Eid celebrations- Malaysian Style!

I already told you that Aisha and Iza were going to invite me over to their place to celebrate Eid with them in the last post. If you haven't read it already, here is the link. :D

I went to Wallsend yesterday hoping to post some stuff back home, (Jesmond Post Office is closed on Saturdays!) but apparently, they don't let people post stuff that has battery in them. It was when I was having a McDonald at the Wallsend Plaza (in a rush to get to Wallsend before 12pm, I missed breakfast!) that I received a text from Aisha giving their address and asking me to come over. I told her I'd be there in a while. After googling directions to get to their place, I hopped on bus 235. I got off at the place I was supposed to and started walking. But after a minute or so, there was no road where it should be, (according to google maps, I had to follow the path) but there was a small foot path there. The footpath lead me to a closed road. I knew I was lost, but I kept going in the direction I thought was right. After a lot of turns, and around 20 minutes of walking, I finally reached Stannet street. From there on, I could follow the directions on google map and I reached 40, Kimian Avenue. I was tired and so thirsty when I finally reached the house(it was around 1:30 pm and the sun was very hot!).

Aisha greeted me warmly and gave me some juice. She introduced me to everybody else there. It was after a glass of water that I started eating. They had a lot of food- both Aussie and Malay food! I tried the noodles with fish soup. It was really good! After I had dessert, we hung around and talked a lot and had a lot of fun. 

Apparently most people already left, but there were still around 10 people altogether. They asked me about Maldives and our language and I spoke in Dhivehi at their request. ;) More people came later on. 

I met some 4th year medical students as well and they shared their experiences with me. It was very interesting.

I also saw the cute little key rings that they made from scratch. They were so pretty!

It was around 3:30pm when I finally told them that I had to leave and one of them drove me home. 

I had an amazing time there and although I missed Eid celebrations back home, this was amazing as well! :D

After the long essay, I know you guys are dying to see the pictures! Get ready to feel jealous by all the food! ;)

Eid Mubarak!

Well, yesterday was the last day of Ramadan and UNIS arranged another Iftar.
Our Health class ended an hour early, so I went to the Auchumuty Courtyard to see if they needed any help. Turned out, they did.

I helped out with the food and stayed behind to serve food until almost everyone was done and then I joined Iza and Aisha (if you don't know who they are, read this!) and their housemates and had a hearty meal. I was too busy during the whole time to take pictures, but you already got a glimpse of how amazing the food was, didn't you? Of course, last night's food was more awesome and there were more varieties.

When everyone was praying the Maghrib prayer, it drizzled a little. And afterwards, when we were busy serving food, it started raining so that everyone had to get their food from the food tents and run to either the Shortland building or the AIC. Everyone there was like, "the sky is crying because Ramadan is over".
But I had so much fun helping them out. It's the first time I have volunteered at the uni and it felt awesome. (To those of you who don't know, I did a lot of volunteering back home, with the Maldivian Red Crescent and as an individual as well, and I really missed all the helping out.)

And it was freezing last night, probably because of the rain and the wind and it was almost 8pm when I reached home.

When I woke up this morning, I suddenly realised that today was Eid. I used to go to Eid prayer and then visit family members afterwards. And I remembered all the Eid songs that Television Maldives played, so I youtubed the songs and just kept playing them. If you want to listen to them, here they are! :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPm0hDdpoEs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahmpQQr3qPM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79aukGVVBN4

Eid was such an eventful day back home, but I had six hours of classes today. Then I saw Khairu's post about Eid and I remembered all the fun we used to have during Eid. If you are interested to read about it, here is the link. Of course, I miss home terribly and it is so hard to be away from all that fun, but that doesn't change the fact that I am truly happy that today is Eid, even if it is just like any other day. After all, it's your attitude that can bring you happiness, right? ;)

And anyway, all my classmates and teachers wished me, which made me really happy. I also had Chicken Briyani for lunch, so the homesickness wasn't too bad. ;)

Iza and Aisha are going to have some celebrations this weekend and they said they'd let me know the time and place and I can hardly wait!

Also, I got myself an Eid gift- a Samsung Galaxy S4! It might not be a big deal to those of you who upgrade your phone to a newer version the minute a new phone comes out, but for me, this is a huge deal because I bought it with my own money (well, the previous phone was bought with my own money too, but still! ;) )

And on the excited and over joyed note, I conclude this post, but not before wishing all my Muslim readers an amazing, fun-filled, blessed, celebratory Eid! Eid Mubarak everyone! :D

16th Day!

Another picture of myself. Right away! :D
This was on the last day I spent in Fuvahmulah in this vacation.

15th Day!

Put my iPod on shuffle, 1st 10 songs that play.

1) Stay Stay Stay - Taylor Swift

2)Gini (feat.Bey) - Edil & Pest

3)Who Says - Selena Gomez

4) We can't stop - Miley Cyrus

5) Part of me - Katy Perry

6) Impossible - James Arthur

7) Heart attack - Demi Lovato

8) Live while we're young - One Direction

9) Diamonds - Rihanna

10) Just give me a reason - Jason Chen & Megan Nicole

14th Day!

Soo, after a long long time, the challenge is finally back. I had completed up to the 13th Day so now it's Day 14.
A picture of me and my family. No problem. :D

11th Day!

Another picture of my friends and I:

This was last December when most of my friends got together after a loong loong time!
In the picture in the right corner, from left to right; Nuhy, Lymz, Luba, Me, Schexu, Huly and Maashy. Musly and Maan were also in Fuvahmulah, but they couldn't make it. Shef was in Male'.

Iftar by UNIS

So, yesterday we had another Iftar event by the University of Newcastle Islamic Society.
I already told you about the first Iftar I attended here.
For yesterday's Iftar, I prepared watermelon juice, which is always a must in most Maldivian family Iftars. During the Ramadan days I spent at home, I drank watermelon juice almost every day and I noticed that it quenches my thirst much better than any other juice. So I thought I'd let other people have its goodness as well.
I went to the shopping centre during the  1 hour break I got between Math and English class and bought a watermelon. My gorgeous classmate, Asna, was so kind to give me the keys to her apartment at Barahineban so I just went to her apartment by the shuttle bus and prepared the juice there and refrigerated it.
Straight after English, we had Health class. Health ended anhour early, at 4pm so I went back to Bara, got the juice and got back to the Auchmuty courtyard just in time for breaking the fast. I ate some dates, got myself registered at the table and waited at the courtyard. There I met the two pretty Malaysian Muslims, Aisha and Iza.

So after breaking the fast, all the Muslims prayed while the non-muslims who joined us in the event had supper. After prayer, Aisha, Iza and I joined the huge queue. While we were waiting, we talked a lot and I came to know that they live with 7 other Malaysian Muslim girls. I was a bit envious to be honest, because it would  have been so amazing to live with girls and Muslims at that. :D They even invited me over to their place for Eid celebrations! I am so excited! 

Then we ate a hearty meal!

Aisha & Iza

And the food was so delicious! Good food, better people and best times- what more could a girl ask for? :D

UPDATE: Check out the Iftar featured on Newcastle Herald with much better quality pictures here.

Hello, new people!

Oh and I totally forgot to mention the new people. To those of you who already know, we used to have two Pakistani guys, a Swedish guy, an Aussie girl, a Korean and a Japanese guy apart from me, the Maldivian, in this house. Each of us have our own rooms, but we share the kitchen and bathrooms. Although they were my house mates, we did not see much of each other because all of us had the same routines- Go to uni, come back home and stay in our rooms till dinner, go to the kitchen and cook dinner one by one and then stay holed up in our rooms for the rest of the day. So the only time we met were  the occasional clash of our cooking times.

This semester, the Korean guy and the Swedish guy (Drilon) left. Drilon was here for just the one semester as an exchange student, but I don't know about the other guy. When I came back from holidays, he wasn't here.

But there was this guy from Norway instead, Kris. And the landlord told me there was a Chinese girl as well, but I haven't even seen her, not even after one whole week has passed, which tells a lot about how often we stay in our rooms!

At the uni, we have pretty much the same people in our class, (If you don't remember, read this again!), but we did get one new girl from Malaysia, Thibba, who had just finished her A'levels. Even though she is in our class, she isn't doing Medicine, she is going for Nutrition and Diet, if I remember correctly.

Only a  few of us were in class the first day. Most people arrived late, but by the end of the week, everyone was here, except Masa and I don't really know where he is.

Also, I attended Iftar (breaking fast at sun set) by the University of Newcastle Islamic Society and I met so many new people there. The most special one is Amina, whose parents are from Pakistan, but she is an Aussie, born and grew up in Newcastle. We chatted for quite some time and it was really nice. Talking about Iftar, here is a picture from the one on last Monday!

Aand that reminds me, I have to go to the shopping centre and get a watermelon for today's Iftar. It is going to be so much fun and I'd hopefully have more pictures! :D So it's bye for now, and see you later!

Sooo... Yeah!

Well, it's more than a month since my last blog post. I was going to tell you about all the stuff I did after this! It wasn't too eventful until I went back home! That's right! After all the whining about being homesick, I went home for almost a month! :D Some of my friends may already know this, so you can just skip this part! ;)
I went home, and I enjoyed every day to the maximum! Then when I came back, the second semester was just about to start! So you can imagine how hectic things would be. And by then I was so hooked on Ingress that I didn't have much time for anything else. However, my Ingress account got suspended and I was left with nothing but depression, which was curable only through Korean Series marathons. And that's what I did every time I got a free minute. And on top of that, I was fasting, so did not really get much time.
That, my dear friends and loyal readers is the reason why I haven't been able to blog. I have so much stuff to write about though. And since Zamy has continuously asked me to restart the one month challenge, I'd do it as well, In Sha Allah. The only hold up is Day-11, picture of friends, which I now have, after my trip back home! :D

Sooo... Yeah! Now that I've been back for a little more than a week, I got my routine together and I can blog more or less regularly, In Sha Allah.
I intend to post pictures of the beautiful Fuvahmulah and some of the fun stuff my friends, family and I were up to in July, but that would come later. And I regret to tell you that the lack of a good quality camera made me a lot less enthusiastic about capturing every moment, but you can always imagine the rest by my explanations, eh? ;)

I got my results from the first semester when I was at home- it was 4 HDs. I guess that's good news! But I do know I could have done way better in some subjects! ;)

One more thing, I have already updated the most important highlights on my Facebook, briefly of course, but if you are a friend of mine on Facebook, it might seem a little repetitive, but I hope you would bear with it for the sake of the readers who do not have the luxury of accessing my Facebook posts. And anyway, you would totally have a more in-depth experience here when compared with the shortened version you see on Facebook! :D

So that is it for now! Hope to see you tomorrow or sometime tonight with more posts!

Ps. My accent totally has a hint of Australian now. ;)