BIDDING FAREWELL TO YET ANOTHER FRIEND BEING PROMOTED AND TRANSFERRED

Another ex-colleague of SMK Dato' Jaafar was promoted and transferred to another school. This time, it was Puan Zaleha Adnan's turn who would be holding the post of Senior Assistant of Cocurricular at SMK Tun Syed Nasir Ismail [which is near my house].

It is customary to have a gathering to bid her farewell and the venue chosen this time was Thsitle Hotel in the heart of the city.

Unfortunately, the [three] gentlemen could only stay there at the restaurant for an hour. We only came after Friday prayer at about 2:00 p.m. and the buffet finished at 3:00 p.m. However, I was still happy to get to see my friends again once in a while.

Congratulations Puan Zaleha Adnan and she would be greatly missed by everybody in school. I am sure we will be meeting again in similar event like this in the future as there would always be people who will retire or be transferred somewhere else.

MY FIRST IFTAR OUTSIDE FOR RAMADHAN 1446H

I was again invited by Mr. Syazwan Shavarein [an ex-student of SMK Taman Universiti] to join his father's company Iftar [breaking fast] session. This year, Thistle Hotel was chosen for the Ramadhan buffet spread.

Despite the fact that the buffet package was quite expensive, there was a huge crowd attending the buffet Iftar. I arrived at the dining hall at about 7:00 p.m. and people were already busy getting their food and some had already had food on their tables.

the queue for durian

There was just too much food that choosing what to eat had become a challenge.

an ex-student of SMKTUN,
Mr. Haikal, saying "hi"

I had to leave by 8:15 p.m. to catch my Isya' and Terawikh prayers.

I got to thank Mr. Syazwan and his parents for the kind gesture of inviting me every year for the Iftar session. Guess that would be the first and last Iftar session for me this year, and I am not complaining.

AN IMPROMPTU MEETING AT THISTLE HOTEL

Another friend of UPM TESL class of 1993, Puan Shamsul Niza Shamsuddin, contacted me [at the very last minute] to inform she was in town. A quick meeting was set - it was now or never. Since she was staying in Thistle Hotel with her family members and we had no other free time, so we just agreed to have coffee at the hotel, right after she had checked in.

We got our extra complimentary cuppas as someone complained when our hi-tea set took such a long time to arrive at our table.

On one hand, fortunately we still managed to get a proper hi-tea set at the cafe. On the other hand, too bad we both had to hurry so the reunion happened for about only an hour.

Thanks Puan Shamsul Niza for the time and effort to get reunited again, and hope to see you later some other time when you are back in JB, or when I am in KL.

A PRE-TEACHER'S DAY HI-TEA AT THISTLE HOTEL

The teachers of SMK Dato' Jaafar were gathered at Glass Cafe of Thistle Hotel, Johor Bahru, in conjunctions with the Teacher's Day which will be celebrated on the 16th May, the very next day. There was no formal programme - we were there just to pamper ourselves by eating a lot of food, get fat and be happy.

 The food was good and it was worth the money paid for. Thanks to the committee members of the Staff Room Club for organizing the hi-tea as well as the teachers for participating. We should do this again next year (if I don't get transferred to other school one more time).