I am engaged!

Surprise! Yes, I am engaged. Hahaha...Pardon me. I forgot to mention, I am engaged but it is in a dream. Haha…

Please do not misunderstand the above statement.

Before I go any further, first of all, Salam w.b.t. and hello folks.

All of you must be wondering, what on earth has happened to me. In my previous entries, I always shared the updates that already past. In a simple way, the mode most of my entries are in "past tense". Right in this entry, I want to share the current updates about myself. In another word, this entry will be in "present tense". Well, nobody cares Atiqah. So, screw you.

At this moment, I am at the living room writing the post.

About health, Alhamdulillah, I am doing fine. Healthy mind and body, Alhamdulillah.

I have start working. Of course, not with Slb. I will never decline the opportunity to work with Slb, but for now it is better for me to start building my life from scratch. As a start, find a job and work. I got another company in Rawang and I work as a project engineer. I have been working there for three weeks now. The company is dealing with pressure vessels fabrication and tanks with various sizes and functions.

As a new comer, a lot of things need to learn and do. Most of the things went well, so far. The engineer I tag along known as Viki. He is nice and really helpful. Although I asked a lot of stupid questions, he still answer and teach me. Haha…Alhamdulillah, I am grateful because the people there treat me nicely. You know, some people even get cursed on the first day of their working. I am fortunate because I did not experience that. Well, if it happens in the future, it will be a whole different story.

For a start, Viki gives me the opportunity to take charge one project that has 4 pressure vessels. 4 vessels project is considered as a small project, because other engineers like Viki is in charge of 39 pressure vessels. Imagine that.. 

During the introduction, the male staffs asked me what my status is. I know they are just fooling around and I understand that really well. Since I will be dealing with men and working in the environment dominated by men, I don’t want to mix personal matters and work. I would prefer to keep it formal. Thus, I have decided to put a clear boundary to differentiate this and I had my answer prepare beforehand. 

So, when they asked, "Are you married or single?". I answered, "I am already engaged", in the meantime behave like I am reluctant to reveal my status. They just nodded and said, "Oh man". So, end the story about my status. Otherwise, if I said "single", they might ask a lot of questions and the story will be much longer. I am afraid things could go wrong in a long term. In my point of view, this is also like a self defense mechanism. I don't want people particularly men to pay 'extra' attention to me like what happened during my internship. I don't want the history to repeat itself.

Besides, I am inexperienced in handling this matter and I am not yet ready to take this kind of risks. Frankly, I don't really like to discuss this matter in public and I am not ready to jump into this situation. So, if a new person or strangers ask me this, I will gladly say, "I am engaged". I think this question is typically asked by Malaysian, not others. Back in Australia, no strangers asked me. Thus, I did not have to do anything to hide my status.

My mother also advised me, "If you want to hide about your marital status, that is fine by me. However, make sure you do not go overboard".

"Alright mother, I got it".

Well, my mother also used to do similar what I do. After my father passed away, we always moved from one house to another. One residential area to another, from one state to another, and kept changing schools. Then, whenever the neighbours asked my mother questions like, "Where is the husband?", "What your husband do for a living?", my mother's answers was, "He is outstation. Seldom come home". Yeah, something like that. At first, as a kid, I do not understand why my mother did that. After some time, I got it. She wanted to protect us as well as herself. For instance, when we settle down in a new housing area, we sure got a lot of attentions from people, good and bad people. If bad people like robbers know there was no male in our house, and all are girls, anything could happen. Besides, my mother was also working and none to take care of us after we got back from schools. Thus, this was a method to defense our family.

Apart from I am already working, not much going on right now. Oh, I forgot. My youngest sister, Adek came back for a study break last week. She stayed for less than a week, and go back to her Uni. last Thursday. Currently, she is facing a trouble to find a place to stay for the next semester despite many extra activities she involved. She also did not see this coming, and she need to find a place to rent and money is the limiting factor right now. I cannot do much for her as I also just start working and yeah, money. I am sure you can imagine my situation right now.

Angah is also trying her best to get money from everywhere. She joins the online contests, competition, radio ads, and many more. She also apply assistance from Lembaga Zakat Selangor. However, not much luck now as we are not pure Selangor heritance. My mother is a Malaccan, my father was from Pahang and all three of us were born in Kuala Lumpur. So, too many "No" in this circumstance. Hopefully, there will be rezki for us somewhere, in a new future.

In terms of social, not much happen. I met Fakrul in person for the first time. He is also another Slb-new-hired. We used to contact through Fb only and last week we met face-to-face. I can say, although it was the first time meeting, it is like we understand each other quite well as we go through similar shit together. Also, Kamel, new hire also contacted me. I am quite relieved as he also know what type of shit I go through as he also experience similar. What we are doing is, we are trying to support each other at the moment. It does helps me to overcome negative feelings that appear in myself once in a while. I know I will just have to keep holding on and sure Allah S.W.T is preparing a great present for me. I am confident His  gift will be unveiled in the near future. Aisyah also contacted me once in a while and I really appreciate that, Aisyah. Thank you!

Erm, what else…

I don’t think I have any more to share. I think that's all for now. Take care of yourself and be nice to others. As we never know what kind of struggles other people is going through, thus never make it worse by treating them badly. Be kind and gentle.

Kak Daeng and I at Rottnest Island back in 2011

Salam w.b.t and chow.

P/S - Keep holding on folks.