operating theatre, on a living patient, had to be turned down by me. Youtube is enough for me to look at heart bypass surgeries, thank you very much :D

At Their Tok Ayah's

Sharing several pics of the children with their cousins at their Tok Ayah's. My Dad and my stepmom live about 40 minutes drive away from us, so we are very lucky we see them quite often, mainly over the weekend - either them coming to ours or us over at their's. Either way, families are God's greatest blessings to all His servants. 

These pics were taken sometime in January. The kids and their parents were really fascinated by the brand new swinging chair Tok Ma has bought and placed in the living room. If our house was bigger, I'd probably get one for our own use. 

That night my Dad COOKED (yes, that's right) us dinner - Ikan Keli Goreng, Gulai Ayam, Tauhu Goreng and assortment of other dishes. I am well impressed of him and his newfound passion. Retirement really is treating him well, Alhamdulillah...