It’s my lovely sister Nuri’s birthday today but I can only send her an sms wish. I bought a birthday card which I wanted to send to her but the cost of the stamp here is ridiculous, almost to 3RM for a card, which, they find it necessary to weigh!! Well, another reason I couldn’t send the card was, absent-minded me forgot to bring my precious purse and so, unable to pay for the stamp!! Yupp, Seri me forgot to bring her purse.

That was last Friday. No class. Went to campus with a few things to settle such as registering for driving class, return overdued books, have lunch, send the card and after walking under the scorching, scorching terrible heat and already sweating despite just a few minutes outside, and I FORGOT TO BRING MY PURSE!! Found that out at the post office when I was just going to pay for the stamp, and I even had the nerve to look for my Bank Muamalat ATM card, thinking I could at best, took out some money, but SERI, your CARD IS IN the purse! What luck.

That’s on Friday.

For the weekend, I went for a trip to worshipping places at Seremban and Melaka, a trip organized by IRK Society. It’s free so why not?? I won’t talk on the downsides of the trip such as unfriendly committees and the oh-so-embarrassing English-spoken and the uncomfortable bus and some unwisely time-managed.

For the first time, entered a Hindu Temple, saw rites that the priests (especially a one handsome young priest) carried out, the idols and a very friendly and informative conversations that we had with the guides. Just nearby was gurdwara, a Sikh temple, which was a very simple building without the intricate wall carvings and idols of a hindu temple. Got to catch a glimpse of the Guru Granth Sahib, their holy scripture, and a talk about Sikhism, very much like what I’ve learnt in my Studies of Religions class.

The temples were at Seremban, late noon, we went for Melaka which we reached there at around 6pm. Had dinner and the likes. We went to the Portuguese Village, and my goodness, this is a community of portuguese, but they look very much Malay, because of generations of intermarriages, still with some European features like sharp noses and deep eyes. Nothing much there, just a brief talk on the portuguese community, and a little museum. Most of us were already exhausted from the journey and not much enthusiasm to enjoy the place.

The next morning, went to St Frances Xavier, another first for me, to enter a church and observe the mass that was held there. My hairs kind of stood up during the eucharist ceremony, when the bell rings to signify the change of the wafer into Jesus’ flesh and the wine to Jesus’ blood. It’s a catholic church and they preach love to the believers. It kind of soothes the heart and not exactly scary and weaird being in a church, but I rather sympathise with them, if only that love is for Allah. If only we muslims had this sincere love to Allah, as much as the christians believe they had for Jesus.

It’s making me reflect on myself and realise things I never did before. I did not regret joining this trip, making some new friends, and especially the knowledge gained.