Small gathering at Bandar Tun Hussein Onn

A small gathering at the home of our former English guru Pn. Faniza Ibrahim. She just gave birth to a baby girl on the 31st of August, 50 years after the nation’s independence. Congratulations! Earlier, Ihsan dropped by Bangi so we could head towards Bandar Tun Hussein Onn together. It was dark and the roads and signboards were confusing as always. Firdaus & Seri arrived later after a long series of Raya visit to mostly Seri’s relatives.

All the three of us were a bit nostalgic regarding high school times so we decided to contact our English gurus. (Why English? Earlier, I had wished to meet up Mrs. Goh, who had single-handedly brought up my English to a different level and later I shared that idea with them. But since then the scope had grown bigger. I’m not sure if we’re in contention to meet up all of our former gurus).

I never got the chance to learn from Pn. Faniza, although I did occasionally see her teaching and instructing students during ELS events. I was never really a golden boy in English anyway. It’s normally Firdaus, or Ihsan… or Aizat. Didn’t get much attention during my years in SAS. Quietly things turned around when I joined a debate materials research team but that didn’t continue further, especially when I stepped on a wrong track halfway through.

Despite the difficulty, I resolved to my own dimension of learning. I never looked at others. I wanted to learn my way. Quietly, I grabbed all of the bits and pieces during my second year and learned as much as possible from Mrs. Goh Siew Lay. My tribute still goes to Mrs. Goh. My English went from pretty much zero… to something that I have today.

Zapping the electronics

It was about to rain. Clouds broke out with thunders. Wham! We heard a crack from one of the corners of our house, a few seconds before the real noise of the thunder lashed the sky. This particular corner had many electronics – Asri was still playing games on the PC, its LCD monitor on, D-Link ADSL2+ modem was running, and so were the D-Link wifi and my beloved Airport Extreme, ZAN.

I immediately switched off the extension to the modem and routers. CB quickly switched the CPU and its monitor. We turned both the CPU and monitor back on, then sighed in relief to realize that both of them were still in good condition. But that also stirred our hearts further – the routers could be in trouble!

We approached the routers and tested them. There wasn’t any funny smell as far as we could tell. Both the D-Link went back on just fine but ZAN couldn’t be turned on.

That couldn’t be. Nooo…

:/