all along since i first open this avenue, the posts i did were mostly based on my study, the struggles i faced in my training to be a real teacher. there are ups and downs and now, it all has ended. i have waited for a good long grueling tough and wonderful six years to get to the finish line and finally i reached it! i've been waiting since the day i learn ABC, to say this:

I HAVE GRADUATED!! yeeeeehaaaa~

i am of utmost happy to finish this in one piece after surviving typical questions like ''bile nak abes blaja?" and "berapa tahun lagi belajar?". it pays to wait that long. all the hardships, all the tears, all the disheartening moments, all the laughter, all the sweat, and all the memories have made me who i am today. i shall never forget those. the six years of dwelling together with other 48 girls is quite an experience of a lifetime.

however, this graduation that i have been looking forward to the whole time has a price to pay. friendship that i made through out this 6 years span is now put at test. we have to bid farewell to each other. it has to happen in order for us to start a new life. i accept it but let me tell you, it is not easy to be apart from friends that have accompanied me through out the journey. i am really going to miss them a lot.

we have been through all ups and downs together from the first time we met in the maktab back in june 2004, then 2 years of foundation that has been a lot of fun, then taaruf week at iium gombak in 2007 which has been a turning point for us all, then back a year at maktab which i personally hate the most of it but amazingly we survived the journey until mid 2008. and then life turned its course and we have a chance to live differently, more to our liking once we embarked on the journey at iium. it was rather the most peaceful and the most wonderful time we ever had in this journey i think. living in that gombak campus somehow has given us a break that we all deserve from all the sorrow and tribulation experienced at maktab. we began to know more about each other, we learnt more about life and became adults in the process. then comes 2009 where we had to head back to the maktab, much to our disgust, to endure one final year that was tiring as expected. the encounter with the stupid admin really tested us (we are no strangers to all the confrontations). nevertheless, we once again survived with old scar hidden within our smiles. then came 2010, we endured the practicum to get to the end of our journey. we then parted for a month and were called back to live a final life together for three-weeks KISSM (kursus induksi sistem saraan malaysia) back at the maktab and it ended last month (june 2010). it was a refreshing and very nice final moments we had together. look at how far we have gone. how wide we have expanded. how mature we have been. how beautiful all that is.

the 2+1+2+1 years of study has been a headache to explain to people but there you are.

after six years, i noticed that i changed a lot. i have become louder in terms of voicing out my thoughts, braver, tougher (non-literally), more hard-headed than ever, wiser i must say, more rebellious than before, and much more presentable (look-wise). hehe. thanks to all my dear friends, dear parents for your support, and the government for enabling me to go through all of those. *sigh of relief~*

the title earnestly does not explain me. hehe.. it's meant for my dear friend, Nurul Ain bt Mohd Mokhtar who have just got married last saturday. she is the first in our TESL cohort 3 batch to be married. it all went so fast, when she announced of her engagement during last Ramadhan. it is very memorable as she is the drama-queen of the batch, the 'gila-gila' one, & the zany one. she did not likely seem to get married early. thus we least expected her to be the first one to tie the knot. nonetheless, JODOH is a pre-planned matter of Allah's business and we have no power neither control over it. it is written that she got married at this age and we are all very happy for her. on saturday May 30th, the akad nikah ceremony has tied Ain to the bond of marriage with her husband. she is married to Mohd Nazri, 29, an engineer. although so many problems occured through my journey to attend Ain's wedding, i made it through. together with four other friends, i boarded from KL to kuantan early in the morning. once arrived at ain's house, we straight away searched for her and found her in the bilik pengantin. to my surprise, she was the most beautiful of her that i ever see. i was startled to see her as a bride and nearly come to tears. she has transformed into someone else that is very mature and more of a lady. we chit chatted for a while before the groom comes to the house. disbelief, happiness and the feeling of amazed all mixed around in our hearts upon watching ain being a bride. she told us that she was very pleased and touched to learn us attending her wedding. the ceremony then went smooth and i got to take some pictures of ain & her husband as the newlyweds.

it is an amazing feeling to watch your own friend on the pelamin and i cannot excuse myself from thinking of my own wedding day. will it happen? if yes, how soon will it be? well, the answers are all in Allah's hand and i wish Ain and her husband a thousand years of happiness and may the marriage always be in Allah's blessings. i'm very hopeful that very very soon, we, the rest of TESL cohort 3 will experience our wedding day too.. hehe.. one married, 48 more to go. =)

it has been 4 years and 8 months since i first enter this tesl course.
and there is about one more year to finish it. time flies....
but doesn't it feel long? perhaps quite long since my other friends of the same age have already passed some levels of their studies while i'm still stuck here, not even near to graduating.. i have to undergo this SIX years of study.. is it too long??
my family seems to forget when i will finish. they keep asking every year and i'm still doing the same course..

often my superior siblings ask.
"awak bile abes?"
"lambat lg.. 2010.."

once my cousins asked.
"dpt posting mane?"
"blum. blaja pun xabes lg.."

i remember my uncle asked me once.
"brape tahun blaja?"
"enam tahun."
"umang ai! ekau kuar nnt jd guru bosar ko apo??"

people don't expect undergoing a teacher training course could be that long. i told them many times that my case is special. but they seems to forget it. huhu.. sometimes i feel old when going to classes with juniors as the majority. i feel like i've been left behind when compared to my school-friends. they have experienced workplaces, the real world and even got to further studies into the second degree. owh, i'm tired of waiting.. not that i don't know the hikmah of this long road of preparing myself to be a teacher. it is just me wanting to say that, 6 years of study IS LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG. don't you think so??


here are some pictures showing me & my fellow tesl friends from 2004 - 2008.



2004-pygmalion, 2005-tesl language camp at mpkb, 2006-hindi dance performance, 2007-gala dinner, 2008-cohort photo session at iium (far top)

as the day to submit our action research project gets nearer, we realise that we have so much things to do. the most important part is reviewing the right and adequate literature in order to get things started (to finish the research proposal report). after several weeks of forgetfulness about the project we began our search for literature again. this time, ani decides to take us all to the national library in KL with hopes that we may find helpful materials. all the members eyu, norlie, yanti and myself agree to hunt for the wishful literature. off we went on wednesday afternoon, after signing the mere attendance of CALL class (yay!) riding eyu's car. it is of my expectation that no one really knows of where we are heading to. ani got some clues, but only if she gets there by train and taxi. i myself, i never went there. so, count me out of help. norlie and yanti aren't familiar with KL roads as well and eyu, who usually has a poor sense of direction indoors but good at the outdoors are as helpless. instead of going direct to the destination (which is believed to be near taman tasik titiwangsa and istana budaya), we guessed the lane to be taken and end up lost in KL roads. hahaha... but what interesting is that neither of us got frustrated by it. we instead enjoyed the lost and changed the destination. hehe.. we ended up visiting midvalley megamall and spent the afternoon there. everyone was smiling when we at least reached a destination. it was fun and amusing to go through the same road twice. haha... we took it as roaming through KL and at least we got to see dataran merdeka (first time for me & yanti) twice! haha..



from good intentions of going to the library to find books, we changed our course to shooping and dining at midvalley. at least we brought home some books for eyu and i bought ourselves a pictorial book and novel respectively. we head home at 8.40 pm and amazingly the journey home was at first a lost too. we drove away into damansara and ttdi to be specific. huhu... what a journey. we had our group discussion inside the car on the way home. it was a very fun and funny experience. eyu had told her ibu that we're going to the library and in fact, we didn't. haha... so, the moral of the story is, do not roam around KL without map in your hands. you will never find Perpustakaan Negara. hahaha