It's Hidayah!!! Hi... da... yah...!

Yeah, Hidayah... My name. Perfectly easy to say right??
Well, perfectly easy if our tongue's used to saying it correctly.
Perfectly easy if we're used to saying long names.
But, my name's not that long right? That's what we Malaysians and Arabs (because it does come from their language) think. But, according to my classmates and lecturers (who are mostly not well versed in Malay or Arabic), it's kind of a mouthful. Let me give you a few situations just so you can get the picture and feel me. LOL.

Situation 1:
Every month, I have to go for a GP (General Practitioner) Attachment. It's where we go to the GP's clinic and meet up with their patients with certain diseases and do history taking and physical examination on them. It's done in groups of three. I haveDave (a Canadian) and Owen (an Irish) as my group mates. They're totally cool and we had never been in the same group before this so we all kind of just started knowing each other. So, as expected, during our first session, introduction was necessary right? So, everyone was telling each other their names. When it was my turn, I tried telling them as slowly and as clearly as possible, cause I was used to people not knowing how to pronounce it. So, I was going: "My name's Hi... da... yah..."
They didn't have any problem repeating after me. So, I was really thrilled that they got it the first time! Then, after the session, we waited for the bus together and Dave was mumbling to himself: "Hidayah... Hidayah... Hidayah... Did I get it right?" He actually got to practice saying it a couple of times before getting it right. Hahah... Then, Owen suggested, "Can we just call you Hidi?" Obviously cause he didn't quite master it. LOL.

Situation 2:
I took Spanish language as my extra module this semester. I've missed two classes before this because the fisrt class, I was still back in Malaysia and the second class, I had the GP attachment thing. So, I was totally lost during my first class! The lecturer was talking and teaching pretty fast and she was almost always talking in Spanish, which didn't make things any better.
Then, we each had to answer her question about what we were planning to do during the weekend and also had to tell her our name.
When it was my turn, I of course fumbled but managed to get through (phew~~)
She asked (in very fast Spanish talk) my name. So, I answered, "Mi nombre es Hidayah" (I should've replied like this, but apparently I made some very weird sounds that sounded like this, but I made sure my name was pronounced correctly) Then, the lecturer made this very weird face... and she said: "Erm... Let's give you a more Spanish name.... Rosssssaa (make sure you stress the Ssss since that's how they pronounce it)" And the whole class was laughing! Sigh~~ And all throughout the class, of course laa kene ejek kan, lagi-lagi dengan si Bazli, Wany and Syedot. Haih~~ Then, after the class, the lecturer came and asked me to repeat my name again and yeah, she got it moderately right after a few tries. LOL. Apparently, it's kindda hard for her cause they don't really pronounce 'H' when speaking Spanish. So, that means my name's actually pronounced "Eeedayaaa".

Situation 3:
Every week, I have tutorials in groups where we learn to do physical examinations regarding various complications. So, everyone was expected to know what should be done and should be able to answer the questions the instructors asks us. So, as we were working in groups of 7, we had to rotate between different stations and play out the different situations with the rest of the group mates or just answer the questions the instructors asks us regarding the various stations. We had this situation during one of the First Aid tutorials where a woman's head was bleeding and each one of us was asked how we'd handle it. The funny thing was, I was never asked anything, unless I voluntarily answered because the instructor picked us to answer questions by calling out our name from our name tags. She was staring at my name tag all throughout the session, but she never knew how to pronounce it I guess, so I was spared from being asked any question directly. Haha... That's probably one of the perks of having a 'hard' to pronounce name.

P.S: No, I haven't given up on blogging. Just been really, really disorganized with all the catching up to do after missing 2 weeks of lectures! And also with Eid celebration, futsal training, etc. Sorry if post ini agak hambar. Berkarat aah dah lama tak memblog! Haha...Hopefully this won't be the only post for the whole month! =P