A Roadtrip to Remember



One roadtrip to North Carolina. Yup, that one. Why? I seriously don't know. Maybe because I shared the quality time with Leman. He drove 6 hours from Ann Arbor, Michigan to pick me in State College, Pennsylvania and then continue driving down to south for another 12 hours. Oh well, he didn't straightly drive after that because I took over the driving shift. While we were on US 220/I-99 route, we saw many dead deers on the road. Yeah, it was around that time - hunting season in Pennsylvania.

We discussed many things during our roadtrip. One of the topics was the incident where two Indiana students wanting to get married but MSD interfered. Both of us strongly believed that MSD committed a mistake in intervening this situation. We also talked about life in US and life in M'sia and how we were trying so hard to get cope with it. Leman also mentioned to me that he missed his siblings very much. He also missed his parents. He even flew to UK just to meet with his mother there.

Lokman Mohd Noh, a nice gentleman hail from Sabah who actually was born in Kajang, has never been an easy person to understand. Maybe he didn't open his mouth quite often, unlike me. But the time we spent together in the car while driving to Charlotte was a worthwhile. Lokman or fondly nicknamed as Leman, is a son to Vice TNC in University Malaysia Sabah. Very intelligent and smart guy also. He studied so hard when he was in University of Michigan up until he was forced to see the councillor because he showed some early symptoms of stress. And now he is a proud manager of PETRONAS Dagangan district office in Sandakan. Worth his effort though!

Leman is a poet in heart. I know this. He wrote good poems and pantun as well. He was in his school pantun squad and represented Sabah in Pertandingan Pantun Sekolah-sekolah at national level. His last email before he departed to the United States was very beautiful. The email subject is "Salam Wida'" means, Ucapan Selamat Perpisahan. He mentioned everybody's name in our batch and what he thought about each and everyone of us. Such a bravado act to write such comment but I think it's very sincere comment.

This guy is also a mountain climber. He climbs Mount Kinabalu as if that mountain is a small hill. He likes to camping also. Very close to nature, he is one ardent nature lover.

I hope I will meet him again one day and once again continue our long awaited chit chat.