The memories of Ramadhan..

Salam..

Alhamdulillah.. all the praise to Allah who has given you & me the chance to meet Ramadhan again..

This Ramadhan feels different to me.. maybe because I feel that I have more time in my hand.. more time that I hope I will spend to improve myself..

Ramadhan brings a lot of memories.. since my childhood until now.. Alhamdulillah, Allah has given me the greatest chances of spending Ramadhan in different environments & with different sets of people..

I don't remember at what age I started to fast properly.. I started fasting for a few hours a day, initially, just to practise.. all that I can remember is that I was so weak on the day that I managed to complete my 1st proper fasting.. towards that late evening, I just laid down, having no energy to do anything else.. and my mum asked me a few times whether or not I want to break my fast early.. but my determination was above all.. but there were also days that I sneaked up on the munchies & pretend that I was fasting.. hehe.. they're all memories that makes me smile.. how cheeky I was!!

Getting up for sahur was another story.. Usually my dad would wake us up.. abah had different ways to wake us up.. he would 'sing', he would tickle and he won't stop talking until we were up.. hehe.. and after finish eating, while waiting for the azan, he would teach me the niat.. everyday until I was able to mesmerise it myself.. I think I was 5 or 6 years old at that stage.. but of course, by the next Ramadhan, he had to teach me again;)

How time flies.. now I'm all grown up & married.. and seeing the pictures of my parents, I realised that age have taken its toll on them.. how I miss them! all the childhood memories of my Ramadhan will be remembered.. this Ramadhan, we celebrate it in different parts of the world.. I'm here in Ireland with my husband, my mum is now in Mecca until after Eid, while abah & the rest of us are in Malaysia.. that doesn't make this Ramadhan less special than the usual.. thanks to the technology.. they're all a phone call away.. but of course, I miss spending Ramadhan as a whole big family, together.. hopefully someday.. insyaAllah..

How is my Ramadhan so far? Alhamdulillah, everything is going good.. and hopefully it will stay good,if not better, until the end.. I guess I better stop now.. need to prepare for breaking fast..;)

Third Ramadhan..

Salam..

Since my last entry about the Riverdance, which was quite a week ago, nothing much has happened.. Yet, it would be ignorant for me to say that I did not intend to write about Ramadhan which has come to greet us again this year..

This Ramadhan marks my third Ramadhan since I became a husband.. We have gone through so much since the first one, back when we were up in Letterkenny - me not working and Ina was doing her first doctor job.. The cold and misty mornings and wintery wind of North were things I could remember from that Ramadhan.. Not that I have no other recollections, but I would rather keep those to myself.. In this entry, I would just merely share the commons.. We had our Eid prayer in Dublin (even though the Eid prayer in Letterkenny was one day early!) and flew home to Malaysia the same day..

My second Ramadhan was already in Limerick.. That was a tough one for me, not because of the longer fasting hours compared to the last one, but I could remember clearly that it started on the first day of September and ended on the first day of October.. The matter that Eid was on October 1st meant that I was oncall and had to spend the day in the Emergency Department admitting patients, not even having the chance to go for Eid prayer that morning.. I spent most of the fasting month when I was working in Milford, which was not a busy job.. I had the chance to write and distribute an article I wrote about Ramadhan to my colleagues in the centre.. It was a blessing and, indeed, was a da'wah opportunity for me as a Muslim.. 1429 was also the Hijri year that I was post-call on 10th of Zulhijjah, on Eid al-Adha.. I missed both Eid prayers that year..

Starting on the 21st of August this year, Ina and I welcome the third Ramadhan together.. Sadly, it is still just the two of us.. This year, maybe I will have the opportunity to greet and celebrate Eid with my wife.. Insya-Allah, God's willing, Eid will fall on Saturday or Sunday - both days of which I will not be working.. Ina is also not working.. Maybe I will take some time off later in October to go back home and celebrate the remaining of Syawal with our families..

O God, whiten my face with your light
On the day You would whiten the faces of those dear to You
And do not blacken my face with darkness
On the day you would blacken the face of Your foes

Salam..

Riverdance - Irish At Its Best

Salam..

As promised, I will share my experience having witnessed the great Irish Riverdance in Gaiety Theatre in Dublin last night.. As far as honest is concerned, I had wished to see the show since I first saw and heard of them, and that was quite a few years ago.. In fact, I realised that I like different culture that I would take every opportunity to experience and watch them.. I suppose that statement would now be apparent and evident throughout our travelogues.. Well, here is for sharing..

Riverdance

Where the river foams and surges to the sea
Silver figures rise to find me
Wise and as daring
Following the heart's cry

Feel the magic and power of surrender to life
Uisce beatha
I am living to nourish you, cherish you
I am pulsing the blood in your veins

The show started at 8 o'clock but we were already in there by 7.30pm.. The fact that the hotel we were staying in was so close to the Gaiety Theatre, it was no rush to get to the venue..

The show consisted of two parts, with a fifteen-minute interval in between.. It started off with a very gentle instrumental music and then with a more upbeat dance.. Throughout the show, a mixture of great dances of soft and hard shoes, awesome instrument displays and even magnificent vocals.. I have to say, I enjoyed the hard-shoe dance better than the soft ones.. Maybe because the echo of the strum of steps made by the dancers excites me more - such precision and punctuality..

In between the shows, we refreshed ourselves with some cold drinks and ice-cream, a little bit sugar for the next half..

At the end of the show, the crowd stood up for a standing ovation and, in all fairness, had hoped that it was not the end of the performance.. Overall, I thought it was a magnificent show.. However, I was a bit 'disappointed' by the length of the show (hoping for more, obviously) and quite a small theatre.. Maybe because I had watched Michael Flatley performing in larger centres and had hoped that the Gaiety Theatre would equal them.. But, other than that, it was worth every penny!

Maybe someday I will invest more and watch the troupe perform somewhere else.. Maybe even see Mr Flatley in action..

I loved it!

Salam..

Birmingham : The Leisure Vacation

Salam..

Clearly for most of you, this blog page has been, for most of the time, very very quiet.. To the point that even myself started to wonder whether it was actually worthwhile having a blog but not updating it on a fairly regular basis.. Of course, being busy is almost always the party line for any excuses.. Well, I am indeed terribly sorry.. I may well vow to update this blog on a more regular basis than the occasional 'sorry' introductory lines, but I will not, because it seems that it would probably be a false promise anyway.. Either way, I can only promise to do my best..

Anyway, the last week was fantastic.. Of course, it was the complementary week off after the week of nights.. The seven-day midnight-to-morning shift was drenching.. It was exhausting.. But enough on that.. After the shift ended, that same morning I got home and took a couple of hours of nap, then got ready for the trip.. Ina had booked our flight around 5pm that evening, so I did not have much time to rest.. Plus, let's be honest, after that week of nights, I was a Batman - waking at night and sleeping during the day.. In fact, 5pm was just around my bedtime!

Day 1 : Cadbury World

We did not plan to go to this chocolate factory until the day we flew to Birmingham.. Not that we did not want to go, but we were unsure when to go.. We took the train from Birmingham New Street to Bourneville, which was about 15 minutes away.. Even the train station at Bourneville was coloured purple.. As a matter of fact, Bourneville is the hometown of Cadbury chocolate.. The trip included shows of the origin and travels of chocolate, free chocolate sampling in the factory and fun with chocolate! Honestly, I avoided playing with the dairy-milk chocolate 'liquor' since I did not want to risk my T-shirt stained!



Day 2 : Drayton Manor Theme Park

For some reason, both myself and Ina have become a big fan of theme parks.. As a matter of fact, I don't even remember a fan of theme parks until just under three years ago.. Of course, I have been to many theme parks before we got married, but I don't think Ina had been to one before we hooked up.. I can still remember the first time I brought her to a mini theme park in Salthill, Galway.. She was scared as a cat in a tin can the first time she was in a ferry's wheel.. But, believe me, it was the trigger of her thirst for theme parks!

Drayton Manor was somewhat a consolation as the original plan was to travel by train to Alton Towers.. But the journey was a little bit to far and ('luckily') the weather was not permitting either.. In fact, even in Drayton Manor, the weather was in the category of 'horrible'! It rained all day that we had to buy a raincoat.. Maybe, the weather was the factor that deterred us from taking all those crazy rides.. We only rode some of the coasters, but avoided most of them..

Drenched in rain, only the cheap plastic raincoat as cover

Either way, it was a wet day but a fun one..

Day 3 : Warwick Castle

It was undoubtedly a better day.. The sun was out, the breeze was soft and the clouds were invisible! We took the train to Warwick and gambled our way to the castle, which was about 10 minutes walk from the train station..

We were greeted by Jolly Jester, the Princess and a knight (in shining armour!).. Paid the ticket and off we went to the castle.. There was a lot of scheduled performances that we did not want to miss and inevitable resulted us entering the Warwick Dungeon later in the day.. My personal favourite was the trebuchet and 'fireball' trebuchet shows.. We also climbed the 255-step towers and witnessed Ina breathless like her lungs had collapsed! That was a scene!

Archery class for 5pounds!

Day 4 : SeaLife & Walking with Dinosaurs

By this day, my sleep cycle has already come to terms with normality.. We headed towards the NIA on foot.. It looked quite far in the map, but was only about 20 minutes leisure walk from our Radisson SAS Hotel.. Ahh, the weather was gloomy but we were indoors.. No bother.. The SeaLife building was next to the theatre where we would be for the dinosaur show..

SeaLife is just another name for aquarium, as far as I was concerned.. Not that it wasn't fun, but at this stage it has all become the same to me.. Later in the afternoon, we walked to the NIA again and watched the ultimate show of our vacation - Walking with Dinosaurs.. The show had only one word to describe it - extravagant! Our seats were on the second row from the front and the view was great.. We had so much fun that the five days there were just a matter of flying time..

SeaLife Birmingham

T-rex in action

Riverdance

We arrived in Limerick around one o'clock on Saturday.. We have about two days to sort ourselves out - rest and wash all clothes.. We will be traveling to Dublin on Monday to watch Riverdance in Gaiety Theatre.. I have always wanted to see this performance but only now I have the chance..

I will let you know the details after I come back..

Salam..

Learning The Hard Way

Salam..

Indeed, it has been quite some long time since my last entry.. As a matter of fact, my last entry was from our day-2 journey in Paris.. Even that is still not finished yet.. I still have another four days to complete that series.. Oh, dear! I am very lazy, am I not?

New Phase Of Learning

I am pleased to tell you that since the start of July, I am no longer the in-house officer for medicine, but now working in the Emergency Department (ED, or A&E).. To be honest, I was terrified at the start, and in fact still am.. The thought of seeing a patient face on with pretty much nothing but their words was a horrifying one.. But, I was eager to take the step.. In fact, I had once said to a colleague that I would want to spend some time in ED to know the feeling of not knowing and making the best guess for what was happening..

My wish came through.. I am now posted to be an ED officer for the next six months..

I knew it would be hard, but I was (half-) ready to make the leap, run the course.. Alhamdulillah, as of now, I have made it through the first month.. The learning curve for this job is magnificent - from the straight forward unstable angina and pneumonia to the 'I'm not sure what's going on' stuff and multiple-problem cases.. And also, I am learning loads about the surgical stuff that I would never thought of doing as a medical SHO - suturing, dislocations and fractures..

As the days go, I become more confident with my decisions and making judgment calls - stabilising patients before I refer them to the appropriate services or sending them home if I feel they would be safe to be discharged.. To my own benefit, I made a presentation on one of the teaching days pointing out the difficulties I faced to make the appropriate referral.. My boss was present and, in fact, he thought it was a good! I was pleased with myself but also feel relieved that my SHO colleagues were also facing the same and similar challenges..

As of today, I have done few suturings, staplings, reducing dislocations and casts.. I am proud of myself, but also realise that there is still much to be learned.. I don't want to rush myself, so I am taking cases as they come to me.. Hopefully, I will be alright..

I am starting my night duty shift tonight and, to be truthfully honest, I am terrified! There will be only one SHO (me!) from 2am to 8am tomorrow.. I am up to my 90's at this moment and really freaking out.. I hope it would be okay..

Salam..