Pause, baby.

 From what I can gauge from conversations with my seniors, and maniacally reading their blog entries from last year, Semester Three is going to be terrifying, to say the least.

I took it for exaggeration, till mid-September struck and work came like little avalanches behind a hidden mountain. 

24 jam tak cukup. Rasa macam tengah kejar seribu satu benda, tapi last2 satu pun tak dapat *insert blood-chilling scream here*

Okay, I am a procrastinator. Hit meeeee.

 I knew that the first draft of my Extended Essay was due on the 30th, but I always assumed I'd get around to doing it. Then, it just came too fast. Lets just say, the fastest time I'd ever produced more than 10 pages of work was that few days before it was due. That week just seemed like a whirlwind, and it's not as if I could put all other work on hold. Basically, not a week I'd like to re-live. 

To mark the send off of my first draft, I decided to hit PAUSE. And because my EE advisor was on leave, my EEmates and I decided that we would kill two birds by sending our EE by hand and visit Miss Shereen (our advisor) and her new baby.

So cradling my precious first draft (which was completed 15 minutes before I left for Miss Shereen's place), my classmates and I claimed our much deserved PAUSE in our race track IB lives!

First stop: NANDOS, because you've no idea how often good food comes to mind when work seems endless and progress seems impossible i.e. when your Data Analysis sums up to only 2 words EPIC FAIL.

Before, bon proveito!

After.  

Next stop: Miss Shereen's place. Miss Shereen lives in a cosy apartment, in Seri Kembangan near The Mines (ok, that's all I initially knew!) Mind you, some of us had no clue where it was, but being IB students, lack of directions have never stood in our way!

Outside teacher's place. Gosh, the ruckus we made, you'd imagine there were 20 of us.

The delight in teachers eyes when we arrived was well worth the trip. But the best part of the trip was seeing Khadeeja Najwa, Miss Shereen's 3 week old baby,

Ain't she just a precious bundle of joy?

Having a not-so-baby brother, (he's 17, mind you) I always go a little nuts where babies are concerned. There's something about how they smell, how soft their perfect skin feels, the downy hair on their wee heads, that just puts me under their spell. 

Fact: Newborns sleep as much as 16 hours a day, in stretches of 3 to 4 hours where they wake up to drink milk.

Fact: IB students work as much as 16 hours a day, in stretches of 6 to 7 hours, and sleep 3 to 4 hours, waking up only to drink coffee.

We'll make it through IB alive! (Hiperbola gila XD)

I want a baby! But when it cries too loud, you can have her back....

Khadeeja really was a miracle. Babies never fail to make me marvel at the miracles of life, creation and The Creator. Was just therapeutic to hold her and feel her little heart beat.

We chatted with teacher, and she told us of how caring for a newborn required constant vigilance, and the sleep-eat-burp-change nappy routine they have. Teacher wonders how other mothers do it, and I immediately send out a salute to all mums out there (and to my own mum too!) for being superwomen and raising children! 

The next best thing once Khadeeja went back to sleep, was....

HERO!

I'm a cat person, and seeing this furry feline specimen, I just couldn't resist the urge to grab and squeeze :D

Fur, roar. Nana and I tormenting poor Beckham.

Loved the quote that Miss Sher had in her house that said, "Cats are just little people". 

Though it was really a short visit, the relief that come by just taking a pause, made life feel much better afterwards. I'm not sure whether it was being able to cross out my EE first draft from my to-do list or just holding a baby and cats close, but sometimes, the little things in life seem to make all the more difference.

Kami dah hantar 1st draft. Anda?