2015 In Memory

Same time last year, I would have just finished watching Iron Man and headed to bed, heavily pregnant with Sofiyah. Earlier in the day I spent my time at the office finalizing a few things before the new year break. Today, however, I decided to take leave and spent time with my family & finished off planning for 2016 at my parents instead. 

2015 has been a great year for me simply because I have had Sofiyah. She was a wonderful baby! She's adorable, never really fussy, and she is simply so bright - truly, she is the light of my life. She had started walking 2 weeks ago and now she wanders around everywhere like there's no tomorrow :-P If ever I were given a choice, I would have chosen to have her all over again :-)

But life in 2015 had been more than cute and adorable. We had finally tried to settle down in Seremban proper. In fact, come August this year, it's only our first anniversary at our humble abode in Seremban. Truth be told, we have another room full of boxes. But I couldn't really care less anymore, as long as we manage to get everyone to school, daycare and work and back safely, then that would be it for the time being.

Late September, my home was broken into while we were away in Sungai Petani visiting friends. It was an adventurous weekend indeed! I am still trying to report it in detail here. We lost the MyVi car and a 42-inch TV. Alhamdulillah, despite all odds, the police found our TV, safe and sound in November somewhere in Nilai and later earlier this month our car was found too, also in Nilai. We took back the TV, but have decided earlier on to forgo the car and simply claim the insurance.

In between, those months, we somehow manage to:

1) Visit Legoland and Kittytown some time in November during the Deepavali break

2) Revisit Sungai Petani with the girls so as to really catch up with Etty, since the September's visit was cut short due to the break-in.

3) Went along with Luqman's PASTI excursion. There's this place called Farm in the City somewhere in Puchong that we would not have known existed had we not follow the trip. And there's that Beryls Factory too, where I borong chocolates and cookies like nuts ;-)

And of course, I have done many first in my lifetime in 2015, including:

1) I was given the responsibility to lead a department sometime in June, I'm still learning at it. Sometimes, I am struggling, some other time, I think it's not too bad.

2) I received the '"Ibu Contoh" Award for having  fully breastfeeding Sofiyah exclusively for the first 6 months of her life time from the Hospital Tuanku Jaafar, Seremban. After 4 children, and the struggles in learning how to breastfeed all 4 of them, this award and how I was chosen was totally unexpected. But I was happy nevertheless to receive such appreciation, Alhamdulillah indeed :-)

3) I brought a student's trip to the Parliament. That's actually my first time planning it all. I thought it was alright. Not to mention - my former classmate is currently the LA for the Parliament, so I got to catch up there too :-)

4) I took the ETS for the first time when heading home from SP to Seremban for my revisit to SP. It was comfortable and reliable in terms of its efficiency. In fact it took only about 5 hours from SP to Seremban.

5) I finally manage to watch the National Symphony Orchestra play in Istana Budaya. Even better they were playing all the favourite movie themes, including Star Wars with Stephen Rahman Hughes and Jaclyn Victor as guest vocals for the night.

So, despite my grandfather's passing and also my aunt's husband sudden passing too this year, I think I have had many first in my life which I have managed to try to achieve in 2015. Next year, would be me focusing more on my academic activities. Ways of improvements in seeking knowledge and more networking and cooperation to plan on achieving more academic writing. I think if Sofiyah is cooperative, and I am more patient, there will be more proper writings and teaching innovations in 2016, In Sya Allah. Please pray I lead myself to the right path. Ameen.