hello

SURPRISE PARTY

This week has been absolutely wonderful.. The weekend hasn't arrived yet but still we had so much fun.. Last night, we had a surprise party for KJ at my apartment. Actually his birthday was on Wednesday but everyone had already started having midterms during the weekday that everyone didn't really do anything in the middle of the week.. I found out that it was his birthday from Alau's msn nickname.. so I wished him his birthday greeting and when Alau called to ask me why I had call him earlier, we planned a surprise party for him..

So after hanging out at Nad and Dya's place that night, I went downstairs to their place to plan more about what we wanted to cook. We decided we wanted to cook Nasi Bryani, so we each looked through our fridge and cupboards to see if we already had the ingredients. Fakhrul was also there, with Faizal, so we got him and Amir in on the plan. He volunteered to make drinks. We realised that we needed to buy a bunch of stuff. Fortunately, just earlier the day I received an email from Prof. Buhlmann saying that he would be out of town for a conference on Thursday and Friday so that means that I couldn't go to lab to do more research for Thursday, so Alau and I planned to go to the Farmer's market after my work and his lab the next day. Fakhrul and Amir will also go to Cub Food's to buy some other stuff for the party.

It was interesting how we each worked together in the last minute to pull it off. When I called Dya to invite her, she volunteered to cook the beef dish for the meal when she found out that I will be cooking the Nasi Bryani, the Chicken dish to go with it and also the Acar Timun. Zack, Kuceng, Fadzli and Fatin also volunteered to bring snacks and soda. Meen and Syai also kept KJ occupied as we proceed with the plan. After we went to the Farmer's Market, Alau and I stopped over at Dairy Queen (DQ) to buy an ice-cream birthday cake. Alau helped me prepare the meal by cutting the vegetables for the Acar Timun as we wait for the chicken to thaw. Then when he left, Fakhrul and Amir came in with their groceries stuff. Fakhrul was going to make jelly but by the sound of things it doesn't seem like we have enough time, so he made a fruit dessert instead.

At 8.30, everyone started to arrive at my apartment. I had finished cooking the chicken dish, rice and Acar Timun. Dya and Nad arrived with the beef curry. Zack and Fatin arrived with more ice-cream, chips and drinks, then Kuceng came in with drinks, Fakhrul arrived and we made the fruit pudding.. Then later on when everyone is ready, Meen called to say that they're coming and everyone hid as they heard them knocking. As I opened the door, I saw Amir giving KJ a piggy back, and everyone jumped out from the dark and yell "SURPRISE!!!"..

The rest of the night was filled with laughter, and more surprise for KJ as we ate the meal, dessert and finally we sang him the birthday song as I took the birthday cake out. It was so much fun..

Anyway, I've finally developed my graduation pictures and you can see it if you click here. There's more pictures but I still need to scan them.. Maybe later. Anyway, I need to get going.. The gym is closing soon and I still have to write up a report for today's cash flow..

p/s: I've also added another section on the top panel for religious sites for Muslims, like me, and anyone interested in this great religion. It's also got some forwarded stuff which I always feel guilty of deleting after I read it.. so instead of forwarding it to people [who have at some point in the past read the same thing before], I've decided to keep it posted so that we could all look at it whenever we want.. cause some stuff in those forwarded email are new and worth reading.

I'm feeling slightly anxious as I'm watching to the news flashes on the television about scattered thunderstorm and a possible tornado touching down in the Hennepin county in east central Minnesota tonight. We've been having thunderstorms for the past few nights and the day time has been very humid lately.. However, there were talks about clear weather after the storm and the meteriologists are predicting that the bad storm might be tonight. They are suggesting that we should go to the basement or a small interior room at the lowest level of the building. So far the condition hasn't been that critical and I hope that it won't pass this area.

Anyway.. there's something I need to do right now.. maybe tomorrow I'll have more time to write about my trip to Alexandria, SOUTH Dakota [not NORTH.. I got it wrong, forgot to check the invitation when I last updated the blog] .. tomorrow I think I'll develop my pictures from the last two months, I need to go downtown to buy new bristles for my electric toothbrush anyway.. I'm feeling quite sleepy cause I woke up early go to work at 5:45am this morning to cover up for my supervisor.. She called me 20 minutes before the was suppose to be there... Even though I forced myself to get a quick shower, I was so sleepy that I felt like I sleep walked to work.. I was done at a little past 2pm.. so that's 8 hours there.. Thank God my job is laborless.. though I did have to help the safety maintainance guy check the fire extinguishers with Sarah cause Jamal didn't have any female staff who could go into the locker room at the time.. but it was ok cause I got Sarah to pay for my lunch at Applebee's. Who says there's no such thing as FREE lunch...!

Alhamdullilah another day has begun.. and it's such a wonderful day outside too, sunny and slightly breezy. It's even more pleasant to know that today is Friday and the weekend is fast approaching.

InsyaAllah today I'll be spending another day in the lab finising off some fundamental introduction stuff which I have to write a summarizing report on today. After my experiment last night I took the data home thinking that I could analyze it when I'm home.. Unfortunately I don't have the software to access the information at home so I need to finish that off today to check if the experiment was a success.
I would have done it yesterday, but it was just too cold in the basement lab and my fingers were all coloring up. Fortunately I have something for that now. When Angela left earlier, she left me some mini hand and pocket heater which warms for more than 7 hours once opened. It's a small odorless, non-toxic, dry and disposable sachet which acts as a heater. The pad is usually put in pockets or gloves during the winter and will maintain it's temperature between 57C and 69C when stored in a closed area. Sometimes you could see these packets being sold in ski resorts or other cold places as such.. It's manufactured by a company called MYCOAL WARMERS from Japan.. definitely God sent.. I'm definitely grateful.. Alhamdullilah.. I'm gonna have this thing in both pockets of my white lab coat today.

Anyway.. think I better get going.. I'm baking some muffins in the oven to take with me for work later this evening.. I have to work from 3-9 tonight..

Actually I need to go to downtown too this morning cause the gift I bought for Joe and Angel's wedding hasn't arrived yet and I'm leaving early tomorrow morning (at 6am).. pray for my safe journey there and return.. Amin..

Take care all..

Opps, I did it again..
I didn't mean to be away for such a long time, but along with the appearance of summer comes the undeniable yearning to laze about and just let yourself catch the lazy bug.. that's not to say that the events of the past month have been neither dull nor dormant.. actually its been quite fun and memorable..

In summary, some of the interesting events of the past month are:
- the graduation ceremony for the class of 2003
[where my cousin drove 14 hours straight from Fremont, Ohio with his wife and kid to share the happy moment with me - even though his father in-law had just passed away two days before that - and so I've decided to return the visit in August right after summer session.]
-the end of Spring semester
[With this semester being the last college semester for most of the students here, it dawns on me that I might never see some of my dear coursemates ever again so the gang and I decided to celebrate so we - Fajarrani, Qamar, Vikesh, Joe, Jin and Dominique - planned an outing to a pizza hangout called PizzaLuci which according to Fajarrani is one of the best places to eat pizza in Minneapolis.. later we went to watch the premier show for Matrix Reloaded a day before its officially out, the theatre was filled and they had to open up an additional 3 theatres so that most of us are not separated in the theatre. I found out that there's a virtual NASCAR racing track in the mall]
- the return of Adam to Minneapolis
[he initially wanted to come for the graduation ceremony but could only make it a week later due to his busy work schedule so he stayed just a little bit longer this time to compensate, which is just as well cause his mum had an eye surgery done just about that time too]
- the Midwest Games in Purdue
[once again the midwest Games was hosted in Purdue University.. our indoor soccer team made it through to the quarter final.. it was nice to meet up with all the gals and guys who I've almost lost in touch with through these last few years.. also had the chance to make some new friends.. This gathering surely makes us feel closer to each other.. On the final night I performed the traditional Malay dance along with the others, I've never really ever performed Malay dance before in my entire life.. so it was quite an experience, the main thing is that we had fun right?.. UofMn returned home with the a gold medal for the co-ed volleyball and a silver medal for the womens' tennis double]
- research with Prof. Buhlmann begins
[I'm working on experiments to figure out whether the use of perfluorinated sensing membranes could suppress extractions of lipids for ionophore-based chemical sensors.. yeah, I know it's a mouthful.. which makes it unbelievably hard for me to explain what I'm wasting my summer on to regular and normal "Chemistry illiterate" friends and family I have out there.. but that's okay long as we're all happy]
- Joe and Angel's wedding
This weekend me, Jin, Fajarrani, Vikesh and Qamar will be attending Joe's wedding in North Dakota on Saturday.. we'll be sleeping over a night over there and after this we will be heading on our own ways.. Fajarrani is still looking for a permanent job so that she doesn't have to go back to Indonesia, she'll be moving to Chicago to be with his brother's family after Joe's wedding ceremony.. Qamar has just been accepted as a Canadian citizen, so he won't be going back to Pakistan and might be moving to Canada if he can't find a job here.. Joe has moved home to North Dakota to be with his wife and start his earnings as an engineer, Vikesh is looking into grad studies either in America or in India, Jin is moving to Nebraska or something to do his masters just so that he doesn't have to go back to Korea. Job wise it's not really that pretty out there.. *sigh*
-baby fish in the tank
three different female fishes have been laying eggs in the past and their babies have survived.. makes you wanna think of NEmo , doesn't it.. hehhe.. I got a pair of white albino-like fish - can't really remmeber their real spesis names- so I named them Angelica and Angel.. cute.. can't wait for more babies..

Honestly, I'm pretty much still lazy when it comes to actually doing something useful with my time but the constant naggings from my parents and high expectations of my dearest darling family is putting me on the spot to actually pick myself up and get in gear and start moving forward.. everywhere I go everyone is asking me about my future plans and I don't have a sturdy solid answer to give.. I want to stay and just carry on to get my doctorate but at the same time I don't know if I want to get a job as a lecturer like my dad.. I want a 9-5 job that makes big bucks- God knows I have expensive taste - but I'm so lazy that the only way I figured everything would fall in nicely is if I could get the cash flowing without doing anything..hehhe.. pretty much impossible.. I know.. I guess free rides just don't come along everyday

OK enough of all this chit chat.. thanks to those who sends me personal messages to ask me if I'm ok and when I'm updating again.. time is moving with or without me..

later alligator..

p/s: I've updated the photo album of the trip to California but it's not 100 complete yet.. still no notes.. just pictures.. but with that said, i still need to scan some more pictures too..