For My Uncle

While going through some personal stuff, I found a very familiar-looking Hunchback of Notre Dame notebook which contained several short stories I wrote as a child when I was in England and many other childhood scribbles. But I wanted to post this short story because this was how I got the notebook in the first place. This is dedicated to my uncle, Pak Ndak.

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Thursday 24th October.

A wonderful evening

When we came home from school, Aishah found that she had a new Postman Pat Lunchbox. And then, Ayah gave us each a halloween sweet on stick. After that, Ummi said, "And this is the best of all." And she took out a packet that had 3 'renda hair bobble'. They were very nice. After we've prayed and eaten, we said 'thank you' and ate our halloween sweets. They were ever so delicious! And then Ummi and Ayah went out for parents' evening. We played tunnels with Pak Ndak and then he said, "I've got a surprise for you." He went to the corridor and came back with three Hunchback of Notre Dame stationary set. There was a ruler, rubber, pencil sharpener, pencil case and book in each of the pack. We said, "Thank you." When Ummi and Ayah came home, we showed them what Pak Ndak gave us.

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Unfortunately, I didn't write the year I wrote this, but it was the time my uncle came to visit us in England. He was studying in Medina at that time. I remember we had great fun playing with him and showing him our favourite places. Do you still remember this Pak Ndak? ;)

Toys Galore

While packing up the stuff to bring to our new house, my sisters and I discovered a whole cabinet devoted to our toys back in England. Well! My uncle predicted that I wouldn't finish packing my books because I'll simply pick up a book and start reading halfway through packing...his prediction didn't come true since I asked my Ummi to pack the books for me. But it sort of came true while I was packing the toys...we just had to play with them before packing them into boxes. Here are some pictures of the Barbie furniture I previously described in my Barbie post:

Barbie's armchair, writing table, closet, dresser

Barbie in the bathoom

Barbie in the gym

Barbie and her twin babies

Other doll houses belonging to my youngest sister Sumayyah. Only the boot (on the leftmost) came from England.

The Lego set was also something we played a lot of back then. It really brought out the imaginative side in us as we built two storey houses, designed bedrooms, living rooms and various other things. The picture below is a sample of a living room:

See the two Lego people? They're sitting on armchairs/single sofa. The thing in the middle is a fireplace with a clock on the mantel. There's also a fire burning away (the black lego is the firewood, the yellow lego on top of it is the fire) and two lights on each side of the clock. The thing in the middle of the room is the coffee table, complete with a flower in the middle. The yellow legos on the door and windows are the lights, and of course, there's a garden outside the living room. Pretty creative for a 9 year old and a 7 year old.

It brought back some really happy childhood memories. Who knew that playing with your old stuff can leave you feeling warm and fuzzy inside? ;)

Barbie

Last Sunday, I watched Barbie & the Diamond Castle on TV3 with my youngest sister. Needless to say, it was a great movie (especially if you're a Barbie lover) with the theme of friendship. Its mainly about two best friends, Liana (the pronounciation is like Rihanna) and Alexa who share a love of singing. Of course, somewhere along the way the strength of their friendship is tested. You can read the full review here.

I don't know what it is about Barbie that makes me still attracted to watch her movies...perhaps its the excellent graphic used in the movies, or the prettiness of Barbie and her friends (not to mention their outfits and the sceneries!). Or maybe its because I played with Barbie dolls when I was a little girl, so she reminds me of my happy and carefree childhood.

Back in England, my parents bought me and my sisters several Barbie dolls, a great big doll house which was even taller than us, plus some furniture to decorate the doll house with. The doll house had four levels - the ground floor consisted of a kitchen (which had a kitchen cabinet) and a bathroom (which had a toilet, a sink+mirror and a bathtub with a shower curtain). The first floor was the sitting room (which had a chair that could recline complete with footrest, a writing table table+chair and a side table), the second floor was the bedroom (2 single beds, 2 closets, 1 dresser. We even had the accessories such as shoes and clothes, pillows and covers and little hairbrushes and handmirrors). The topmost floor was a rooftop balcony for the dolls to hang out in the evenings. My sisters and I had a blast arranging and re-arranging the furnitures, changing the dolls' outfits and acting them out in various scenes. It's pretty funny recalling it all, but I wouldn't mind admitting that right now, the child in me is crying out for me to grab my youngest sister's doll and start playing with it. Just going to Toys R Us to ogle at the latest Barbie collection is enough, seeing as its not really worth spending my money on it. But of course, the more matured Me is saying...Grow Up!

High School Blues

My sister Yusraa is now in her second week of SPM. Looking at her studying, doing her homework, rushing off to tuitions and extra classes prior to the exams, I wonder how I managed to get through it all back when I was in high school. Waking up at 5.45am to catch the school bus...which was hard to do considering the fact that I stayed up late to finish my homework. Coming home at around 4pm (due to the extremely long route taken by the school bus) and catching a few winks before rushing off to tuition. Extra classes and tuitions during the holidays. Trying to cram in two years' worth of knowledge in the form of 11 subjects (luckily it was only 11 in my time) in the last few months before the actual exam. Shudder.

But there are some happy moments though...gossiping on the school bus with friends, taking the rare opportunity of hanging out at KOMTAR or Prangin Mall on the way home from extra classes, and of course, meeting friends from other schools at tuition...some of whom I am still in touch with. I even finished high school successfully. So what's so bad about high school then?? Nothing much...but given the chance, I don't think I want to go through it again. University life is way happier. So far anyway.

Oh. My. God.

Okay, so I was watching some videoclips at Youtube with my youngest sister when I decided to check my gmail. I saw that someone by the name of Phillipa had dropped a comment, and my heart started to beat a little faster. Could it be...?? No, why would she?? I opened the email, screamed, and refreshed my blog. Screamed again. Yes!! It's her!!

"Her" would be Phillipa Ashley, the author of Wish You Were Here which I have just reviewed. Oh my god, I am still (pleasantly) shocked, stunned and definitely thrilled that she dropped me a comment, let alone the fact that she noticed that someone did a review of her book. I would like to extend my gratitude and a million thank-yous to Ms. Phillipa Ashley for making a reader happy. I know I probably sound like a demented and desperate fan, but I don't care. Nothing can spoil my day today! :-D

Updated Later:

A million thanks to Ms. Phillipa Ashley for putting the link to my blog review in her blog. Need I mention again how thrilled I am?? ;-)

Greetings!

Okay...so since this is my first post, it would be apt if I talk about the first book that got me hooked on to reading as a hobby...that would be Enid Blyton's Famous Five series. To be honest, if we hadn't gone to the UK when I was a small kid, I don't think reading would be my hobby. My parents bought me my first Famous Five book from a carboot sale somewhere in England. 1 book soon grew to a whole series; from book 1 to book 21.

The Famous Five comprise of 4 kids - Julian, Dick, Anne, Georgina (George for short) and George's dog Timothy - who always seem to fall into some sort of adventure during their school holidays. And not just an ordinary adventure, but a "hair-raising adventure", as quoted from one of their books. They'd solve smuggling mysteries on farms, a kidnapping mystery somewhere and so on. Their adventures really thrilled me, and back when I was 8 or 9 yrs old, I'd fantasize having the same sort of adventures too (although it'd be a million years before I, or anyone I know, would have those kind of adventures). Sometimes I incorporated their adventures into the games my sisters -Aishah and Yusraa - played, and we'd have a lot of fun pretending to go camping in the living room and riding horses using the sofa cushions. Hahaha. In fact, I used to read so much that my sisters actually hid one Famous Five book just so that I'd spend more time playing with them! I remember searching for that book everywhere in the house till I gave up. The book was eventually found a few years later when we were packing up to return to Malaysia. Huh. But my sisters have now picked up the reading habit too, although Yusraa and Sumayyah don't read as much as me and Aishah. Ehem...no offense my dear sisters! :-D

Anyway...I also read other books by Enid Blyton, like Malory Towers, Secret Seven, St-Clare, the Secret series, the Faraway Tree adventures and so on. These books are really fun to read and it definitely worked my imagination. Anyone who wants more info on Enid Blyton or her books can click here.