How are you, Atok?


I lost an important person in my life, my Atok.
He's my maternal grandmother, who had lived his life in KL for a long time, 
but he was born in Malacca.

He has left us for a week, and a week before that he was already admitted to the hospital
because Doctor suspected him to have intestine cancer, but it turned out to be just ulcer,
but he recovered and got to go home.

On a Saturday morning, he called for my aunt's help cause he needed to go to the toilet and after going to the toilet, he sat on a chair and he became weak out of sudden.

So they made him lie down, asked him to recite the shahada and the next thing they knew was,
he's not there anymore. He had returned to the Almighty, the Creator and left everyone in tears.

Because of the 12h time difference, I received the news at 1.00am.
Who would call me at 1.00am?
Mom did, and she was crying and crying, I was shocked but I had to calm her down
and I had to calm myself down.

I thought I could be the strong girl here, I was wrong.

I cried for the whole night,
and the next morning, I was still crying.

I was not as close to him as my other cousins,
but his absence was really felt.

I could remember vividly, the last time I met him.
He was sitting on the chair near where I'd always sit his house
and as I wanted to leave, I went to greet him goodbye and 
he held my hands tightly,
telling me to always remember Allah and His Messenger, the Prophet Muhammad SAW.
To never forget to recite Selawat upon Him.

He didn't trouble everyone when he left,
he left in peace, he looked like he was asleep the whole time,
I know he's in peace.

May Allah place him in the Highest Jannah
and may we all be reunited there.

I know you're in a better place now, Atok.
I miss you, your cookings, your wise words and you'll always be remembered.
Gone, but never forgotten.


Worst daughter-in-law ever!



I'm already in my 20s, so let me talk about adult stuff. 
My parents are already talking about marriage stuff with me, how's the wedding gonna be like,
I am reminded to save up for the wedding days, really things are getting more serious these days.
And my parents can be very bipolar. 
One time, they're really being very serious in planning my wedding, and at other time, 
they're just asking me to stop daydreaming, get my head straight on my degree.

Lol.

I get it, both are my future, but wedding is more like an uncertain things, cause you'll never know who's you're gonna end up with (but I've clearly prayed days and nights to end up with someone I love lol).

But okay, put the degree aside for five minutes.
Let's talk about marriage.

Personally I'm physically, mentally and emotionally unprepared for this big phase of life,
because 1. that's not on my top priority list
2. I'm super scared of my in laws

In general, I feel like most girls are facing these problems,
how to get along with your in-laws.
I've googled stuff, I've asked so many opinions but there's no one formula on how to deal with these.

As an engineering student (not so proud about it lol), 
I always need formulas, if the formulas work universally, 
you don't have to derive anything to get to the formula, that'd be A-MAZING!

But in-laws... Nope you gotta figure out yourself.

I guess I should list down things that I feel my in-laws would hate about me....

1. I have trouble sleeping at night..........which it makes me harder to wake up.......in the morning....
Okay my mom always feels like this attitude of mine will put me into trouble when I get married,
but to be honest, I try my best to sleep early.
I will go to bed at 12 max everyday, but I can start sleeping at 2am.....
and I have morning class everyday, so I have to wake up at 730am.....
but I always wake up at 800am, get ready in 15 minutes, eat no breakfast, run to class.
In the weekend, if only I have urgent meeting, I will wake up early, but if not, I will pass 9am.
That's really bad, according to my mom!
Because when you're married, you have to do the chores, make breakfast for la faimilia and especially when you have that weekend sleepover at your parents or in-laws' place,
you're screwed.

2. I don't cook well....
Let's admit it. I love cooking, you give me any recipe, I can try cooking it, but it's the not the best in town! Especially I only focus on 'what to do' in the recipe, and always ignore the ingredient measurements. I will make sure the taste is good enough for me to eat, but my taste is very subjective and maybe it's not edible by my in-laws.

I had to cook laksa johor twice before letting Pan's family to taste it, because I'm that scared lol.
I don't have the super power, the touch to make things work. Lol.
What if, the very first breakfast I make for the in-laws, makes everyone sick....

H-E-L-P

3. I'm super clingy with my life partner lol
I know I will be a super clingy wife, for sure. I can see that coming, if my future is uncertain, I can bet you, this one has a probability of 1.
And I've heard that mother-in-law doesn't like his son's wife to be clingy...
In general, I'm not gonna be in a good spot, for sure, but the best I can do is to pray that my in-laws could accept that side of me haha

4. When I want to bond with someone, I tend to crack offensive joke about that person, in a very non-harsh way. I like to be sarcastic, but not in a mean way. I like to tease people, especially someone that I'm close to. What if I tease my in-laws, cause I thought we've bonded enough, and suddenly they take my joke so seriously and they hate me for their life... I swear I can be pretty harsh, I can help hating myself for that.
But some people's tolerance towards sarcasm is just different. How would I know?
When can I know whether I've crossed the line or not? Hmm

5. I want to live closer to my parents
What if the in-laws want us to live with them? But I want to live closer to my parents?
What if they think they don't enough love from me?
What if they think I'm being bias in this family relationship?
But I'm really the most manja one in the family, 
and what if my husband is also the most manja one (I think he's)? 
But I want what I want.....

6. I'm very demanding
I don't have high level of maintenance, I don't need my husband to spend money on my make up or facial treatment. I need him to pay for our future trips. I will be like,
"Honey, I dream about going to Vienna last night."
And the next day, he surprised me with two flight tickets to Vienna, and we'll be flying off this weekend.
I expect this thing from my future husband. 
This attitude really turns off everyone, lol but I'm just being me hahaha!
I will probably spend his money on duckscarves too, that's another story.
So when the in-laws find out about this, they must be very mad and hate me lol.
But ofc I will make effort by asking my husband to buy 4 extra tickets for our parents.
However, I think for the next 10 dreams that I tell him, he will just smile or laugh about it.
No action taken, nothing haha!


7. My favouritism game is pretty strong
The way I treat people or things differs. If I like you, I will treat you well. If I don't, I will pretend you never exist. Okay, not really. But you get the point, right?
So, this isn't about me choosing one sister-in-law over another but I always always always want to be on top of my game.
I want to be the most favourite daughter-in-law.
I want my kids to be the most favourite grandchildren to my parents and my in-laws.
Do I sound greedy? Lol. I am.

My mom's marriage life is the ultimate goal.
Every year she will receive presents and cards from her in-laws,
"kepada menantu tersayang.."
translated to : to the most loveable daughter in law


I want to be that too....



As I'm writing this, I realize that I can be an awful person! 
But also, I'm reminding myself to be tolerant in the future.
Okay Aliah, you have to know that you can't get everything that you want in life.
Things happen for the best reasons.
Life is short, so make everyone's life easier and simple.
Make everyone happy, so you can get the side effect of it.
Try your very best to behave, be the best version of you, and everything else will fall in to place.
Including, I will be the most favourite in-law :)




I smile to hide my pain


A girl came to me, mentioning how I always smile to people.
It got me thinking.

I laughed over the smallest things, I tried cracking jokes in my head just so I can laugh at myself.

I got the anxiety attack,  for approximately twice per week, which is a big improvement.

Am I happy? Am I not sad anymore?

The truth is, I'm trying to hide all my pain with my smile and laughter.
I keep telling myself that everything is gonna be okay, I can do this, I am a strong girl,
I keep telling myself that no one should know how sad I can be.

If you saw my instastory, I mentioned about my maternal grandfather  (Atuk) who was hospitalized last week.
And the week before, my paternal grandfather (Tok Abah) was hospitalized.
Friends were asking about how did everything happen, I explained but I looked so calm like nothing ever happened. 

But today, as I'm writing this, I couldn't hold back my feelings anymore.
I feel so sad when all of these happened, one after another.

I have 7 documents to write by Thursday, 2 lab reports due this week, 2 midterms and 2 assignments;
all of the workloads are enough to keep my mind occupied.
I don't think or worry too much about what's happening back home because I have other things happening here, in Montreal.

Yesterday, I received another message, my maternal grandmother was admitted to the critical ward,
because she has lungs infection, kidney failure, something wrong with her heart and her brain doesn't function well. She's diagnosed with so many diseases, that the doctors don't even know what medicine to give her and how to treat her, to begin with.

Tok Abah is still unwell and Atuk's condition is getting better but he's still weak.

At one point, I told myself to stop worrying, leave everything to God, if worse things happen to them, I have to be mentally prepared, because everything happens for reasons and there will be a better place for them in the afterlife. But at one point, I keep praying to God so I can get another chance to greet them, kiss and hug them. But God knows better.

I remember while working in the lab, I just inserted a totally wrong reading to my excel sheet because my mind wasn't there. When people tell me not to be stressed out about school stuff, I can. But all other things keep bugging me and I just have no words to describe to anyone about my feeling.

I don't feel lonely, I don't feel like I'm always alone,
I have great friends around, but sometimes, I just feel like
the moment I start explaining the whole situation that I am in,
I feel sadder. So I rather keep this to myself.

I've blogged about my worries, and it's true I feel sadder.
I'm crying as I'm writing this.
But after this, I have no reasons to cry anymore.

Back to being the girl who always smiles :)