Sy Turns Three ..

Well, well, well ...

He's 3 years old now. Sy got a remote controlled stunt car one day before his birthday. By October 28, the day of his Birth-Day, the car's spare tyres were broken. That happened even before Sy cut and eat his carrot cake. Yes, I made carrot cake for him. Simply because I don't know many cakes to bake and because I like carrot cake, so do Sy and the rest of us.

Enter Day 3 after his birthday, he lost half of his interest in the car. Now, almost one week after, his interest only remains in the car's remote control, which he sometimes uses as a handphone. The car remains there untouched, most of the times. But once the sister touches the car, suddenly his interest comes back, in full! And he thinks he's cute, by doing that!!!

A had 'her convocation' day on Sunday. She looked really happy, as we just let her play with her friends, running around freely, something she is seldom allowed to do.
The event was a bit chaotic, being the Kemas division's first of such event. But then, if you had to handle more than 500 children and hundreds of parents at the same time, any event could easily become chaotic.
Still, I think the organiser has managed quite well. To be honest, I really enjoyed the children's performances. Although far from perfect, I could see they really enjoyed themselves and tried to give their best, and that's most important to me. We stayed until almost the end of the show. But I know Am didn't quite enjoy it. I could see from his face. He dozed off 80 per cent of the time. Really, even if I think hard enough for like 10 years, I'm sure I still can't tell what he enjoys and what he doesn't. Some things are just hard to tell ...

but,

Sometimes, being at such an event makes me feel that I actually DO have a life, that my life is not only around two children and a husband, that there are other things besides our home sweet home and unfriendly workplace.

I just want to be NORMAL ...

One Good TV Drama

I've seen the cerekarama, like more than three times. But the last time it was replayed on TV, it still made me cry. It's hard to come by local or international dramas that linger with you. But this one does. And surprisingly, it's still within the stereotype 'full of air mata' types of malay dramas that local TV stations play and replay over and over. Only, it is much better because of the briliant performance of the actors, especially three of the actors, Eizlan Yusof and the two children actors - I can't remember their names. But they were really good. I was told one of them is actually the son of a famous director.

The title of the drama is Senafas Takbir Terakhir. Wan Maimunah was as good as she always is, only this time she played a 'tougher' role that didn't require her to cry much. Sometimes, I like her that way. She has cried in so many dramas that it's ceased to affect me much. But it's Eizlan that really got me stuck to the TV screen. Besides being goodlooking, he also has that 'sungguh kesian' face which really fit the character as a father who was separated from his son, for doing the wrong thing, at the wrong place and the wrong time.
He got himself into trouble and ended up 'being prisoned' by bad people, leaving his son alone and crying in a cheap hotel room. The scene really touches my heart. A child, who loves his father so much, suddenly found out he is left alone in a strange place with no money, no food and no father. To him, his father must have hated him to have done that. He has no idea that some other situations could also separate him from his father. But the feeling of being left alone would linger in his mind forever. The child's acting was so convincing, you would end up crying with him.

Fast forward, the son (Ako) grew up to be 'quite successful', securing a good corporate post and dating a pretty girl from a rich family. Eizlan (funny, I can't remember his character's name) just came out from the prison and got a job as the driver for the girl's father (surprisingly, there are actually the goodhearted rich after all) and started looking for his separated son. Well, we could expect how the rest of the story continued ....

It's not the story that really touches my heart. It's the characters. The final moment, when they finally met was malam raya. Ako was visiting his girlfriend's family. When he came out from the car, he saw Eizlan, his father, standing and looking his way already with slow and quiet recognition. Speechless and like 'starstruck', Eizlan played his character really, really well. He was really superb. And just Ako was about to start figuring out who Eizlan was (if you were 9 years old at the time your father left you, chances were u would still recognise him 10 or 20 years after that, especially if he was as oustanding physically as the actor), some bad guys who had been waiting for Eizlan's release, for a revenge, approached and shot him on the chest a couple of times. And that was another moment when I felt tears in my eyes. The look on Eizlan's face before he fell to his death. It was 'the blank recognition' look. It 'was the longing for his son' look. The 'sesalan and rasa bersalah' look. Yes, Eizlan was really superb!

And that kind of story happens in real life. Father and child separated due to certain circumstances that are not their faults. Fate has it that way. And finally when they meet, God has better plans for one of them.

It's sad, but still true.