Ramadan....

Oyeahhh.... Ramadan is here again...

Every year that I'm a freelance trainer I declare Ramadan as my vacation time. Of course, last year, the whole year was a vacation of sorts lol. This "vacation" idea was kind of forced on me in the beginning.  There was a time some years ago when I couldn't get anybody to organize or attend training in Ramadan if I paid them, regardless of whether they themselves fast or not.  Thats no longer true of course.  Nowadays when most KPIs / appraisal forms include a certain number of training hours, there are people willing to organize training in Ramadan, and while many of the Muslim staff might not be too happy about it, they do attend.  I still don't deliver training in Ramadan though.

Now, don't get me wrong. Its got nothing to do with this being a holy month.  In fact, work is just about as holy as prayer when done in Gods name and as fulfillment of a trust already agreed upon. Its just that if I'm going to be talking as much as I need to when I deliver training, I need to take a drink. I know, because I tried it.  The participants were fine, the organisers were happy, but I was a disaster. So I don't agree to any training dates during this time.

Thats not the only thing I seem to have declared a month-long holiday on though. Somehow, I seem to develop a great aversion to seeing and talking to people, even online.  I don't really know why.  Maybe I am just too happily busy with Ramadan stuff.

So... I don't deliver training and I don't interact much with people. What do I do then?

I used to spend the month thinking of new programs or improving existing ones. It seems to be a great month for introspection and being inspired with new ideas.  This year, with my first new online business already started, I'm getting several ideas about how to do it better.  I'm also mentally already improving on the other stuff I'm planning on doing -- translation and some other stuff I'm not sure whether I should add to my plate or not.

Like previous Ramadans, I've been spending a lot of time online, only this year I've been reading up on products, benefits of certain ingredients, tips for online businesses and the like.  I've also been polishing up and stocking up -- making new nifty and informational pics to post online, and searching for new ones.

Its refreshing.

I've been focused on training for much longer than I've stuck to anything else.  Even now, I still will be conducting training -- just not in Ramadan.  I was bored out of my mind last year what with the operation, chemo and whatnot.  I'm glad to have several things I can sink my mental teeth into again.  I was rather worried that my brains would calcify with all the enforced inactivity lol.

Moving On

Well.... it seems a long time since I wrote anything. I'll complete my chemo journal presently, but I'll leave that for now.  It was rather harder towards the end to keep my strength and spirits up, which, as is my habit, made me rather more introverted than usual.

All that is behind me now though. Nothing is ever as bad when I look at it in hindsight, thank God. Anyway, moving on...

My last chemo was right before Eid of 2012, which would be June I guess. My hair came back, which was not at all a comfortable experience --it ITCHED lol -- but I was so happy to be getting my hair back that I didn't mind it too much. It was a novelty to be bald as an egg EVERYWHERE, not even eyebrows or eyelashes, but that novelty wears off pretty quickly.

Once chemo ended, I was really weak for a while. I felt sleepy at around 4 pm and slept till the next day, waking up every 2 hours or so from thirst. Then it was 6 pm, eventually 8 pm, then 10pm. By then it was November and I decided it was time for the next phase. I needed to get back to my hometown and take care of getting my new house ready for occupation.

I thought I could start off from my house early in the morning and take a slow drive down to Terengganu, but Murphy's Law made itself felt very strongly. BOTH lifts from my apartment broke down. We waited till 10am, then one lift started working and my husband began taking our stuuf down to the car. He got half of it down then the lift broke down again and he had to take the stairs up 6 floors. We kind of gave up for a bit but the lift started working again at 2 pm and we decided to get on with it since the next day was a public holiday and the roads would most likely be congested.

My husband was absolutely FASCINATED by the clouds touching the hilltops along the way to Kuantan

A couple of weeks earlier my best friend contacted me with the news that our XKT87 batch was planning a Grand Reunion and asked me to be part of the organizing committee. I, having been bored out of my mind and secretly afraid that I won't be much good to anyone any more, said yes over my husband's worried remonstrances.  So there I was, putting together a list of all our batch contact numbers, verifying them to be correct and informing them of our reunion in June, while doing my best not to let my husband drive himself nuts over the lift. Suddenly it felt like the good 'ol days and I lost quite a bit of my self-doubt XD.

BUT, having started on the journey, I ran out of steam just before Kuantan. (For you non-Malaysians, I should explain that the entire journey to my hometown is in excess of 500 kilometers, and Kuantan is about halfway there).  I was fortunate that my XKT87 Taskforce group uses WhatsApp and that my Nokia C3 managed to handle it. I ended up getting a call from one of my old schoolmates who I hadn't met in years and she invited us to spend the night at her house. I was really not in much of a condition for socializing that night I think -- I tend to space out and go through the motions like a zombie when I get tired -- the way I rationalize it is that my mind is already asleep though my body wasn't. I hope I made up for it the next morning, but that particular friend of mine is a gynecologist so I'm pretty sure she understands.

My friend's house in Kuantan -- I lost our pics together when my phone died :(

 In any case we set off again after breakfast and made it to my mom's house by evening, stopping by at my aunt's house in Kemaman along the way.

With my uncle, cousin and aunt in Kemaman

I slept like the dead after dinner, and if I remember correctly, most of the next day as well.  The thought crossed my mind that maybe I should have waited a little bit longer until I was stronger, but the monsoon season was coming and the roads could have been much more dangerous if I had waited. Anyway, I did arrive safely, though it took me 2 days to do it. For the next month or so, my pattern was 4 to 5 days of normal, energetic activity, after which I got really sleepy and slept for 2 to 3 days.  I called them my hibernation days.

I spent some days camped at McDonalds getting my Grand Reunion stuff done, some days getting my house ready for us to move in and some days hibernating.  We got the water heater installed, and the internet hooked up. The Internet took longer than I thought. Apparently there were not too many people asking for it around my area and it took 2 friends in TM to shake things up enough that I finally got a 1mbps land line. After UniFi 20 1mbps is PAINFUL, but not as painful as no internet.  Once I got my computers hooked up, I started worrying about leaving them there while we were not in residence. So finally we got the prayers done and my husband and I moved in. It was pretty basic living at that time, but I didn't mind. Especially once we had our kitchen equipped. My husband had to make a lot of adjustments being a "city boy", especially since our house was built in the middle of what used to be what I can best describe as a "semi forest". It truly brought home to me what a treasure it was that God had given me in him.

We propped up the computers on plastic chairs or stacked the screen on the CPU since there was no furniture at the start

In the meantime, the rains had come with a vengeance, 3 to 4 days of it non-stop, then a little breather, then again it starts. Our house was reasonably safe from floods, but it got incredibly cold. After the first day or so of rain the walls were incredibly cold to touch, and we were both very happy that we had an electric mattress to sleep on. Rain or no rain, we started the process of making sure the land was in good care and got the house ready to move in all our stuff that we had in our Shah Alam house. I thought everything would take 3 months tops, but it took 6 months. It was an adventure.

Tilers working in my kitchen -- they were the most disciplined bunch of contractors I had to work with and did the best work in record time

The rains let up in March, my Nokia C3 died in April, I got it revived but my mom kindly got me a Samsung Note in May, at which time we felt we had to get on with moving our stuff.  So I made the journey to Shah Alam, already planning to take a break in Kuantan. My friend from primary school put us up at one of the service apartments he owns. I ended up staying 2 days in Kuantan, since I had a flat tyre that needed mending and I didn't want to arrive at my Shah Alam home too tired to do anything.

Hubby changing the flat tyre with the help of a good samaritan

My friends from primary school met up with hubby and I for afternoon tea, then dinner... It was GREAT!!! Thank you so much guys :)

I arrived in Shah Alam in good time.  We got up to my apartment (lifts were working fine now... huh!!!) but neither my husband nor I could stay long in the apartment.  We both started getting allergy reactions so we decided to spend the night at a budget hotel nearby.  Since I had already arranged to have some workers come over to clean up the house on the next day, we both agreed that it would be better just to wait till then before we sleep in the house.

Best Hotel in section 7 Shah Alam is very comfortable and they even gave us a ground floor room... we made ourselves at home for the night

The next day started with me picking up the 3 workers and they started making the whole house fit for occupation again.  They worked pretty fast, all things considered, and we were able to sleep in the house that night.

Thank God I made arrangements for the workers lol... it was a job getting everything cleaned up again

Not to be outdone my husband (God Bless him!) joined the army of cleaners even though I told him that was kind of redundant

I spent the day on the balcony avoiding as much of the dust and dirt as I possibly could ;P

It turned out that the reason my husband and I both had a bad reaction when we entered the house was because the cap of the floor trap from the kitchen of the house above us (does this sentence make sense?) had come off sometime during our absence and the waste matter from the sink of the kitchen above basically made their home in our kitchen.  The entire area was not only smelly, the floor had maggots and there was an icky substance over everything.  I got rid of my stove and the little cabinet it was sitting on -- both were fully covered in icky goo and I don't think I'd ever be able to bring myself to cook on it again, ewwww... The washing machine wasn't in direct line of fire but it didn't work that well any more and after discussion with my mom we decided that we'd get it repaired in Terengganu.

Once we got settled in, we began the (exhausting) process of packing.  I had to look into all the boxes and containers in the house (there were A LOT) and decide what to bring back, what to throw away and what to give away.  I ended up sending off 3 carloads of stuff to my friend for her to distribute to the needy or sell off.  I must have thrown away at least 5 rubbish bags of old papers and stuff, and in the end we STILL had a lot of stuff *sigh*.  I got rashes on my arms and legs, they were getting pretty bad so I had to go see a skin specialist. They never did fully go away although they got A LOT better. 

Thank God for the workers!  After all my sorting it took them 3 solid days to pack most of the stuff, and when the lorry came, it took another whole day for a different set of workers to pack the rest, and we ended up filling up the whole lorry to the brim and having to ask the lorry to come back and transport another load of stuff...

I didn't spend the whole time packing though. We managed to squeeze in some socializing, my hubby got his new identity card from his high commission, and of course, I still went swimming regularly.  I even managed to squeeze in my first training after chemo :D

These lovely XKT87 Jelitawans in Shah Alam

With my friend from primary school at One Utama

I even got a gift!

Hubby managed to play bowling for the first time @ One Utama too

And, as unwieldy as that looks, he got quite a few strikes!!!

Another bunch of friends @ Bangsar

Shah Alam Aquatic Centre has really pro indoor pool, I loved it even though the water is pretty cold  most of the time and can be pretty crowded at times

The aquatic centre was closed for a few days and we tried out this pool... the pool itself is just ok ok, but the environment was good

Participants for my first training program after chemo... at Shah's Village PJ.  They have a pretty decent pool too :)

Then, once all was done... I set out for my reunion in Kuantan.  It started off rather stressfully, I somehow forgot to do mailmerge @.@ and screwed up everybody's name tags rather badly.  My friends were kind and forgiving about it all though so all was good.  I even got a lucky draw prize lol.  The reunion was great, even though I was pretty tired.  Meeting my secondary school friends who some of them I've not met since hostel days was wonderful.  The second day (2nd June) we had our club EGM, and after that, my darling hubby surprised me with a birthday cake!

With my homeroom teacher at the Reunion Grand Dinner

I got a lucky draw gift yaayyyyy!!!

My awesome birthday cake.  Hubby ordered this absolutely delicious chocholate cake that is  chocholate inside, chocholate outside chocholate everywhere... because I love chocholate and even though he doesn't like em that much.

After all the excitement, I took a bit of a rest, but did manage to go for dinner that night with another friend and his family.  They helped us finish the birthday cake lol.

3rd June we checked out at 12, had lunch at the hotel and set ourselves for home.  I spent the night at my parents' and got home the next day to a house absolutely FULL OF STUFF.  Ah well, it was 2 lorries and we've managed to clear quite a bit of them now.

Home sweet home

NOT so sweet inside tho lol

Looked like this after a week or so.  Unpacking still in progress :)

In between unpacking, I've started an online business and started swimming again.  I kind of had to forgo it for about a week before we left Shah Alam, so I'm back to half of the laps that I was doing before.  My rashes from Shah Alam are much less, but somehow I've gotten a new one that looks and feels rather a lot worse. I got some creams for them, and they seem not to be spreading... I hope.

Yesterday, 23rd June 2013, I went for my check up, and my CA125 is at 71, which is pretty close to what it was before my last chemo.  My doctor ordered another blood sample to check those results and I'll be seeing her again on 10th July. 

I'll keep posting from time to time :)