Back to Work

I must say that by the time I started my clinic yesterday afternoon, I was close to having a hypo. It was the first day back after a week away, and even waking up yesterday morning after sahur was a drag. I finally muster my energy to get up, and was stuck in a huge traffic jam entering Subang Jaya. Not a great start.

The afternoon clinic was also busier than I expected. But managed to get through in one piece. So, the second day today was not as bad, although I only have a morning clinic, and it was a short one. I spent the afternoon at my apartment, and will only return for the afternoon ward round at around 3 pm. Just a couple of patients to review before calling it the day hopefully.

A quick phone call back home, and Puan Anita and the boys were already out to do some groceries. Anita was really keen to get her Raya shopping done early to avoid the late rush. So, last night, we went out to our usual card shop at IKANO to get some Raya greetings card and duit Raya pouches sorted out. More about that later.

The Pasar Ramadan Shoot

Finally I managed to try the X-Pro1 on its street photography prowess when I took it out for a spin at Pasar Ramadan in Taman Melawati. Being black, it looked discreet enough not to attract much attention. Certainly, people were not as wary at it as much as if I was carrying along a DSLR.

The focusing could be much faster, but not too bad. I could've stopped down the aperture for wider focusing depth, but that would be at the expense of the gorgeous bokeh the lens offered. I set it at f2.0 instead.

The place was still packed as I was about to leaveAbout 85% of my snaps were in focus, which was more than I expected. I was basically snapping away. With a bit more attention, I could've nailed more. The percentage could also be higher if I switched it into electronic viewfinder instead. But that would take away much of the camera's charm.

I also noticed that the camera tended to underexposed a bit. Maybe by about 1/3 stop. It could easily be remedied either on the camera during the snapping or later on Aperture. No biggies really.

The queue for this popiah was easily 40 people longThere was another half with "SELAMAT"A rather novel one, ala tandoori chicken, minus the skewersRows of chicken riceThe famous Khan Cendol in MelawatiLong queue obviouslyAnd how did the snaps looked like? It was amazing. It was sharp even wide open at f1.4, but the problem then would be depth of field. f2.8 should be just about right .....

More photo from this shoot can be seen here.

Irfan Back to his Old Tricks

It looks like finally, Alhamdulillah, Irfan's fever was touching baseline. He finished his last dose of antibiotics this morning and was still on paracetamol round the clock. His appetite was back and he was jumping up and down all afternoon. He enjoyed his bit of "mercun" - firecrackers - which I bought at Pasar Ramadan earlier. He was running around in the lawn.

As for Idlan, he had his half-day fasting again today - late breakfast and no food and drinks until Maghrib. He appeared to be getting the hang of things now. I managed to walk around Pasar Ramadan in Melawati earlier armed with the X-Pro1. Snapping away. Quite fun. Will be uploading the photos soon, although they were already up on Flickr and SmugMug.

First Ramadan

So, where did you have your first berbuka. I try to make sure that I would be on leave the first day of Ramadan. This would allow me to have the first Tarawikh knowing that I do both have to rush to work tomorrow morning. And the second major advantage was, I could get to plan where to enjoy my first berbuka. Inevitably it would be with family.

When do I start consciously plan for this? Well, staying abroad for 13 years did put things into perspective. I've been on call on first days of Ramadan before, had exams, alone to myself. I did not mind so much back then, but your mind do wonder. How nice it would be to be with family.

Nowadays, it was not really a choice anymore. I would make sure that the first day of Ramadan was free. A bit of a personal holiday for me. In fact, I value it more than the Eid as it was a lot more hectic on Eid, and one do not have time for themselves then.

What did I do this year? At my Mum's, enjoying her cooking. I couldn't say no to that. My sister was there as well, minus Irfan who was still having a temperature. We didn't want him to pass it on to his cousins.

So, Happy Ramadan again to all ....

No Pasar Ramadan

The plan was to visit the Pasar Ramadan in Melawati as I usually did every year. But since my Mum-in-law wanted to come along, we decided to stop at Taman Melati to let her do her shopping before dropping her back home. We would then do our shipping.

But, as soon as we reached Taman Melati, it poured down royally. The plan to Melawati had to be scraped. We went to Jaya Jusco instead for a quick groceries. By the time the rain subsided, we had I leave for my Mum's at Bukit Antarabangsa for berbuka. So, the Pasar Ramadan had to wait until tomorrow.